REVELATION 22 A SNEAK PREVIEW OF ETERNAL LIFE2017 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Revelation 22 A Sneak Preview Of Eternal Life

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2017. This morning as we look at Revelation chapter 22, I've titled the message, A Sneak Preview of Eternal Life.

A sneak preview of eternal life. Now, I don't know why. The movies are on my mind. It must be because there was a Star Wars release this month, and so, you know, the movies are on my mind. But last week, we got to look at the behind-the-scenes glimpse, you know, the behind-the-scenes look at the nativity scene, and what was happening is God pulled back the curtain. He pulled back the curtain.

The word revelation, it means unveiling. It's like something hidden behind a curtain and the curtain is pulled away. And that's what's been happening throughout the book of Revelation with the revelation of who Jesus is. We saw that a couple of weeks back in Revelation chapters four through nine. And then last week in chapter 12, we saw that revelation

that pulling back of what was happening behind the scenes in the spiritual realm in regards to the birth of Jesus Christ and the plan that God had in place and the battle that was taking place along with that in the spiritual realm. Well, now as we're in Revelation chapter 22, we are having the curtain pulled back again. And the Lord is saying, I want to give you a glimpse, a sneak preview. I want to show you the sequel. You know, what's coming next?

And it's not a full explanation of everything that you could ever think about. It's not an answer to every question that you could ever ask or think about. It is not that, but it is a sneak preview. It's glimpses of some different elements and aspects to eternity that God gives us to give us the hope and the understanding of what he has in store for us.

Now, as Revelation concludes, the apostle John is seeing the things of eternity beginning in chapter 21. He says in verse 1, And also there was no more sea.

And then he sees the new Jerusalem coming down and he begins to describe these new heavens and new earth. He begins to describe this new creation that God is accomplishing heading into eternity. The new heaven, a new earth that will last forever and that we will inhabit for all eternity. And chapter 21 and 22 describe that for us and give us many different aspects about eternity that we can experience.

study and consider and be fascinated by. And yet at the same time, as he goes through these things, you can see as you read these chapters, it is not a thorough explanation of all the details. It is some principles. It is some clear things to be able to catch a glimpse of what it is going to be like

But there's also so much more that we don't know about heaven. And there's a lot of things that we can wonder about. There's a lot of things that we have questions about. And that is by design. And it's not that God means to keep us in the dark, but it is that what God has in store for us is so far beyond what we are capable of understanding that all he can give us is the sneak previews.

The apostle Paul talks about this in 2 Corinthians chapter 12. He talks about the time where he was caught up into heaven in a vision, and he kind of wrestles with it a little bit. He says, you know, I'm not really sure if it was a vision or if I actually died and I was there, and then, you know, the Lord sent me back, or I don't really know which one it was, but the Lord knows. But the point is, he says, I was there in heaven, and he says, I heard words that are inexpressible.

that it would not be lawful for a man to utter the things that I heard when I was caught up into the presence of the Lord. As we look at these things of eternity, Paul says, I was there. He doesn't even talk about what he saw. John's trying to describe some of the things he sees. But Paul just talks about, you know what I heard? I can't, I don't have the vocabulary. I don't have the words. We don't have

The capacity in our minds and our emotions and our hearts to really be able to understand God.

How great it is what God has in store for us. That's what Paul is expressing. And that's why we're just getting these glimpses, these little snippets or snapshots for us to be able to have eternity to look forward to and yet not have a full understanding of all that God has in store for us. And so we're going to look at four points this morning as a sneak preview of eternal life to try to grasp hold a little bit, to get a little bit of a glimpse of what God has in store for us.

that we can be hopeful and looking forward to these things that God has prepared.

