John's Vision

I want to read a couple of portions from the book of the Revelation. Revelation chapter 21. Revelation 21. I'll begin to read verse 1. Read down through verse 8 and then read a portion from Revelation chapter 22. This is John the Revelator, John the Apostle. He says, New earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be with them. And He will be their God.

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away. Then He who sat on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And He said to me, Write, for these words are true and faithful.

He said to me, It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things. And I will be his God, and he shall be my son.

But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. And then Revelation chapter 22, beginning at verse 1. And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb.

In the middle of its street and on either side of the river was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. There shall be no night there.

They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light, and they shall reign forever and ever. This message was born out of a couple of circumstances. One is the message I brought last Sunday night on the subject of fleeing the wrath to come and the subject of hell. And I have been studying that subject for some time, and I thought, you know, I want to go to the end of the book of the Bible and see what the Bible says about hell or the references to it. And that's what directed me initially to Revelation chapter 21, where we have reference there of the lake of fire. Which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. The second thing was a recent time in devotions where on that particular day, the devotional material I was using had this for a title. God and Google. God and Google. And He says this, I'm on a lifelong guilt trip for not reading my Bible.

I can't understand why it's so hard. Where do I start? What do I read? Do I read all the way through? Take a single book and study it deeply? Do I take a topic and read every verse about it or follow a guide of some sort?

Then there's the question of circumstance. Some folks swear by reading early in the morning. Others say reading the Bible at night helps press meaning into the events of the day.

Let me offer a different approach. Google. Instead of cramming God into a time slot, try turning to Him throughout the day.

Google what you're thinking or feeling. Type in a fragment of scripture, and Google usually takes you to a Bible website where you can find the full verse. With one click, you can read it in any translation, and God speaks from His word specifically to what you're facing or feeling. He goes on to say some other things. And then at the end of the devotional is this challenge. Will you use Google and other web tools to move toward God? Well, I suppose there's some benefit to what He is saying. I've often done that.

Find my way, and so on and so forth. But, as helpful as that might be, there's also some downside to it. And the downside is obvious, I think, on the face that we do not want to treat our Bible like it's an index for every trouble we might face in life. Now, saying that does not negate the fact that I believe that the Bible is sufficient for all of life and death. and godliness. So everything that we need for life and godliness we can find in the word of God. We have a sufficient word from God. But, I do not think that it's healthy to look at the scriptures as simply an index to find a verse to address this issue and that issue.

Why do I say that? It violates the structure of the scriptures. The Bible is history. It's a record of history. And when I say history, think of the word history. It's His story. It's God's history.

It's selective history. It's salvation history. And the Bible is a drama. It's a drama of redemption. It's a story. And, I don't know if you've thought about this.

Perhaps you have. But, in one sense, we are actors. We are participants on the stage of history. And God is working toward a decreed end. And we are moving in redemptive history for children of God toward that end.

So, the Bible. If we can think about it in this way, it's worth noting that the last three chapters of our Bible, the book of the Revelation, actually revisits the first three chapters of the Bible and tells us how the story ends. And there are a lot of situations in life where we want to know, how's this going to play out? How is this going to resolve itself? What's the end of the story?

We find ourselves at various places in life, in various situations, wondering about this. Here's this open-ended situation and it's going somewhere. We want to know, how's this going to end?

How will this get resolved? Well, in the whole matter of salvation history, we have a record. We have an accurate record. We have a reliable record. A trustworthy record of how everything is going to end in this world. And that should be of great comfort to us.

But think about this. In Genesis chapter 1, we have the record of God creating the heavens and the earth. In Revelation chapter 21, we have the unfolding of the new heavens and earth.

In Genesis 1, we have the creation of the great luminaries, the sun and the moon, which control our lives and structure its rhythm and order our lives. In Revelation, what do we have? We are presented in Revelation 21 with a world in which the sun and the moon are no longer necessary for God and the Lamb will be the light of that place. In Genesis 3, we witness what?

