His Perfect Love

Announcer: Hear all about our heavenly home next on His Perfect Love.

What really makes a home special aren't the four walls and a roof, but rather the people inside, the family. Today on His Perfect Love, we'll hear all about the New Jerusalem that comes out of heaven. It's the place where the family of God will be gathered for eternity. But what makes this holy city special is Jesus, who will dwell there with us. Here is Pastor Matt VanderVen with the exciting details as we open our Bibles to Revelation chapter 21.

Matt VanderVen: Chapter 21, verse one: "Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. 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. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And 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, for the former things have passed away.'

Then He who sat on the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new.' And 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 the 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.'

Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues—notice with me "had," these things had been poured out, judgment had already been completed chronologically—came to me and talked with me, saying, 'Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb's wife.' And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal.

Also she had a great and high wall with twelve gates, and twelve angels at the gates, and names written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel: three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, and three gates on the west. Now the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. And he who talked with me had a gold reed to measure the city, its gates, and its walls. The city is laid out as a square; its length is as great as its breadth.

And he measured the city with the reed: twelve thousand furlongs. Its length, breadth, and height are equal. Then he measured its wall: one hundred and forty-four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of an angel. The construction of its wall was of jasper; and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with all kinds of precious stones: the first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, the fifth sardonyx, the sixth sardius, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst.

I always say that wrong. I want to say it's Amherst, like from a place. Amethyst, forgive me if I mispronounced it. The twelve gates were twelve pearls: each individual gate was of one pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass. But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory and honor into it.

Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life." So, a lot to say on this most precious city. John now, given by the Lord this precious vision as it is, he's taken up to this high place. It's really similar to what we remember when you begin to think about Moses.

Moses was never able to enter into the Promised Land because of his sin of anger and the different things he did. But God, still in His infinite wisdom, took Moses up into a very high place and He allowed him to see the holy Promised Land, Jerusalem. He allowed him to see what it would be like one day when all of the people would enter into that holy city. Likewise here, God takes John and He gives him this forward vision of what it's going to be like, this New Jerusalem that's going to be coming out of heaven.

I don't know if you've thought about that. We've already read about last week the new earth, so we know that instantaneously, as Peter teaches us, this new earth is going to come and it's just going to happen like that. We're already on the earth; there was a thousand-year millennial reign. It's really at the end of that thousand-year millennial reign that we see the new heaven and the new earth that you can see on our timeline. It's in that new earth that we immediately find ourselves. But then interestingly, as the new heaven is coming down, it's something that is breathtaking in regards to the fact that it's heaven coming out of heaven.

That's what we just read. It's heaven and a new heaven coming out of it. We talked a little bit about the quality of that in the Greek last week, in which it was describing a better, not a replacement for, but a better, much like our covenant. We don't have a replacement for the old covenant; we have a better covenant, a new covenant through the blood of Jesus Christ, the shed blood of Jesus our Messiah. So, he's giving us this understanding, and John is kind of brought up to this high place that once this heaven has been brought to the earth, 12,000 furlongs, it's a perfect cube by volume.

When you think about height, width, and breadth, the aspect that we're going to occupy all that, I'll talk more about it when we get to that passage. But then God goes into incredible detail to help you and I understand what it's going to look like in this new heaven, and He doesn't leave anything to chance. He doesn't need to do this. He promised us an inheritance, but then He also wants to—He's so pleased and thankful for His children coming into this new city that He wants to tell us all about it now.

It's like a proud papa when you're going to give your child a gift, and sometimes it's hard to keep it to yourself. You're like, "You're going to be so excited, I can't wait for you to see." How many of you have kids, and whether it's Christmas or a gift, you can't wait to give your little daughter or your little son this gift? You start out, "Well, I have a prize"—sorry, that's what we called it in my family—"a present, as we say. I have a present; I'm going to give you this present." You get so excited, and you're more excited than I think they are. But you're more excited to give.

