Gooding, David: 8 - Heaven Opened

Dear sir, for those very generous words. It has been for me nothing but a pleasure and a stimulus to be with you here on these occasions. And I thank you of this local church and all who have come for the joy it has been to share with one another the wonderful and the true sayings of God. Thank you all for the way you have worked so hard and so long on each occasion. One little word of explanation, if you have found the seat very hard, that is because of the law of gravity that pulls people down upon their seats if they keep sitting too long, you'll see. But I'm not to be held responsible for the law of gravity. But thank you for the way you have worked hard and given me the impression that you are, have been caught up, as I have been, with the wonderful words of God. The Lord will certainly reward you for the time and the energy that you have invested in the study of his word. It is an invariable law of the kingdom of God that whatever we sow, we reap. If we sow to the flesh, of course, we of the flesh reap corruption, but if we sow to the spirit, then we shall of the spirit reap everlasting life. And now let us speak to God in prayer. And now, Father, we come to thee in the name of the Lord Jesus, with happy expectation in our hearts. For tonight, through thy word, the blessed Lord will talk to us of the glorious consummation and the hope that we have set before us. When thou shalt bring all thy wonderful plans for this earth and for the whole of creation, and all the great projects of thy redemption in Christ Jesus, when thou shalt bring them to their great fulfillment. This present world has been marvelous in our eyes, broken, scarred, cursed by sin, and yet in it we have seen the wonders of thy handiwork and have often perceived what it might be had it never have been spoiled by human waywardness and rebellion. But Lord, thy word shall tell us tonight of things far more wonderful still, when this sorry world is done, and there dawns the new heaven and the new earth. As we hear it, we bless thee for all the lovely, bright, brilliant metaphors that the Lord Jesus shall use to convey to our hearts, minds, and imaginations the glories that then we shall experience. Only we pray once more that thou will give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of thee. But tonight we may catch a deeper understanding and a fuller glimpse of the hope of thy calling. What the glory of the riches of thine inheritance in the saints. What shall be to participate in that inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away. Help us, Lord, we do beseech thee now, for this present world is so much with us in the busyness of each day, and we come with tired minds physically at the day's end. We pray the strengthening of thy Holy Spirit, and above all, Lord, let it not appear to us as mere escapism. Press upon our hearts that these are the true sayings of God, guaranteed by thy dear Son, and given us by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit. Cause our hearts to understand, we pray, and to thee we shall give the praise through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. So let us begin our study this evening by reading some passages from the end chapters of the book of the Revelation. And you shall begin in chapter nineteen and verse eleven. Chapter nineteen and verse eleven. And I saw the heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and he that sat thereon called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. And his eyes are a flame of fire, and upon his head are many diadems, and he hath a name written which no one knoweth but he himself. And he is arrayed in a garment sprinkled with blood, and his name is called the Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and pure. And out of his mouth proceedeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his garment and on his thigh a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. And then in chapter twenty one, let's read the first eight verses. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth are passed away. The sea is no more. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be his peoples, and God himself shall be with them and be their God. He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, nor any a- any more. The first things are passed away. And he that sitteth on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he says, right, for these words are faithful and true. He said unto me, they are come to pass. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, and I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit these things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But for the fearful and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and fornicators, sorcerers and idolaters, and all liars, their part shall be in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second. Finally, from chapter twenty two verse sixteen following. I, Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things for the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright, the morning star. And the spirit of the bride say, come. And he that heareth, let him say, come. And he that is athirst, let him come. He that will, let him take the water of life freely. I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book. If any man shall add unto them, God shall add unto him the