[0:00] Turn with me to Revelation chapter 22. The last book of the Bible, Revelation chapter 22, page 1251, the last chapter of the Bible.
[0:21] I'm not entirely sure how many more studies we're going to be able to draw out of this chapter. But I am aiming to have the whole thing finished by the Easter holidays by the end of March.
[0:36] Let's read then from the beginning of chapter 22 down to verse 5. Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city.
[0:52] Also on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
[1:07] No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.
[1:18] They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads, and night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.
[1:35] We're now looking even deeper into the city that we've seen from the outside in chapter 21.
[1:47] And once again, the description is not exhaustive, and the description is symbolic. It doesn't tell us exactly in every detail what this new environment will be like.
[2:01] But it tells us all that we need to know, and indeed all that we can know from the standpoint of this world. Chapter 21, we looked at last time, and we looked at several of the features.
[2:17] Behold, I make all things new, says God. And it closes with the words, nothing unclean will ever enter into the city.
[2:27] And sometimes we read these words, and we think, well, that's self-explanatory. If it's God's perfect kingdom, and if it's God's perfect world, the new heavens and the new earth, then it stands to reason.
[2:39] It's got to be perfect, and therefore, how can it be possible for anything to enter into it? Well, there are several things that you could say. First of all, it was difficult.
[2:49] If it's difficult for us, in our generation, to picture or to envisage a clean city, it was even more difficult for John in his day.
[3:00] Because a city in John's day didn't have sanitation. It didn't have the kind of sophisticated drainage that we have. And it's necessary to keep a city clean.
[3:11] And very often, the first thing that you experience once you walked into the gates of a city was the smell that there must have been. Because there were so many people with no sanitation.
[3:22] There was only very minimal. And so the person who was listening to this found it impossible to imagine a city where there wasn't any uncleanness.
[3:35] Well, no, says God, there will be nothing unclean in this city. It will be perfect. It will be spotless. And it will be pure. And there's that uncleanness, of course, that symbolizes in the Bible what's wrong with this world.
[3:50] Human sin is often described in terms of uncleanness. In the Old Testament, there were rules and regulations, all of which pointed to the great problem that there is between humankind and God.
[4:06] And that problem, of course, has been resolved in Jesus Christ. He said the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. And you and I can know that cleansing here in this world.
[4:19] I don't want us to think tonight or at any other time that heaven is so different from this world. Well, it is. But I don't want us to think that there's no connection, that there's nothing that we can learn from these descriptions of heaven that has a direct bearing on this world.
[4:38] And the message of heaven itself, it encourages us and invites us to come to Jesus. Everything points to the Lamb of God.
[4:49] It's his face that will be seen in a few moments' time. The Lamb is on the throne. And the Lamb is the Lamb that gave his life for you and for me at Calvary.
[5:03] That's why he is described as the Lamb of God. That's what the gospel is all about. And so heaven compels us to focus on Jesus. And the gospel today, tonight, compels us.
[5:17] God himself compels us to focus on Jesus. That's where we'll find forgiveness. And that is where you will find the ultimate satisfaction and the contentment and the peace with God that only he can give.
[5:31] God says, don't tell me tonight that sin is so glamorous that everyone tonight is relishing in it. I don't believe that for a moment. I know that sometimes it can appear to be so tempting and so glamorous.
[5:45] And it can appear that the whole world is nothing but happy. I don't believe that for a moment. That's because that's all we see. I believe there are millions of people this evening who hate themselves.
[5:59] Who feel such a detestable sense of emptiness. And they've tried everything in this world.
[6:10] They've listened to all the voices, all the temptations in this world. There isn't a single thing that they haven't tried in this world. And it's left them with an even greater sense of emptiness than ever before.
[6:21] They feel detestable and unclean. And they don't know where to turn. That's why the world needs to hear the gospel. That's why Jesus said, go out and make disciples of all nations.
[6:34] And be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Because this world is a rotten place. Whatever it claims to be, it's a rotten place. Where individuals feel a sense of lostness and rottenness within themselves.
[6:48] And I know that they'll argue with you. And they'll tell you they don't believe. And they'll say that they're atheists. And they'll tell you that they'll use every sort of reasoning under the sun to oppose the gospel.
[7:00] That's our sinful human nature. Our fallen human nature. But you carry on. Because you don't know how God is going to deal with these very same people. And he's going to turn them around to make them see that there is only one answer for their sense of lostness and uselessness and emptiness in this world.