We witness paradise lost. In Revelation 22, we see paradise restored. In Genesis 3, we encounter a seductive devil. And in Revelation chapter 20, we encounter a condemned devil. In Genesis 3, fellowship with God is broken. In Revelation 21, eternal communion with God is consummated. In Genesis 3, access to the tree of life is denied. In Revelation 22, the right of access to the tree of life whose leaves are for the healing of the nations is restored. So you see the picture that I'm painting for you, that we have the first three chapters of our Bible are paradise lost, the fall. And then at the end, we have God restoring the fall. And in between is the history of redemption, God working toward that end. So any approach to studying the Bible or reading our Bible that misses that is, I believe, deficient.

We must not lose sight of that. Now, we sang this morning a hymn, Blessed Jesus at Thy Word, and one of the stanzas stuck out to me in regards to this sermon tonight. Stanza number two says, All our knowledge, sense, and sight lie in deepest darkness, shrouded, till thy spirit breaks our night with the beams of truth unclouded.

And then it goes on. Yeah, we are completely and totally in the dark apart from the redeeming work of the Spirit of God in our lives, but even as redeemed children, we see through a glass dimly. There are things we do not understand.

There are things that are kept from us because we are on this side of the veil of tears. So, I find great benefit in studying the book of the Revelation because we have here the record of the future. God shows a man, John, things that are yet future, and he tells him to write these visions down. In fact, back to Revelation 1, verse 10.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last. What you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamos, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea. But the main point, what you see, write in a book. Write it down. So, John has given this glimpse of what is to come, what is future, and he is permitted to write it down, some of the vision, in order to tell us what is to come.

Why? So that we might be encouraged, that we might take heart, that we might rejoice in a God who is ordering all things after the counsel of his own will. That things have a purpose and a plan, that God has not forgotten where this all started in the garden.

And his design and desire is to restore that which Adam forfeited. So, we have here, recorded in the Revelation, and what we want to look at tonight in Revelation 21 and 22, John is permitted to look into the future, to look into a reality that is not yet experienced by any of God's people. Even those who have gone on to glory have not experienced this final, eternal glory which will be unveiled after the reign of Christ is commenced at his second coming. So, John has been given a picture of what is to come. And we have recorded here, verse 2 of Revelation 21, And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, and I heard a loud voice from heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people.

God himself will be with them and be their God. What John is telling us here, what he's been privileged to see, is that what he is privileged to see, the new heaven and the new earth, is something that is sourced in God. It's produced by God. It's created by God.

It's not built on earth. It doesn't come down from God. It is prepared by God.

Now, why is this important? Well, it's important for us as we seek to understand our role in this world as believers, as ambassadors of Christ, as representatives of Christ in this world. Often, we hear people talk about wanting to build God's kingdom, but the Bible never uses that language of us in relationship to God's kingdom. The New Testament insists that there is only one who builds the kingdom, and it's not you and it's not me.

It's God. We can pray for the kingdom. We may preach for the kingdom. We are to live for the kingdom, but it is God who builds and brings about the kingdom. God is the one who produces the reality of the new heavens and the new earth. He's the one who builds the new Jerusalem.

He's the one who sends it down. It's something that has been produced and created by God. And again, notice, now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.

Also, there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. This is something, the first thing he saw was a masterpiece of God's doing, the new heaven and the new earth.

And I'm lost at the details of that, but simply to draw your attention to the fact of what John saw and the source of what he saw. You see, God calls us to be faithful in our service for Him on this earth, whatever it is that we are assigned to do. And many times we do not see the fruit of our labor.

We don't see the end result. We don't see the fruit of our efforts and our service of the Lord. But here at the end of the book of Revelation, John is pointing us to the reality that God is building His kingdom. And no matter how fruitful or how frustrating our labor may be here, God will not waste the labors of His people.

The reality that He will give to us will far outstrip anything that we can imagine, anything that we have accomplished or any frustration we have experienced in this life. So the first thing John tells us about this vision related to the new heaven and the new earth is that this new heaven and new earth are God produced and God created. A second thing we hear about this new heaven and the new earth from John is that it is Jesus focused.

Jesus focused. He says there in Revelation 21 verse 22, But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it.