The first point we find in verse one is we will have a life of unlimited refreshment. Here's a quick sneak preview of eternal life. It is going to be refreshing. It is going to be vibrant and renewing and life everlasting in a way that is not dull, that does not dry out, that does not get old. Check out verse one again. It says, and he showed me a pure river of water of life.

clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. Now, when we start talking about heaven, there's a lot of things perhaps that you might get excited about in the idea of heaven. Probably first on the list is not a river for you, right? You probably, all right, we're going to talk about the river, man. I can't wait to talk about heaven because there's the river, right? It's probably not first on your list, but notice it says this angel shows John a

A pure river of water. This river is important. And God has really been speaking about this river for a long time. If you go way back to Genesis chapter 2.

In the beginning of creation, and you remember how when God created all things in the beginning, it was perfect. It was without sin. It was, well, similar to what eternity is going to be like because sin had not been introduced yet. And there in the Garden of Eden, in Genesis 2, verse 10, it describes this river that goes out of Eden. It's this river that comes from this source of the sanctuary of God, the place where God dwells.

And that fed the rest of the rivers there in the beginning of God's creation. Later on in the book of Ezekiel, we'll see that there is a river that is during the millennial kingdom. And I'm not going to get into all those details about what that is and all the timelines. But in the time when Christ will reign upon the earth, there's going to be a prominent river that flows forth from the temple that gives life.

to all things, and we'll see that in just a moment. Those things are foreshadowing. They're talking about, they're representing what God has in store in eternity in heaven, and that is this pure river of water of life. Now, as you think about this river of

it's appropriate to consider. Is John talking about H2O? Is he talking about actual, literal, physical water, those molecules combined, you know? Is that what he's talking about, or is this just representative of something else? And we can't answer that with all certainty. We don't know exactly. We, of course, know that it's more than just aquafina, right? It's more than just

I can't think of any other brands of water, but it's more than just that. It's more than just H2O because it tells us that it is a pure river of water of life. This is a life-giving water, a refreshing water in a way that what water as we know it cannot bring refreshment. It is a pure river of water of life. In that passage I talked about just a moment ago in Ezekiel,

there when the temple is set up and this river flows forth from it. Ezekiel chapter 47 describes this river as a river that brings life wherever it goes. In Ezekiel chapter 47 verse 9, it says, "'And it shall be that every living thing that moves, wherever the rivers go, will live. There will be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters go there, for they will be healed, and everything will live wherever the river goes.'"

This river in Ezekiel, it's not the river of heaven. It's the river of the millennial kingdom, but it portrays and it shows us some of the qualities and characteristics of this river of eternity. And that is, it is a river that brings forth life.

In the book of Ezekiel, when Ezekiel is describing these things, he's talking about the area of the Dead Sea. And there are no fish in the Dead Sea because the mineral content is way too concentrated for anything to live. But when these waters come, when this river comes and the waters touch the Dead Sea, it's

Things will come to life and life will be brought, life will be produced. There will be a revival of life that takes place wherever this river goes. And that is a really apt description and picture for us of eternity. This river of life, it will bring life. It will give life, this river of the water of life. Now, you and I know what it is like to be thirsty, right?

Every one of us has that understanding because, well, we experience thirst. We get thirsty physically, but also we all have a thirst and we all know what it's like to have a thirst within. Describing that place of being unsatisfied or unfulfilled and our inner thirst really cannot be understated.

Every single human being who has ever lived upon the face of the earth, except for Jesus Christ, has experienced that thirst, that lack, that needing something more to be fulfilled and satisfied, to have that inner ache, that inner thirst be met. King Solomon provides a really good example for trying to quench that thirst because he had unlimited resources.

Anything that he wanted, he could do. And he sought to find a way to quench that thirst apart from God. And so he pursued education. He tried to learn everything that he could. And he found that, well, I'm still not satisfied. Life is still meaningless. It's vanity. It's all vanity.

And so then he pursued career. He pursued building projects. He pursued obtaining more power, obtaining more land. He pursued obtaining more wives and concubines. He pursued this. He pursued that. He tried everything that he could using all of his resources and could not find anything to meet that thirst within, to really satisfy his soul.

What the Lord is showing us here as we look to eternity is that this river, this water of life that comes forth from God, this is a means by which God is finally going to satisfy our soul like we've never known before. We have another example of this in the woman that Jesus meets by the well in John chapter 4.