[7:21] Maybe even here tonight I'm talking to someone and that's the way you are. You can't explain it. And you've spent years maybe trying to resist all the voices of the Bible.
[7:34] In which you know that God is speaking to your heart. And you've tried every which way to get away from that voice. And you haven't been able to do it. And everything that you've tried and attempted in this life has only resulted in a greater sense of isolation.
[7:50] And you hate yourself. Maybe you've even given up on any chance of being saved. Maybe you're saying to yourself this evening. Well God must have run out of patience with me.
[8:03] Nobody in this world would have had so much patience as to wait for me to come to my senses. Well let me tell you this evening. You obviously don't know God.
[8:16] Because God is God the God of grace. And grace is where God pursues you all the way through your years of darkness and rebellion and sinfulness and shame.
[8:31] And he comes to you tonight and says, Believe. Turn away from it. Trust in Jesus Christ.
[8:41] You say, I've never prayed properly. Oh, I used to say my prayers as a kid. I used to say my prayers. That's the only prayer I know. I wouldn't even know how to open my mouth. I wouldn't even know what first things to say to the Lord.
[8:53] You know, I've often thought about that. I've often thought, I've often wondered what it must be like. I know I'm going in a bit of a digression here, but that's okay. I've often wondered what it must be like for a person who's never ever prayed.
[9:04] And they realize that they have to come to God. For the very first time. How do you know you're praying? How do you know when you open your mouth and you say something to the Lord that you're not just, you're not just doing something utterly crazy and meaningless?
[9:23] How do you know it's going through the ceiling? Well, that's where faith comes in. And faith is what listens to the invitation of God. And God asks you tonight to come to him.
[9:35] And he says, Open your mouth and I will fill it. You see, faith is not what we do for God. It's not what we can, it's not our earning our way into God's presence.
[9:48] You can't work your way into God's presence. But what you can do tonight is accept that you are what God says you are. A guilty sinner. And you can come to Jesus Christ, who has paid the price for our sin on the cross.
[10:05] And you can take what he has done for you. He tells you to just turn your back away from all the emptiness in your life, all the sinfulness in your life, and to come and to trust in him.
[10:17] And so our very first words to the Lord are this. The very first word, I can't think of anything better than the prayer of Jesus himself. Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.
[10:31] You start there. Start there. Because that is a prayer that the Lord will hear and he will answer. Because he promises to ask and you will receive, he says.
[10:47] You come to the Lord and telling him all the good stuff that you've done, he will not hear you. He's not interested in all the good stuff you've done. He's interested in your prayer that says, Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.
[11:03] And that's the starting point. That's what needs to be sorted out at the very beginning. The moment that is sorted out, the door opens. You're in the presence of God.
[11:17] In all his love and his grace and his mercy. And that's only the beginning. So that's how heaven and earth. Don't miss out on this, by the way. Don't miss out on this.
[11:28] Don't be a spectator tonight. You've been listening to all the, what we've said on chapter 21 and 22, and you've had a, you've maintained an interest and maybe a fascination.
[11:38] Many people have been fascinated by revelation from a distance, like spectators sitting in the back row, just observing what's going on. Like these people who love to observe Jesus.
[11:50] They wanted to see one more miracle, but they refuse to commit themselves to him. Don't be left out. They were left out when it really came to it. Don't be left out until you're actually, don't stop until you're there.
[12:03] So you're in the kingdom itself. Because you're either in the kingdom or outside of it. There's no middle ground. And so there isn't any fear in the city.
[12:17] There is no insecurity in the city. Never again will Jesus have to say to his disciples, fear not. That's something he said to them on many, many occasions. Fear not. And you and I know that this world is full of fear, personal fear.
[12:30] Sometimes that fear is unfounded. Sometimes it's with reason. We have many reasons to be afraid, even in the security of our, of our respectable homes.
[12:42] There are all kinds of things that could happen. We hear of them in the newspapers. We read them in the newspapers and we, we hear of them in the news. And sometimes fear can be totally irrational.
[12:53] We wake up at night in the middle of the night, three o'clock in the morning. And all we can think of is what could happen. And the very prospect of what could happen, it paralyzes us. You ever had that experience?
[13:06] That's because we live in a world that if our confidence is taken away, even in the middle of the night, we're reduced to nothing. But in heaven, all of that will be taken away. There'll be no need to fear.
