Eternal Blessing

Transcript

GR 439
2/21/1982
Eternal Blessing
Selected Verses
Gil Rugh

We've been considering for some time together God's plan regarding the future. What the Scripture reveals about coming events. The course of future as God has unfolded it in His Word. And we're going to spend one more study together, our time this morning, in this area of what God has said about the future. It really is the climax of everything we've been talking about. We've seen the course as it’s unfolded when we are raptured from the earth, when God pours out His wrath on the earth and on sinful mankind, that seven-year period culminating in the second advent of Christ to earth to set up His own kingdom at which time He judges all unbelievers, kills all unbelievers and sets up a thousand year reign. When He personally will rule over the earth. At the end of that thousand years, there will be a rebellion against Him and then the final judgment. We looked at hell in our last study together where all unbelievers from all time are gathered before Jesus Christ and sentenced to an eternity of suffering and torment apart from the presence of God in hell. That is the destiny of every single individual who has ever lived who has not come to believe in the revelation that God has given of Himself.

But there's one more step that we have to consider. That is the final destiny of those who have come to believe in Jesus Christ. The matter of heaven. Of eternity in the presence of God. It always amazes me how little is really said in the overall picture of Scripture about heaven and about eternity in the presence of God. I think part of the reason, and we'll touch on this as we look at the portions before us today, that it's almost impossible to put it on human terms. How are we going to describe and go into detail about the glories of the presence of God for eternity? Everything that we can tie to in our thinking relates to the temporal and to the physical. And we reach out into this area and we have some glimpses, something of its overwhelming glory presented. But it's only a little glimpse. Just sort of to whet our appetite. But the fullness of it will have to wait until we experience it.

Some interesting things occur at the end of the millennial reign of Christ, the end of that thousand-year period with the rebellion against Christ there is the destruction that takes place, In verse 11 of Revelation chapter 20, "And I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them." Then chapter 21 begins, "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, And verse 11 of chapter 20 may be referring to the destruction of heaven and earth along with the summoning of the inhabitants of earth to judgment. Chapter 21 of Revelation opens up that there is going to be a new heavens and a new earth. A new heaven and a new earth. And in the new earth there will be no more sea. One of the characteristics of the new earth, is there is no sea. So the present heaven, the heaven surrounding the earth, the atmospheric heaven, the stellar heavens, and this earth are going to be destroyed and God is going to create a new heaven and a new earth. Now this is in accord with the prophecies given back in the Old Testament.

Turn back to Isaiah chapter 65, Right about the middle of your Bible and the Book of Isaiah, the 65th chapter and verse 17: "For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind." Two interesting things here, One, God promises to create new heavens and a new earth, Again we’re primarily talking not about heaven as the abode of God, but heaven as it surrounds the earth-—the atmospheric heavens and the stellar heavens as they’re related to this earth are going to be recreated. And in connection with this, secondly in verse 17, the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind, We're not going to sit around in eternity reflecting back upon how it was here. Now that's hard for us again to make the break with because everything we identify with now is right here. But I take it the splendor of the new heavens and the new earth will erase from our minds the things of this life. We experience that to some degree even today, where we look back at our lives—a certain portion of our lives—and they’re just a fog at that point. We've just almost totally had them removed. You say, "Oh, that seems so long ago, it doesn't seem real." When we come to the new heavens and the new earth, these old things are washed out of our minds. We don't call them to mind any longer.

Over in Isiah 66 and verse 22: "For just-as the new heavens and the new earth which I make will endure before Me,' declares the Lord, 'So your offspring and your name will endure,'" Here again He speaks of the new heavens and the new earth and their permanency, that they are going to endure. Now that's different than the present heavens and the present earth which are promised to be removed. Let me just read to you from Hebrews chapter 1 quoting from the Old Testament in the Book of Psalm 102: "They will perish, the heavens (the work of His hands) will perish, but you remain. They all will become old as a garment and as a mantle you will roll them up. As a garment, they also will be changed. But you are the same, your years will not come to an end." So Psalm 102 which is repeated in Hebrews chapter 1 speaks about the temperedness of this present earth. It is going to be removed and a new heavens and a new earth. :

Look over in Matthew 24. in verse 35. This great prophetic chapter that we looked at several times in the course of our study. Verse 35 of Matthew 24; "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words shall not pass away." These heavens, this earth will pass away. The Word of God is eternal and unchanging. It is the revelation of His person, His character, and it will endure after this earth and these heavens have been removed.

