Ep.41 City of God – Part 2

Okay, this summer, sometime probably in August, we are going to have a cookout and invite all of the folks in this class and all in fillets this Saturday morning in my Saturday morning class to come together at our house for a cookout.

We want to find a weather that you want, we usually do this.

This class, our Saturday class.

Yeah, no, I'm going to ask you, if you want to eat food?

Yeah, I want this class, yes.

All this, all yes, many of them are in the Saturday classes.

Anyway, we will meet on our ports, so I'll have to get cool enough for that.

We had a wonderful Easter time, I spoke.

We had a home church, we had Keith and Erika and a lot of their family there, and we really had that was a great time.

And we will do that this fall, which will start not in September, we are traveling in late August in September.

But we will start in August, and we're going to start doing the critical part of Genesis.

And we will do this because it is such a hot issue right now, I want you to know what God has to say.

And so we will do that, probably do that up, and as we get toward Christmas, we'll pick up on something Brent asked,

we're going to do the life of Christ, and we'll start with his birth, and we will also get bringing all of the prophecies, which are a lot of prophecies on that.

And you've seen a lot of them in this passage, in the Revelation in this book.

Yes.

Is there anything you want us to do over the summer and preparation for you stuff?

For what I'd like you to do for starting is read Genesis chapter 1 through, if you really want to go ahead, read,

I just read through chapter 12, 1 through 12 will be good, and we'll get to the Abrahamic covenant.

I'll probably deal with that very quickly, but we really need to know Genesis.

I had a long discussion, we were had to be in Dallas this past week for a seminary thing.

And we were sitting at a table at the luncheon with one of our Prophets, neat guy friends for many years.

He's head of our research department at Dallas, and we got to talking about what's happening

with the LGBT and so forth, and we went back and forth on that a bit, and he said something that I was going to tell him,

I said, "You've really got to start with Genesis to deal with this.

You've got to know what we're talking about."

You said it too.

Yeah, you said it to him, and I was getting ready to say it, I was waiting till he finished, but Philist, nice team right there.

Well, actually, he said it to you first, anyway, so anyway, we are going to do that because I want you to be prepared for everyone and ask you as a first Peter says about the hope that is in you.

You're ready to give an apology and Greek, that is why you believe what you believe.

We do it graciously, but tenaciously.

I want to say right now, there are a lot of people who are followers of Christ that are attending to cave in, and we just ran into one this.

We've known about a long time, he's in New York City.

Anyway, I won't go into that, but we want the whole God's word.

I don't get into politics.

I never have.

I've been pushed when I was in Dallas.

I was pushed to, well, when I was an Iowa, my first church after seminary was pushed to be on the left side.

We had a number of people there, and then in Dallas, strong pushed toward being in the far right politically.

We had a lot of people who were very large church, but my feeling is I hold the word of God.

And when I vote for people who is best I can see hold that word.

And we, that I'm very strong on.

So we will talk about those things at another time, not tonight, but I wanted you to know that we will be going into Genesis next fall.

God willing, for all of us to hear the Lord hadn't taken us all out, and we hadn't taken us out.

So we will do that.

Tonight we are going into the Revelation chapter 21.

We started it and we actually only got through two verses.

And I will read them, and then we will talk about it a bit.

This really deals with before we read it, the final home that we will have.

I ran driving through a small town in all places, town north of Dallas, and somebody had in there yard a little sign that said, "Make sure your last neighbors are angels."

And that is very good sign because if you are in Christ, if you have trusted him and I know you have, your last neighbors will be many things, but they will also be angels.

And that is what we find in this chapter.

It's like, as it were, we are all excited when we buy a new house.

We want to look at it.

My youngest son is into that right now. He is selling his house in St. Antonio, it is beautiful, a big home in San Antonio, but they want to move out to center point or somewhere they are going to build another place.

But they are very excited looking at all the possibilities.

Well, we have the most exciting thing to look at.

It is the place that we are going to spend forever and you will never get bored. I promise you.

And you won't get worn out, James, we will have a new body.

Every time I have to go out and do something in the yard, I love starting and then about two hours.

I am not as young as I once was.

And so anyway, we will be looking at this marvelous, it is like a realtor taking us through what it is going to be.

And only it is an angel taking John and we go along with him.

I said last time when we started in this passage that the night before his death, our Lord gave us a promise on this.

He gave it to us as his bride, the church.

And the church, I want to say, comes out in this.

And in that place that we are going to finally live in a very marvelous position.

And so God has graceed us beyond what we can imagine.

What our Lord said that night was that I, that not your hearts be troubled.

You believe in God, believe also in me, John 14.

In my father's house, our many mansions actually, it is a word living places.

If we are not so, I would have told you.

And I go to prepare a place for you.

And if I go and prepare a place, I will come again and receive you to myself.

Where I am there, you may be also.

It is my opinion at this point that this place is already built.

And I believe there are people already living in it who are God's people.

And I believe some of them are, I think it's the resurrected people.

I don't know about those who have not received a resurrection body yet.

