Heaven’s Capital City - Part B

What is most noteworthy that I want to end on with you is the length of time that heaven's occupants will be enjoying this. Verse 5, there shall be no night there, no need of lamp, nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light and they shall reign, how long, forever and ever. So, you know, if forever isn't long enough, then add and ever to it to give you the idea that this is the eternal state. This is forever and ever without end. How long will believers live in heaven?

Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Pastor Skip concludes his message, Heaven's Capital City, and shows you that just saying heaven will last forever doesn't do eternity justice. Now, here's more about this month's resource to give you biblical insight into the current war in Israel and where it fits in God's plan for His nation. Israel at War.

That's the title of a new book by Skip Heitzig. Modern Israel has been at war from its very first day of existence. As Skip points out, on the day after Israel became a nation, that was May 14th, 1948. On May 15th, virtually every Arab neighbor attacked Israel to destroy it. Israel had been a nation one day.

They didn't have an organized army. Israel at War is up to date concerning current events in the Mideast and includes Skip's comments during his December tour of the Gaza border and a video link to Skip's interview in Jerusalem. The new book Israel at War is our gift to you this month to anyone who encourages the growth of Connect with Skip with a gift of $50 or more.

Make your financial vote of support at connectwithskip.com or by calling 1-800-922-1888. Israel at War will give you Skip's insight from over 40 trips to Israel and decades of Bible study. I know the Middle East seems like a very complex situation.

It's actually pretty basic. One side wants the other side dead. On one side you have a Jewish nation, a Jewish state called modern day Israel. Israel wishes to exist as a sovereign state living in peace. Most Palestinians and other Arab nations, not all but many of them, deny the right of Israel to exist. Receive Israel at War by Skip Heintzig with your gift.

Go to connectwithskip.com or call 1-800-922-1888. Okay, let's hear what Skip has for us today. We'll be in Revelation 21 as he concludes his teaching. Back to Dr. Henry Morris, he said, and I'll throw this up on the screen, it should also be remembered that the new bodies of resurrected saints will be like those of the angels, no longer limited by gravitational or electromagnetic forces as at the present. Thus it will be easy for inhabitants to travel vertically as horizontally.

Consequently, the streets of this city may well include vertical passageways as well as horizontal avenues. So this place is big enough for everybody who's ever been saved with room left over. And we're not just going to be in one place all the time. It has gates, so it infers we're going to go in and out.

It's going to come down to the new earth, so we're probably going to be able to leave the town, go different places on the new earth, however that looks, go back to town, etc., etc., forever. So it's prepared, pictured, presented, proportioned. Fifth thing I want to share with you is it's posh.

It is over the top beautiful. Look at verse 11, just the first sentence, having the glory of God. In heaven, the glory of God will be 100 percent undiminished, full screen, unedited, take your breath away, glory of God.

Having the glory of God. And John describes that as light, her light, verse 11, her light was like a most precious stone, like jasper stone, clear as crystal. Now, he describes it as light, first of all.

Very particular word he uses. It's the word phoster, and phoster is a Greek word that means light source or an illuminator. Think of a light bulb.

It is something in which light is concentrated and from which light emanates. So light is pouring out of this huge 1,500-mile cube, and he likens what he sees to jasper, clear as crystal. Now, here's the thing about jasper. Jasper is a stone that is not clear. It's opaque. We, and look, if you want to find a jasper stone, you will not find it clear.

It's always opaque. So, he says, it's like jasper, but it's clear as crystal. He's probably describing a diamond. Now, I don't know much about diamonds, but I did buy a couple diamonds of my lifetime for my wife. I bought her engagement ring.

It didn't cost very much because I was a poor, partially employed surfer. So, I could afford what I could afford, and so I bought a little diamond. And later on, when I went to replace it, we'd been married quite a number of years, I took it to the jeweler, and he looked at it and just in front of us both said, yeah, this isn't a very good diamond.

First of all, it's very small, which made me feel very small. And he says, second, it's really cloudy. And he explained to me, diamonds get their value not just by their size but by their clarity. He says, for example, and I'd love to interest you in buying this diamond, which is much larger and much clearer. So, diamonds get more valuable the clearer they are. This is clear as crystal. He is probably describing a diamond-like substance.

Now, go down to verse 18. The construction of the wall was of jasper, and the city was pure gold, pure gold, like clear glass. The foundation of the wall of the city were adorned with all kinds of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper, the second, sapphire, the third, chalcedony, the fourth, emerald, the fifth, sardonyx, the sixth, sardius, the seventh, crystallite, very detailed, the eighth, beryl, the ninth, topaz, the tenth, chrysoprase, the eleventh, jacinth, the twelfth, amethyst. Color-wise, this is what it would look like.

The stones ranged from blue to deep green to white to brown to blood red to sea green to yellow to yellow gold to rich purple and to deep violet. Heaven will make every rainbow look like a tool shed. This place is posh. It's beautiful.