plagues which are written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life and out of the holy city, which are written in this book. He which testifieth these things says, yea, I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with the saints. Amen. Our topic tonight, then, is the final, that is the sixth major section of the book of the Resera- of the Revelation. And as it has been in all the other sections of this book, so now this evening, we shall not be able to attend to all the many details that are presented to us in this particular part of the revelation. We must do what we have elsewhere done. We must consider the major themes of this particular part of the book. And there is no doubt what the major theme is going to be. One could tell it from the number of verses that are devoted to that major theme, compared with the number of verses that are given to other topics. The major theme of this part of the book is, appropriately enough, the end of this present world and the dawning of the new heavens and the new earth. And the vision of the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God, from heaven, as a bride adorned for her husband. To function, and that eternally, in its two capacities, to function as a tabernacle for God Almighty, in which he may dwell inside his creation and amongst his redeemed creatures. A tabernacle for God, then, but also, so we shall find presently, as the wi- bride and wife of the Lamb. Now, when we read of the holy city being the wife and bride of the Lamb, it sounds at first perhaps a little bit odd. How can a city be a bride? And that's a mystery we shall have to contemplate presently. But the, uh, major point is to notice that while this great company of the redeemed is likened to a bride, the wife of the Lamb, it is not so much the romance of that great story that we shall be considering, though what a colossal romance that is, and with what marvelous condescension to our earthly experience does God come when he spells out the great story of salvation and redemption as the love of a bridegroom seeking his bride, and eventually the joy of his nuptials when he turns the bride into his wife and reigns with her forever and ever. But that said, when we read of the s- city and the people who form it as the bride and wife of the Lamb, we shall be thinking of the great eternal city as the administrative headquarters of the universe to be, and as the bride and wife of the Lamb, forming the queen to the Lamb who shall be the everlasting king, seated with him on his throne and reigning with him and administering the glorious new heavens and earth for all eternity. We cannot, of course, as we concentrate on those things, altogether forget, can we, that according to this part of scripture, there is an alternative, eternity. For the redeemed, there is this glorious tabernacle of God. There is this city and people described as the wife of the Lamb. Not all shall be there. Scripture is plain everywhere that there is an alternative for those who, in carelessness or deliberateness, choose it. And you may care to look at the sheet that has been given you that forms a small summary of the contents of this section. And where it has underlining, you will see the repeated theme throughout, there is an alternative to heaven. Look at the first trilogy, if you will, and the item C, the beast and the false prophet are cast into the lake of fire. Look at the second trilogy and part C. After the thousand years of our Lord's millennial reign will come the final rebellion, the result of which is that fire comes down from heaven and destroys them, and Satan, who led the rebellion, is cast into the lake of fire. The third trilogy begins with the new heavens and earth and tells how they come to be. First comes the great aside as the Savior now become judge, mounts the great white throne, and before the face of that throne, heaven and earth flee away. And at that judgment, if any is not found written in the book of life, he or she is cast into the lake of fire. Look at what is numbered B three. God pronounces he who overcomes shall inherit all these wonderful things. But all the unbelieving and the fearful and the murderers and so forth, and all liars, their part, their portion. They shall have a portion. They shall have an experience. Their portion is in the lake of fire. C four reminds us that they shall not enter into the glorious eternal city of the redeemed anyone who makes a lie. Nothing that defiles shall enter there. And recurring to that same thought, C seven says, blessed are they who enter the eternal city, for outside is company sorry and sad, and all the perversions that earth has ever known, and everyone who loves and makes alive. You see, dear friends, sin and rebellion, to live like it is to live a lie. The truth about life, the reality about life, is that it comes from God. The The truth truth of a daisy, if you want it, is not ultimately in its chemical constituents, nor in its atomic structure. The truth of a daisy ultimately is this, that God made it. And God made it for his pleasure and made it for our enjoyment. Though the daisy is but a passing thing, it is one of those many luxuries that God has heaped and heaped and heaped upon us, telling out his heart of love, his joy in his creation, his desire to fill us with good things and delight. That is the truth about it. And in its humble way, that