You might remember her. She was out there by herself and Jesus strikes up a conversation with her and they talk about her, you know, many husbands and the relationships that she's had. And you can see through the conversation, she is thirsty, not for the H2O in the well. She is thirsty in her life. She is thirsty within. And Jesus tells her, if you drink from this well,

If you drink this H2O, you will thirst again. But in John chapter 4 verse 14, Jesus says, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. Jesus says, I can provide a different kind of water. It's not the H2O from this well.

But it is a water that I give which will satisfy you in a way that you've never known before. And you will never thirst again. Now, Jesus gives that promise. And we know that well. We are living water, right? In John chapter 7, we have our theme verse as a church. On the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood up and said, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

And he who believes in me, as the scripture said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. We're very familiar with this concept of coming to Jesus because we thirst.

And we're very familiar with the understanding that when we come to Jesus, that ache within, that thirst within can be fulfilled and satisfied. And yet this morning, I would extend that further and say, what we get now in Jesus absolutely is fulfilling, absolutely is satisfying, but also it's not the end of the story. What we get right now is just a taste of what is to come.

And the way that Jesus can fulfill you and satisfy you right now, it is fulfilling, it is satisfying. And yet it is just a taste of what God has in store for you. It's a glass where there you get the river. It's unlimited refills. You get to be refreshed and renewed by the Lord in a way that you've yet to experience. And so this river is hugely important because

Because it speaks to us about that unlimited refreshment that will come from the presence of the Lord in this pure river of water of life that's clear as crystal. And notice it proceeds from the throne of God and of the Lamb. One thing that's really important to understand about this is that we will never come to a place of being self-sustaining.

Even in eternity, even with our glorified bodies and all that God has in store for us, we never come to a place where we're fully independent from God and we don't need God. And you know, that doesn't matter. We never come to that place. We always will be existing by the very will of God and power of God, by the life that God provides. We have eternal life.

Because God provides that eternal life and it's going to be refreshing and abundant life without measure, unlimited. That's what God has in store for you. Well, moving on to verse number two, we get point number two. The sneak preview of eternal life not only is a life of unlimited refreshment, but it's a life of

of satisfying variety. In verse two, it says, in the middle of its street and on either side of the river was the tree of life, which bore 12 fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. This verse really stood out to me as I was reading through the chapter this year and finishing up the Bible in three years. This verse really stood out. It kind of grabbed my attention because

Well, it's really hard for us to imagine heaven. I don't know how much you've tried to imagine heaven, but you probably have to some degree and found that we have a hard time wrapping our minds around this idea of eternal life. We're so used to time. It's all we've ever known. We're bound by time. And the idea of eternity, sometimes it really can sound kind of boring. You ever feel that way?

Like you're trying to imagine eternal life. And I mean, I can imagine a lot, but anything that I come up with in my mind, I still can't get around. You know, after doing that for a few billion years, won't that get old? I mean, there's some things I've loved. And well, throughout the years, I've done some things every day for long periods of time.

In my younger years, Jack in the Box, I could eat there every day. Well, I could still today eat there every day. It would not bother me to eat there every single day. No problem at all. Double Western from Carlos Jr., I could eat that every... I went through Bible college eating that every single day for my breakfast. Not for lunch, but for breakfast. It's best for breakfast if you ever want to try that. But I could do it every day and it doesn't get old.

Now there's some other places I wouldn't necessarily go to every day, but I like to enjoy once in a while, right? In eternity, I don't know if I could do Carl's Jr. every day for billions of years. As much as I like it, Carl's Jr., Jack in the Box, Dr. Pepper, right? I mean, okay, there's some things I love, but okay, for long periods of time, I've done that. But for billions of years, for eternity, like how do we even begin to imagine and understand what that's like? And I can't come up with things that

Yeah, for sure. I could do that for billions of years and it'll still be satisfying. But that's where verse two comes in and it stood out. He says, as he describes this tree of life, now the river of life feeds this tree of life, which produces 12 fruits.

