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Please note that the recording begins about 2
minutes into the sermon. I begin with an illustration which I refer to
throughout the sermon so it’s probably worth reading the first couple of
paragraphs before listening to the talk.
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Revelation 22
Last week Matt advertized
in Church Family News that he’s looking for any summer work he can
get. Well let’s imagine that Matt
is indeed desperate enough to take “any” job. Let’s imagine this is the job: 12 hours a day, stuck in a
room, folding a sheet of paper and stuffing it in an envelope. No radio, no TV, no computer, no
window, no view, no air conditioning.
Just menial work, 12 hours a day.
Now imagine Matt working there and one day he’s joined by Jonny
who also gets a job in the same place.
Folding sheets of paper and stuffing envelopes. And there they are, side by side for
their 12 hour days. Matt is
grumbling, complaining, threatening to quit every other day. Jonny on the other hand is whistling
while he works, grinning on his way into work, chatty through the day,
just generally chipper. What’s
the difference? Is Matt just a
grumpier person, is Jonny just more godly? There’s one thing I’ve forgotten to tell you – Matt’s
getting paid minimum wage.
Jonny’s getting £10 million. Same job, same circumstances, but the reward makes all the
difference.
Revelation is written
to a suffering church, they’re barely clinging on. Again and again the command in this
book is simply to hang on and remain faithful to Jesus:
Revelation 1:9 I,
John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient
endurance that are ours in Jesus,
Revelation 2:10 Be
faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of
life.
Revelation 13:10 This calls for patient endurance and
faithfulness on the part of the saints.
Revelation 14:12 This calls for patient endurance on the part
of the saints who obey God's commandments and remain faithful to Jesus.
And what’s going to
get them through. Well we saw
last week that Revelation does two things for struggling Christians. It enters in to our suffering and it
paints our predicament in technicolour.
And if we’re going to be comforted we need the comforter to know
how bad the bad stuff is. But it
doesn’t just enter in, it also points ahead to a future more glorious
than we could even put words to.
Chapter 21 showed us
God moving heaven to earth just to be with us.
Let’s look at the
first five verses of Revelation 21 and remind ourselves of this future:
Revelation 21:1
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the
first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2
I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from
God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling
of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people,
and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 He will
wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning
or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." 5
He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything
new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are
trustworthy and true."
We saw a future of incredible intimacy and
community and good health and satisfaction and achievement – and best of
all God Himself will be with us and will be our God. The best is yet to come Christians. There is never a time when a Christian
cannot say ‘The best is yet to come.’
In ten years, 50 years, 50 000 years we can still say ‘The best is
yet to come.’
Well chapter 22 continues with this vision
and in verse 1 we see:
the
river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne
of God and of the Lamb. On each side of the river stood the tree of life,
bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the
leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
Chapter 21 spoke to us
in city language, here we see garden language. And it’s language that’s meant to remind us of the garden of
Eden. Way back at the beginning,
there was a river flowing down out of Eden, dividing into four headwaters
symbolising how this river was to go out to the four corners of the
earth.
That was in the
past. Much later, the prophet
Ezekiel had a vision about the future.
Ezekiel looked forward to a new world where the river would water
a great tree whose leaves would heal the nations. And the this river would flow out to
bring life even to the most dead parts of the earth.
SLIDE
Ezekiel 47:1 6
He asked me, "Son of man, do you see this?" … "This water
flows towards the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah (a desert plain),
where it enters the Sea. When it empties into the Sea, the water there
becomes fresh. 9 Swarms of living creatures will live wherever
the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water
flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows
everything will live.
Now this is what
chapter 21 meant when it said there will no longer be any Sea. Let me share with you a very quick
biblical study on water in the bible and we’ll see what this is getting
at.
The bible says that
water has always been very important in creation.
SLIDE
2 Peter 3 says ‘The
earth was formed out of water and by water.’ And that might sound strange until you remember how the
bible begins.
SLIDE
In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth. Now the earth was formless
and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the
Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
There’s water
everywhere and actually it’s described in very dark and ominous
terms.
SLIDE
Then day one, light
dispels the darkness.
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Then day two God
separates the waters vertically to create sky.
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Then day three He
separates the waters horizontally to make land. So God holds back the waters to create a space for us to live
in. And the bible continually
speaks of the Word of God telling these threatening waters, ‘This far and
no further.’ And that’s where we
live.
SLIDE
We are living on the
earth surrounded by a threatening force just on the horizon. And doesn’t life feel like that at
times. There are ominous forces
all around you threatening to swallow you up. Well here we see what God’s going to do about it. The vision that Ezekiel saw in the Old
Testament and the vision that John sees in the New Testament are of the
same thing.
