Transcript: February 10th, 2002« Back

The Eternal State: To God Be the Glory parts 1 and 2

Revelation 21:9-17

Jeff Noblit


The Eternal State: To God Be the Glory, Part 1

Revelation 21:9-17


…This wonderful New Testament book. While you’re turning to Revelation 21, let me ask you to think about our purpose statement as a church. What is our purpose statement? The purpose of First Baptist Church is to glorify God. That’s always has to be first. That has to be priority. Our purpose is not to grow, although we hope and expect to grow. Our purpose is not to get a certain number of baptisms, although we want to see people saved and baptized. Jesus didn’t say, “Go and get decisions,” by the way. He said, “Go and make disciples.” Are you hearing me, church? He didn’t say, “Go and get decisions.” I personally am deeply grieved over all the talk and all the conventions and the conferences about, “I had this many decisions, and I had that many decisions in my church, or we had this many decisions.” Jesus said, “How many disciples are being made?” And to know if you’ve made a disciple is gonna take some time. Why? Because God is not interested in us just growing or having numbers or being successful.

God is interested, now listen, in His glory. God thrills at Himself being glorified, and He don’t have an ego problem. He’s just God. God desires to be glorified, and the way He’s glorified chiefly in this age we live in right now is by the local church being what He called it to be and doing what He called it to do. And that is produce true followers of Jesus Christ. And as the local church does what He says it ought to do, now listen, and does it in the way He says to do it, that will produce more true disciples and He gets more glory. And that’s what it’s all about.

The purpose of First Baptist Church is to glorify God by obediently making and equipping disciples of Christ in the Shoals and throughout the world by the power of the Holy Spirit. But you know what? God getting the glory is gonna be the purpose for all the ages of all eternity future. And that’s what we see in the book of Revelation. Everything that God has taught us and everything that God has shown us in the book of Revelation about the end times centers on one thing: To God be the glory. When God sends those awful waves of judgment and wrath and men are crushed and stoned by hailstones from heaven and fire comes down and devours and, serpents, or rather, demon-possessed, locusts are stinging men and tormenting them, and all the other plagues of the book of Revelation, you know what they’re saying? They’re saying, “God, to God be the glory.” Because HE is bringing just wrath on unholiness and sin, and that glorifies God.

Then there’s gonna become a point in time when God is gonna come Himself. He’s not just gonna send the waves of judgment. Jesus Himself is going to come into this earth, into time and space history. And when Jesus comes, there are gonna be an enemy rise up against Him, and He’s gonna put them down immediately. And then He will establish on this earth that millennial kingdom, that thousand year reign on the earth that He promised the Jews He would establish. And redeemed Israel will be drawn to Jesus, and for a thousand years He will reign.

At the end of that thousand years, Satan is released again. As Satan goes out and deceives some of the kings and the leaders on the earth of that day, they’ll march against Jerusalem. Actually these are people who give, who feigned obedience to Christ. They didn’t love Him. They didn’t love His righteousness. They didn’t love holiness. They didn’t love truth. They lived under that, what they would call an oppressive burden for all those years while Jesus was on the throne in Jerusalem. They hated it. They wanted to be released from it. They wanted out from under the bondage and the burden of it. And Satan comes along and says, “We can march on Jesus. We can win.” And they believe Him. And they march on Jesus, and it’s not even a war. They march up to Jerusalem. God sends fire from heaven, devours every one of them.

And then after that, the Bible teaches that God will then totally eliminate the present heaven and the present earth and He will create a new heavens and a new earth. Now when He creates that new heavens and that new earth, it’s what we would call the eternal state. At that point in time, the eternal state is established, and it will never, ever, ever pass away. And it’s a wonderful and glorious state that’s going to be established. A wonderful and glorious new earth. A wonderful and glorious new heaven with a wonderful and glorious new capital city: the new Jerusalem. And that’s what we begin seeing in Revelation chapter 21. And by the way, it’s all to the glory of God.

But one of the things that came up over and over was the God-centeredness of everything. That God is to get the glory, the supremacy of God in all things. Let me say something, and I’ve, I’ve said this many times and it’s in all of our teachings on our purpose and strategy statements. But we are far too man-centered in far too many things in the church. And for many of us, if not most of us, it’s just the way we were raised in church. It’s just normal to us. It’s the way we think about Christianity. But we have man at the center of it instead of God at the center of it. And I’ll be honest, you can draw a big crowd with that kind of stuff because who, who doesn’t want to hear about themselves, and who doesn’t want their own self satisfied? But, my friend, we’re not here in this church to satisfy us. We’re in this church to glorify God. Now listen. And when we come with that kind of selflessness to glorify God, guess what. You are more satisfied than if you tried to satisfy yourself to start with. And when we come to this eternal state, the only way you can understand what John is giving us is this. You’ve got to understand God did all of this so HE could be glorified for all eternity.
Now let’s look at it together. I’ve entitled it, “The Eternal State: To God Be the Glory, Part 1.” Revelation 21 beginning in verse 9. John’s on the isle of Patmos. He’s receiving these visions of end time events, and now this happens. Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowl full of the seven last plagues came and spoke with me saying, “Come here, and I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.”

And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven to God, having the glory of God. Her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal-clear jasper. It had a high great wall and twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels; and names were written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. And there were three gates on the east and three gates on the north and three gates on the south and three gates on the west. And the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. And the one who spoke with me had a gold measuring rod to measure the city and its gates and its wall. 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, fifteen hundred miles; its length and width and height are equal. And he measured its wall, seventy-two yards according to human measurements, which are also angelic measurements.

