Would you take your Bibles, please, and turn to the very last chapter in the Bible? Revelation 22. The Bible is laid out in a grand manner. It has an introduction. It has an epilogue and it has a body that has a great story in it. Introduction, we've looked at before on Sunday evenings, it's in Genesis chapters 1 to 11. We're all the parameters of life are laid out for us. Creation and fall and judgment and promise is teaching there about humanity and gender and marriage, family and sin and culture and grace and all sorts of things. That introduction ends with the promise that the Lord is going to use a specific people to bring salvation to the ends of the earth. Now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and from your kindred people in your father's house to the land that I will show you and I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and Him who dishonest you, I will curse and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. And that introduces the body of this book called the Bible. It's a chronological story of redemption, beginning with Abraham, expanding to his children and grandchildren who make up the 12 tribes of Israel. There's a great liberation and exodus out of bondage in Israel, travel through the wilderness into a promised land where they're formed into a nation with a king. There's about the fall of that kingdom and it's judgment and it's being scattered among the nations of the earth and then comes Jesus Christ and his kingdom of God. Those are his opening words, repent and believe the gospel because the kingdom of God is at hand. Pentecost comes and there's the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon these 12 disciples of Jesus Christ known as the Apostles who go out all through the Mediterranean world and preach the gospel because Jesus said this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached to the ends of the earth and then the end shall come. Then there's this epilogue. This kind of recapitulation are revisiting a Genesis chapters 1 to 11, a cosmic perspective of what happens in the body of the book, this story of redemption accomplished and applied and it is the book of Revelation that brings it all to a conclusion. The Bible is a literary masterpiece, not just in its individual parts but in the way that it's put together with what we call an inclusio. It's a literary device either by a phrase or word or a sentence or a concept where it is bracketed or sandwiched between two things that are identical. And in this case, the Bible begins and ends with a story of a garden, a garden of Eden which is paradise lost and the garden that we'll look at tonight in the city of God which is paradise regained. The Lord took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat from the day that you eat it you shall surely die. That's about the first garden in Genesis chapter 2 and then we turn to Revelation chapter 22 verse 1 and we read about the second garden and the angel showed me the river of water of life brightest crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. Also on either side of there were the tree of life which is 12 kinds of fruit yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the trees were for the healing of the nations and no longer would there be anything accursed but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it and the servants his servants will worship him. It is as John Milton said, a story of paradise lost and paradise regained and in between of those two paradises is this great champion who we find throughout the book of Revelation the Lord Jesus Christ. God speaks in the scripture God the Father for the last time in Revelation chapter 21 text that Bernie Lawrence preached through last Sunday night. He said, behold I am making all things new. Sometimes when we talk about redemption and we talk about salvation we as individual evangelicals because evangelicals emphasize almost to their detriment this personal aspect of salvation. We tend to think of redemption purely in personal even selfish terms but when God thinks about salvation he thinks about renewing and reclaiming and remaking all that he has lost through this great force called sin. Behold he says, I am making all things new beginning with new creatures in Christ who live in a new humanity and a new kingdom that will someday become a new world and Revelation chapter 22 is a fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah. Behold I create new heavens and a new earth. The former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. Be glad and rejoice forever in what I create. For behold I create Jerusalem to be a joy and are people to be gladness. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people. No more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days or an old man who does not fill out his time. For the young man shall die a hundred years old and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed. They shall build houses inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit. They shall not plant and another eat. For like the days of a tree shall be the days of my people and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity. They shall be the offspring of the blessed Lord and their descendants will be with them before they call I will answer while they are yet speaking. I will hear them. The wolf and the lamb shall graze together. The lion shall eat straw like an ox. The dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt or destroy and all my holy mountain says the Lord. And to give us kind of a promise and a prelude to this new world, God places in this old world new creatures. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away and new things have come with each regenerate, reborn, renewed believer. We have a harbinger as one commentator said of the final creation it will take place at the end of salvation history. This great promise of a new world coming, of a reclaiming of the Garden of Eden has been the inspiration of many a poem and many a song. Back in 1866, William Thompson wrote a song called There's a great day coming. There's a great day coming. There's a great day coming. There's a great day coming by and by. When the saints and the sinners shall be parted right and left, are you ready for that day to come? Are you ready for the judgment day? There's a bright day coming, a bright day coming. Yes, a bright day coming by and by. But it's brightness shall only come to them that love the Lord. Are you ready for that day to come? Are you ready for the judgment day? There's a sad day coming. Yes, a sad day coming. There's surely a day coming by and by. When the sinners shall hear of his doom, depart, I know ye not. Are you ready for that day to come? Are you ready for the judgment day? This belief that there's a new day coming and a new world coming has inspired a lot of people. That song by Will Thompson was picked up later on by a soul singer named Marjorie Reese, who said there's a new world coming, a new world coming as a new world coming very soon. And it's beauty shall be bright and joyed by those of light. Are you ready for that new world to come? Even the mamas and pompas, now you can date yourself if you remember who they were. Mama Cass had a song called There's a new world coming. There's a new world coming and it's just around the bend. There's a new world coming. This one's coming to an end. There's a new voice calling you can hear it if you try and it's growing stronger with each day that passes by. There's a brand new morning bringing clear and rising free. There's a new day dawning that belongs to you and me. Yes, a new world coming, the one we've had visions of coming in peace, coming in joy, coming in love. Even a young Christian group called Barnabas, I have no idea who they are. But they have a new song or a song out called There's a new world coming. Towards the end of that song, they say, I want an angel for next door neighbor, Gabriel just dropping by for tea. Isaiah living two blocks away by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I want to see Jeremiah today and I wanted to bring James and Paul along. This idea that we're headed to someplace where there's a grand reunion in a new world has been the inspiration of poets and song writers and it's been incorporated into inaugural addresses of our presidents and it was often visible, manifestly relied upon in the preaching of Dr. Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement. A new day, a new world, a new humanity. This is the reason. Jesus said he gave John this great revelation to inspire, to encourage and comfort and strength in the church in times of suffering and in persecution and in modernism. He didn't give us this book to try to figure out the secret signs to the cosmic timeframe and the eschatological schedule of who's doing what at the end of time. Much of what we've done to the book of Revelation in the past 30 years has been atrocious. This book was given to give us a picture of a great cosmic struggle in which in the end God wins and everything that God began to do in the first two chapters of the Bible, he completes in the last two. There's a tremendous symmetry in this inclusio that God even though there is this major interruption and that's what our time is folks, it's a major interruption in the original and eternal plan of God to build a world in which he would live with his people, buy and buy in some easy and comfortable fellowship, is now brought to its graphic conclusion in these last few chapters. There are multiple images of what this new world is going to be and in chapter 19 it's called the Marriage Feast of the Lamb. It's like a family reunion where all the people of a family go to a wedding. Now you know as well as I do, that the one thing that will bring the family together, even more so than the funeral, is a wedding. We celebrate people being added to the family and the the potential of multiplying our ancestors adding to our family and there's this great marriage feast of the Lamb with a church that's married to Jesus Christ and all of the families there. There's in chapter 21 a new heaven and a new earth. This is not just some, the femoral place will be float around with disembodied spirits and wings on clouds. It's a real place with mountains and streams and meadows and it's a physical place for those with a glorified body as a holy city. The New Jerusalem called the city of God, a place of safety and refuge and provision for mankind in which to dwell, meaning all of our needs for community and for common life. Finally, is a garden. Our original home is regained. A new Eden where God is with His people and they see Him face to face. It is a marvelous chapter, this last chapter and it's the last part of a longer vision. The difficulty in preaching the book of Revelation is that sometimes you have to break up the visions that really belong together because the passages are so long. John as a writer, even in his gospel, has long chapters and he has long periods of visionary retelling in this book of Revelation and actually chapter 21 and 22 belong together as one grand vision. It's made up of three different images. There's an image of symmetry where this city is laid out and a marvelous cube. It's as long as it is, wideness is in high. It's actually 3,225,000 cubic miles which is more