Each tree yielding its fruit every month. Now, there's a lot of details we could wrestle with over this tree of life and what exactly is it and all the details surrounding it. But I'm not going to try to explain every aspect of it because we don't know every aspect of it. But the thing that really stood out was the variety. There's 12 fruits and each is yielding its fruit every month. Now, first of all, there's months in heaven.

Now, we know there's no sun and moon, so how is there months? How is that time kept? We don't know. But it's not going to be like absolute oblivion, you know, no reference to time, no sense of time, no idea how much time is passing. It's not going to be like that. There's going to be these seasons where every month this new crop is produced.

And whether that month is what we know as a 30-day time period or some other reference, we don't know exactly. But you get the point that there's going to be the cycle. There's going to be seasons. There's going to be differences. There's going to be variety. There's going to be the passing of time. There's going to be new experiences for all of us.

eternity. Pastor J. Vernon McGee says it this way. He says, the tree of life is a fruit tree bearing 12 kinds of fruit each month. There is a continuous supply in abundance and variety. As we look forward to eternity, again, we don't know a lot of the details and we're not capable of handling all of the details. But here's one thing we can know for sure. It's going to have great variety. Listen, God is far more creative than

than you and I could ever be. Heaven is not going to be a place of, oh man. You remember like the children of Israel in the wilderness when they had manna every day for 40 years? And they've had manna every form and fashion. You know, manna every way that you could think of. They've tried to prepare it all kinds of different ways. They've done it Italian and Mexican and Japanese and you know what I mean? Like they've done it every way possible and they're like, I'm tired of manna. Can we get something else?

We will never experience that in heaven. We will never experience, I'm tired of this. You know, there's the song that talks about when we've been there, you know, 10,000 years, there's still as much time to worship God as there was before. And that's great. But how long can you sing before you get tired of it?

That's not going to be the experience in heaven. It's not going to be the same thing the whole time. It's not going to be some long, boring one scene that nothing changes. It's not going to be like that. It is going to have seasons. It's going to have cycles. It's going to have variety. It is going to be satisfying on every level continually without fail.

Now the tree of life does bring up some questions like, well, does that mean we actually eat the fruit? Like, do we go and pick it off the tree and take a bite? I mean, is it that kind of tree and is it that kind of fruit? And it may be. It's possible. It's possible that it's that and so much more, you know, than we can fully understand it. It might be.

more be symbolic of some of the things that God wants to do that he best describes to us by a tree producing fruit. We don't know all of the details, but it's going to be a wondrous variety of sustenance, of life.

that God has in store for us. I like what Thomas Constable, the commentator, said about this. He said, it seems possible, therefore, to understand participation in the tree of life as a regular experience of fellowshipping with God, for example, eating of this monthly fruit.

Perhaps, maybe a little bit similar to like we partake of communion once a month, right, as a fellowship, that we take that Sunday to remember what the Lord did for us and his body being broken, his blood being shed, and we have that special time of communion once a month. And perhaps, it's all speculation, right?

And it's much more than we could ever imagine or think about, but perhaps there's going to be some consistent and regular special occasion with the Lord that we get to participate in and fellowship with him as the tree produces its fruit. What is in store for us? This sneak preview of eternal life shows us it is a life of satisfying variety.

Moving on to verses three through five, we have point number three, and that is a life of blessing in God's presence. As we look forward to eternity, here's the real highlight, the presence of the Lord. In verse three, it says, "'There shall be no more curse, "'but the throne of God and the Lamb shall be in it, "'and his servants shall serve him.'" He says, "'There will be no more curse.'"

One of the greatest things about heaven is what's not going to be there. And that is the curse and the effects of the curse. This is a reference back to Genesis chapter 3. Now, if you join with us tomorrow, starting the book of Genesis, you'll get there this week. We'll be considering the fall and what happened with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden as they disobeyed God and brought upon themselves and us by extension, all of humanity, the

We were put under the curse. And God lays it out there in Genesis chapter 3. All of the effects of the curse and things that we're very familiar with, like pain. You know where that came from? That came from the curse. That came from the fall of humanity where the fellowship with God was broken and disconnected. And as sin entered, it brought pain. Pain.

And whatever level of pain you want to think about. The physical pain that you experience, that's part of the curse. In eternity, guess what? There will be no more curse. The emotional pain that you experience, you ever have pain within? You ever experience pain internally? That's part of the curse. In eternity, there will be no more curse. Anybody have stress over paying bills? You're not going to have to deal with that in heaven. No more curse.

The curse of work, that's part of the curse. It's part of Genesis chapter 3. You're going to have to work hard by the sweat of your brow, God says, in order to get fruit. And it's going to be hard work. You're going to labor and there's going to be thorns. And it's part of the curse. Husbands and wives, you ever experience any kind of tension between each other? I've heard some couples experience this. Kim and I, we're not really sure what that's like. But other people have told us about it. The tension is...

The conflicts between people, it's part of the curse. In heaven, there will be no more curse. All of those things are no more taken away.

Again, we get to experience a piece of that right now by believing in Jesus and we get forgiveness of those sins. We get a little bit of a reprieve from the consequences of the curse, but the curse is not fully removed. Even in the millennial kingdom, when Jesus rules and reigns for a thousand years, the curse is not fully removed yet, but in eternity, there shall be no more curse. And in its place, there will be the presence of God.

Again, verse three, there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the lamb shall be in it and his servants shall serve him. In place of the curse, there will be the blessing of God's presence. The blessing of being with God. In Revelation chapter 21, at the beginning of this section on eternity, where John says, you know, I saw the new heaven and the new earth. And in verse four,

He goes on to say, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain for the former things have passed away. There will be this removing of those things as we enter in to the unfiltered access to God, the presence of God. And it's not a pretending like nothing bad ever happened. It's not like, you know, let's just forget about that.

I think it's interesting to see that God will wipe away the tear, not say there is no tear, you know, not try to convince you. No, there was no pain. There was no difficulty. It wasn't hard. No, no, no. Acknowledging all of that. But now let's wipe that away. And now you're in the presence of God. All of those issues are resolved. And now you're in the presence of God and you get to see Jesus again.

face to face. Verse four says, they shall see his face and his name shall be on their foreheads. You shall see his face.

Now, as believers in Jesus, we get to have a relationship with the Lord. And we know what it's like. We get to learn about Jesus through the scriptures. We get to interact with Jesus on a spiritual level as he speaks to us and we speak to him as we walk with him. And there is a real relationship that we get to have with the Lord, but it is always limited on this side of eternity. But as we enter into the things that God has in store for us,

This life is going to be marked by face-to-face in the presence of the Lord. Unfiltered, unhindered, unhinged access to God. You're going to see him face-to-face. You're going to be able to be right there with your creator, with your redeemer, with the one who loved you so much that he gave himself to die upon the cross for you. You will be able to be with Jesus to a far greater degree than anything you can experience in this life.

Now John tells us his name shall be on their foreheads. That's not describing, you know, like this awesome tattoo that you're going to have. Like it's not describing that. It's describing this connection. You get to have a real personal connection to Jesus in eternity. You're not going to be lost in the oblivion or lost in the sea of all the people who enter into heaven. And you know, you're just like one of the crowd. You're going to get to be face to face with Jesus.

You're going to be tied to him. He's tied to you. There's going to be a unique and special relationship with the Lord that you have there in heaven. John tells us in 1 John 3, he says, Notice, we are the children of God.

