You would open your Bibles again
to Revelation 22, passage Brother Dale read for us a few moments
ago. The title of the message is The
Glory of Heaven. The glory of heaven. There is a physical place called
heaven. We don't know a whole lot about
that place. And in these two or three verses,
I intend for us to look at this evening, tells us about everything
we need to know. Tells us everything we need to
know. Through this book, John gives a description of heaven
in a picture of the city that he calls New Jerusalem. Now,
that's not an actual physical description of glory. But it
is a description in type and picture, just like in the Old
Testament. The Old Testament scriptures spoke of Christ in
type and picture and shadow. And that's the way John speaks
of heaven when he talks about this. He gives the dimensions
and descriptions of this city, New Jerusalem. And the glory
of this city that John describes, the glory that grabbed his soul's
attention, was not the streets of gold that he described. It
wasn't the gates of pearl that he described. It wasn't all the
precious stones that made up the foundations of the wall of
the city. The glory of heaven is the same
glory as the glory of the gospel that we preach. And that glory
is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. He is the glory that captivated
John's soul. And I hope will captivate our
souls this evening. Now, if you do not get a thrill
from hearing Christ preached here on this earth, you would
never enjoy yourself in heaven, because Christ is the glory of
heaven, just like he's the glory of the gospel. And if you are
blessed by hearing Christ preached here on earth, you will be infinitely
more blessed there, because the glory of heaven is the same glory
as the gospel that we preach. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ
is the sum and substance of heaven, just as he is the sum and substance
of the gospel. Now, some people think that they
think of heaven as a place where people get to constantly enjoy
the things that they enjoy here on this earth. And that cannot
be further from the truth. Now, I will admit to you, I don't
know about all the activities that we will be involved with
in glory, but I do know this. The chief activity that will
constantly occupy our time and our attention is worshiping the
Lord Jesus Christ. We'll be occupied with worshiping
and praising him. Some people think of heaven as
a place where the most holy, the best acting believers will
be rewarded. They'll live in a bigger mansion
than those lesser believers who will live down in the slums.
They think of heaven as a place where they will get to lord it
over their brethren because they are superior to their lesser
brethren who are not as holy and not as doctrinally sound
on this earth as were these higher-ups who live up on these big houses
up on the hill. That cannot be further from the
truth either. Christ is the glory of heaven. You and I will have none. Christ
is the glory of heaven. He has all preeminence in that
place now. And you can rest assured, He'll
have all glory. He'll have the place of preeminence
throughout eternity. Every believer, no believer will
be above another. Every believer will be made just
like Christ. Every child of God will be made
perfect. Made just like God's Son. Now,
there are no degrees of perfection and no one will want to or be
able to lord it over their brethren because everyone will be perfect. No one could be better than another.
They'll all be made just like Christ. And these mistaken views
of heaven come from a simple thought and you know, there's
just, we want to lord it over one another. We want to think
someone's got a bigger mansion than one another. Just like we
want to here on this earth. And my whole message is this. The glory of heaven is the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now we saw a few weeks ago, I
preached through the first three verses of this book and it was
my intention as soon as I could to come back to this and preach
through this entire chapter. We saw a few weeks ago from this
verse 3 that in heaven there will be no more curse because
the Lord Jesus Christ bore the curse of the sin of his people
and he put that curse away. He bore it all away through the
sacrifice of himself. And even in our sinful flesh,
we look forward to this blessing, to being in a body, to living
in a place where there will be no more curse. Even in this sinful
body, we look forward to that. But we cannot understand what
a glorious blessing this will be to not be under the curse
of sin any longer. There, there will be no more
curse. And beginning here in verse 3 of Revelation 22, John
gives us six points describing the glory of heaven. He said
in verse three, and there shall be no more curse, but the throne
of God and of the land shall be in it. There will be no more
curse, but he almost seems like he's saying, but instead of that,
instead of that curse will be the throne of God and of the
land. Now heaven, wherever that is,
I don't know where the physical location of that is. We tend
to think it's in the skies, but we don't know where the physical
location of that is and we don't need to know. Heaven is wherever
Christ is. Wherever he is, that's heaven. The name of this city that John
describes is Jehovah Shammah. The Lord is there. That's where
heaven is, where Christ is. And he's the glory of that city.
