I never fail to want to preach
after I hear that song. We need a reminder of the message
we preach. That's a pretty good one. All
right, let's turn in our Bibles to the book of Revelation. This
book of Revelation is just like every other book of the Bible.
It's no different than all the rest of the books of the Bible.
It's all about Christ. I hope you've seen that as we've
gone through looking at messages from all the different books
of the Bible. This was my goal in beginning that a little over
a year ago, that this would become so abundantly obvious to us.
The Bible is written to show us the Lord Jesus Christ. Every
word of it is all about him. And the book of Revelation is
no different. John did not write this book so we can look for
clues and figure out the exact time of the Lord's return. It's
enough to know He's coming. The book is not written to scare
us to death or fascinate us with the events that will surround
His return. It's not written to show us when or if the Lord
will have a millennial reign. The book is written to reveal
to the hearts of God's people the Lord Jesus Christ. Hold your
finger there, Revelation 21. Look back at the first verse
of this book. This is the purpose of the book.
It's the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him,
gave unto John. The theme of the book of Revelation
is the absolute certainty of salvation in our Lord Jesus Christ. It tells us that Christ is the
successful Savior So all of his people shall be saved, and they
shall dwell with him eternally in glory. This book tells us
that the victory of Christ the Savior over every enemy is sure. Just don't get too bent out of
shape about the enemies of Christ. This book shows us their end
is eternal destruction. The victory of Christ the Savior
is certain. And this book does tell us some
things about heaven. Heaven is a real place. Heaven
is not, though, where people go to be on a permanent vacation.
Heaven is not people floating around on clouds, playing harps,
and looking all dreamily up at the stars or whatever. That's
not heaven. Heaven. I don't know a lot about
it. Nobody does. But this I know. This is going to be our message
this morning. Heaven. will be the ultimate fulfillment
of everything the gospel that we preach says. Heaven will be
the fulfillment of the gospel of Christ that we preach. My
title is taken from verse 5. It's a true message from heaven.
At the end of the verse, the one who sat upon the throne,
our Lord Jesus Christ, told John, write, for these words are true
and faithful. This is a true and faithful message
about our Lord Jesus Christ, whose name is Faithful and True.
Look back at chapter 19, verse 11. John says, And I saw heaven open,
and behold, a white horse. And he that sat upon him was
called Faithful and True. And in righteousness he doth
judge and make war. The name of the Lord Jesus Christ
is Faithful and True. That's his name because that's
his character, Faithful and True. And the gospel about Christ,
the gospel message is all about Christ as a faithful and a true
message. Like I said, heaven's going to
be the perfection or the fulfillment of the whole gospel message regarding
our Lord Jesus Christ. And I want to give you four ways
that that's true from our text this morning. Number one, Christ
is the glory of heaven. He is the glory. And since He
is the glory of heaven, Christ will have all glory in heaven. Now look at Colossians chapter
1. Now that's true in the hearts of God's people right now, isn't
it? That Christ has all glory in the hearts of God's people.
And the gospel declares that, that Christ has all glory. In
the gospel of salvation, He has all glory to His people right
now. Colossians 1 verse 15, speaking
here of Christ, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn
of every creature. For by him were all things created
that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible,
whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.
All things were created by him and for him. And he's before
all things. And by him, all things consist.
And he's the head of the body, the church. who is the beginning,
the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He might have
the preeminence. And that so, for it pleased the
Father that in Him should all fullness dwell. Christ already
has the preeminence in the hearts of His people, doesn't He? It's
the Father's will. But if we're honest with one
another, so many things of this world catch our attention and
our focus Far too often, don't they? But in glory, that won't
be our experience. In glory, Christ will have all
the preeminence. And everyone there will love
that that's so. Look back at chapter 9 of Revelation. All anyone in heaven cares about
is Christ. He is their sole focus. Revelation
5, we'll begin reading in verse 9. And they sung a new song. Now you take note of the subject
of this song. Thou art worthy to take the book
and open the seals thereof. For thou was slain and has redeemed
us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and
people and nation. And has made us unto our God
kings and priests and we shall reign on the earth. And I beheld
and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne.