We get a taste of what it is like to be a child of God, and we are his children, but it's not until eternity that we get the full revelation of what that means, that you are his child, and you will get to relate to the Lord in ways that you can't even begin to think of or imagine at this time. It will be revealed then when we are like him, when we see him as he is, when we are face-to-face with

then we will finally understand how great this relationship with the Lord is. Verse five is also interesting. He says, there shall be no night there. They need no lamp nor light of the sun for the Lord God gives them light and they shall reign forever and ever. There's no light, there's no night there. There's no darkness, there's no shadow because the light comes from the presence of the Lord. I was thinking about it this way. Even the sun,

is artificial light. When we talk about artificial light today, we're talking about these lights that are not the sun, that are not outside. That sunlight, that's what we would call as, you know, the real light. But from God's perspective, He is light, and there will be no sun because God provides the light. Even the sun is artificial light. Now, you and I, we are outside in the sun. We appreciate the sunlight, but we come inside

and it's dark. And so what do we do? We turn on the lights. Because even though we have the sun, even though we have this amazing sunlight, it's limited in where it can reach. It only goes so far. It only goes certain places. And so we come inside and we turn on the light. As we enter into eternity, things are going to be different. The presence of God is going to be

everywhere to such a degree that you don't walk into a room and now you're out of God's presence and you need to turn on a light because the source of light is, you know, blocked by the wall or the ceiling, but that you enter into the inner room, you go home or wherever, you know, however that works in eternity, you are still there in the presence of God. You will be in the presence of God to such a great degree. There's no need for light, artificial light.

Because the source of all light, the creator of the heavens and the earth, will be with you always, forever, continually. And that is a great blessing. I really like Ironside and how he describes this a little bit. He says, "'Oh, the nights of darkness and of anguish "'many of God's beloved people have known in this poor world. "'The night is the time of mystery, the time of suffering, "'the time of unfulfilled desire.'

the day will bring the glad fruition of all our hopes. Again, this is something we all know and experience, that night, the darkness, the mystery, the fear, the pain, all of the things that we experience described by this picture of darkness and night. But joy comes in the morning. Joy comes in the morning as we enter into the presence of God and all of that is removed.

And there we are face to face with our Lord, face to face with the one who loved us so much. He gave his own life to redeem us. We will experience a life of blessing in the presence of God continually. Well, finishing it up in verse, still in verses three through five with point number four, we see that we'll have a life of service and purpose. This life as we look forward to it is going to have meaningful and real ways of

to continue to be part of the work of God. Again, in verse three, it says, and there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and the lamb shall be in it. And notice, and his servants shall serve him. The servants of the Lord will serve the Lord in eternity for all of eternity. Now, this is, again, something interesting and a little bit difficult for us to grasp hold of. Like, what does that mean? How will we serve the Lord?

And how is that going to be something that is like not a burden? You know, so speaking as the church.

living water, right? We need children's ministry workers. And so we give out the call occasionally, like, hey, you know, it'd be a real blessing for you to minister to the kids. They need to hear the gospel and be taught the word of God. And it's an important part of the ministry here. And so we convince you, you sign up for children's ministry. And then, you know, we schedule you to do it every week for three years. And then you're like burnt out. You're like, I am so sick of these kids and I'm tired of studying. It is so hard and it's difficult. And, you know,

I don't know if I want to do that for eternity. Serve for, like, there can be, I'm exaggerating, and hopefully you get that point, but there can be this sense of like, I don't know if I want to do that. Serve the Lord. I mean, it's not that appealing necessarily to serve the Lord like that for all of eternity. That doesn't sound that great. But understand as it talks about his servants shall serve him, it's not talking about your schedule. You got to do it whether you like it or not.

It's talking about you get, you're going to be overjoyed. You will have such great, overwhelming excitement at being able to be part of what God is doing, to be part of God's work in eternity. It's the idea of service, but without the burden. It's the, I can't believe I get to be part of what God wants to do.

His servants shall serve him. Serve could also be translated worship. And there's this idea of this, I just want to do this for the Lord. I just want to worship God by serving him. Now jumping to verse five, it also where it says there shall be no night there. They need no lamp nor light of the sun for the Lord God gives them light and notice, and they shall reign forever and ever.

