chapter 22. If you've been following along, that is the final chapter of the book of Revelation. And it has been good for me. I hope that it has been helpful for you as we have worked our way through this. We have two more messages from this study in the book of Revelation. I want to read for you this morning. The first five verses of chapter 22, the first five verses. And if you're able, I would ask you to please stand as I read this portion of God's inspired and holy word. All of it is true. And it is for our good. This is the word of God. Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life bright as 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 his servants will worship him. They will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads 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. This is the word of God. Let's pray. Now, O Lord, would you help us to understand your word? Spirit, would you apply it to us that we might be sanctified today, conformed more and more to the image of our Lord? We ask this through Christ our word. Amen. You may have a seat. Well, the Bible begins and ends with a tree, doesn't it? Do you remember that term we learned a few weeks ago? It's a technical term. The term is Inclusio. Do you remember that? An Inclusio is a word or a clause that acts as sort of bookings and everything in between that word that's said here and that word that is said there. Everything in between is sort of shaped by that word or that clause or that idea. That's an Inclusio. Well, you could say that the tree of life acts as a sort of Inclusio for the entire Bible, for the whole art of human history. That among other things, that means we can't really understand our lives. Not fully apart from the thing that book ends our whole history. My concern is that the contemporary church makes way, way, way too little of the central theme of these last two chapters of Revelation, which is to say the contemporary church makes way too little of the very thing that is the ground of our hope. Much of contemporary preaching today places our hope in small things. In little things. God will give you everything you want now if you'll just have enough faith. God will heal you and make you perfectly healthy if you'll just give enough. God will make you rich if you just sow your seed of faith in my ministry. These are small things. Petty things, misleading things. We've aimed too low. In my concern is that that is why preaching today sounds more like TED talks with a little Jesus thrown in. There's very little preaching about heaven, about eternal life, about the new creation, about what it means to be in the presence of God. And so we don't hope for that because we have not been trained to hope in that. It's because we've been so shaped by individualistic post-enlightenment assumptions that the actual God given goal of our lives is neglected for lesser things. Well, we want to push against that. In this opening section of chapter 22, John sees three things that help ground our hope where it needs to be. He sees a river. He sees a tree. And he sees a throne. Let's zoom in on those a bit. First of all, the river. You see their inverse one. Again, then the angel showed me the river of the water of life. It's not just any river. It's not just any body of water. It is the river of the water of life. Brightest crystal because no doubt it reflects the goodness in the glory of God because it is flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. Now that is packed with a freight train of theology. In the Old Testament, the Lord speaking through the prophet Jeremiah said this. He said, my people are guilty of two sins that have appalled all of heaven. Now that gets our attention doesn't it? What are the two sins that my people have committed that leaves all of heaven appalled? What are they? And the Lord, through the prophet identifies those two sins. He says, first, they have stepped over me the spring of living water. And instead, number two, they have hewn out for themselves dug out for themselves, systems that are broken that can hold no water. Those are the two sins that God's people have a tendency to commit that they step over the spring of living water. And they dig out for themselves holes in the ground that can hold no water. Or another way to conceive of sinful man as this is the daily, daily, practice of stepping over a pure stream in order to drink from an open sewer. In Revelation chapter 21, God promises to give to the thirsty water from the spring of life without payment because he's already paid the price. And right here in chapter 22, flowing from the very presence of God is the river of life. God is our life. The point is not merely that God gives life or gives life supporting things, but it points to the fact that he gives us himself for he is our life. What do we read about Jesus in the prelude to John's gospel in him was life and the life was the light of men. What is Jesus proclaim about himself that he is the way, the truth and the life. In John chapter 7, Jesus stood up in the midst of one of the religious festivals that the people observed every year. And in the midst of that, he says, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. And what he was doing in that moment was very powerful. He was saying, now you have for generations observed this particular festival for a particular God given reason, but the point of it all now is here. If you're thirsty, you come to me. To the one who drinks the Lord promised this, out of his heart, will flow rivers of living water. Of course, you remember when Jesus encountered the Samaritan woman getting water from a well at a time where there would be few or no people at the well such was the shame of her sin. Jesus encountered it. He said, whoever drinks the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Over and over again, what Jesus offers is not self-improvement hacks, but life. He gives us life. And there's a longing in that for us. I think at the bottom line, I think that the reason why we pursue silly things or simple things is that in one way or another, we are looking for something that will make us feel alive. But we just keep going to the wrong thing. In him was life and the life was the life of men. That's the river. This river of life that comes from the throne of God. So John sees that there. In the middle of this garden city is the river of life. The second thing he sees is the tree. But there again in verse 2. And this is a peculiar thing. I want you to pay attention to what he's describing here. 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. What an odd tree, isn't it? John describes here this city garden, and along with the river, John sees right through the middle of main streets of this city of garden, this city garden. He sees right through the middle of it a tree, and not only does he see it right in the middle of the street, but he also sees it on both sides of the river of life. He's seeing this tree in multiple locations, in other words. Now in the first few chapters of Genesis, we read of the Tree of Life, a single tree in the middle of the garden. And it stood there as God's promise of eternal life to the man and the woman on condition of their obedience. Now later in Ezekiel's vision, Ezekiel is given this vision of the eschatological temple as it were, and he describes there, not a single tree, but an entire grove of trees from which there is life and healing. Here in John's vision, it seems that both realities are in view. He describes, quote, the Tree of Life, which harkens back to what was lost when our first parents send in the garden. But what he actually is describing is an entire forest that flourishes right through the middle of Main Street as it were, and on either side of the river of life. How appropriate that in the new creation God replaces the one tree of life that was lost with a whole forest, which produces 12 kinds of fruit, 12 is an important number, isn't it? What tree do you know about produces 12 kinds of fruit? And it's never out of season, the leaves are always there. Theologian Douglas Kelly writes this quote. In the original Eden, there was only one tree of life, and it was guarded after the fall by the cherubim with flaming sword. But in the new Eden, there are forests of trees of life on both sides of that river. This illustrates the principle in Romans chapter 5 verse 20 that where sin abounded, there did grace much more abound. The generosity of God is hard for us to take in. It's good, isn't it? Now, that the leaves are for the healing of the nations is meant to indicate the permanent state of wholeness and health in the new creation. The very next clause at the beginning of verse 3, underlines that no longer will there be anything accursed. So sickness, decay, death, all a part of the curse placed upon the earth in the wake of Adam and Eve's sin, it will be removed. It will be removed. And the tree, the forest of life, will be that constant reminder that there is no sickness, no decay, no death in the new paradise, not even the potential for it. And so the leaves of the tree are not therefore healing sickness in heaven, but are symbolic of the eternal healing that is always there. Just last week, a story popped up in my newsfeed that it was so curious because it happened while I was working on the sermon and the thing that caught my eye is that it was a story about a tree and I thought, well, I'm writing about a tree here, what is this? I mean, I'm not making this up. And so I clicked on the story and here's the story. Britain's oldest tree known as the major oak, it's insured wood forest by the way. It's estimated to be 1,200 years old. Legend has it that Robin Hood hid there and used it for shelter. I just hope that's true. I would love for that to be true. But that tree, now, after having reached the ripe old age of around 1,200 years, appears to have died. It's been struggling for some years and this past season it produced no leaves at all. You see, it is a remarkable thing for an oak tree to live that long. What is not remarkable is that it's died. That was inevitable. But not so in the age to come. Life there is not symbolized by an ancient but ultimately doomed tree. But by a tree of life indeed a whole forest of life. That great forest growing right through the middle of the street. Growing all along both banks of the river, that forest never rests from bearing fruit every month. A whole variety of fruit is produced in that grove. Leaves that will never wither, a supply that is never cut short. That's what life will be like there. No longer will there. Be any endurance on our part of oh another day. We'll never get tired in heaven of the passage of moments because each moment will be good and blessed and brilliant. Again