Corona Chronicles - Crown of Gold

Welcome to Corona Products. We are approaching the end of the book of Revelation, and we are in chapter 21. There are glorious things in this chapter in the next chapter, and we've spent a lot of time and a lot of important time, necessary time looking at judgement, and I'll need to a pair of judgment, and but we're coming on to the other side of the great white throne now. And, you know, we're gonna slow down a little bit in these chapters just to to to get all the all the goodness out of them. And we're gonna do the first 3 verses of Revelation 21.

Then I saw a new heaven a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Now the dwelling of God is with men and he will live with them. They will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God. These these these these are next 2 chapters are just so full.

We're gonna have to get quite slow in them because they're so beautiful. And again, they're a sort of summary of the whole of what God is about, you know, in fact, wanting to dwell with people. We've gone from 1 god and haven't we. We've got created Eeden and walked with Adam and Eve in the cooler of the day, or at least Adam in the cooler of the day. That fellowship in the garden dwelling together 2 now, we're coming back into this garden city where God dwells.

But I think what is what is interesting is, in 1 sense, This is not a picture of heaven -- Mhmm. -- of the new creation, even though verse 1 says, you know, he's seeing this. But it goes on really to be a picture of us, God's people in heaven, doesn't it? And we're explained. Oh, it's strange, isn't it?

Because In verse 2, it says, I saw the city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. You think, okay, there's a city. Yeah. And then, prepared as a bride, yeah, beautifully dressed for her husband. Yeah.

So either the angel is sort of lying, He says, I'm gonna show you the city, and then you see the bride. Oh, the bride is the city and the city is the bride, which is obvious. But most brides wouldn't like to be called a city, wouldn't they? No. If you said, gosh, she looks like a city.

Yeah. Yeah. And she comes down the road. Yeah. Broad as a brick house.

Yeah. No. But as you say, these are these are mixing images for the church that we find in the rest of the bible. So, you know, we are described as the temple of God and that Christians are living stones that are being built together around the chief cornerstone of Jesus. So city and building imagery is used at the church, and that's something that God is constructing around his son.

But then the bride, the bride is a really lovely image as well, isn't it from the bible? You get it in song of Solomon, the ephesians. And it's a picture of of of of the the uttermost intimacy, isn't it? The the love and the covenant that exists between us and our God. So we are his people, and we're we're coming for our for our great great wedding day.

And I think, as you said just now, you know, this idea that we're not seeing heaven in this sense. We are seeing the new creation, aren't we? This is a new heaven and a new earth. And lots of people still have a very, you know, very impoverished understanding, heaven, just as a kind of spiritual world and you know, it's gonna be very boring and very unreal. But but actually, CS Lewis was on the mark, wasn't he?

When he when he said that this world is the shadow You know, so when you look at an oak tree in this world, however beautiful it is, it's only a shadow of what an oak tree will really look like. You know, everything will be more real and more colorful and more bright and more engaging and than than ever. So that's what we're seeing tied up in this as well. Yeah. In in comparison to the city of Babylon -- Yes.

Yeah. -- a halt. Yes. As we were saying, you know, it's it's it's less than it it was. This is more than we could ever imagine and an amazing And an amazing thing that we're it's a city where God dwells.

Yeah. And yet, this is the bride. So, there's this intimacy of the dwelling of God with his people and we we dwell in with him. And that that they're sort of prepared as a bright beautifully dress for her husband. There's no shame there.

There's no Oh, I'm a bit poor. There's no Oh, I I I didn't do all the righteous so I wish I had. There's there's no You know, it is a glorious bride. In the presence of an even more glorious husband, dwelling with God. And that that That is what makes heaven or the new creation, the new creation, isn't it?

Yes. You know, the fact that we will dwell with God -- Yes. -- God will dwell with us. So You know, everybody would desire heaven if it was just being reunited with the things I liked, yes, life. But that is not the heartbeat to me.

No. I mean, the heaven at the end of Gladiator, that song is him running through a corner field -- Yeah. -- with his dog and his wife running out of the way. And that's what people think heaven is a terminally sort of sentimental nice things. Yeah.

But it's God. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even even the even as far as I understand, the quranic Muslim heaven -- Mhmm. -- it is it's it's without God.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Allah's not really there. Yes.

It's it's the things that you get from him. Yeah. But it's not the things we get from him so much as him. Yeah. Absolutely.

And the psalmist talk about that, you know, in your presence is fullness of joy at your right hand, the pleasures forevermore. So it's in the presence of God that we find the fullness of joy. Yeah. And this is the answer to the bible's big question because in Eden, as you mentioned, you know, we were dwelling with God. We were walking with him, but there was an expulsion, there was death.

And then the the big question in the bible from then on is, who can ascend the mansard of the Lord? Who can come and dwell with him again? Well, only Jesus and us in Jesus. We can come and dwell with him again. And he's the bridegroom and we're the bride.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah. Okay. But there's 1 thing that people sort of pick on in this a little bit of passage that seems to stir them up, and that it says that there is no c. I actually can't see where that verse is. First 1.

In the first 1. Yeah. First 1. Yeah. Yeah.

And that it's gone because I think any of us who have been to the seaside and have stood on the cliffs or on the beach and looked out over the sea. There there were very few scenes that are more orange aspiring, more humbling, and more beautiful than watching and listening to the ocean. So, the idea of a a new world without that would would feel lacking in glory in some way, And I I personally think see in that form will be there, but what it stands for in the bible is actually a place of darkness and hostility and destruction and and death, and something that can't be tame something that's unruly. You know, so when Jesus calms the storm, you know, he's not preaching against wind and waves. He's showing an authority over evil even in in that case.

So this is the removal of things that are hostile, I think, to God. Yeah. I mean, Austin, but a raging sea stands for satanic activities -- Yeah. -- and the evil of violence of mankind. Yeah.

So that's what I'm saying, isn't it? Because we know that they'll there's a glassy sea -- Yeah. -- in another occasion around. So Yeah. You know, these are Again, we've gotta remember, these are images.

I mean, how do you describe something that is so much more beautiful than we can imagine? You have to use sort of words and images that we know. Yeah. Because because these are shadowy, and there's the reality to come as you should say. Okay.

Well, it's a it's an amazing passage. It's it's talking about the intimacy of of God and his people, husband and wife. And that picture of dwelling. We're we're carrying on these wonderful truths next time.