Take your Bible, Revelation 21:1-8, and we will finish our series on prophecy, Things to Come. When I get back two weeks from now, we’ll probably just do a one-off Sermon, to ease ourself in and in-between series or maybe one or two weeks at that. Then, somewhere towards the end of June, we’re going to start the Sermon on the Mount. You’re going to love that if you want to read ahead Matthew 5, 6, 7. That’s a great sermon by Jesus on subtexts like Christian character, money, the vows you make, anger, anxiety, your response to the word of God. It’s all there, so looking forward to get started with you on that. But let’s wrap up Things to Come. We started to look at the final aspect of the future, which is the new heaven and the new earth. Here in Revelation 21:1-8, we’re promised all things made new, which was the sermon title. Remain seated, but follow as I read the text, this is John speaking.
“I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away,” and we need to pause. I don’t know how to assimilate that. I don’t know how to absorb that. That everything I see, everything where my feet has walked and planes have taken me to, same with you, anything we see, touch, taste, or smell, in its present form will be gone, and a new order will come. Just it beggars language. It defies imagination. “Also, there was no more sea, then I, John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with man and he will dwell with him and they shall be his people. God himself will be with them and be their God.”
“God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There shall be no more death nor sorrow nor crying. There shall be no more pain.” Imagine that. No more pain. “For the former things have passed away.” Then he who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” Then he said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful,” and he said to me, “It is done.” “I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts, he who overcomes shall inherit all things and I will be his God and he shall be my son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” So reads God’s word.
A little boy had been promised by his mom and dad, a new puppy for his sixth birthday. When that time came, they took him down to the pound and there he saw many dogs of different sizes and shapes and breeds and he had a hard time choosing which one he wanted for his sixth birthday. But finally, he chose one, the shaggiest of all the pups who stood there looking at him with its tail wagging furiously. As they handed the puppy to him, his mother asked him, “Why this one?” To which he replied, “I wanted the one with the happy ending.” Now, we all like happy endings, not only when it comes to our dogs, but when it comes to stories and movies. We want to believe that there’s a happy ever after. We want to believe that darkness gives way to light and death gives way to life and sorrow gives way to happiness.
We want to believe that there’s a better tomorrow, given how sad and sorry today can be. The beauty is as we come to Revelation 21:1-8 for the second time, we are at a place in the Bible where we are faced with and we encounter a happy ending, the best of happy endings, the greatest of, and they lived happily ever after. It’s the new heaven and it’s the new earth. Now, let’s put our text quickly in its context. As we said the last time, we have the culmination of God’s plan here in Revelation 21:22. A plan that he outlined as early as Genesis 3:15. From the very beginning of time, man sinned, death entered, God cursed the ground upon which man would toil, sin and sadness and sickness entered the world. But God promised through the seed of the woman, his coming son Jesus Christ, that that would all be reversed.
Here we are in Revelation 21, 22, 22:3 and here’s what we read. There shall be no more curse. What God promised, he did through Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection, Jesus’ ascension to the right hand of God, Jesus promised coming again. All of that will be reversed. Beautiful. We will come full circle. Secondly, where we’re at in this text is the culmination of God’s plan for the last days. If you look at verse five, it says, “Behold I make all things new.” That’s in the present tense. All that has proceeded and all that is present in the events leading up to this is bringing about this moment when all things will be made at new. God’s plan in the last days will unfold as we find it described. We’ve studied it, haven’t we? The rapture of the church followed by the great tribulation period with the rise of the antichrist and the persecution and purge of Israel. The coming of Jesus Christ to set up his kingdom and fulfill his covenants with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
When he will sit on the throne of David, whose house has been established forever. We will return with him at that point and reign with him. Following that, you’ll have the judgment of the great white throne. You’ll have the binding of satan, you’ll have then the eternal state where we are at here in Revelation 21, 22. Let’s jump in. I outlined this passage under four thoughts, the renewal, the resident, the removal, the redeemed. We looked at the renewal. The renewal of this present world. A new heaven and a new earth will emerge just as God will raise our old bodies and make them new, I think God will take this old world and purge it with fire and make it new. New in character, quality and arrangement. The sin ruined creation will become a sacrifice renewed creation through Jesus Christ.