I really don't, God doesn't give us information.

But I feel confident that those who are resurrected and found in Matthew 26, 51 and 52,

that came out of the graves with our Lord Jesus are living there.

And we have others.

Enok is living there. He is not Jewish, of course.

We have Elihu. He is surely there and Moses is there.

Elihu was raptured, Moses was resurrected.

And I am convinced of that.

And so this place is already there.

But now it is in the heaven of heavens and God's heavens.

It will come to the new heaven and the new earth.

And that starts us with 21 one.

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

For the first heaven and the first earth passed away.

Went away.

And there is no longer any seat.

Felicena and I lamented that today.

We love to fish.

We keep a boat, a path of pride.

And we have fished all my life.

I grew up in South Florida.

We have outside fishing boats and inside fishing boats.

And now ours we are basically fished a little dune of my dread.

And I was a little disappointing.

But I don't think we will be disappointed.

I want to say you are never going to be bored in the place that you are going to spend forever.

We go on with this.

And it says, "And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.

Made ready as a bride, a dorn for her husband."

Now we have to understand this to realize first that the holy city, the city of God, which

I'm just saying, "Call it.

He got a little confused about what it was to do.

He did call it that, is already existing when this happens.

I believe it exists now.

I don't think the Lord went back and put up with contractors like we try to put up with.

When we are building something, it's like, are you ever going to finish this place?

But he did it.

And he did it by a worry, but it is a marvelous place.

At any rate, we see it coming down in 21.

And I want to say when this has happened, we're in the new heaven and new earth.

That's where we are.

Now that means that the way we measure time is no longer.

The way we think of morning and night is definitely no longer.

But it will not be a problem.

It will be more exciting than you will never get over it.

And we'll see that as we go on in excitement and blessing.

Now when it says the first earth passed away and heaven, we know that is true because it was infected with sand and god finally just did it.

The next thing we see is that the city when it comes down is made ready as a bride.

It's a picture.

It's a metaphor.

And there are several metaphors in this passage.

A metaphor is something that stands for something else.

A reality, a picture that stands for reality.

Now in this particular case, we know that this bride is in one sense picking up what we are.

But this is not us.

It's the New Jerusalem.

It's like a bride ready for her husband.

I have done thousands of weddings.

I promise you.

I need to set out some been figure out how many and 53 years I've done in the past but lots.

When we were at Northwest, we'd have about 10 weddings starting with May every weekend through the summer.

And all of our staff, we had 25 on staff and about 12 of those did weddings.

They were pastors and they did weddings.

And we all were busy every weekend.

And so I can tell you that when a wedding is done done rightly, the bride is the center.

She is the most beautiful and it is a wonderful thing.

I love doing weddings.

I love weddings.

I had a friend who hated weddings, love funerals.

He's with the Lord and how well I don't hate funerals but I'd rather do weddings.

They're more fun.

Well this bride is the New Jerusalem.

It's just done very well.

Now it is true in the New Jerusalem.

There is the bride and wife of Christ.

We will see that.

Now that will be a little confusing because the wife of God, the father as it were, are of God, period.

And when you speak of just God, sometimes you're looking at the entire Trinity.

And sometimes it's very hard to tell where there is God, the father's thinking or is it God the son.

We usually know what the whole God the Holy Spirit is involved.

But this God in the Old Testament had a wife and Israel is called a wife of God.

And they still will be in the New Jerusalem.

But also the bride of Christ is his wife as we shall see as we go on.

And the reason he is, we are called a wife.

In this passage is we've already been to the marriage ceremony.

And we've gone through the wedding dinner, the bridal dinner, the wedding dinner that last a thousand years.

Now that's a long, but you won't be bored.

I promise you.

And so that we have to know.

And the reason we are called his wife as we shall see and his bride is that we are now married to the Lord Jesus.

Now that does not have any physical connotations in the sense that we as Cohavitate and marriage and love one another physically.

Because the presence of this is that we are one with each other and we're never separated.

Now I'm at the point in life.

I've loved my marriage with my wife every day of it.

And all of these years, and it will be 66 in June.

And I'm delighted with it.

But I can tell you the greatest blessing in those 66 years.

We love the physical part. We love having children. We love all of those things.

But the greatest blessing is just being with her.

I want to tell you that's true.

And we would rather do that. We discuss that today.

That anything else I'd rather.

I love all of you. But I'd rather spend time with her.

And I can understand when God takes one, how hard it is.

When we were in Clearwater, we had a very young church, pasted Clearwater community.

But we had about probably a dozen to 20 older couples anywhere from 60 up to 80.

And some beyond.

And when they would lose a mate, it was just crushing.

And many times the other partner would not last over a year.

They just were ready to go.

Well, we will not have to go from this partner.

The Lord Jesus Christ is going to be personally very close to us.

And I want to say to you, it will be better than any as much as I love our wedding on earth and our marriage.

It will be better than anything we've ever experienced.

Now, he goes on to say, after this.

Now, as we see this, we find that we are coming to the city of God coming down.

And I think we mentioned last time several things have happened before we were going to see it.