space for us to live in than is on the face of the earth today. It is a city of 12s with 12 gates and 12 doors, 12 foundation stones symbolizing the people of God. It's not meant to be taken literally but it's to remind us, Eugene Peterson says of two things, that holiness always brings perfect balance and symmetry and it's a mancy that tells us that all the evil that confronts us now is puny compared to the greatness of God and his future for us. There's also a second image of light. There are no sun and moon. There are no stars, no nighttime. This world floats on a sea of light. Jesus Christ in His blazing glory is like the sun in the city. He's the one who enlightens this new world and in our world darkness always brings with it a foreboding sense of evil. In fact, we're told that the sinful world we live in is the domain of darkness and here it passes away into the kingdom of love and light, a place of perfect safety and openness and lack of fear. And finally, the third picture is in this last chapter. It's a picture of fertility where everything we need that was provided to us in the beginning of the creation is provided to us in super abundance and this new paradise of God. This little chapter breaks itself down into two parts. We have this image of the paradise of God in the first five verses and then in verses 6 to 21 are response to that image. First the paradise of God, Revelation 22 beginning in verse 1, then the angel showed me the river of the water of life. Brightest crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city, also on either side of the river, the tree of life with its 12 kinds of fruit yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it and the servants will worship him. They will see his face and his name will be on their forehands and night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun. For the Lord God will be their light and they will reign forever and ever. John shows us the last two last things. These are the last things. He shows us in a series of last things, a river and a tree. Two trees to be exact. And no one can miss the imagery from Genesis 2 and the story of the Garden of Eden. For there was also a river in Eden that branched out from Eden and gave shape and contour to the world in which Adam and Eve were born. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the river Peshawan. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havala where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good. Delim and onic stones are there as well. The name of the second river is the river Gehan. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Kush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris which flows east of Assyria and the fourth river is the river Euphrates. Peshawan, Gehan, Tigris Euphrates telling us that Eden was a real place in our present world. And this river of paradise flowed out from under the throne of God and of Jesus Christ and it became the river of life for Adam and Eve. It watered all of the garden and gave life to all that lived there. So there is a river here. This river flows right down the middle of the city of God and it comes out from the throne of God. It is amplified in this images that which is the very centerpiece of the city of God. It harkens back to David's Psalm. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God. And here is this river that symbolizes the eternal life-giving power of our Redeemer God. It is the life of God's love, the life of Jesus blood, the life of the Spirit's grace. It is the life that proceeds from the living Word of God that springs up into our souls under eternal life as John said in John 7. And here is magnified in such a way that it passes all the way through the new heaven and new earth like some great river like our Mississippi or the Amazon of South Africa or the Nile of South America or the Nile of Africa and flows down the middle of this new home of ours giving life right and left to all who touch it and need it. It's a great picture of the life-giving Spirit. Jesus said is the Spirit who gives life. And the words that I speak to you, they are Spirit and they are life. This is a fulfillment of Joel's prophecy that in the last times God will pour forth His Spirit like a mighty rain on all mankind. And here it has gathered this river of life and grace flowing right through the center of our new identity and our new world in the city of God. And on either side of that river there are two trees. Through the middle of the street of the city there was this river and also on either side of the river the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. Now you remember in Genesis there were two trees as well. There was according to Genesis chapter 2 verses 8 and 9 tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. One was a tree of blessing meant to be enjoyed by Adam and Eve and their descendants to give them life forever. The other was a tree of death. For in the day you eat of it you shall surely die. The one to bless, the other to curse, the one bringing life, the other bringing death. But in the new world the glorified and remade world of Adam and Eve is only one tree in duplicate. No longer the tree of death, no longer the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, no longer the tree of probation but the tree of life. On the right and on the left, life for the body, life for the soul. We're not really sure from this imagery, from the way the Greek is constructed, whether on either side of the river there are two trees, or actually twelve trees, six on either side, or 24 trees, twelve trees on either side, but the images that of these two trees, there are twelve