If you remember back, we saw that this promise of a new heaven and a new earth says something about glory, that our eternity will be spent here, not up there. It’s down here, not up there. It’s in a new body, on a new earth. It’s very physical, it’s very concrete. You can touch it, you’ll be able to taste it, you’ll be able to smell it, you’ll be able to enjoy it. It’s not of an out of body experience. Then we said it says something about God. For God to bring this about, shows him to be sovereign, shows him to be a covenant-keeping God. We made a comparison between what was lost in Genesis one, two, and three, to what is regained in Revelation 21, 22. Our God is sovereign. He can close the loop and all that goes on in your life, good, bad and ugly.
Let’s pick up the second thought, the resonance. This would be verses two and three. Then I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem coming down of heaven from God. The new creation will have a capital city. See, in this present dispensation on this present earth, we would argue that the old Jerusalem was the center of the old creation. Psalm 40:1-2, Ezekiel 38:12. But in the new world, in the new creation, God will have a capital city and it will be a holy city, a distinct city, one marked by the righteousness and radiance of God himself and it will be the capital city of the new order. It will be a new Jerusalem. It will be the antithesis of Babylon, a city that God destroyed back in Revelation 17 and 18. This city will be God’s metropolis for eternity. Now, there’s several things about this city.
Number one, what I call the place. It’s a literal place. It’s a city on a new earth, on a new heaven. It may be on the earth or it may be just above the earth. I would lean to the idea that it’s on the earth. It’s a holy city, new Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven from God. It coming down from heaven would imply or would seem to infer that it’s already in existence. It’s there, we don’t see it, but it comes down and we begin to see it. “I, John saw the new heaven and the new earth and the new Jerusalem.” Here’s what I would argue and I think many commentators along with me, what it is is probably the Father’s house, right? John 14:1-6. Jesus says, “I go to prepare a place for you and if I go away, I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am you may be also. In my father’s house are many mansions,” and I think that city which is a cube shape, almost like a Holy of Holies, will come down out of heaven.
I love that. The idea that it moves down and not up, reminds us that the new world order and the future bliss that we all long for, it’s God that produces it. It’s not the urge of some evolutionary process. This is a sovereign God, a creator God who’s had a plan for all of eternity and he’s bringing it about, it’s done. That’s what we read here. Don’t we in verse six? It’s done. He’s going to do it, and we’re going to be the beneficiaries of it. All that’s good in life is not a movement from the ground up, it’s a movement from heaven down. Here’s a little thought. This is a place and you and I will enjoy that place and we will live our lives in that place, not only the holy city, not just a new Jerusalem which is further described in chapter 22.
In fact, I did a sermon on that in our series, Life After Life, if you want to go back to that. But it’s a place and we will live our lives there and we will build memories there. One writer says this, Duvall, “I think place is the most underrated aspect of life. To say in any other way, place is much, much more significant than we sometimes think, and it’s sad that we often fail to appreciate its influence in its power. Aren’t there places in your life?” He’s basically inferring that changed your life, transformed your life. Give it shape. He says this, “Life itself, good or bad is connected to important places. We are place people.” “Right now, I’m sitting on our long shaded front porch on a beautiful autumn morning, expressing my thoughts in writing. I love this place.” Our love of place comes from God.
Our relationship with God isn’t just a mental or imaginary or spiritual. It happens in a physical place of flesh and blood experience. The new creation is such a place. The place, a new heaven. The place, a new Jerusalem. The Jew and I will walk in new bodies and it will become such a precious place. You’ll walk the streets of gold, so to speak, as he says about that porch and you’ll say to yourself, “I love this place.” George Whitfield, the great evangelist and revivalist looked back on his life and he said, “I know the place. It may be superstitious perhaps, but whenever I go to Oxford in England, I cannot help running to that place where Jesus first revealed himself to me and give me the new birth.” Next week when I’m in Northern Ireland, that’s one of the things I will do.