One other passage on this subject. The Book of 2 Peter. 2 Peter chapter 3. Verse 10: "But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up." So here you have a reference to the destruction of this earth and the related heavens. Then verse 11, "Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, on account of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat] But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells." So this heavens, this earth to be destroyed with intense heat and we are looking for a new heavens and a new earth. Now that is tied closely, and I just wanted you to pick up the context before we move on. Verse 14: "Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things (a new heavens and a new earth) be diligent," verse 11. He said since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sorts of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, We are an eternal people living in a temporal world. Now that ought to condition all that we do. That we are a people who recognize that we are eternal. Destined for eternity in God's presence. Dwelling in a new heavens and a new earth. This earth, is going to be destroyed and all that's in it melted with intense heat. That ought to help keep me from becoming overly attached to this life—the things of this life—all the things that you can acquire. Why are they not so significant to a believer? They're temporal. They're just like the snow that melts so quickly when the temperature warms up—it's gone! I wouldn't have wanted to invest a whole lot of money in the snow on my front lawn. It didn't last very long. All it took was a little bit of heat and it’s gone. That's the way the things of this life are. Everything that you can acquire in this world—all going to be burned up and destroyed, So I should care about how much of it I can acquire? You see there ought to be a marked difference in the way we as believers live because we know this truth, than the way the unbeliever lives. That ought to be evident in our lives. We live in the pursuit of holiness, seeking to be diligent, to be found without blame in His sight. I'm not interested in becoming attached to the things of this life because they're temporal—destined for destruction.

Now when you come back to Revelation, you have the new heavens and the new earth formed and also, in Revelation chapter 21, verse 2, where we want to spend the rest of our time, the subject that's brought up here. "I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband."
So you have new heavens, new earth, and New Jerusalem. And the New Jerusalem is key because when we talk about heaven for the believer it's the New Jerusalem. When I say, "I am destined for heaven and eternity in heaven with God." I am talking about dwelling in the New Jerusalem. My understanding is that heaven and the New Jerusalem become synonymous. Because heaven is the abode of God. Heaven is where God resides and manifests the fullness of the glory of His presence. Now He’s omnipresent, He dwells everywhere. But heaven is where He chooses to manifest the glory of His presence in that special way. And that will take place in the context of the New Jerusalem.

Several passages that we’ve looked at on other occasions. Remember in John chapter 14 in our study of John, where Jesus said, "In My Father's house there are many dwelling places—I go to prepare a place for you." We talked about then, the place that He's gone to prepare is the New Jerusalem. The final permanent abode of the believer. In Philippians chapter 3 verse 20, Paul talks about our citizenship is not on earth, it is not of this world, but it's in heaven. We’re not citizens here, but we are citizens rather in heaven in the presence of God,

Look back in Revelation chapter 3. Revelation chapter 3, verse 12; "He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God," and you remember 1 John chapter 3, "Who is he that overcomes except he that believes that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." Every person who comes to believe in Jesus Christ as his Savior is an overcomer. "I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, he will not go out from it anymore; I will write upon him the name of My God, the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My new name." Now we're in Revelation chapter 1. Here is the city of God, the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. Now it's coming down out of heaven from God, but as we'll see and we're going to look at the description of this in the rest of chapter 21 and chapter 22, for all intents and purposes it becomes heaven. Because this is the place now in eternity where God is going to manifest His presence. That place where He and the lamb themselves are the light and there is no need for sun. The description of the New Jerusalem begins down with verse 9. After having drawn the contrast, verse 8, with the destiny of the unbeliever, the lake of fire, the second death. And again the contrast is so overwhelming it’s hard to relate to it with our finite minds. That verse 8 talks about those who are going to be confined in the lake of fire and brimstone for eternity, the second death, separation from God forever, and in verse 9 we move on to talk about the glory of those who are going to spend eternity in God’s presence. And all the difference between verse 8 and verse 9 in Revelation is found in whether a person comes to believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ while living in this life. Awesome the importance of decisions made here.