kinds of fruit, over the twelve months of the year. Perhaps as Simon Kismacher says, one kind of fruit for each month symbolizing that throughout the course of time, for time does not end in eternity. It continues for you and me, measured for us humans by the same meter and rhythm. There is always this abundance from God to give us life. John is borrowing heavily from the prophet Ezekiel, who had this great revelation, this great vision of a river that came out from the throne of God beginning as a trickle, and became a massive, broad and deep river that renewed and gave life to all the earth. Then he brought me back to the door of the temple and behold, water was dripping from below, dripping from the threshold of the temple toward the east, for the temple faces east. The water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple south of the altar. Then he brought me out by way of the north gate and led me around on the outside to the outer gate that faces toward the east and behold, the water was now a trickling stream headed towards the south. Going on eastward with a measuring line in his hand, the man measured a thousand cubits and that led me through the water and it was ankle deep. And again he measured a thousand cubits that led me through that water and now it was knee deep. A third time he measured a thousand cubits and led me through the water and it was way steep. Then he measured one more thousand and it was a river that I could not pass through for the water had risen. It was deep enough to swim in a river that could not be passed through when he said to me, son of man, have you seen this? And then he led me back to the bank of the river. As I went back I saw on the bank of the river very many trees on the one side and on the other and he said to me, this water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Ottawa and enters the sea. When the water flows into the sea the sea will become fresh and wherever the river goes every living creature that swarms will live and there will be many fish for this water goes there that the waters of the sea may become fresh so that everything will live where the river goes. Fisherman will stand beside the sea from Ngeti to Engeling. It will be a place for the spreading of the nets. Its fish will be of very many kinds like the fish of the great sea but its swamps and marshes will not become fresh. They are left for salt and on the banks on both sides of this river there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail. They will bear fruit every single month because the water of life that flows from the sanctuary will nourish them. Their fruit will be for food. Their leaves for the healing of the nations. Its great prophecy of this river of grace and goodness and life now becomes a fulfillment. In this last chapter of Revelation and what makes this place paradise is not that it has this wonderful river that you can drink from and live forever or the fruit that sustains life 12 months a year after year eternity without end. Know what makes this place paradise is that God is present there with His people. No longer someone distant, some magnificent presence shielded by this this kaleidoscope of colors hidden from the eyes but God that we can see face to face. No longer will there be anything accursed but the throne of God and of the land will be in it and disturbance will worship Him. They will see His face and His name will be on their foreheads. Here in five short words the climax of redemption is reached. They will see His face. Moses asked for that one time. Remember what God told him? You cannot see my face for no man can see my face and live. John told us in his gospel no one has ever seen God but the only God who was in the father's side he has made him known. John in his first letter promised us that someday we would see God face to face but love and we are God's children and what we will be has not yet appeared but we know this that when he appears we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is and now he explicitly says they will see His face. This is what used to be the case. If you go back to Genesis in the opening verses of Genesis chapter 3 it appears for the way the text has written that every evening about this time when the sun was setting God would come from heaven down to the garden of Eden and would commune face to face with Adam and Eve, a father with his children. They might have had supper together. They talked about what Adam and Eve discovered that day. What God wanted them to learn and do for the next day. It was an easy, open, refreshing, encouraging kind of fellowship but once Adam and Eve sinned God drove them east of Eden. In fact he stationed an angel there so that they could not come back and eat the tree of life. A severe mercy for had they eaten that tree of life. It appears that they would have ever lived unable to die in a state of sin but God had a better plan. He had a plan that Sunday when the night was gone when the glory of his son had enlightened this new world, when there was this magnificent city, this river of life making everything lush and green and fruit and all kinds of body and soul enriching food all over the place he would once again visit the garden and they would see him face to face. People often ask me, pastor when we get to heaven I know we're going to see Jesus Christ face to face because he has a glorified body. Will we see God the Father and God the Holy Spirit face to face and I think the answer is yes. They will see his face and they will have all that paradise lost offered for them regained because of what Jesus Christ has done for us. This is the end of all the visions in the book of