and the beasts and the elders, and the number of them was 10,000
times 10,000 and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud
voice, worthy is the lame that was slain, to receive power and
riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing
in every creature which is in heaven. And on the earth, and
under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that
are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory,
and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the
Lamb forever and ever. And the four beasts said, Amen,
so be it. And the four and twenty elders
fell down and worshipped him that liveth forever and ever. In heaven, all we will care about
is Christ. He'll be the theme of our song.
He'll be the theme of our conversation. Christ is all. He'll have all
the glory. That's so in our hearts right
now. We who believe, that's so in your hearts. But there it'll
be perfect. It'll be perfected. Look back
here at verse 6 in our text, Revelation 21. This is Christ, our Savior, speaking.
He said unto me, it is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning
and the end. Christ is the Alpha and Omega. He's the first, the Alpha and
Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet.
Christ is the whole alphabet of God. He's the whole alphabet
of grace. He's the gospel from A to Z. All of the gospel is about Christ.
You can't spell anything. about God. You can't spell anything
about salvation. You can't spell anything about
any spiritual blessing without Christ, because he's all of it. You can't even begin to talk
about the glory of heaven until you talk about Christ, because
he is the glory of heaven. And rightfully so, he'll have
all glory there because of it. Then in heaven, Christ will have
all the glory as the king of kings who sits upon the throne.
Verse five. And he that sat upon the throne
said, behold, I make all things new. Now Christ is the king. He's the king in the hearts of
his people now. We lovingly, willingly bow to
his sovereign reign, don't we? He's king now. Most men don't
know it, but whether they know it or not, Christ is king. You
know, men think they've got authority and power and things that, you
know, They've got what the king gives them, what the king lets
them have, but he's got it all. But in heaven, there won't be
any allusion to any other rule other than Christ. It'll all
be his. Every pretender to his throne
will be destroyed. You see, heaven is all about
Christ and Christ will be the glory of heaven. Number two,
in heaven, The salvation of God's elect will be complete. It'll
be final perfection, both body and soul. Verse two. And I, John,
saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven,
prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband. I heard a great
voice out of heaven saying, behold, the tabernacle of God is with
men and he will dwell with them and they should be his people
and God himself should be with them and be their God. Remember
in verse 5, He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make
all things new. Look back at 2 Corinthians chapter
5. I thought He already did that. I thought He already made all
things new. Well, in the hearts of His people
He did, didn't He? He's made all things new. 2 Corinthians
5 verse 17. Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
He's a new creature. He's a new creation. Old things
are passed away. Behold, all things are become
new. God makes his people new creatures
in the new birth. In the new birth, there's a new
man born who never existed before. He's a new man. He's a different
man, different in every way from the old man. He's born from a
new holy seed. He's not born from a seed of
ash. No, he's born from a holy seed, the word of God. So his
nature is holy. He's got a new holy nature. He's
got a new heart. He's got a heart of faith, a
heart that believes God. He's got a heart that loves God,
that longs after him. He's got a heart of obedience,
that desires to follow God, keep his word, keep his law. He loves
the law of God. He's not opposed to it. He's
got new eyes that see Christ. He sees Christ in the scripture
where he never saw it before. He sees Christ everywhere where
he never saw it before. He's got new eyes. He's got new
feet that follow Christ. And I tell you what else is new.
All things are new. Tell you what else is new about
that new man. He's got a new citizenship. He's got a new home. And John describes that here
in our text. God's already made all things
new in the hearts of the believers. You who believe, you know that.
He made all things new. But that old man of sin is still
with us. He's alive and well. Just as
alive as he's ever been. He's not worse than he's ever
been, but he seems worse to us than he's ever been. Because
only the new man can see the old man. Only the new man can
see how awful that old man is. And it's a daily, constant struggle
with that old man. In heaven, that war's gonna be
over. There'll be no more civil war going on inside us between
the old man and the new man. The old man's gonna be gone.