I’ll try to fit in as much as I can. I will go to my mother’s grave, I will walk around the estate I grew up in and sinned in, when I was without Christ and without hope. I will go to certain places to look back on the providence of God when he redeemed my life from destruction. I will go to the police station I worked out of in North Belfast for six years. I will drive by the Little Baptist Church in Antrim Road where I give my life to Jesus Christ. I’ll do things like that, multiple things like that because place is important. We’re people of place, where God met us and worked in our lives and changed us and preserved us and watched over us. The place, the picture, the only description we’re given here is that this city is like a bride prepared and adorned for her husband, 21:2.
Now, you can over-read this text, I don’t think we need to. Some people read into a hidden reference or symbolism of the church, and there’s some merit to that, isn’t there? Ephesians 5, where the church is the bride of Christ. But I don’t think there’s any need for that. When the plain sense of the text makes good sense, seek no other sense. I think he’s simply saying that this place is a beautiful place. It’s a stunning place. It’s radiant. Because isn’t that what we think when we think of a bride adorned for her husband? Guys, shell out the money and get her that dress, because that’s what it’s all about. She wants to be adorned. She wants to look good. She wants everybody to look over their shoulder and go, wow, doesn’t she look beautiful? That’s the image. I think it’s just saying that this place is beautiful like a bride adorned for her husband.
Everything about this place is perfect. Now, we can’t pull off the perfect wedding, but we sure do try because we want it to be perfect. We want the flowers to be perfect. We want the dress to be perfect. We want the location to be perfect. We want the music to be perfect. That’s what’s being implied, we can’t pull it off, but God can. He can pull perfect off, and he does it in the picture of a bride adorned. You and I can’t begin to imagine the perfections of the world to come. Perfect blessing, a perfect government, a perfect calling, communion, perfect joy. It’s all there. I like the story that Adrian Rogers tells in his company in Revelation about a lady who comes leading the day to Yellowstone. Now, I haven’t been there yet, hope to get up there sometime. Here, it’s beautiful, stunning, it’s wide and expansive and you need to get there in good time and take it all in.
She arrives a little late in the day. She’s coming through the entrance. She stops one of the Rangers and she says, “Look, if you only had an hour to spend in Yellowstone…” Sorry, I think it’s… Sorry, take that back. It’s Yosemite. “If you only had an hour to spend in Yosemite, where would you spend it and how would you spend it?” Oh, he said, “Lady, I’d go over and sit in that rock and I would cry for an hour that I have only an hour to spend in Yosemite.” Said, “Good, because that place is so beautiful.” You’d be crying if you only had an hour to spend there. That’s our thought here. This place we’re going to is beautiful. The beauty is we won’t have an hour, we won’t have two hours or a day or three days or a week. We have eternity to explore the odyssey of God’s glory and grace in the new creation.
Thirdly, you have the presence. We’re dealing with the residence. God’s taken up residence on earth. The new Jerusalem comes down and chief among the populace of the world that come as God himself. Look at verse three, and behold the tabernacle of God is with man and he will dwell with him and they shall be his people. God himself will be with them. It’s amazing. God himself will be with them, be their God. This is God’s zip code, the new Jerusalem. When you read the word there, tabernacle, it’s loaded, isn’t it? If you know your Bible, you begin to think about that tent in the Old Testament where the people of God met with God who met them there.
It’s Shekinah glory descended over the tabernacle and when the wanderings were done and they get into the land and the temple was built, God met them there and tabernacled in Solomon’s temple, and then came this great change in the work of God when God’s glory leaves the temple because of Israel’s disobedience and Jesus Christ comes, God himself and we beheld his glory as the glory of the only-begotten son of the Father, and that glory was housed in human flesh, tabernacling among us. God tabernacled in the tabernacle and tabernacled in the temple and tabernacled in Jesus Christ. But Jesus died, rose again, and ascended to the right hand of God, sent the Holy Spirit, who now indwells us and God tabernacles among the body of Christ. In the Old Testament, he had a temple for his people, in the New Testament, he has a people for his temple and eventually the Jew and the Gentile, Israel and the church will spend eternity together and God will tabernacle among us.
