No More!, Part 2

The Apostle John is actually describing the reversal of the effects of sin and of the curse.

Heaven is the great reversal. Sorrow to song. This crying into the consolation of Christ. Pain into everlasting pleasure. You know what this means to the believer? You know what it means to you and to me?

This means no matter what you might have gone through in your past, it means no matter what you might be going through today, it is not the last word. Why is heaven so glorious? And why will being in heaven be such a blessed experience? There's many reasons and many answers to those questions.

But one of those reasons is because of what you leave behind when you enter. There are things about your life on earth today that are painful and hard. You leave that behind when you enter heaven and you're going to learn about that today. Stephen Davey has a lesson for you called, No More. He began it last time and concludes it today.

The next 30 minutes will be very encouraging for you. So keep listening. The Apostle Paul uses the same word when he says of heaven, I have not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them who love him. First Corinthians 2, 9, For those who belong to him. And all the saints then of all time are now experiencing together the finishing touch, as it were, as that glorious heaven descends in the form of this golden city and heaven and earth are one.

It rests upon earth and the eternal state officially begins and it will never end. Now I want you to notice how John begins his description which is going to become much more specific and that will be for a later study. But he writes in verse 2, I saw the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. The word adorned is the word cosmeo.

It gives us our transliterated word cosmetics. It refers to the bride who has put on her cosmetics. She has become adorned. She has become, you could literally render it decorated throughout the Bible. The beloved of God is referred to as a bride. Israel is called the bride of Jehovah.

The church is called the bride of Christ. As John describes for us the permanent relocation of the city, his focus is on the beauty of the bride and you are arrested by the fact that he's speaking of both the beauty of the city and later the beauty of its inhabitants. They are viewed as one.

We do the same thing. I can say to you that I live in a beautiful city and you would know that immediately I'm talking about green grass and trees and fields and whatever. But I could also tell you I live in a wicked city and you would know immediately I'm not talking about trees and grass and fields. I'm talking about people.

We can refer to a city and be referring to both its citizens and its real estate. This is exactly what he's doing here. John is effectively saying I saw the procession of the bride and she is adorned. She is ready. There she is with her bridegroom in this procession of the bridal party. By the way, if the name of Jesus Christ, if you get that wrong, that will make all the difference in the world. You have to have the right bridegroom to enjoy everything that we're going to study over the next period of years.

I have no idea how long it will be, but you've got to have that down. Same as in a wedding, right? The name of the bridegroom matters. Whenever I marry a couple, I'll always say, Now, how do you want me to refer to you? At that announcement, Mr. and Mrs., you've got to get it just right. Some guys want the full name. Some guys want the nickname. Some guys want the first and middle name.

Whatever it is, the name matters, but certainly the first name. I learned that the hard way. Of course, I already knew it was true, but when I was a younger pastor and nervous as anybody else at the wedding scene performing weddings, I actually can remember the one time I called the bridegroom by the wrong name. I know.

That's what everybody did. The groom's name was Richard, but I had performed a wedding a few months earlier, and his name was Robert. In my haste to prepare for my little wedding notebook, everything that I'll read from, the vows and all of that, I cut and pasted the vows and forgot to change his name from Robert to Richard.

It makes my hands sweat just to think of that moment. The moment came for the wedding vows, and I looked at her, and I said, Now, repeat after me, I, Suzanne, take you, Robert, to be my lawfully wedded husband. The color drained from her face, and the guy just sort of shuffled around, and I knew something. I mean, everybody kind of gasped, but I knew something was wrong. I looked down at my notes, and now I'm completely flustered.

I'm scanning. Was it Robert? Was it Richard? Was it Richard Roberts? Was it Robert Richards?

Do you want him or not? You ever seen that airplane commercial, Want to Get Away? Oh, yeah. I finally figured out what had happened, and I got the bride married to the right man. Let me tell you the name matter.

She wasn't about to say, Stephen, I understand. Don't worry. I'll call him Robert. Not on your life. Not on your life. Let me tell you something.

