Uh It has been said Christians will one day live in God's very presence on a new earth where there is no curse, no light, no darkness, eating 12 kinds of life-giving fruit, drinking crystal-clear, reviving water, seeing God's very face, and serving him forever. Is this Babel or Bible?
Well, stay with us, listen, and learn. You're listening to Until He Comes, a blend of prophetic and practical biblical studies with Dr. Greg Hinnant. Author of the second coming of Christ, His Appearing, His Return, Our Preparation. And now, author and teacher Greg Hennett.
Welcome to the broadcast. I'm excited about our subject today as we continue to study New Jerusalem, our dream service. City. Before we read our primary text in Revelation twenty-two, verses one through five, let me make one point. God has chosen to call the eternal capital of the new world, the new earth, New Jerusalem Why Jerusalem?
Well, we know Jerusalem means city of peace. And that's obvious enough, but I think there's another reason. Jerusalem, we know, is the historic capital of the Jewish people. And Jerusalem is located in the Promised Land, which God gave exclusively to the Jewish people.
So by calling this capital, this most important city state of eternity. New Jerusalem, God is saying to us, I will save the Jewish people, and they will have a central role. in the eternal world. Why is this important? Because there is a persisting doctrine that's lasted down the ages of the church.
And it teaches that God is finished with Israel. It's called supersessionism. or replacement or fulfillment theology. This teaches that the church has permanently superseded, taken the place of. literally taken the chair of Israel in the plan and purpose of God.
This is a false teaching. Paul debunks it in Romans chapter 9 through 11. Where he explains Our relationship to Israel. and the current position of Israel in its state of unbelief. He plainly states that after the fullness of the Gentiles have come into the church and the kingdom of God.
and that work is completed with the rapture of the church. That then the Redeemer Christ will come to Zion, the Jewish people. And he will turn them from their ungodliness, which means their unbelief in Christ and all the sin which springs from that. And he does this because Paul says the gifts and callings of God are without repentance.
So, God has called the Jewish people, and He's not revoking that call. They have been severely punished. But they have not been cast away permanently. Paul states that plainly also in. Romans.
Now this is most important that we understand this And I would encourage you, if you want further study on this, to buy my book. the Day of the Lord commentary. This book expounds every Old Testament prophecy and vision and foreshadowing of the last days and of the end times, the eschaton. And I show very clearly that multiple scriptures in Old and New Testament Alike Establish the fact that the redeemed Jews, those who received Christ, will indeed have a purpose in the plan of God in the end and in this eternal world, which we are studying. I encourage you to purchase that book.
I also have an appendix in the book, which goes into great depth to give you all the New Testament texts which soundly disprove the error of replacement theology.
So let's begin today with Revelation twenty two, verse one. John says, And he, the angel, showed me a pure river of water of life. Clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. I believe this river of life. Just gushes out.
From the throne of God. Beautiful. Waters Royaling. As they flow out from the presence of God under great pressure. and they'll flow down this beautiful river, which will be right in the middle of a great boulevard, both streets on either side, both of the streets being paved with Gold is so pure it's transparent.
This will be a gorgeous scene like nothing we've ever seen. Verse 2, and in the midst of the street of it and on either side of the river. Was there the tree of life or thousands of trees of life? which bore twelve kinds of fruit and yielded her fruit every month. This is amazing.
These trees will bear fruit continually.
So they're in a state of continually yielding fruit. I think this implies that in the eternal world we will not need to labor. By the sweat of our brow. to produce food. Why?
Because food will spring Spontaneously from the earth and from the trees. specifically this tree of life.
Now It further states That the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. Healing is Pharopea. in the Greek And so This is telling us that these leaves will have a therapeutic effect On our immortal bodies, perhaps. When we eat them. they will have a special uh nourishing factor, they will increase our Health in our immortal bodies in some way which we do not presently understand.
I think it's more likely that they will be used. Wounds that come from accidents. And when we are in this wonderful state.
So I think this is the primary meaning.
