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Revelation 22:7-15: ‘Outside’

⁷ ‘Look, I am coming soon! Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy written in this scroll.’⁸ I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me. ⁹ But he said to me, ‘Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant with you and with your fellow prophets and with all who keep the words of this scroll. Worship God!’¹⁰ Then he told me, ‘Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this scroll, because the time is near. ¹¹ Let the one who does wrong continue to do wrong; let the vile person continue to be vile; let the one who does right continue to do right; and let the holy person continue to be holy.’¹² ‘Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. ¹³ I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.¹⁴ ‘Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. ¹⁵ Outside are the dogs, those who practise magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practises falsehood.NIV

There are people who preach that no-one will be excluded from God’s Kingdom. We might like to think that, but it’s not congruent with what we have read in ‘Revelation’ (and still read in this last chapter), and it doesn’t fit with what we read in the rest of the Bible. In the end, there will be those who find themselves ‘’Outside’’ (15) God’s glorious future. They will be there because of their refusal to repent of their sins and trust in Jesus. Just as in the story of Noah and the ark, there will come a day when God shuts the door (Genesis 6:16). Only those cleansed by Christ’s blood (14) are free from sin and therefore confident to enter. Those truly saved show it in sanctified lives (15). By their fruits they are known.

Revelation 22:20: Agreeing with God.

²⁰ He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. NIV

In an article on prophetic preaching, Lee Eclov described the work of one artist, Cody F. Wilson, who has painted Isaiah, Jeremiah and Jonah standing on stilts. They have a different vantage point on life to everyone else. He goes on to say:

‘From their high stilts, prophetic preachers insist that people absorbed with the present refocus on the future God has promised. In some circles, eschatology has gotten a bad name. It is good and noble to explore the perichoresis of the Trinity but you better steer clear of “rapture” or “tribulation” or “the Rider on the white horse.” It can come off as the trailer trash of theology, all lurid speculation, the Bible’s “olde curiosity shop.” But prophets, while certainly not having the end figured out, “searched intently and with the greatest care” in trying to understand the future God promised in Christ. Our prophetic preaching should make room for some searching with great care. We do them a disservice if we pay less attention to their visions than they did. We will certainly not understand all the mysteries of Daniel, Zechariah, or Revelation, but how is it that some preachers have never preached any of them?

Prophetic preaching today needs to stand on stilts sometimes and look off into the future to the Second Coming, to the new heavens and new earth, and, yes, to hell. The future God has promised sounds a unique warning to complacent or sinful people who might not hear any other alarm.

But even more important than the warning to the complacent is the hope God’s saints so sorely need. Christians—at least young Christians—may not think all that much about heaven, but God’s people need to know all that God says about the future he has planned for us. They need biblical details, not just a sanctified version of ‘pie in the sky by and by.’ Prophetic preaching gives God’s people an ear for the voice of the archangel and the trumpet call of God. It gives anxious disciples Jesus’ word, “Do not let your hearts be troubled … . I am going to prepare a place for you.” Prophetic preaching takes Christians fixated on the week ahead to a high place from which they can see, with John, “a new heaven and a new earth,” and hear the voice that says, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people … . There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” ‘

The last recorded words of Jesus in the Bible are: ‘’Yes, I am coming soon’’ (20). John articulates what the response of the church should always be: ‘’Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.’’

 These are the words of one in agreement with God; one who says, ‘Yes Lord, we want the future you have for us.’

Revelation 22:7,12, 20: A repeated refrain.

⁷ ‘Look, I am coming soon! Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy written in this scroll.’

¹² ‘Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done.

²⁰ He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. NIV

Three times in the last few verses of this book Jesus states that He is ‘’coming soon.’’ If the thought is repeated it must be important.

Someone may say, ‘Well, it’s two thousand years since John wrote these words, and Jesus still hasn’t come. That seems like a long time to me!’ But the Bible is its own interpreter and here are some words which help to shed light on things:

‘’But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief’’ (2 Peter 3:8-10a).

God has a different perspective on time to us. From heaven’s perspective, it’s only a couple of days since Jesus stood on this planet. ‘’Soon’’ He will return.

I heard a denominational leader say recently that the reason why so many Christians in other cultures are evangelising and church planting with such urgency is because they really believe Jesus is coming soon. But, he said, we don’t.