The name of your bridegroom matters. There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Call upon the name of the Lord, and you shall be saved. The Philippian jailer said, what must I do to be saved? And Paul said, call upon the name of the Lord.

Call his name. Place your faith in all that that name represents, and you shall be saved. Paul wrote to Titus in chapter 2, verse 13, we are looking for that blessed hope, heaven. Associated with that is, he goes on quickly and says, and the appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

You get that name wrong. You're not in the bridal procession. You're going to live in the funeral procession forever. You will be a jilted bride because no one will keep his word like Jesus Christ will keep his word. He said, I'm going to go away and prepare a place for you, and I'm coming back, and I'm going to get you. Can you depend on his word? Absolutely.

Count on it. John is saying, here comes the bride, and with her the bridegroom. He focuses for a moment on the beauty of the bride. She's adorned. Her cosmetics are there in place.

She's decorated. In verse 3, John focuses on the father of the bride. Of course, the triune God can easily be seen. This is heaven's primary relationship. Look at verse 3, and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and he will dwell among them, and they shall be his people. And God himself will be among them. The glory of heaven is the glory of God.

We the bride are nothing without him. And even though we're going to be mesmerized by the description of heaven, it's empty without him. In fact, the stunning aspect in John's revelation is that which he emphasizes.

The fact that God permanently now forever will dwell with man, redeemed man, his beloved. The Bible, by the way, gives us an interesting record of the dwelling places of God. First, God dwelt with him. That is, he participated in fellowship. We're not sure what the theophany took in the form of God's presence, but he walked with Adam and even the cool of the garden, cool of the evening. Then he dwelt with Israel later in the tabernacle, later in the temple, his glory filling the holy of holies. Later, Jesus Christ came to earth and tabernacled among us. That same word is used here in Revelation 21.

He came and literally pitched his tent among us. Today, God does not live in man-made temples. We are his temple.

Your body and mine uniquely as well is the assembly of the church that follows Christ. Ephesians 2, 22, he dwells there. He dwells literally, yet it is invisibly. We worship him whom we cannot see. But that's going to change. In fact, that's what John emphasizes.

You want to maybe underline or circle his emphasis. He says that the latter part of verse 3, and God himself will be among them. Can you believe that? God himself. We can't understand what that's going to look like. But we're told we're going to experience the glorious manifestation of God upon his throne.

The father is seated. The lamb was shown as well who occupies the throne, who shares it with him. The spirit brooding there in his presence. The greatest miracle, by the way, this new creation. The greatest miracle of our new bodies.

The greatest wonder of the new earth. The greatest marvel of this celestial city is that we will individually have physical access to God himself. Jesus prayed in that high priestly prayer in John 17, Father, I desire that they also may be with me, that they may see my glory unhindered, undiminished. Heaven's greatest treasure will be our view of him, our bridegroom. Jesus said, I'm going to come back and I'm going to take you to be with me so that you can be with me where I am.

Going to heaven without Jesus Christ would be like a bride going on her honeymoon without her groom. It would be like a new bride moving into a new home built by her husband, but on moving day she discovers the fact that he's decided to live in a different home, in fact, in a different country. That's not a house.

That's just real estate. The joy is gone from the bride's heart. This golden city, spectacular as it is in the universe, which I believe we will enjoy and explore is nothing but real estate without our bridegroom. But there we will see him as our feeble, faltering faith, which we struggle so with is turned into perfected sight and we will see him, 1 John 3, 2, just as he is.

We can't imagine it. So John reveals a permanent relocation of heaven and with great emphasis and joy he speaks of the primary relationship in heaven with our Lord and now he reveals a profound reversal in heaven. His focus moves from the beauty of the bride past the father of the bride to now the future of the bride and some of the experiences we will have. Notice verse 4. We're told he will wipe away every tear from their eyes and there will no longer be any death, there will no longer be any mourning or crying or pain. Now John describes the joy of heaven by telling us not only what will be there, but what will not be there. In fact, things in heaven are so difficult to describe.

