Mesa Hills Bible Church

Pastor Tim Dane: We are going to be in Revelation chapter 21 verses 12 to 17 this morning. In 1 Corinthians 2:9, Paul makes a comment about God's amazing grace and the way that he describes it. He says, "These are things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him." The basic idea Paul says is that God's salvation is more amazing than we can even imagine.

It is here in the book of Revelation where we see the unfolding of this salvation coming to its point of consummation in a new heavens, a new earth, and a new Jerusalem. This includes all of the beauty of this glorified creation that God is going to bring into existence, a completely restored universe. As we look at this, it is staggering, and the words probably don't do justice to what we are going to see.

One commentator says human language is inadequate to fully describe the unimaginable magnificence of the believer's indescribable eternal home. The truth about the heavenly city is more than is described but not less, not different from what is described in the material creation, yet so unique as to be unimaginable to us. God is giving us a sneak preview of what it is going to look like when everything has seen this restoration.

I imagine some of you have been to some really beautiful places across the earth. Maybe we look at pictures of beautiful places and you say, "Wow, I have never seen anything like this before." There are some real beautiful places on this earth, but nothing holds a candle to what God is going to do when he brings in the new heavens and a new earth.

This raises a question: why does God show us all these things? There are some places you can look online and you say, "Look at this, this is Austria. Look at all these beautiful places, but I will never be able to go there." God says, "No, you are going to be here." And this is more beautiful than Austria, Switzerland, you name it. This is what God has in store for us.

The reason why God gives us these pictures of what he is doing is because he wants you and me to have hope. These things are not theoretical. It is not some kind of theological idea we put on a bookshelf. God gives us these precious truths to give us hope and strength in the middle of a rough world.

This is a tough world. Last week I had a chance to talk with Anne Claire. As you may know, our precious sister Anne Claire lost her son last Sunday night. Scott Claire died last Sunday night, and he had a tough path. Many of you know this. Scott had been on dialysis for about 20-some years. He died at 41 years of age. This young man had a tough path with all of those medical problems.

She was there when he left this world and became absent from the body and present with the Lord. She saw this coming. They had put him on hospice about a week or two before that because they can tell when the body is winding down. So this was not a big surprise, but terrible, painful stuff. I tried calling her several times right away and did not get an immediate answer, but that is okay because I know that this is just hard stuff.

A couple of days into it I called again and she said, "You are the first call I have taken since I lost Scotty. I am just having to process this." She is a woman of God. She knows the Lord. She loves the Lord. She believes the Lord. She trusts his word. And you know this is one of her favorite lines. She said, "It is well with my soul." She lost Mike a couple of years ago, her husband, and then lost one of her babies. That is hard stuff.

But she knows the promises of God. She is convinced of the promises of God. That is why this woman of God can say, "It is well with my soul." God gives us the truth of salvation, including eschatology and end-time events, so that we can look at the promises and say, "This really hurts right now, but I know he is going to fix these things one day."

This is what we see in Revelation as you come to these last several chapters. We see God unveiling for us a sneak preview of the consummation, the restoration, and the glory that is going to be here in the New Jerusalem when this entire universe has been restored.

In the beginning of this, in verses 9 through 11, we looked at the first of nine descriptions of the New Jerusalem. This morning, what we are going to do is look at verses 12 to 17 and look at three more of these descriptions of the New Jerusalem. John talks about this New Jerusalem and it says:

"It had a great and high wall with 12 gates, and at the 12 gates, 12 angels, and names were written on them, which are those of the 12 tribes of the sons of Israel. There were three gates on the east and three gates on the north and three gates on the south and three gates on the west. And the wall of the city had 12 foundation stones, and on them were the 12 names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb. And the one who spoke with me had a gold measuring rod to measure the city and its gates and its walls. And the city is laid out as a square, and its length is as great as its width, and he measured the city with the rod, 1500 miles. Its length and its width and its height are equal. And he measured its wall, 72 yards, according to human measurements, which are also angelic measurements."

Father, we thank you for revealing to us your plan of restoration so that when we look at what you have promised you're going to do, we can have hope and strength to deal with the things of this fallen world right now. We do pray your comfort on Anne and all of her family. We know that Scott professed and trusted Christ as Lord, and his hope was entirely in the blood of Christ and his resurrection.