And since Christ is there, there must be a throne. Because Christ
is king. He's not a babe in a manger.
He's not a sacrifice still hanging on a cross. He's king. enthroned in glory. And we're
thankful that God's people are so thankful for that. The presence
of this throne guarantees the security of God's people. Our
Savior sits enthroned. Now, do you think he's going
to fail? Is he going to fail to save one for whom he died?
Well, of course not. He sits enthroned. He's going
to accomplish his purpose. You'll see to it. The presence
of this throne removes all possibility of this curse remaining on God's
people. The one who removed the curse
with his precious blood sits on that throne to ensure the
eternal salvation of everyone for whom he died. Just like those
sons of Jacob, when they went down to Egypt, they were safe.
Not because they did anything right, because they didn't do
anything right. They did everything wrong. Those sons of Jacob were saved
for one reason. Joseph sat on the throne of Egypt.
That's why they were saved and that's why they were blessed
in Egypt. And John says that this throne,
he describes it as the throne of God and of the Lamb. The Lamb. In glory. We will never lose
sight of the all-important, sacrificial character of Christ. He's the
Lamb. Christ will be eternally seen
by everyone in heaven as the Lamb as it had been slain. Freshly
slaughtered. Every believer will constantly
behold our Savior who was sacrificed for my sins. And we'll know. As long as we're looking at Him,
you have to know this. The only reason I'm not in hell
at this moment is the Lamb of God suffered as a sacrifice for
my sins. He suffered as my substitute,
just like that firstborn in Egypt on the night of that Passover.
That firstborn had to know the only reason I live is that lamb
died and its blood was put on the doorpost. That's the only
reason I live. And in heaven, every believer
will constantly see Christ the lamb. Our sacrifice will constantly
see the sinless character of Christ, the lamb of God. Christ
is the Lamb without blemish and without spot. And He is my righteousness. This sinless One, He's my obedience. My sin was imputed to Christ,
the sinless One. And the righteousness of Christ,
the sinless One, was imputed to me, who am nothing but sin.
And we will forever rejoice in the sinless character of Christ
our Savior. the one who became our substitute.
Now John describes this as the throne of God and of the Lamb.
Now there's only one throne. It's the throne of God and of
the Lamb. But there's just one throne. Because God and the Lamb
are one. God and the Son are one. They're
not divided. There's one throne. And that
throne is God's throne. So it's a throne of holiness.
It's a throne of righteousness. It must be, right? Because it's
God's throne. But at the same time, it's a throne of grace.
Mercy reigns from this righteous throne because the sacrifice
himself sits upon it. That throne would be unapproachable.
You and I could never approach that throne unless Christ our
Savior and Christ our mediator sat upon it. Because he sits
there, we can approach that throne boldly. And that thrills the
heart of the child of God to know our Savior sits on the throne. And because our Savior sits upon
that throne, heaven is a place of security and peace. Peace. No more this fussing and
fighting and warring. It's a place of peace because
the Lamb sits upon the throne. There sits the only potentate. The King of Kings and Lord of
Lords and every soul in glory will lovingly bow to that one
seized on the throne. That's going to be the business
of glory. To worship the Lamb who sits on the throne. There's
a throne in glory. Second, John tells us that the
glory of heaven will be that there his servants will serve
him. That's what he says at the end
of verse 3. And his servants will serve him. In heaven Every
child of God will serve our Savior perfectly and perpetually. Now, believers here on this earth
all desire to serve the Lord. They desire to serve the Lord
in whatever capacity the Lord enables them to serve. You just
need something to be done around here. I mean, you've got more
volunteers than you know what to do with because people want
to serve. That's why they want to do that.
Well, we desire to serve the Lord here on this earth. We look
for ways to help God's people. But you must admit, even when
the Lord enables you to serve, it's not done perfectly, is it?
