Participants:
Series Code: ICJ
Program Code: ICJ190024B
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00:01 We left you thinking about this New Jerusalem
00:03 going 375 miles up into, not just the stratosphere, 00:09 but the thermosphere. 00:11 I mean this is up where you can put a satellite, so to speak. 00:14 I mean, this is amazing. 00:16 I flew into a place not long ago where they had 00:19 the world's tallest building. 00:20 You could see it sticking up there. 00:21 But this is beyond imagination, as I've said before. 00:26 375 miles. 00:29 Now if you've got a 30,000 foot mountain, 00:32 about like Mount Everest, 00:33 a little taller than Mount Everest, 00:35 and you had just flat plains so there was no obstructions, 00:40 the information I have is that you could see that mountain 00:44 from 800 miles away. 00:47 That's quite a bit. 00:49 Now I don't know, I haven't done the calculations, 00:51 but my guess is that you can see the new Jerusalem 00:54 at least from half the earth. 00:56 I guess if you get around on the other side 00:57 it might be tough to see it, but just think, 01:00 you're not going to miss the New Jerusalem 01:03 in all of its glory as it begins to build, build 01:07 up toward space. 01:10 So the streets of this New Jerusalem is something else. 01:14 I mean, we think of streets, we put tar 01:16 on our streets, of course. 01:17 We're glad to have cement and tar because 01:19 we're glad to be out of the mud. 01:21 I've been in places in the states here where, 01:24 you know, they didn't have paved roads. 01:26 And it can get really muddy and dusty, all that kind of thing. 01:29 Not the New Jerusalem. 01:31 They're not paving it with cement; no, no, no, no. 01:33 The Bible says that it's paved with something that looks like 01:36 crystallized gold. 01:38 Again, I don't know what that looks like, 01:40 but can you imagine walking down those streets 01:42 and they're just reflecting the beauty and the glory 01:46 of everything that's all around us? 01:48 I mean, it's just hard to grasp what that's going to be. 01:52 You just don't want to miss it. That is for sure. 01:55 Now the Bible says that it doesn't need the sun, 01:58 it doesn't need the moon, this New Jerusalem. 02:01 Because this is going to become God's throne. 02:03 This is going to become the place of the headquarters 02:06 of the universe. 02:09 Think of that for a moment. 02:10 The headquarters of the universe, 02:12 the residents of the Lord God Himself 02:16 and the Lord Jesus are going to be there. 02:17 And the Bible says they're going to be the light of it. 02:20 They're going to make it so glorious, 02:23 and we won't need the sun. 02:25 And from that throne of God, and maybe that throne 02:28 sets at that pinnacle, 375 miles above the earth, 02:34 and above this beautiful New Jerusalem. 02:36 But we do know that as the glory of God shines, 02:40 that people are going to rejoice in that glory. 02:42 And it's going to be peace and joy. 02:44 And from the throne of God flows life. 02:48 Now the Bible talks about a tree of life 02:51 and a river of life. 02:53 And here's Revelation 22:1-2. 02:56 It says, "And he showed me a pure river of water of life, 03:02 clear as crystal." 03:04 John uses this word, "crystal," quite a bit 03:06 because it demonstrates a reflection. 03:09 It demonstrates a clarity. 03:10 It demonstrates the purity. 03:12 So there's not going to be any pollution. 03:15 No pollution in this river. 03:18 You can drink it, you can swim in it, you can enjoy it. 03:21 And it's got a life-giving quality to it. 03:25 And it says, "...proceeding from the throne 03:27 of God and from the Lamb." 03:29 And he goes on to say, "In the middle of its street, 03:32 and on either side of the river, was the tree of life..." 03:35 Now we don't know exactly how that works, but 03:39 I was talking to somebody not too long ago, 03:40 and they talked about cutting down a tree, 03:42 two trees that had grown together 03:44 and actually not just intertwined, but had actually 03:46 grown together, two trunks. 03:48 So maybe it's going to be something like that. 03:50 Two big trunks on each side crosses the river, 03:55 spreads out on each side of the river, 03:58 this tree of life. 03:59 You know, Adam and Eve had a tree of life 04:01 in the Garden of Eden. 04:03 And when sin came in, God cut them off from it. 04:06 Because God is responsible. 04:08 God is not going to be responsible for sin 04:14 and giving people life while they can sin. 04:17 Because it's destructive to the universe. 04:19 And so, they didn't have access any longer to the tree of life. 04:23 But thankfully, we're going to have access 04:25 to the tree of life again. 04:27 And it goes on to say, 04:29 "... which bore twelve different fruits..." 04:30 Now that's an amazing agricultural feat in itself. 