We don't grieve for Scott right now, but we do grieve for the family that has this loss and we ask that you would encourage them. As we look to these promises right here, we know that you're going to take it and use it to encourage us as well. The things of this world, whether they are good or bad, these things are not going to last forever. You give us these promises so that we will love you and trust you more, and we ask that you would work that in our hearts today in Christ's name, amen.

As you look in verses 12 to 13, we see the second description of the New Jerusalem to give us hope. It comes from the idea of looking at the walls of the city. These massive walls convey the idea of protection. In today's world, we don't have walls around our city, but in the ancient world, having a wall around your city was extremely important because the walls of the city are what gave you protection from invading armies.

These days, you can have a giant wall around your city and they send a cruise missile or a ballistic missile right into your city, so walls don't matter too much these days. Back then, having a giant wall gave you protection, and this is the imagery and the idea that gets conveyed here by the New Jerusalem and the walls around the New Jerusalem. These are massive walls.

When we come into this new phase of God's restoration, this final restoration in the new heavens and the new earth, it is not like these walls are going to be there to try to stop evil forces from attacking. Evil is going to be completely purged and gone forever. But there is a concept that gets conveyed by the idea of these giant walls, and it is the idea of protection.

The New Jerusalem, it says right here, has a great and high wall with 12 gates, and at the gates 12 angels, and names are written on these gates, which are the names of the 12 tribes of the sons of Israel. It does not tell us at this point here how high the wall is, but again, this idea is protection. It also says that it has these 12 gates and these 12 gates have 12 angels stationed at them.

As you look at the descriptions that you have in the Old Testament about what God is going to do when he brings his kingdom to this world during the millennium—the millennium is that time period that happens after Christ brings a destruction of all of the armies at Armageddon and brings an end to all of the tribulation period. Revelation chapter 20 says that Christ is going to establish his kingdom on this present world for a thousand years.

In that millennium, there is also going to be a temple that gets restored, and this temple is described multiple times in the Old Testament. The most lengthy description of that temple in the millennium is in Ezekiel chapters 40 to 48. As you look at some of the language that the Old Testament has to describe the millennium, you see that there is sometimes an analogical similarity between things that are going to be true in the millennium and things that are going to be true in the new heavens and the new earth.

There are certain kinds of overlaps in terms of some of the descriptions of what you're going to have in the new heavens and the new earth, but this is an entirely new realm of existence. So even though there are sometimes similar issues, there are distinct differences as well. Here, when we look at this new heavens and a new earth, we see that the city is surrounded by this wall and this wall has 12 gates and the angels are on these gates at each of the walls. What the angel does probably conveys the idea of protection and security.

In the Old Testament when it predicts what is going to happen during the millennium, Jerusalem is going to be restored and Christ is going to be ruling on the earth, so there is not going to be the same kind of dynamic that we have going on in today's world. There is not going to be war happening during the millennium.

But even there, when it describes the Jerusalem that is going to be there in the millennium, in Isaiah chapter 62, it says, "On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen all day and all night, they will never keep silent." So during the millennium, there are going to be watchmen, but here in the New Jerusalem, we have angels that are right there. It is just giving us this assurance that nothing in any way is ever going to harm us again.

We live in a time and a place where you have to lock things up. You have to lock your car. Even then, they will still try to steal it. You have to lock your house. You don't think about getting burglarized, but then when it happens you say, "Oh, I wish I would have been thinking about it. I would have been more cautious." We live in a day and age and a place where we have to always be worried about somebody doing something because it is a fallen world.

What God is showing us here in the scripture is this: when I come and I bring this restoration, nothing ever is going to invade upon this safety and security ever again. Remember, this is an entirely new realm. We live in a natural world ever since God created Adam and Eve and the heavens and the earth. We live in a natural world, the realm of nature.

When we go into our resurrection, we're going to still have bodies. Jesus came back to life in a body. He told Thomas, "Hey, go ahead and put your hand right here in this hole in my hand where I was crucified." Jesus came back in a material body, but that resurrection body no longer belongs to the realm of nature like we live in. It's a spirit realm. When we come into our resurrection, we are going to belong to a different realm of existence. It is no longer going to be the fallen realm of nature.

When God recreates the universe—the new heavens, the new earth, New Jerusalem—this is going to be a material creation, but it is not the same realm as what we exist in right now. We have to remember that when we think about what this is going to look like in the end. It's not all going to be exactly like it is right now, but there are similarities.