One of the angels comes to John and says, "Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb." And in verse 10, "He carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God." So here coming down out of heaven, the presence of God is this glorious city, the New Jerusalem. Now, as we alluded to in our study of the millennium, the New Jerusalem has been in existence and perhaps has been suspended above the earth during the millennium. This is the destined dwelling place for us as believers. But now it's coming down to the new earth. You have a new heavens and a new earth and now you have a new city coming down to the earth. It’s described as a bride of the Lamb in verse 9, "Come here I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb." Picturing the beauty and the intimacy of the relationship of this city and its inhabitants to Christ, Those who dwell here, dwell in the splendor of the presence of Christ. In the intimacy of that close association with Him. It has the glory of God, in verse 11, that’s why I believe that it's almost futile, I say almost, because God has given us a description here, but if you were to sit down and try to paint what is described here, it would be an impossibility.

We're talking about a city that has the glory of God. So all we can do is relate it with something that we can associate with our finite minds with splendor and glory. But I'm sure that it's going to take our glorified bodies to absorb the glory and splendor of this city. It’s a city that has the glory of God about it. "Having the glory of God. Her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal-clear jasper." Brilliance of crystal-clear jasper and precious stones are going to be key in the description of this city. Because what do we associate with ultimate brilliance and splendor and glory? Well the precious stones, they have a depth in their beauty and a brilliance. That's the closest we can come to.
Look back in Revelation chapter 4. This jasper has been seen there. verse 3, "He who was sitting was like a jasper stone, a sardius in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, like an emerald in appearance," Down to verse 6, "Before the throne there was, as it were, a sea of glass like crystal; in the center and around the throne four living creatures full of eyes in front and behind." The clarity, the sea of glass like crystal. Up in verse 3, "Sitting like a jasper stone." Again, the exact color of this stone is not exactly known. Some identify it with the diamond because it’s crystal clear. Some give it a gold color appearance. Some give it a green color appearance. So it's difficult to identify what it is. The crystal clarity makes it sound like a diamond and yet we're going to see that there is something of this character in all the precious stones. Transparency in their beauty and brilliance.

The city has gates. Walls and gates. Verse 12, "It had a great and high wall, with twelve gates." You ought to at least take note of it because this is where you're going to move to eventually. So I think that we as believers ought to at least ought to know the architectural plan of our future home and you know it helps to if you don't have much here, and you go home today and sit in your little shack, read Revelation 21 and 22 and it won't really matter whether you've got 800 square feet or 8,000 square feet. It's all going to be consumed and burned up anyway. But what's permanent is in Revelation 21 and 22. "It had a great high wall." I don’t have any wall but I’ve got a fence around my yard. Not quite like this though. "It had twelve gates, at the twelve gates, twelve angels." I take it their presence here is something of a picture of the glory and splendor. As we'll see as we move though, they're not here to have to do battle or defend the city. Because there's no wickedness or evil left anywhere in the world. But their presence here as servants of God. "Twelve angels; names were written on them, which are the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel," So you have twelve gates with the names of twelve tribes. So Israel is going to be a part of this city—a key part. I take the description literal—it says it has twelve gates—I take it twelve gates. Verse 13, "Three gates on the east, three gates on the north and three gates on the south and three gates on the west," Again I take it that God means it’s got three gates on each side, I take it literally. Why would God go to the trouble to say there’s twelve gates, three on each side, if twelve doesn't mean twelve and three doesn’t mean three, then there's no point in telling you this. So I think that He's giving me an actual picture of what the city will look like. "The wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb." So you have the twelve gates for the twelve tribes of Israel. You have the twelve foundation stones which are the twelve apostles. I take it the twelve gates picturing the fact that Israel is part of this city and we saw this in the Book of Hebrews where Old Testament saints are part of the New Jerusalem as well as the church. Twelve foundation stones with the apostles refers to the fact that the church is part of this city. Two key inhabitants in the New Jerusalem are Israel and the church. Remember Ephesians chapter 2, verse 20? The apostles and prophets are the foundation of the church. Now here we see in a very real way they're pictured by being the foundation stones in the New Jerusalem, the dwelling place of the church.

Should mention the wall here. It will come up later. Verse 12 said it had a great and high wall. Verse 14, the wall of the city denotes the security of those that dwell there as well as the seclusion of those who have been confined to hell. There is something of a symbolism in the wall although I take it the wall will be literal as the city will be literal.

