Christianity is not religion. Christianity is reality. This is God that we serve and we worship and this is what He did to get us to do that. This is how he picked people who would love him back. Not for what he could do for them.
but for who he was. No more religion, no more ritual, And it's not an insult to say We won't need the Bible. We'll have him. We'll have the Word of God. with us forever.
This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Revelation. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Today, Pastor Rick brings you part two of his study called New Jerusalem in Revelation chapter 21.
It's we all tribes represent. Promises of Messiah. came from the Jews. to the nations. The people, all people.
By Israel, the church entered into faith. In Acts chapter seven, Stephen giving A killer sermon. Literally. They killed him for this sermon. And when he gets to a part about Moses, he says, the one who received the living oracles to give to us.
Us who? Because he's a Jew. Does he mean the Jews? Yeah, well, he's preaching the Jews, but it goes beyond them. to the church.
Church doesn't have any Jews or Gentiles in it. It just has Christians in it. Get to that quote soon.
So there would be no New Testament believers without God working through the Jews. This is why it's important that God is saying to us, I've not forgotten this. The foundations and the gates will be marked with the twelve tribes of Israel's and the apostles. By the blood Bought church.
Souls enter the kingdom of heaven. and New Testament theology. Came to the gates. of Old Testament prophecy. The reality behind the symbol is greater than the symbol.
And all that the prophets symbolized in their preaching, there was one coming that is greater. Jesus Himself, He said, Solomon in all of His glory was not arrayed, such as one of these. He's talking about the flowers, and He says, One greater than Solomon is here, speaking about himself. the greater reality. The Almighty God.
Verse 13. Three gates on the east side, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, and three gates on the west.
Now, again, these are open gates in every direction, symbolic all by itself. The city is too large to see all of this at one time. But it's there. And I already commented on that, verse 14.
Now the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. And we know the Lamb. Talking about the symbols again. The Lamb symbolizes the Christ.
Well, Christ is much greater than any Lamb. But the symbolism is not lost because of the laws of sacrifice in the scripture. Ordinary foundations are usually not visible and they are usually unsightly. You don't put any effort to making them look good, you're going to cover them up with dirt. Here they are visible, they are attractive, and they are commemorative.
1 Timothy 3, this all ties in to us, and this part is about us. The house of God. said Paul. which is the church. of the living God, the pillar and the ground of the truth.
Well, that's what the church should be.
So when a pastor comes up and says, Good morning, welcome to the house of the Lord, there's just one place right there. which is a proof verse. the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth. I'd like to serve with inspiration. But I don't always get to do that.
But I always get to serve with truth. That's raw service. I'd rather have them both. But long as I have the truth I can serve. But if I don't have the truth Ivy Thingles.
The way it should not go. Ephesians chapter 2.
Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners. This is Paul writing to the church at Ephesus, which was loaded with Gentiles. He says, but fellow citizens. with the saints and members of the household of God. Having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone.
There's nothing built without him, without his holding it up. without his supporting it. He is the pillar and the ground of truth. That Paul was talking about, and we are also in a lesser sense. Jesus said, I am the light of the world.
That's in the fullest sense. But in the lesser sense, He then says to the believers, You're the light of the world. on the foundations. That these foundations that John is seeing signify the contribution of the apostles. Through the Holy Spirit.
Now the apostles of the Lamb. We've already covered who that is, the sacrificial lamb. sacrificed on behalf of sinners, and many sinners mock that. Teens, are you keeping up with me? These are vital points that go to your faith.
You should be saying, I got that. What else you got, Pastor? Try to keep up. Because when you get older, you'll be scrambling to say, Now, what did he say 20 years ago? It was so good.
I know it. Anyway. The twelve tribes and the twelve apostles on the gates and foundations. That unites the two covenants together into one, a single covenant. The new covenant becomes the single covenant.
And without the Bible, the value of these symbols would be lost. If we didn't have everything else before Revelation 21, we wouldn't have a clue. as to what he's talking about. Verse 15, and he who talked with me had a gold reed to measure the city, its gates, and its walls.
So now they're using gold as a stick in heaven to measure things, a measuring rod, which Limits and makes a claim. You know, when you see surveys out there, somebody's, that's somebody's territory being marked out. and measured. And so this is a survey, and we're going to get to the result of it. Verse 16.