The Lamb is its light. And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it. Its gates shall not be shut at all by day, there shall be no night there, and they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. Yes, Jesus is going to be the focus of that place, the new heaven and the new earth. I read to you verses 1, 2, and 3 of Revelation 22 earlier. Let me read them again with this particular focus that Jesus is the focus of, the center of what's going on in that place. Verse 1 of chapter 22, And He showed me a pure river of water of life, clear and crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street and on either side of the river was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit.

Every month the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. Jesus is the focus of the worship of the saints in heaven, and He's worshipped as the Son of God on the throne in heaven.

You say, well, this is so obvious. Well, it's obvious to us because we're committed to what the Bible tells us and we're committed to a biblical Christology. But you know and I know the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and the necessity of Jesus Christ for salvation are both being called into question in our day. There are many people who think that there are other ways to heaven, not through Jesus.

What do we say to those who think that? What does John's vision say to people who claim that there is a way to God other than through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, let me answer that with another question. Where are those different ways and saviors when John watches the worship of heaven? John doesn't record any other ways or saviors being worshipped. Why? Because there are none.

There aren't any. Jesus is the only Savior. He's the only one worthy of worship. Yes, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no man cometh to the Father except through Him. So Jesus is being worshipped because He is the true and only Savior whose death alone is sufficient to cover the sins of His people. So this is what John is picturing for us.

This is what he saw. This is what he recorded for the churches and for their edification. We are to be Jesus focused. We're not to lose sight of Jesus. He's the Alpha and the Omega. He's the beginning and the end.

He's everything. And the reason that they are focused on Jesus in heaven is because He is the one who has brought them to God, who has reconciled them to God. Now there is a third thing that John tells us that he sees. We might be thinking, okay, we're not surprised that God is the architect of the new heaven and the new earth. We're not surprised that heaven is preoccupied and focused on Jesus.

We're not surprised by that either. But tell us, John, what is heaven like? What is this new place like?

And John answers with descriptions that are initially predominantly negative. Notice with me what he says again in verse 1. Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. No more sea. Now on the face, this may trouble some people, disappoint some people, because people love the sea. People love to go to the beach. You say, you mean there will be no beach?

There will be no waves to listen to and enjoy? No ocean? Well, you need to think about Hebrew culture. The Hebrew people saw the sea as something dangerous. They were afraid of the sea.

The sea was filled with terrors and storms. So I think John is just reminding us in a picturesque way that there will be no danger, no danger in the new heavens and the new earth. Danger is gone.

It's done away with. And I think this is, again, some commentators think this is what John is conveying by telling us this. Then when we look down at verse 4, we see another description and it's a negative description.

What does it say? Verse 4, And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away. Interesting that he would begin his description of this place with what's not there as opposed to what is there. After we establish the fact that God is everywhere, God is predominant, Jesus is the focus. But in terms of the particulars of what heaven is like, he's couched his description in negative terms.

But it's helpful, isn't it? Never again will there be funerals for our loved ones. No danger here, no death here, no mourning here, no crying here, no pain here, John is saying. He's telling us that all the things that he does not see there, and how precious are these descriptions.

These things will not be there. You know when you read a passage of scripture, you can't read a passage of scripture without thinking of the context in which you have come to understand it, have sung about it, and as I read these passages from Revelation 21 and 22, my mind went to the choir singing that beautiful, beautiful hymn, No Night There. It's just gripping, it's moving, it's a wonderful description, No Night There. But that's unique, I think, to the Beacon Saints because that's part of our church culture. We have been here, we've enjoyed being led in worship by the singing of that marvelous hymn. So that moved me as I read those descriptions in these two chapters. But we still want to say to John, OK, John, you've told us what is not there, but we still want to know what is there. And here's what John tells us in Revelation 21 in verse 2. He says, Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

He says the same thing in a slightly different way in verse 9. Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came to me and talked with me, saying, Come, I will show you the bride, the lamb's wife. So what is John seeing? John is seeing the redeemed church. He's seeing the bride of Christ.

He's seeing men and women, boys and girls from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. And what a glorious depiction this is of the consummation of God's grace and God's great plan to redeem a people for himself. I've had some very precious and rare occasions to worship with brothers and sisters of other nationalities who spoke a different language, whose style of worship was completely different from what I'm accustomed to. But in those times and on those occasions, it was just a glimpse in a small way of what it will be like in heaven, where we'll be with brothers and sisters from every tribe, tongue and nation, worshipping the Lord. And what harmony, what beauty, what majesty. And when we come together on the Lord's Day to worship the Lord, it's what we are anticipating the day when all of God's children will be brought together. We have a hymn in our hymn book that I found in my mind was appropriate at this point.