I mean, there's a sinful motive. There's self in it. This is what
we cannot get rid of. It's not perfectly. But in heaven,
we will serve him perfectly without sin. And our service will be
worship. Our service in heaven won't be
preaching the word. You know, this is how you can
serve God's people here on earth, by preaching the gospel to them.
That's not going to be our service there. There's not going to be
any preaching. There'll be no need for it. It'll
be worship. Our service won't be visiting
the sick. You won't have to go comfort
the sorrowing. I was talking to Ed Sparks last night. He's
so touched by everyone sending him messages and stuff and condolences
and the loss of his sister. You won't do that once there.
Not one time. Because there'll be no sickness.
There'll be no tears. There'll be no sorrow. Our service
will be worshipping God perfectly and continually. There'll be
no more wandering minds. Nothing that will distract us
take our mind away from where we want it to be focused. It'll
just be perfect worship. His servants shall serve him.
Third, John tells us that the glory of heaven will be, they
shall see his face. You see that in verse four? And
they shall see his face. Now that's going to be the preeminent
glory of heaven. We shall see his face. Here, we walk by faith, not by
sight. But there, faith will give way
to sight, and we'll walk by sight. Now, what will we see? We're
going to walk by sight. What will we see? Well, it's
not going to be all the things that the people of the world
of sinful flesh are enamored with now. We will see his face. I don't know what the streets
of gold mean. Some of the writers talk about
that they're not actual streets of gold. It pictures something.
I don't know. Maybe they are, maybe they're
not. Maybe they're gates of pearl, maybe they're not. I don't know
what those things mean exactly. And whatever that is, we'll see
it. But I promise you, it won't matter
to you. We will see his face. That is what will thrill our
soul. To see His face. The soul thrilling
rapture of heaven will be to see the Lord Jesus Christ face
to face. I just can't even imagine how I
long to see His face. We'll see many things. We'll
see a host of sinners saved by the blood of Christ and we'll
be ourselves. We'll recognize one another just
like the disciples. They recognized Elijah and Moses.
They were themselves when they appeared at the Mount of Transfiguration. But seeing each other will not
be what thrills our soul. I mean, I promise you, I'll be
happy to see you, but that will not be what thrills our soul. Seeing the Lord Jesus Christ
will give our heart joy untold. I cheapen it by even talking
about it. I've got my notes here and then I start saying them
out loud. I think this cheapens it. This cheapens the joy that
we will have to see His face. So many people think our loved
ones in glory, they think they're concerned about us here below
and they're constantly watching us and seeing everything that
we're doing. That cannot be so. It cannot
be so. Once a person gets a look, gets
a glimpse of His face, the face of God's Son, the face of the
Lord Jesus Christ, they cannot take their eyes off of Him. I
don't care what else is going on, how interesting you and I
might think it is, it's not interesting enough to tear their attention
away from His face, the face of the Lord Jesus Christ, our
Savior. And when we see his face, we'll be the same way. We would
like to see our loved ones who died in the Lord. I mean, be
honest. Now, we would like to see them. But the joy of heaven
will not be a family reunion. It'll be to see his face. Now,
this word see, to see his face, it means more than just we'll
see him with these eyes. It means we'll see him as he
is. We'll see him with understanding,
no more seeing through a glass darkly, but face to face with
understanding and love. We'll understand him. We'll understand
his work. We'll understand his love like
we've never understood him before. And we will appreciate and be
thankful for Christ and his work like we've never been thankful
before. We'll see, we'll understand with a perfect heart. We will
have perfect communion with God's Son. We'll see and understand. Brethren, that will be complete
satisfaction. Complete and utter satisfaction.
Now look over at Psalm 17. You could quote this verse, I
know, but let's read it. Psalm 17. Psalm 17, verse 15. David says, as for me, I will
behold thy face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied when I awake
with thy lightness. Now, David, how are you so sure
that you're going to behold God's face in righteousness? How can you be sure of that?