lowly flower is pointing us beyond itself to its designer and creator. And the hand who made it is the hand outstretched to us, leading us, if we will, through his creation, through his redemption, to those glorious eternal realities and an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away. But to live without it, to live as if there were no God, is to live an unreality. It isn't true. It's to live a lie. They who choose so to live, do so unrepentantly, neglecting God their creator and Christ their would-be redeemer. What shall their portion be? It will be to find the final results, the final harvest of what it means to have lived alive. Their portion shall be in the lake of fire. No temporary thing there. It will be existent still. Not all who shall be there shall suffer the same sentence. For the dead, we're told at the great white throne, as the dead appear to be judged, they're judged according to their works. All who reject the Savior shall be there, but nor sh- not all shall suffer the same sentence. Our Lord himself says it shall be more tolerable for some than for others. The refined lady, who yet would not repent or humble herself to confess her a sinner deserving of God's wrath, therefore would not receive the Savior. She'll certainly not suffer the same rigor as Adolf Hitler and others. While all in the lake of fire shall not suffer exactly the same amount or rigor, but all whose names are not found written in the book of life shall be cast into the lake of fire. These are the solemn, uh, true words of God. We would gladly shut our eyes to them and wish it weren't so. But in the end, God has to talk to us bluntly and straightly. We need to be saved. That cry cross staked into our planet Earth, carrying God's incarnate Son. Not a game. And not unnecessary. Such a costly redemption was given by God because the alternative is beyond all measurement of suffering. Let us therefore take these things seriously and make sure that when that day comes, our name is found written in the book of life. But for a while now, we must notice first, what are those events, those steps in the chain of ultimate history that shall lead to the coming from heaven of that glorious new Jerusalem, tabernacle for God, and bride and wife of the Lamb. So we begin section six, at chapter nineteen, verse eleven. And like the four preceding sections of the book, this too opens wi- uh, begins with heaven opened. And I saw the heaven open. But now the time for the initial and preparatory judgments are over. Now comes the great day of God. And as heaven opens, John sees a white horse, and he that sat thereon called faithful and true, and in righteousness doth he judge and make war. Here, therefore, in the vision and in symbolic language, John sees what we commonly call the second coming of Christ in power and great glory to execute the judgment and the wrath of God upon a sinful and unrepentant world. In the figure, he comes on a horse. When he came to Jerusalem in the days of his flesh to be, to claim kingship, he came, it is said, riding on an ass and upon the foal of an ass. Behold, thy king cometh to thee, lowly and meek, and riding on the colt, the foal of an ass. Thus did he come in the days of his humility and his humiliation. But one day he shall come again. It shall be no a little donkey he rides on. John sees him coming on a great white horse, the imperial vehicle. He comes as the King of Kings, it is written on his thigh. He comes with the armies of heaven following. He comes to execute the wrath of Almighty God. He treads the wine press, it says, of the wrath of Almighty God. That is not a reference to Calvary, though sometimes one hears the verse so cited. It is based on the prophecy of Isaiah uh sixty three where it is explicitly, uh, uh, said that the treading of the winepress of the wrath of God is not our Lord's experience at Calvary, it his action when he comes to execute the wrath of God. And thus it is on this occasion. The judgment is especially directed, so we are told in verse nineteen, against the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies who were confederate with the beast and all the beast's followers. And you will remember from the former studies exactly who that is. The Bible predicts that this age, when it comes to its end, will see the rise of a world imperial dictator, whose dominion shall be virtually, but not completely, universal. And then the harvest of atheism will be reaped. This imperial ruler shall first compromise with religion, so long as it is seen to him that religion is helpful to him to get his control over the masses. But once he has got that control, he will destroy religion root and branch and come out in his true colors and deny there is a God out there in heaven and defy any supernatural power and claim divine worship, man the supreme pinnacle, calling on all his fellow men that are his subjects to bow down and worship him as though he were God and to take his mark on their hand. What a terrible thing it will be. Inspired writer tells us what the shame of it is. This is the number of his name, six six six, so he says. Whatever name you take that to be, the inspired seer says it is the name of a man, a human being. What colossal disgrace! What denigration! What humiliation of mankind. Mankind shall bow to a mere man, take his mark, and follow him and obey him as though he were God. That is such a