That's our God. Do you see that about Him? He's so excited to give His children this gift. By the way, as we go through the detail of this, it's nothing compared to the brilliance and beauty and majesty of Jesus. But He shows us just how wonderful heaven is, and we start to go, "Wow, this is amazing!" And He's like, "You haven't seen anything yet when you enter into My fullness and you and I are one forever." Then you start just going, "Lord, it's too good. It's just too good. I can't process all this."

Well, let's start back, as I mentioned, in verse nine, and we'll go line by line here. We'll just look at how God wants to show us in this next section just incredible detail here. "Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came to me and talked with me, saying, 'Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb's wife.'" This is interesting. If you don't take verse nine with verse ten, you might err here when you first read this because up to this point, who is the bride?

When God has used it through the New Testament, who is He typically talking about or to? The church. You've known that; you've read the Scriptures. You know He's talking about the church. Interestingly enough, chapters six through 19, there's not a single mention of the church, is there? And now we get to the new heavens and new earth during the millennial reign. We see the idea of the bride of Christ because we're raptured up; we come back down with Jesus for a thousand-year millennial reign because certainly the church is here.

But then He did something for us, much like we do in regards to language. We might take an original meaning but then sometimes we can change the attributes of that meaning. When I was growing up—and sorry, I'm dating myself here, you get a half a century old—words like "fat." Now that, when I was growing up, could mean two different things. One of it meant maybe you had a little extra cushion, which necessarily wasn't a bad thing in the cold winter months in upstate New York where I'm from.

You appreciated having a little protection from the foot of snow and the negative 15 degrees. But the other thing it could mean—and maybe some of you are of my age so you know, or older—fat could also mean what? Cool, or hip, or something like that. So we can take words and we can see that the words or the meanings of the words can sometimes change. What Jesus did for us here is He did something that was really interesting. It's very few times done this way in Scripture, but I don't want us to miss it.

Look at what He did in verse nine: "Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb's wife." Every one of us up to this point thinks Jesus is talking about, "Hey, I'm going to come show you the born-again believers, My church," because that's the way He's used it historically to describe who He's talking about. But then verse ten connects us with this new idea of what He wants to show us here. He said, "And he carried me away in the Spirit to see what? A great and high mountain, and he showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem."

What effectively God has done—because there are no non-believers at that point; everyone's already been judged in the Great White Throne Judgment—so He's no longer just talking about people, but He's actually describing it as part of the city. He describes that: "Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb's wife. And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great high mountain and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem." So He's actually referring here now—and this is just interesting for us to understand—that the bride, the city, now the city takes on an understanding of being called the bride that way.

This is important. Underline that, circle that in your Bible. I'm going to talk about what He is connecting for us this morning and what He wants us to see. Much like you and I, we came to this building this morning. But what makes this building a church? You, because you're the bride of Christ and you're in the building; this has now become the church because the church is gathered here. Hebrews 10 makes it very clear: do not forsake the gathering of the hagios, the Greek word for saints.

It's not a suggestion; it's actually a commandment given in Scripture. God commands us not to forsake the gathering, the coming together. Why? So we can be taught by the Word, so we can be encouraged and built up, strengthened, and go out and be able to take what's been poured in and then begin to do what? Pour it out to others, a lost and dying world that needs the Gospel, the hope, the good news. So it's fitting now. The other thing that's interesting—that I might have even just jumped right through, but many of you probably noticed this with me as well—look at verse nine: "Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled."

Did you see that? Is that in the present tense, the future tense, or the past tense? That's in the past tense. What is he calling out here? He's talking about chronologically that all judgment has been done. This is that very angel that brought that judgment, that final judgment that would be poured out. We don't even get his name; he doesn't even give us the name. But he tells us that it was done; all judgment's done away with. It's almost like He's saying, "And that old chapter, that old section, that part that needed to be handled with judgment is done away with. I want to talk about the repurposing of what I'm going to now do, and oh, by the way, I'm going to use this angel to be a messenger, a herald of good news."

