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Coming Soon, Jesus! - Everything New!
you can hear a MP3 recording of sermon here
Revelation 21 - 22
Sunday, 8th December, 2013

 Nelson Mandela looms large across our media these days. And so he should. He with the help of many around him like F. W. De Klerk,, especially Desmond Tutu, replaced a repressive regime with forgiveness and reconciliation. He not only sought freedom for himself but for his people and their oppressors. He sought to heal a nation. Which resonates with Revelation, listen to these words in Revelation 22:2: On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.  The end of war is only the beginning of peace.  For peace to last there has to be reconciliation and forgiveness. There is only one place you can find that, at the foot of the cross. What I want you to hear most of all this morning is that the church , the body of Jesus Christ, those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life, because they have turned from the mess they have made and received the forgiveness that God gives freely in Jesus. I want you to know that the church is at the centre of God’s plan and purpose for eternity. You and I are not complex animals crawling from life to death, we are blood-bought sinners, saved by grace for an eternity with God. He loves you and he wants to spend eternity with you!  I am going to read Revelation 21 now and Revelation 22 to end this morning because even though there is not time to do more than pick out a few jems, I want you to sense the amazing picture of our future, and join with the cry Amen, come, Lord Jesus!

 

READ Revelation 21

 

“I saw”– let’s be clear, this is a vision. Heaven is a wonderful place, that is what this passage is about. BUT it is a vision not the reality. John is using language to interpret what he saw. And he may well be looking at things beyond his experience and not have the vocabulary to describe it. Like how would he describe an aeroplane?  So lets be looking at what he saw for it wonder and its joy and its hope rather than a scientific engineers view.

 

What did he see?

 NEW the word ‘new’ appears several times a new heaven a new earth, a new Jerusalem, the old has gone and then God says I make everything new! Get it! God is going to make everything new!  This is important to understand. God does not patch up and keep this universe going. His intention is to create a new universe, without the evil that entered our world, peopled with blood-brought saints, saved by grace and transformed by the Holy Spirit into beautiful people. The JWs used to say that heaven was full with the 144 000 and we could book a place on earth! But Jesus came to bring heaven and earth together and there can be no remains of war and terror and markers to suffering and pain. That will be destroyed and you , the new creation will dwell in a new heaven and new earth.

 

 Beautiful Bride God says the church is beautiful! He will take the mixed – up bag of people he has chosen and make his most treasured possession! 

 

Heaven and earth

The old tired world with all the damage of the years, used up oxygen, excessive CO2, monstrous structures, pollution and the like, gone and replaced with a new one. See HS2 is only for this world, not for eternity! Even heaven is due for replacement! Maybe he means a new universe, rather than the place where God is!

 Holy City

This is not about the re-establishment of the Jewish state or the sacrificial system, it about God being worshipped as he ought to be worshipped. And the vision quite clearly says that the place where God is worshipped is the church. So the new Jerusalem is described as

 The bride

The key concept here is about marriage. Marriage is about physical, emotional, mental and spiritual union. The key words in the Bible on the subject are “the two shall become one.”  And here we see a telescoping common to Revelation. The New Jerusalem become the bride and the bride is the dwelling place of God, which hints of Eden.

 God with us

 “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

 

Emmanuel means more than just God with us. All through history God has been saying he wants to dwell with Man. That was what Eden was about. That was what the tabernacle and the temple were about. Humans ruined every expression of God being among his people by idolatry and evil behaviour. But the New Heaven and the New earth no longer has the DNA of sin in its people.  I do not understand what it means when it says

‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, we did discuss it in the car the other day in terms of dying – did we remember the pain of cancer, or the horror of a heart attack or whatever we die of. It is difficult to understand what we would know without our story which must include the trouble, sadness and strife of life. But there is a clue in for the old order of things has passed away.”  The new order does not include tears or death or mourning or crying or pain. Jesus is going to transform us so that we can look dispassionately at the past wrongs and pains, Our joy in his presence will change our view of the struggles of life so much we will not be weighed down by any of the suffering, however hard that has been. We will rise above it in newness of life. Believe it, because not only is it true but gives us hope about those memories that hurt and strain us now. They will be wiped away. There is better to come! Look forward to death! Look forward to Jesus coming! It is going to be great!

 

Verses 15-21 are about as clear as the detail in Ezekiel. Why all these dimensions?

This guy is proudly standing at the top of the tallest building in the world, his daddy had  built.

 

He is 828m (2,717ft) metres above the ground level, that is over one mile high!

 

But the new Jerusalem is 1400 miles  high! Eat your heart out,  Crown prince Sheikh Hamdan of Dubai, only 13 998 miles to go!

If you have no head for heights, this hardly seems much like heaven! I think the point it that it is meant to be beyond our wildest speculation! The earth has a radius of around 4000miles so here is the Holy City next to earth!

 

It is cube which resonates with the  Holy of Holies. It was a place for God to meet his people. A sin-free environment. Keep in mind this is a description of the church not heaven. The church is the New Jerusalem of King Jesus, the eternal Son of David. The gold paving and the gates of pearls and the jewels are there to tell us how amazingly valuable God sees the church. It may not quite ring as your ideas of fabulously wealthy but that is what it is meant to convey. And without Shanti-towns around it!

[I digress. Have you noticed that modern prestige buildings are glass clad? Is that just catching up with the church or a sign of them being towers of Babel? Imitations of the real thing?

Back to the real thing. ]

The centre of Jerusalem was the temple. The centre of the church is Jesus. It is to him we go to pray, to worship, to offer our love, joy and peace that he has given us as offerings of thankful hearts.

This morning’s worship may not seem much like that but it is a taster of heaven. So if you are going to enjoy eternity, get in the groove every time we meet to worship. It is Jesus that makes it good, not the music or the readings or the leaders humour or anything else, concentrate of Jesus, he is the way, the truth and the life.

 

 Read Revelation 22 and enjoy!

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