Some of the first details given to us by John are things that aren't there. You might do the same thing. You might tell me I'm going to move to Arizona. Oh, what's it like? Well, there's no pollen, you might think. You're going to tell me what is not there that's here and I'm sure that would be a wonderful thing.

So John does the same. He begins by telling us what's not there. One author commenting on this passage said, Heaven will be the place of no more. No more what? Death, sadness, crying or pain. It's as if God shouts in triumph and the believer with him, that's it, no more. Not in here. None of that. That's over.

No more. You notice the first statement that serves, I believe, as a categorical reference to the context of all that will follow. He will wipe every tear from their eyes.

And I think because of that we need to make a little correction here about heaven. If we take this out of context, we assume we'll never shed tears again. Not even tears of joy.

See, we're all wired a little differently, aren't we? Even though we're going to be wired perfectly, emotions will exist and how do you respond to the unbelievable grace of God even now and certainly then without at some point welling up in tears? What's he talking about? I believe he's talking about the context of what will follow. There will be no teary eyes. There will be no tears shed related to these events of life.

That's all done away with. In other words, we will never shed a tear again because of death, sadness, or pain. But that doesn't mean we won't weep for joy. That doesn't mean we won't see some beautiful handiwork of his creation and our eyes fill up with tears of gratitude that we are able to enjoy this. Frankly, I'm looking forward to having my emotions perfected so that I can weep more, shed tears of joy, respond emotionally in this manner. What John is saying is that God is going to wipe out disappointment. He's going to wipe out sadness. Not one tear will fall, the Greek emphasizes that, simply because the contexts of sadness and pain and death and mourning are forever gone. In other words, there will never be tears of misfortune, never tears over lost loves, never tears of remorse, no tears of regret ever. No tears related to these. What are these for? No mores.

Maybe you can underline each one. The first is no more death. No more death. When Adam and Eve fell in the garden, the first intrusion into this fallen world was death. They immediately began to die.

And they eventually did. At the outset of fallen humanity and to this very day, the promise of God has been kept. You sin and you shall surely what? Die. But in heaven, no more death. No more involvement with the things of death. No more sorrow over the dying departed. And there are vast implications from the animal kingdom recreated by Christ to the very cellular structure of your bodies. Not even one cell will die in our reconstructed bodies. There is nothing of death in his new creation, which means then your body will never need replenishing, which means then you will never be fatigued.

You'll never be tired. There are no tired people in heaven. It is indeed a place of eternal rest. Now that doesn't mean eternal inactivity. It isn't the rest of a rest home. This isn't the rest of people outside Cracker Barrel sitting in those rocking chairs.

They fill them all up so you can't sit down and play checkers, the nerve of them. It's not that. Heaven is perpetual, ongoing, never-ending, never-dying, even at the molecular level of life so that your body and mind will be as active as God commands and allows, but never experiencing fatigue or wear and tear. Never. No more weakness. No more disease. No more decay. Not even a cavity. No coffin. No funeral or grave. Those things are all forgotten. All forgotten. The word goodbye will never be uttered. No more.

John goes further. He writes, there will no longer be any mourning. You can translate that word sorrow. Certainly it's related to life as we know it now. Our lives can be inundated. We can be immersed in sorrow. In the late 1800s, a wonderful commentator, pastor, educator, J.C. Riley wrote this, our worldly goods can be taken from us and that causes sorrow. We are encompassed with difficulties and troubles and we have sorrow. Our friends forsake us and look coldly on us and we have sorrow. Those whom we love and lose brings us sorrow. Our own hearts are frail and full of corruption and that brings us sorrow. We are persecuted for the gospel's sake and that brings sorrow. We see those who are near and dear to us refusing to walk with God and that brings sorrow. We live in a sorrowing, grieving world.

But in heaven, no more sorrow. God will say, enough. Enough. Not in here. There's another no more in this text. John writes, there will no longer be any crying.

Now isn't that kind of redundant? No, in fact it's an entirely different Greek word. The word is kragae, which refers literally to shouting, screaming, literally someone lamenting in grief or anxiety because of something that has happened, either real or even imagined. I tracked this word through the secular Greek in resources that I have in the Greek New Testament and it's interesting as I'll give you a very, very quick overview.