The city is laid out as a square. Its length is as great as its breadth. And he measured the city with the reed 12,000 furlongs. Its length, breadth, and height are equal.
So He's saying in this poetic language, I'm going to measure out. Heaven mobile. part of heaven that's going to be in touch with the new creation. The city is laid out in a cube. It's not flat.
or two-dimensional. The length, the width, the height, all equal. And the city, as I mentioned, is more than half the size of the United States. It's larger than the United Kingdom, for example.
So here are some overwhelming. Calculations about this city. As I mentioned, thirteen hundred and eighty cubic. miles, twelve thousand furlongs. Compute to that.
So it extends 1400 round or off 1400 deep. miles 1400 miles wide and 1400 miles high. That gives it 2,626,232,000. Square miles. It's huge.
The lower forty eight States saw 3,119. million miles a little bit more but What's another 884 miles when you're talking millions?
So from Richmond to Denver, Colorado. 1484 miles. From Bismarck, North Dakota to Brownsville, Texas. It's fourteen. 151 miles.
So, if you took this new Jerusalem and you superimpose it over a map, it would cover from the east coast all the way through the Midwest. And then you still have 1400 miles upward. This is what John sees coming. This is why you can't see all 12 gates. But he knows it there.
And again, 12 is the kingdom perfection number: 12 tribes, 12 apostles, 12 foundations, 12 gates, 12 pearls, and 12 angels. The city is also made of gold. It is this gold cue.
Now there's no more sun, the light is coming from God Himself. When the Jews built their temple and Herod embellished it and put gold on the top. The historians write about how beautiful it was approaching Jerusalem and the temple roof and the light hitting it and how it just was such a magnificent view. Can you imagine this?
Something the size of a country Coming to earth. And if you have a problem with Genesis 1.1, this is fundamental to Christianity. If you have a problem with Genesis 1.1, you'll have a problem with everything in the Bible. And if you have a problem with everything in the Bible, you've got a problem with God. And in Genesis 1.1 is in the beginning, God made from nothing.
And if you can't understand that a truly divine being creates from nothing, then you're going to stumble all the way through life. When it comes to who is God and who is not? Satan can't do that. Nobody else can do that. Verse 17, then he measured its wall 140 cubits according to the measure of a man that is of an angel.
Well, the bottom part, the measure of a man that is of an angel, seems to mean the angel is using man's standard of measurement at that time, the cubit. And that's what John is telling us, what he noticed.
Now, is it the height of the wall which would make it 20 stories and a little bit more? We're told the wall is great. And high. Or is it the thickness of the wall? Is it 216 feet deep?
Well, we're not told, but we know this. This is magnificent. It's not as tall as the city. Because it's really not trying to keep people out. It's preaching.
even into eternity. And we like those kinds of things. If you walk around with someone in the woods and they know about all the trees and they're telling you about their characteristics, that's interesting stuff. But when it has to do with the glory of God is on a whole nother level of interest. To be around anyone who really understands a particular craft.
and can explain it to you. because they enjoy it, it's a nice pot of interacting with other people. Barring minutia, you know, some people just go overboard, but I've never done that. And see, now you laugh. See, this is the kind of thing that I'm going to be complaining about in heaven.
Anyway, according to the measure of a man. That is, of an angel. Verse 18. The construction of its wall was jasper, and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. Jasper's diamond.
We're going to skip all of the definitions to all the different jewels because some of them we have lost their Identity over time. And even John may have had a local. Understanding of a particular gem that might have had a different color or hue in another part of the world. This is not critical. What is critical is that This place is going to be electrified.
It's not going to be something that you go, huh? I've seen that before. You know, if you've traveled enough, after a while, everything is, yeah, okay, I get it. They made that 2,000 years ago.
Okay, what else you got? After a while, you kind of level out. When you're new, it's like, wow, this is amazing. Look at that. This castle is older than anything we got in our country, and it's all of that.
Well, that's not going to be how this is. This will not get old. And it's not showing you what's in the closets. You know what's in the vault. What's behind the curtain?
This is just the city coming down. We've all imagined what we would do if we were the last person on earth. I'd hit the candy stores. As a kid, as an adult, my teeth start hurting thinking about it. And the city was of pure gold, like clear glass.
