The New Jerusalem Pt 2 8-16-2020

HEAVEN - SEEING THE UNSEEN THE NEW JERUSALEM PT.2 Sunday August 16, 2020 Scripture Reference: Revelation 21:9-22:6 Intro. A. Welcome back to this second week of our exploration of this wonderful city God has prepared for us called The New Jerusalem. I want to express once again my gratitude to you for all the kind and encouraging comments you have shared with me and not just about the message on the New Jerusalem, but for all the things you have said to me about this entire series. I think it has been as great a blessing for me to share this with you as it has been for you to receive it. 1. Last week as we began to explore this marvelous city we talked about its dimensions. It is a city that is 1400 miles square and 1400 miles high. Now one of the things I tried to emphasis in this is that while there certainly is some symbolism in this language for us that does not mean that the dimensions are not literally as well. For instance, the dimensions of these walls can symbolize the security of Heaven for us. I mean what would you think about a city that was 1400 miles square, but also had walls that went 1400 miles into the air. Then it had walls that were 216 feet thick. That means that the thickness of these walls would be about the width of this courtyard we have out here. Certainly, there can be some symbolism in these words to show us how secure we will be in The New Jerusalem, but these walls could also be literally this wide, high and thick. 2. A lot of times when we think of the term "Big City" there are some negative connotations that go along with it. When I got up Monday morning this week and watched a little news before, I came to me office I saw the riots and chaos that had taken place in what I think we would term as Big Cities. What is going on in some of the cities across America today are things that I think would keep most people away, but this "Big City" will be some much different than anything we are seeing today. In fact, let's look at these verses in Revelation 21 & 22 again and see that Jesus said about who can and cannot enter this city. 7 All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be my children. 8 "But cowards, unbelievers, the corrupt, murderers, the immoral, those who practice witchcraft, idol worshipers, and all liars-their fate is in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death." 9 Then one of the seven angels who held the seven bowls containing the seven last plagues came and said to me, "Come with me! I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb." 10 So he took me in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and he showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. 11 It shone with the glory of God and sparkled like a precious stone-like jasper as clear as crystal. 12 The city wall was broad and high, with twelve gates guarded by twelve angels. And the names of the twelve tribes of Israel were written on the gates. 13 There were three gates on each side-east, north, south, and west. 14 The wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were written the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. 15 The angel who talked to me held in his hand a gold measuring stick to measure the city, its gates, and its wall. 16 When he measured it, he found it was a square, as wide as it was long. In fact, its length and width and height were each 1,400 miles. 17 Then he measured the walls and found them to be 216 feet thick (according to the human standard used by the angel). 18 The wall was made of jasper, and the city was pure gold, as clear as glass. 19 The wall of the city was built on foundation stones inlaid with twelve precious stones: the first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, 20 the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. 21 The twelve gates were made of pearls-each gate from a single pearl! And the main street was pure gold, as clear as glass. 22 I saw no temple in the city, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 And the city has no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its light. 24 The nations will walk in its light, and the kings of the world will enter the city in all their glory. 25 Its gates will never be closed at the end of day because there is no night there. 26 And all the nations will bring their glory and honor into the city. 27 Nothing evil will be allowed to enter, nor anyone who practices shameful idolatry and dishonesty-but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life...Then the angel showed me a river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. 2 It flowed down the center of the main street. On each side of the river grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, with a fresh crop each month. The leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations. 3 No longer will there be a curse upon anything. For the throne of God and of the Lamb will be there, and his servants will worship him. 4 And they will see his face, and his name will be written on their foreheads. 5 And there will be no night there-no need for lamps or sun-for the Lord God will shine on them. And they will reign forever and ever. 6 Then the angel said to me, "Everything you have heard and seen is trustworthy and true. The Lord God, who inspires his prophets, has sent his angel to tell his servants what will happen soon." Revelation 21:7-22:6 (NLT2) B. I believe that there is a spirit of exploration in all of us. We might not be like Magellan or Columbus, but I think God has put in all of us a desire to explore this wonderful world He has made. There are places around the world I would like to see, but the truth is there is so much just here in the US that I would very much love to explore. There are still so many parts of just California along I would love to explore. 