Now There shall be no more curse. That is everything That happened as a result of Adam's sin has now been permanently reversed, never to appear again. This is so wonderful. You know when you step back from this scene, It reminds you of Eden. There in the beginning, God and man had blissful fellowship.
for a time. In that garden setting, with a beautiful river flowing, and we're the tree of life. We know sin ruined that fellowship and that idyllic. Setting that environment which God created in love for man. But now the second atom, the last atom, Christ.
Has come. and his work of redemption has thoroughly reversed everything which sin and the curse has done. to affect mankind.
So again, this is more evidence of God's ultimate triumph. We referred to that in an earlier episode when God decreed in chapter 21: Behold, I make all things new.
Now This further tells us That the throne of God and the Lamb shall be in it. and his servants shall serve him.
So we will not be idle in eternity. We will worship God. As we see the elders and the angels worshiping him in Revelation chapter 5, verses 13 and 14, all of creation. will join together every creature that God made to Praise and extol. the Lamb and the Father.
But also we will serve him. In undisclosed ways, we will perform tasks which we do not yet know, and we will derive great joy in doing these for the Lord. And they shall see his face This indicates proximity. If you can see someone's face, You're very close to them. We will be so close to God that we will see his face.
And we will thereby also discern his mood, his manner, his inner man, you know, people's character. Um uh is reflected in their faces. And so we will see in the face of God The beauty of the character of a God, the nature of God, utter faithfulness. Blazing holiness. unbending of righteousness.
and unspeakably compassionate love. And his name shall be in their foreheads. What does this indicate?
Well, our foreheads are where our frontal lobe of our brain are located, and we do our thinking with the frontal lobe.
So by writing his name on our foreheads, God is saying, I have now integrated my thoughts and my mind into the man's of my people. It also brings back what is recorded in Revelation thirteen. where the beast will place his mark on the foreheads of his servants. That indicates That he has replicated his evil motives and thoughts and attitudes. in their hearts And so they have been conformed.
To his image, and you know, again. The beast is the incarnation of Satan, so it it all makes sense. Satan and his servants are marked. God and his servants are marked. and each good is a proper Eternal home.
We will go to New Jerusalem, this glorious place we are studying. And those who take the mark of the beast will go to the lake of fire. And let me remind you. God never made the lake of fire for man. Jesus said in Matthew twenty five that that was created for the devil and his angels.
who with full knowledge of the wondrous goodness and faithfulness and love of God and his truth in the beginning, with full knowledge of that truth, they chose to rebel. And so God assigned them to this place the lake of fire for their eternal punishment. Man came under that judgment when Adam agreed with Satan in the garden. He believed his lie and chose thus to rebel Against God And he came into it, and we with him came into that judgment. That is why Christ, the last Adam, came to redeem us.
and to bring us to this new home, And if you don't know Jesus today, this is the home. He has provided for you, my friend. not the lake afire. How do you get there? Acknowledge that you are a sinner.
Tell the Lord that you are a sinner. Ask Him to forgive your sins. By His shed blood on the cross Ask him to come into your heart. And you will be born again and receive a new life. The Bible says to as many as received him Gave he the power, the authority, the right to become a child.
of God.
Now the next verse says, And there shall be no night there. and they need no lamp, Neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light.
Now we discuss this. brilliant divine illumination, the Shekana which will fill New Jerusalem. We discussed this in the last episode. and they shall reign for ever and ever. I want to point out something here that the word rain indicates someone will be rained over.
Among the redeemed, those who are saved, some live honorably, some dishonorably, some live faithfully, some live unfaithfully, some seek and love the Lord, others do not seek Him. yet they're saved by the grace of God, So, in the eternal world, the way we have lived in this life will be reflected in our status. in the eternal world. Some will rule with Christ. Others will be subject to that rule.
Today is the day for you to choose to live an honorable, faithful life for Christ.
so that you can rule and reign with him. We'll break off the reading there, and let's turn to briefly discuss the purpose of biblical prophecy. I've often taught in my classes that revelation is for preparation. that is, that biblical revelation of the things to come, is not given for curiosity, No, not at all. It's given to prepare us, to get ready for the things to come.
Bible prophecy is intended to assure us. Yeah. things to come. Jesus said, the Holy Spirit will show us things to come. And being assured, we will be inspired and motivated.