All right, going on a little bit and just overviewing the description. Verses 15 to 17, the size of the city. The question always comes, "Will I be able to fit?" There's a lot of people to get into this city. Well it's probably going to be adequate. No probably about it—it's going to be adequate. Verse 15: "The one who spoke with me had a gold measuring rod to measure the city, and its gates and its walls." Now I really like that. You're going to have a city characterized by the glory of God, you can't measure it with a wooden yard stick. You got to do it right. So here comes an angel who's going to measure, the city and what would he use? A golden yard stick. And I really like it because this is my home that we're talking about. The city is laid out as a square. Its length is as great as its width and he measured the city with a rod. "Fifteen hundred miles; its length and width and height are equal." So, fifteen hundred miles each direction. And some time ago when we were studying Revelation, I dug out some figures. That means it would go from Florida to Maine and from Denver to Philadelphia. Go from Denver to Philadelphia, from Florida to Maine. That's how much area we would cover. Fifteen hundred miles on each side. And it's also fifteen hundred miles high. So it's quite large. I didn't write it down, but somewhere I read that some great mathematician, maybe some of you will occupy yourself figuring this out, using the density of the city of London figured this city would hold 53 billion people. That's a good-sized city. That’s a large city.

Now its shape we're not sure. You get the idea here it would be a cube because the base is laid out, fifteen hundred miles of square and it's also fifteen hundred miles high. So probably the most obvious is that this is a large cube. Some prefer to see it as a pyramid with the square base and then shaped in a pyramid particularly because of the Scripture with the throne of God and then the river that comes out from the throne of God that traverses down through the city which would fit with this throne of God at the apex, the point of this pyramid and then coming down through the city. Either are a possibility.

O.K., verse 18, I like verse 17: "He measured its wall, seventy-two yards." Because I should mention the wall. It’s got the wall around it and you wonder how high the wall is, he tells you here. "Seventy-two yards according to human measurements which are also angelic measurements." Otherwise, somebody would say, "Well, you know an angel is measuring this with a gold yard stick, and the way angels measure wouldn’t be the way people measure so fifteen hundred yards probably isn’t— you know fifteen hundred miles probably isn’t fifteen hundred miles." Well in case you wondered. Human measurements are the same as angelic measurements. I think that may have something to do with angelic speech as well, "Though I speak with the tongue of men and angels." Some people think there's angelic tongue. From all we know in the Bible, every time an angel opens his mouth, he speaks in a human language which is not germane here but I thought you’d like to know that.

Verse 18, the construction of the city. Everybody's interested. It was so nice yesterday. We took a ride around and looked at the homes, they hadn't changed, but you know you just feel like you ought to go out and ride around. It's so nice and the snow's melted. And you look at the homes and you see all kinds of different construction. So you know, you look around and say, "I like the way that one’s constructed." "If I was going to have a home, I'd like it built like that." Well here's how our home is going to be constructed. "The material of the wall was a jasper; and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. The foundation stones of the city wall were adorned with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation stone was jasper; sapphire; chalcedony; emerald; sardonyx; sardius; chrysolite; beryl; topaz; chysoprase; jacinth; amethyst." You can get your Bible dictionary out and go down and look and see what each of these stones are and something of their color. Important to see though that there is a transparency in all of this. The gold is transparent like glass. So that there is a transparency through the city. Even through all the brilliance and splendor of these precious stones. Verse 21,
"The twelve gates were twelve pearls; each one of the gates was a single pearl."
That’s quite a gate. "The city was pure gold, like transparent glass." So you see it’s pure gold, such purity to it it's like the transparency of glass. The street, you come walking in to visit me in my home, the New Jerusalem; you'll walk through a gate that’s a pearl. You'll walk down a street that is pure gold, so pure it's transparent like glass. Can you image that? It's mind boggling.

All right. What about the light fixtures? Verse 22, "I saw no temple in it." Don't need a temple. A temple would be a place to go to worship, "I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb, are its temple." This is why I say for all intents and purposes, this becomes heaven. This is the residence of God and of the Lamb. You don't need a temple. This is it. The whole city is one large glorious temple. It is the abode of God. It's remarkable because it’s the abode of you and I as believers as well. That we are going to dwell in the presence of God for all eternity. In a city characterized by His glory and His presence for all eternity. So verse 23, "The city has no need of the sun or the moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God has illumined it, its lamp is the Lamb." You don’t need any light. You don't need any sun or moon. The presence of God Himself is the light. We won't take time to look through the Bible, but Christ is constantly referred to as the light. He is the light of the world. And here literally, the glory of His presence will illumine the city.