1. So what I propose is that we use that spirit of exploration to explore this city God has prepared for us. I. WHAT WILL THIS GREAT CITY BE LIKE? If there is one thing, we ought to be able to see about this New Jerusalem in what is described in these verses it is that: A. This Is An Extravagant City. 1. Now before I explore this point would you allow me to take a brief rabbit trail? There are some things I have struggled with in regards to this city and frankly I do not think I will have answers to my questions until I arrive and be assured I fully plan to arrive here some day and I hope you do too. Let me share with you what these are. a) One of my questions is "Where?". Where will the New Jerusalem be located? In my message on July 12th I talked about some of the places we have been in this world and how we will still be able to visit them on the New Earth. Well if this city is as large as the Bible says it is and it was located on the earth or on this continent as it is now it would cover up many if not most of those places, so where will the New Jerusalem be located? The Bible does not tell us so would you permit me a possible option? Could it possibly be located in the middle of the ocean? There would certainly be enough room for it there. Now I know what most of us think right away and that is, "Well does that mean when we exit one of these gates that we step off into the ocean? Well I spoke to this a long time back, but I do not think we will always travel in Heaven by walking. Remember how Jesus traveling in his appearances after the resurrection? I think we might be traveling the same way. b) This second struggle I have had I spoke to briefly last Sunday. Will all believers live in the New Jerusalem? Here is what my opinion has been. "Yes", yes, we will all live in this city, but as the gates symbolize, we will also freely travel to other places. I am not so sure now that this will be the case and let me show you why. I want you to see what Jesus seem to say about this. "'Well done!' the king exclaimed. 'You are a good servant. You have been faithful with the little I entrusted to you, so you will be governor of ten cities as your reward.' 18 "The next servant reported, 'Master, I invested your money and made five times the original amount.' 19 "'Well done!' the king said. 'You will be governor over five cities.' Luke 19:17-19 (NLT2) Here is what makes this passage all the more interesting to us. The word "city" that is used here by Jesus is the same word used by John in 21:2 when he said he said the holy city descending from Heaven. Now look at Revelation 2:26 "To all who are victorious, who obey me to the very end, To them I will give authority over all the nations." Revelation 2:26 (NLT2) It certainly seems to appear that while the New Jerusalem will be the center of our universe there will also be other locations where we could be living. Now I will also add that the New Jerusalem will most likely be the place where we spend an awful lot of our time. After all this is where God's throne is, but it certainly seems that we might be living other places. 2. OK let me get back to my original point on the opulence of this city. While there are certainly some amazing cities around this country and around the world there is nothing to compare to the New Jerusalem. We could easily say that this city is a "Feast for the eyes". Let's look more closely at what the Bible tells us. a) Look at V.11 "It shone with the glory of God and sparkled like a precious stone-like jasper as clear as crystal." Revelation 21:11 (NLT2) Maybe you noticed that several times in these verses about the city there are things referred to as being "clear as crystal" or "as clear as glass". What I believe this is meant to tell us is that there is a purity into this city that is unlike anything we have ever known. For instance, the streets of gold are also described to be "as clear as glass". Have you ever seen gold that pure? I never have. Now we are told that the city shines from the "glory of God" so what does that mean? To make this simple enough for me to understand, the glory of God means the attributes of God. [] Let me give you this example. If you could build a custom home for yourself I have a feeling that where that home was built, and the characteristics of that home would very much reflect YOU! If I build a home for myself as you might guess it would be on the water. Either on a lake or the ocean. It would need to have a boat dock for my boat and since Sue enjoys the water as much as I do (except to be in it) the inside of the home would also have a nautical feel to it. It would reflect me and my characteristics. This is how we can look at the glory of God in this city. This city will shine with all the wonderful character traits of our God. Again, this might help us to understand this. When we see someone wonderfully transformed by the grace of God, don't we normally speak of how their life now shines with the glory of God? We see the wonderful characteristics of God in this new life. The same can be said for the New Jerusalem. This city will shine with God's grace, mercy, compassion and of course His Love, but