And what happened before we lived it.

Now, we as I understand it, who are the church went to live in the city of God after the rapture and the resurrection of the church.

Now, what happened right after it?

Well, we know the first thing that happened is we stood before the judgment seat of Christ.

Second, Corinthians 5, 10.

We shall all stand before the judgment seat.

Now, when you say that, don't be frightened that judgment seat in Greek is not the right place.

That judgment seat in Greek is Bima.

And we have seen the Bima in Corinth.

We've been right there in number probably 20 or 30 times, but it's right there still from the New Testament era.

The Bima is a reward seat.

It is not where the judge or the general, it was mainly for a Roman general where he would honor his troops.

It is where somebody like the head of the city or the procouncil would award people for various things.

Now, we will be awarded or not awarded whether our goods, our deeds, our good or evil are, I think, worthless.

That's more I think a proper use of that word there.

But that will have them.

The second thing that will happen, the wedding itself will have them.

Now, you have to know a Jewish wedding.

I've done a done Jewish weddings, but I've been in a number of them, the Messianic Jewish weddings.

And I grew up in a Jewish community in Miami.

And we were, I was one of the few go-eyes on our football team at one time.

One time I was the only guy in the starting lineup that was not Orthodox Jew, or Orthodox West.

Not at least truly a son of Abraham and a flesh.

And I had been to weddings. We love Jewish weddings because you can stay three days if you use my parents would never let me do it.

But it was a great thing.

But the Jewish wedding in the Orthodox home is very similar to the one in the New Testament.

What happens in a Jewish wedding is the bridegroom, leaves his father's house, and goes to the house of the bride.

He takes away his friends, his closest friends. That is why John the Baptist.

In John chapter three said, "I am the friend of the bridegroom in the bridegroom.

The bridegroom rejoices because the wedding is come."

And that is what happened. The Lord Jesus will have come to the place of the bride.

And that's us. It's not our house, but it's called us up into heaven.

It makes us in our cloud and I don't have to satisfy it.

And I believe he brings his friends. I believe you will see John the Baptist there and others.

Then he takes us in the Jewish wedding. You go back to the father's house.

And that is where you have the celebration, the fulfilling of the marriage for the physical part when you are in this realm.

And there it is where you as it were going to live. Now you say, "Well, I don't want to live in the father's house."

Well, one of the things we know about the Middle East, having spent so much time there, is both in the Arab world and Jewish,

or many times, if you are wealthy, family. We have real close friends who are Arabs, but Dune Kadar is an antiquity dealer.

And we've been friends now for 50 plus years. He's not trusted Christ, but he's coming very close. He calls me a lot. Now he calls us.

But Kadar is has a beautiful home. He's very wealthy. All of his three sides live in that home. It's four stories.

So they can handle that. That is true of a lot of the Jewish homes, the wealth they use. Everybody is there. And they're not unhappy.

That is what it's going to be. The Lord Jesus is going to take us to the Father's house. And that house is the new Yerushalayim.

And it is in the heavens. It is built. And it is a magnificent place. Now during the millennium, we will be involved. We found out we're going to judge angels.

We're going to judge people. Others will be involved. But those who live in the Father's house will be on the earth doing that.

And we'll have access to the heavens. And so we need to know that that's what's going on. Now the next thing we see is what makes being in the Father's house so wonderful.

This is verse 3 and 4. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold the tabernacle of God is among men and he will dwell with them and they shall be his people and God Himself will be among them."

Now when we use the word, man, and this passage I'm pretty sure it's half of the past. Let me look real quickly at 3.

"F" or "Pone." It looks at both male and female at this point. It's mankind.

And he will be with them and his in the Father's house. In other words, we are going in the New Jerusalem to live with God personally and up close.

There will be no separation. Now we don't really feel that probably that much, but you've teleconverted Jews as particularly one that's been a heresitum or Orthodox.

Now they become a believer in this blows all their circuits because they've had all these separations from God. Remember the big separation was when you went into the temple.

But the Nios, which was the holy place and the holy of Holies, and you only a few people got to go into the holy place. They preached, who would come in there and take care of the altar, which John the Baptist Father did.

We see him look one, but going to the holy of Holies only the high priest. That was separated from the holy place by a curtain that was six inches thick.

And when Christ came and lived and died, when he died, the day he died, the moment he died, that curtain was ripped from top to bottom.

And the Jews agree that half of them, they just don't know why. And so we see that when they meet Christ they're overwhelmed by this.

We ought to be that we are going to be in the very presence of God. My oldest son who's doing a lot of preaching right now and doing a very good job at it. He's a surgeon, but God is really using him.

He met the Lord early in life, but he, as he said, was as a Christian, a burning dubster. Now he has really come back. And having come back, he is overwhelmed that he is living in the presence of God.

And I think that's one of the great blessings of humbling him and making him open to God using him. Okay, so we back to three God is going to dwell with them.

And of course this was predicted in the Old Testament in Isaiah 714, his son would be called what?

and hold a virgin shall conceive and she'll show a brain force of the sun and you shall call him.