Look over in 1 John chapter 3. John tells us. I will behold
thy face in righteousness." 1 John 3, verse 2. Beloved, now
are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall
be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like
him, for we shall see him as he is. When we see Him as He
is, we're going to be made like Him. That's how David can know,
I'm going to see thy face in righteousness. Because when I
see Him, I'm going to be made just like Him. Made just like
Him. God told Moses, you can't see
my face. For no man shall see me and live.
But there, we will live constantly seeing God face to face. Because we've been made just
like Him. The songwriter we just sung. Face to face with Christ
my Savior. Face to face, what will it be?
How will that be? How will I handle that? When
with rapture I behold Him. Jesus Christ who died for me.
Face to face, oh blissful moment. Face to face to see and know.
Face to face with my Redeemer. Jesus Christ who loves me so.
That will be the glory of heaven, to see his face. Fourth, John
tells us that the glory of heaven will be his name, shall be in
their foreheads. That's what he says at the end
of verse four, and his name shall be in their foreheads. Now, people
have taken that statement and run wild with it. And remember
this, when you read the book of Revelation, many, if not most
things that we read in this John's Revelation are figurative. Unbelievers
are not going to be running around with the mark of the beast written
on their forehead with magic marker. That's not so. And believers
are not going to be going around with the name of Christ written
on their forehead with magic marker. What this means is, is
in that day, the servants of God will be known so clearly
that they are the God's children. It'll be as clear as if his name
was written on their foreheads. It'll be obvious to everyone
that you are children of God. They will be known of God and
know God. They will own God and He will
own them. He'll own them as His children.
He'll claim us. We'll confess God as our Savior
and God will confess us to be His people. We'll be the trophies
of grace. And as His trophies, it'll be
obvious that we are the objects of His love and mercy. We are
the result of the sacrifice of Christ. It'll be known by all.
It'll be as plain as the nose on your face. That's what that,
it'll be as plain just as if it was written on your forehead.
As plain as the nose on your face. And fifth, the glory of
heaven will be that there will be no darkness there. Verse five,
John says, and there shall be no night there, and they need
no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth
them light. There'll be no darkness of any
kind in heaven. There'll be no darkness of sin.
There'll be no darkness of sorrow. There'll be no darkness of ignorance.
There'll be no darkness of bigotry. And there'll be no darkness of
lack of light. I don't know if you can call
it physical light. There'll be no darkness in heaven. There's no need for secondary
light, the sun and the moon and the stars. Look across the page
of Revelation 21, verse 23. John said, and the city had no
need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it, for the
glory of God did lighten it. And the lamb is the light thereof. Christ is the lamb of the light. There's no need for the sun.
There's no need for the moon. He's the light. In heaven, there'll
be no need for symbolic light, the light of the ordinances that
God has given us to picture Christ. Not only will we not have a funeral
service there, We'll not witness another baptismal service there.
Now, what's a baptismal service? It's given to us as a picture
that sheds symbolic light on how a sinner is saved. When someone
confesses Christ in baptism, this is a picture, a symbol of
how I was saved through the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. That's symbolic light. There'll
be no need of that there. Just like in heaven, we'll never
observe the Lord's table. We love to observe the Lord's
table. It's such a blessed time of worship to us. We'll never
observe the Lord's table there. When we observe the Lord's table,
we're observing a picture that causes us to do what? Remember
our Savior. Our Lord says, as often as you
do it with these elements, with the broken body and the shed
blood, the bread and the wine, the pictures, the sacrifice of
our Savior, why you do that? Our Lord said, do this in remembrance
of me. Isn't it awful we have to observe
something that caused us to remember our Lord? Well, the elements
of those tables are symbolic light of how sinners saved to
remind us of the Lord Jesus Christ. You'll need no reminding there.
You'll see his face. Constantly, you'll see his face.
There's no need to be reminded. We won't need any of those symbolic
lights because Christ himself will be our light. He'll give
us light of understanding so we won't forget and won't need
to be reminded. You know, one of our children
is sick. They're sick in the night. They're up all night.