[13:17] There'll be no fear. There'll be no insecurity. There will be only confidence and focus in the Lord. Everything will be as it should be. In its proper place.
[13:29] Having been restored to its proper place. This morning in the Gallic, we were thinking of how we lost the image of God, or rather the image of God in humankind, became spoiled when Adam and Eve went their own way.
[13:44] And God has promised in Jesus to restore that image of God in his people, in the Lord Jesus Christ.
[13:55] And so everyone in this city will have the image of God having been restored in them. It's a bit like, if you ever want to know the place of humankind, if you imagine you were walking down the street and you found a half of a 20 pound note, you find half of a 20 pound note, you'd pick it up and you'd be wondering, how did that become torn?
[14:32] And then the very next thing you would ask yourself is, where's the other half? Because that 20 pound note, that half 20 pound note, only has any meaning or value whatsoever when the other half is put with it, when the missing bit is added to it, and when the two things, when the two halves are joined together again.
[14:51] Well, that's humankind. You recognize that there is a measure of value and dignity in the human race. But at the same time, you're asking, what has gone wrong?
[15:04] Where? What has gone missing? And God says, that the missing element, I can provide. I will restore to you, he says, the other, what is missing.
[15:19] Now, chapter 22, of course, opens with a description of a river. And let me read the first verse. Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb through the middle of the street of the city.
[15:36] And then he says also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with his 12 kinds of fruit, yielding his fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
[15:47] And so, what we have here is, we have this combination of the idea of a river and the idea of the tree of life. And both of these take us back all the way to the very beginning and the garden that God created in his perfect world in which Adam and Eve lived in perfection.
[16:06] And here is the very last book of the Bible, the last chapter of the Bible, in which God has restored his creation by driving out everything that defiled and spoiled it and that ruined what God had originally created.
[16:24] And he has restored right in the middle of the city, the tree of life and the water of life flowing from the throne. If you go all the way back and work your way through the Bible, anyone who knows their Bible will know that the water, the river rather, it depicts life at the level that God provides.
[16:46] Not just whether we breathe or not, not just whether we exist, but life at the quality, ultimate and perfect quality that God promises in the gospel.
[16:56] All the way through the Bible, I could name you texts and chapters and verses in which the river of life, it symbolizes this great promise, which of course was brought about by the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[17:13] And we're not to think of just a simple river here and a simple tree. We're to think, apparently the translators tell me that this, the idea here is an avenue where there is an abundance of fruit, where God is providing our every possible need for us.
[17:32] That of course was provided in the Garden of Eden and every tree that the Adam and Eve could eat, were allowed to eat apart from one. Every need was provided.
[17:42] They lacked nothing in the garden. And it's the same here at the end of the world, into eternity. God will provide for our every need. It's not that we'll be so sick continuously that we'll need continuous healing.
[17:57] The idea here is that we have been healed by the gospel, by Jesus Christ, and we have been brought to that place of perfection. And the idea is not, we're not to think of the street as something like Cromwell Street or Prince's Street or Buchanan Street in Glasgow.
[18:13] The idea here is of a park, a place where you don't even know you're in a city. You and I both, we all know of course that modern cities are designed that way.
[18:27] And in some way the design of a modern city sometimes helps us to understand what God is going to provide in terms of, it won't be some kind of claustrophobic place where we will be constantly surrounded by the choking effect of all the people that are with us.
[18:49] Sometimes that can take place in a crowd of people. But that's not what it's going to be. Sometimes you can be in a city in the middle of a city and you don't even know you're in the city. You don't feel that you're in the city. Like Edinburgh for example.
[19:00] There's Holyrood Park. There's Colton Hill. There's Arthur's Seat. You can go climbing. You can even go mountain climbing in the middle of the city where all the best of both worlds have been combined together.
[19:14] Well God will bring together the best of all. And he will bring it to us and we will be, the Lord's people will be eternally and utterly satisfied.
[19:27] There will be no dissatisfaction in heaven. There will be no claustrophobia in heaven. There will be only a sense, an immense eternal sense of liberty and freedom that we have never enjoyed in this world.
[19:43] where all the restrictions and the evils of this world will have been removed. I don't know whether there will be gravity, what the gravitational pull will be.
[19:57] You ask someone, it's not wrong to ask these questions. I asked last week whether there would be food. If there is, there won't be, it won't be because it's essential. I'm not sure what we will look like.