Now to begin this section of the eternal state to God be the glory, I want us to look at verses 9 through 17, and we’re gonna use verses 9 through 11 as an introduction to this section. First of all in verse 9 he says, “One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls…” Now that’s the seven bowls of wrath that John saw in an earlier vision. He said, “That same angel that earlier showed me the bowls of wrath came and spoke with me and said, ‘Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.’” So this great angel that also showed John the great harlot, and when he showed John that great harlot, which is the false church that was one of the visions of the book of Revelation, he took John down into the wilderness to see her. But now he shows John the holy city, the new Jerusalem that will be established in this new eternal state. And he takes John to a high mountain to show him that.

I think it is significant that the same angel that poured out the bowls of wrath is the angel that now shows him the glorious and holy city. You see, both are just and both are fitting. Earlier this angel showed John the awful pouring out of plagues of judgment, which are the fitting and required recompense for earth’s sin. But now that age is over. That season is past. And now in keeping with the holiness of the eternal state and the establishing of this new heaven and new earth and the bringing down of this new city, Jerusalem, he shows John the glorious vision of the eternal state.

Now this, this city is called in verse 9 the bride and the wife of the Lamb. Now this could not be the old Jerusalem or the present Jerusalem. The present Jerusalem could never be the wife of the Lamb because the present Jerusalem is an unholy, Christ-rejecting city, a city made by man and a city corrupted by the hand of man. But this new Jerusalem is totally different. This is the city that Abraham sought by faith. Remember that statement by about Abraham in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 10? It says, “For he was looking for a city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” In other words, from the time God called Abraham, God birthed faith in Abraham’s heart whereby Abraham, sure, was looking for the physical promised land that Israel would inherit one day. But even above and beyond that, Abraham knew there’s a greater city than any earthly city. There’s a greater city than any city made by human hands. And that’s a glorious city made by God. And Abraham in his heart was saying, “I will not be home until I get home to that city.”

And, child of God, listen to me. You’re not gonna be home till you get there. Now you may be happy, and you may be fulfilled at times, and you may be stirred at times, but if you’re born again child of God there is a restless longing in your heart that says, “I’m not home till I get there. I’m not home till I get to that city that my Lord built with His own hands. I don’t fit any of these cities down here too well.”

I just came back from the St. Paul/Minneapolis, Minnesota area. 2.7 million people. There are a lot of nice things about St. Paul/Minneapolis. Very clean area, very nice area. But you know what? It ain’t home. It’s just not home. But you know, in a very real sense, neither is Muscle Shoals, neither is Florence or Tuscumbia, Sheffield, or wherever you come from. If you’re a child of God, you’re not really home till you get there. That’s what Abraham was looking for. That’s the city that we are looking for.

Look at verse 10 if you would. And he, the angel, carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven to God. You know, in a very real sense all the great cities of all the ages are but shadows, or rather I should say were but shadows of this true eternal city of God. And it’s the only one that will stand. All the other cities of all the other kingdoms of all antiquity have fallen. And matter of fact, for ar, archeologists to find out where they are today, they have to go and dig through the dirt and somehow find the foundation stones of those old ruined cities. But this city will never fall. And this city will never pass away. All the others were those who built their houses on the shifting sands of this present world. Now, friend, if you build your hopes and you build your faith and you build your confidence in this world, i.e. the cities of this world, you’re building your life on sinking sand. Matthew chapter 7 verses 26 through 27 says this: “Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them,” that means Jesus is saying, “He doesn’t put his faith and his trust in My teaching, in My truth.” “Everyone who does not do that will be like the foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and slammed against that house, and it fell. And great was its fall.” Every city that ever has or ever will exist will fall, but this city stands forever.

Well, look at verse 11 as we continue our introduction. John’s looking at the vision and he notices, he says, “It’s having the glory of God.” Think on that for a moment. A city that shines with the reflective and illuminating Shekinah glory of God. One of the hotels we stayed in in downtown Minneapolis let us see something of the skyline, and it is quite amazing and to some degree awe inspiring to see the lights of those great cities of America or even the great cities around the world. But who can comprehend a city that shines with the glory of God? That’s a phenomenal thought. You know in the Old Testament, the Bible says Solomon’s temple shined, or shone with the Shekinah glory of God. The Bible tells us in the New Testament that on what we call the Mount of Transfiguration that some of the glory that is Jesus was allowed to shine through. See, he had to veil that glory or men could not have dwelt around Him. But for a moment on that mountain, He let some of the glory shine through. AND the apostles who knew that He loved them and the apostles who knew that He had accepted them by grace could not bear the sight. They fell on their faces, and the Bible says they were trembling and scared to death ‘cause the awesome glory of Christ. And even in that case the glory was still veiled to some degree. Well, this city shines with the glory of God. Here presently in this sin-cursed world and as we walk in sin-polluted fleshly bodies, we just can’t comprehend it. But having been apprehended by Christ, we do look for this city and on our best days we long for this city, to be near our Lord.

John, as he’s continuing to get the vision there in verse 11, says, “Her brilliance, her illumination, was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal-clear jasper.” I can just see John as he’s writing this divinely inspired text straining with all the, cognitive power that he has to find human parallels or earthly parallels that might match the glory or the vision that he’s seeing. And he comes up with that phrase that it’s just like a crystal-clear jasper stone. Not just a jasper stone, which the scholars say could even be a diamond. It’s a diamond-like stone. It’s, it’s practically clear, and it just shimmers and shines as the light hits it. John just says it’s just like a, a brilliant jasper stone. What glory.