Amen.

Emmanuel, which is God with us, and this is the ultimate fulfillment of that.

Now, the four is one that we have to work with a little bit.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and there will be no longer any death.

There will be no longer any mourning or crying or pain for the first things that passed away.

Now, we have to ask for a moment.

Why is it that way? Why? We're not going to be that way. We're new people.

Man, we got it together. We're living in the new Jerusalem.

Who are these people that he's going to wipe tears away from? What do you think?

People who died during the period of the election?

Well, no, they're already resurrected. All the tribulation saints are resurrected.

But you're close. The Jews at see them and have...

Well, that was before the millennium. What happened at the end of the millennium?

This is my opinion on it, by the way. You may be right now, maybe you're wrong.

What happened at the end of the millennium? Yeah. And you have these people and the millions of people are going to die,

because they have turned against God.

Now, they're going to be a lot of people. These are their family, their friends.

And for a short time, they will persecute these people. It's a very short time.

It says Satan will be released for a "how long," which is a very short time.

But it will create great anguish to see people that you loved killed and the evil that comes to you.

And I think these are the people who are in the millennium that the end of it, that he wipes away the tears,

because they've seen children die, that they've seen friends die who turned against God.

It is going to be a tough time. And we don't have a lot on that. But I believe that is what's going on here.

Now, before we go on, he says at this point that morning and crying are paying or going away.

At this point, there will be no more for those in the new heavens and the new earth on the new earth.

We really need to know that. Every time you get up and have an ache, and I have lots of them.

My sweetie had some too. And the older you get, it's patch and so. We've talked about Katie. She couldn't come tonight, because she's been in a pattern looking out for her.

And she's just, "Fraid she's going to fall." It's tough. But that's all going away. And we have to know this new body. We have, of course, we've known that for a long,

when we resurrected and wrapped you all, to say, "Guess what?" Yeah, she had. Yeah, oh. Okay. Now, the next thing that it points out is that what is going to happen from here.

First, we took away all the old. And we saw last time that the old heaven and earth fled before him. Now, we find out that there's no more pain. Then we read in verse 5, "Well, why don't you read for me verse 5?"

And he who sits on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things in." And he said, "Right. For these words are made up and true." Okay. Now, at this point, we are experiencing something that is going to go on forever. He said, "It is done. I am alpha and the mega, the beginning and the end." That sounds like, "Well, it's all over."

We're just going to sit around now. I have things done. We'll sit around and look at each other and try to play. Mama Pager, Bridge or whatever it is. But that's not true. The word in is telos. It means it has been completed. Now, what has been completed?

The judge of what's been completed, right? What else has been completed? The end of the sin. The end of sin. The salvation that we have has been set and completed. Not only the judgment of everybody but the salvation of all of those are in Christ.

It is all in place. We don't have to worry about sin anymore. We don't have to worry about evil. People will don't have to do with it. That is all done. Now, what comes after this? Something that if we tried to explain it today, we could not come to grips with it.

We need to understand. We're going to see a lot of things here in picture and some of them may not be pictures. We don't know, but they are so fantastic that they'll be the best things we ever saw.

For instance, here he says, "It is done. I am alpha and omega, the beating and the end." In other words, I took care of dealing with sin, but also I took care of bringing great salvation. The one my father originally planned.

I'll give to everyone who thirst from the springs of the water of life without cost. He will give to everyone and that will be something we'll do continually. We'll all be thirsty and we get to drink.

In our new life, our eternal life will have bodies. We will just be spirits. We'll grow in beauty and in strength. I think this picture of the spring, I think it's real, but we'll see it in 2022. But it also is telling us that we will just grow in our faith and our new believer constantly.

Now he goes on to say this. He who ever comes will inherit these things and I will be his God and he will be my son. I believe at this point the father is speaking.

This is one of the problems he is speaking. What would make you think in seven the father is speaking? He will be my son. He will be my son or daughter. Again, you have the male, but it's most son or daughter.

He did know that and it says it's what we call a characteristic part of simple. The overcoming one. If you are in Christ Jesus and you really have a you are a ha, Nikon, the word Nike is to be Victor is or overcoming and you are a victorious one.

Now part of that is because you have trusted him and you said Lord salvation is in you. It's not here. We are in a fight right now with a coming world order that says it's all right here and we're going to run the show and I don't want to be with us. We're a wife of a mouth. That's another whole story.

But we know it has all been taken care of and he who overcomes and heresy say and I will be his God and he will be my son. Now we come to eight and we pick up something that we want to look at just a moment.

It says but for the cowardly and unbelievable and a bomb and a bull and murderers and immoral persons and saucers and idolaters and all eyes their part will be in the lake.

That burns with fire and brimstone which is the second death. We have to remember that where they are because it's going to come up again. Where it comes up again you might think they will write outside the gate of the new Jerusalem they're trying to get in and they're not. They have a place and they have chosen their place.

We really when I was at the University of Texas we're kind of a doctor and I read a lot of the famous poets who were not Christians and what they had to say.