[20:13] We'll go into that in a few moments time. What age will we be? What age? Will someone who's died at 90 still be, still look as if they're 90?
[20:24] Will someone who's died at five months still look as if they are five months old? No. But I don't know it. Beyond that, we can't go. All we know is that somehow or other God is going to raise his people with glorified bodies that are akin to the body that Jesus had when he rose from the dead with different properties.
[20:48] Not the same properties and yet there will be something of the likeness that we have had in this world. Beyond that, we don't know.
[21:00] but we know that it will be completely satisfying. But everything in this world that restricts us and disappoints us and saddens us and brings grief and pain will all be gone.
[21:20] We can't imagine what that could possibly be like. Life as we have never experienced before. Life as its ultimate, a level that we have never known.
[21:32] Verse 3 tells us that there will be no curse. The curse, of course, came when Adam and Eve went their own way. They did exactly what God had forbidden them to do.
[21:44] God says, in the day you eat thereof, you shall surely die. And that's exactly what happened. The curse was death and the separation that took place between the world and God.
[21:55] Now that didn't mean a complete separation because God continued to love the world, continued to interact with the world and yet the world became a place full of danger and sickness and misery and loss and bereavement.
[22:10] But here, it's all been restored. There will be no more curse, only life. Only life in its ultimate.
[22:23] The curse has been removed because Jesus himself, Galatians tells us, redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.
[22:34] for it is written, Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. And then, it gets even better. Verse 4, They shall see his face.
[22:48] They shall see his face. What does that mean? It means more than what is visual. What is visual will be wonderful enough.
[23:00] It means the face, to see the face of God in his glory. That's what we can't see. The Old Testament tells us, that no man can see my face and live. Why can we not see the face of God?
[23:12] Because our sin separates us from God. We cannot enter the presence of God, the glory of God, because we are fallen. We are sinners within this world. And until we are transformed into his perfect likeness in every possible way, then we'll have to content ourselves with seeing him by faith.
[23:36] And that's fine. But the promise is that one day we will see him in all his glory. Psalm 17 says this, As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness, and when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness.
[23:59] Jesus himself said. He prayed to the father, his father, just before he was arrested. In John chapter 17, he prayed that the disciples, his prayer was that ultimately one day they would see him in the glory that he had with the father before the world began.
[24:20] because that was his ultimate prayer. In other words, Jesus, his number one request when he prays to God the father is that his redeemed people will see him as he is in his glory.
[24:37] Now, you and I don't understand what that is, but he understands. And he knows that when we do, that's it. We'll have everything and be everything that we were always meant to be. And we have to content ourselves again with faith, by faith, listening to the voice of Jesus and to his prayer and ask that we must, that we will.
[24:58] But to be, to see the face of the Lord is more than to see. It's also to be personally with him face to face in his presence.
[25:12] To see someone. When I say, if I say, I'll come and see you next week, that's more than saying, I want to see your face. When I say, I'll come and see you next week, it means I want to come and be with you.
[25:28] You say to your, to your sister, I'm going to come and see you next week. What you mean by that is you're going to come personally. The phone's not enough. Skype's not enough.
[25:40] Somebody said, if somebody said to me, when did you last see MC, your daughter? I could say, yesterday. On Skype.
[25:50] It's great. It's fantastic. We're thankful to God that we live in a modern world where we can see our family who are 6,000 miles away. But that's not the last time I saw my daughter.
[26:02] Last time I saw her was a year and a half ago. The last time I was with her, because the question means, when was the last time you were with her? And that's what it means to see the face of God, to be with, to be in the presence of God, to be in the ultimate glory of God.
[26:20] Jesus actually goes even further than that. He tells us that the invitation in Matthew chapter 26 will be, come you blessed of my Father, enter into the joy of the Lord.
[26:34] Enter into the joy of the Lord. the joy of the Lord is what God is in himself. And so the presence of God is something that is so intimate that it can only be experienced in perfection on the day when it's fulfilled for us.
[26:53] Enter into the joy of the Lord. It tells us also that his name will be written on their foreheads. These two things, seeing the face of Jesus and his name being written on their foreheads is one and the same thing.
[27:08] The name that was written on the forehead goes back to the Old Testament with a high priest. He had writing on his forehead and it said this, holy to the Lord.
[27:18] That's what marked him out as the high priest. And he was the only person that was allowed to enter into the most holy place once a year. And there he met with the glory of God.