Well, that’s our introduction. The eternal state God is establishing, He’s doing it for His own glory. My friend, we need to discipline ourselves, we need to discipline ourselves to have the same view of things that God’s Word says we ought to have. And when we think about heaven, yes, it’s going to be wonderful beyond compare for us. Yes, it’s gonna be glory beyond compare. Yes, the tears are gonna be wiped away, and yes, there’ll be no more sorrow and no more pain and no more death. And, sure, we should think on that. But above that, we need to be disciplined in our hearts to say, “God, the eternal state is established so that we might bring You glory for all eternity.” And everything about the physical structure of the eternal state is so that God might have the glory. I believe when we get there we’re just gonna get lost in the glory of God. That’s what it’s for.

Well, in this section of scripture that I want us to look at we’re gonna see that the eternal state glorifies God because it glorifies Christ and His redemption. It glorifies Christ and His redemption. In other words, for all eternity I think we’re gonna walk around heaven doing this: “Isn’t God glorious? Isn’t God wonderful? Isn’t He marvelous? Isn’t He stupendous? Isn’t He so great because of the way He saved us and how He saved us through Jesus?” And then He’s just gonna get the glory. You know the Bible does say we’re all trophies of grace. We’re gonna be on display in God’s eternal home for all eternity, giving God the glory.

Well, three things I think comes out very clearly here that glorifies Christ and the redemption He gives us. First of all, notice in verses 12 through 13 that we see here that Israel provided the gate of salvation. Israel provided Christ who is therefore the gate of salvation. Look at it there, uh, beginning in verse 12. It says, “It had a great and high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels; and names were written on them which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel.” Now notice it. Here are gates in this holy, celestial, eternal city, and God has put the names of the twelve tribes of Israel on each gate. In other words, there’s one name on each of the twelve gates. Now why did God do that? Why didn’t He just put your name on there? Or my name on there? Because God’s pointing out something here. Because the gate to God and the gate to this city came through Israel.

Now listen. God could have done it through any country He wanted to do it through. He just chose to do it through Israel. By the way, the Jews were the Jews because God chose them. God didn’t choose them because they were Jews. And, and so I think, when, when we’re up there in heaven and we see that, that the names of the twelve tribes of Israel on those gates and we think about entering God’s domain, entering the presence of God through those gates, through the names of those twelve tribes of Israel, what does it do? It makes us say, “Praise God that You brought Your Savior through Israel to mankind. Didn’t have to do it that way, wasn’t required to do it that way, but you can do it that way. You did do it that way, and You did it perfectly. And we give You the glory for all eternity.” You know, God selected Abraham to be the father of the nation of Israel. God reached down and just said, “Abraham, I’m gonna call you to be Mine.” And you could say, “Well, it’s because Abraham was so mature, and Abraham was so godly, and Abraham was so righteous.” No, he wasn’t anything but a failure when God found him. And God began to fashion him into the man of God he ought to be. Matter of fact, God had to take Abraham through several crisis surrendering points. One failure after one surrender after one death after another before He could really use Abraham the way He wanted to use him. But that was God’s sovereign choice. Why does God make sovereign choices like that? So He can display His glory. So He can display His power, His might, His omnipotence, His providence.

You see, to Abraham, there was born Isaac, and then to Isaac there was born Jacob. Then to Jacob there was born Judah. Then of the line of Judah there was born Jesse. And of Jesse there was born David. And in the line of David there was born Eleazar. And to Eleazar was born Matthan. And to Matthan was born another Jacob. And this Jacob was the father of Joseph, who married the virgin Mary, who was now pregnant by the Holy Spirit, who gave birth to Jesus. The gate came through Israel. The door to God and God’s city came through Israel. That’s what this is saying. And maybe that’s not stirring you or exciting you or welling up in you to say, “Praise God.” But if you get there, it will then. Say, “Man, did you see the gate? One’s got Benjamin on it. One’s got Judah on it. Did you see all of them?” That’s just reminding us that God in sovereignty chose the bring His Savior through Israel. And He did it perfectly. Praise God. We’ll just do that for the first one million years. Just say, “Let’s go have some gate praise.” And we’ll just go all hang around the gate and talk about it and praise God. Why? Because, folks, it’s for God’s glory. It’s all for God’s glory.

Jesus began His earthly ministry at age thirty. He was performing signs and wonders and miracles all bearing witness of His deity and His Messiahship, all pointing out that He was the Savior, and also illustrating the character of His future kingdom that would be established on earth. And then at the set time the Bible says Jesus set His face like flint toward Jerusalem and headed to the cross. And there according to the predetermined plan of Almighty God Jesus was betrayed by Judas Iscariot. Didn’t just happen. Didn’t slip up on God. God used the wicked man, Judas, to accomplish His perfect ends so He could redeem for Himself a holy bride, of which we are a part of it. So that when we get to eternity, we’ll just praise God for how He did it all for all eternity. Excuse me, I’m just excited about this.