The streets were transparent too. In verse 21, we'll get that. And of course, the transparency, nothing's hidden. Transparent gold indicates unknown resources, materials we have no knowledge of, science we have no knowledge of. engineering foreign to us.
Because of computers, engineers are allowed to do a lot more, not only the engineers, the fabricators, and so the building throughout the world of skyscrapers and bridges is like never before, because they have the resources now to do what they couldn't do 50 years ago. Computers have helped them with the calculations and the scenarios and things like that. This is going to make all of that look like a sand castle. Verse 19, the foundations 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.
Okay, so all these colors are going to be working with each other. It doesn't tell us how many of these jewels are going to be on the wall and where are they placed in proximity to each other and what sort of light prisms are going to be just exploding. We have no idea. How could John tell us? Verse 20, the fifth, Sadanachs.
The six Sodius, the seventh crystallite. Eighth barrel. Raise your hand if you want me to finish. The ninth topaz, the tenth Christopher phrase Eleventh jacynth and twelfth is amethyst. Again, if I could make stuff up and it would be really interesting preaching, and your heart would go, Oh, that was so wonderful, but it'd be just a lie.
So, I'm not going to try, even, I would not want to do anything like that. Because, as I mentioned, the names of some of these gems have changed through the centuries, and the identification on some of them is just not possible. Not to be Dogmatic about, well, this means that. Once more, the walls not for protection, but as monuments. Isaiah talks about that.
I mentioned that the prophets ring in on these things. Isaiah 60, violence shall no longer be heard in your land, neither wasting nor destruction within your borders. But you shall call your walls salvation and your gates praise.
Well, that started in the millennial reign. But it will just be supercharged when heaven is coming down to earth. David spoke of God as a shield about him. It was said of Job that he had a hedge about him. That irritated Satan.
Satan couldn't get his hands on him. And the saints will have in heaven and eternal protection. that the Old Testament just gave us shadows of. Psalm one twenty two verse seven. Peace within your walls, prosperity.
Within your palaces. That's going to be a day in the life founded on truth. and the beauty of God.
So before I finish this, eight of these 12 stones are found in the breastplate of the high priest. We can identify that much, but that's all going to be small potatoes compared to. A jeweled city with transparent gold. I mean, just what is the lighting going to do to this place? I don't think it's going to be psychedelic or anything like that.
Don't miss out. Be there.
Okay. You don't have to wish to be one of the citizens. You can just confess the Lord as your Saviour, and you will be one. Verse 21, the twelve gates were twelve pearls. Each individual gate was of one pearl and the street of the city was pure gold like transparent glass.
Well, no matter what size gate as gates go, big enough to let a person in, according to the scale we operate by, what size oyster, if it were an oyster, would produce this. And so, this is where you say, well, you know, how much of this is symbolism? How much is literal? Because the symbol of a pearl is not a difficult thing. A pearl means there's an irritant that got where it shouldn't be.
Sin has made us irritance to God. For example, the oyster will spin around that irritant until he's made it where it's not abrasive anymore, then we put it on our neck. These gates are memorials to God's grace. The pearl is a memorial to God's grace. If you know how a pearl is made, if you say it's an irritant, what can I link that to?
Well, my sin irritated God for sure, at least that much. and irritates each other and I irritate the others because of Sin. Without sin, you won't irritate anybody. nor will you be irritated. That doesn't mean I'm not going to try.
What we need is a laugh meter. And a camera. Verse 22. Isn't this so much better than talking about the woman that rides the beat to the harlot and all the other wrath of God? Isn't this more fun?
Talking about what heaven's gonna be. Than the wrath of God on those who are too knuckle-headed to just look at the truth and receive Him? Verse 22. And I saw no temple in it. For the LORD God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.
Well, the temple was a symbol of the reality of God and his presence dwelling with his people. The church assembly. Also. which is replaced at his second coming. But in heaven, there's no localized worship.
There's no need for religion. Christianity is not religion. Christianity is reality. This is God that we serve and we worship and this is what he did to get us to do that. This is how he picked people who would love him back.
Not for what he could do for them. but for who he was. No more religion, no more ritual, And it's not an insult to say We won't need the Bible. We'll have him. We'll have the word of God.
with us forever. Verse 23, the city had no need of a son. or of the moon to shine in it. for the glory of God illuminated it The Lamb is the light. Nothing will be seen in heaven without him.