It's entitled, For All the Saints. For all the saints, who from their labors rest, Who thee by faith before the world confessed, Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blessed. Thou wast their rock, their fortress, and their might, Thou Lord their Captain in the well-fought fight, Thou in the darkness drear their one true light. O may thy soldiers, faithful, true, and bold, Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old, And win with them the victor's crown of gold. O blessed communion, fellowship divine, We feebly struggle, they in glory shine, Yet we are one who through Christ's blood are thine.

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long, Steals on the ear and the distant triumph song, And hearts are brave again, and arms are strong. From earth's wide bounds, from ocean's forest coast, Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host, Singing to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Alleluia, alleluia. For all the saints, And it's good to think that there is this solidarity, that there is this union that we have with all the saints of all the ages. It's what awaits the people of God is beyond our wildest imagination. But God has reserved these things that we would enjoy them together. There are saints in glory that have not experienced what John had the privilege of seeing and vision. Those things await the consummation of the ages. And we will be there to enjoy them with all the saints of all the ages. It's amazing when we really stop to think about it.

Now think about this. Christ's church, His bride. Now, the church may not look that attractive to you today, with all of its faults, with all of its failures, with all of its shortcomings. But God is not done with His church.

He's not done with His people. And when He unveils His bride at the last day, She is going to be breathtakingly beautiful. She'll be without spot or blemish.

She'll be suitable for the bridegroom in that day. John sees her in this vision, in her perfection, and what he sees is glorious. So we need to be encouraged. We may not see what John saw, and obviously we're not seeing what John saw in the condition of the church at present, but there is a day coming that we will be able to see what John had the privilege of seeing. And that's why it's important for us to love the church now. Love the church because Christ died for His church. Not be critical of the church, not be fault-finding about the church, but to love the church with all of her imperfections, with all of her weaknesses.

And to strive for her perfection and her improvement. I want you to see what else John saw. John is reminding us here of something else that he doesn't see in the new heaven and the new earth. John, Revelation 21, verse 8, he says, The cowardly, the unbelieving, the abominable, the murderers, the sexually immoral, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. And then he says there in verse 27 of chapter 21, But there shall by no means enter it, that is, the new heaven and the new earth, anything that defiles or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life. So here's something else that John does not see in the new heaven and the new earth, and it is those who have lived in wickedness. He does not see those who did not trust in the Lamb. He does not see those who refuse to bow the knee to King Jesus. They're not there.

They will not be there. He's reminding us of the reality of hell, the lake which burns with fire and brimstone. And even here in the final chapter of the Bible where he's painting this beautiful picture of glory, he's reminding us of the reality of hell. You often hear people say in their denial of the existence of hell, well, I just can't believe in a... I can't believe in this, I can't believe in that. It's not what you can believe or what you can't believe. What has the Bible revealed?

What has God said? Because wishing something doesn't exist doesn't make it go away. And it's not pleasant to dwell on this. I thought of many reasons that people find in justifications to dismiss this whole subject from their consideration because of the unpleasantness of it, because of the emotional feelings that come from consideration of it.

We don't like the unpleasantness of these things. But the Apostle John is reminding us of the reality of this awful place, even as he is encouraging us with a picture of eternal glory. There's a fourth thing that we see here in this great passage in its worship. John has shown us a God-produced new heaven and new earth. He has shown us a Jesus-focused heaven. He has shown us a church-filled heaven. Now he's showing us a worship preoccupied heaven. Notice that the worship of God and of the Lamb is the framework for this whole scene.

Verse 3 of chapter 22, There shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. You see, everybody worships something, and we worship what we value the most. Worship says this person, this thing, this activity, this status, this blessing are what I value the most. And therefore I give my time, my energy, I worship it in heaven.

The triune God and fellowship and communion with Him are the things valued the most. And that's why worship is unending in that place. See, the world's not divided between people who worship and people who don't.