Betrayed by Judas Iscariot, arrested, falsely accused and crucified. Then through His death and resurrection, a door was opened. IN the Greek the same word for door is the word for gate. A gate was opened for man to come to God and for man to gain entrance into this eternal city. Jesus said in John 10 verses 7 and 9, “Truly, truly I say to you…” Now when Jesus says, “Truly, truly,” it means, “This is serious.” “Truly, truly I say to you, I am the door,” same Greek word gate, “I am the gate of the sheep. I am the gate, if anyone enters through Me, he will go in and out and find pasture.” So the names of the twelve tribes of Israel are written on each of the twelve gates of this holy city. Why? Because God provided the gate through the nation of Israel. And this gate, Jesus, must be entered to gain access into the eternal state and into this holy city.

Well, not only because did He bring the gate through the nation of Israel. There’s something else that jumps out oat us here. Secondly, notice the apostles penned the written Word, which is the foundation for salvation. The apostles penned the written Word, the foundation for salvation. We see this pointed out to us in verse 14. It says, “And the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones.” I tried to configure in my mind how that would work, twelve foundation stones, because you know the text says here the city is fifteen hundred miles square. It’s fifteen one hundred miles wide. It’s fifteen hundred miles deep. It’s fifteen hundred miles tall. It’s a cube. “Well, Brother Jeff, how does that work?” I don’t know. But I guarantee you it works. And once you get there, you won’t be wanting to fly to St. Paul or Minneapolis or Orlando or New York or nowhere else because it’s such a glorious city.

But notice what he says here. “The wall of the city had twelve foundation stones and on them were written the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.” Now think about that. Foundation stones. Now this is interesting. We’ve already looked at the gates, and the gates have the names of the apostles, now we look at foundation stones. And on each stone Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, all the way down through Paul we see the names of the apostles. What does that mean? Here’s what it means. God is saying the foundation for faith and salvation was laid by the writing of God’s apostles as they coined or rather as they wrote the final cannon, the New Testament scriptures. Listen to me. God saves men. God saves women. God saves boys and girls through the preaching of the Word of God. He does not necessarily save them during the preaching, but He does save them through the preaching of the Word of God.

Matter of fact, if I could give you a side note that is more deeply concerning to me than it has been any other time. A lot of what we do at the end of sermons sometimes to get people to move is not God. We should proclaim the Word and urge men to get saved and leave that between God and the men and not give them some sort of false system of semantics or exercises to go through making them think God saved them because they walked an aisle. God saved them because they prayed with the preacher. God saved them because they filled out a card. Find that in the Bible. Yes, challenge, and yes, invite. But the systems we’ve incorporated through the years to try to get people saved, I’m sure are very faulty at best. When the invitation, you know the invitation system that we use in our Baptist churches today coming forward at the end of the service, I’m not saying it’s evil. I’m just saying it’s got lots of weaknesses, and we need to look at everything according to the Word of God.

But when the invitation system first got popular, it was about the mid-1800’s. It’s only about a hundred and fifty years old. Reckon anybody got saved those first eighteen hundred and fifty years? There are great Bible preaching, soul-winning, gospel-preaching churches. They never gave a come forward invitation. They always invited people to come to Jesus, but not necessarily walk an aisle. But in 1850 when that became popular, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, which I believe is one of the finest pastors, one of the greatest men of God who’s ever lived, preached, or written. He said, “I perceive that this system has as much evil in it as it has good,” because men in their flesh want some sort of work to make them feel like they’re right with God. Men in their flesh want some hoop to jump through to make them feel they’re right with God instead of just trusting Jesus. And often, unintentionally, perhaps, we have given men a hoop. “If I just get the courage to walk down the aisle and pray that prayer, I’ll go to heaven.” Wrong. You go to heaven if you trust Jesus as Savior.

Well, the foundation stones in this holy city have the name of God’s or Jesus’ twelve apostles on them. Why? Because the teaching, or the writing of the apostles in the New Testament is what we learn and what we receive whereby we faith our, place our faith in Jesus. First Corinthians 3:11, listen to this verse. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now you say, “Now, Pastor, that text says the foundation is Jesus Christ.” That’s exactly right.

But listen to some other texts and put them in context with that text. Listen to Ephesians 2:20. Paul writes to the church at Ephesus and says, “Having been built upon the foundation of Jesus?” No. “…built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone.” Now did you see that? Here’s the picture, or the metaphor that Paul lays out here in Ephe, in this letter to the Ephesians. He says, “Now, we, we place our faith in the truth we receive from the writing of the apostles.” That means the New Testament. If the New Testament had not been written, we would have not had the finished cannon of God. We would not have the completed revelation of God, specifically, the message of Jesus and Him coming to die on the cross. But those apostles superintended by sovereign, Almighty God penned the New Testament, the truths about Jesus we need to learn, study, and understand so we can place our faith in Him to save us and place our faith on Him and follow Him as our Lord.

All right? So in a very real sense, our faith and our salvation is built on the apostles. Listen, folks. That is how highly exalted God’s Word is. That God said, “Your faith rests on the teaching and the preaching of the Word of God as penned by God’s holy apostles. And they finished the cannon of scripture. That is the New Testament.