Most of them were saying well we're thankful we're not going to do this. They said things like we'd rather serve and we'd rather rule and hell and serve and have in all those kind of things. Well first you you're not going to rule and hell.

Satan's going to run that show and second when you're hell and hell you won't be happy you're there.

But that was their view and they're going to get to go there and they are not going to be around but that's the emphasis here is that.

Now at this point we have kind of the beginning of looking at the eternal state and the next thing we want to do is we want to look at I miss something verse five.

I want to pick that up first five I knew I'd miss that and somebody read verse five again.

And he who sits on the throne said, "Behold I am making all things new and he said right for these words are faithful and true."

What he's saying the Lord Jesus is saying to John and anybody listen I'm not loud about this.

I am making all things new. He's saying well yeah we got the New Jerusalem we got the new us.

We're going to have the new people out of the tribulation they're going to be made new and the people who come out of the act of the thousand years they're all going to be transformed our resurrected.

That's got to be true it doesn't say it but it is they're all part of the first resurrection and all those nations will be pre-ful who have either been transformed or resurrected in their perfect.

There are new but that's not what he's talking about and he's going to do that it's a present tense in Greek.

Yeah and he says I am making all things to a present tense in Greek one of the beauties of the Greek language is the tenses give you an int the information of how this action is really happening for instance an aeros.

Tenses adopt just look at it's an event he made something new he makes something new.

Doesn't tell you how long when how long it's going to last. If you come to a perfect it's a past a dot it's made but it has continuing effect.

Flu perfect a dot and a line but it stops he had made all things new but this is a present tense is a straight line that never stops.

Do you get that?

Yeah it's right eternity and what is he doing in eternity.

Making all things new if you were to be bored and have a don't worry gang it won't be boring he is going to be making all things new continually.

Now you say well how much new stuff he's got himself he can make things we will never for a long but long ever never be bored because he's making something else new.

Oh yeah we will always be learning more about him that's right it will never get to the end of that that is another thing and that's from us but this one who is eternal God and is beyond anything we can imagine is always making everything new.

Now we go back to ten because we did the nine let's go to nine that's where we're going to start. At this point we mentioned about it be sure your last.

Neighbors are angels. Well this first tells you that's going to be true.

One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven plagues came and spoke with me saying come here and I will show you the bride the wife of the lamb.

The bride the wife of the lamb is the church and I believe it's the church right here but he's not going to show him the church rather he's going to show them the place the church lives and that tells you how important you are to God.

You know we're sitting here in Lano Texas the world is not wondering what's going to happen in Lano Texas I promise you people aren't a New York or Washington or Moscow or Beijing saying boy I wonder if they're doing in Lano.

Well they ought to be because some of you all of us right here are people who are going are part of the bride who is the wife of the lamb.

Just seeing how lamb is used every time why is that used all the time. That's how that guidance to be the wife.

Right it did the other side we see in chapter five the wrath of the lamb and the lamb can be wrathful when you reject his sacrifice but for us he is the lamb of God that takes away the son of the world.

Now he's going to show us the holy city and Jerusalem coming down out of heaven but what we're finding out is the church and this amazing because I look in the mirror and I know what I am and I say really Lord.

He says no it's faithful and true it's true you are going to be the center as it were in that new Jerusalem which is in the and going to come to the new earth that comes out out of God's heaven through the new heaven to it.

And so that's what he says it's coming down out of heaven from God. Now this is a vision he's seeing this spirit takes him to a great and high mountain so he can sort of look on all of this.

I was telling somebody we are hoping to do our last Israel trip and make it really a barrier telling this fall or December somewhere in there we don't know yet but one of the things I was telling somebody about is one of the places I love to be is on Mount Naval.

What happened on Mount Nibbo. What happened on Mount Nibbo? So we're in Jordan.

Moses is there. Moses is there. Moses is all the land from there and he was buried there inside.

I think in that could be. Moses that's where Jeremiah took them.

I don't know that side down yet to the art. And so I've stood up there a number of times and you see everything you can see Jerusalem you can see Jericho. You can see south you can see almost down to better shave

but you can't the Mount Rains keep you from seeing better shave. But this is kind of what John is he's on this high mountain and he's able to see everything that's going on.

And he says he showed me the Holy City Jerusalem coming out of heaven from God. Having the glory of God, having the glory of God, her brilliance and this is her.

You've got to know it on this which is I think a good thing. Her brilliance is her illumination, her shining from within is really what it is.

Her illumination is like very costly stone, a stone of clear crystal, jasper. Now I want to talk about the jasper son of a minute because it's going to come up.

Some say that it's clear but it has a green hue. I think a better and I researching this I think it's clear but it also has a golden hue.

And I think that is what we have happening here. And this is the general hue that comes from the city of the New Jerusalem as it comes down and it's because of the glory of God.

Now it has buildings and we'll see that. And at this point we're going to do a review of the building.

We need to be ready for that. The New Jerusalem we're going to take a tour. Now the first thing we see is there are three very important things to know about this city.