[27:31] That was the greatest privilege he could ever have in the Old Testament to meet with the glory of God. But here everyone meets with the glory of God.
[27:44] Because God invites us into his own presence and tells us that this is what we were created for. It is ultimate fulfillment.
[27:55] It is everything that God wants us to be. The hymn writer says, Face to face with Christ my Savior.
[28:11] Face to face what will it be when with rapture I behold him, Jesus Christ who died for me. Only faintly now I see him with a darkened veil between but a blessed day is coming when his glory shall be seen.
[28:31] What rejoicing in his presence when are banished grief and pain, when the crooked ways are straightened and the dark things shall be plain.
[28:43] Face to face oh blissful moment, face to face to see and know, face to face with my Redeemer, Jesus Christ who loves me so.
[29:00] And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun for the Lord God will be their light.
[29:13] Verse 5, first part. That's the second time that this has been said. It's something that God wants us to know. He wants to tell us twice there are many kinds of light.
[29:25] We know in this world that there are candles, there are torches, there are electric lights, thank the Lord. We have electricity, we have all kinds of different lights, there's moonlight, but the best light of all of course is the sun, we know that.
[29:44] But even sunlight doesn't make us see through objects, we can still hide, even on a sunny day. the light doesn't go through, opaque objects, all of these cast shadows in which we can hide ourselves.
[30:00] I don't believe there will be any shadows in heaven. Everything will be translucent and radiant because everything will not only experience the light of God, the glory of God, but will radiate the glory of God itself.
[30:18] Do you notice the gold in chapter 21 and verse 21 is transparent as glass. You notice that the whole city in chapter 21 and 11 is clear as crystal.
[30:31] There's something translucent about everything. God's light takes in the whole of the light spectrum, ultraviolet, white light, infrared, x-ray, so that everything is seen and nothing is hidden and everything is radiant.
[30:51] That's what glory means. That's why we cannot, we cannot stand in the presence of God tonight, but we will.
[31:02] And then it tells us in verse 5b, they will reign with him forever and ever. It brings us back to where the Bible begins. What does it mean that God's people will reign with him forever and ever?
[31:14] Who are they going to reign over? Does that mean there's going to be a hierarchy? There's going to be some kind of pecking order. There's going to be governments and kings and generals and emperors and prime ministers. No, it doesn't.
[31:25] It simply takes us back all the way to the Garden of Eden where God gave Adam and Eve the authority to subdue the earth and to manage it.
[31:37] See, we were made, we were created to have responsibility, to exercise responsibility. We find our fulfillment tonight in your place of work.
[31:48] If you do have any fulfillment in your place of work, it is in exercising your responsibility. That will continue because that's what we were created for. We will work for God and every moment will be a more blissful moment and a more satisfying moment than the moment before.
[32:07] We will find our ultimate satisfaction in reigning, in having dominion, not over one another in the selfish sense.
[32:18] Every one of God's people will have that right authority along with the Lord himself.
[32:30] So what kind of bodies will God's people have in heaven? Well, the apostle Paul said he groaned earnestly desiring to put on his immortality.
[32:45] And he said, the way he described it was that the mortal would be swallowed up by what was immortal. He says two very interesting things.
[32:57] I don't have time to go into it just now. In 2 Corinthians chapter 5, you can read this, the opening verses. He says, he seems to suggest two things.
[33:07] First of all, that we will continue to be who we are in this world. You will continue to be you and I will continue to be me. I think that's very clear from Moses and Elijah appearing with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration.
[33:23] It was still Moses and it was still Elijah. They had their same identities. And yet they were glorified. And to be glorified doesn't just mean to shine.
[33:37] It means to bear the likeness of Jesus Christ. So, there's a sense in which we retain our own glorified identity.
[33:50] And we will be ultimately what God has always created us to be without restriction. But at the same time, we will also bear the image of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[34:05] Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians in chapter 4 that he saw his own body wasting away. The outer shell, he says, wastes away.
[34:17] I guess when he wrote these words, he had suffered so much and he was at an age, like many of us here tonight, including myself, where we're not as strong as we once were.
[34:29] We're not as vibrant as we once were. I guess some of the young people won't understand a word of what I'm saying at the moment, but believe me, the day will come if you're spared unwell, where you too, you'll begin to see your own body failing in every sense.