Now also as Paul’s writing to the Ephesians, now what did He say? He said that Jesus is the chief cornerstone. The apostles are the foundation, but, now listen. Everything the apostles wrote, everything the apostles taught, everything we have in this Bible, listen to me, squares with the cornerstone, lines up with the cornerstone. That’s why when we’re studying and we’re praying and we want to know how is a church supposed to function and what is the church supposed to do, we don’t necessarily need committees. We need the Word of God because as the apostles wrote everything they wrote in this New Testament squares with Jesus. And we are of Jesus and the bride of Christ. And I’m telling you, I believe when I get to that eternal state and I walk up to that holy city and I see the first apostle’s name on a foundation stone, I think I’ll just run around the new Jerusalem a million times praising God that He did it that way. He didn’t have to do it that way. But He used plain ole ordinary fisherman, plain ole ordinary guys to be inspired of God and supernaturally by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit pen for us an absolute certain revelation of God in Jesus Christ so that as we read and study that New Testament we can place faith in Jesus and know that we’re saved and go to heaven. And when we get to heaven, we look at the foundation stones. There are the names of the apostles and have a spell all over again praising God for what He’s done. But He didn’t have to do it that way, but He chose to. It’s for His glory. Folks, it’s all, listen. The most important thing is not that you get saved and not that your family gets saved and not that we win more people to Jesus. Are you listening to your pastor? The most important thing is our Lord gets the glory. It just so happens that He gets glory when more people get saved. Now I want to say something to you. If our Lord said, “I’m finished, don’t want anybody else to get saved. It would bring Me glory if nobody else gets saved,” you know what we should say? “Yes, Sir.” Amen? “We’re here for You and Your glory. We’re not here for us.” This isn’t a man-centered thing. This is a God-centered thing. And this new city is a God-centered thing.

 

Well, another text that reaffirms that the foundation is the writings of the apostles. The foundation by which we place our faith in so that we’re saved was written by the apostles. Second Peter chapter 3, verse 2: That you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles.” God said, “I am so big, I can take these ordinary men called apostles, and I can superintend through them so that they will write exactly the revelation of Me that I want written. They’re gonna put in four gospels. They’re gonna put it in epistles. They’re gonna put it in little letter forms. And I’m gonna let John conclude it all with the book of Revelation. And all you’ve got to do is study that, preach that, proclaim that, place your faith in what they teach there, and you will know Me and you will be saved, and you will be Mine for all eternity.”

Hebrews chapter 2 verses 3 through 4: How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? Now, boy, that’s a statement. How shall you escape if you neglect this great salvation? If you keep thinking you’re gonna get saved through baptism, and you keep thinking you’ll get saved by taking the Lord’s supper, and you keep thinking you’re gonna get saved ‘cause you walked down a Baptist church aisle one day and you filled out a Baptist card and you were baptized in a Baptist baptistery. If you keep thinking your going to get saved because you change your life or you reformed your morals or you’ve got a new ethical outlook and you’re doing new good works, and you’re straightening things up; if you keep thinking you’re gonna get saved that way, how are you gonna escape? How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? What do you mean? What is this great salvation? Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain; He washed it white as snow. You need to fall on your face before God and say, “Dear God, I’m an unworthy, hell-deserving, hell-bound, wretched man. There’s nothing good in me. I don’t even deserve another breath this side of hell. But, Jesus, save me.” And He’ll save you. How are you gonna escape if you neglect that great salvation? There’s no other way. There’s no way to escape. If you let that one go by, you can’t be saved. If you let that one slip away, you can’t go to heaven. You can’t escape.

Well, that’s not my point. Look at the rest of that verse. After it was first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard. Now who are those who heard, who were there as contemporaries with Jesus during His earthly ministry? Say it to me. The apostles. They confirm to us the truth of Jesus. They confirmed to us the message of Jesus in salvation. They are the foundation we place our faith on and we live our lives by. And what did God do through the apostles? Now are you listening, church? This will help us in some of the confusion that swirls around in some of our charismatic churches today. What did God do to those apostles and for those apostles? God also testifying with them. God testified with them both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will. What’s God saying? God said, “I gave the apostles a special anointing for signs and wonders and miracles because they were coining the foundation of your faith by writing the New Testament.” And we should not expect the same signs, wonders, and miracles in this age that the first century Christians new because guess what. We’re not writing scripture. Amen? God doesn’t need to give that same kind of signs and wonders and attesting miracles to verify we’re, we’re writing truth of God because we’re not writing it. You know what God’s doing today? God’s not calling apostles. God’s calling pastor-teachers, Ephesians 4:11, to preach what the apostles wrote. They are the foundation. But all their foundation, remember what he said to the Ephesians, all that they wrote squares with Jesus, winds up with Jesus, is built on Jesus.

You know what, I just can, I can get to thinking on this and just want to throw this Bible through the light room back there. It’s just absolutely so wonderful how God does things. You know what’s so wonderful about it? He didn’t have to call a deacon’s meeting to find out how to do it. He didn’t have to consult the elders to find out how to do it. God just said, “This is the way I’m gonna do it.” And you and I, listen to me. Would you quit helping God? Will you just stop it? He don’t need your help. Matter of fact, He don’t even appreciate you trying to help. He just wants you to stand on His Word. Are you a church elder in this church? Stand on this Word. Are you a deacon in this church? Then you deac according to this Word. You a small group leader in this church? You stand on this Word. He don’t need your help. He don’t need your advice. He don’t need your counsel. And, now listen to me. In order for Him to build His church and save who He’s gonna save, He don’t need your shenanigans, your gimmicks, and all the other stuff you might do to get somebody to get saved. Just give them the Word of God. With love and with compassion, certainly. But never, ever, ever, ever compromising anything these holy apostles wrote as the New Testament. Why? Because if you compromise or you change any of the great truths of the New Testament, you know what you’re doing? You’re getting out of square with Jesus. You’re getting out of square with Jesus when you do that. So we want to be God-centered in our witnessing, God-centered in our ministry, God-centered in our philosophy, God-centered in what we do and why we do it the way we do it, according to the teaching of the Word, particularly the completed cannon of the New Testament because that’s the foundation.