And all that's gonna be left is the new man. Not just in soul,
not just in spirit, but in body. We're gonna be given a perfect
body, just like the body of our Lord Jesus Christ. Heaven is
gonna be the perfection, the completion of the work of grace
that's been begun on earth. That's what heaven's gonna be.
and it will all be because of Christ our Savior. The message
of the gospel is Christ our Savior. We're made holy in Him. John says the same thing in verse
3 there where he talks about this tabernacle he sees coming
down. That tabernacle he sees is not a building. It's a person,
the Lord Jesus Christ. He says that tabernacle, He will
dwell with them and they shall be His people. That tabernacle
is the Lord Jesus Christ. John said in his gospel, the
Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. That word dwelt is
tabernacled. The Word was made flesh and tabernacled
among us. Christ was made flesh and dwelt
among His people to be the Savior of His people. Now, we who believe,
you're saved. Right now, you're saved as you
ever will be. When God takes you home to glory,
you won't be any more saved there than you are sitting right in
that seat. You're saved. But it's a struggle here, isn't
it? Not there. Now in heaven, it'll
be perfected. Final glorification of everything
that Christ accomplished for his people. And it's all in Christ. John said this holy city he saw
coming down, Again, the city, it's not a city, it's God's people. It's the people that are made
holy in Christ. The gospel declares that every
believer is made holy right now. You're the righteousness of God
in him. It's all because of Christ, and
that's not going to change in heaven. The holy city, John says
it's holy. It came down from God. That's
where it got its holiness from Christ our Savior. who came down
from God to be made a man to do for us what we could never
do for ourselves. Obey God's law perfectly and
make us holy. And put our sin away through
the sacrifice of Himself. You who believe, you're holy
now. But in glory, it'll be perfected in body and soul. And it'll be
because this is what Christ has prepared for us. John said he
saw this bride, this city coming down prepared as a bride adorned
for her husband. Look at John chapter 14. This is what I thought of when
I saw this word prepared. Verse one, let not your heart
be troubled. You believe in God, believe also
in me. In my father's house are many
mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to
prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that
where I am, there you may be also. I've told you this before. These mansions that our Lord
speaks of are not big, multi-million dollar estates. They're dwelling
places. They're bodies. And you know,
when the Lord gives us a perfect body, it's going to be a mansion
compared to this slumbling clay. It'll be a mansion. It's a body.
It's a body that's been prepared by our Savior. The Savior said,
I go to prepare a place for you. I'm preparing a place and I'm
preparing you for the place. And when everything's prepared,
I'm going to bring you to myself. That where I am, there you may
be also. In John 14, the Apostle John
was there. He personally heard our Lord
teach that. And then many years later, our
Lord gave him a vision, a revelation of the fulfillment of that. That
holy city is Christ's bride that he prepared. He made holy, he
made beautiful, and was brought to himself. When a couple gets
married, the bride always makes herself beautiful, doesn't she? I know it's, I like a wedding. I like marriages. I like seeing
a young couple get married. I know people get kind of grouchy
about it and say the bride ought not get all the attention. And
in glory, the bridegroom's going to get all the attention. That's
the way it ought to be. I don't know. Maybe I'm going soft. I
don't mind the bride being beautiful. I tell you what I think. I've
been to a few weddings. And you know not one time ever,
never have I seen an ugly bride. ever. She's beautiful. She's
got the dress. She's got the hair. She's got
the makeup. She's got all the stuff. She's beautiful. And I
don't mind that. Because you know what I think
of when I see that? One day that's going to be the
bride of God. He prepared her. He made her
beautiful. In His beauty, in His holiness,
which He put on her. And I know Why a young man asks
a girl to marry him, I know why he does. He feels like, I just
won't be complete without her. Christ the bridegroom will not
be complete until he brings his bride to her. And when he does,
oh, how beautiful he's gonna make her. But nobody's really
gonna say how beautiful she is. What they're gonna say is, look
at her. Look what Christ did. Look what He did. He made her
beautiful. Oh, what a saint He is. She's
gonna be dressed all in white because there'll be no sin left,
no trace of sin, made holy in Christ. There we'll have the
perfection of that. Thirdly, in heaven, Christ will
dwell with His people. It said in verse three, I heard
a great voice out of heaven saying, behold, the tabernacle of God
is with men and he will dwell with them. They'll be his people
and God himself shall be with them and be their God. Now, the glory of heaven is Christ. That was our first point, right?