One of the things that is interesting to see is the way that the number 12 occurs in all of this. In all these descriptions, we see that there are 12 gates, 12 angels, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 foundations to the wall, 12 apostles, 12 pearls that make up each of the 12 gates, and 12 kinds of fruit. We see that the wall is 144 cubits thick, which is 12 times 12.

You go back to Revelation chapter 7, and it says that there is 144,000 Jews getting saved during the tribulation period, 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes. So the number 12, for whatever reason, is repeated. It is interesting how this gets repeated. Verse 13 says out of the 12 gates on the New Jerusalem, the walls, there were three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, and three gates on the west. Four sides, three gates on each side.

What's the application and what's the message that we really get out of this looking this far? What God is communicating to you and me is this: God is telling us, "I am going to fix this mess." It cannot be any too soon. That is why Jesus told us when you pray, here is how you should pray: "May your name be hallowed, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth just as it is in heaven."

If you follow the news, you know that Vladimir Putin is getting squeezed in his war effort because he thought he was going to completely crush Ukraine within two weeks and have total dominance of Ukraine. Yet they have been fighting back, and they have been actually pushing him back and actually trying to make him pay the price to get him to back off.

Now what he is starting to do is he is saying, "Well, I can use nuclear weapons." This is not a good guy. When you look at how much suffering—and as you know, I travel to Ukraine quite a bit; I was there last November, and I will be going again this October. I know a lot of people who actually live in some of these war zones. Now the war zones, they have had to evacuate most of those places because it has been so horrific on the eastern borders.

How many millions of people have been brought to extreme suffering? Right now, Russia has destroyed so much of their infrastructure, destroying things like hydroelectric dams. In Kyiv, they will have electricity about four hours a day. It is going to be another tough winter coming up. We look at that. Right now, you and I don't have to deal with that. We had some nice snacks for Sunday school. We're going to have nice snacks after church. We sit in a nice comfortable room. You and I are not worried about a missile striking us.

But there's a whole lot of people that are living in that kind of a thing day in and day out, not just in Ukraine. This has been happening all over the world and has been happening for thousands and thousands of years. What God is showing us is this: when I send my son and he brings his kingdom to this world, I'm going to take that all away forever.

Look back to chapter 21. Look at how the first four verses talk about this. "I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God,' which means the dwelling place of God, 'is among men and he shall dwell among them and they shall be his people. God himself shall be among them and he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There shall no longer be any death. There shall no longer be any mourning or crying or pain. The first things have passed away.' And he who sits on the throne said, 'Behold, I am making all things new. Write, for these words are faithful and true.'"

We all have to deal with problems. Some people right now are dealing with war. Some of you are dealing with health problems. Maybe it's cancer, maybe it's dementia, a loved one who has dementia. This is really hard stuff, isn't it? What God is showing us here as he describes what he has in store for you and me, he's saying, "I'm going to purge all of that."

Illustratively speaking, you're going to be in a city where you're safe. You're protected. You're walled in from dangers. There are angels there to protect you. Don't worry. I'm going to fix it all, amen. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

Now we come down here to verse 14. We see a third description of this New Jerusalem to give us hope, and it's the foundations of the city. This is a big foundation. Verse 14 says the wall of the city had 12 foundation stones, and on them were the names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb. Foundation stones that went into the wall were important because if you want to have a wall that's going to stand, you have to have a good foundation.

One writer describes this concept here and says the foundations of ancient cities usually consisted of extensions of rows of huge stones that made up the wall down to the bedrock. Jerusalem's first-century wall and its foundation stones have been excavated over the last decades. Huge stones, some of which are 5 feet wide, 4 feet high, and 30 feet long, weighing 80 to 100 tons each and going down some 14 to 19 layers below.

If you have been to Jerusalem before, you've probably seen some of these things. I've been there and seen these foundation stones, and you're talking about massive blocks, granite blocks, limestone blocks, going way, way down 18 layers. That's huge. What does that mean? If you have a giant wall built upon giant foundation stones and some invading army comes, they're going to have a real hard time dealing with that.

God is impressing upon you and me, you're going to be safe when I bring this restoration. Again, it is not like there is going to be some kind of invading army that can come and invade you because by the time you come to the new heavens and the new earth, the curse of sin and death is going to be completely purged. But what God is communicating to us is that I am giving you safety that can never ever be touched again.