The first are the occupants and they reflect the glory of God. The second is the architecture which reflects the glory of God and the third is the illumination, the light and they all reflect the glory of God.

Now I'm going to leave a lot of this for your personal study because I would like to be able to get to 22 next time but we could spend the rest of the year just on this.

Now we start with verse 12 and it starts with the wall and the gates and we will get to that and we will start our tour but before we go on I want us to first talk about the occupants.

First we know that if you read this it had a great and high wall with 12 gates and the gates and at the gates are 12 angels and the names which are written on them which are the names of the 12 tribes of the sons of Israel.

This gives us two other clues of who's in this city and we need to really understand this but we're going to give you another passage it will help you understand it even more.

From this we know the city has angels they are at the gates they are a garden of honor John Walbert said I don't know really that's what they are they are there for some reason and that probably is partly true.

The other thing we know is that there are going to be Hebrews and there you have the 12 tribes of the sons of Israel which are the names are written on these gates and so that tells us and we know the Jewish people will be there.

But that's not the end of it we know the churches there of course we've already seen that but I want to point you to a passage in the book of Hebrews I love the book of Hebrews.

I've got a confess I had not really preached that preach some out of Hebrews when we moved to New York City to Pastor Calvary Baptist and when I was there we had a very sharp lady in our choir and she used to come to all of our Wednesday night we had a great Bible study on Wednesday night I'll get to this any minute here games I'm going to get one two far there we go.

Anyway chapter 12 we're going to look at verses 22 through 24 chapter 12.

She came to me one we were studying first John or something while we were saying she said you ought to teach the book of Hebrews.

She said it's a great book so I said no and I did change my life and I've taught it a lot since then he brews is a great book.

But this is one of the real significant passages in the book about the city.

Now in verse 22 we read this but you have come to a mountain to Mount Zion to the city of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem and to myriads of angels.

Well it's not just going to be 12 angels there they're going to be muri that's thousands of angels so they won't only be not distant neighbors or probably be next door and above you and around you and everywhere.

The next thing we see to the general assembly of the church of the first born who are enrolled in heaven and that covers the church and to God the judge of all and to the spirits of righteous.

And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant and to the sprinkled blood which speaks better than the blood of able.

Now we'll come back to this passage because it is really an important passage but there we've already seen that Jerusalem and the church are going to be there and then when you talk about the spirit of righteous men of the righteous made perfect men and women.

That all the Old Testament saints but we're also adding others who else will be in the new Jerusalem.

Think about it.

This spirit. Well no that would be these are real resurrected people. The spiritual people when he says may righteous are resurrected people. Who are they who who are the others we have the Jews that believing Israel is there.

You're King David is there and all of those but and we have the church is there and who else will.

Well they yeah but they may be Jews yet they okay they certainly will be there that would be a good point there be Gentiles out of the tribulation who come there who aren't part of the church.

That's true. Well they're Jews of there because who are there who aren't Jews let's think about free Abraham.

Who before Abraham would be in the city of God?

No. Yeah oh God. Yeah no. I think so.

Adam and Eve exact very good. Well. Inoc walk with God and was not yes sir and a lot we don't know and a lot is there.

He never know about lot. Lot was a piece of work but Peter again for a speeder and a lot was.

He was able.

Amol can able will be there. Enicle that's right. Abol will be there.

Well Kizadak will be there. You have a lot of people that are going to be there.

Ruth will be there. Of course she becomes a Jew but she was a ball bite when she started that's right.

So I just think that's important to understand we've got these people that will be there.

Now we can think of others. I thought of Job. Job is not a Jew.

He was a German. He was a German. He was a general in the Syrian army. That's right.

He wanted to be healed and he heard there's a property comes over to there and this is in second kings and they sent him to a lot.

Finally he goes to the lies. He lies just as telling to go and dunk himself in the river seven times and the river he chose was a muddy river.

He had the par farer which was a beautiful river. He said, "I'm going to do it.

I've got to go into the par farer. It's clean and go this is why would I do that."

One of his servants probably said, "If it's a good girl, you would have done one of his servants.

You would have done it. It'd have been a real hard thing. You both would have done it.

He goes in one time, two times, three times, four times, five times, six times, he looks nothing.

But he does the seven. He comes up and flushes like the flesh of the child.

Very wonderful. So these people will be there.

Now, that brings us to what these people have done and why they are there.

I think of the West Minister, short confession, press material and I know it was a good confession.

That is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. In this life we glorify Him and we do enjoy Him.

But when we're with that in that place we'll enjoy Him forever.

Okay, so that takes us to the people who are there, the occupants.

If you have any questions on that before we leave it.

Okay, the architecture. We begin to deal with that with the gates.

You have to pull up, pull in these all together at one point.

First, the city itself has this Jasper Variant Crystal Clear. I think it's like with a hue of gold.

And the walls, we see the high walls with 12 gates and the gates have the name of the Sun of Israel.

And I want to look at the gates and these gates are on the each of the four walls around the city.