Boy, we're happy to see the light of morning come. And I don't
know why exactly. Most of the time when our girls
were sick all night, they're sick in the day too. It just
seemed better in the light of day, for whatever reason. Well,
the happiness of heaven will be there's no darkness. None. It'll be an everlasting day. And in that light, we'll see
all things clearly. We'll see and understand the
mysteries of the scripture. We'll see and understand the
mysteries of God's providence. Why is God ordaining things like
he is now? I have no idea. There may you
will know, because we'll have the light of understanding in
the glory of Christ. And sixth, the glory of heaven
will be the duration of it, and they shall reign at the end of
verse five, and they shall reign forever and ever. Peter said
in 1 Peter 2, And Christ has made believers a royal priesthood,
kings and priests. And there, in heaven, we will
reign with Christ, who made us kings and priests. We'll reign
as children of the king. Just like the son of the king
is the prince, children of God will reign with him as the king's
children. like a series on the History
Channel, by all these empires, the rise and fall of all these
empires through the history of the world, this one will never
fall. We'll reign forever, eternally. When we've been there 10,000
years, bright shining as the sun, even after 10,000 years,
we have no less days to sing God's praise than when we first
began. one everlasting morning, one
eternal morning. Now, these verses are written
for our encouragement. I didn't go through all this
just so you have six things, you know, we could remember about
heaven. These things are written for our encouragement. As you
run your race here below and you suffer hardness, you suffer
discouragement and disappointment. Look to these verses. These verses
that encourage you to run your race with patience. To run looking
unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Don't look to the
disappointment. Keep looking to Him. Don't run
looking at the difficulties and the disappointments that are
all around us. It's not hard to find those things. You don't
have to look very far to find disappointment and heartache.
But don't run looking at those things. Run looking to Christ. And run remembering this. Now
the pain's real. I'm not making light of the pain.
I'm not making light of the suffering. I'm not making light of the disappointment
in any way. It's real. This world's not the
end. All this world is is the path
that God's ordained me to travel to go to glory. That's all it
is. It's the path. And run remembering
this about the home to which every believer will go. The glory
of heaven is Christ. Everything about who he is and
what he's done for his people is the glory of heaven. Christ
is the glory of God's creation. In a study, Wayne gave thanks
for God's creation, how we can, the things we can see that he's
made is so wonderful. God created man on earth. This
creation exists for this reason. for the glory of Christ, so that
Christ could get glory in redeeming sinners out of this fallen world.
We do see some of God's glory in creation. Christ is the subject
and the glory of all Scripture. Every word speaks of Christ and
his glory. All of it does. The book of Revelation
is no different. You know, the title of this book
is not Revelations. We say Revelations, but that's
not the title of it. The title of this book is Revelation. It's not like John's getting
many different revelations of many different things. John got
just one revelation. You know why? That's all he needed. And that's all you and I need.
This one revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Look back at Revelation
1, the very first verse. He tells us this is the subject
of the whole book. And you can apply this statement
to all of God's Word. The revelation of Jesus Christ.
That's the subject of the whole book. The revelation of Jesus
Christ. And heaven will simply be the
manifestation, the perfect revelation of the glory of Christ. That
glory we can just barely see in creation. That glory, we can
pick some of it out in God's Word. We pick some of it out. That'll be the perfect revelation
of that glory. Face to face with God's own Son. And until then, I pray that God
would grant us the faith to keep looking to Christ and to not
take our eyes off Him. He's the glory of heaven. He's
the glory of earth. He's all glory. God grant us
the faith to look to Him and keep looking to Him. Alright,
let's bow in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we do thank
Thee for this Thy Word that we've just read. And Father, we pray
that You'd cause this glorious few verses to bring peace and
comfort and encouragement to the hearts of Thy people. Oh,
how we thank You. for the Lord Jesus Christ, how
we thank you for his unspeakable love that he so willingly would
sacrifice himself to put away the sin of thy people. Father,
we're so thankful. And until you do call us home
and we can see him face to face, Father, cause Christ His person,
His work, who He is, to be the glory of our life here below. From time to time as we meet
here to open Thy Word, to preach the Gospel, to worship Thee, Father ever, make Christ the
theme of our preaching, the theme of our song, and the love of
our heart. For it's in His precious name
we give thanks ask his blessings. Amen.