It’s beautiful. God no longer dwells high and lifted above us, but gloriously intimately and permanently among us. If you take a tour in any major city in the world, the first thing the guide will do is tell you who lives there. What famous person grew up there. You’re going by the house of such and such. If you tour this city, the first thing you’ll notice and the first thing you need to comprehend is who lives there? God himself love that. We need to be encouraged by that. God now makes good on a longstanding promise to dwell among us and be with us. All of that we lost in Adam’s sin, when man was expelled from the garden, but God has sought fellowship with man, seeks to enjoy fellowship with you and me and that’s going to be restored. Paradise lost, Eden regained. You and I will enjoy unhindered fellowship with God, unhindered by sin, unclouded by negative feelings, uninterrupted by doubt.
I’ve enjoyed the near presence of God and so have you, but it’s going to be nothing like what we’re going to enjoy as we walk like Adam did in the cool of the day in the presence of God. Unhindered, unclouded, uninterrupted, no veil between us and the presence of God, that’s been removed in Jesus Christ and the promise of God’s presence among his people in a demonstrable sense will be fulfilled. In fact, if you want to maybe simplify your description of heaven, it’s this, God with man. That’s what heaven is. God is with man. Is there anything better than that? God is with man and all the attendant graces that comes with God’s presence is ours, but it’s about God. It’s not about what he gives, it’s about the giver. God is relational and in Jesus Christ he has sought the reconcile us to himself and we’re going to enjoy the fullness of that in God’s presence.
I love what Vance Havner says. “The New Testament writers did not speak of going to heaven so much as going to be with the Lord. It’s not the other sure that charms us, but the one who stands on it.” Love that. If you read the New Testament, they don’t often talk about, you know what? We’re going to heaven or I’m going to heaven. They’ll describe it as we’re going to be with the Lord because that’s heaven. I Thessalonians 4:7, the end of the rapture, what does it say? And so shall we be with the Lord forever. That’s what we long for, that’s what we want. When I was at Shepherd’s conference this year, I was going through the book tent, no surprise, and I went over to one of the bookstalls done by Christian Focus, which is a small but a very good publisher out of Scotland.
I published the book with him, Emergency Rations, and this year, the owner of the company, Willie Mackenzie, was in from Scotland. Wonderful man of God. I’d heard about him. He’s a close friend of Alistair Begg, and I’d always wanted to meet him and there he was and we ended up talking for 60 minutes about the old country and what was going on in Britain, mutual friends. I ended up at some point talking about Eric Alexander who was a Scottish Presbyterian in Glasgow where my wife grew up. He pastored the Tron alongside Sinclair Ferguson. When June and I had an evening off on a Sunday night, she went to a particular church in Scotland, beyond this one, we would duck into the Tron and enjoy Eric Alexander or Sinclair Ferguson. The preaching was just fantastic. Top drawer, five star and we benefited from that spiritually. We were talking about Eric Alexander, and his life and his ministry. He’s now with the Lord as is his wife. In fact, as we were talking, he was there when Eric Alexander buried his wife and give the eulogy. Here’s what Willie McKenzie said about that service.
“Eric Alexander stood up and said this. When I met her, she was in Christ. Throughout our marriage, I could see Christ was in her and she was for Christ. Now, in her death I rejoice. She’s with Christ.” Love it. I wrote it down as soon as I went home. It’s a beautiful statement. My wife, when I first met her, she was in Christ. She was a Christian woman and across our marriage, I saw she was for him and I benefited from that. But I want to tell you now, as much as I love being with her, I’m so glad she’s with Christ. For now, she’s with the one who died for her and the one for whom she lived. That’s heaven with Christ, with the Lord. Finally, on this thought, we’ll need to speed up here, what I call the peoples. Right? The peoples. We’ve looked at this residence, the place, the picture, the presence, why you notice the peoples?
Now, I’m using that term in the plural for a reason because if you look at Revelation 21:3, in my version it says, and they shall be his people. But there are several versions and you might have one that reads that and they shall be his peoples. There are several manuscripts that put this in the plural and do you know what? There’s reason to believe that well may be the key is for a couple of reasons, number one, if you go back to Genesis 12:3, where God promises to do certain things for Abraham and his seed, he says, “Those who curse you, I will curse, those who bless you, I will bless, and you will be a blessing to the families of the earth.”