even more. b) Now look with me at V.18. "The wall was made of jasper, and the city was pure gold, as clear as glass." Revelation 21:18 (NLT2) Notice that it says the walls are made of Jasper. I am not a geologist so I do not know much about stones so when I looked up a Jasper stone I discovered that Jasper actually comes in different colors, but it seems that the color of this stone spoken of here would be a deep red in color. I printed out some pictures for you of some of the things I am going to be talking about since I cannot show them to you on a TV screen like I could if we were inside. If this is in fact the color of these walls, I think the symbolism is evident. It would represent the shed blood of Jesus for our salvation. Now you will see once again the words, "clear as glass". The city is made of gold and it is as pure as glass. If you are married, you are probably wearing a wedding ring. How pure is this gold? Can you see through it? I doubt it. I did find a picture of gold that was 999.9 % pure that I printed out for you. You will notice that while some of it is pure as glass it is not all this way. I certainly do not know if this is what is described here for us, but this gold will be unlike anything we are used to here on this earth. c) Now look at V.19-20. "The wall of the city was built on foundation stones inlaid with twelve precious stones: the first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, 20 the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst." Revelation 21:19-20 (NLT2) I printed out for you how one theologian named William Barclay described these stones. The first foundation is jasper: a green rock-like crystal. The second foundation is sapphire: a sky blue spotted with gold (cp. Exodus 24:10). The third foundation is chalcedony: a green stone like the green on a peacock's tail. The fourth foundation is emerald: a green, the greenest of all greens. The fifth foundation is sardonyx: a stone that has different shades of color, basically white with layers of red and brown breaking the white background. The sixth foundation is sardius: a blood-red stone. The seventh foundation is chrysolite: a shining stone with a gold radiance. The eighth foundation is beryl: a sea blue or sea green stone. The ninth foundation is topaz: a greenish-gold stone that was transparent (cp. Job 28:19). The tenth foundation is chrysoprasus: an apple green stone. The eleventh foundation is jacinth: a violet, bluish-purple stone. The twelfth foundation is amethyst: also a violet, bluish-purple stone, but more brilliant than the jacinth. I also printed out a photo of what these stones may look like as the foundation. d) Now look at V.21. "The twelve gates were made of pearls-each gate from a single pearl!..." Revelation 21:21a (NLT2) You might wonder why the gates are made of pearls. Pearls were considered a very valuable stone in biblical times. They were probably somewhat rare for people then. One of the possible reasons for these gates being made of a pearl is because of this issue of symbolism again. Do you know how pearls are formed? I never knew this until studying for this message. Let me share with you a very brief description of how pearls are formed. "Natural Pearls form when an irritant - usually a parasite and not the proverbial grain of sand - works its way into an oyster, mussel, or clam. As a defense mechanism, a fluid is used to coat the irritant. Layer upon layer of this coating, called 'nacre'(or Mother of Pearl), is deposited until a lustrous pearl is formed." The symbolism here seems to be directed towards the sacrifice that Jesus made for us on the cross and the pain he went through so we could enter this holy city. Trans. Now I am going to stop us right here because if I try to finish all that there is to tell about this amazing city I will have to hurry and overlook things I think are to important for us to know. So, let me close with this. Conclusion A. You may have wondered as I have as well. Why is this city so opulent or extravagant? After all aren't, we taught to avoid these things here on earth. Not that money or things are wrong and in fact they can be used for great good, but doesn't this seem to be a bit over the top? I think there are several explanations here. For one thing the things we associate with having great wealth as see depicted in these verses will not be so in Heaven. We won't be looking around at all this gold wondering what the price of gold is today. We won't look at all these precious stones and be wondering what they might be worth and where we can sell them to get more stuff. These desires I believe will not be a part of our lives in Heaven. 1. What I do believe is that there is some symbolism in these words for us even while these are probably literal descriptions. Here is what I believe the symbolism to mean. It is like the parable Jesus told of the pearl of great price. Here is what Jesus said, "When he discovered a pearl of great value, he sold everything he owned and bought it!" Matthew 13:46 (NLT2) It is my opinion that these descriptions of this city and its extravagance tells us that this city is so wonderful and magnificent that we should be willing to enter whatever the cost to us. Again, Jesus told us that if we wanted to enter, we must take up the cross. He was not telling us to put on a pretty gold or silver neckless. He was calling us to take up a rugged cross. A cross that called for the death of ourselves that we might live for God. Have you taken up this cross? 2