By and large that is true. Perhaps we need to remind ourselves afresh of our need to live in the future tense.

Revelation 22:6-9, 18–19: Building on Rock.

^“6 The angel said to me, ‘These words are trustworthy and true. The Lord, the God who inspires the prophets, sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place.’⁷ ‘Look, I am coming soon! Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy written in this scroll.’⁸ I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me. ⁹ But he said to me, ‘Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant with you and with your fellow prophets and with all who keep the words of this scroll. Worship God!’

¹⁸ I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: if anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. ¹⁹ And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll.” NIV

To build on the Word of Christ is to build on Rock, whereas to build a life on any other foundation is disastrous (Matthew 7:24-27). As part of Scripture, ‘Revelation’ is ‘’trustworthy and true’’. This doesn’t mean we can understand everything in it, but it does mean we should treat it with the utmost respect, along with the rest of Scripture (18,19). This includes obeying all that we see we need to do as we read its pages (7, 10).

As a faithful ‘preacher’, the angel would not accept any honour that was not due to him, but called John (and through him every person in the church) to ‘’Worship God’’ alone (9).

Let every other preacher take note. We should:

• Have confidence in the truth of God’s Word;
• Call people to have faith and obedience in it;
• Seek to decrease that the Lord may increase.

As the Westminster Shorter Catechism says: ‘Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever

Revelation 22:3:Full employment.

^“3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him.”NIV

‘’The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him.’’

 In the New Living Translation, this reads: ‘’and his servants will worship him.’’

 In the Bible worship involves service. It isn’t just singing to God or praying to God, but it is also living wholeheartedly for him. It’s obedience; it involves doing His will. It embraces the whole of life. As Jock Anderson wrote in his book, ‘Worship the Lord’, God wants worship that is living, and living that is worship. David Pawson once said that for the Christian the whole of life is sacred, and the only thing that is secular is sin. Everything we do should be offered to God as worship, and if we can’t offer it to Him, we ought not to be doing it.

In the future renewed universe, we won’t be sitting around on fluffy white clouds playing harps! We will be fully employed. Here is the evidence in Revelation. We will have ample opportunity to worship God with our service. We who belong to Him, and who will have been made like Him (‘’…his name will be written’’ on our ‘’foreheads’’) will know the privilege of serving Him for ever.

Revelation 22:1-6: All things new.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb ² down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. ³ No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. ⁴ They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. ⁵ There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.⁶ The angel said to me, ‘These words are trustworthy and true. The Lord, the God who inspires the prophets, sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place.’ NIV

At the moment I am reading a book with a friend. It is entitled, ‘The Ordinary Hero’, and is written by Tim Chester. Towards the end he has a chapter headed ‘A renewed world of life’. Here are a couple of quotes from it. The first one is by the eminent twentieth century preacher, Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones:

‘As I understand it, what is commonly described as ‘heaven’ in the Scripture is what we should regard as the intermediate state, not the final state, not the eternal state…Our eternal state is not going to be lived in the heavens, in the air, in some vague nebulous spiritual condition…Heaven in an eternal sense going to be ‘heaven on earth’. Heaven on earth-that is where we shall spend eternity, and not as disembodied spirits, for the whole man shall be redeemed, the body included. A concrete body must have a concrete world…You and I, the redeemed, will dwell in our glorified bodies on a glorified earth under the glorified heavens.’ (He was commenting on Romans 8:18-23 at the time).       Tim Chester goes on to say: ‘At the end of history, heaven will be united with earth. Christians don’t go up to heaven. John sees the heavenly Jerusalem ‘coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband’ (Revelation 21:2). The presence of God comes to earth.’

 How can we be sure this will happen? God doesn’t lie (verse 6). God is as good as His Word.

Revelation 22:1-2: Rivers of living water.

“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb ² down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” NIV

Eden was well-watered. Here is another echo from the beginning of the Bible story. But reading this caused me to think about the words of Jesus:

‘’If a man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’’ (John 7:37/38)

Some translations say ‘’rivers’’ rather than ‘’streams’’.

 An old Pentecostal hymn contains this verse: ‘Rivers is thy promise, this shall be our plea; Less than this can never meet our cry for thee. Tired of lukewarm service, and the loss it brings, we would live entirely for eternal things.’