This word is used in a number of contexts. It is the crying of anguish. It is the scream of anger. This is the lamenting cry of the guilty for what they've done. This is the weeping and wailing of the condemned on their way to their execution.

This is the cry of the mob, by the way, in Acts 7 as they rush to kill Stephen. It's a shriek. This is the cry of a woman in labor. This is the sobbing of the depressed. This is the anguished wail of captured inhabitants of a defeated city as they are led away in slavery. This is that loud lamenting kragae. No more there will no longer be any cause for that kind of crying.

No more. John writes further, there will no longer be any pain. This is a word that can encompass both physical and emotional mental pain. No more pain begins certainly with all of them. As Adam and Eve are cursed and earth with them, she is promised multiplied pain in childbirth, Genesis 3.16. Adam is promised painful thorns and a stubborn earth he has to plow to make a living, Genesis 3.18.

This fallen couple soon experiences the shock and pain of the death of one of their sons by the hand of another son. Ever since Genesis 2 and 3, pain has boarded our train and accompanies us on our journey through life and it is in every compartment. You can't outrun it. You can't outdrive it. You can't erase it. You can't hide from it. You can't take a vaccine against it. You can't build walls around you and keep yourself away from it. Pain is so much a part of life that Job says it well.

He cries out, man is born for pain as sparks fly upward. God will say, no more. Not in here.

There's no context for that. That means there are no asylums. There are no more emergency rooms. There are no more bouts of arthritis. There's no more fever or cancer. There are no more broken hearts. There are no more dreams painfully shattered, no more missed opportunities, no more damaged friendships, no more fearful anxieties, no more painful consequences, no more prison sentences, no more painful memories. No more.

No more. By the way, no more pain. That's the last time you see the word pain in the Bible. And it occurred to me you've got to get to the end because pain accompanies us from the fall of mankind all the way to the end.

But you get to this description and you find it. Now it will disappear completely. No more. John writes at the end of verse 4, note that these first things have passed away. In other words, he's saying this is the old order. This is the old creation. This is the old world system. This is the old earth.

All of that stuff is gone forever. And I want you to notice the significance of this. The Apostle John is actually describing the reversal of the effects of sin and of the curse. Heaven is the great reversal. All that came because of sin is now taken away, reverted back, reversed death to life, sorrow to song, this crying into the consolation of Christ, pain into everlasting pleasure. You know what this means to the believer? You know what it means to you and to me? This means no matter what you might have gone through in your past, it means no matter what you might be going through today, it is not the last word. This is the last word.

God will have the final say. And what you discover in these two chapters, what he says will finally occur is utterly glorious, absolutely incomprehensible. And even as we begin, it's wonderful.

And we've really just begun the description of his presence with us and this glorious place. That was Stephen Davey and a message he called, No More, here on Wisdom for the Heart. If you haven't seen it, I encourage you to install the Wisdom International app on your phone or tablet. You can follow along on both the Wisdom journey and this program, Wisdom for the Heart. You can access the library for Stephen's 36 years of Bible teaching. All of his sermons are available on that app, and you can listen to each one or read Stephen's manuscript. You can read the daily devotional, read Stephen's blog, follow our year-long Bible reading plan and much more.

There are a couple of features on the app that I think you'll really appreciate. In the menu along the bottom is a tab that says Bible that gives you access to the complete text of the Bible. But if you don't want to read it, if you're driving or can't focus on reading, you can just hit the play button and listen to the Bible being read to you.

That makes it very convenient. And here's another feature. When you're looking at the Bible, if Stephen has a lesson from that section, you'll have a link right to that lesson in the app. So let's say you're looking at Genesis 1-1 and you're interested in knowing more about it. Well, right at the top of your screen, there's going to be a link to Stephen's lesson from Genesis 1-1. I encourage you to look around that section of the app because it's really going to help you grow in your knowledge and understanding of God's Word. Please join us next time for more Wisdom for the Hearts. .