And transformed in our living so that we live in the inspiration of. The vision. This is the purpose of biblical prophecy, and my friend, this is why we're having this discussion. Today.
Now like no city before it, New Jerusalem, will be uniquely perfect for Far beyond our brightest hopes, a dream city, yet it will not be cloudy or vague or hard to understand. No, not at all. New Jerusalem is very understandable, very real and very material. It is the city Abraham waited for. with eternal foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
Hebrews eleven, verse ten. It is a heavenly country. incomparably better. Than any earthly nation. You know, thank God for America, I do.
But America is filled with sin of every kind. God cannot let His blessing rest on this nation. merely because We may be able to elect leaders who favor Righteous policies, no. No. The soul of this nation is sick with sin.
We are shedding blood, the blood of the innocents. Yeah. The sin Just It just makes it. Like nothing. Because we have shed more blood than all the ancient cultures who practiced human sacrifice and child sacrifice.
Righteousness exalts a nation. But since is a reproach. To any people.
So while I am an American citizen and I thank God I live here is better than any other country that I can think of right now, and I don't mean that as in a in as an expression of nationalistic pride. I just thank God that I live here. I thank God for the stability we do have. despite our sin, But I don't glory in this nation. I glory in this nation we're reading about.
This new channel. Jerusalem. This heavenly City that Abraham looked for and waited for. Of all those who, like Abraham, look away from earthly nations and set their hearts. On this heavenly country, God has declared He is not ashamed to be called their God.
Because He has prepared for them a city. Hebrews 11, 16. Specifically, that city is New Jerusalem. This place Jesus said He was going to prepare for us. When we read Revelation twenty-one, we learned there that this city is called the Lamb's Bride.
That clearly identifies it as the eternal home. of the Church the Brat of Christ. We all have dreams that we hope will come true. But New Jerusalem is a dream we know will come true, that is, for all born-again Christians. This dream city, in Paul's words, is exceedingly, abundantly above.
Our best prayers. and our brightest imaginations. Like no other city in human history, New Jerusalem is indestructible. It cannot be flooded, burned or reduced to rubble by an earthquake or volcano. It is unconquerable.
It cannot be attacked and sacked by an invader. It is unchanging enduring in the same condition in which it was originally created, It is eternal. never aging and never ending. It is unmatched in beauty. No city throughout human history can even compare.
Nothing has been seen like the beauty of this city. We described that beauty in an earlier episode. This city will sparkle like a diamond. The glory light of God will reflect to the facets Of its walls and its buildings and homes, and put on a spectacle like we've never seen of brilliant colors. It is a holy city.
No sin will be there. No devil, no demons and no practicing sinners will live in New Jerusalem on this new earth. They will all be in the lake of fire. In our previous episodes, we read the three exclusion statements. that the Holy Spirit is placed in this description of New Jerusalem, so that no one will presume that this will be their home if they are practicing sin.
They are found in Revelation twenty one eight. and twenty one twenty seven and twenty two thirty. fifteen In New Jerusalem and in the New Earth, God and Redeemed mankind will live together in blissful fellowship forever and ever and ever.
Now for any skeptics among us I will simply give you John's response. It is brief, but it is sufficient. In Revelation twenty one, verse five, He said, these words are true And they are faithful. True and can be trusted. And you, my friend, can trust everything that I am reading to you and teaching you.
Yeah. the text of the Holy Word of God.
Now At this point, we'll break off our instruction because in our next episodes, We're going to go into great detail to review New Jerusalem's amazing features which John has described to us with surprising detail. There, we will find some important spiritual lessons. That can transform our lives. As we just said earlier, the purpose of biblical prophecy is not to satisfy our curiosity. It is to produce an inspiration that motivates us to transform our living.
And live in the inspiration of the vision.
So, beginning in the next episode, We will talk about the purpose of God in this city, the elevation of the city and what it means, the dimensions of the city and what they tell us, and the light of the city and what it implies.
So, you do not want to miss the next episode until we're together again. God bless you. This month, for a gift of any amount, we are offering one of Dr. Hinnant's three devotionals: Water from the Rock, which offers 122 spiritually rich biblical messages designed to refresh your heart, strengthen you in your daily trials, and help satisfy and increase your thirst. More of Jesus.