Verse 24, "The nations shall walk by its light, and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it." Interesting here. You ought to note. We talked about Israel, we talked about the church as being the prime residents in the New Jerusalem. But now we find that the nation shall walk in its light, the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it. - Remember we have a new heavens and a new earth.
Now you have a New Jerusalem brought down to the new earth. In the New Jerusalem reside Israel and the church. On the new earth, reside the nations, the Gentiles.
I take it those were not part of the church. Those were not' part of Israel. They’ll live on the earth in the light of the glory of the splendor of this city. There will be kings on the earth in eternity we're told here. So you'll have Israel, you’ll have the church, you have nations and you have kings. We’ll see something about what we’re going to be doing in eternity in a moment.

Verse 25, "In the daytime" and I love the way it’s placed here—phrased here. "In the daytime (for there shall be no night there) its gates shall never be closed." Now, interesting way to put it. Instead of just saying, "They'll never close the gates," it's much more dramatic to say, "They'll never close the gates in the daytime, and by the way, there is no nighttime." It’s another way of saying, "the gates are open all the time." Is that what it says? "In the daytime (for there shall be no night there) its gates shall never be closed." Well if you only keep the gates open in the daytime, and you never have nighttime, you have the gates open all the time. "They shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it," So I take it, in eternity, the nations of the earth will be coming into the new Jerusalem to bring the glory to God, "Nothing unclean, no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life." I take it that's another way of expressing the fact that those who have been cast into the lake of fire, the second death, are there for eternity. They shall never be privileged to come into the glory and splendor of this city. They have been consigned to eternity in hell.

Into chapter 22, we just have to look over the first five verses. A chapter division would have been better here after verse 5 or perhaps after verse 7. Verses 6 and 7 of verse 22 sort of tie it together and give a summary. The first five verses continue the discussion of the New Jerusalem. "He showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and the Lamb." You note it's the throne of God and the Lamb. In 1 Corinthians 15 there was something of this. Where after the thousand years, the kingdom is turned over to God the Father. There’s one sovereign reign and I take it that the Father and the Son share together in the throne ruling in eternity. "In the middle of its street. And on either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” We saw the tree of life in the garden in Genesis Chapter 3 and Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden after eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Because God says, '.'Lest they eat of the tree of life.” Because that would have been a disaster if they had eaten of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and fallen—-become sinful beings; and then eaten of the tree of life, they would have been confirmed for eternity in their sinful condition. They would have been in the same state as fallen angels. There would have been no redemption. But now we find that the tree of life is here to be freely partaken of. For the health of the nations. That word "healing”—we get the word "therapeutic” from it and it means "health” and perhaps gives you a better idea, not that the nations are sick here; but there's constant provision for their health, for the enjoyment. Picturing the abundance of life and health that the nations enjoy through eternity. A very clear picture here of something going to be going on in eternity, All of a sudden we get to eternity and we think, "Now everything stops. We all get our harp and we sit down and strum and sing the glory of God and that's it forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever.” No, there are going to be activities going on in eternity. Here is a city, the dwelling of God, with a river flowing, the tree of life, perhaps more than one on both sides of the river, perhaps it overhangs the river, the nations can freely partake of the tree of life. To enjoy the life that God has provided for all of those who are part now of His eternal reign,

"There shall no longer be any curse; the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His bond-servants shall serve Him; they shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads,” I take it primarily we're talking about here the face of the Lamb. That’s what we shall see. If we are going to 6ee something of the Father or the Spirit, we don’t know what that will be. We know we will see Jesus Christ face to face. We’re told—1 John 3 tells us that we shall behold Him as He is. I take it the clearest reference here is we’re talking about the face of the Lamb.

Ought to note at the end of verse 3, "His bond-servants shall serve Him." That’s us. What are we going to do in eternity? We’re going to serve God. A word here that's often used of religious service. We're going to functioning as priests of God and carrying out service for Him. Just as today we are believer- priests. So all of our activity is to be viewed as priestly service offered to God. So for eternity we will be busy about serving God. I don’t know all that I'll be doing, but I know in eternity, I’m going to have activity. I'm going to be involved in the service of God. That's not just going to be sitting around watching eternity pass by, but I'm going to be involved in the activity of servicer-priestly service.