It's divided between people who worship God and worship everything else. One of the reasons why God has ordained that we gather on the Lord's Day on a regular basis, because this is what we're going to be doing throughout all eternity. And if we don't like that here, we won't be... Well, God was going to say we won't enjoy it there, but we won't be people who are participating in it there because we won't be there. Heaven is a prepared place for prepared people. And this earth and our time in corporate worship is time of preparation for that worship in heaven. So heaven will be a place in which people worship God because they have chosen to worship Him there. They love to worship Him there. John tells us one more thing that he saw.

And what is that? John saw communion and unhindered fellowship in heaven. Notice again, verse 3, I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men and He will dwell with them and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. Verse 7 says, He who overcomes shall inherit all things and I will be His God and He shall be my Son. Chapter 22 and verse 4 says, They shall see His face and His name shall be on their foreheads. John is speaking of communion, of fellowship with the living God.

It's what we were created for but lost. It is our sins that made God cry out, Go away from here! And the way to communion and fellowship with Him was barred. But the Lord Jesus Christ has drawn near to us and said, Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. And the ultimate consummation of the invitation that Jesus gives there in Matthew 11 is found right here in glory. When we do, in fact, see what God faced to face. It's what the end of Psalm 23 reminds us of.

Dwelling what? In the house of the Lord forever. Isaac Watts paraphrases the end of this Psalm this way, There would I find a settled rest while others go and come, No more a stranger, nor a guest, but like a child at home. That's what it will be like. It will be the most natural thing. It will be the most enjoyable thing. It will be the most contented thing, satisfying thing. Unhindered fellowship with the God of heaven.

And you get the sense that the enjoyment is as much on God's end as it will be on our end. He'll delight to dwell with us, to be our God and for us to be His people. Are you looking forward to that day? It'll be here before you know it. Rob McDormand prayed in our service this morning, and as I listened to him lead us in prayer, he said, a thousand years from now, and I thought, a thousand years from now? How about 50 years from now? A hundred years from now? But a thousand years from now?

What will matter? You see, in this world we have no lasting city, but in the new heavens and the new earth we do. There is a city there with foundations whose architect and builder is God. You see, even John won't see the fullness of that glory until the eyes of every one of us who trust in Jesus see it together. At the end, at the consummation, at the end of the second coming, when God brings everything to final consummation, will we be able to enter into these things that John had a glimpse of, had a vision of, and was encouraged to write down? So, it's good, it's encouraging, it's faith-building to be able to know that there's a God who's superintending all of history, and God who's busy restoring what was lost in Genesis 1, 2, and 3, and restoring it at the very end. And He's doing it all for the praise of His own glory and grace, and for our enjoyment!

Saints, I hope you're looking forward to it. Because glorious things of Thee are spoken, Zion City of our God, He whose word cannot be broken formed Thee for His own abode. On the rock of ages founded, what can shake Thy shore repose? With salvation's wall surrounded, Thou mayest smile at all Thy foes. See the streams of living water springing from eternal love. Well supply Thy sons and daughters, and all fear of want remove.

Who can faint while such a river ever flows their thirst to assuage? Grace, which like the Lord the Giver, never fails from age to age. Round each habitation hovering, see the cloud and fire appear, for a glory and a covering, showing that the Lord is near. Blessed inhabitants of Zion, washed in the Redeemer's blood, Jesus, whom their souls rely on, makes them kings and priests to God. Last stanza. Savior, if of Zion City I through grace a member am, Let the world deride or pity, I will glory in Thy name.

Fading is the worldling's pleasure, all his boasted pomp and show. Solid joys and lasting treasure, none but Zion's children know. Let us pray. Father, thank You for encouraging us and thrilling us through the Apostle John with this vision that You afforded him, and that it is recorded for our consideration, for our edification, for our preparation for that day. Lord, thank You for being such a God that You're able to come and fix this broken world.

Everything that was affected by the fall, and that is everything, all of creation was ruined in the fall. You have purpose to restore through the redeeming work of Your dear Son. So thank You, Father, for this time together in Your Word. Thank You for the book of the Revelation, and we thank You for these words, that He who testifies to these things says, Holy, I am coming quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.