perversion of things that it is understandable that when our blessed Lord comes again, the wrath of God shall be particularly directed to that great world leader and his minister of propaganda and all those infatuated political leaders that have followed him and joined up with his scheme and all his followers. And of course, with this vision agree the plain straightforward forward words of two Thessalonians chapter two that talks about the great apostasy that's going to happen. Apostasy in the sense that one day this world as a whole will turn away from any belief in God. And at that time, the man of sin shall be revealed, it says. He that opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God. Remember you not, Paul says, when I was yet with you, I told you these things. For the mystery of lawlessness doth already work, only there is one that restrains now until he be taken out of the way, and then shall be revealed that lawless one, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of his mouth and bring to naught by the manifestation of his coming. Even he whose coming is according to the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceit of unrighteousness for them that are perishing, because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. For this cause God sendeth them a working of error, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be judged, who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. You will notice how carefully it is phrased when the wrath of God descends upon this imposter, the one that the revelation calls the beast and all his confederates. It is said that as he is spreading his lie, God shall give people, certain people, a strong delusion that they believe the lie. Which people are those? They are carefully delineated. Those who would not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Of course, that implies that they had heard the truth and knew what it was, but refused to accept it and would not receive the love of the truth. And God's punishment, you say, it's terribly severe, isn't it, these awful words? Well, yes, severe, but note what it means. They wouldn't receive the truth. What would you have God do to people who won't have the truth? The Bible says, he shall say, well, have it your way then. If you won't have the truth, there is only one alternative. Have the lie. How could one find fault with God for doing that? But in the end, he gives people their own choice. With that, therefore, we are told that the f- the beast and the false prophet are taken and consigned to the lake of fire. And that's the end of their deception. Then we learn in chapter twenty and verses one to six that what shall follow the coming of our Lord Jesus in judgment is what is known as the millennial reign of our Lord Jesus. You'll see verse, uh, uh one and two and three tell us that at that time Satan shall be taken and put into the abyss and bound there so that he can no longer deceive the nations. And he will be cast into this prison for a thousand years, and then after that he shall be released for a little time. A thousand years then, after the second coming of Christ. And during that period of a thousand years, we read in verse four: I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them, and I saw the souls of them that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and such as worshiped not the beast, neither his image, and received not the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand, and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. The rest of the dead lived not until the thousand years should be finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection. Over these the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years. And you might have thought that the words are so explicit, so clear, that there could not possibly be any doubt as to their interpretation. It is said that Satan is bound for a thousand years in the abyss so that he should no longer go on deceiving. He shall be bound there for a thousand years, but after the thousand years he shall be set loose and once more shall deceive the nations for a little time. That sounds clear enough. But no, good and godly men and women, Christian men and women, have found themselves, many of them, unable to accept what these verses appear literally to say. They feel that when the Lord Jesus comes, then he shall execute the judgments of God that will be the end of the world, and straightway the heavens and the earth will flee away, and people shall be stood before the great white throne. Eternity will have begun, and they cannot bring themselves to believe that when the Lord Jesus comes, he shall, uh, execute the judgments of God on those that are living, and then he shall set up his kingdom and reign for a thousand years. Those who hold this view are given the label amillennialist. He, he, he, he, there will be no literal millennium to come. We must not treat them as enemies, may we? They are lovely people of God, many of them, and honestly come to these conclusions. On the other hand, their view involves them in some very difficult things, difficult to explain. It is said here that Satan is bound so that he shouldn't deceive the nations for this thousand years. Our dear friends, the amillennialists say that these thousand years began at least with the cross of Christ and his resurrection, and somehow the cross