Verse 5, "There shall no longer be any night; they shall not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God shall illumine them." So there again, a reminder of the brilliance of His presence. There's no need for artificial light. Either natural artificial such as the sun and the moon or any other kind of light. The presence of God Himself is light. Note the end of verse 5, "They shall reign forever and ever." Now that is the sum and substance of what God has to say about our eternal dwelling. There are other passages we could look at, but that's the most extensive consideration. He describes somewhat in detail—a sketchy detail if you will—of the splendor and glory of our eternal residence. We find out that Israel and the church will be residing primarily in the new Jerusalem and the nations of the world will be existing on the earth, and the nations of the earth will be coming up to the new Jerusalem to bring glory to God, That we His servants, will be offering priestly service to Him and reigning forever and ever. Now I think that there may be a dimension here that as we go into eternity after the thousand-year millennium. Remember the thousand years was just the first step in God’s eternal kingdom. That the rule and reign of Christ and God the Father continue and so there is order even going through eternity, Now, how that all works out, I don’t know. What about the people at the end of the Millennium who are believers in Jesus Christ who are still in their physical bodies? Will they at that time, get glorified bodies? Most assume so. The Bible never says so. Perhaps they will be as Adam and Eve would have been had they never sinned, they will be partaking of the tree of life and live forever. My, we were not created to die.
We were created to live and enjoy the presence of God forever. So perhaps these in the nations of the earth are those who have gone on into eternity in physical bodies and continue as such, I don’t know. Perhaps they get glorified bodies. But I do know God makes a distinction, identifying Israel and the church with the New Jerusalem and then talking about the nations of the earth, the new earth. Perhaps our role and reigning, we’re going to reign, we must reign over something—the new Jerusalem will be the capitol of the world so we have what has been going on in the millennium only in a vastly exalted state now, Where the new Jerusalem itself becomes the capitol of the new earth and we rule and reign with Christ from the new Jerusalem, And the nations of the world continue to function and operate; but now in complete and willing submission to Him who is king because they’re all believers. There is no curse on the earth, we’re living in a perfect environment in a perfect world. And so eternity goes on and we will be active and involved in our service just as we are now. Ruling and reigning, I don't know. Just glimpses God gives us, but what He does tell us goes beyond what we could ever dream of.

Amazing, Now, I back up and I look at my life and say, "Look at this past week. What has it been like? What has absorbed your life, during the days of this week? What has occupied you?" Isn’t it amazing how we get caught up in this world? The things of this life, as though they were so important. Our jobs, our homes, our cars, our bank accounts. And I look and see what I'm destined for, I'm just a pilgrim. Just a visitor passing through. Just here for a temporary time. Things of this life hold no value to me. I have no attachment. I do have one eternal task to be about here. In my service for God, to glorify Him. To proclaim to those I come in contact with the message of salvation in life because that, in the midst of all the temporalness is that which is significant. The thing that determines whether a person spends a glory—eternity in the glory of the presence of God is whether they have come to believe in Jesus Christ as the One who died to pay the penalty for their sins, I cannot conceive and grasp that, We studied about hell and suffering and eternal torment forever and ever, We’ve looked at a glimpse of eternity in the glory of God's presence, and they could be no further apart. And to see that a person's destiny is determined by this one factor, have you come to believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior who died for you? Are you relying upon Him as the One who paid the penalty for your sins? All eternity hinges upon that. Whether a person in a hundred billion, trillion years is going to be enduring the torments of hell or the glory and the splendor of God's presence. It's determined by their relationship with Jesus Christ,

Now I wonder, where are you going to spend eternity? To which place, to what city, if I can put it that way, are you destined? Heaven or Hell? All determined by that,
Have you ever come to believe in Jesus Christ as the One who died for you? You say,
"Oh, I couldn't believe that something so important could hinge on that one little thing," Little from our perspective, but big from God's. And it better be big from ours because it's determinative regarding eternity.

For those of us who have believed, are our lives conditioned by it? What a tragedy that we live on the level of the mundane. The Apostle Paul kept his sights fixed here and it enabled him to go on. Let me read you a passage: "Therefore, we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, our inner man is being renewed day by day, for momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. While we look at- the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen, are eternal." 2 Corinthians, Chapter 4, verses 16 to 18. Where are your eyes fixed? What’s important in your life? Are we those who live in light of the fact all these things will be burned up, all these things are temporary? What does matter is my life and walk in relationship to God and my service for Him. What I acquire and what I have will be irrelevant in eternity; but my service for Jesus Christ will matter forever.

Let’s pray together. . .