The glory of heaven is Christ. It's the glory of heaven, not
streets of gold and pearly gates. The glory of heaven is Christ
and the joy of heaven. is Christ dwelling with us. That's
the joy of heaven. Look at Romans chapter 8. The
gospel declares this, that Christ dwells with his people now. He
dwells in our hearts. The Holy Spirit dwells in our
hearts. Christ dwells in our hearts by faith. We have his
presence with us now. When we meet together to worship,
we have the presence of Christ. He said we're two or three or
gathered together in my name, there I'll be in the midst of
We have His presence. But not like we will someday.
Look here at Romans 8 verse 9. But you're not in the flesh,
but in the Spirit. If so, be that the Spirit of
God dwell in you. Now, if any man have not the
Spirit of Christ, if the Spirit of Christ does not dwell in you,
then he's none of His. And if Christ be in you, the
body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because
of righteousness. We who believe have the Spirit
of Christ with us now, dwelling in us, giving us righteousness,
giving us life. But because of this body of sin,
that's very, very, very imperfect now, isn't it? We go through
times we feel like, maybe a long time we feel like, I can't sense
the presence of the Lord, I can't see the Lord. We go through times
like that now, they are never. This promise of the gospel will
be fulfilled in heaven perfectly when we're given a perfect body
and a perfect soul. And there's no more sin dwelling
in us, no more just Christ dwelling in us by faith. But we see him
face to face. We have his presence. We come into the house of the
Lord to worship him now, as he promised. We have His presence
and we worship Him, but we don't enjoy perfect worship, do we?
There we are. Perfect worship. Nothing between. No more by faith, but by sight. Christ will dwell with His people. I cannot begin to commence to
start to scratch the surface of the glory of that blessed
promise, I will dwell with my people. It's just overwhelming. And the promise of seeing and
worshiping Christ face to face, that's the definition of bliss.
The definition of bliss. And when we see him, we will
not be able to take our eyes off of him. When I was in high
school, I had a girlfriend. And she had a sweet old neighbor
lady. And this sweet lady, she would
talk to this girl about the Lord. She'd take her to church and
things. She was all wrong, everything she told her. She was wrong in
the place where she took her. But it was the only experience
of religion or ever hearing the name of the Lord this girl ever
had. And she's a sweet old woman. And that old woman died. And
my girlfriend told me, she said, I've got to start acting better
because Ms. So-and-so is watching me from
heaven. I don't want to be disappointed. And I was a smart aleck 17-year-old. I'm kind of a smart, like, 51-year-old
now a lot of times. But I was a smart aleck 17-year-old.
And I said, no, she's not. And this is what she told me.
She said, why wouldn't she? What else would she be doing?
And that's just so sad. You and I are so full of ourselves,
we think heaven's about us. Brethren, heaven's not about
you and me. It's all about Christ. And the
glory of it is He will dwell with us. I want to give you young
people a hint about life. I hope you listen to me. Life, this life we're living
right now, it's not about you. It's not about you. Life is not
your party. It's not yours. Everybody out
there in the world does not exist to make you feel better about
yourselves and to kowtow to your every whim and whatever weird
thoughts you got, you know, they got to accept it. Life is not
your party. And the sooner you learn that,
the better off you'll be, the happier that you'll be, and the
more useful you'll be to society. In this life, it's not your party. It's not about you. Do you want
me to tell you whose party it is? It's Christ. Did we read that a minute ago
in Colossians? All things were created by him and were created
for him. It's all about him. This life
is all about him. It's all about seeking the Lord
and worshiping him and serving him now. In glory, that's going
to be perfected. In this life, everybody thinks
it's all about me. In glory, nobody's going to think
that. Everybody's going to know whose
party it is. It's all about God. It's all
about Him. And that's wonderful. That is a wonderful, tender,
loving relationship. Look at verse four in our text. And God shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes. There should be no more death.
Neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain,
for the former things are passed away." Now it's all about Christ. It's all for Him. He gets all
the glory of it. But how tender is it for God
Himself? It's all about Him. It's His
party. For Him to wipe away all tears
from the eyes of His people. How tenderly He cares and loves
His people. We do see Christ. We who believe,
we see Christ now. It's mighty dimly, isn't it?
It's through a glass darkly. But there we'll see Him clearly.
Our eyes won't be filled with tears and obscuring our vision
anymore. No, we'll see Him clearly, face to face. There'll be no
tears there. Because there's no reason for
crying. Every reason we have to cry right
now is because of sin. Every reason. There, there won't
be any sin. It'll all be gone, so there'll
be no reason to cry. And nobody will be able to give
you a reason to cry. You children, if your parents
ever told you, be quiet, I'm going to give you something to cry
about. Nobody will ever say that. I mean, I thought that when I
was a kid and I was crying. I already got a reason to cry.
Nobody will ever say that to you there. They never will. There'll
be no more tears. We weep and cry at funerals.
And I'm not, believe me, I'm not saying we should. No, we
should. But there, I'd love, I heard Brother Henry say this,
I loved it. We were at a funeral. And he
said, we won't do this. There'll be no more death. There'll
be no more funerals. There'll be no more putting on
a black suit and a black tie and going to a funeral. There'll
be no more death. Death will be swallowed up in
victory. There won't be any funerals in
heaven. Let me tell you why. Christ already died and rose
again, so his people live freely. We won't have any more sorrows,
nothing sorrowful to make us cry. Want to tell you why? Christ took all the sorrows of
his people into his body, Calvary, and he bore our griefs and he
bore our sorrows and took them away. And by his stripes, no
more reason to cry. It will be pain to make us cry.
Pain is caused by sin. Unrelenting pain is very, very,
very, very difficult to deal with. In heaven, there'll be
no crying over pain, because Christ took the sin of his people.
He took the pain, the shame of the sin of his people, put it
away forever under the blood of His sacrifice so that there
will be no pain for His people left. All that will be left is
utter joy at Christ being with us, dwelling with His people. All the former things, John said,
will be passed away. Now, I don't exactly understand
this, but I read it over and over in Scripture. Former things
will be passed away. We won't even remember I don't
understand how we'll remember our sin, yet we won't remember
our sin. We'll remember our sin because we know Christ washed
it from us. But all the pain, all the sorrow, all the suffering
in this world, we won't even remember it anymore because the
utter bliss of Christ dwelling with us will overwhelm everything. That's the joy of heaven. In heaven, there will be no more
division. Look at verse one of Revelation
21. And I saw a new heaven and a
new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth were passed
away and there was no more sea. Now, when I see the sea, every
year we go to the beach. I sit there and listen to the
waves and read and eat snacks Janet brought down there for
us. I look at that beach. You know what I think? I think
about division. There's something over there.
You know, I sit on the East Coast, there's Europe over there somewhere.
But it looks like a great division to me. I sit there and think,
if I lived in the time of Christopher Columbus or Magellan or something,
I was there standing there on that beach. You know what I never,
ever would have done? I never would have attempted
to cross it. The division is too great. I
mean, I would have thought, well, there's something over there,
but it's going to stay over there. I'm going to stay over here. We're divided
by something that cannot be crossed. Now, men ended up crossing it,
but I'll show you what this is a picture of. This is the picture
of the divide that Adam's sin caused between us and God. When
Adam sinned, there was a great divide fixed between God and
man. and no man could ever cross it.