So the gate, the gates of this city that we’re gonna inherit, they have the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. Why? Because the gate came through Israel. The foundation stones of the city, why, look at the foundation stones. They’re the names of the twelve apostles. Why? Because they penned holy scripture that pointed us to Jesus. And what was that say to us, and I’m trying, cutting this things short. But what does that say to us? It says this: God says, “From the first foundational stone to the very nth degree of everything that’s in this holy city, it glorifies, honors, praises and magnifies the supremacy of God.” And that’s what we’re gonna be doing for all eternity.

Just, you might be sitting outside the gate, just looking at it saying, “Well, just praise God. Praise God, He called Abraham. Praise God for Isaac. Praise God for Jacob. Praise God for Judah. Praise God He brought Jesus through the nation of Israel.” Then somebody come up and grab you, say, “Man, you think this is something. Let’s go have some foundation praise for a while.” You run over to the foundation stone. Look at those foundation stones and see all the names of those holy apostles. “Praise God they wrote the New Testament. Praise God it’s perfectly inspired without any error in it. Praise God that fallen, fallible, weak, common men wrote this book, and it was God’s Word. And we could place our faith in what they taught and wrote, and we could be saved and go to heaven. Praise God, praise God, praise God, praise God.” So for all eternity, there will never be one thought of man. And all will be to God be the glory. Let’s get as much like that now as we can. To God be the glory. And all of God’s people said? Let’s stand together in prayer…






The Eternal State: To God Be the Glory, Part 2

Revelation 21:9-17

 

Turn to Revelation 21, looking at John’s vision of the very end event of all end time events. And that end event is the eternal state. That’s the phrase that I think fits it best. Finally and once and forever God establishes the new heavens and new earth where righteousness dwells. He brings down the holy city, Jerusalem, a city whose architect and builder is God Himself. We don’t know exactly, but I believe that holy city, Jerusalem is the place where you go when you die. I believe that’s the place where departed spirits, saved folks go and dwell until this day that it’s brought down to the earth. And then we will enjoy all the new heavens and all the new earth. God’s presence, His pervading presence illumines all of this new heaven and earth. The Bible text tells us there’s not even a temple there in the new Jerusalem because it’s all a place of worship. It’s all a place to adore Him and praise Him and exalt Him. Uh, folks, that’s heaven. Heaven is when you have all of God all the time. And you can praise Him all the time, and you can worship Him all the time, and you can enjoy Him all the time. That’s what makes heaven heaven.

Revelation 21, let’s read our text again. I will briefly review and then we’ll finish with the third point. Revelation 21 beginning in verse 9. Then one of the seven angels who had one of the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues, come and spoke with me saying, “Come here and I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her brilliance was like a very costly stone, a stone of crystal-clear jasper.

Now that’s what we used, verses 9, 10, and 11 as our introduction. And once again John sees, he’s seeing a vision. He’s on the isle of Patmos. He’s writing these things down. And God shows him in this vision the holy city of Jerusalem and it’s brilliant beyond compare. And as John grasps for some fitting earthly parallels to describe this city, he just says it’s like brilliant or crystal-clear jasper. The scholars tell us that that jasper stone could even be a diamond, a clear stone that would sparkle and be brilliant with when light comes upon it. Of course this city beams with the glory of God and refracts and reflects the glory of God.

Then we came to the first major point and that is we were building on the premise that all of heaven and all of the eternal state is for God. And we challenged ourselves anew and afresh to be God-centered in all of our thinking, God-centered in all of our viewpoints concerning our individual lives and particularly concerning our church and what our church is about. And when you get to heaven, if you really want to understand what the text is saying you must repent of any man-centered viewpoint and get a God-centered perspective of what’s going on. And that is God has so designed heaven so that He will receive praise and worship and honor and glory for all eternity. God is most satisfied and thrilled when He’s most glorified. And God doesn’t have an ego problem. He’s God, and He rightfully should be glorified. And we are best and most blessed when we are rightfully glorifying Him. Amen? That’s the beautiful balance and harmony of it all. And, and in the early centuries Paul and the other writers of the New Testament battled false teaching with all of their heart. And there was a Gnostic heresy that came into the church. And among other things basically the Gnostic heresy just was man-centeredness, taking Christian garb and Christian terms and reducing it down into what man wanted and what man thought was best for one another and how man thought he ought to serve one another. And it’s just not God-centered at all. And we need to make sure we don’t slip into that. And as we drift in that direction we repent and get back to a God-centered view.

And so when you go to heaven one day and you get into this eternal state, it’s going to be all about God and all about glorifying God and all about Him getting all the honor and all the praise. One of the things that we will glorify Him for is the, the gates of that city. Look at it there in verses 12 and 13. The gates symbolize or, or are a metaphor for something great. Verse 12: It had a high, a great and high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels; and names were written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. And there were three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, and three gates on the west. And remember the gates had, each gate had the individual name of one of the twelve tribes of Israel. And we asked what is that for. Why is that there? It’s to remind us that God’s glorious, wonderful plan of salvation came through the Jews. The gate came through Israel. Jesus said, “I am the door or the gate to the sheepfold.” If you want in God’s family, if you want to be one of God’s sheep, you have to come through Christ. And Christ came through the Jews.