Revelation and now there comes in verses 6 through 21 another set of seven, the last set of seven in a book of sevens. It's seven exhortations, seven things that you and I must do having received this revelation from John that comes through Jesus Christ and he said to me these words are trustworthy and true and the Lord the God of the spirits of the prophets has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place. There is John Stott says in these last verses of this final chapter are revisiting of all of the great themes of the book of Revelation and just as there are seven trumpets and seven bowls and seven seals and seven visions and seven pictures of Babylon falling in seven images of the new world that are seven things that we need to do. Here's the first one. We must keep the words of this prophecy. Look at verses 6 and 7 and he said to me these words are trustworthy and true and the Lord the God of the spirits of the prophets has sent his angel to show his servants what must take place and behold I'm coming soon blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book. This is a book like every other book of the Bible. I mean one of the things that that gets us in trouble with the book of Revelation is because it is it is literally different from the other books we treat it differently but it's not. It is an epistle. The proof of that is it has the two marks that every epistle has. It is written to specific churches seven that we looked at in chapters two and three and it ends with the benediction in verse 21 the same benediction of all the other epistles the grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all amen and epistles are meant to instruct us towards a life of faith and obedience. We are according to Jesus Christ speaking in verse 7 to repent and to believe to be saved to be ready for the return of Jesus Christ. This is not a book of speculation. This is not a book to be studied for primarily what information you can get out of this is a book of preparation to prepare us for faith and obedience and bless other we if we obey that's how it can be translated in Greek if we obey the words of the prophecy of this book. Second we are called to worship God. I John the one who heard and saw these things when I heard and saw that I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me but he said to me you must not do that. I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers the prophets and all who keep the words of this book worship God. That is the end goal for all of the books of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation in this life. It's to bring us to repentance and faith that we might worship God Jesus said this is what the Father is seeking those who will worship him in spirit and truth that's why we selected this book for this year of worship. That's why the theme of worship is all through this great revelation. There are two humanities according to this but can only two those who worship the Lamb who was slain and those who do not and we are called to worship God to worship him in spirit and truth thirdly we are called to be holy and to avoid the filth of Babylon versus 10 through 12 and he said to me do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book. For the time is near let the evil do or still do evil and the filthy still be filthy and the righteous still do right and the holy still be holy. Behold I am coming soon bringing my recompense with me to repay each one for what he has done. Here is a call to holiness. Let the filthy continue to be filthy. Let those who do right do right and still be holy. Like the author of Hebrew said without holiness no one will see the Lord. This book is also a book about holiness. It's about worship but it's about holiness all through these 22 chapters. Jesus Christ brings these two humanities to a point where they must make a decision whether they will live for him holy life or live against him in experienced judgment and this is a final reminder that nothing unclean will enter into this new world but that which is a testable or false will be destroyed. In fact he says they will be thrown into the lake that burns with fire and sulfur which is the second death. Holiness my friends is not an option. I know we think today in our world that it is. Evangelicals think that holiness can be something you take relief as long as you ask Jesus into your heart that's all it counts. I got an article that someone left on my desk was on vacation. A new study born out by the research of the National Association of Evangelicals that says that evangelical Christians fornicate have children out of wedlock, committed adultery and engage in homosexual activity at the same percentage rate and activity as the people of the world. There is nothing apparently that is an urgent call to holiness in American evangelicalism and I'm here to tell you that is really dangerous. I leave it up to you to go study Hebrews chapter 12 was 14 and come up with a different interpretation to these words without holiness no one will see the Lord. You study that yourself but I think the book of Revelation is very clear. Let those who were unredeemed continue to act like it. This angel says let those who are clean be holy. Now's the time to be cleansed. Now is the day of redemption. Paul said to people that there are many immoral people who will not enter the kingdom of God and such were some of you but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God washed, cleaned, made holy and even though we don't like to hear this even though I know you think I'm being legalistic I'm warning you that Sunday you will stand before God and the one thing he will examine is