So you know what God did in His grace? God crossed it. He crossed it in the person of
His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He crossed that divide. You know
why? So that He could redeem His people,
He could put their sin away, and He could bring them across
that divide and bring them back to God. And He's done that. He has done that for His people.
But we haven't experienced it in body yet, have we? There we
will, there we will. And there'll be no more division
with each other anymore in glory. The gospel declares that believers
are all one in Christ. There's not male nor female,
bond nor free, no division whatsoever. Each believer is one with each
other because we're all one with Christ. But to our shame, We
do a mighty good job of building up barriers now, don't we? We
do a mighty good job of it. And what we have to constantly
do is work to tear those barriers down. We're one with Christ. We're one with each other. There'll be none of that anymore.
Those mansions we talked about, they're not great estates with
walls around them. There's no barriers there. They're all gone. There'll be no more division.
We're all one. We're all there by the same person,
by the same righteousness and the same blood. It's all about
Christ. And there we won't have any division
amongst each other because we've got to leave each other and go
home. It always makes me sad. We've got to leave and go home.
The Lord gives us a blessed time of worship and I just hate to
see it end. But on this earth, it's got to
end. Our body just can't only take so much. Jay and I went
up to the conference at Cottageville yesterday. We left and I was
just like, we got to go home. I got to finish some things,
but I wish we could stay. It's going to be a long time.
I see some of these folks. No more division. Our constant
occupation will be to worship Christ together. Constant occupation,
no more division. I tell you the second thing I
think of when I see the sea. I think about the depths of the
ocean. Who can see down there? I mean,
who can see the bottom of the depths of the ocean and understand
what's going on down there, you know? That reminds me of all
the deep mysteries of God. How little we understand about
who God is. Deep, deep mysteries. Yet we
believe Him. We believe Him. Who can understand
how God became a man? The Apostle Paul, who was so
smart, so wise, he said, this is a great mystery. Great is
the mystery of godliness, that God was manifest in the flesh.
Nobody understands that, but I believe it with all my heart.
That's my hope of salvation. God became a man to become my
representative. Who can understand the Trinity?
God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Three persons,
yet one God. Three in one, one in three. Nobody
can understand that. I believe it with all my heart.
It took all three to save me, to save a sinner like me. Who
can understand that all a believer sees about himself is sin? Yet,
Scripture says we're holy, made without sin. All I see about
myself is sin. God says I don't see any. How
can that be? Well, I know it's only through
the sacrifice of Christ, but I don't understand it. Yet I
believe it with all my heart because Christ is my righteousness.
If he's not, I don't have him. I believe that. And I could go
on and on and on and on about things we don't understand, but
we believe. We see through a glass darkly.
It's just like trying to look down there on the ocean floor.
We see through a glass darkly. But in heaven, There'll be no
more seeing through a glass darkly. We see Christ face to face. And
he's all we have to know. He's all we have to know. In
conclusion, I want to ask you a question. I'm not going to
ask you if you want to go to heaven. Of course you do. Nobody
wants to go to hell. My question is this. Is it your
heart's desire to be made like Christ? That's the question. If your heart's desire is to
be made like Christ, I want to give you an answer to the question.
How can I be made like Christ so that I can spend eternity
with this bliss of being with Him face to face and Him dwelling
with me? Well, the answer is very simple.
It's faith. It's faith in Christ. Look at
verse seven in our text. He that overcometh shall inherit
all things and I'll be his God and he should be my son. He that
overcometh. Well, who is he that overcometh
will inherit, will be given all things in glory. So this doesn't
mean if you overcome, you're going to earn something, does
it? So who is he that overcomes? I'll show you in First John,
Chapter five. Who of us, you know, if you just look at that
verse and think, well, I've got to fight a good fight and overcome
things before I go to heaven. Well, you leave here depressed.