You know what? If you go to Revelation 21, where we are at and verse 24, and the nations, plural, of those who are saved shall walk in the light and the kings, plural, who are over peoples of the earth shall bring their glory and honor into it. Again, it’s interesting Chapter 22 at the end of verse two, the leaves of the tree of life will be for the healing of the nations, nations, kings, people. I find that fascinating. I’m not going to get into the depths of it, I’m not going to build a strong theology out of it, but it would seem to infer that this holy city, this new Jerusalem on a new earth is made up of multi-ethnic and multi-racial people from every tribe, tongue and nation is not what they’re celebrating in Revelation 5, 6 and 7, 5, 9 and 7, 9. You redeemed us out of every tribe and tongue and nations.
It’s interesting, Psalm 9:17, talks about the nations who forgot God are cast into hell. If that’s true, isn’t the converse true and the nations that loved God and the peoples within those nations that love God, they go to heaven. It was seen to me, I’ll make an argument for it, but I won’t fight you over it, unless you push too hard, that when we are in the new earth, in a new body, we’re going to retain our physical features. We dealt with that Jesus retained his physical features when he was raised as disciples recognized them. Could it be that we retain our ethnic identities or nationalities? If you die an American, you’re going to heaven an American. If you die British, you’re going to heaven, British. If you die European or Asian or African, you’re going there. Now, of course, all the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our one God and Savior, but God’s image is reflected in our looks and our ethnicities and it could well be the case.
I find that fascinating. What’s America’s motto? Out of the many, one. That could well be said of the new heaven and the new earth and the new Jerusalem, out of the many, one. Now, we’ll retain our physical features and our ethnic identities, but there’ll be no competition. There’ll be no conflict because we’re all under King Jesus. We’re all waving his flag. But the redemptive power of God and the glory of God’s plan will be reflected in all of those faces of colors and backgrounds, in the marvel of God’s redemptive purpose. Let’s have a little bit of fun here for a moment, then we’ll get back to a couple of closing thoughts. [inaudible 00:29:31] I came across this years ago.
Someone said this, “Heaven is where the police are British. The cooks are French, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian and all is organized by the Swiss. Hell is where the chefs are British. The mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss, the police are German and it’s all organized by the Italians.” That’s funny. I got a fly up here I want to kill. But all joking aside, there’s going to be something fun, fascinating, intriguing, if this thesis is right, that kings of the earth and nations will come up and bring all of their adoration and affection to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Thirdly, the removal, not going to spend a ton of time in this. In fact, I did a sermon on this in our series on heaven, Life After Life. Go listen to it again, good riddance. Because one of the beautiful things about heaven, one of the beautiful things about the life to come is not only what’s going to be there but what’s not going to be there.
Look at verses four and five of our passage, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, no sorrow, no crying. There’ll be no pain. For the former things will pass away. Wow, the old order. Death? Have you buried anybody? Disease? Have you been sick? Are you sick? Are you nursing someone that’s sick? Disappointment? Have you ever been let down or let yourself down in life? You thought you’d got the ticket to happiness, only to arrive and you’re still empty. All of that’s gone. The things that rob us of a full and a fulfilled life will be gone. It’s a new heaven and a new earth, in quality and character and arrangement. What John does here to help us get our hands and our heads and our hearts around this new earth is he compares what you have gone through in this life to what you will never face again in the next.
That helps us. See, it’s hard for us to imagine that which we haven’t experienced. I’m not surprised that John spends a bunch of time in this passage telling you what’s not going to be there because that by connection, connects us to things we’ve gone through, which we can remember, we’ve experienced, we can weigh and understand. He said, “Look, see all of that? Gone.” That helps us understand how beautiful the new world will be. Takes us from the known and the negative known to the unknown, by helping us see that all of that will be missing. Eye hasn’t seen, ear hasn’t heard. Now, I’m not going to go down all the list because it’s kind of deserves a whole sermon, which I did by the way. Go to it. Good riddance. But there’s no see, verse one, no death, verse three, no tears.