your holiness. That's just the truth. There's a fifth exhortation perhaps because we lack this holiness that we accept God's invitation to be saved now. It's in verse 17 and the spirit and the bride say come and let the one who is thirsty come, let the one who desires to take the water of life without price. There is this urgent call to be saved, to come, to come to Christ that's the spirit giving the invitation, the bride inviting them. Individual Christians who've been saved inviting others, only two qualifications are necessary. You must be thirsty for the waters of this river of life, you must be willing to receive the fruit of these trees without cost, accepting the free gift of God through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I skipped one of the exhortations by the way, the fourth one. It's in verses 14 through 16 and that is that because we lack holiness, we be cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ, verse 14. Blessed are those who wash their rooms so that they may have right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by its gates. Outside of the dogs, the sorcerers and the sexually immoral, the murderers and idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood, I Jesus have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright and morning star. There is a final exhortation here in this book to come to Christ, to be cleansed by the blood, to be washed clean and along with this invitation for salvation, there is the invitation to be marked with the brand mark of Jesus Christ as one of his. Sixthly, we are told not to tamper with this book of Revelation, verse 18. I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book. If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes away from the words of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city which are described in this book. Here's a warning, perhaps primarily for preachers and teachers, for those who write commentaries and write books. J. Ramsey Michael says, we who presume to write commentaries on the book of Revelation, or for that matter of fact any of the book of the Bible, are assuming the serious, even frightful responsibility. But the same is true for those who teach the Bible in the church or preach from the pulpit. And yet this burden is not limited to the commentator to the pastor or the clergyman. The point of the curse at the end of this book of Revelation is the same responsibility that rests on every reader or here or the word of God. Not everything in the Bible is to be kept or obeyed for much of it is purely descriptive and informational. But there are things that we must do. Every book of the Bible has imperatives as well as indicative. What God has done demands a more response. In every book including this last book there was something to keep, something to obey, some way to walk. And the hears cannot pick and choose what to obey and what to ignore. And if they do so, they do so at the peril of their own souls. That is the thrust of Jesus Christ's last warning in his last book. I think in a sense Jesus is saying of all the books of the Bible, this is the last one you want to be silly about. Trying to figure out when the temple we were built, and who that Antichrist is, and what's going to happen to Russian, China, America in this book, this is not a book about speculation. It's a book with a silver message. As far as I know, it's the only book where a curse is pronounced upon people who don't use the book properly. Seventhly and finally, we should be able to say, come Lord Jesus, come soon. Verse 20. He who testifies to these things says, surely I am coming soon. Amen. Come Lord Jesus, the grace of the Lord Jesus, be with you all. Amen. The English standard translation has rendered this final verse in the English as we would say it, but the verses used to say maranatha. They used the aeromake word that means Lord come. It's the third time in this chapter that Jesus says, I am coming soon. Look in verse 7. I am coming soon. Hold fast to what you have that no one may see you. Ground that's chapter 3. Look at verse 7. Behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book. Verse 12. Behold, I am coming soon. Bring in my recompense with me. Verse 20. Surely I am coming soon. Four times, including chapter 3, Jesus Christ makes a point by saying, I am coming soon. One commentator said, there is nothing left on God's eschatological calendar, except the coming of Jesus Christ. That's the only redemptive act Jesus Christ has yet to perform. His second coming to judge the living and the dead is a marvelous book. We've been in it for seven months, 28 sermons. We've gone from the land that was slain to the lion who will judge from the churches who struggle to the churches in glory. We've seen the end of the world portrayed us in seven different ways. We've been called again and again to Jesus Christ and to the city of God. You know, it was 37 years ago back in 1975 that I entered a Protestant church for the first time. It was on a Sunday night like this. It was in the summertime. It was hot as blazes and Memphis, Tennessee. And my friend, Wiley Patterson, kept pestering me to go to church. And finally, just to get him out of my back, I said, okay, what can it hurt? What damage can one Protestant service do to this Catholic boy? Now look at me. You've made a total wreck out of me. And I went in there, and Jimmy Latimer was just beginning to study the book of Revelation. First time I'd ever heard expository preaching, but not only that, it was the first time I watched a man open up the Bible and get excited about it and believe that these things really were as they said they were, and that