years ago by Robert Murray McShane. Let's open our Bibles back to
the portion of scripture that was read to us in Revelation
chapter 21. Throughout this book we have
witnessed the Lord Jesus caring for his people. In the first chapter, John, he
sees a multitude of people who've been washed from their sins,
bought with the blood of the Lord Jesus. In fact, the message
of redemption rings out throughout the book of the Revelation. This
is, after all, the revealing, the manifestation of the Lord
Jesus Christ, He's revealed as being the Savior of His people.
There is no other Savior but Christ. He is the only one who
can take us into the presence of God. And the only way He could
do it was by redeeming us. That's why when we get over to
the fifth chapter, we see the Lamb of God who was smitten for
our transgressions. John sees the Lamb of God throughout
the book of Revelation. He sees that one who bought us
with his blood. He speaks so often, and even
in this very passage of scripture, he speaks of the Lamb of God. He doesn't talk about lambs,
but the Lamb. There was only one sacrifice
that could do the job to reconcile us to God, and that's the Lamb
of God, Christ Jesus. And he did it by suffering and
bleeding and dying in the stead of his people. If you would know
the gospel of God's grace and the two words that you need to
get acquainted with, the words substitution and satisfaction. And John throughout this book
continually presents the Lord Jesus to us as that one who took
the place of his people. and he is also presented as that
one who absolutely satisfied the justice of God in the stead
of his people by living and dying for our sins according to the
scriptures. John sees therefore the Lord
Jesus throughout the book redeeming his people, caring for his people,
preserving his people, and now We see him glorifying his people. He is the one who brings us to
that final gold of our glorification before God. As John, who was
on the Isle of Patmos, he was there because he loved the gospel
of Christ Jesus. He was there because he preached
the Word of God, the good news of finished redemption. But as he was there, he continually
sees Christ, and he also has shown several visions about the
people of God. We've seen the bride of Christ. We've seen her redeemed. We've
seen her preserved. We've seen her rebuked. Our Lord
says to the church at Ephesus, you've done many good works. But He says, in addition to standing
against error, He said, I have this against you, you've lost
your first love. You see, as the Word of God presents
the people of God, It does so with absolute honesty. It doesn't paint a picture of
us as being anywhere near perfect in ourselves. And so as you go
through the book of the Revelation, especially through the letters
to the churches, the seven churches of Asia Minor, you'll find that
God's people have flaws. We have faults. We transgress
God's word. We're not the perfect people
in ourselves that we should be, and we fall infinitely short
of being what we ought to be. And the Word of God is honest
about that. But here's the thing, here's
what we do see in the book of Revelation. There's always this
kind of an awareness that there's going to come a better day. There's better times are coming. Now he shows the church in her
weakness. He shows her in her times of
suffering. The Lord, as he gives to John
this information, he sees the church of Christ. He sees her
being persecuted and even martyred. He talks about those who've actually
shed their blood because they love the gospel of God's grace.
And he shows them being afflicted by the evil one, by the dragon,
by Satan, and by the enemies of the gospel. And over and over
again throughout this book, as our Lord Jesus is revealed, He's
revealed as being with His people who are in this world a very
troubled people. People who have difficulties,
but all along there's this great expectancy of something much
better. And in each of the visions, and
we have looked at, we've looked at six of the visions, and we'll
look at the seventh vision. We're looking at the seventh
vision now. But in each one of them, John brings us up to the
very edge of eternity, but he doesn't give us much of a look
to the other side as to how things will wind up. But he does give,
he kind of, oh, I would say kind of whets our appetite. He takes us up and he says, things
are gonna be much better someday. And then he'll go back and revisit
this error, this age, this gospel age. But in this last vision,
he takes us on beyond the end of time. And as he comes into
this last vision that God gives him, the Scripture says that
God shows him a glorious city. He sees the Bride of Christ. This city that he sees, listen,
it isn't a literal city. You've got to get that out of
your mind. This city that our brother read
to us about here in Revelation chapter 21. It's not a literal
city that has actual walls and gates and doors and streets of
gold. As the rest of the book is, so also is this. It's very emblematic, very picturesome. Our Lord He paints a picture
for us of the beauties of His people. And He sets forth His bride,