Verse three, no pain. Then, if you go on through the chapter and into the next chapter, no sinners, no sin. Verse 27, no temple, verse 22 of 21, no night, no darkness. Verse 25 of 21, no gates closed. 21, 25 and no curse, 22:3. Just taking it surface value. All of that stuff’s gone. I like the sound of that. Would you like to see pain go away? You will. Would you like to see your child’s suffering come to an end? You will. Would you like to live in a world without crime and famine and human suffering and trafficking and war? You will. Would you like to stop crying over things that break your heart? You will. Would you like to say goodbye for the last time? You will? Would you like to stop struggling in your body regarding holiness? You will. Would you like to feel completely safe? You will. Would you like to experience life with all the positives, with no negatives? You will. That’s what’s being promised. No pain, no crying, no dying. I love that.
As you know, for a time, June and I lived in Ohio and we suffered its winters which were brutal. Think twice before you move to Ohio, and north of that Michigan. That’s another story. When we were in Ohio, a church in Michigan invited us to consider a call. We drove up, I won’t tell you where, but we drove up to it and we spent the weekend there and we were driving back and I said to June, “Well, what do you think?” She said, “I’m not going any further north.” I always remember that. That determined the will of God for us right there and right then, no further north. Anyway, we’re in Ohio, freezing our proverbial, you-know-what off? We always longed to get to California in the winter, because we’d lived here and we were in the Midwest enjoying precious people, by the way, in our church. No mistake about that.
But we looked ways to get back to California. If I was invited to preach, I didn’t even pray about it. It was clearly God’s will that I go and preach in that church and if there was no honorarium, I didn’t care. The reason why? Sunny skies. It’s December in January in Toledo, Ohio. It’s either darkness, and where you’re gnashing your teeth. But sunny skies, warm temperatures, golden beaches, friends, family, Seaport Village in San Diego, La Jolla, In-N-Out Burgers, it’s all there. Now, that’s one of the reasons we wanted to come and the other reason because that’s all present in California, and there are other reasons. What’s absent? Weather and the tans. Gray skies, long nights, ice on your windshield, slush on the road, no more in California. We weren’t only attracted to California by what was present, we were attracted by what was absent.
I think and both [inaudible 00:37:08] California, the place that we know it to be and love it to be. What’s present and what is absent. As we close the redeemed, who’s in heaven? Who gets to enjoy this new heaven and the new earth where God tabernacles among men and where God wipes away tears and removes death and sorrow and crying and the former things are all gone? Who gets to enjoy that? Well, if you look at the text just quickly, there’s three things that mark the life of those who enjoy the new heaven and the new earth. Number one, they’re thirsty. Number two, they’re tenacious. Number three, they’re transformed. Number one, they’re thirsty, verse six, and he said to me, “It is done. I’m the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, and I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him.”
Notice who thirsts. Who are those who enjoy the new earth? Who are those who go to God’s heaven? Those who thirst. Thirst for what? Thirst for God. Thirst for his glory. Thirst for the life he promises. Thirst for his created purpose for them. See, the Christian is someone who’s parched, parched by their sin and their fallen nature. Parched by the vanity of the world, who have now awoke by the grace of God to the thought that there’s living water. There’s a source of satisfaction. There’s a source of true life in God through Jesus Christ, and they long for it. They thirst for it, they’re desperate for it, and it brings them to faith in Jesus Christ. Right? Think about all the language of the Bible besides this verse, Psalm 42:2, “As the deer pants for the water, so my soul thirsts for you.”
What did Jesus say in Matthew 5:6? “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of God.” What about John 7:37-39? Jesus said, “I’m living water, and if you let me on the inside of your life, it’s like a well that springs up within, and I want to bring peace and joy and purpose and freedom and forgiveness.” Don’t you thirst for that this morning, my friend? As my old pastor said one night, he put his trust in Jesus Christ and he was an old boozer and the way he put it, he says, “The night I get saved, I took a draft of John 3:16, and I’ve never thirsted again.” It’s true. When I used to drive up from LA to Santa Clarita where I lived when I was going through the master assembly, I went by just as you kind of go over the hill into Santa Clarita, if you know that area on the five is splits with the 14, there’s the LA Aqueduct and it kind of cascades over the top of the hill there.