Every Christian today can be a walking foretaste of God’s great future for the universe. Everywhere we go, the river of the Holy Spirit, flowing ultimately from God the Father and the Son, can stream out of us, flooding the world with healing, and feeding it with ‘’fruit’’. This is the out-going nature of the Christian life. It’s natural course takes it beyond ourselves, and our own sense of blessing, to water and refresh every environment we move in.

Note ‘’the throne of God and of the Lamb’’ (1,3). Jesus is fully worthy to share the Father’s throne. Indeed, God and Christ are one (John 10:30).

PRAYER: Lord, please may this be true of my, that I will both be blessed and made a blessing – everywhere I go.

Revelation 22:1-5: Paradise!

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb ² down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. ³ No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. ⁴ They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. ⁵ There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. NIV

Matthew Henry points out that the image of the glorious and ultimate future switches from a city to a paradise. Paradise lost will one day become paradise more than restored!

‘The heavenly state which was before described as a city, and called the new Jerusalem, is here described as a paradise, alluding to the earthly paradise which was lost by the sin of the first Adam; here is another paradise restored by the second Adam. A paradise in a city, or a whole city in a paradise! In the first paradise there were only two persons to behold the beauty and taste the pleasures of it; but in this second paradise whole cities and nations shall find abundant delight and satisfaction.’

As we read through these verses we are transported back to the first two chapters of the Bible. We hear a number of echoes from the Garden of Eden. But here there is no serpent; no more ‘’curse’’ (3), and as with the first paradise, the central feature is intimate fellowship with God Himself.

I read recently about two men who visited a monk called Elias. One of them said about him that his ‘eyes so eradiated the experience he talked about’. He repeatedly said, ‘The Lord is good, so good to me’, and he spoke about the sun and the clouds, the rain and the winds, the wheat and the weeds, the heat and the cold, all as great gifts of the Lord to bring him into a closer, more intimate, relationship with Him. ‘’Isn’t the rain beautiful?’’ He said. Why do we keep resisting rain? Why do we only want the sun when we should be willing to be soaked by the rain? The Lord wants to soak us with his grace and love. Isn’t it marvellous when we can feel the Lord in so many ways and get to know him better and better! He lets us experience his presence even now in all that surrounds us. Imagine how it must be when we can see him face to face!’’ ‘

PRAYER: O Lord, it is beyond my natural ability to imagine what it will be like to see you in all your glory, but I thank you I have that hope because of the merits of Jesus. Even now, I pray that I may increasingly reflect your glory, that people may meet you in me.

Revelation 21:9-27: The Beautiful City.

⁹ One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, ‘Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.’ ¹⁰ And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. ¹¹ It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. ¹² It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. ¹³ There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west. ¹⁴ The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.¹⁵ The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls. ¹⁶ The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia^[a] in length, and as wide and high as it is long. ¹⁷ The angel measured the wall using human measurement, and it was 144 cubits^[b] thick.^{[c] 18} The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. ¹⁹ The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, ²⁰ the fifth onyx, the sixth ruby, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth turquoise, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst.^{[d] 21} The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass.²² I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. ²³ The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. ²⁴ The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendour into it. ²⁵ On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. ²⁶ The glory and honour of the nations will be brought into it. ²⁷ Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” NIV

Cities can be downright ugly. And even beautiful ones can appear cracked and flawed and faded – looking quite different ‘on the ground’ to how they appeared in the travel brochures. Every traveller, at some time or other, has probably resonated with the saying, ‘It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive.’ But here is a city that will outshine its description. This is the future of the church. Matthew Henry says:

‘And now we have a large description of the church triumphant under the emblem of a city, far exceeding in riches and splendour all the cities of this world…’

However, the presence of God Himself will be the chief glory of this city. The essence of ‘heaven’ is to live in the light of God forever: ‘…there is no need of the sun or moon, any more than we have need to set up candles at noonday, when the sun shine the in its strength.’’

In the light of verses 24 and 26, Matthew Henry again helps us by saying: ‘Whatever is excellent and valuable in the world shall be there enjoyed in a more refined kind, and to a far greater degree…’

Jesus keeps the best wine until last (John 2:10)