the redeemed of the Lord. All of the children of God from
all of the ages. And He sees this bride. He sees her coming down from
heaven. and she's absolutely glorious. And here's the thing, old things
have now passed away. All those sicknesses, all those
troubles, all those tribulations, they're all in the past and forgotten. And all the tears that were wept,
they're wiped away. And all of the sin of these people,
that we struggled with, and that we agonized over. All of our
trespasses, all of our iniquities that troubled us, and we know
our Lord Jesus bore them in His own body on the tree, and we
know we were absolutely forgiven of all of them, and our God will
never bring them up against us again, but they still bother
us. And you who are the people of
God, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You struggle with
sin. It's a reality. Every day, every
day, we battle against the flesh. It's the spirit against the flesh. The Lord of glory indwells us
and we're still within ourselves. No good thing. And this bothers
us, it troubles us. We're thankful God has forgiven
us. We're thankful God doesn't hold
any of these things against us because that's the Lord Jesus,
he paid them in full, didn't he? That's why he died. All of
the breaking of God's law that we've all committed, all of God's
people have committed, that's all been made right. Isn't it
wonderful to know things have been made right with God for
us by the Lord Jesus? But we still struggle ourselves. And we bear the guilt. And we
bear the shame. And I'm fully persuaded that
we don't enjoy the forgiveness like we should. Listen, my brother,
who's greatly troubled over your sinfulness, Oh, take heed, my
sister. Your conscience is smitten over
your guilt. Rejoice in this. Your sins, which
are many, are all forgiven. They're all washed away. And
you're now robed in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus. The scripture
says, for he, God, hath made him, Christ Jesus, to be sin
for us, that one who knew no sin, that we might be made the
righteousness of God in him. Oh, what good news. And so as
we go through this life of struggle and all of our failings, We do
so with a great awareness. Thank God I'm forgiven. Thank
God I'm righteous in Christ Jesus. But I'll tell you, my brothers
and sisters, there's coming a day when we won't have any more struggles
with sin. That's what John is seeing here.
He's seeing a glorious church. This is a church that has no
spot, no wrinkle, nor any such thing. Oh, she's perfect in the
beauties of Christ Jesus. And he sees this bride, he sees
her come down from heaven and she is immaculate. It's all the body of Christ.
It's all the bride of Christ. Everyone, God gave Him in covenant
love. Everyone, God the Father said,
I trust these to you, my son, to redeem them, to save them,
to reconcile them, to forgive them, to pay their debt, to make
them righteous, and bring them to a knowledge of yourself, and
bring them to a knowledge of me, and then bring them home
to glory. Here they all are. Here they
all are. Oh, what a day that will be.
And that's what John is seeing now. Like I said, throughout
this book, we've kind of lived in expectancy of this. We've
been waiting for this. And those of us who are the people
of God, we long for this day. We say, oh Lord, when will you
come back? Lord, when will you bring all
of this to an end? All of my sin, all of my struggles,
Lord, when will it end? And all the rebellion in the
world, all the ungodliness in the world, all the false religion
in the world, oh God, when will it end? Well, it will end when
He appoints the end to be. And until then, We live in a
blessed anticipation of what shall yet be. You see, we have
a good hope through grace. What does the word hope mean
in the Bible? It's a confident expectation
of future joy and bliss. And we live in that. And don't
ever, don't ever lose sight of what is yet ahead. Better days
are coming. You know, you listen to politicians
when they're running for office. I tell you, we're having troubles
now, but if I'm elected, better days are ahead. That's what they
all say. But really, for the people of
God, better days are coming in eternity. When our Lord shall
come from heaven with a shout, the voice of the archangel, the
trump of God shall sound, and then time shall be no more. And then that will be the end
of all opposition against King Jesus. You see, as John sees
things now, Armageddon is over. Every enemy of Christ has been
overcome. The false prophet, The dragon,
they're all done away with. All the wicked have faced God
at the great white throne judgment and they've been put into hell.
And now all that's left is this beautiful, glorious bride. This bride. Here comes the true
bride, John said. I saw her coming down from heaven.
Look at the scripture here in Revelation 21 verse 9. There
came... Unto me one of the seven angels,
which had the seven vials, full of the seven last plagues, and
talked with me, and here's what the messenger said. Come hither,
I'll show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. Here she comes.