It’s always fascinated me. It comes down like a series of steps and it’s a wonderful thing to behold, and you realize, man, the water’s coming from 230 miles away or something like that. Some nights they light it up, it’s beautiful colors. Always being attracted to it. In one day, I was watching a PBS documentary or something like that, the Discovery Channel, and it told the story behind the LA Water Duct, and you lo and behold, it was built by a man from Belfast. You’re welcome. This guy was William Mulholland, maybe Mulholland Boulevard’s named after him, I don’t know. But he was the engineer, brought the water from the Owens Valley down to the San Fernando Valley, 233 miles long, that aqueduct. He knew that LA was going to become what we know it to be, this great metropolis of people. It needed water. He was ahead of the game.
Now, the story as I watched it, it’s a wonderful thing to my point, when they are about to open it and then the spigots turned on, the water starts to flow, the ribbon is cut, the dignitaries are there, the citizens of LA have turned out, and here’s what William Mulholland says. “There it is. Take it.” That’s what he said at the opening of the LA Water Aqueduct. “There it is. Take it.” I want to tell you something. God opened his heart and out of it flew a river of love towards mankind through his son, Jesus Christ. God says in the gospel to the thirsty, “There he is. Take him.” Not only are they thirsty, they’re tenacious. Look at verse seven. As we move quickly to a close, “He who overcomes, will inherit it all.” Who gets to heaven? Those who overcome. Question, pastor? Are you saying that what we do gets us to heaven, that God rewards us for our faithfulness and that’s the key that turns the door in heaven?
That’s not what I’m saying. But the people who get to the new earth and new heaven are described as overcomers. But that’s the outcome of a living relationship with God because those who are truly saved, overcome. You’re not saved by overcoming, but the saved overcome. One of the marks of a true child of God is perseverance. That’s why our Protestant forefathers and the Puritans talked about the perseverance of the saints. That once you’re truly saved, you will not fall away from the faith. You may fall, you may trip, you may pause along the journey. You will sin, you will disappoint yourself and disappoint God, but you will not fall away. You will repent, you will keep going. There will be a track record of faithfulness. It may be one step forward and two steps back, but it will never be three steps back and three steps back and three steps back.
Jesus said in Matthew 24, “Those who endure to the end will be saved.” Hebrews 10:39 says, that we are not those who turn back to perdition. The true believer never turns back. They may struggle, they may fall, but they will get up and they will go on. David Breonard said, “Lord, help me not to linger on my way to heaven.” I hope you’re overcoming and you can overcome. You can be more than a conqueror through him that loves you. I John 5:4-5 tells us that we can overcome the world through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. June and I just watched a very moving movie on Netflix called The Society of the Snow. Don’t know if you’ve seen that. It’s a remake of an old movie called Alive, and it deals with a clean crash in 1972 with the Uruguayan rugby team that crashes in the Andes.
Most of the crew, if not all, and many of the passengers die, something like 42 survive, ultimately only 16 survive. They have very little clothing, no food. Their hopes are dashed after several days, no one seems to be coming for them. After 60 days of heart-wrenching suffering and the dilemma of perhaps eating their dead fellow passengers just to stay alive and all the morality attached to that which has played out very sensitively in the movie, I think, three of them set off across the Andes and as they set off, as they journey across the Andes to try and find help because no one’s coming, one of them gives up and falls down and the leader of the three tells him to get up and he says, it’s the old movie Alive, where he uses this phrase as I remember it, and I wanted to be challenged by it.
He says, “If we’re going to die, we’re going to die walking.” “If we’re going to die, we’re going to die walking.” I remember watching that movie [inaudible 00:45:41] in the latest one, and when that was said, I remember just sending a little prayer up to the Lord, “I want to die walking.” “I want to die walking.” I want to persevere. I don’t want to be on the casualty list of pastors. I don’t want to disappoint June and the girls, grandchildren, legacy. Don’t want to disappoint my people at Kindred. Want to die walking. Those who overcome will inherit all things. Then finally, they’re transformed. They’re transformed by the grace of God. It’s more implicit than explicit and it’s more by contrast than by just clear interpretation.