04:34 And it does this every month. 04:37 And then it says this, the fruits of the tree was 04:39 for the healing of the nations. 04:41 And I think that's why we'll never see any decay. 04:43 Everybody will be able to go there and partake 04:46 of the tree of life. 04:48 We're going to look forward every month to getting 04:51 our fruit, that life-giving fruit from the tree of life 04:57 as we gather together. 04:58 We're going to talk about that. 05:00 So there flows that river, glimmering and shimmering, 05:03 from the throne of God. 05:05 And then that tree of life and its leaves, the Bible says, 05:09 for the healing of the nations. 05:11 Again, this tree has qualities about it 05:13 that keep life eternal for us. 05:16 It never runs down. 05:17 No curse, no decay, like we see all around us everywhere. 05:23 Now it's not just the new city that's there. 05:26 The Bible says that there's a new earth. 05:28 And we want to talk about this new earth just a little bit. 05:31 In fact, Isaiah 65 is a prediction of what Israel 05:35 would have become had they been faithful. 05:38 But it gives us some glimpses into what the new earth will be 05:42 and what it will be like. 05:44 And so Isaiah 65:21-22 says, "And they will build houses 05:50 and inhabit them. 05:52 They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 05:56 They shall not build and another inhabit; 06:00 they shall not plant and another eat." 06:04 So we are going to be able to own property in the new earth. 06:08 Isn't that going to be nice? 06:09 Everybody is going to be the owner of property. 06:13 And you'll also be able to build homes. 06:15 Now I don't know what kind of homes we'll build there. 06:19 It might be far different than anything we're use to here. 06:22 After all, the weather and all that 06:25 is not going to be the problem. 06:26 We may not have to build sealed houses. 06:29 Maybe we're going to build homes out of vegetation. 06:33 I don't know. 06:34 You can kind of let your imagination... 06:36 Just think about the architectural 06:37 opportunities involved here. 06:39 It's just amazing. 06:42 And there's going to, of course, be no selling of real estate. 06:46 No selling. Think of that. 06:47 When you get the deed to your inheritance when Jesus 06:51 breaks those seven seals and delivers the deed, 06:54 when He gives you the deed to your inheritance, 06:57 it's a forever deed. 06:59 It's a deed that no one will ever take from you. 07:02 And you'll never be willing to sell it. 07:04 There's not going to be buying and selling of real estate. 07:06 That home is yours. 07:08 It's going to be home sweet home. 07:12 Home sweet home forever. 07:15 Even if you travel, uninhibited by the limits of lifetime, 07:21 if you travel out the universe and you visit other worlds, 07:24 when you come home it will be your home. 07:27 Your home sweet home. 07:30 And of course, there's going to be agriculture there. 07:32 They're going to plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. 07:35 That's going to be exciting. 07:36 Think what it's going to be like to be a gardener in heaven. 07:38 It's going to be far different than here. 07:40 Here, you know, I like to garden. 07:41 But gardening can have some back breaking work to it sometimes. 07:45 But it's not going to be that. It's going to be so pleasant. 07:48 It's going to be so wonderful. 07:49 What a place that's going to be. 07:52 So it's going to be a lot of agriculture there. 07:55 Now we're also going to get together. 07:56 There's going to be fellowship in heaven. 07:59 We're going to get together with friends. 08:01 We're not just going to be isolated on our 08:03 little plot of land. 08:05 Not little plot of land. 08:07 On our estate out there with our gardens, 08:09 and all that kind of thing. 08:10 No, we're not just going to be loners in heaven. 08:12 We're going to get together with people. 08:14 It's going to be so pleasant. 08:16 We're just going to enjoy so much each other's company. 08:20 And God has provided for us to be able to not only 08:22 get together with each other, but we're going to get together 08:27 with Him and the Lord Jesus. 08:29 Listen to what the Bible says here in Isaiah 66:23. 08:35 "And it shall come to pass that from one New Moon 08:38 to another, and from one Sabbath to another, 08:42 all flesh shall come and worship before Me." 08:45 So we're going to meet every Sabbath 08:47 with our heavenly Father, with the precious Savior, 08:51 and the Holy Spirit will be there, unseen of course. 08:54 But He's going to be there doing all kinds of marvelous things. 08:57 But we're going to see our precious Savior. 