What once was for judgment, God has now made good and new. And that's what He wants us to see right in the beginning; He starts right in the beginning in this section, clearly after the millennium and the new earth. And then this bride, like I said, this great city, some people have wondered because of that, "Does that mean because it's not using it towards the church the way it has in the past, is this New Jerusalem literal? Is it figurative here? Should we be taking it that way because the reference to the bride?" Maybe it's a symbol of the church, the bride of Christ.

But not so. The heavenly city is literal, and it's called the bride, the Lamb's wife, because it is the place where all of God's people are gathered. That's what He wants us to see. That's the whole point of why He calls it the holy city and He calls it the Lamb's wife and the bride, because He's connecting the two for us. No longer is there an evil or a wickedness or anything like that on the earth. All has been judged. So now, not only does the physical locale obviously be referred to the holy place, the bride, the wife, but the people within it.

He's connected it all to the holiness and righteousness of God. And in this sense, the New Jerusalem is certainly like the bride, but the association doesn't diminish the reality behind any of the imagery that He's trying to give us here. The city is associated with the bride also in regards to awe, the sense of its beauty. But He wants us to understand something familiar. He uses the bride; that's the connection. We're familiar with that, the bride of Christ. It's a familiar language to us.

We know it; we've seen it. And now He connects it to this New Jerusalem, bringing the familiar with the new, tying it all together. Not to mention, as I mentioned, the awe. I mean, just think about this for a minute. Some of you are married. Some of you can even remember back to your wedding and you saw the wife, your bride at the time, she came in. She comes down the aisle, or wherever you were, maybe outdoors, or however it happened. She comes down the aisle, you were up here, the pastor was in front of you.

Please remind me, just for the sake of the radio audience, everybody listening online and everywhere: were we all focused on the pastor when the beginning of the ceremony was starting? I know I wasn't. No, we weren't. Were we even focused on the groom? Up until the point the wife enters, we might look at him because we want to see how's he holding up, because most of us were up there little nervous, being upfront in front of all those people, and you're expectant, you're excited, this is going to happen.

You've waited your life to finally have this beautiful bride come in that you're going to call yours. You can't wait; it's so exciting. And then what happens? She begins to proceed, she comes in, the music plays. Please remind me, where does everybody's attention go to? The bride! And how she is—and don't miss this—adorned. Beautiful description of the bride and how she looks and is adorned, her coming down. And what does everybody do at that moment? We all just stay seated and look away or look at the pastor or we look at the groom? No, who are we looking at?

We even stand up and rise, we face the bride, and all attention is on the bride as she makes her way down the aisle. So it has an imagery to us for us. He's given us an imagery here to help us understand this. So I want us to picture the way that we have awe at a wedding, far superior when the new heavens out of heaven comes down. There's not a single eye that isn't going to be captivated by that new heaven coming down as every human being watches and is in complete awe.

It's just a moment. And so that's how He begins this whole passage. It's like you could hear a pin drop as it's literally coming down. And this is how John, this vision he starts to see. He's foreseeing. He didn't have the book written like we do through inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And then in verse ten, he says, "And he carried me away in the Spirit." So he's taken to a great and high mountain and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God.

So John is sort of transported supernaturally, kind of language similar to a rapture idea; he's just moved to this high mountain. Why? Because this is where he can get the perfect view of the New Jerusalem descending. Certainly a good vantage point to be able to write these things down, which God has commanded John to do. He's forward-looking, and the thing that I love about this is he is looking upon it and he's seeing what's going to happen, which tells you and I something very important today: God's not planning anything any longer.

It's already done. He's looking on it as though it's occurring. It's complete. It's not something that God is turning around and saying, "Well, how are we going to do this? Maybe I'll change and we'll put a little bit of this and we'll do..." We read throughout the Scriptures that this was designed before the very foundations of the world. Revelation chapter 13, as well as chapter eight, we see it throughout Scripture. He's telling us this is not an afterthought. Salvation was not an afterthought.