of Christ bound Satan so that he shouldn't deceive people. That's difficult, isn't it? I don't know what your experience is. I could tell you what mine is, but then scripture is more clear, isn't it, and authoritative. The apostles certainly didn't believe that Satan was bound. They talk about Satan walking around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. They say openly that the god of this world blinds the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the gospel should shine into them. Very difficult to think that the millennium is now. And anyway, there is the sequence of the narrative. The beast and the false prophet were inspired by Satan, that unholy trinity, and they deceived the people. And here comes the Lord Jesus, and he takes the beast, and he takes the false prophet, and puts them in the lake of fire. Now they don't deceive anymore. And he takes the Satan who was behind the beast and the false prophet in their deception, and he gets hold of him and puts him in the abyss that he should no longer deceive. How can those verses mean that really he still is able to deceive? Just to empty words of their meaning. People say it's, uh, figurative, that that thousand years is only figurative. Well, suppose it is. It's figure for a very long time, and the time has a beginning and an end. It has a before and an after. What happened before? Well, the beast and Satan deceive people. That's what happened before. But in the middle, they won't deceive, and at the end of it, Satan will again be allowed to deceive. So I shall take it as read, for time's sake, that, uh, the arguments for amillennialism are not cogent. And if I speak to any of you here who are amillennialists, um, count me still a brother in Christ and not a heretic. And if you would like to inquire further what my reasons are and why I don't accept what to you seem to be cogent proofs, well, then we can have an helpful conversation. For I hasten on. The end of the millennium shall come the final rebellion that shall be put an end to, not by the coming of Christ, there's not another coming. It's put an end to by fire coming down from heaven and destroying the enemies of God, who then shall come up at the final judgment. With that, says John, I saw a great white throne. This is the final judgment, and the present heavens and earth flee away, and there's no place found for them. And the dead, small and great, stand before that throne of judgment to hear the verdict and to hear the sentence. With that, we come to the main topic. I, John, saw, says he, the new heavens and the new earth, for the former ones have passed away. And I, John, saw the, uh, holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And heard a great voice saying, the tabernacle of God is with men, and subsequently was taken to see the city which is said to be the bride and wife of the Lamb. And so we think now of the New Jerusalem. That shall be pride and joy of God, the great goal for which, uh, he made the heavens and the earth, the great goal of redemption, and it shall come one day. What shall it be? A number of questions come to people's minds, do they not? Some people say this glorious city that is here described with streets of gold and gates of pearls, is it a place? Or is it a people? Can we imagine that there's a real place with enormous dimensions in miles as to its height and circumference, and streets of gold and pearly gates and all those things? Is it really a place, or are these only symbols for spiritual realities. And being greedy, my answer to that is it's neither one nor the other, but both. Why shouldn't it be both? It's going to be a place, of course it is. You say, how do you know that? Well, because of this basic fact, when our Lord Jesus rose from the dead, he had a body, didn't he? The disciples at first thought he was a spirit, and they were afraid. They thought he was a disembodied spirit. No, said the Lord Jesus, handle me and see, it's I myself. He had a body of flesh and bone, a real body, a spiritual body, that is its energy being spiritual, but certainly real material. He ascended to heaven with a real body, and we are told that when our full redemption comes, we shall have bodies like the Lord Jesus, in all things conformed to him. Real bodies. We know that if this earthly tabernacle, this tent, this, uh, collapsible affair that encloses the real me, and is obviously but temporary, and is getting a bit shaky now, and the roof is nearly gone and all that. You'll see, if this tablet, this tent were dissolved, we have a building, a real eternal body. And the implication of that is bodies have what the philosophers call extension. Bodies take up space. I don't know that spirits take up any space. Who knows what spirits, uh, they need. They'll need place. This is going to be real. Of course, the city is described to us in metaphors, you'll see. Now we must be careful how we interpret all these metaphors of golden streets and things and things, you'll see. Um, the danger is that perceiving that they are metaphors, we shall decide that these metaphors don't represent real things. We say we shall not take them literally and then confuse ourselves because we don't take them literally, we think they're not real. I beg of you to make a distinction between things that are not ri- uh, literal but are. You say, what do you mean? Well, here's a mother, and she's got a, a