Here comes the bride. Here comes the true bride. Here
comes the real bride. Here comes the bride of Christ
Jesus. Oh, Babylon, she has pretended to be the bride of Christ, but
she's not. She's just an old harlot. That's
all she is. She's been paid enough, and she's
got her false religion, and she entices people to follow her
and believe her, and she sucks them in with her beauty, and
she says, I'm for you, I love you, and I want the best for
you. We've got all kind of activities for your family, et cetera, et
cetera, and that's what she does. She suckers people in. But she's
not the bride of Christ. She's not the bride of Christ,
she's his enemy. But as John sees things now,
she's been done away with. Her end has come. She's been
conquered. And here comes the true bride
from God out of heaven. You know, when I read verse nine,
I thought, here's one of the angels who had one of the vials
of the seven last plagues, And now that angel comes forth with
good news. The good news is, I'm gonna show
you the bride, that group, which is the lamb's wife. And this
is what, this is kind of what got my attention. You know, messengers
of God, and the Lord's preachers are likened to angels. We can
go all the way back to Revelation chapter one and see that. the
Lord, the seven angels of the seven churches, these seven preachers. When we come forth, we come forth
with a message of judgment, and we come forth with a message
of grace. And here's one of the angels
comes forth. This is one of the ones that
had a vial, a golden vial of wrath. We have a message of warning
for those who are unbelievers, for those who are rebels against
our God, for those who would defy King Jesus. We have a message
for you. Judgment awaits you. And we ask,
oh God, give them a new heart to love you. Otherwise, they
have no idea of what's in store for them. And I speak to you,
my friends, if you die in unbelief, if you
die without Christ, if you die without the mediator,
if you die without the great high priest, that one who is
God's prophet, that one who is the King of kings and the Lord
of lords. If you die outside of Jesus Christ,
that which awaits you is only a golden vial of wrath. Oh, don't die in unbelief. Oh
God, may God give you grace. May God give you mercy. May God
give you a new heart of faith to believe him. But out of the very same mouth,
of an angel that declared the wrath of God. Comes good news
to John. John becomes the Lamb's wife. Here comes the true bride. And all along through this book,
a messenger of God has been writing this as the Spirit of God gave
him utterance. as the Spirit of God inspired
him. John is the messenger of the
Lord. He's been speaking of wrath,
and he's also been speaking of Christ Jesus, the Savior. We
have a message of grace. We have a message of salvation.
And it's not a message of this is what you've got to do. It's
not a message of here's how you can be reconciled to God by doing
thus and so. No, that's the message of Babylon. That's the message of the harlot.
The message we have, the good news message is, there's reconciliation
with God and it's already been made for some people by Christ
Jesus through His bloody death upon the cross of Calvary. And
all who are led to come to Christ Jesus for salvation will be freely
received on account of Christ's sake. That's a good news message. I've got a message of judgment,
but I've got a message of grace. I've got a message of wrath,
but I've also got a message of acceptance. Now, which message
will you hear? Well, I'll tell you this, unless
God gives you ears to hear, you really won't hear either one
of them. Not yet. But you will hear the message
of wrath one day when you stand before the judge and he says,
depart from me, I never knew you. All you did was work iniquity. You think yourself to be a good
person? Our Lord says you're just a worker
of iniquity. Everything you've ever done is
just another work of iniquity. You think about that. People
who are unbelieved have never, ever done anything that God can
say, now that's good. But I'll give you one better
than that. Even the people of God. We have never done anything
that is of itself good unless our God makes it good through
the sacrifice of Christ Jesus. John sees the bride and here
she comes. Here she comes down from heaven,
and she's glorious. She's beautiful. And she's one
group. She's one group. Of every age,
of every tribe, of every land, these are all of the elect of
God. These were all given in covenant,
electing grace under Christ Jesus. God the Father, according to
His own sovereign will, He picked these out. It's a multitude which
no man can number, but He knows them all because all of their
names are written down in the land's book of life from before
the foundation of the world. And there our names are, and
in the purpose of God, we're His people. And we've been redeemed
and we will be brought to a knowledge of Christ Jesus by the Sovereign
Spirit. And we will make it into a glorious
eternity. And I take to some of the Lord's
people now who are suffering, and maybe you're down in the
depths of woe and despair, Maybe you're very discouraged and very
distressed. Listen, people of God, better
days are coming. Better days are coming. And it's
not very far away. We're just a step from eternity. And I'll tell you before you
know it, it'll all be over. It'll all be over. and we'll
step across that unseen yet real line. There's a boundary. We're gonna step across it in
the purpose of God, and all of a sudden we lose, we lose all
of this time, and we're into the eternity, and we're in the
presence of Christ Jesus, and this is what the Apostle Paul
says. That's far better. That's far better. I know things can be difficult,
and they are difficult for many of the people of God. But a glorious future awaits
us. And this is what John sees, and
he sees the very end now. He sees the end. He sees things
as they're gonna be, and they're gonna be exactly as God ordained
that they'd be. He sees them. The reality of
it. You know, this is actually a
continuation, if you'll back up to chapter 19. Really, this
is a continuation of chapter 19 in verse 9, where he says,
and he saith to me, write, blessed, well off, to be envied, are they
which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith
unto me, these are the true sayings of God. And then it's as though
he's, the Spirit of God interrupts his train of thought, at least
to lead him to write about the second coming of our Lord immediately. But then we get to chapter 21
in verse nine, he kind of picks up this theme again about the
bride. Here comes the true bride. And this angel took John. He said, I'm gonna show you something.