God knew before there was sin what was going to happen, and He was already premeditating. He was already premeditating. He was turning around and providing an answer and a solution for salvation even before there was sin because He's madly in love with you. He's madly in love in each one of you. And even if you were the only one, as I've always said, He would do it all over again. Please also notice with me, when we see things of heaven, up to this point in Scripture, when John would see, whether it was an angel or something prior to the Book of Revelation, even the apostles or anyone else, when they saw something supernatural, Jesus Christ transfigured—please remind me as a human being how they responded.

Most of the time it was in what? Fear. It was a cowering; it was a fear. A fear of something bigger, eternal, something that they're not accustomed to seeing. If you and I today just saw this roof open up and all of a sudden something starts to be lowered, I don't think all of you are just going to be sitting in your seats like this, "Hmm, wonder what's happening here." I don't think you're going to. I think you're going to run that way, you're going to run that way, some of you are going to be frozen, but nonetheless, you're going to try to move.

Why? Because it's unexpected, it's frightening, it's fear, it's something new. Remember I said He connected something old, familiar to us, the bride of Christ, that term, with the new? Why do you do that? Because then it's not as frightening; it's something familiar. It should be familiar. Notice with me also, John doesn't turn around—so many things when John was in awe, the apostle, God had to tap John and go, "John, close your mouth. What are you supposed to do, John? Write. Oh, right, I gotta write these things down." We just read that last week: "John, write. John, write." Does John have to be told to write? No.

It's almost like there's something expectant in every human being about an eternal home, an abode. It's something we all look for. It's something that everyone of us, since we were little kids, we would also play something called what? Maybe some of you, I know growing up they had back then little—I don't know if they have these same—I always say in the '80s and '70s, we had it made. I don't know about the generations, they don't have near the toys and the things we had. But the little Fisher-Price, whatever it was, was like a toy kitchen. Do you remember those little ones? I don't know, maybe they still make them now.

But they used to have those things, and then the guys, we had all the tractors, little whatever things like that, the toys and all that. What's my point? Is that when they were little, a lot of times the girls would turn around and they would want to play house. And the boys would even say, "Okay, yeah, we'll play house. I'm going to be like daddy," or "I'm going to be like mommy," or "I'm going to do these things," and they would play house. But they didn't say, "I'm going to play home." That's interesting.

It wasn't until we get older when we start to understand that there's a difference between having a house and there's a difference between having a home. You can have a house where you can have a physical residence; you can live there, you can stay there, but it's not a home. You're not at peace, you don't feel comfortable, you don't feel like you have security and safety where you can put your feet up, where you literally feel like, okay, everything's going to be okay. That's a home.

Plus you have the person that you want to be in your life that also makes many times—friends, family, other people, a significant other—that can make it feel like a home because you share it together. All of these things that we just naturally take for granted, did you ever wonder where those feelings came from, where that idea came from, that we want to have a place that we can call home and feel safe? There's something very—you might say for 5,000 years, human beings have been trying to find a place of shelter, but they weren't content with just a house or shelter. They always want to personalize it to make it feel like a home. This is our home.

Announcer: You're listening to Pastor Matt VanderVen on His Perfect Love. You can hear the study from Revelation again when you visit hisperfectlove.org. That's hisperfectlove.org. We've expanded our podcast too. Look for us on onepass.com and most of the major podcast platforms. The Calvary Chapel Harrisburg mobile app is another great way to listen to Pastor Matt's messages shortly after they're delivered. We can help you get started when you visit hisperfectlove.org.

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And whether you live in or around Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania or will be visiting the area soon, we'd love to have you join us for a service at Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore. Sunday morning services begin at 8:30 and 10:30. We have a midweek service too, Wednesdays at 7:00 PM. You'll find us at 28 North Locust Point Road in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Go to ccharrisburg.org for more information. Well, that'll do it for today, but come back next time when Pastor Matt will again study the Book of Revelation with us here on His Perfect Love. His Perfect Love is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore.