A New Heaven and a New Earth

RV243-01

The Book of Life

First, there is a reference to the book of life of the Lamb in which is recorded the names of all conceived in the human race since Adam who are destined for heaven. Also, this verse refers to the lake of fire into which are thrown all those who are not recorded in the Lamb's book of life. What a dramatic contrast! Here is a summary of what it's all about. Here are the two sides of the coin. On the one hand, people are recorded in the Lamb's book of life who will spend eternity in heaven. On the other hand, those who are not in the Lamb's book of life will spend eternity in the lake of fire. Everyone will be in one place or the other. This is no trivial matter. This a very serious matter.

One of the uncomfortable things of speaking about this is that our minds spin back to the people we have known here and there in our personal association. For some, we know that their destiny was for heaven; for some, we're not sure; and, for some we know that their destiny was the lake of fire. But the ultimate destiny of every person is one place or the other. We cannot take pleasure in those who end up in the lake of fire, but we have great joy for those who end up in heaven.

There is, after physical death, no second chance. There is not some kind of purgatory where you get another shot at it. The decision for Christ or against Christ (and that's what it's all about) has to be made now. If it is not made now, it cannot be made later. We have indicated that that is true of every person at the point of conception ...

Did you hear what I said? This is not every person born and breathing, but every person at the point of conception, because that's when personhood begins. There are men who once sat on the American Supreme Court who are now facing the judgment of God, having died and passed in His presence. Oh God, what a horror they must face with the blood of millions of innocent children murdered on their hands because of the decision they made to tolerate abortion, and to pretend that a life begun at conception was not what the Bible says it was – the creative Word of God carrying on from that point into eternity.

The Bible is very clear that that is exactly what is happening. From the point of conception, that humanhood is there. And that is all it is. It is not a rathood. It is not a doghood. It is not a monkeyhood. It is a humanhood from the very beginning, and that's the only destiny it will have. These horrible evil men perpetrated such a terrible bloodshed upon our nation for which we are now paying. Have we learn anything from this? No, we have a nation now that is governed by people who are more determined than ever to force this brutality, and this which God calls an abomination, upon the American people.

There is a book. It is the book of life, and at conception is recorded in that book every person, because there is for every person a potential for salvation. Every person is placed in the book of life because God is not willing that any should perish.

In 2 Peter 3:9 we read, "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patience toward you; not wishing for any to perish, but for all the come to repentance." Because it is the desire of God for all to come to repentance and to enter heaven, He has made it possible for all to do that. It starts by being put into the book of life. The book of life is the first step toward entering the eternal realm of heaven.

Unlimited Atonement

In order to remain in life, the lost one must believe the gospel, and trust in Jesus Christ as the Savior, who is the only way into eternal life in heaven with God the Father. In John 5:24, the Holy Spirit presents that in this way: Jesus says, "Truly, truly, I say to you he who hears My Word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but is passed out of death into life." Trusting in Christ for personal salvation immediately seals you to a destiny of an eternity in heaven. There is no other way except through Jesus Christ.

John 14:6 makes that explicitly clear: "Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me.'" So, how about all those people who have created their own rational path of salvation to God? Where are they? Where will they end up? Those who reject God's grace salvation by faith in Christ will have their names erased from the book of life. They were put into the book of life because they had the potential for salvation. Christ has covered their sins. God is not willing that any should perish. He has made every provision, so they're in the book of life. They're ready to be there permanently inscribed. But instead they turn their back upon God's salvation. So, they die outside of Christ. They die without having made a personal acceptance.

The result, Revelation 3:5 tells us: "He who overcomes (that is, a born again person – that's what the term means) shall thus be clothed in white garments. And I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels. To accept Christ as Savior permanently seals your name in the book of life, and then Jesus Christ turns to the God the Father as the name is read, and Jesus, "Yes, confirm that name should be there."

So, what a wonderful presentation we have. What a wonderful provision we have. What a careful supervision God has given to ensure that all who should be in heaven will make it. But most of the human race will despise the grace of God. That's what Jesus said: "The door is small and the way is narrow which leads unto eternal life. And few there be that find it." Most reject the grace of God. They refuse to accept Christ as Savior, and they must inevitably face God's inexorable righteousness and His inflexible justice. They will then be sentenced to the lake of fire.

Even Christians recoil from the thought of being in a place like the lake of fire. And they try to spiritualize it and symbolize it. Some even say the only help you have is here on this earth – the pressures that are on you. But in Matthew 25:41, Jesus made it clear that this is a real place: "Then He (Jesus) will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.'" God prepared this terrible place for the punishment of Satan and his demon angels. And those human beings who reject Christ will be there too.

This is important information. This should be the background of every sermon that is preached at a funeral service. At a funeral, you should not concentrate very much upon the deceased. That is not very helpful because you have a group of people who have been sobered by this occasion sitting out there who are going to face this terrible condition, and who need to be alerted to what Revelation 20:15 says. There is a book of life, and your names are inscribed for eternal life in heaven. And there is an absence of your name that brings you into the lake of fire. Whosoever will may come; and, whosoever won't will be left behind.

One of our ladies attended a funeral recently, and she told me that it was just horrible. The preacher meandered about, being folksy, and trying to reminisce. He kept losing his place on what he was reminiscing about, and trying to bring a human viewpoint comfort instead of saying, "We all know what happened. We all know where this person is if we know the Word of God. And we know that their state is infinitely better than ours. And one day we'll be fortunate to be in their happy position.

In the meantime, we take our secondary position. We do the best we can. However, all of you must decide which "whosoever" you're going to be in: the "whosoever" of John 3:16; or, the "whosoever" of Revelation 20:15. That's what people should be told. When God the Holy Spirit ends up His revelation about the tribulation period with a verse that juxtapositions those two contrasts, then we ought to, at least, at that critical point of people facing the issue of death, stress that to them. That is the way to honor the person and whose memory that service is being held.

The lake of fire, the Bible makes it clear, will be occupied first by the antichrist and the false prophet; then by Satan and his demons; and, finally by all unbelievers from Cain on to the end of the final revolt at the end of the millennium. The lake of fire, the Bible makes clear, is a place of woe; of pain; of torment; and, of oppressive loneliness. God describes it as a place of eternal fire and brimstone. It is a place where the lost suffer forever as their body is being eaten by maggots, and yet is never consumed. What a horrible feature of the lake of fire.

Mark 9:48: "Where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched." Verse 47 indicates that this is a description of hell. Jesus says, "Where their maggots don't die, and the fire of pain of their suffering is never quenched." There is no exit from the lake of fire, and there is no extinction of the person in it. The lake of fire, we have found, is called the second death because it is the final and eternal separation from God.

So, we have seen some very sobering things here as we've come to the end of this great revelation on the tribulation. We have two chapters left, and they will deal with eternity in heaven. It's going to be a much happier scene. But God makes no hesitancy of pulling His punches to say, "Now, pay attention to Me. It amounts to this: your name in the Lamb's book of life; or, the lake of fire. And the choice must be made by you."

We have seen that the great white throne judgment is a judgment to sentence unbelievers to the lake of fire. That lake of fire is finally occupied by all those who rejected Jesus Christ as Savior. The moral guilt of each one of these people is established by the record of works which God has kept on them: their sins; their human good; and, their lack of their name in the Lamb's book of life. At the great white throne judgment, every unbeliever's mouth will be silenced, and all will be declared morally guilty before God.

Romans 3:19 stresses this principle of having nothing to say back to God: "Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may become accountable to God." The Mosaic Law expressed the righteousness of God. If you can't make it (which you don't), then your mouth is closed. You have no response and no justification to say to God, "You shouldn't put me into the lake of fire."

Jesus Christ, as the judge, will Himself sentence each to the lake of fire as per the Matthew 25:41 principle of the lake of fire being formed for Satan and his fellow rebels, human and demonic.

What an outcry of agony and fear there will be heard as the sentence is pronounced. Our imagination runs us wild as we try to grab hold and think what it is going to be like to be standing with these millions of people coming by one-at-a-time to be sentenced by Christ to that lake of fire. What an outcry of agony and fear there will be. What a shedding of tears there will be with no one there to wipe them away. What an emotion of terror there will be with no one to comfort. What an excruciating pain there will be with no one to bring relief. What an oppressive sense of loneliness there will be because there is no access to God. Perhaps worst of all, what a trauma it will be to have a memory, and to remember the peace; the joy; and, the fulfillment which might have been theirs in heaven.

One of the greatest sufferings of the lake of fire is going to be the memory of what might have been. All the lost rebels against God find themselves together in a place of unimaginable horror. All the enemies of God who had no use for Him are all together now at the end at the lake of fire: the humanist who made himself a god; the rich man who had need of nothing but was spiritually dead; the politician with a lust for power to destroy freedom is now a prisoner; the sexual violator who enjoy the pleasures of sin now knows only pain; the educator who exalted the perverted wisdom of human viewpoint is now bewildered by the breakdown of his wisdom; and, the evolutionary scientist who rejected the Creator now finds himself in a hell that He created. The irony of all this is self-evident.

However, the greatest tragedy about the lake of fire judgment is that Christ died to pay the penalty of death for the sins of those in the lake of fire. That's the real kicker. It didn't have to be that way. The moral guilt has already been covered. All those evil sins and all that human good out of the sin nature, which also is evil, that a person has offered to God – that is not the final issue which is sending anyone to the lake of fire. Your sins and your human good are not the issue. The deciding factor is Christ, and thus not to have your name in the Lamb's book of life. No matter how terrible one's record of evil may be in the book of works, to have your name in the Lamb's book of life is sufficient to escape the lake of fire and to enter heaven.

That staggers the human imagination, but that's called grace. Some of the greatest sinners of mankind are listed in the Lamb's book of life. God the Father loved the lost; Christ the Son died in the sinner's place; and, God the Holy Spirit will apply regeneration to the one who believes the gospel. Those standing at the great white throne judgment had despised this divine provision. They preferred to go their own way into heaven by a way they created independent of God. What madness it is to follow a path that leads inevitably to this lake of fire.

Hebrews 2:2-4 observes that: "For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense, how easily escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard Him; God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders, and by various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will." The gospel is true. The gospel has been verified. The gospel has been confirmed. What madness it is to create your own path for salvation, and think that it'll work.

All Religions do not Lead to Heaven

Pride

You have a mission, and your mission will be taken from you if you don't watch your pride. This is Satan's way of getting you to stumble just as he did. He kicked in pride, and in his conceit, he decided that he would take over and create his own will. In our pride, we think that if there is a problem, God can't resolve it. So, we bypass His will, and we step in and we resolve it. But it never works. It is pride that drove Satan to exalt his own will above the perfect will of God. Satan was condemned for his pride, and he ended up in the lake of fire forever instead of heaven – the heaven in which he once dwelt with dignity and honor and authority.

Oh, how sad it is when I think about people in our own circle of association who once moved among us as princes and princesses, who now are out there in the desert land of the spiritual world system (like Demas), because their pride bit into them, and they could not lean back upon God and say, "I'll leave it with Him, but I will keep my eyes on the Lord, and I will press forward to fulfill my mission.

There's one thing, folks, I hope you don't ever want to do, and that is to get up there and stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ, and they pull out the books on you, and you find you didn't fulfill your mission. The last thing on the mind of the apostle Paul, when he knew he was going to be executed, was to say, "Thank God, I've run my course. I fought the good fight. I have finished my calling. I've executed my mission. So, go ahead, take off my head, and I'll rest in the arms of the Lord the next second."

1 Timothy 3:6 refers to this foolish act of Satan in speaking about appointing a person to be a pastor-teacher in a church: "Not a new convert, lest he become conceited by that position of honor placed upon him." Don't put some new guy in there. Don't take some entertainers in Hollywood who has become a Christian, and then put him up to give testimonies, and put him around as a paragon of example. Until he's got some spiritual maturity, his conceit will overcome him. And what will happen? "Not a new convert, lest he become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil." This is the condemnation of God incurred by the devil because of pride.

Just think through history. Just think through biblical history. The pride of Adam and Eve and their superior insights to God's caused them to sin. They thought they had the story straight better than God. It was the pride of Cain to have a more rational way of approaching God with a sacrifice that had no blood. It was the pride of Pharaoh in the superiority of his animal gods. Isn't that intellectuals? Pharaoh was no dummy. He was a great intellect. He was a ruler of one of the greatest empires of the day. And what did he worship? He worshiped as the sun, the dung beetle, the manure beetle, because the Egyptians said that that ball of the sun is a piece of manure, and the little beetle pushes it across the sky every day. That's how come it moves. So, when they saw the little beetle on the ground, they said, "Ah, a little manure beetle," because the little manure beetle would make little balls out of manure. And that's why he put his food in there, and he kept it: "There's my God."

There is nothing like the pride of man to make a fool of an intellectual being. There was the pride of Ahab and Jezebel and their Baal religion over God's Mosaic Law system religion. There was the pride of Absalom, thinking that he could rule Israel better than his father David. That led to his own death. There was the pride of Naaman, that he would not dip seven times at the prophet's instruction in the Jordan when they had better rivers back in his country so that he could wash away his leprosy. Thank God that he put aside his pride. He dipped seven times, and his leprosy was gone.

There was the pride of Korah and her friends in Moses' day, who said they were equally competent to be spiritual leaders of Israel, as were Moses and Aaron, and the earth opened up and swallowed them. There was the pride of Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, upon Solomon's death, that he would rule as a tyrant, and the result was that he divided the kingdom of Israel. There was the pride of Nebuchadnezzar, that he was a god, and superior to all gods, so that God made him live like an animal in the fields for seven years before bringing him back to his senses.

There was the pride of David and his spiritual superiority, that he could fool around with someone else's wife, and the result was adultery, and that subsequent with murder. David had all that pride. David said, "I'm a great man of God. I'm the apple of His eye. I could never do a thing like that." Do you ever think that? There was the pride of the Pharisees and their biblical insights that led them to crucify their own Messiah. There was the pride of Peter and his determined, unswerving loyalty to Jesus Christ, that he would not desert Him under pressure, and promptly did so. There was the pride of Ananias and Sapphira, who wanted to use their money to make an impression as financial supporters of the local church needs, and lied about it to the Holy Spirit; and, their lives were taken. There was the pride of the antichrist to declare himself God above the Creator God, who then ends up in the lake of fire.

There is the pride of liberals who reject the authority of the Bible, and who hold in contempt the restraint of the divine institution of government. There is the pride of those who reject free grace salvation for a system of old sin nature human good works. There is the pride of the liberal theologians who fix up the Bible so that it'll conform to reality.

So, what price corrupts your soul and cuts you out of your temporal fellowship with God; your place of service; and, your eternal rewards? Don't pass that off too quickly. That pride is the serpent that lies in all of us, and it's slithering around, waiting to get a moment to bite you. Where's your pride? What is the area of pride so that you cut yourself out from the will of God? That pride is reinforced by an accompanying sin. And the Bible tries to alert us to that as well.

We have it in Hebrews 12:15, and that is the sin of the root of bitterness: "See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God (with all that that means for you now and in eternity); that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled." God has great rewards for you for your Christian service. But your pride will be reinforced by a root of bitterness that stimulates your pride. And the result will be that you will be defiled, and worst of all, people around you get defiled. God help you if you have a family member that's eating away with a root of bitterness, and feeding a certain pride with that root. That totally disorients the believers from the mind of God. It robs the Christian of his divine mission. It loses his peace with God and with himself. It creates a circle of injury which gives victory to Satan, and hinders the work of the Lord.

So, we're talking about some very serious business when we talk about the lake of fire and the pride that it has brought those people into, and the pride which can bring you and me down as a believer today. No, we're never going to get put into the lake of fire. But the impact of that pride, reinforced by root of bitterness, is just a terrible.

Eternity

A New Heaven and a New Earth

This that we have here is not new, therefore, in time (or recent), but it's new in terms of quality, or its nature. John sees two things that are new. One is the heaven. This refers to the first heaven, the atmospheric heaven with surrounds the earth. This is the area of the domain of Satan. He also says that he sees a new earth. This refers to the planet as the residence of mankind. This place, the earth, has been contaminated by human sin as the first heaven (the atmosphere around the earth) has been contaminated by Satan and the demonic angels' activities there.

So, a new heaven and a new earth are created by God to conform to the moral perfection and physical changes of the eternal state. Way back in the Old Testament, in Isaiah 65:17, this newness was recorded. God says, "For behold I create new heavens and a new earth, and the form of things shall not be remembered or come to mind." Once God creates the new earth and the new heavens, the old sinful earth and heaven will not even come to mind.

So, here's a dramatic change. The old heavens and the old earth have passed away: "I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth (the original creation) have passed away." "Passed away" here means "dissolved." At a certain point in time, this old earth that we're on now, and the heaven of atmosphere that surrounds us is suddenly dissolved. It is, as it were, uncreated.

Jesus indicated that this was going to happen. Matthew 24:35: "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My Words shall not pass away." So, heaven and earth are going to pass away.

Somebody reported recently that they made a survey of what people would grab if their house was on fire. What's the first thing you will grab: your wife; your husband; or, your checkbook? What they indicated they would grab was family photographs. So, those of you have a lot of pictures that you like, I would put them in some fireproof container, because when this earth gets blasted by God, it's gone. If you want those pictures in eternity, you must now take steps to preserve them. This is the first earth. I showed you in the last session that that's what Peter says. He makes that kind of ridiculous comparison. So, what are you all itching about – these things that you're preserving and hanging onto? Once God zaps this earth, it's all going to be gone. Aha, well, what do I keep? You keep what you sent up there. That's what you keep, and that is untouchable. Our destruction of our possessions comes because of the rapture. Once we're removed, we leave it all behind. And if we haven't sent it ahead, it's gone. But if we send it ahead, it's waiting as treasures in heaven for which we will be rewarded.

So, this old earth and this old heaven, as Jesus indicated, is going to pass away. The original heaven and earth are now contaminated by sin. Therefore, they're unsuited to an eternal state of holiness. God will destroy the old heaven and the old earth in a fiery cataclysms in which there will be a meltdown of the elements. 2 Peter 3:10-12: "But the day of the Lord will come like a thief in which the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up."

Verse 12: "Looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, on account of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat." Please don't come up and give me a lesson in science and physics that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. You can't do that, and I can't do that, but God can. He can just uncreate matter that He made in the first place. But you will read theological books that say, "Here's a mistake in the Bible. You cannot destroy matter." God can. Science is wrong again.

So, here's a great cataclysm of destruction with fire from God. The new heaven and earth are going to be completely free, thus, from any contamination of sin. 2 Peter 3:13 says, "But according to His promise, we are looking for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells." The new heavens and the earth are going to be just as very good as the original creation, and be as eternal in nature (Isaiah 66:22).

Water

My plumber came over to my house one day and said, "I want to show you what you're drinking in Irving water. I'm going to perform an electrolysis demonstration before you." That is where you run electricity through the water.

So, he said, "Here's some water that I have brought from my purifier at home. He had a little purifier system hooked up to his kitchen faucet at home that gradually filters the water so that you've always got this absolutely pure water there to drink. So, he brought that from home, and then he took a glass of water out of our faucet, and he turned on the electricity. Gradually, a brown scum formed on the top of that glass of water. And I mean, gradually, this scum is getting foamier and bigger. I knew he wasn't playing a trick on me. He was creating a system of electrolysis to take out these heavy matters.

Then he took his glass of water that had come from his purifier at home and did the same thing. There was absolutely nothing in his water: no scum forming; and, no clouding. It was perfect. I said, "How much?" I immediately got one, and that is a smart thing to do. Well, there is scriptural justification for this. Yes, the Bible speaks of it. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and you should not contaminate.