Now listen. God didn’t have to do it that way. God could have chose any man on earth to be the father of a great nation. He could have called them anything He wanted. He could have brought the Savior through any line He wanted. He just chose to bring it through Israel. And He did it perfectly despite Israel’s sins, her shortcomings, her failures, her ups, her downs, her victories, her defeats. God’s perfect plan came to fruition. Christ came, born of the virgin Mary. His earthly father, but not His physical father was Joseph, who is of the line of David, who of course is of Israel. So the gate comes from Israel. And when we’re up there in heaven, it’s just going to be glorious to look on that. And praise God for the way He saves us and the mechanisms and the steps He took to bring us to salvation and indeed bring Christ to us.

Secondly, beginning in verse 14 we saw these foundation stones. Let’s look at it there. It said, “And the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.” And we asked now what is that all about. Why would the apostles have their names on individual foundation stones? Well, here’s why. Because in God’s sovereign providence, He determined that we would be saved by hearing the preaching and the teaching of the Word of God, that is the finished cannon of scripture, the New Testament, which was written by the apostles of the Lamb. The foundation of your faith, the Bible teaches, is built on the teaching of the apostles. And God is so powerful, God is so big, He could use those human men to write the record of Jesus in the New Testament. And when that record is preached, that foundation is laid out, men can believe on Christ and be saved. And so we will look at those foundation stones in that new eternal city and just give glory to God and praise to God for the way He chose to save us. And as I said earlier, He could have saved us a thousand different ways. Now it would have taken the death of His Son, but He could have brought the message in a thousand different ways. But He chose to use common men two thousand years ago to write the Word of God as the Holy Spirit superintended through them and they wrote the perfect revelation of Jesus Christ that when it is preached and taught men are saved. That’s the way God does it, and we will praise Him and glorify Him for all eternity as we look on those foundation stones.

Now let’s go to our third major point. We come to verses 15 through 17 and we look at the city walls. Look at it there beginning in verse 15. He said, “The one who spoke with me had a gold measuring rod to measure the city and its gates and its walls.” I don’t know what all the significance there is, and I, I assume the major significance for the measuring rod is that God want you to see the grandeur and the glory of this city because it reflects of His grandeur and His glory. Verse 16: 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, fifteen hundred miles; its length and width and height are equal.

So you have this fifteen hundred mile cube. It’s fifteen hundred miles wide. It’s fifteen hundred miles deep. It’s fifteen hundred miles tall. What an incredible thought, and I don’t know how that works. And I don’t know if we’re layered in there or what it is. Uh, it just, I don’t know if it’s like a giant skyscraper of some type, but it’s gonna be glorious beyond compare. Uh, if you want to just sort of get in your mind the size of this one city, if you take all the land mass east of the Mississippi River from the Mississippi River east to the eastern seaboard, north to the Canadian boarder, south down to the Gulf of Mexico you roughly have a fifteen hundred mile square. That’s one city, and it goes up for fifteen hundred miles. An incredible, glorious city God makes with His own hands. So John’s seeing this vision; he’s seeing this incredible city. Can you imagine, can you imagine being in John’s shoes, still in this human flesh and, and seeing this thing happen? I, I think I’d just laid on the ground and say, “Oh, dear Lord, I just got to go to heaven now. I can’t handle it. It’s just too much. It’s just too overwhelming, too fascinating, too glorious.”

Well, look at verse 17. And he measured its wall, seventy-two yards according to human measurements-which are also angelic measurements. Seventy-two yards is a good transliteration or translation over into our human, or our modern measurement. Now think about that. That’s about three-fourths of a football field you’ve got these tall walls. And once again as I thought about the gates with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel on each individual gate. And then when I thought about the stones and the name of the apostles on the stones, I thought about the wall and I said, “Why a wall?” In John’s day, all cities had a wall for security. But there’s no need for security here. Nobody is gonna storm this city. There’s nobody to storm it. Everybody’s on His side. And they couldn’t if they wanted to. So why would God put such an incredible and massive wall? Next time we’re together we’ll look at the uh, the, the materials that make up the wall. But why would God build such a wall in a city where you needed no wall? Because I am convinced for all eternity God wants us to view that wall as we’re nestled in that holy city and glory in our security in Christ. He wants us to magnify Him and worship Him and extol Him and sing to Him and praise Him for the incredible, providential security every saint has in the Lord Jesus Christ.

What a powerful statement of security we have in Christ in this text. Once we are in that eternal state and in that glorious city, we are as secure as the power of God is strong. And we can never be lost. An infinite security by an infinite powerful God. But our security does not begin when we get in the eternal state and inherit that holy city. My friend, in fact, we are just as secure during our earthly pilgrimage as we will be when we get there. It’s just that city with those walls will remind us of that. And we’ll praise God for it. Even more, gloriously even more our security in Christ has been settled from eternity past and extends through eternity future. And when we get in those walls, it just gonna remind us of that glorious truth. And we’re just gonna praise God for the next ten million years for the glorious security of our salvation in Christ.

I want you to look at two or three texts right quick with me. Look at first, first of all at Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8. I was in, uh, John Piper’s church as I’ve told you about twelve times already, and I would encourage you to read some Piper. Find one of his books and read it. And, uh, I feel that we have more in common as far as philosophy of ministry with his ministry than almost any church I’ve seen anywhere. You know it’s encouraging when you go somewhere and you listen to them, you listen to them preach, you listen to their convictions and what they’re trying to do, and you sit back and you say, “Hallelujah, I’m not crazy. Or maybe both of us are.”