Douglas Kelly writes this quote, heaven is full of changing variety. As we look at the multiplicity of colors in John's vision, like this kaleidoscope of colors. As we look at this forest, this life giving forest with all of its leaves and its varied fruits. He writes, heaven is full of changing variety. When we get to heaven, we will never have been so alive as we are then. It is a vital place. heaven is in no sense static or boring frozen or chiseled. It is the liveliest place you could ever be and it gets better all the time. Thirdly, he sees a throne. Notice from verses one and three that this vision in fact is bracketed by mention of the throne. Look there again at verse three. No longer will there be anything accursed but the throne of God and of the lamb will be in it and his servants will worship him. In verse one we see the river of living waters flowing directly from the throne. That is a that is a reference to God's blessed presence with his people. Now in verse three, John draws a contrast between what occurred due to the fall which is mankind and all creation was cursed. And what will be the reality in the age to come that is God will now again dwell right in the midst of his people. Heaven is heaven because God is there. In Psalm 16, David writes, in your presence, is fullness of joy at your right hand our pleasures forevermore. In Islam there is a dark vandalization of that truth where the paradise and the pleasures of the age to come have to do with sexual appetites and all manner of physical appetites mainly reserved for the men. It's what the demonic does. It takes God's precious promises and it vandalizes corrupts, profanes them. The pleasures forevermore in the age to come have to do primarily with being in the presence of God with finally, at long last seeing him. And so what are we going to experience? What are our experience be like there? Let me give you a couple of ideas. First of all this is what we will experience in the new creation. The multifaceted and ever new blessings of God. I'm very intentional in my language there because I'm trying to reflect what John is describing. The multifaceted and ever new blessings of God. What Douglas Kelly referred to earlier there is that there will be nothing static as it were in heaven. Nothing, nothing boring, nothing as he writes, nothing chiseled, but this great tremendous multifaceted, ever fruitful growth of joy. And so how light God is it to replace the lost tree of life with a whole forest. The tree forest of life depicted in John's vision is filled with those 12 different kinds of fruits. And it's always in season. It's this wonderful depiction of the abundant and very blessings of God in the age to come. This is our future blessedness. It's a blessedness that we will never grow tired of because it's multifaceted joy. It's like a brilliant gym expertly faceted by the finest carver in the world. And everywhere we look, there's a new break of color. Everywhere we look there is a new ray, a new thing to see that we did not see before. Notice in verse 5 that we will be bathed in light as it were. And not merely light from a massive ball of flaming gases, but we will be bathed in the Lord's own light, the light of His presence. We've already seen the multiplicity of colors that John has sought to put into words. The idea of this kaleidoscope, I believe, is to reflect all the different ways, the endless ways, the eternal ways in which we will experience the joy of the Lord's presence. Now here's one of things I love and we're going to mention this again in just a moment. But in heaven we still remain created beings, right? We're not Mormons, we don't become gods. We remain created beings. And even in heaven we remain finite. Now we have eternal life, but that's different from being infinite. God only is infinite. Always been always will be existing outside and over time. We will still in glory and this is what you've got to get. This is the good thing about our creatureliness. We will still experience time as it moves. And why that's good is because every moment will bring a new joy. And so we will in the new creation experience, the multiplied, multifaceted, ever new blessings of God. Secondly, we will know God's blessed presence. And this is the center of it all. We will know His presence. In verse 4 we see, they will see His face. Now that clause oughta hit us like a ton of bricks. One commentator writes that this promise quote underscores the unimaginable wonder and joy awaiting all who are members of the bride through faith in the Lamb. It's a radical statement to say that we will see His face because this is something that has never been permitted. It's true that when Jesus' contemporaries looked at him, they were looking at God. If you were to have been alive during Jesus' lifetime on the earth, if you had seen Him, you were looking at God, but you were looking at God through the protective veil of the incarnation. No human being has ever been permitted. No sinful human being has ever been permitted to see God's face in all of its unveiled glory until that day when we see Him. I think of the ancient benediction of Aaron that he was commanded to place upon the people way back in the book of numbers. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you. Do you realize that what that benediction was pronouncing was a hope for something that we will not fully know until heaven that we would see the shining face as it were of God Himself. One of my favorite Psalms is Psalm 27 in which David expresses His longing to see the Lord. He writes, one thing have I asked of the Lord. This is what I see that I may dwell in the house of the Lord forever to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple. If it says, this is the thing, I want more, you know, when David was at His best, man, He was good, wasn't He? This is what I want to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord to see Him. And when we reflect on that far too little, we are removing from ourselves so much of the motivation we have in this life to live for God's glory. God, abiding with His people is the consummation of redemptive history. It's where we're headed. It's the reality that gives shape to our lives. It is the great blessing at the center of the new Eden to behold our Lord. Earlier generations of Christians called this the Beatific Vision, the beautiful vision. When God's perfected in glorified people will be hold for the very first time in all of His Beatific Blessedness, the beauty of His perfection. I just read this this morning so I'm going to read it for you. Not the book, just this portion of this one page. This is from Sam Parkinson's, one of Sam Parkinson's doos. Sam is a theology professor at my alma mater and he wrote this book to gaze upon God. It's an introduction of the doctrine of the Beatific Vision. And he writes this, I've referred to some of what he writes just a second ago. He writes, creatures do not cease to be creatures in glory. In other words, we will still be created beings in glory. In whatever sense a creature sees the essence of God, God in all of his unveiled perfection. He sees him in a creaturely mode of knowing which always falls short of the no ability of God. Now follow him here. Even in glory, we will see God not as God's equal, but as God's creation. So we'll still see him and know him only as a creature is able to do that. He says though all creaturely existence is a gift in including our limitations. He says this, and as our capacity for comprehension and vision expands, so will be our delight. In other words, the very limitations we are tempted to be moan create the possibility of never ending delight, where each level of enjoyment is topped by the next forever. This upward spiral into deeper, be a specific communion with the Trinity will never be exhausted because we are finite and the object of our delight is infinite, our blessedness will increase forever. Then that makes sense. That even in heaven, even in our glorified state, in our state of being perfectly sanctified, we will still be creatures who must still grow in knowledge and in understanding and that's why when we finally see him, the the newness of the joy will never wear off. Because each moment in each day will be something new again, a deeper joy once again. One of the things we know about pleasures in this lifetime is that they always have an expiration date, don't they? Now for a moment we think they won't, and it's amazing at how good we are at fooling ourselves that they won't. After a lifetime of experience of seeing how pleasures sought and achieved end up losing their gloss, we still think the next one might last and it doesn't. Where does that longing come from? Where does the longing for perfect joy, for perfect satisfaction come from? Where does it come from? It comes from the fact that our lives are bookended by this hope to be once again in the living presence of God. Notice there in verse 4 that the Lord's name will be on our foreheads. This is symbolic of the fact that the Lord will seal us unto Himself. In a sense this is already happened because the Holy Spirit has already sealed us unto salvation. Praise God for that. But the imagery here of this public mark on us goes further because I think it's a way of identifying the Lord's pleasure in having sealed us. The Lord's pleasure in being directly identified with Him. I mean it isn't that a remarkable thing to think that the Lord will gain pleasure from saying of you. He belongs to me. She's mine. That would give pleasure to the Lord. His presence among us is not reluctant. He is not merely going to tolerate us. He's going to sign us like a master does his masterpiece. And then finally what will we experience there? We will experience a renewed status as God's vice-regions. Verse 5 and they will reign with Him forever and ever. What that does not mean is that we will sit in big golden chairs all day. You know, reigning in some abstract way. Well what are you doing? Well I'm reigning. Can't you see my big chair? That's not what that is. The new creation will not be boring. You outdoorsy types. Trust me. You won't be bored. You will not be bored. The original status given to mankind will be renewed. The redeemed will be God's fully active vice-regions just as we were in the first creation, the first garden temple. Remember that when God created the man in the womb and he created them in part for the purpose of blessed productivity his vice-regions on the earth. And here we see the return of that blessed mandate. We will reign with him forever and ever. Harry Blomire is a Christian philosopher one time student of CS Lewis wrote this quote. Heaven involves the transfiguration of man the maker. What man has made of his world by the exercise of his God-given brain and muscles is surely to be redeemed with him. What mankind has made which is worth making and has shown the divine spark of creativity and action will surely be preserved in some way. I think he's right. If we were to be productive in the first creation, surely we are made to be productive blessedly so in the new creation. If man in a fallen world, I think about this because the completion and the dedication of it was just in the last two weeks, if fallen man in a fallen world can make something as stunning as the Sagrada de Familia in Barcelona, look it up. Some of you know exactly what it is, the most phenomenal structure perhaps on the face of the earth right now. If mankind in a fallen world can do that imagine our creative capacity in heaven. It's a terrible thing to think that life in the new creation will be boring or monotonous just the opposite. Everything tedious, unfruitful and boring will be strictly banished. We will know a kind of activity and productivity that will be more lively and satisfying and fruitful than anything we could possibly know in this world. What the Bible teaches us about the end of the age, about our eternal bliss in the presence of God. What the Bible teaches us about that is simultaneously helping us to understand what our lives are for now. Who are we? Why are we here? Answers to those questions are found in the answer to this question. Where are we going? That's why our shorter catacysm begins with a question about our end. Have you ever noticed that? What is the chief end? The chief goal of man? The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. That's why our catacysm begins. What is our end? What does the end look like? What is the eternal goal for us? If you don't know that you'll miss the mark here. Understand that and you will know so much about why you are here and how you should live. So think about it. Where should I be investing my time talent and treasures? Well, first of all think about heaven. And that will help you answer that. Should I seek to serve at this moment or demand to be served? Well, think about heaven for a second. Or how about this? In light of eternity, in light of heaven, in light of where I'm headed, is it best that I hold on to an ugly grudge right now? Is that a good thing? Or how about this? Should I indulge in this petty provision right now? Well, think about heaven. Should I stubbornly refuse to humble myself and be reconciled to my spouse? Or is hard hardedness best? Think about heaven for a little bit. Some of the churches that John was writing to directly in Revelation had to hang on to that idea think about heaven. Why? Because their question was, do I compromise? Or do I get dragged off to prison? Think about heaven. Do you see how clarifying? It is simply focused on the end. Far from impractical, such a focus is uncomfortably practical. And maybe that's why Christians tend to give it little or no thought. Let me ask you this. What would happen in this valley? If a thousand heavenly-minded Christians were unleashed. People who were so heavenly-minded that they were profoundly earthly good. In John 14, Jesus is seeking to comfort His disciples because He's just told them that He's going to die and that it's necessary for Him to die and they're distressed by this. It's like, don't understand it. And so He tells them not about temporal comforts. He doesn't say, it's okay that I'm going away to die because you're going to get your best life now. He doesn't tell them that. Remember what He said to them? Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me, in my father's house. Where does He directs them immediately to glory? In my father's house or many rooms, if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself that where I am, you may be also. We live under the blessed shadow of that promise. Think of those hands once ruined by the spikes of crucifixion, the very hands that have gone to prepare a place for you. Think of the heart that was pierced by a Roman spear is the heart of love that beats with affection for you that He would prepare a place just for you. And in a particular portion of the Heidelberg catacysm, it reflects on each one of the clauses of the Apostles Creed. And one of those clauses in the Apostles Creed that we recite is, I believe in the life everlasting. And here's how the Heidelberg catacysm applies that. Question 58 is this, how does the article concerning life everlasting comfort you? And here's the answer. Even as I already now experience in my heart, the beginning of eternal joy, so after this life, I will have perfect blessedness, such as no I has seen nor ear has heard, no human heart has ever imagined a blessedness in which to praise God forever. Hallelujah, let's pray. And now, O Lord, we ask that your word would be deeply rooted in our hearts, that the truth would help us to live, that we would be hopeful, faithful, courageous, that Lord our gaze would be directed routinely back to heaven, back to glory, that when we're tempted to sin, when we're tempted to be bitter, when we're tempted to seek vengeance, we would remember heaven. We would think about our home. When we're tempted, Lord, to retreat, when we're tempted to escape, when we're tempted to dabble in toadry sins, help us to think again about heaven, about our home. We pray this through Christ our Lord. Amen. Let's stand together.