We don't have that in this world. Right now you and I are sitting with a whole lot of safety, a pretty safe environment. This may not last very long. We don't know what is going to happen even to our own country, and as we watch what is going on within our own country, the fabric of our nation, it is crumbling. Our nation is crumbling morally, politically, ethically. We are coming apart at the seams. So the nice peaceful place where you and I have enjoyed, this may not be here like this in the decades to come. We don't know what it is going to be.

I hope we don't see it completely come apart at the seams, but we don't have that assurance. But we do have problems, big problems. You notice here, this is interesting. It says that on these foundation stones, you have the names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb. This is interesting because the gates of the city, the gates themselves, had the names of the 12 tribes of Israel, but now as you look at the foundation stones, the foundation stones have the names of the 12 apostles.

One of the things that this conveys to us is this: that when we come into the new heavens, the new earth, and sin is completely purged and everything has been restored, every one of God's redeemed saints from all the ages are going to be there in this restored and resurrected glory. You're going to have the Old Testament saints—in this case here, all of the believers from the Old Testament—and you see these 12 tribes of Israel.

The 12 tribes of Israel, those were not the only saints of the Old Testament. The saints, when we use that word "saint," we're talking about those that had saving faith. That's what a saint is, not some nice person that gets recognized by the Catholic church and put into a special category. A saint, biblically speaking, is a believer. So you have the saints from the Old Testament. That would start with Adam and Eve. They put their faith in Christ after they sinned. That would include people like Noah and his family. That would include people like Abraham and David and Moses and so on.

All of those believers from the Old Testament are going to be there. You see these 12 names of the 12 tribes of Israel on the walls of the city, on the gates. But here, you have the names of the 12 apostles. All of the saints that come from the church age, this present age. That's also going to include, we know it from Revelation chapter 20, people that got saved after the rapture during the tribulation period. The Bible says in chapter 20 verse 4 they are resurrected and they reign with Christ.

Every believer of all ages, nobody is going to be lost. Anybody that belongs to Christ is going to be there in this new heaven, new earth, and New Jerusalem. Now there is a question that comes up right here because when it says here that on the names of the 12 foundations are the names of the 12 apostles, sometimes the question gets asked: well, who are these 12 apostles?

The reason why they ask that question is because we know that one of the apostles was not even a believer. Jesus knew that he was not a believer, but Judas Iscariot was not a believer. Christ chose him to be one of the ones that would travel with him as an apostle. Judas was the one that ended up betraying Christ and handing him over to the Jewish leadership. So now we only have 11. It says here that there are 12 names of 12 apostles.

So the question is, who is the 12th apostle? You remember in Acts chapter 1 that the disciples said, "Wow, this is really tragic. Judas betrayed Christ, Judas committed suicide. We should replace him." And they cast lots to find a new replacement. They had two people and they said, effectively, "Let's flip a coin." Casting lots was like flipping a coin. They said, "We will trust God to give the answer on this." So they flipped a coin, so to speak, and the lot fell on a guy by the name of Matthias and they said, "Okay, we're going to have Matthias take the place as being the 12th apostle."

We can look at that and say, well, God was guiding and directing the whole process. That is very possible and there are many people who believe that that is the right understanding of who the 12th apostle is. On the other hand, we look in Acts chapter 9 and up pops this guy by the name of Saul of Tarsus who was a terrorist against Jesus Christ and Christianity. Saul had the desire of killing every Christian he could, and yet Jesus Christ appeared to him on the road to Damascus, Syria, and Jesus Christ saved Saul of Tarsus.

Later on, Saul took the name Paul, the apostle Paul. Now very clearly, Christ appeared to Paul, a resurrection appearance. Very clearly, Christ personally chose him and said, "You are going to be my witness." And very clearly, if you look especially at Acts chapters 13 to 28, Luke is showing us through the book of Acts that the apostle Paul is God's apostle.

This is not a hill to die on in terms of who is the 12th apostle, and some people would say, well, it does not necessarily have to be only 12 apostles of Christ, maybe Paul is a 13th. Don't die on any one of these hills and don't get in a fight with somebody after church. If I were going to cast my vote, I think it is best understood that the apostle Paul is the one that takes the place of Judas Iscariot. But again, I am just giving you a little bit so you can be aware of that kind of thing.