For a gift of $60 or more, we'll send you the complete four-volume hit. End times prophecy collection: The Second Coming of Christ, The Tribulation Story, Revelation Notes, a verse-by-verse commentary on Revelation, and The Day of the Lord Commentary, which interprets all Old Testament prophecies and foreshadowings of the end times. And if you are a Logos Bible Software user, you may purchase The Second Coming of Christ, The Day of the Lord Commentary, and Revelation Notes from the Logos Online Bookstore.
Now, again, Dr. Hinnant. And now it's time for some Q ⁇ A. James Cornet from Columbus, Georgia asks, What did Jesus mean when he told the disciples in John 20, 23, If you forgive anyone's sins, their sins are forgiven? If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.
And does this text apply today? Yeah. Great question. I will answer it in reverse order. First, not some, but, as Paul stated in Second Timothy three, sixteen eighteen, all Scripture is inspired, and therefore useful and instructive in correcting and teaching us how to walk in righteousness, so we may be spiritually mature and complete in every good work.
So yes, John twenty twenty three, like all New Testament instruction, applies today just as much as it did in the first century. If it is written, it is relevant. Second, this text does not authorize any Christian, minister, or church to. To arbitrarily or randomly go about forgiving people's sins. The Catholic Church's sacrament of reconciliation, which claims Catholic priests alone have authority from Christ, based on this very text, to absolve all sins confessed to them, is erroneous.
Third, it is clear, however, that in John 20, 23, Jesus did confer authority to forgive. and withhold forgiveness of sins. But whose sins and what sins? Mark three, twenty two through thirty identifies only one unforgivable sin, blaspheming the Holy Spirit. This occurs when we call any work of the Holy Spirit the work of Satan or demons.
Israel's religious leaders committed this sin when they claimed Jesus' Holy Spirit empowered exorcisms were actually the work of the demon that possessed him. As to whose sins we may or may not forgive, the New Testament offers us some illuminating examples. In Acts 7, 60, when Stephen was being stoned by Jewish leaders. He prayed, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. In the same context young Saul of Tarsus, who is later called Paul, was present and fully agreeing with Stephen's murderers, perhaps even participating.
So Stephen's prayer included Saul. A short time later, in Acts nine, one through nine, Saul was converted. The obvious implication is that God had indeed, as Stephen prayed, forgiven Saul for participating in Stephen's murder. Paul's subsequent experiences help further clarify John twenty, twenty three. After the Romans imprisoned Paul, nearly all of the Christians in Asia abandoned him.
In Second Timothy four, sixteen through seventeen, Paul prayed God would not lay to their account this sin committed against him. This shows us that we may forgive sins committed against us personally. Why? We are acting in Jesus' name. as his authorized agents by his divine nature and spirit living within.
So we do so in his authority, not ours. This does not mean, however, we have authority to remit all the sins of such people. only those committed against us. Only two verses earlier, Paul prayed God would not forgive Alexander the coppersmith's sins. Why?
Alexander had, in Paul's words, greatly withstood his message, the gospel of salvation through Christ. Paul refused to forgive sins aimed at stopping God's kingdom work, specifically the gospel. And this suggests we not only may, but should, do the same. The Holy Spirit prompted Paul to record these two contrasting prayers. In the same context, To help us understand Jesus' two contrasting authorizations in John 20, 23.
One to forgive sins and the other to withhold forgiveness. Email us your biblical questions today online at info at greghennettministries.org or call us at 336-882-1645 or send your letters to Greg Hennett Ministries, P.O. Box 788, High Point, North Carolina, 27260. We are so glad you tuned in to the broadcast. In our next episode, we will open up still more of New Jerusalem's wonders that await us in the next life and more of the spiritual lessons they teach about how we should be living in this life.
If this message has blessed you, tell your friends and please consider helping us stay on the air by sending your tax-deductible donation to Greg Hennett Ministries. Also, remember, you may download the Until He Comes podcast from your preferred podcast app. May you walk closely with Christ and trust and obey Him in your daily tests of faith and patience until He Comes. This is the Truth Network. Uh