two-year-old, you see, and he's given to gulping down his food, or a four-year-old maybe, and gets the stomach ache, and mother is in process of telling the infant why he shouldn't gobble the food down, do you see? And she says, you know, when you begin to eat, there are little messengers in your mouth, and they go running down your throat and right down to your tummy, and they say to the tummy, get ready, there's some beautiful food coming, and the tummy gets ready, all to digest the food that's coming down. But if you eat it too quickly, these little messengers don't have the time, and the tummy doesn't have the, the time to get ready, you see, and so the food arrives, and you get a stomach ache. Now that's mum talking to a 4-year-old. You say, what is all this about, these messengers she's talking about? Are they real messengers? Well, perhaps the boy thinks it is. He knows messengers. There's the postman that comes to the door. He thinks of him as a messenger, so he thinks there's a postman somehow, a little postman going down his gullet, down to his tummy, and making ready for the food coming, you see. You say, no, my boy, you mustn't take it literally. They're not... Well, now it's difficult, isn't it? They're not messengers like the postman, for instance. No, no. So you say they're not real then. They're real. Ask any chemist you like. They they are bits and pieces of chemistry, aren't they, that the body, uh, starts producing when we see food, and automatically the chemical messengers, as the chemists would call them, go down to the tummy to prepare it. They're real enough. And mum has used a metaphor to describe them, because it's no good talking to a four-year-old with chemical terms as long as a yard, do you see? So she uses a metaphor, a metaphor, you see. It's real. And if the boy does believe it, there are messengers, then he's not believing something fanciful, it's real. And if God talks to us of the heavenly city in metaphors, that doesn't mean it's not real. We may not have to take them all literally, but they're real. And the reality will exceed the metaphor in its wonder. Yeah. You say, well, this city, that is the, the, uh, the, um, bride, uh, the tabernacle of God and the bride of the Lamb. Who's in it? Some would say to us that the city is the, uh, Lamb's wife and bride, and therefore it's simply the church. But that can't be so, can it? Let's think about how its main features are talked about. Says John, the city, you know, it had twelve foundations, and on the foundations were the names of the apostles of the Lamb. So you have foundations, right? Now listen to what the Bible says about Abraham. Hebrews chapter eleven. He was content to remain a pilgrim on earth and not to go back to where he came from, but was a pilgrim all his life, not having a settled home. For he looked for the city that hath thee foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Good old Abram, he'll be there, won't he? Mm. You say, yes, but his will be an earthly portion. Who told you that? Wow, wow. Ah, Hebrews eleven says, you know, Abram could have gone back to the city where he came out from, but he wouldn't. Wasn't that he couldn't. He could have gone back to Ur of Chaldees. He chose to live as a nomad in tents, you see, and didn't possess scarce an inch in the land of promise on earth. Why not? Well, those who say such things, says Hebrews eleven, confess that they're pilgrims and strangers on earth. They're looking for a fatherland, a heavenly fatherland. Ah, yes, but the English isn't quite enough there. The Greek means a fatherland in heaven. That's what the Greek means. Abraham was looking for a fatherland in heaven. It doesn't demean him to say that he simply was looking for a, a, a, a, a portion on earth. And then Paul comes to talking about these things in Galatians four, doesn't he? And he says, you know, there were these two women, there was, uh, Sarah and there was Hagar, uh, do you see? And Sarah was a princess, you see, and a free woman, and Hagar was a slave. They each had a child. Sarah had Isaac and, and uh, uh, Hagar had uh, Ishmael, you see. And says Paul, you can liken them as you think of the principles on which they lived their lives. You could draw an analogy. Hagar could represent the Jerusalem as that now is, because her manner of life and attitude was like the present Jerusalemites who reject the Savior. And Sarah, what does she represent? Well, she represents the Jerusalem that is above, and is the mother of us all. Shall we then say that Sarah shan't be there? How could you possibly say it? That heavenly city of which is a picture is the mother of all who have trusted the Savior of all dispensations. Yes. So all the saints of all the ages will be in that city and, in a sense, form it. You say, will all the occupants of that city be exactly alike? Not necessarily, because here's a wonderful thing. Hebrews chapter twelve tells us that that city is already in existence. What John saw was the city coming down from heaven. It was already in existence. And Hebrews eleven, uh, Hebrews twelve tells us that that city is in existence already, and the wordage is this, you'll see. We have come, says Hebrews, not like Moses to Mount Sinai, a mountain full of darkness and thunderstorms and lightnings, until Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake, but we have come, you have come unto Mount