Who of us can overcome anything? Not one of us. We can't overcome
anything. I tell you who those who overcome are. Those who've
been given faith in Christ. 1 John 5, verse 4. For whatsoever is born of God
overcometh the world. And this is the victory that
overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh
the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? That's who overcomes is those
who believe Christ. And believing Christ is, it's
so simple. We don't let people overcomplicate
it. Believing Christ is simply believing. Christ is all my salvation. I don't have any hope, I look
at myself that ought to be so obvious. I don't have any hope
of Christ. So I believe Him. I trust Him to do everything
that's necessary. I don't need anything but Christ
to finish the work. Now there's got to be a work
done for me and in me if I'm going to go to glory. All my
trust is in Christ that He finished the work. Christ cried from the
cross. It is finished. And in the end of time, the Savior
says the exact same thing in verse six. It is done. It's finished. The work is finished. Faith rests in Christ who finished
the work. It doesn't rest in a finished
work. I've told you this before. It does not rest in a finished
work. Faith rests in Christ who finished the work. If you look
on the back of your bulletin this afternoon, you'll see a
very good article on that by Brother Donnie Bell. Faith rests
in Christ who finished the work. Faith comes to Christ to receive
the water of life freely. He says in verse six, I will
give unto him that is a thirst of the fountain of the water
of life freely. Our Lord stood up at the end
of the feast, that great feast, on the last day. He says, anybody
thirsty? Come and drink. Come and drink. I'll give you
rivers of living water. Your belly shall flow rivers
of living water. Why are we thirsty? We feel thirst
when we feel a lack of something in us. Are you empty? You got no righteousness? You got no hope? Are you empty
of everything God requires? Are you thirsty? Christ is coming. Come and go. Believe Him. He's
all you need. And He'll give you the waters
of life for you. He that overcometh is he who
believes Christ. Just believe him. But if we do
not believe Christ, then we don't have any, there's only thing
left for us is the second death. We already died in Adam. And
if we don't believe Christ, all that's left for us is the second
death because we don't have any other hope. Verse eight. But
the fearful and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and
whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars shall
have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.
which is the second death. Like I said, heaven, it's a real
place. And heaven is eternal. It's a
real place that's eternal. But this world we live in is
very temporary, very temporary. And soon it'll be burned up and
God's going to create a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwells
righteousness. Now seeing these things are so.
Let's just not get too caught up in the things of this world. Don't get too bent out of shape
about the things that's going on in this world, because very
soon it's going to be burned up. Everybody's all bent out
of shape about the election. Everybody's all bent out of shape
about, you know, how much stuff I can get in this world. Just
don't get too bent out of shape. It's going to be over quickly.
It's temporary. God give us the faith to set
our affection on Christ who's eternal. This earth will soon
pass away. And in glory, we won't even remember
it anymore. The things that we think are
such a huge issue that if this doesn't get solved, the earth
is gonna spin off its axis. In glory, we won't even remember
it anymore. Then just, let's not get too
caught up about what's going on down here. and let's be taken
up with Christ. In glory, we're going to be taken
up with Christ. I sure would like it if God gave
me a heart to be taken up with Him. I'd just like to start now
with you being taken up with Him. Let's bow and pray. Our Father, I thank You for this
blessed gospel of Your Son that You've given us to preach and
that you've given faith. So many here, you've given faith
in this Christ, this Savior that the gospel declares. And Father,
I pray you'd take your word as it's been preached, that you
would use it to reveal your Son to the hearts of your people.
I pray, Father, that in this world that so, it's a difficult,
difficult journey. But use your word to encourage
the hearts of your people, to encourage us in Christ, to cause
us to be taken up with him. He's worthy. He's worthy of all
of our worship. He's worthy of all of our praise.
He's worthy of all of our love. Cause us to think on these things,
to think upon Christ, to look to him and look away from ourselves
and from all the things of this life that are so discouraging.
Cause us to look to Christ. in whom is salvation and glory
forever and ever.