But, uh, I tell you what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna read and do a running commentary of Romans 8:28 through 39 and just believe it. Amen? Just stand on it. Just have the audacity to believe the Word of God. And just glory in it. Just sort of saturate ourselves in the awesomeness of the security. Child of God, are you in despair tonight? Are you hurting tonight? Are you cast down tonight? Are you longing for some help tonight? Well, just cast yourselves on these glorious truths. And see if it doesn’t do something for you.

Romans 8:28: And we know… Aren’t you glad there’s some things we can know? And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. Now if you’re saved, you have been called. You’re one of the called ones, but you can’t be saved if you never were called. But if you are saved, you have been called. All right. Now he says if you’re one of those saved, called ones, now listen, this is security, this is great security, then every single thing that happens to you is ultimately for your good. I don’t care how difficult. I don’t care how, care how hard. I, it doesn’t matter how downtrodden or defeated. It doesn’t matter how injust, unjust, rather or difficult or despairing the season. Every thing’s happening for your good. Friend, that’s security. Now listen. When we get there in that city, we’ll understand as he understands and we’ll just have a spell over how wonderful even the bad stuff was in His sovereign, almighty purposes and plan. Can I get an amen there?

You might be like your pastor. Sometimes, man, I can get low and I can get down and I can get discouraged, and I mean to tell you it’s just a sheer act of the will to repent of thinking on me and my situation and get back to standing on the Word of God. Or am I the only one that struggles there?

Verse 29, he says, “For those who He foreknew.” Now that doesn’t mean He knew what you would do. It means He picked you. These He also predestined. That means He pointed you out beforehand to do something with you. He foreknew you and He predestined you to become conformed to the image of His Son so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren. Here’s what he’s saying. In effect, Jesus is saying this: “I want a people like Me. I am the first one of the bunch, and now I’m gonna take those that I know from eternity past and I predetermine and pick out, I’m gonna have them to become just like me so we’ll all be the same kind of people. I’ll just be the first one of the whole bunch.” And when you get to heaven, you’re gonna be like Him. Now right now, you’re not just like Him. You’re to be becoming more like Him. But when you get there you have the old sin-polluted flesh removed, a new glorified body put on. And you’ll be just like Him, and you’ll look at Him and say, “I’m just like Him, but He was the first one like us.” He’s the first one among many brethren. Friend, that’s security.

You say, “Brother Jeff, I like it the other way where it depends upon man.” Well, you can have it that way. I want it where it depends upon God all the way through. That’s security, folks. We’re just getting started good. Look at verse 30. And these whom He predestined, He also called. Jesus said in John, “You can’t come to Me unless the Father who sent Me calls you. You can’t come unless you’re called.” You see, the Pharisees were coming up to Jesus and saying, “Now, Jesus, you don’t qualify this way. You don’t qualify this way. You don’t qualify this way. We’ve been studying this thing, Jesus, and we don’t think You’re this, and we don’t think You’re that.” And Jesus, in effect, says, “Look, it doesn’t matter because you can’t get it unless you’re called. You won’t see it unless you’re called. To Nicodemus, Jesus worded it a different way. When Nicodemus came up and said, “I want to know about all this stuff You’re teaching, and I want to know about eternal life.” And Jesus said, “Nicodemus, listen. You’re never gonna see it unless you’re born from above. Unless there’s a spiritual regeneration within your heart that enables you to understand and see it, you’ll not see it.” Plain Bible preaching. And by the way, if you go back and study our founding theologians, good Baptist teaching.

These whom He predestined He also called, and these whom He called He also justified. The word justified is a word they pulled out of the koinea Greek language. It does not mean that you do certain things and prove your justification. It has nothing to do with works. It has nothing to do with repentance. It has nothing to do with a change of heart. It has nothing to do with a change of life. It has nothing to do with belief or faith. It means a declaration was made concerning you that you now stand just before a holy God. You are a justified one. Why? Because you were foreknown, because you were predestined, and because you’re called you’re also justified.

And listen. It’s so absolutely certain that you’re gonna get to heaven He uses the next to refer to the future state we’re gonna be in, but He expresses it with a past tense verb. He also glorified. You talk about security. From the foundation of the world, you were foreknown and predestined. You were pointed out or picked out. And all those who were foreknown and pointed out and picked out were called at a certain point in time. And those that were called were justified. And those that are justified are as if they are already glorified. And when we get in that holy new city we see those, uh, uh, I was gonna say those football fields. I meant those walls about as tall as a football field, and we’re gonna think, “Praise God He saved me and I’ve been secure from eternity past and I’m secure for eternity future.” Die pride. Die flesh. Die man-centered thinking. This is God-centered stuff. It’s Bible. He gets all the glory and the credit and the praise and the honor.

So Paul continues to the Roman church. Uh, by the way, when Dr. Piper was preaching through Romans chapter 8, he spent eight weeks on one verse. I might try that, but not soon. Let me get over Revelation first. All right? Romans 8:31: What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? In other words, if He is God and He’s a God that is so great that He foreknows us, He predestines us, He calls us, He justifies us and it’s as if we’re already glorified, if He’s that big and can do all that, what are you worried about? That’s as secure as it gets. What an incredible truth.

And then practically what did He do? Verse 32: He who did not spare His own