Jesus Christ was coming soon. By the end of that series on Revelation, I'd become a Christian. This is the book that really began my life with God. That's why I make it a point once every month, 12 times a year, to read through the book of Revelation. I've never seen a book that answers so many of life's questions, not the bizarre ones, but the real ones. Not God and man and sin and salvation, like this one. And I've never known a book anywhere in the world or in this Bible that said so many times, behold, I am coming soon. I was watching this BBC production back in the 80s called AD, the trials in triumph of the church. And at the end of the movie, Peter is an old apostle and he's got these little children around him in the city of Rome and he's teaching them about the word maranatha. He says, we have a saying as Christians, maranatha, Lord comes soon. And he teaches these children to repeat that little mantra, maranatha. There's a Roman senator watching him and he said, Peter, he said, I'm here to warn you that your life is in danger. And Peter says, oh, he says, my journey has come to an end. But the journey of you and these children is just beginning. And as he returns home, he's arrested and crucified upside down. And the next thing, Paul, is getting off a boat, a ship in Rome. And the Roman centurion meets him. And he says, are you Saul of Tarsus? And he said, who is asking? And the thought centurion says, you're under arrest in the name of the emperor of Rome. And Paul says, for what crime? And the centurion says, for preaching about this man named in Paul says, Jesus, you might want to remember that name. You may see him soon. Both of these ancient apostles facing their death. And what is on their mind? This book. A few years ago, I was in Westerville, Ohio, with my little granddaughter Hannah. She was about four years old. And I've told you this story, but it's a precious moment. And she said, Pample, are you old? I said, yes, I am. She said, are you going to die? I said, soon. She teared up, said, Pample, I want you to die soon. I said, well, it won't be real soon, but it'll be sooner than you. She said, well, I don't want to die either. I said, well, you have a long time to think about that. I said, Hannah, why don't you want me to die? She said, because I don't want you to go away from me. I said, well, we ran this little park on the playground. I said, when I die, I'm going to go to the city of God. She said, God lives in the city. I said, yeah, he does. She said, is it like Columbus? I said, oh, yes, it is. And I began to describe out of these last two chapters what this city was like. And finally, she said, you know, Pample, I want to go to that city. And I said, I'm going to do all I can to take you with me. As I picked her up, the sun was setting in the west. And I began to walk away. The sun was behind me. And she said, Pample, look. She pointed to the skyline. She said, it's the city of God. And God had orchestrated that night the clouds to look like a castle with walls. I mean, it looked like a skyline. And behind it was this glowing radiant beams of light. It looked just like a heavenly city. And I said, well, Hannah, there you go. The city of God waiting for you and me. That's what this book is about. From its introduction to its epilogue, most graphically in the book of Revelation, it's about God in his hometown waiting for you and me. God sending his son into the world. And saying to his son, now son, these are my people. Go get them. And the sun's saying, Father, when I come back, bring them all with me. They're not, not be one who fails to make it home to the city of God. What a marvelous book. I'm almost sad to leave. And in fact, next Sunday, we're going to start with Revelation chapter 1, verse 1 again. And it makes me glad that in Memphis, Tennessee, God visited me one night and said, boy, you come with me. I'm taking you home to the city of God. Amen? Let's pray. Father, we are so thankful that you have prepared a place for us. Jesus said that on the night before he was killed. He said, I go to prepare a place for you. If I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself so that wherever I am, you may always be with me. And we say, Maranatha, Lord come soon. Come and take us home from this world, home to the city of God, home to the new creation, home to paradise regained. There may be, as is always the case in all of our worship services, there are people here who are not able to say, Lord come quickly. They are not redeemed. We pray they would be so tonight that they would put the mark of Christ upon themselves by trusting in Him, by turning away from the filth of this world, the filth of Babylon. And by moving in a God-word direction, as Christ leads them from here to eternity into the place of symmetry and light and abundance, home where we belong, where we will see our Father face to face. Give us encouragement along the way, strength in this struggle, perseverance and persecution, spirits of worship, praise, strength in our prayer life, endurance in our faith. And most of all, visions of this glory you intend for us to encourage us in our earthly pilgrimage. Bring all of the hannas along with us, all of our children and grandchildren, great grandchildren to, to a hundred generations, bring them to Christ, bring them to grace, bring them into the place where there is no fear, no weeping, no pain, no sorrow, no night, but only the glory of Jesus Christ and your smiling face upon us. And do this quickly we pray. Soon for we are waiting for Jesus Christ to come again and take us home. And so we ask this and we pray this, according to Jesus' will and purpose, and in His name, amen.