He is the cause of our ability to see. Revelation 22, of course, the next chapter speaking about this city. Because it continues into the first five verses. There shall be no light there. They need no lamp nor light of the sun.
For the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign for ever and ever. Outside of this city is the newly created universe. And it reads as though This is going to sit on the newly created earth. And we'll cover what's going to happen then when we get to the end of this, verse 24.
The nations of those who were saved shall walk in its light. And the kings of the earth Bring their glory and honour to it. The word nations there is ethos in the Greek, which means peoples. And the meaning is Different peoples will be in heaven. And this would have been a big deal back in the days of John when the church was still trying to say to the Jewish world.
We're not you, but you can be part of us, but we have this from Yahweh, and that'll cause so much problem trying to. Let the world know the church was not. continuation of Judaism. But it did not continue without Judaism. Our Old Testament.
And there's nothing insulting about that. It is the development of God's plan. And so here we see in heaven there's no race. I mentioned I'd come back to this, Colossians three, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slaved nor free, but Christ is all and in all. That almost cost Paul his life.
preaching that kind of stuff. His countrymen hated him so much for having the audacity to put the Gentiles on the same level as them before Yahweh. Yet that's how it has to be. Or otherwise, they'll be across the tracks in heaven, those people across the tracks. There'd be neighborhoods you don't want to go into.
because of cultural divides. That's not happening.
So we must not think of the earth. As populated with various divisions, there will be none. Of those who are saved, Shall walk in its light. As we've been covering in Revelation, the salvation of souls, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor to it.
So wait a minute. How I mean, is God going to start new people again? How's what's going to happen with this?
Well, I believe God will develop the new earth and the new universe. without a chance of sin. It will be better than the Garden of Eden. There will be government, but not to rule. to organize.
To organize what? Are we to think that we're going to spend all eternity at the beach? Or up in the mountains, just looking up at the bog rolling or something. I believe there's going to be progress and expansion. Development And it will be fun, because part of the curse was that work would become Hateful by the sweat of your brow, the earth will yield its fruit to you.
That's going to be gone. We get to the next chapter. There will be no more curse. And so work will be fun. You know, what are you doing this weekend?
Well, we're putting up a skyscraper over there. When I worked on building, there were parts of it I couldn't believe they paid me. It was so much fun. There were other parts of it, though, that offset that. But that won't be the case in heaven.
But I do want a desk job. One that will not cause me you know, your back aches and knee pain and swollen ankles. This is not healthy, but in heaven it won't be these kind of things. There won't be hospitals. But there'll be hospitable people.
That's pretty good, Pastor. That's old-fashioned preaching. Can you roll your R's now? All right, verse 25, its gates shall not shut at all. By day, there shall be no night there.
So the gates again are telling us we're not entitled. But we are desired. Always open, never closed. No enemies, no threats. That's why they're always open.
You say, well, again, why are they there? Because God is making the statement. You're not entitled to be here. But you are desired, you are welcome. You are a citizen.
You are family now. Verse 26, and they shall bring the glory. And honor of the nations into it, but there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
So that's telling us it's not a new population. There are those that have come through this life. And it's John sort of saying, I know, just in case you missed it. There'll be no more sin. All the evil things will be gone.
You have a hard time imagining that. We've never had a breath of truly fresh air. We've never been around a truly pure environment. It says, It does not cause an abomination or a lie. Never again will God be resisted, but only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
Who said that?
Well, at the beginning it said, He who is true and faithful. Mm. You can count on it. We close with this verse from the Proverbs. For surely there is a hereafter.
and your hope will not be cut off. Yeah. Um This has been Cross Reference Radio with Pastor Rick Gaston. This program is a radio outreach of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville, in Mechanicsville, Virginia. Pastor Rick has been teaching through the book of Revelation, but if you're interested in learning about a different book of the Bible, we have hundreds of past episodes available to listen to on demand.
Just visit us online at crossreference radio.com and you'll find an archive of Pastor Rick's past teachings. While you're there, you can also find links to follow our program on your favorite podcast app, as well as links to get connected with us on Facebook and YouTube. There's also an interviews tab where you can learn more about Pastor Rick's heart for ministry.
Well, we hope you'll join us next time here on Cross Reference Radio. Hello.