SLIDE
In God’s renewed
world, there will be no more sea.
Because the bible clearly says in Isaiah and in Habakuk that in
God’s new world ‘the waters will cover the sea.’ (Is 11:9 and Hab 2:14).
SLIDE
x3
The river of life will
flow, refreshing the whole earth and covering the Sea. Salt, which in the bible is associated
with judgement, will be replaced by fresh water.
SLIDE
And the ominous sea
which threatens to crowd in on us will be replaced by life
giving waters that flow out from God and the Lamb to the
ends of the earth. So there’ll be
plenty of places to swim in the new creation, and the great thing is, you
won’t get a mouthful of salt water.
Because drinking Sea water will poison you. But drinking this water means
true life. This is the river of
the water of life, clear as crystal.
And straddling this
great river is, verse 2, the tree of life.
SLIDE
Imagine a gigantic
tree stradling both banks of the Thames, it’s that kind of image in verse
2. Here is the tree that we’ve
been barred from ever since Genesis chapter 3.
And now in Revelation
22 all the nations can come to this evergreen tree and find healing and
reconciliation.
In that first garden there
was always the opportunity for disobedience and the death and curse that
would follow. But in the new
heavens and new earth, v3 tells us
No
longer will there be any curse.
We will never lose
paradise again. Never.
This is not a two week
holiday. This is forever.
And we noticed last
week how the greatest thing about our future hope is not these blessings,
it’s actually the intimate presence of the Father and of Jesus
Himself. We see this again as we
read on in verse 3:
The
throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and His servants will
serve Him. 4 They will see His face, and His name will be on
their foreheads. 5 There will be no more night. They will not
need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will
give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.
This is where we are
headed. This is Jonny’s ten
million pounds for enduring his crummy summer job.
Notice that our future
hope will be one of service, v3.
We will serve in the new creation. Verse 5 – we will reign for ever and ever like kings and
queens. AND, verse 3, we will
serve forever and ever, like servants.
Christ’s Kingdom is that kind of Kingdom – those who would be
great, serve just like Christ – the Greatest – served.
At our Wednesday afternoon
growth group we were talking about the great feast we will have when
Jesus returns (we saw it when we studied Revelation 19). And most of the people in that group
lived through the war – they’re very practical people, they endured
things like the blitz and rationing and so they asked a very practical
question. ‘It’s all very well
having this banquet, but who’s going to do the washing up?’ Now that’s a good question. That’s taking the reality of this
future seriously. If you’re not
thinking about who’s doing the washing up in the new creation maybe
you’re not thinking about it enough as a future reality.
Now there are many bad
answers to that question. One bad
answer is, ‘It won’t be a literal feast so there won’t be literal washing
up.’ Wrong answer. There will be a literal feast and so
it’s not stupid to ask who’s washing up.
Another bad answer would be ‘The cutlery and plates will simply
disappear at the end of it.’
That’s a bad answer.
That’s not taking our physical future seriously. Here’s the answer I went with. We’ll do the washing up. And we will rejoice to do it. Verse 3 says ‘God’s servants will
continue to serve.’ And we will delight to serve one another. And won’t it be great when all of us
willingly and gladly serve. That
will be heaven on earth, when we spontaneously and joyfully serve God and
each other. So we will do the washing up – that’s the answer I
gave at the time. But another
verse came to my mind this week to answer the question, ‘Who will do the
washing up.’ How about this for a
verse: In Luke 12, Jesus said:
SLIDE
"Be
dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, 36 like
men waiting for their Master to return from a wedding banquet, so that
when He comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for Him. 37
It will be good for those servants whose Master finds them watching when
He comes. I tell you the truth, He will dress Himself to serve, will have
them recline at the table and will come and wait on them.
This is about Jesus when
He comes, serving US who have waited for Him! Service really is glorious. The LORD Jesus will serve us. Can you imagine Him helping with the washing up. ‘Jesus sit down, we’ll do this.’ What will Jesus say? Perhaps He’ll say ‘The first shall be last.’ Perhaps He’ll say ‘Whoever would be
great among you must become your servant.’ Perhaps He’ll say ‘The Son of Man did not come to be served
but to serve.’
Do you see, the
essence of Christ’s kingdom is service because the very essence of
Christ’s Glory is His Servant-heartedness. And service will therefore be a glorious reality into
eternity. We’ll all do the
washing up. And we will have the
greatest time doing it. And so
verse 3 and verse 5 are not opposed to each other. We will serve and we will reign. Because we will rule as servants and
we will serve as kings and queens.