But those who thirst and those who are tenacious are contrasted with those who are sent to hell, who are cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderous, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters and all liars. That’s not what Christians are. In fact, that’s what Christians may have been. Remember what Paul says to the Corinthians, “And such were some of you.” It’s not that Christians haven’t done some of those things, but they do them no longer. They’re new creatures in Christ and the old things pass away and all things become new because they’re being transformed by the grace of God and they’re taking on the likeness of Jesus Christ.
They may have committed these sins in the past in an ongoing fashion, but they no longer define them or describe them as a lifestyle. As we close, I hope that you’re a new creature in Christ. Born again by the grace of God whose life is changing in preparation for the change that is to come. The signature of the world to come is righteousness. The old order will pass away. I hope you can say with John Newton, “I’m not what I will be. I’m not what I should be, but by the grace of God, I am not what I once was.” As our team gets ready and comes up, one of the frustrations of this fleeting world as we close this whole series is that all good things must come to an end. Now one of the things we don’t like about life, there are moments that are wonderfully exciting and wonderfully satisfying and wonderfully exhilarating, but they don’t last. It’s not just the bad things that bother us about this life, it’s the fact that the good things can’t be sustained.
They’re here and then they’re gone. Death and aging reminds us of that. The end of a good evening or a meal with friends and family reminds us of that. The flight back home. Like last week for [inaudible 00:48:41] from Kauai reminds us of that, back to the grind. The descending darkness of sunset reminds us of that. We wish that the good things would not end. For the time being, they will, but there’s coming a moment in the future when they won’t and we will inherit all things good and glorious and they won’t be interrupted for all of eternity. Wow, you better go home excited. You may have trouble eating your lunch, because you’ve got butterflies in your stomach thinking about the new heaven and the new earth because that’s what it ought to be doing to us. I don’t have time to tell you the story of William Nicholson, actually who became an Irish evangelist. I’ve read part of his story, but here’s the point I’m making ever so briefly, and then we’ll just pray and we’ll be dismissed.
He got saved in the living room of his home on a Monday morning. He had been a sailor, he’d been a bit of a profligate. He had a praying godly mother. He’s sitting, this is his own words, smoking a cigarette and reading his newspaper on Monday morning while his mother made him his breakfast in the kitchen. There and then he heard a voice or he felt an impression, said, “It’s now or never.” He knew the gospel. He’d heard the gospel, but he was fighting it, running from it. But the spirit of God grabbed him, now or never, and there on the spot on the settee, put the cigarette down, fold the newspaper and give his life to Jesus Christ. He turned to his mother who was making eggs and bacon in the kitchen. “Mom, I got saved,” and she says, “Billy, where and when?”
He said, “No, here,” and she fell over him weeping. Billy Nicholson said of that day, quote, “Happy day. Happy day. When Jesus washed my sins away.” It was a Monday morning at 8:30 AM, 22nd of May 1939. What A day. A day that will never end. It’s not quite a statement. What a day. A day that will never end. See, when Jesus saves you, oh, my friend, you’ve only begun to experience what he has for you. You’re going from glory to glory. The day you came to Christ is a day that will never end in terms of fulfillment and fullness. My friend, the day you put your trust in Jesus Christ, you’ll experience a day that will change you forever. Amen. Let’s pray and then we’ll be dismissed. Lord, we just thank you for our series and the word of God concerning things to come.
We thank you that you’ve given us a window into what lies ahead and what a carrot on the end of our stick it is to keep persevering, to keep sacrificing, to keep serving, to keep emptying ourselves out into others in incarnational ministry, to keep loving the world that doesn’t love us back, to keep selling and giving to the Lord’s work for kingdom purposes. It goes on and on. We don’t want to linger on our way to heaven. It will be worth it all when we see Jesus. Help us to pick up the pace. Help us to get rid of the sullen attitude. Help us to get into every day with a sense of purpose and that there’s a happy ending.
We just got to trudge through the mud and the mire of these present moments to get there. There’s a happy ever after that will make every sorrow and every sacrifice as nothing. Lord, I pray there are those under my voice who thirst for you, but have not yet drunk of the living water. May they embrace Christ and experience a day that will never end, and so, Lord, we pray this and ask this in Jesus name. Amen.