Revelation: Part 60

When anyone anywhere, responds to this knowledge by having a desire to know this God, God will move heaven and earth to get the message to them.

It says it was -her brilliance, the brilliance of the city was like this many-faceted, beautiful diamond. And it had a great high wall with 12 gates. And the gates, 12 angels attending them. And the names were written on them, which are the names of the 12 tribes of the sons of Israel.

Now, for all of the preterists, now, these are the people, we call them kingdom now, dominionists, whatever. These are the people that say that God has rejected all Israelites as a people and as a nation. Because they didn’t believe in Jesus. And they say that all of the covenants he made with them were abrogated and taken away because they rejected the Messiah, Jesus.

And therefore, they have no future. And this is a teaching that’s sweeping through the Church today. And their favorite name for themselves now is preterists. But they believe that Israel has no future.

Well, then, why are their names on the eternal holy city of Jerusalem, if God was through with them? And it says the 12 tribes, their names are written on the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem. And it says -they represent the names of the 12 tribes of the sons of Israel. There were three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, and three gates on the west.

And the wall of the city had 12 foundation stones. And on them were the 12 names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb. So we see this city is going to contain both the believing Israelites, their names are on the gate, and also those who came to believe in Jesus Christ as Savior after his death and resurrection. All of those are going to be what we call the Church.

And it says that the foundation of this city, will have the names of the 12 apostles of the Church. And they belong especially to the Lamb. Now, why is it called, Jesus the Lamb here? Because these are the ones that were blood-bought, and are specifically those that believed in Jesus as the one who died in their place as the Lamb of God.

So this is talking about the Church. Well, both the Israelites, the Old Testament, the Tribulation, and the Church during this age, are gonna be part of this great, gorgeous, unbelievable city. And it says that the foundations are gonna be called by the names of the 12 apostles. Now it says here, verse 15, the one who spoke with me had a gold measuring rod to measure the city, and its gates and its walls.

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, 1,500 miles. Its length and width and height are equal. So we have a cube, 1,500 miles on each side.

You can put an awful lot of people in a cube that size. Enormous. And apparently, gravity is no problem. The foundation stones -I should say, verse 17.

And he measured its wall, thickness actually. 72 yards or 70 meters, according to human measurement, which are also angelic measurements. The material of the wall was jasper, and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. I mean, we’re talking about something that has not been built that we’ve ever seen.

The material of the wall, diamonds. Huge diamond-like. And the city itself is just emanating gold. And it says, the foundation stones of this city and the wall are adorned with every kind of precious stone.

The first foundation stone was the jasper, the diamond. The second, sapphire. Oh, I like sapphires. Beautiful rich blue.

The third, chalcedony. And the best I could get out of this is onyx. The fourth, emerald. I like emeralds, too.

The fifth, sardonyx, and I could not find exactly what that was. It’s a precious stone, but no one seemed to know in the english or Greek lexicons or anything else. The sixth, sardius. A sardius is apparently a dark pink diamond.

Almost a -almost a red-pink kind of a diamond. The seventh, chrysolite. We couldn’t find that either. The beryl.

The ninth, topaz. Well, that is a goldish-yellow precious stone. And the tenth, this was a surprise, chrysoprase. Chrysoprase.

It is an apple-green diamond. The 11th, jacinth, or jacinth, is a very deep blue diamond. The 12th, amethyst. Purple.

And the 12 gates were 12 pearls. Each one of the gates was a single pearl. Now that must be enormous. Imagine.

Imagine how beautiful. I love pearls. And yet these are -I mean, you’d have to have big gates for a city like that. These are enormous pearls.

So when somebody talks about the pearly gate, well, I’ve got news for you. It’s not the pearly gate. They’re all pearly gates. They’re all pearl gates.

And gates of the most gorgeous pearls. And it says, and the street -this actually means the main street of the city -was pure gold, like transparent glass. Now, notice everything is said to be beautiful but kind of transparent. You know what that tells us?

There’s not gonna be privacy, because no one’s got anything to hide. And yet there will be, I suppose, special places for each one. But it will be a place where no one has anything to hide. And you won’t mind being around people.

They don’t have sin natures anymore. And I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the almighty and the Lamb are its temple. And the city has no need of the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb. Apparently the shekhinah glory of God will be the illumination that reaches out into every direction in space from the city.

And the reflector of this, the lamp, will be the Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ. The nations will walk by its light and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. In the daytime, for there will be no night there, its gates will never be closed. And they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it, and nothing unclean and no one who practices abominations and lying shall ever come into it.

But only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. Is your name in the Lamb’s book of life? If you believed in Jesus Christ and you said, Lord, I’m not good enough for you to accept, but right now I receive the gift of pardon you died in my place to pay for, then you’re in his book. Remember, the book of life of the Lamb is the one where your name is entered when you believe.

The book of life is the one where your name is blotted out when you have reached that point where God knows you’ll never believe. But the Lamb’s book of life is something special. This particularly is talking about those from the Church age. But it will include all people, too.

Now, when it talks about the nations, the best I can figure about that is that these are the people who like during the age of Israel became proselytes. So they were not Israelites, but they were believers. And so they are brought to live not in the city, but they can go in and out. And they will be on the new earth.

And also, the people during the Tribulation that will believe. So apparently, there’s some arrangement there and, frankly, I don’t know conclusively, and I never read anybody who did. But we do know that there were people outside of the particular plan of God that did believe in various times in God’s earthly plan. All right, now, when it says and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abominations and lying shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Now, I want you to turn with me to 1 Corinthians 6. The epistle of 1 corinthians. One of the first. It’s Romans, and after that.

All right, in 1 Corinthians 6:9, or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate. And this means those who make themselves effeminate, not a person who’s born a woman. Naturally she’s effeminate, we hope.

Nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the Kingdom of God. Such were some of you. In other words, believers fit several of those things. We all were one or two of them at least.

But it says you were that. Past tense. And then it clarifies. In verse 11, such were some of you, but you were washed in what?

The blood of the Lamb. But you were sanctified. How? By being baptized into living union with the person of Jesus Christ himself.

That’s how you were sanctified. The moment you believed in him, you became bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. But you were justified. What does that mean?

Well, most people explain it this way. Just as if you never sinned. But that would make you a minus. You know, if you were declared righteous, which you are, the moment you believe in Jesus Christ, in the courtroom of God, he officially declares you as righteous as Jesus Christ because he’s paid for every sin you’ve ever committed.

But if it only meant he was removing your sin, that would mean you were just a minus. You didn’t have any sin. But you’ve got to have something more. What?

You’ve got to have his righteousness. So justification means just as if you always did everything right. He declares you as righteous as Jesus on the basis of what he did for you. That’s justification.

And that is a divine fiat that happens once and for all the moment you believe in Jesus Christ. You were declared righteous. Now, he wants us to live and to seek to become more what we already are, but you see the christian life is seeking to become what you already are. It starts with victory.

And you’re supposed to, in your experience, become more like what God’s already declared you to be. Now, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and in the spirit of our God. And the body is the Lord’s. All things are lawful for me.

Did you know that? As a believer in Jesus Christ, I’m no longer under the law. I’m under grace. Therefore all things are lawful for me.

But not all things are profitable. And, you know, the divine woodshed clarifies those things. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. That was Paul’s attitude and we should have that same attitude.

Okay. So, you know, free from the law, happy conditions, sin as you please, for there is remission. That’s not the attitude to have. And you will learn if you try that that’s not the way it’s supposed to be.

But, you know, we have been declared righteous. And so all things are lawful, but because of this new nature in us and God working with us and the power of his word, he wants us to become more like what he’s already made us. Now, let’s read on. Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them.

Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord; and the Lord is for the body. Now, God has not only raised the Lord, but also raised -he will raise us up through his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?

He’s dealing with a specific problem they had in Corinth. The corinthians were the most carnal Church of which we have record. And some of the men had gone back to the -you know, they had temples, the temple to aphrodite in Corinth, and the temple priestess were virtually prostitutes. And some of the men had gone back to the old worship for a little while.

Well, he’s dealing with that problem in this section. But I want you to note something very carefully what he says here. He says, verse 15 again, do you not know that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?

May it never be. How can that happen? Well, look at verse 16. Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her?

For he says the two shall become one flesh. All right, if words mean anything, what does that mean? Sexual intercourse makes you one with a person. Whether there’s a ceremony or not.

I’ve been asked by people, how many times have you been married. I said, well, let’s see, I don’t remember how many I had sex with. What do you mean? Well, every person you have sex with, you were married to.

Had a big argument with dr. Pentecost at dallas theological cemetery -cemetery, seminary.

About this. There were some men, including me, who were divorced. And he was making a big point we ought not be there. And I had him — for Greek in 1 corinthians, so we were going through the Greek text.

So he was making his usual diatribe about us guys that were less than spiritual. And so I said, wait a minute. I have a point to make here. How many of the men in this class has ever had sex with someone other than their wife?

And the eyes went down. This says that if you have sexual intercourse with somebody, you were made one flesh with them. And not only that, because you are so in union with the person of Jesus Christ, that you’re bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, therefore what you do with your body also involves Jesus and his body. Thank God if we confess our sins, he’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, and it breaks all former wrong relationships.

But it should be done, it should be confessed, and break any former relationship. He goes and says, I’ll just let him speak for himself, but the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with him. Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body.

But the immoral man sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God and that you’re not your own? For you have been bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body.

Now, he’s making an appeal to these men to stop their wrong behavior. But look how he does it. This is the point I want you to never forget. He didn’t come in with a battleaxe and say, stop that or you’re gonna lose your salvation.

Did he? He said, stop that because you are such a member of the body of Christ that even in that sin, you have joined Christ to this person. So he says, stop it, because you’re disgracing Jesus. He didn’t say stop because he’s gonna cut you off.

No. And the second argument he uses, is also your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. So whatever you do, you drag the Holy Spirit into it. Therefore, quit.

Now let’s get back to, you know, no liars or no swindlers, no immoral person will enter the new Jerusalem. Hey, we all come under that category in one way or another. And if it meant if you do that or ever did it, you can’t come in. No, because you have been washed.

And so we’re headed for the new Jerusalem. Let’s get there not smelling like smoke. But let’s learn more about the new Jerusalem. Let’s learn more about what it’s going to be.

This is just the first things that will soon pass away. I think one of the most powerful things that someone ever said to me, it’s kind of like a nursery rhyme poem, but it really had an impact on me as a young believer. This person said to me, Hal, only one life will soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last. All I can say is, amen.

Heavenly father, I thank you in Jesus’ name, for your great grace that has brought each one of us into this family. Thank you for making us a member of your body. Thank you that this miserable body has been made a temple of the Holy Spirit. Lord, help us to walk in a way that pleases you, in a way that will cause you to smile.

In Jesus’ name and for his sake, amen.

If you have the guts to be a real revolutionary, come forward right now and accept Jesus Christ as your real revolutionary, and he’ll make a revolutionary that will change lives.

As I prepared for this week’s program, I was again struck by the speed with which events are moving into the scenario the prophets predicted for the end times. I believe we’re there. People on the street are talking about what all of these things mean. Folks that wouldn’t darken the door of a Church or pick up a Bible are now very curious.

This may be our greatest opportunity, maybe even our last opportunity, to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ before we’re silenced by political correctness. The message that God has given me is more important now than it’s ever been, for the Church and for the nation.