08:59 The only thing that will remind us of this old world 09:02 will be the nail prints in His hand; 09:05 the scars from what He went through 09:09 to give us all of that. 09:11 And there will be our heavenly Father, 09:12 who loves His Son so very much, but He gave Him to us. 09:17 You know, Jesus is a gift to the human race. 09:21 A gift. 09:22 I had a professor one time, and I loved what he said. 09:24 He said, "You know, we're going to be walking 09:26 down the streets of the New Jerusalem." 09:28 And he said, "We'll be walking beside one of the angels. 09:30 And Jesus will be up ahead of us." 09:32 And of course, he's using some imagination here. 09:35 "We'll kind of nudge the angel and say, 09:38 'You see Him? 09:39 Do you see Him? 09:41 He is one of us.'" 09:44 Jesus; the Father's gift to the human race. 09:50 It will be wonderful to have Him as our pastor 09:52 and preacher every Sabbath, won't it? 09:55 Just think about that. 09:56 Think of what it means to sit at the feet of Jesus. 09:58 One of my mother's favorite songs is, 10:00 in the old Adventist hymnal, it says, 10:02 "Sitting at the feet of Jesus." 10:06 Sitting there listening to Him. 10:08 So it's going to be a wonderful place. 10:11 Now the animal world is also going to be in harmony. 10:14 Now this is an incredible statement from Isaiah 65:25. 10:19 "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, 10:22 the lion shall eat straw like the ox..." 10:24 How about that? 10:25 "...the dust shall be the serpent's food." 10:27 No more poisonous snakes. 10:29 "They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain." 10:32 The lions are going to get a new diet. 10:34 They're not going to be killing stuff. 10:36 They're going to eat straw like an ox. 10:40 So that means, I think, that all these animals 10:43 that are so vicious nowadays that we see 10:45 in preying on one another, it's all going to go away. 10:49 There's going to be great harmony among the animals. 10:52 And they're all going to become vegetarian, by the way. 10:55 Nobody is going to be eating each other. 10:58 I love what the Lord says, "There shall be no," 11:03 I'm putting my own words, "no fighting." 11:06 They're not going to hurt one another in the new earth. 11:10 Isn't that going to be wonderful? 11:11 You can walk out in the woods, you can walk anywhere. 11:13 You're not going to be afraid of animals. 11:15 No, they're going to be your friends. 11:17 And it's going to be a different world because, 11:19 as people manage the animals in the kingdom of heaven, 11:21 it's not going to be like they do here. 11:23 It's going to be a sweet relationship 11:25 between the animal kingdom and the human beings 11:28 who oversee them. 11:30 In fact, we probably can't even imagine what that's 11:32 going to be like to be there. 11:34 Will we know each other? 11:36 Well the Bible says this in 1 Corinthians 13:12... 11:40 Even though we're going to get new bodies, 11:42 we're going to be wonderfully made new. 11:44 But the Bible says, "For now we see in a mirror," Paul says, 11:47 "dimly, but then face to face." 11:50 And he says, "Now I know in part, but then I shall know 11:55 even as I am also known." 11:57 So we'll know each other in the kingdom of heaven. 12:01 Matthew 17:3 says, when the glory of Jesus was revealed 12:06 on the mount of transfiguration 12:07 that Moses and Elijah appeared to Him. 12:09 So they knew each other. 12:11 They knew each other. 12:13 So Jesus is the architect and the builder of this. 12:16 I mean, He says, "I'm gone. 12:18 I'm up there right now getting ready for you. 12:21 I'm preparing you." 12:23 Paul says it has not even entered your mind 12:25 what God has prepared for those who love Him. 12:29 And it's going to be a place where righteousness dwells. 12:32 Think of that. 12:33 What is righteousness? 12:35 The Bible says that God is love. 12:37 It says that the Ten Commandments, 12:39 that they are righteous. 12:42 So there's never going to be any end to the horizons. 12:48 People say, "Will I get bored in heaven?" 12:49 You'll never get bored. 12:51 You're never going to get... 12:52 You're going to be surrounded with people who are filled with 12:54 unselfish love who aren't thinking about themselves, 12:58 but they're just thinking about what they can do to be a 13:00 blessing and to minister to other people. 13:04 And Jesus is the way, He's the truth, 13:07 and He's the life. 13:09 I want to end with this beautiful statement 13:12 from the book, Great Controversy. 13:15 It's a beautiful statement that just describes this. 13:18 It says, "The great controversy is ended. 13:21 Sin and sinners are no more. 13:24 The entire universe is clean. 13:26 One pulse of harmony beats through the vast creation. 13:32 From Him who created all flow life and light and gladness 13:38 and life throughout the realms of illimitable space. 13:42 From the minutest atom to the greatest world, 13:46 all things, animate and inanimate, in their 13:49 unshadowed beauty and perfect joy, 13:53 declare this; that God is love." |
Revised 2019-11-11