Here is the key truth: when we get into eternity future, like you see here in Revelation chapter 21, all of God's promises are going to find their fulfillment, all of God's saints will be in glorified resurrection bodies. We still have our individual identity: Jews are still Jews, non-Jews are Gentiles, but all of God's saints are going to be there. You and I are going to be there in the new heavens and the new earth. You're going to be there in the New Jerusalem. "Hey, remember that day back at Mesa Hills Bible Church when such and such happened?" We're going to be there. God is going to fix it, amen.

Verses 15 to 17, we come to a fourth truth that is there to give us hope, and it's the dimensions of the city. This is a magnificent city. It's huge. Look at verse 15. This angel that was speaking with John had a gold measuring rod to measure the city and its gates and its wall. A rod is basically like a yardstick. But this yardstick has a very special purpose; it's measuring the New Jerusalem. It's made out of gold. Wouldn't that be nice, have a yardstick made out of gold to remind you about the New Jerusalem? That could be a pretty cool thing.

Another really cool thing, and we're going to get to this in another passage just next week, but when you look at the colors of the stones on the bottom, the last color is that of amethyst at the end of verse 20. Amethyst is like this translucent purple. I remember at Knott's Berry Farm down in Orange County, they had a giant amethyst. The thing was about three feet high and it was cut open and it was like this giant amethyst. You could buy it; it was on sale for $30,000. That'd be another really cool present to have, a giant amethyst to make you think about the New Jerusalem.

So he has got this gold measuring rod, and what he is going to do is measure the New Jerusalem. Verse 16 says the city is laid out as a square. Its length is as great as its width, and he measured the city with the rod. New American Standard says 1500 miles. Its length and its width and its height are equal. Now, the Greek describes it as 12,000 *stadia*. One *stadion* is about 600 feet or so. So these 12,000 *stadia* would come out to approximately somewhere between 1400 miles and 1500 miles.

We are just going to run with 1500 miles as the approximation. But you're talking about a city here that is 1500 miles wide and 1500 miles long. That's big. That's bigger than Los Angeles. Drive in Los Angeles and it's like you can drive forever. Here's 18 million people spread out over 100 miles. It's a big city. But here you're talking about 1500 miles. That's like going from the Mississippi River to the California coast and going from the Canadian border to the Mexican border. That's huge.

But remember all of this is part of another realm. It's a new spirit realm. Henry Morris, the creation scientist, says it should also be remembered that the new bodies of the resurrected saints will be like an angel in that they will no longer be limited by gravitational or electromagnetic forces as at the present age. Thus it will be easy for the inhabitants to travel vertically as well as horizontally, he conjectures, in that New Jerusalem. I guess he may be right. We will find out when we get there what it's like. I don't know if we're going to have cars. Well, I don't think we're going to have cars. Maybe in the millennium, maybe in the millennium. I hope we have Shelbys in the millennium; that would be nice.

But this is a completely new spirit realm when we get into the new heavens and the new earth. Take notice also of something that's very fascinating. This city is 1500 miles wide, 1500 miles long, but it's also 1500 miles high. It's equal: height, width, and length. It's all equal. The New Jerusalem is a giant massive cube.

Now, why is the New Jerusalem in the shape of a cube? You're going 1500 miles up. I don't know how far it is where you hit outer space. How many miles do you have to go up to hit outer space?

Guest (Male): 90,000 feet, I think, to outer space.

Pastor Tim Dane: That is not that high. 90,000 feet? Obviously, if you're going up in something, it's pretty high.

The New Jerusalem, remember, we are looking here at the ultimate final realization of redemptive history. What we do when we look in the Old Testament, we find out that God gave pictures and images that foreshadow what's going to be that final restoration. When God took Moses up onto Mount Sinai, it tells us in Exodus, and in Hebrews chapters 8 and 9, that when God took Moses onto Mount Sinai, God showed Moses the redeeming work of Jesus Christ.

As a matter of fact, it was the spirit of Christ within the prophet Moses and the other prophets showing them the work of Christ to bring redemption. Moses and the other prophets got to see in spirit the work of Christ. That's why, for example, when we look at the Day of Atonement ceremonies that Israel had once a year, the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies. The high priest would enter the place where the *Shekinah* glory of God was and the ark of the covenant was. The high priest would go and bring a sacrifice, blood of an innocent victim, into the presence of God and God said, "I will now grant atonement and forgiveness to Israel so that they can maintain a right relationship with me."