So there's going to be this opportunity of service. There's going to be this rain. Now that stirs up some questions like rain over what? I mean, if we're all perfect and we're all in heaven, what's the rain about? What are we raining over? What is the capacity in which we serve? What is this authority? What does this all mean? And we have no idea. We don't know. We're just getting a sneak preview. We're just getting a glimpse, but it will be rain.

a service, a reign that has meaning, that has purpose, that has value. However God accomplishes that, it's beyond what we're ready to receive right now. You might picture heaven as the scene, you know, like you're kind of laying around on a cloud, like the typical person experiences or dreams about retirement, like that one day, or I'm just going to sit on the beach all day, and that's all I do all day is just enjoy the beach, you know. Then you ask Rick, right, is that what retirement's like? Probably not. Yeah.

Same thing. You think about heaven and you might think, what am I going to do? I could sit around for a little bit, but after a while, you know, what else am I going to do? You know what you're going to do? God is going to have unique, creative, important, valuable ways for you to serve him. Ways for you to contribute to what he's doing in his work. It's going to be something special that God has for you. J. Vernon McGee puts it this way. He says,

It will be a peculiar service to God that you and I will perform in eternity. What it is, I do not know. He may give us charge of universes. So there's that one idea, speculation. He says it's going to be a peculiar service though. Now that, at least in my mind, peculiar, that word kind of stirs up like weird, but that's not what he's saying. He's saying it's going to be unique. There's going to be unique and creative ways of

that God has for you to serve and to be part of his work going on into eternity. Now, after this reference that what J. Vernon McGee says, he goes on to talk about his personal desire, which I thought was a little bit funny. He says, look, what I've asked for God is in eternity, I want to teach Bible studies. I'm like, well, who needs to hear Bible studies in heaven? Well, he says, look, I want to teach Bible studies and specifically says, I've asked God to give me

the people who would not come to my church on the midweek service. And for the first million years, I've asked God to just let me teach them and catch them up on what, you know, is all about and who the Lord is. And so for the first million years, they're going to be stuck with me in my Bible study because they wouldn't come to the midweek Bible study. He was being funny and no condemnation on anybody who can't come to midweek Bible studies. But

That was his hope. I want to teach the Bible. And maybe there will be opportunity. I don't know. I don't know what God has in store for each of us, but there's going to be something unique, something valuable, a life of service and purpose. It's not meaningless, just forever existing and blah. And you know, there's going to be so much that God has in store for you above and beyond all that you could ever ask or think. And so we have this sneak preview of eternal life.

a life of unlimited refreshment where you will never thirst again. You will never be unsatisfied. You will never be unfulfilled. You will never ache. You'll never be lonely. You'll never have desires that can't be fulfilled. You will never experience that thirst ever again. And you'll never get bored again.

with how that thirst is met and the way that God fulfills you and satisfy you will be with great variety as you are blessed in the presence of God, face to face with Jesus, experiencing him in ways and things that you just could never even imagine quite yet, even as you get to serve God and be part of his reign and be part of his work for the rest of eternity. And all of this

is coming very soon. Check out verse six. It says, then he said to me, these words are faithful and true. And the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to show his servants the things which must shortly take place. Behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book. As the angel is showing all of these things to apostle John, he says, okay, now here's what you need to know. These things must shortly take place.

And then Jesus jumps on the scene in verse 7 and he says, behold, I am coming quickly. This is coming soon to a theater near you. No, it's coming soon. We will be in eternity. Soon and very soon, we will see the king. We're going to be in the presence of the Lord. Now, this idea of coming soon, this shortly take place, I'm coming quickly,

causes some people to kind of scratch their heads and wonder a little bit because since the time that John has written this and seen this vision, almost 2,000 years have passed. And so what does coming shortly mean or coming quickly mean if 2,000 years has passed and it hasn't happened yet? Well, the idea here of shortly or quickly is not so much the duration of time, but

But it's about how quickly it can happen. It talks about the suddenness of eternity. It's kind of like this. If you think about a timeline and you're picturing a timeline and time is progressing and we're working our way towards eternity. You have here this timeline. Okay, you're working your way through the years. Well, when Christ came on the scene, when he died and then resurrected from the dead,

the timeline shifted and turned to be parallel with eternity. And so now it's kind of like being at the edge of the stage. Eternity is right there, but we're not continuing in that direction. We are right here parallel to eternity. And so that in any instant, we are in eternity. That's the idea when it says that these things must shortly take place, that we're right there on the edge. And at any moment, boom, we are in eternity.