Secondly, you do need water in your present condition, and you should drink at least 8 glasses of this purified water each day. The first thing that you should do when you get up in the morning, after you brush your teeth, is drink two glasses of that nice, crystal-clear water. That can prevent huge physical ailments. I can't take time now, but I could hold your interest now for quite a while, delineating case histories of problems that people have that the medical world can't solve. And they put these people on a water-drinking program, and these things resolve themselves. It is water that flushes and carries everything through the body. It is water that keeps you healthy above everything else you can imagine, and it's almost free. So, this is a wise thing to do. And aren't you glad you attended this service to find that out? I kid you not. You should take this seriously.

However, with our glorified bodies, all that is behind us. It is very serious now for us to deal with water in that way. But we won't need it in those glorified bodies. Also, our human blood is 90% water, and the body itself is 65% water. So, this is critical. But in the glorified body, you don't need that. No other planet, interestingly enough, has water on it. They can't find water any place out in the solar system because they don't need it. There is nobody there who has to have water.

Saved Jews and gentiles are going to populate the new earth. They don't need water. So, perhaps that's the reason for this statement: "There are no longer any seas." There'll be nothing but land areas.

The New Jerusalem

Isaiah 52:1 says, "Awake, awake. Clothe yourselves in your strength, O Zion. Clothe yourselves in your beautiful garments, Old Jerusalem, the holy city. For the uncircumcised and the unclean will no more come into you." It says, "O Jerusalem, the holy city."

Matthew 4:5: "Then the devil took Him (Jesus) into the holy city (that is, Jerusalem), and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple." Of course, we all remember Jesus sitting up there on the Mount of Olives looking cross that Kidron Valley toward the city of Jerusalem. He was weeping to Himself, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem. How I would have liked to have taken you under My arms into My care like a hen takes her chicks under her wings. But you would not have Me. And you are going to be destroyed until you learned your lesson. Then that city will be restored." The old Jerusalem indeed became a very sinful place. Revelation 11:8 refers to it as Sodom, but it is still the holy city of God.

So, John sees this holy city coming down, and then it's identified as the new Jerusalem. It is indeed the special place that God has. But the old Jerusalem is going to be rubbed out with everything else. And in contrast to the Jerusalem of sin, there will be a city which is suited for the state of sinlessness in eternity. It comes down out of heaven, we are told: "Coming down out of heaven from God." The new Jerusalem is seen by John as descending out of heaven, sent by God. With the creation of a new heaven and a new earth, the new Jerusalem now descends from the third heaven to the earth.

This city is probably in existence during the millennium. There's no indication that it is created right here at this point in time at the end of the millennium. The new Jerusalem may during the millennium (and this is probably the case) be suspended over the earth as a satellite city. It'll still be that old sin-contaminated earth, but the new Jerusalem already will be there as a dwelling place of the saints during that millennial era, and it will be a satellite city over the earth. Revelation 3:12 refers to new Jerusalem as the city of god coming down out of heaven.

This was the city that Jesus was referring to in John 14:2-3. Jesus said, "In My Father's house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.

Verse 2 talks about going to prepare a place for us. That is the new Jerusalem that He's referring to.

Verse 3 says, "He's coming again to receive us." That is the rapture, so that we will be taken to be where He is, and we will find ourselves in this new Jerusalem of God. The New Jerusalem was prepared by the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven in fulfillment of this promise.

We're told in Hebrews 11:10 that Abraham looked forward to a special city as his eternal home. That was New Jerusalem. It is the city that God has prepared for the descendants of Abraham. Hebrews 11:16 is the New Jerusalem.

The home of the New Covenant Christian believer priest is seen in Hebrews 12:22-23, where all these saved inhabitants are brought together: "But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and the myriads of angels, to the general assembly, and the church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and the spirits of righteous men made perfect." Those words refer to Old Testament and New Testament saints.

The New Jerusalem in Galatians 4:22 is referred to as "the Jerusalem above."

We see believers seeking the city to come in Hebrews 13:14: "For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come." That's the new Jerusalem.

The Bible is replete with references to this dramatic, wonderful place, the new Jerusalem. The details about this city are indeed magnificent, and we will be getting into that next time.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1993

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