The foundations are beautiful. We love to go to beautiful places. Whenever I read this section of Scripture, it's like I'm reading a travel brochure for heaven. I read this and go, yeah, I want to go there. I like to see that.

That interests me. Have you ever noticed that certain places don't have travel brochures? Ever seen a travel brochure to Barstow, California?

Yeah, I haven't either. There's a reason for that. People say, I want to go to California. They're not thinking Barstow. They're thinking Newport Beach. But there's a city called Barstow, but I've never seen a travel brochure to it.

There's not much to go outside and take pictures of to attract people to come to it. So this is heaven's travel brochure. And there's a couple of things in verse 21 I think bear looking at. It says, verse 21, the 12 gates were 12 pearls. Each individual gate was one pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold like transparent glass. Now that makes no sense. Have you ever seen transparent gold?

I haven't either. Gold is opaque. Gold is dense.

Gold is heavy. But this is gold that you can see through. It seems to indicate heaven has a transparency to it.

Some of you get nervous about that because you're thinking, I want my privacy. You're in heaven, for goodness sake. In new bodies, resurrected bodies, you got nothing to hide.

Just want to get that clear. But what interests me here is that the gates are a pearl. No doubt this is where the idea of pearly gates come from, but these aren't just pearly gates.

One gate is one pearl. So I'm guessing the gate has got to at least be as high as the wall. Verse 17, he measured the wall 144 cubits. That's 72 yards high.

That's 216 feet tall. That's how the wall of the new city of Jerusalem will be. You're going, why do we need a wall? For security?

No. Just for beauty. Just for beauty. Just to adorn it.

So you've got each gate of this city at least 216 feet high. One pearl. Man, that must be some oyster, right, for that pearl to come out. Of course it's not. It's made directly by God.

But here's something I want you to muse on for a moment. The gate made out of one pearl is a perfect symbol to represent how we gain entrance into God's presence. Because you know how a pearl is formed, right?

It's formed by an injury. An irritant, like a grain of sand, makes its way into the oyster. The oyster responds to the irritation by sending out a substance to cover the irritant. A layer of nacre formed by another layer, followed by another layer, and another layer, and another layer, and eventually you have a pearl. So those small layers of protection become the pearl.

A pearl is a stone formed out of suffering. So when you go in the gate of New Jerusalem and out the gate, you are always going to be reminded of the cross. Because what was the irritant for Jesus Christ? Us. Our sin. Our sin. But He covered us over and made us beautiful and made us fit for all eternity. And every time you go in, every time you come out, you're going to be reminded by that substance formed by an injury of the cross. So it's prepared, it's pictured, it's presented, it's proportioned, and it's posh.

Let me give you another highlight. It's perfect. You've never seen a perfect city ever in your life, but you will. This is a perfect city. Verse 22, I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city had no need of 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. The kings of the earth will bring their glory and honor into it.

Its gate 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. Now we're inside the city. We've seen it from the outside.

We get a brief internal look at the city. No lights, no night. Nobody will ever say, hey, can you turn on the light?

You don't need it. It's always lit up. Light emanates from it. Now, cities, certain cities, have nicknames. So you tell me what the nickname of Chicago is. The Windy City. New York. The Big Apple. LA.

The City of Angels, right? Santa Fe. Come on. Come on. You're from Santa Fe.

Do you know what this is? No, Land of Manana, he said. No, it's the city different, right?

Which kind of fits, right? Right? This city, New Jerusalem, in this chapter is called the holy city, the great city, and one having the glory of God. You put all those together and what you have is the perfect city.

It's the great holy city filled with God's glory. It is perfect. It's perfect because God's glory is perfectly displayed.

It's perfect because God's presence is perfectly encountered. No temple. It's unthinkable in ancient times to have a city without a temple or 20 temples. Every city had a temple, not in heaven. You don't have to find a temple. Hey, we got to go to church. No, you don't. You're there. This is it. There's no temple there.

Why? Because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. So you have direct access to God 24-7. There's a couple of scriptures I want to plug into this before we move on and close. In John 17, Jesus prays that great prayer of intercession. He prays for his 12 disciples. He prays for future believers, including you, and he closes out the prayer by saying, Father, glorify me with the glory which I had with you before the world was.

That prayer will be answered right here. And I'm bringing this up because I want you to see this is the glory that Jesus had with the Father and this is what he left. This is what he left to come here and be spat on and ridiculed and insulted and crucified.

But that glory will be restored. Something else I want to plug into this, and that is you remember in the New Testament when Jesus, along with Moses and Elijah, he's transfigured before a few of the disciples. Matthew 16, it says he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun.