And that can be fulfilled by the events of the book of Revelation taking place, the rapture, the tribulation, the millennium, that can happen at any instant. But it also can be fulfilled at any time with any of us because, well, we may not last until then, but we might enter into eternity today. We're right on the edge. Life is frail and we are right there.

about to experience the things of eternity, about to experience the things that we've looked at in this sneak preview and the blessings that God has in store for us. We are right there on the edge, able to go in at any time. Pastor Dave Guzik says, the main intent of prophecy is to lead us to trust and obey God and apply his truth to the way that we live.

And so the importance of all of this look at heaven, this understanding of where we are in relationship to eternity, the importance of all of this is to remind us of the importance of walking with him today and being ready for these things that God has prepared for us in eternity. Here in Revelation 22, if you'll jump down a few more verses to verse 14.

It says, The things that God has in store for his children in eternity are incredible. Far more than we could ever imagine. But God does make a distinction.

These things that we've been talking about for eternity, they're not for everybody. Not everybody gets to experience all of these things. It is those who have responded to Jesus Christ and believed in him. Those who have been forgiven by the Lord by putting their faith and trust in what Jesus accomplished for us upon the cross. And in doing that, we receive the promise of everlasting life. We receive the forgiveness of sin. We receive what God has set

for his children. And we can look forward to those things in eternity. But he makes the distinction for those who love and practice a life, for those who continue on living in sin instead of turning to the Lord Jesus.

they will be outside. There's a different path. There's still an eternity awaiting, but it's in a different area. Here's a quick look at these things, and I'm not going to go through all of the details, but just to give you a glimpse. You have eternity with God. That's what we are wanting. That's what we're talking about. But the different kind of eternity is the lake of fire, and that is apart from God. That is the reality that we have to face, that we

For those who do not turn to the Lord, there is this eternal condition of judgment. And that is not where we want to go and not where we want anybody to go. Now, as you look at this, though, you could look at the present time. You could look at the tribulation period. You could look at the millennium, the thousand year reign of Christ. In all of those cases, the believers in Jesus Christ, as Paul says, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. We're right there on the edge. And suddenly at any moment, we're

No matter what time period we're in, we will be in eternity with God. But again, there's the distinction. And no matter what time period it is, unbelievers will go to a place of judgment. There is a distinction. And as we finish up the year, we finish up the book of Revelation, we finish up reading through the scriptures together, we need to understand and hold on to this truth that God holds before us life and death.

And he says, choose life that you may live. I have great things in store for you. Walk with me, believe in me and receive all that I have for you. And so as we finish up this year and head on into the new one, I want to encourage you, get ready for eternity by walking with the Lord. Get ready for all these amazing things that it's just a glimpse. There's so much more that we can't even understand yet, but it's not guaranteed for everybody.

It is for those who respond to the Lord and walk with him by faith in Jesus Christ. And so let's make sure that we do that. I want to invite the worship team to come up and close us out in a song. And I would just encourage you during this time to

Allow the Lord to speak to your heart and you spend some time with the Lord and call out to him. And if you need to get right with him, if there's some things, maybe as the book of Hebrews talks about the weight that weighs us down, that holds us back from walking with the Lord or the sin which ensnares us and traps us. If there's those kinds of issues, let's allow the Lord to cleanse us this morning. Let's go into 2018 fresh.

ready to walk with the Lord in the newness of life that he's promised to us and with the hope that he's set before us of all these things that he has in store. Let's take this time to enter in with a refreshed and a renewed commitment to the Lord and walk with the Lord because of his goodness and his grace towards us in all that he has done and in the so much more that he's promised to do that we've yet to see fulfilled. And so let's walk with him with that hope in our minds and our hearts as we worship him together.

We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of His Word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.