They're three on each of the four walls. That's right. Now if you'd like to know where they're located, probably the temple of the Millennium.

What is the millennial temple? There is going to be, yes, the land Jerusalem.

Where do we read about it in the Bible? Has a keel?

Has a keel? Chapters 40 through 48 is the millennial temple. Now is it going to be the fourth temple?

Are is it the third temple refixed? I do not know the answer to that.

But it will be the temple and Christ will be in their David will be there.

And we will probably be there, but we all...

Everything is new. It won't be a refixed.

No, no, no, that's in the millennia.

Everything is not new in the millennia.

Oh, okay.

See, what we're asking is where do the gates go? Because in that temple in the millennium, we are totally very clearly where each of the walls have three gates of what they are.

And this is the gate of Judah and I think it's a car and so forth.

Okay? Now, the next thing we want to do is look at the foundation stones of the gates and that is in verse 14.

And the wall of the city had 12 foundation stones.

And on them were 12 names of the 12 apostles of the lamb.

Now, we're going to find out something else about these foundation stones.

And that begins in verse 19, but we'll wait a minute.

But what we want to see that these stones have the 12 apostles of the lamb and graved on them and they're in layers.

By the way, I take it.

And I was going to get into what we have seen.

Satan likes to cost you God. He's not created at all.

And if you remember in Babylon, you have a pyramid.

And it was made, it was layered of beautiful painting or stone.

We don't know what it was. It was gold and black and so forth.

Well, these are going to be layers that the temple will sit on.

They're the foundation layers.

Okay. The next thing we're going to see is the height of the wall.

Now, the height of the wall is found in 15th through 17.

And the one who spoke with me had a golden measuring rod to measure the city and it's gates and it's walls.

And the city is laid out as a square and its length is as great as the width.

And he measured the city with the rod 1500 miles.

It's length and its width and its height are equal.

Now, that's a stop here a minute.

This takes us to the first to the height of the, we haven't gotten to the height of the wall.

I got to get to that. I said, I was going to get to that.

Now, 17 is yeah. And he measured the wall.

Thank you. 72 yards according to human measurement, which are also angelic measurements.

Say the same. And these human elements are cubits. And if you measure that out with the, they have 72 yards, you can look at the sign of their 44 cubits.

You find that the wall is 216 feet high. There is no wall in history that high around a city.

216 feet.

Now, there's nothing on top. We don't know.

He doesn't say there's anything. Now, under it is the foundations of the city.

Yeah, under it is the foundations.

So, now the shape of the city is the next thing I want us to see and I've already gone to that.

We said that it's above. It's, it's 1500 miles both and width and length and height.

Now, the question is, is it a cube? The little handout I gave you shows it as a cube.

I don't want to say something about it. Go to that. It's a page three. I think it's.

Yeah, that's it. Page three.

No, I think it's three.

Three is not a cube. I think that's true. Well, we got it. I missed copied.

Anyway, get to the one with the cube on it. Where ever it is, it's only four pages. I didn't find it.

Yeah. Now, if it's a cube, but it's a cube. It's goes up.

Our atmosphere goes 80 feet above earth. And above that you have a molecule here and a molecule there.

There's no atmosphere up there.

But that doesn't matter here because we're new having a new earth. And I want to say something about that.

We're going to read about the stones that make up the foundations, the 12 foundations.

We're going to say that there will read the names of the stones. And there's stones we know of today.

But I promise you those stones are metaphors for the stones that exist there because these are not like anything we know.

This is the new heaven and the new earth. Everything is different. Nothing wears out forever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good thing.

No, well, you don't have to, well, you get new shoes. You just have a lot of them.

But now, the shape of the city, and we'll go to that. And then we'll talk about the foundation stone is it is about 1500 miles.

The question on that is how far a stadium is. And it's they tell you that it's 1500 miles, it's 12,000 stadium.

The state is either 600 feet or 666 feet or 616 feet. We are 12 feet. We don't know exactly which measure but they're using.

We do know most people who talk about this route at all somewhere between 1400 feet and 1500 feet.

It's big. I saw a presentation one time of friend of mine was doing it. Jewish guy. He had of all the people that have ever lived up until this was like 1985.

All the earth as far as we know. And he put them all in this tube and you can hardly say they look like dust on the floor down there.

That's how big this is. You think about it. Something that is that big. Now John Walver, who wrote, I think the best commentary that's out so far on the revelation,

said it also may not be a tube. It could be a pyramid. It's square on the bottom but all you get is the height of 1500 feet. I think that is a possibility. I do not know that it will be.

Why? Because we see a Babylon, a pyramid. The Ziggarots. Ziggarots all over them.

And I said, Satan likes to copy God and he knows what's coming. We also see in Mexico pyramids. And so it may be. We're going to see next time that the water comes out from God's throne and flows down.

And it could be at the Pentacle. I don't know. You can think about yourself. What do you feel on that?

It's the reason. Yeah, he does. Five minutes. Okay. I will get to it. Very quickly the foundation stones. And that's the foundation stones in the city. These are the ones that had the names of the apostle on of every kind of precious stone. The first one to jazz for the second one to suffer.