That’s heaven on earth.
This is our promised
hope. This is our ten million
pounds. And Jesus wants us to
keep it in view at all times and so He says in verse 7:
7 "Behold, I am coming soon!
Guess how many times the word ‘come’ or
‘coming’ is mentioned in this chapter.
It’s that magic number 7. It’s here, it’s in v12, it’s three times
in v17 and it’s twice in v20.
We’re meant to get the idea.
Jesus is coming and v12, He’s not coming empty handed, He’s
bringing this reward with Him.
I said it last week, but one in 13 verses in
the New Testament speaks of Jesus’ return. We are meant to be an expectant, hopeful people. Every time I see Phil and Esther around
I ask them how they’re doing and you get one response: ‘Still waiting.’ We should be like that. If you ask me how I’m doing, I’m meant
to say ‘Still waiting. Still
waiting for the biggest event of my life, the return of Jesus.’ We are meant to be forward looking
people who know the best is yet to come, straining on tip-toe towards
this glorious future. More often
we simply fold our pieces of paper and stuff our envelopes and grumble as
if the reward is not coming.
Perhaps we think, ‘He’s taken so long, maybe
He’ll never come’. The Apostle
Peter knew people who said that.
They said
SLIDE
4 "Where is this`coming' He promised? Ever since our fathers
died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of
creation." … 8
But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is
like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 9
The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness.
He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to
come to repentance. (2 Peter
3:4-9)
Jesus sees things
differently to us. We see Him as
slow in coming but He’s not idle.
He’s patient and eager for all to turn to Him in faith. That’s the only reason He hasn’t
returned yet – He wants more people.
I’m glad He’s waited this long – I’m glad for His gospel
patience. His perspective is
different to ours, we are so short-term and impatient. To Him a thousand years are
like a day. Which means Jesus has
been gone for a couple of days.
It’s only been a couple of days.
And He might be a couple more days, who knows? But He might be today. The reality is, if you look around and
you see death and curse and sin and pain – He’s not here yet. But He’s coming soon. And you might meet Him there, or He
might meet you here, but you will soon be with Him. That’s why the very last verses of the
bible end on this note. Look at
verses 20 and 21:
20
He who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming soon."
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. 21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with
God's people. Amen.
I want us to notice
something about how Revelation ends (indeed how the bible ends). Revelation does not end with the city
and the river and the tree of life and the Hallelujah chorus. Not ultimately. It could have ended at verse 5
couldn’t it:
And
they will reign for ever and ever.
Amen, the End!
But it doesn’t. It ends with us, now, waiting for Jesus.
Because all this future stuff is meant to have an impact on us in
the present. Revelation, the
bible, ends with a challenge – if that’s the future, what about you, now.
So as we conclude
our studies in Revelation I want to highlight four ways that Christians
are described in the present as we wait for this future.
Here are the four
characteristics:
SLIDE
1)
We keep these
words (v7)
2)
We wash our robes
(v14)
3)
We are thirsty
(v17)
4)
We say
‘Come.’ (v17,20)
First, look at verse 7:
Blessed
is he who keeps the words of the prophecy in this book.
We must ‘keep’ the
words of this book. We cling onto
the bible. We keep it the way a
girl might keep her first love letters.
We keep it like you’d keep a precious heirloom. We treasure
it.
Imagine Jonny doing
his boring job, but then imagine that every now and again he goes into
his pocket and unfolds a note saying ‘IOU £10 million’. He’d look at that and take it to
heart, it would give him strength to keep going. That’s what the bible is like to us. It sustains us in the present and
spurs us on to this wonderful future.
If this future hope from
Revelation is not real to you, well here’s the question: are you keeping
these words – are you taking them to heart? The bible is not meant to be a burden for you to carry, it
lifts us up and shows us these things.
It makes them real to us.
Open this book, read it, pray it, take it to heart, keep these
words. Because our hope will fade
if we’re not in this book regularly.
Verses 18 and 19 tell
us the flipside of this truth.
Anyone who does not treasure these words, anyone who twists
them or cuts them or adds to them, shows just where their heart is.
18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If
anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described
in this book. 19 And if anyone takes words away from this book
of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life
and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
Now this is directly
speaking about the book of Revelation but the implications are for the
whole bible. The way we treat
this book is the way we will be treated.
Honour this book and you honour the Jesus written about here. Dishonour this book, you dishonour
Jesus and you yourself will be excluded from His future.