Zion, unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the innumerable host of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel's. Oh yes, if we are believers, we have already come. You say, I'm not there yet. I'm in Belfast. What's the pity? I, I, I, I, I, I'm not there yet. No, you're not there yet. One day you will be. But by God's great redemption, we are already members of the city. Do you not remember how the Lord Jesus said to his apostles, rejoice in this, not that demons are subject to you, that's okay, but rejoice in this, that your names are enrolled in the citizen lists of heaven. And Paul says to his converts, our citizenship is in heaven. Belong to the heavenly city already. And we have come to it. What a delightful group of companies form that great city. Angels, general assembly of the firstborn, and so forth and so on, and the spirits of just men made perfect. Oh yes, Savior, if of Zion's city I through grace a member am, let the world despise all pity, I will glory in thy name. How could your heart not leap for joy and be tempted to say a hallelujah or two, to know even while we're here on earth, we have in one sense come already to that city. Some people ask, don't they, it's a big question to them. Well, when we get there, shall we know each other when we get to heaven? Well, I've learned to be an Irishman and thus improved my education in this last fifty years, you'll see. And when people ask me that question, shall we know each other when we get home to heaven, I reply, shall, shall we know ourselves? Will you know you? Or do you suppose when you get to heaven, all memory of earth will be gone? You won't even know who you are. That's not possible, is it? Because you'll know you've been redeemed, won't you? And when the choirs of heaven sing unto him that loved us and loosed us from our sins in his blood, and thou art worthy, for thou were slain, what will you be a thinking? I don't know what they're talking. I don't know what all this slain is and being redeemed and stuff like that. I don't know what they're talking about. You won't. Of course I know exactly. And won't your praise be the deeper because you remember that you once were a sinner defiled in his sight? You parade in poor garments in praise, you night. Oh, you'll know yourself, of course you will. And you'll know the Blessed Savior. Martha and Mary, who had the Lord Jesus dining at their dining table in their little home, shall know him. The same Jesus, though now glorified. We shall know one another. Very good. But what is said about this city? Here I must make a, a, a, a, a, a, a little distinction. When the Bible talks about Jerusalem as a city, some people say, now look here, be careful, it is just that, it is a city, it's a place, you see. Don't you go expounding it as though it were sort of symbols and, uh, and other such things, uh, and types and shadows and whatnot. It's a real thing. There's going to be a heavenly city. It's real. Yes, I agree with that. Like C. S. Lewis used to say, heaven will be more real than earth is. It's earth that's a shadow, you know. The tabernacle that Moses built in the, uh, in the old days was only a shadow of things in the heavens. The real thing is heaven. It'll be more real than earth. Well, C. S. Lewis used to say that when we walk up the river of heaven, the glass will hurt, the, the grass will hurt our feet. It is, that's his way of saying it will be so real. Yes, and hard. So it's a place. But it isn't just a place, is it? There used to be, I don't know if it still flutters in the breeze, but right across the, the city hall down in the city center, uh, there was for some months or years a, a big banner that says Belfast says no. Now, Belfast is a city. So what if I now insist, ah, it's just a city, it's a s- city that says no. What do you mean by city? The bricks and mortar and stones? Well, of course not, you say. Now the word city is being used as the people who live in the city. So it is, of course, with this. This will be a place, but it will house a community of the redeemed. And that's very important, isn't it? We're told two things particularly about the wall of this city. It had foundations, twelve of them, and on them the names of the apostles of the Lamb. And then they have twelve gates, and on them the name of the twelve tribes of Israel. I can't, I can't forget the dear expositors that tell me not to be fanciful. Now you must take it literally as foundations. I, I do. Mm. But I observe this business of writing names on things. You know, you can see that in Belfast. Uh, i- i- i- it's the Craigavon Bridge or something, and uh, we give names to buildings, don't we? And names to bridges, and names to houses. And we have names to streets, Longfellow Street, Shakespeare Street, Shelley Street, it's all the parts. Mm. And this city has foundations, but why do you think they put the names of the apostles of the Lamb on the foundations? They're rather low, aren't they, foundations? Well, you said, don't be silly, my boy. Listen to what the scripture says. The dwelling place of God is built upon the foundations of the apostles and prophets. Yes, you've got it, yes. And they record that fact on the literal foundations because, in the sense of people, the whole community is built on the foundation of the apostles of the Lamb. The Old Testament looked forward to the coming of the Lamb of God. Listen to John the Baptist. The