I'm gonna show you something. Now, John has been shown a lot
of things through the book of Revelation, and many things are
very mysterious. But now he's over into eternity. And the messenger says, come
hither, come with me. I'm gonna manifest to you the
bride. Now remember, the book of the
Revelation is the manifestation of the Lord Jesus Christ, but
it is also the manifestation of the bride of the Lord Jesus
Christ. You see, you can't separate the
bridegroom from the bride. Everything, everything God has
ever ordained to happen, right from the beginning, it's all
heading toward one objective, heading toward one goal. Don't
ever lose sight of that. Everything's going in a different,
in a definite direction, a precisely ordained direction by God to
arrive at one goal, one destination, one objective. What is that? If you could get hold of this,
here is the one objective of God. It is the glory of God in
the salvation of a multitude of sinners through the Lord Jesus
Christ and His work of redemption. That's God's objective. The salvation
of these people, this is God's glory. This is what He's been
aiming to do all along. This has been the goal from old
eternity, to bring a people to heaven, robed in the righteousness
of Jesus Christ, perfect in His beauties, to the praise of the
glory of His grace. That's what it's been about from
the beginning. And if you don't understand that,
you've missed it all. You've missed it all, everything
that happens in time. And I know there, in between
that God ordaining this end and then the arrival at the objective,
I understand there are a lot of mysterious things that happen
along the way. There's no question about that.
But notwithstanding the fact that they're so mysterious, we
understand what the end objective is. God's glory, the exaltation
of Jesus Christ, and the beauty, the perfection of the bride who's
presented to God. Here they are, I'm bringing them
all home to you, Father. Everybody you gave to me, all
those souls you entrusted to me, those bodies that you entrusted
to me, here they are. Here they are. This is what John
sees. And this is where we're heading,
folks. This is where we're heading,
people of God. It's not a sad end. It's a glorious,
never-ending story. This is the never-ending story
of the glory and the welfare and the enrichment of the people
of God as we praise and worship and magnify King Jesus. And John sees these people. He's
already seen in verse two that they're a holy city, purified
by the blood of Christ. He's our holiness. Listen, you
do grow in grace and you do grow in godliness, but you don't grow
in holiness because our holiness is Christ. You understand that? He's our holiness. Who of God
is made unto us, watch this, wisdom, righteousness, then that
word, sanctification. You know what that is? That's
holiness. You say, preacher, are you holy?
Yes, I am. Well, you don't look so holy
to me. Well, I don't have to look holy to you. I've got to
be holy before God though. And Christ is my holiness. He's
my sanctification and he's my redemption. That according as
it is written, he that gloryeth, let him glory in the Lord. This is the city of Jerusalem.
This is the city of peace. And I'll tell you something else.
This is a city that has foundations. Look at verse 14. The wall of
the city had twelve foundations. Twelve foundations. People come
into this city who enter into the salvation of God find that
there's firm footing here. Well, what are the foundations
of this city? The purpose of God? The purchase
of blood? The power of the Spirit? the
preservation of his people. We're on a firm foundation because
God is the one who holds us up. It's a radiant, well-lit city. Look at verse 11. It has the
glory of God. Her light was likened to a stone
most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. She
has the glory of God. She doesn't shine forth in her
own glory. She doesn't have any beauty except
the beauty Christ gave her. And you can ask for nothing more
beautiful than the beauties of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I
would remind you of this in Romans chapter eight. This is the end
to which we're predestinated. to be conformed to the image
of Christ Jesus. She has the glory of God in the
Son of God. And this is a valuable city. Our brother read to us verses
18 through 21 about these stones. What do these stones, what do
they signify? We're called the living stones
of the Lord. We're like, we're stones that
were dug out of the rock quarry of the world. And the Lord dug
us out by his sovereign grace, by effectual mercy. He dug us
out and he chiseled us and he fits us into the temple of God,
a living temple. We're living stones is what it
says in 1 Peter 2. and we're valuable to God. That's
why the Lord says he's coming back one day to gather together
his jewels, his precious jewels. This is a very valuable city.