Moses made this worship system according to what he saw, but ultimately that sacrifice is the blood of Jesus Christ himself. Moses saw Christ. Moses saw the redeeming work of Christ. And then God had Moses make a worship system on earth that would reflect the redeeming work of Jesus Christ.

The same thing is true right here, because remember when God gave Moses the instructions, go to Exodus chapter 25. Exodus 25 has instructions on making a tabernacle. What is a tabernacle? It is a dwelling place. We saw in Revelation chapter 21, God says, "Okay, new heavens, new earth, now the tabernacle of God is with men, the dwelling place of God is now with men."

In the Old Testament, God had Moses make a tabernacle. It was a tent. In Exodus chapter 25 in verse 8, God told Moses, "Let the people construct a sanctuary, a holy place for me, so that I may dwell among them." Now we are in the Hebrew Old Testament right here. This is the verbiage *shakan*, to dwell. Guess what? When you go to the New Testament and God says the tabernacle of God is now with men, same basic root word, *skene*, even though it is Greek. So the *skene* in the Greek New Testament is the same as the *mishkan* right here, and the *Shekinah* glory dwelt in the *mishkan*.

That was God dwelling. So he says, "Moses, make a sanctuary so that I may dwell. And make it according to everything that I am going to show you so that it becomes the pattern of the tabernacle, the pattern of all its furniture." God had Moses make this tent that was called the tabernacle. Now if you remember, the entire tabernacle was in the shape of a rectangle. The first portion of it when you would enter in was in the shape of a rectangle and that was called the holy place. The priest would go into the holy place every day to take oil for the lamp and incense for the altar, and every week they would bring fresh bread into the tabernacle, into the holy place. That was called the bread of presence.

But if you went through a curtain, you came into the Holy of Holies. When you went past that curtain, you came into the Holy of Holies, and the only thing that was in the Holy of Holies was the ark of the covenant. Inside the ark of the covenant, you had the tablets of the covenant, and before the ark of the covenant, you had the rod, the stick that had been Aaron's rod that produced flowers and buds, and also you had a golden jar of manna, some of the manna that had been fed throughout the 40 years.

The high priest was only allowed to go into the Holy of Holies once a year. And in that Holy of Holies, the *Shekinah* glory of God was there from the time that they built the tabernacle and dedicated it. If you go to Exodus chapter 40 verses 34 to 38, it says that when they dedicated the tabernacle, the glory of God came into the Holy of Holies and God himself was dwelling with his people.

But it was a gated community. That is a good way of putting it. "I want to be with you guys, but your sin—there is still a separation here. I am going to be here with you, but I am going to dwell in this tabernacle so that I am with you, dwelling with you in your presence."

What was the shape of the Holy of Holies? It was a cube. Ten cubits wide, ten cubits deep, and ten cubits high. Basically, the Holy of Holies was a 15-foot cube dwelling place. That was the dwelling place of God. When Solomon built his temple and we come to 1 Kings chapter 6, Solomon prepared an inner sanctuary within the house in order to place there the ark of the covenant of the Lord. And the inner sanctuary was 20 cubits in length, 20 cubits in width, and 20 cubits in height. He overlaid it with pure gold.

When they finished the temple and dedicated it, it says in chapter 8 verse 9, there was nothing in the ark except the two tablets of stone which Moses put there at Horeb when the Lord made a covenant with the sons of Israel when they came out of the land of Egypt. And it came about when the priests came from the holy place that the cloud filled the house of the Lord. That's Christ, the glory of Christ filling the Holy of Holies so that the priests could not even stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house.

God was dwelling in the midst of his people Israel, but it was a gated community. "I want to be with you guys, but your sin—there is still a separation here. So I'm going to be here with you, but I'm going to live in the gated community because you guys are sinners and I cannot have that kind of close contact with sin."

But guess what? When we come to the new heavens and the new earth, behold, a loud voice came from the throne saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men and he will dwell among them. They shall be his people. God himself shall be among them." No more gated community is needed. Why? Because sin and curse will be completely purged forever. Never again will this evil and harmful thing called sin and curse enter. And we are going to be dwelling in the presence of Christ with one another.