[34:44] You're not as fast. You're not as sharp. Your looks are changing. You're aging. And with the best will in the world, there's not a great deal you can do it. And ultimately, there's nothing you can do about it.
[34:57] But he says, my inner nature is being renewed every day. And he looked forward to that day where there would be a timeless body, an ageless body, an ageless being, one which fulfilled all of its potential and did everything that God intended that body to do to its maximum.
[35:25] We shall see his face. The name shall be written in his forehead. there will be night no more. They will reign with him forever and ever.
[35:42] I want to close this evening with two quotations. One is from the Bible and it's from the Queen of Sheba.
[35:53] You remember the story of the Queen of Sheba who came to visit Solomon? Solomon. And if ever there was a glorious king, someone who reflected, God himself, certainly at the beginning anyway of his reign, it was Solomon.
[36:10] And she came because she had heard about him. His reputation went before him. She lived many, many hundreds of miles away and she had never met him. But she had heard of all the splendor of his kingdom and his palace and the temple that he had built.
[36:23] so she made her business to pay a royal visit to him to see for herself what she had heard.
[36:36] She said this, I did not believe the reports until I came and my own eyes had seen it. And behold, the half was not told me.
[36:52] happy your wisdom and prosperity surpass the report I heard. Happy are your men. Happy are your servants who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom.
[37:07] That's the way it is this evening. We're only hearing the report. You have to see for yourself. To experience and to know for sure.
[37:20] Well, we do know for sure. We do know for sure. But when we see his face, then our whole being will be transformed into perfection.
[37:32] Second quote is from the Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan. You remember, of course, it tells the story of how Christian made his way through all kinds of difficult and dangerous experiences on his way from the city of destruction to the celestial city, which of course was heaven itself.
[37:48] after being distracted and waylaid and having gone through the most horrendous experiences, eventually, eventually, by following the straight and the narrow road, he crosses the River Jordan and the gates are opened to him.
[38:11] And at that moment, John Bunyan just gets a glimpse of what's inside the gates, just for a few moments, as Christian enters in, as he's welcomed in.
[38:25] And what he sees takes his breath away so much that when the gates are eventually closed, he said this, which when I had seen, I wished myself among them.
[38:44] Is that what you wish tonight? I'm asking you this question. It's one of these times in your life where you have to ask yourself, the most important question of all is, where am I in relation to God?
[38:59] I don't know which stage in life you're at, whether you're young, middle-aged, a graduate, an apprentice, married, unmarried, old.
[39:11] I don't know whether there's been some trauma in your life or something difficult. I'm not sure whether you're having an easy time of life, but can I say to you tonight to use this opportunity for some reason you're here tonight and you're listening to this description in Revelation chapter 22.
[39:32] this is God's message and it's for you, whoever you are, it is God speaking to you and as soon as God speaks to you, that really puts you on the spot.
[39:47] And please ask yourself this, is this where I want to be in eternity? You know the most awful thing of all? Again, I quote from the Pilgrim's Progress.
[40:02] He said this, that I saw that there was a way to hell even from the gate of heaven.
[40:16] Tonight we have been standing at the gate of heaven. We've been doing so over the last three or four weeks. The question is tonight not whether you understand everything that has been said.
[40:31] I don't understand it. The question is this, are we going to be there? Are you going to be inside God's city?
[40:43] Are you going to be amongst those radiant people who will worship and serve and live and experience a life that we have never, that goes way above and beyond life as we have ever known it here in this world and the company of God?
[41:06] Or is it going to be the opposite? I saw that there was a way to hell even from the gate of heaven. God's love and hope that none of us here will take that way but that all of us will hear those words that Jesus will say to his own people one day, come you blessed of my father into everlasting life.
[41:36] Let's pray. Father in heaven, once again we ask that you will bless your word to us, we thank you for it, we ask that you will make it clear to us and drive it home by the power of your spirit.
[41:52] We pray Lord that you will arouse questions in our minds even if those questions have to be discussed and we ask Lord that you will give us a forum to be able to bring these questions and to air them and to ask Lord that we might try and understand more and more of your word but Lord we pray that as well as understanding it that we will receive your word by faith and that we will come to the only place where there is forgiveness and where there is that promise of everlasting life in Jesus Christ.
[42:30] We give thanks that the Bible closes with such a great great promise and we pray to take hold of that promise by faith tonight in Jesus name Amen. Amen. Amen.