You know selective
hearing always damages relationships doesn’t it. Selective hearing with your parents,
with your spouse, with friends, in the workplace, it damages
relationships. These verses are a solemn warning not to have selective
hearing with Jesus. Don’t
sideline bits of the bible just because you don’t like them. Almost the last words in the bible are
a reminder that we are left in this world clinging onto this book as we
wait for Jesus. Don’t mess with
it, get serious about it, put yourself under it. This book will be a tremendous
blessing to you as you wait for Jesus.
Blessed are those who keep these words.
Second, Christians are those who wash their
robes. Verse 14:
14 "Blessed are those who wash their robes, that
they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates
into the city. 15 Outside are the dogs, those who practise
magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and
everyone who loves and practises falsehood.
There are ultimately only two
kinds of people – Revelation has constantly told us of this. (There’s the bride of Jesus and
there’s the prostitute Babylon, there’s servants of the beast and there’s
followers of the Lamb). What’s
the difference? Well one lot wash
their robes, the other remain dirty.
That’s the only difference.
Revelation 7:14 goes into more detail about this image, it says:
SLIDE
They
have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
The blood of Jesus
purifies us from all sin (John 1:7).
Some come to Jesus and say ‘Because of your death, please cleanse
me.’ Others do not and remain
dirty. That’s the difference in
all eternity. So let me ask,
‘Have you washed your robes?’
A friend of mine once counseled a man who had made disastrous
decisions that destroyed his marriage, his family and his business. And at one point this man said ‘I just
wish I could take my whole life and bundle it all up in a giant washing
maching and put it on the hottest wash until all the dirt and grim is
gone.’ Jesus offers exactly
this. He died so we can have our lives washed and made clean in God’s
sight. Have you come to Jesus
saying ‘I need your cleansing.’
SLIDE
Thirdly, Christians are thirsty. Didn’t you feel a little thirsty as we
thought about the river of the water of life, clear as crystal. Don’t you want sparkling
vitality? All those bottled water
advertisements are tapping into something very basic in us. We want that sense of deep
refreshment, spiritual renewal, our soul’s thirst met. And a Christian is someone who simply
comes to Jesus and says ‘I want that.’
And Jesus in verse 17 says:
Whoever
is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift
of the water of life.
We enjoy this water of
life in part now. Jesus said in
John 7, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever
believes in Me… streams of living water will flow from within him.’ (John
7:37-38) By this Jesus meant the
Holy Spirit, who is a deposit of our inheritance. So we enjoy this living water now in
part. But we will enjoy the Living
Water in full when we see Him face to face. In the meantime a Christian lives in between thirst and
satisfaction. We know we want
more of Jesus and at times our thirst is slaked, but that only increases
our appetite for more. Revelation
is here to tell us one day all our thirsts will be satisfied.
SLIDE
For
the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead
them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from
their eyes. (Rev 7:17)
Finally a Christian is someone who calls out ‘Come
Lord Jesus.’ See verse 17: The Spirit and the Bride say
‘Come.’ The Holy Spirit and the
church of Jesus Christ call out in unison – Come Jesus. This is the perfect litmus test for
our hearts towards Jesus. Do you
want Him? Do you want to see
Him? The bible just assumes that
if you’re a Christian you do.
1 Peter says this
SLIDE
Though you have not seen Him,
you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him
and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, (1 Pet 1:8)
Paul says this:
SLIDE
Now
there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the
righteous Judge, will award to me on that day--and not only to me, but
also to all who have longed for his appearing. (2 Timothy 4:8)
SLIDE
If you don’t know
anything of keeping these words, if you’ve never washed your robes, if
you’re not particularly thirsty for Christ’s Spirit, if you don’t really
want Christ to return, I urge you to call on Jesus to ask Him to give you
this spiritual reality. If
you do know what this is, then these things will help you to look ahead
while you remain faithful in the present. Let me finish with a story that illustrates how we’re meant
to live in the light of this coming future. It’s told by John Newton who wrote the hymn Amazing Grace.
Suppose a man was going to New York to take
possession of a large estate, and his [carriage] should break down a mile
before he got to the city, which obliged him to walk the rest of the way;
what a fool we should think him, if we saw him ringing his hands, and
blubbering out all the remaining mile, "My [carriage] is broken! My
[carriage] is broken!" (Richard Cecil, Memoirs of the Rev. John
Newton, in The Works of the Rev. John Newton, Vol. 1
(Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1985), p. 108.)
I hope Revelation has
given us eyes to see things differently.
Let’s not blubber for the remaining mile, let’s keep these words,
let’s rejoice that we’re washed, let’s thirst after Christ’s Spirit,
let’s pray ‘Come Lord Jesus.’
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