His clothes became white as the light. What is that? That is this. They saw a preview of the movie. That was a preview of coming attractions. That was the trailer. You know, people read that section of scripture and go, what a miracle, Jesus shined. No, the miracle was he didn't shine all the time. But it was just a moment where he pulled back the veil and some of the disciples could see him in his glory, shining like the sun.

His clothes became white as the light. So that was a preview. This is the full picture. So it's prepared.

It's pictured as a bride. It's presented from heaven to the new earth. We've seen the proportions of it. We've seen how beautiful, how posh it is.

It's a perfect city. Let's close on this. Last thing to note. It's permanent. It's forever. It's the eternal state. Now, I'm going to take you down to chapter 22 really briefly.

We haven't really gotten into it, nor will we. It kind of closes off with a description. The first few verses of chapter 22 is a description of Main Street in New Jerusalem. Every city has Main Street. This one will be a garden-like environment. The street in heaven, Main Street, is flanked by a river whose fountainhead is the throne of God. But what is most noteworthy that I want to end on with you is the length of time that heaven's occupants will be enjoying this.

Verse 5, there shall be no night there, no need of lamp, nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light, and they shall reign. How long? Forever. Forever and ever. So, you know, if forever isn't long enough, then add and ever to it to give you the idea that this is the eternal state. This is forever and ever without end. Now, we have done 24 weeks on the end is near, and here's what we discover. When we finally get to the end, we discover it's not the end.

It's the beginning. Time has passed. The end of time marks the beginning of eternity, marks the beginning of forever and ever. It is nigh unto impossible to get our heads around the concept of eternity. We try, but there's a simple reason you and I can't really fully explain it. We are constrained by time and space. It's the dimension we're in. Eternity is an entirely different dimensional structure. We can't conceive being locked in time and space of eternity.

We can try, but fall short. I've heard different explanations, and I listen to them and go, yeah, okay. So one of the most common ones is if a bird took one grain of sand from the earth and flew to the moon 200,000 miles and dropped it off, went back to the earth, got another grain of sand, flew to the moon, dropped it off, went back, got another grain of sand, flew to the moon, dropped it off, got another grain of sand, by the time he transported the entire planet earth to the moon, that's the first second of eternity.

Okay, yeah, I go, wow. But still, that's hard for me to get my head around. It's just as hard or easy for me to read forever and ever. I think John Newton may have landed on something beautiful when he said in that famous song we sing Amazing Grace, when we've been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we first begun. The end is the beginning, and it's always an ever new and always a fresh start and forever and ever. So yes, the end is near, but when it ends, there will be a heaven and there will be a hell that never end.

Never end. J.B. Phillips, I don't expect you to know that name. Some of you do, some of your pastors.

And there's a translation called the J.B. Phillips translation of the New Testament. He was an Anglican clergyman who gave us some great works like that. But J.B. Phillips, in his ministry in London, England, during World War II and during those eras, as long as he served as a clergyman, he conducted over 5,000 funerals.

5,000 funerals. And he never described a dead believer as the dearly departed. Have you ever heard a pastor say that? No, the dearly departed.

He never did that. He always spoke of believers who died as those who have arrived. I like that better. Not the dearly departed, but man, he's arrived. So if I ever do your funeral, I'm going to remember that.

I'm going to talk about you as one who has arrived because that's when you really arrive. One day you're going to read in the newspaper that Skip Heitzig died. Don't you believe it?

That's fake news. The truth is, I will be more alive and I will have finally arrived at that moment in time. So 24 weeks, the end is near. Did you enjoy it? I did. We went deep.

We went deep and we went long. And now the end is here. But as we close, as we close, I want you just to think about your own personal life.

Only you can do that. Think about the decisions you've made. Think about where you are today. Think about where you stand before God. And are you a little bit, possibly a little bit nervous about all things eternal?

If so, this is the moment to change any of that nervousness. From nervousness into knowing, the Bible says you can know for certain that you have eternal life. John said, I write these things that you might know that you have eternal life.

So as we close, if you've never personally said yes to the Savior, or if you maybe did something when you were younger, but today you're not walking with Him, you're not living for Him, and you need to come back to Him, you settle that right here. That's Skip Hyten with the final message in his series, The End is Near, showing you how great heaven the future home of all believers will truly be. Find the full message as well as books, booklets, and full teaching series at connectwithskip.com. We love to partner with friends like you to share God's life-changing truth with people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. You can take part in this life-changing work today with a generous gift to support this ministry and keep this program reaching you and others around our nation and all across the globe. To give generously to help expand this ministry and share God's love with more people, visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate or call 800-922-1888.

800-922-1888. Thank you for changing lives. Tomorrow, tune in for the beginning of a new teaching series and Skip's message, The Cure for the Curse. Our greatest need is to be forgiven. This is why Jesus on the cross his first words recorded in scripture were, Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.

It is forgiveness. Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the cross. Cast all burdens on his word. Make a connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever-changing times.