As we have seen, we are the dwelling place of God. Revelation chapter 21 verse 9 says, "One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and spoke with me saying, 'Come here, I am going to show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.'" I am going to show you the people of God. Verse 10: "He carries me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain and he showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God."

We, the people of God, become the dwelling place of God. We become the city. This is really what it appears: this massive city, this massive cubic city, 1500 miles cubed. All of the redeemed and glorified saints of all ages have become the dwelling place of God. And all of this is what the spirit of Christ was showing Moses, pictures of what we are going to have in all eternity future. He's saying, "This is what I'm going to do, Moses. Make an earthly structure and an earthly worship system that reflects what I am going to accomplish." This is great stuff.

The reason why he is showing this to you and me, my dear brother and sister, is this: he wants you and me to have hope. What a sad thing it is when we have to say goodbye to somebody, right? I was very close to my grandfather, my dad's dad. We had a special relationship; I lived with them for a couple of years as a kid. When my grandpa died, that was hard. You have lost people. We have all lost people.

When you're a kid, you don't think about that that much. But then, as time goes on, you just have to keep dealing with it, one after another. You say, "This hurts." God says, "I know. I'm gonna take it away. I'm gonna fix it." So along with Anne Claire, you can also say, "It hurts, but it is well with my soul."

Verse 17, almost incidental, he measured the city, its wall. The wall was 72 yards. This probably is speaking about the thickness of the wall. It is about 216 feet thick. That is a pretty thick wall. You say, "Is this really something that's actually going to be there, a wall?" It looks like it is because he says he measured it 72 yards. These are human measurements which are also angelic measurements. So basically it's saying, the angel went out and measured this new city, this new material Jerusalem, but that angel's measurements are the same as what we use right here. So it's another realm and it's beyond anything we've ever seen, but it is real.

In closing, just take a step back for a second and think about this grand picture, because if this is true—and it is—this is the biggest story imaginable, isn't it? But it's the true story. I think God wants you and me to really meditate upon this; this is reality. We have a world of moral idiots that deny Christ, they deny everything that is good to live their sinful life.

When we look at the Bible, it is a staggering message. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Where'd it all come from? God spoke and it was here. A universe that is 100 billion light-years wide, so they say. That's what everybody says, creationists and non-creationists. 100 billion light-years wide with 100 billion galaxies, and each of these 100 billion galaxies having 100 billion stars, so they say. They are throwing out such big numbers to say that we don't know, but let's just put 100 billion on it.

Then in the middle of this Milky Way, he made a little blueberry called Earth. And he put water and oxygen, and then by his wisdom, he made life—all kinds of neat life. Dogs. Dogs are wonderful. Cats are wonderful, too. My mom is a cat lady; I've had cats my whole life. I love my cats. They come sleep on my neck and then lick my nose. Sometimes she gets a little too excited and when she's licking she bit my eyebrows and I woke up and I had blood all over my face. But she was loving me.

You think about the beauty of life, of personal beings like animals. But human beings who are made in the image of God—God says, "I'm going to place someone on earth to rule the earth and they're going to be a reflection of who I am. They are my image." When we disobeyed God and brought this terrible curse, the day came when God said, "Okay, I'm going to fix this. I myself will come through a virgin birth." And the son of God took on flesh and allowed himself to be murdered by people who hate God because that was the price of restoring this creation.

God is so gracious and kind. He tells people like you and me, the very kind of people that placed him on the cross, God says, "I will give you 100% forgiveness, full pardon, cleansing, if you will trust in what I did on the cross." What a God, huh? He is a good God. He is a powerful, sovereign God. He is a wise God. And what we see right here when we look at these things at the end of the story, God tells us, "I am going to bring it to a full completion. Just trust me." Amen.

Father, we do thank you for what you've done, O God. We believe in you, we believe in your son Jesus, the savior of the world. Our hope is in your son and his saving grace. Help us, O God, to love you enough to not just be willing to die for you, but to live for you. Help us to be willing to turn from the sin that so easily ensnares us and help us to put aside even things like pride—that kind of sin that can remain within our heart. Other people might not see that. Selfishness and greed and pride and lust—help us to put away those things that are not pleasing in your eyes because we know that all of those sins are what put Christ on the cross. Thank you for your goodness, O God. You are worthy of our love and worship and service. Help us to love you and serve you as we should, and we ask it in the name of Jesus Christ, and God's people said, amen.