I don't know what you look at these. You have a thing. I will say the jaster is clear and I think with a golden new sapphire is blue. The calcidon is sky blue with stripes of other colors. And that's the word calcidin. Of course the word for.

Kiston Bull are the main city in Turkey and it was at that point. It was one time the capital of the eastern Roman Empire and was a Christian center.

The emeraless is another level. It's a bright green. The sardone is red and white. The sardis is reddish. The crystallite is golden. It has a golden hue to it. The buriel is sea green. The top has yellow green. It's transparent.

The crisp parisus is shade of green. The Jacenta is violet and amethyst is purple. If you can work on that yourself, these are the 12 foundations. The whole point of this is this beautiful beyond.

or any or remember the movie, the closing counters of the third time kind. You remember it when they got to the city, you saw all of those colors and everything. Well, again, Satan likes to try to reproduce it. I want to say one thing about this. When we're in this city, it will be so magnificent that anything we've ever had is a great experience.

We'll be left by 10 to the hundredth time and that's a number that you can't count. I think of the great times my sweetheart and I hope we get to see all this. I think maybe she'll let me come up and be without over. I ask her for appointments there. But anyway, I think of the great things we've done. I we had a time and switch on up and a lot of room and up and a young fraught, shock up and the Swiss Alps.

Those are great. Nothing will compare to what this will be every day for you and for me.

And so this gives us a picture of what this city is like. Now the last thing we looked at the first, the occupant, secondly, the architecture, third, the illumination.

And I'm not going to be able to do that tonight. I don't think. How many minutes have I got?

Keep going. Just going. Keep going. Okay. 22. Somebody read us 22 through 26.

And I saw no temple in it for the Lord God, the Almighty and the land are its sanctuary. And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine upon it.

The glory of God has illuminated it and its lamp is the lamb and the nation shall walk by its light.

And the kings of the earth shall bring the glory into it. And in the daytime for their show, being no night there, is against a never be closed.

And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nation into it.

Do you want 87? No, I'm going to read that in a minute. This is giving us the illumination. First we find out that there's no temple.

Because there's no separate creation from God, the Almighty and from the Lamb, and they are both together the temple that says earlier.

But we will be able to see them and be with them because he is in his presence forever.

Secondly, the glory of the light illuminates from, I believe, God the Father. This is what it's saying. The glory of God has illuminated. This means a broad illumination.

And we see this. First John 1 5. God is light and in him is there's no darkness at all.

And then of course Jesus and our Lord said in John 9 5, I am the light of the world while I'm in the world.

But I think it's looking into the Father. The next one it says, the Lamb is the lamp. That's an amazing statement because he is the light as well.

But I think it's looking at something very personal. That means that he is individually going.

And we talk about lamp. This is what they're looking at. This is a celebratory lamp from the first century. I have a collection of lamps. It's got Hebrew written here.

We can't tell what that letter is. So shean, toff is what's after we're done. I don't know what that one is. So we don't really know what it means. But that's the size. Some are a little bigger but not much.

One person could hold this and have illumination but not a lot. And I think it looks to the fact that in the New Jerusalem will have the glory of God lighting everything.

But Jesus will be our personal lamp. You think about that.

The word is so much. Yeah. So okay. I put that in what passage.

Psalm 119105. I word is the lamp.

It's the most important thing that I like.

That's my path.

That's right.

And that looks again at this same thing.

It shows us what's around us and a path before us.

The kings come into the kings of the nations.

They come into the city.

They go out.

The doors are never shut.

I really don't know what to say about them.

I really know because God doesn't tell us a lot, but it's going to have nations.

It's going to be mind-blowing.

Maybe one of you will be in Fresno.

You'll never know what's going to happen.

When we end this, we see that God has a place for us prepared and it's coming and we'll be there.

And it will be forever for us.

I think of this and after looking at this, I always raise me back to what Peter said in second Peter.

And let me just read this as our clothes.

And second Peter chapter three.

We start with verse 10.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief in which the heavens will pass away.

That's what we just looked at with the roar.

And the elements will be destroyed with the intense heat.

And the earth and its works will be burned up.

Since all of these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought to be in holiness?

In Holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming day of the Lord because of which the heavens will be destroyed and burned.

And the elements will melt with intense heat.

But according to it, from us, we are looking for new heavens and the new earth in which righteousness dwells.

That's the application of this.

What should we be living for? What's here?

No.

It's all fire, say. What's coming there? Let's pray.

Lord, thank you for this time and your word.

And thank you for this magnificent promise.

It always takes our breath away and it should.

Lord let us live for that day serving you faithfully, graciously but teniously holding and living your word by the power of God the Holy Spirit to radiate your light.

For our Lord Jesus who is the light of the world said to us, you are the light of the world.

Let us be light in this dark day and Father let us be light until the day that the darkness is gone and the light shines forever.

And the new heaven and the new earth are here and we are in it.

And the name of the one who makes it possible, Jesus. Amen.