She's more valuable to God than anything. I'll tell you the church
of our Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord says to his people there
in the book of Isaiah, he said, I'll give nations for you. I'll
bring a nation down or lift a nation up just to save one of you. You
want to know how valuable we are to God? He killed His Son
to save us. You want to know how much He
loved us? You want to know how much we are a part of the heart
of God? In His everlasting love and everlasting
grace, He sent His only begotten Son to die in our stead, to suffer
infinite wrath, to bring us home to glory. That's how much He
loved us. Oh, this is a very valuable city.
And it's a well-protected city, too. Verse number 12 says, the
city had a wall great and high. The scripture says, surrounded
by the walls of salvation. Nobody's gonna get in to hurt
us. Not even in this life. Oh, the
Lord said they can kill your body, but they can't kill your
soul. Why not? You're surrounded by the walls
of salvation. Whose salvation is that? That's
God's salvation. That's God's salvation. The very
first time salvation's mentioned in the Bible is in Genesis chapter
49, when Jacob says, I rejoice in thy salvation, he recognizes
God's salvation. And he's put this wall up around
his people. Oh, what an enclosure. And then people say, well, I
think you can lose your salvation. You may lose a salvation that
you think you took hold of and you produced and worked out,
but I'll tell you this, you can't lose God's salvation. Because
it's forever. That which God does is forever. And nobody can take anything
away from it. Nobody can add anything to it. And then this is a complete city.
It says in verse 16, it's a city four square. You know what that
tells me? A perfect church. A perfect church. Now down here
people say, I'm not gonna go to that church because they got
hypocrites in it. Well, we're all, every local assembly
is an imperfect church in ourselves. But in Christ Jesus, we're a
perfect church. Perfect church, four square. And this city, I'll tell you
something else about it, it's not only perfect, but it's a
measured city. You notice in verses 16 and 17,
it talks about, it's measured off. What is the measurement? What
is the rule? What is the yardstick? What is it that, God measures
his people with. I can tell you right now, I can
tell you what the yardstick is, righteousness. Righteousness. This is a measured city. And
guess what? Everybody measures up. Because we have the righteousness
of Christ. And this is a city that's well
populated. You notice in verse 13, he talks
about these gates. Twelve gates, three facing north,
three south, three east, and three west. This is a city made
up from people from everywhere. From everywhere, every direction.
Every tribe, kindred, tongue, language, you name it. God's
got a people from everywhere. It's a people well populated.
That's why John said, I saw a multitude which no man can number. And
I'll tell you something about this city, it doesn't need a
temple. Rod read to us in verse 22, I
saw no temple therein. Why not? Because the Lord God
Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. What was the temple in the Old
Testament a symbol of? It's where God met man and man
met God. You know where we meet God? In
Christ Jesus. You wanna meet God? Wanna do
business with God? You wanna be received by God?
One way, one person. Christ Jesus and Him crucified. And I'll tell you this, read
a little bit further in this chapter. In verse 24, this city
is occupied by royalty. Royalty. The nations of them
which are saved shall walk in the light of it. The kings of
the earth do bring their glory and honor unto it. We're kings
and priests unto God. We're the sons of God. And those
within this city, those within salvation, those who are, founded
on Christ Jesus, we have the walls of salvation around us,
but we never have to worry about an enemy coming in. Verse 25,
the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day, for there
shall be no night there. See, in old times, it had the
gates open during the day, but at night, close the gates. Gotta
keep out the enemy, keep out the foes. But here's the picture. The gates are open. Because there's
no enemy gonna come in, there's no foe gonna touch us. We are
looking at everlasting bliss. That's what we're looking at,
everlasting safety in Christ. And that which shall be brought
into this city is just glory and honor, that's all. We bring
glory and honor to Christ. And I'll give you one other thing. There won't be any sin in this
city or among the people of God now. We feel our sin. We mourn over our sin. We weep
over our sin. But in that day, no sin will
enter into the kingdom of God, the city of God. Look at verse
27. And there shall in no wise enter
into it anything that defile it, anything or neither whatsoever
maketh abomination or maketh a lie. No, because everybody
in this city, watch it, their names have been written in the
Lamb's book of life. No enemies are going to come
in again. No foe is going to cause us any trouble. Everlasting
happiness, everlasting joy, everlasting worship, everlasting exaltation
of Christ Jesus will feed on Him, learn from Him, view Him,
fellowship with Him forever and ever and ever. And just keep
on saying that as many times as you want to. Everlasting joy. That's the bride. Here comes
the true bride. John saw, here comes the true
bride.