apostles were the authorized representatives of the Lamb, and they preached the foundation not only of the literal city, but of the foundation of the community that lives there. I no wonder Abram looked for the city that has the foundations, do you? He had come from wonderful, brilliant cities of the early civilizations in the Middle East, Ur of Chaldees and Nineveh and all those places, left it all. They were very big and brilliant cities as buildings, but the people that lived there lived life on inadequate foundations. What is the foundation of the community of God that shall inhabit the New Jerusalem? The foundation is the same as Abram was given to see, and the Apostle Paul reiterates in the New Testament, it is justification by faith. Ask old Sarah and and Abram. I'll tell you a lesson or two about that, that Paul repeats as an apo- Christian apostle, justification by faith, followed eventually by justification by works. It is on that great foundation that the community shall be built. We have to ask ourselves at this moment, if that is the foundation, are we standing on it? Then there were gates, twelve of them around the city. You say they are the way in, yes, and the way out, if you like, and, uh, uh, what else? And why do they have the names of the children of Israel on the gates? Well, we can begin to think about that. Gates in the ancient world were places you went in and you came out of a city, but they were also the place where the administration of the city happened. Yes? The elders sat in the gate. There were great towers with, um, seats all the way around the inside of the gate. And you know, it was dear old Jacob that had a vision of the gate of heaven, didn't he? When he lay down to sleep and he saw the a- a staircase from earth to heaven, and he saw the angels going up and coming down, and God was standing by the side of the ladder, leaning over Jacob. And when he woke up out of sleep, he said, how awesome is this place? God is in this place, and I didn't realize it. This is the house of God, says he. This is the very gate of heaven. And he wasn't at that moment thinking of entering heaven. He was observing that this was the gate of heaven, in a sense, the center of God's administration. Look at all those angels going out from God's presence and coming back again. This was a heavenly civil service, of course, going to do God's will, running the place. The gate of heaven, says, says Jacob. Yes. When he got married, uh, he had two wives and two others, um, and they had children. It was their names that one day will be on the gates of the heavenly city. And if the gates represent the he- administration of heaven, it's interesting that the names of those boys will be on the gates, isn't it? For those names are not meaningless. Read Genesis and discover where those names came from, as these good women in their life, tough I should think it must have been living with Jacob. I shall ask them when I get home to heaven, if I get the chance, what was it like living with Jacob? But, uh, uh, in their life with Jacob, and it came to their children and bearing children and bringing them up, with all the rivalries in the family, of course. They made it a matter of prayer. I knew what it was for God to answer their prayers. And when God answered their prayers, they recorded the fact in the names they gave their boys. Experience of God built into those very names. The name shall stand on the gates of the city. Witness to the experience of God, of God's people, that has fitted them to be part of the eternal administration of the city. Marvelous, isn't it? It conveys a lesson for us too, saved because we've been justified by faith and built on the foundation of the great heavenly community as citizens of that great and glorious place. There's more than that. We're called upon to reign with Christ. They shall reign eternally, says the detail of the description. Now is the time in which we prepare, is it not? As believing in that eternal city and that eternal occupation, we seek to bring the details of life to God. And to submit our lives that he may put us through his education, and by lives day-to-day experience, bring us into fellowship with him and teach us our lessons and form our characters, so that when the day dawns, we may find that we're not merely saved, but ready to share the government with Christ. Marvelous, isn't it? And oh, how I would like to talk about all those other things, but I mustn't, because perhaps it will require eternity, and we're meant still to be in time. But you see, the gates are made of one solid pearl, and there's a street of gold. And then John says, I didn't see any temple in it. The Lord God is the temple. You'll see the whole city is a tabernacle. It doesn't require any temple, and it won't have any inner place shut off by a veil. The whole thing is the dwelling place of God. Step inside that gate, and you are in the immediate presence of the Lord. Oh, what shall it be to dwell above and with the Lord of glory reign. What shall it be when the Lord comes and takes us to the Father's home? We step inside the city and know ourselves to be in the immediate presence of God. Oh, what shall it be to dwell above and with the Lord of glory reign. And no curse, no crying, no night, no death, but everlasting delight. And supremely this, they shall see his face, says Scripture, and they shall serve him without cause.