Intro/Outro: Welcome to Garden Church podcast. We're in part two of a series on the book of Revelation. We're doing a deep dive into how to read and interpret this amazing amazing book. Enjoy.
Bill Dogterom: Well, good morning. It is so good to be with you and to kind of begin to finish up our conversation in in this stunning book of Revelation that is daunting. And I just I have to tell you guys this morning. This happens to me regularly, but more so particularly when we're looking at what we're looking at today, and that is what God has in mind. And I gotta tell you, I'm not adequate to talk about this.
I I mean, I know the words that I'm saying, but I don't know what I'm talking about. It is more wonderful than any language can possibly contain. And Ramin brought us so beautifully into this conversation last week, and I wanna continue that. But I just can I just invite you to pray for us all for a moment? Because I am not equal to this.
I've been preaching revelation in one form or another for fifty years, and it is it is just gotten away from me completely and utterly as you would expect. So I need some help, and you do too. So let's pray for ourselves. Oh, Lord Jesus, we center ourselves before you with just an awareness of our inadequacy to talk about and hear about these things beyond the talky talky level of ideas and images and symbols, and and to to allow you, Holy Spirit, to inflame our imaginations with wonder. To put put us in our place, to recognize that at the end of the age nobody's gonna be looking at us, they'll all be looking to you.
And I pray, oh God, for courage to begin that upward look even now as our worship has led us to this place, as our celebration of what you have done in in Vacation Bible School with the kids has done, and as we just say, come holy spirit, be our teacher today. We ask this in your name. Amen. Amen. The the the the long journey that we have been looking at this incredible revealing revelation, revealing of Jesus is beginning to to turn the corner and and to discover that that that that it's it's not simply a restoration of what was, that then in fact that restoration is just a brand new beginning of what is yet to come that is beyond imagining, that is beyond picturing, that is beyond any language that we might put to it, that God is not scrapping what has gone before and simply starting over again.
He says this beautiful language that he 's not making new things, he's making all things new. That's an important distinction. God thought that he did a pretty decent job first time out and has the capacity now to redeem and restore that initial let there be creation in a way that is richer and deeper and profound, more beautiful than can possibly be imagined. He's not again making new things, he's making all things new. It's a story of redemption, it's a story of restoration, but that's only, that's the front entrance, that's the foyer, that's the beginning, that's the entrance into all that God has in mind and that by itself ought to blow our minds because it's that restoration for the purpose of expansion.
It's restoration for the purpose of invitation even deeper. We've got a glimpse of that last week in Ramin's conversation kind of part one and part two. He and IR tag team and Darren will finish it off, next week and fix everything that Ramin and I broke. So it'll be lovely. Make sure you come back, because again, we just do not have an imaginative capacity for all that God has got in store.
We just do not. We just do not, and I want to acknowledge that from the get go. So we got a glimpse of that, as I said last week, and make sure you listen to that kind of part a of which this is part b, and the challenge of course is that I don't I've been teaching Revelation in one form or another like I said for close to fifty years and never have I felt more inadequate to address this topic. It's just gotten away from me completely which is what you'd expect, you know, it's what you expect if you're doing it right so I'm glad. This idea, this invitation, into our kind of multidimensional because that's the that's the problem.
Our understanding of the future, our understanding of revelation tends to be limited by the four dimensions of our cognition, the ways that we understand things, and and and the Holy Spirit just every once in a while whispers that there may be another five or six or 12 dimensions that we have no way of factoring into our thinking. Right? And so what we end up here is John just throwing stuff at the wall trying to get grab ideas and images and pictures and and and and saying, is this work? No. No.
No. Let's try this. And and over and over again, he just in in the the verses of Revelation, just is constantly inviting us into the wonder and just this being and of course we want, you know, we want GPS coordinates. We want all of the details. We want the map.
We want the whole thing. And John says, put it down. Put it down. Sing the song. Sing the song.
The only way you'll get this is to dance the dance. Don't stand there as a as an onlooker watching it happen. Jump in, jump in, jump in and invites us into this into this just astonishing vision of of of the future and that's that's kind of the the hope that he says so here he begins chapter 21 of verse nine he says, one of the seven angels then who had the seven bowls, remember them, seven last plagues, One of those guys came to me and said, I will show you now the bride, the wife of the lamb. And he carried me away in the spirit to a mountain great and high and showed me the holy city. Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God and it shone with the glory of God.
Its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had high, a great high wall, 12 gates, 12 angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the 12 tribes of Israel. There were three gates on the East, three on the North, three on the South, three on the West. The wall of the city had 12 foundations and on them were the names of the 12 apostles of the lamb.
The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, gates and and walls, and the city was laid out like a like a square as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length as wide and as high as it is long. The angel measured the wall using a human measurement. It was a 144 cubits. The wall was made of Jasper, the city of pure gold as as as as pure as glass.
Foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the ruby, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth turquoise, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst, the 12 great gates of the city were 12 pearls, each of them, each gate made of a single pearl. A great street of the city was gold as pure as transparent glass. I did not see a temple in the city because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple. The the the the the nations will walk by its light.
The kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful but only those whose names are written in the lamb's book of life. And then the angel showed me the river of the water of life as clear as crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb down the middle of the great street of the city and on each side of the river stood the tree of life bearing 12 crops of fruit each yielding its fruit every month.
And the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the lamb will be in the city and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, his name will be on their foreheads and there will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun for the Lord God will give them light and they will reign forever and ever.
I think you can see what I mean when I'd say this is just way beyond me. It's just more than I can talk about. We could stop at virtually any station stop along here and just get lost, And probably that's worth worth worth doing. But I have a responsibility this morning, so I'm gonna get us through to the end of this. But the the image here that this invitation to see the bride.
You catch it? Come and I will show you the bride, the wife of God. And and now here's where it starts to get squishy because we're all we're all ready for here comes the bride and and and we're waiting for that and then all of a sudden what we see is a city And we realize, oh wait, John's playing with us here. He's he's trying to get us out of our little boxes of understanding. He's trying to blow apart the sides of our conceptual framework that allow us to control ideas and images.
He's trying to bring us into a mystery that is absolutely, completely, and utterly indescribable, but he's gonna give it his best shot. So he starts, come and see the bride. Oh, look, it's a city. Oh, wait, no, it's a temple. Oh, no, wait, wait.
What is it? What is it, John? What is it John? It's God showing up in great love and compassion for you. That's what it is.
As this image unfolds and we discover we have zero capacity to do anything but use the words. And we use the words. We don't have anything else to do. We use the words but instantly we realize we may have been better just to be quiet and let it wash over us and that's I think John's invitation. Just don't don't worry about assigning GPS coordinates to things.
Just let it wash over you. Just let the wonder immerse you and and and he shows us in this caught in the spirit into a great and great and high mountain showing us the holy city, Jerusalem coming down. This this imagery here, come and see the bride, the wife of the lamb. By the way, lamb is the primary identifier of Jesus in this particular passage seven times, not lion. Lamb.
In an age and a culture that prizes power and strength we are redeemed by a lamb slain. It's one of the reasons why we reject Christianity in its truest form. Why even in our current cultural moment we want to weaponize the imagery and John will not allow us to get away with that. That's not how this works. It's not how any of this works.
It's a lamb slain. He takes us and and coming down out of the heavens, this holy city, the combined people of God, you see it descript description in in as he unpacks this. Ramin pointed this out last week, it's a city that John sees. It's a city that John sees. It's not just a vision, it is in some way shape and form a reality that signifies, please notice this, we're not going to him, he's coming to us.
He has always been coming to us. In our deepest most passionate pursuit of God, we turn and discover his passion and his pursuit of us has led the way in our pursuit of him. He comes to us first, he comes to us always, he comes to us in ways that we might not not expected and as this city begins to materialize, if you will, in the vision of John, we get this image, it's shown with the glory of God, the manifest sense of God's presence, the the the ways that we we begin to think about and see it. Glory here is the currency of revelation. It's how how God is known.
It's the it's the imagery. It's just the effulgence. It's not just the shining. It's the substance in the in the thing. You can hear me running out of words here.
I I just it's just like how in the world can you talk about something like this? But I have to try, don't we? We just have to try and pray that the holy spirit will take our feeble attempts here. You feel John doing exactly the same thing. It's it's like, oh dude, take me now.
I don't wanna talk about this anymore. I wanna be there. I wanna join in this moment and this celebration of it. Again, referencing some of what Romine was doing last week in inviting us into there. Glory is the currency of God.
It's the currency of God's presence. Glory has the the Hebrew word is kavod. It means weight. It's not in this ephemeral substance, it it has density, it has texture, it has heft. There's there's there's when you when you when the glory no wonder they couldn't stand to worship when the glory of God descended at the dedication of the temple in the old testament.
That's the image that John is trying to evoke for us here in this moment and it is just this the whole city shimmers with the glory of God, with the revelation of God, with the understanding of the character of God. He gathers up these images, old testament and new testament, the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 apostles intended to put again all of the people of God, all of the people of God and and and this this this whole people of God from every nation, tribe and tongue, from wherever they come are gathered in this in this city and and and then he he pulls out a measuring rod of gold and here's where sometimes our translations fail fail us because we we start to translate the language. John, you've probably already figured this out, numbers are really important to him. So when he said that the city is laid out like a square as long as it is wide, he measures the city with a rod and finds it to be 12,000 stadia in length. Roughly translated if you do it incorrectly, accurately but incorrectly, to 1,500 miles.
The city is 1,500 miles square. That's the size of the Roman Empire. Oh, and 1,500 miles high. It's a cube. A cube?
You Old Testament saints know exactly what he's referencing. The holy of holies is a cube. The place of God's residence, the place of God's meeting, the place where he invites us to draw near is a cube. It's the holy of holies. That's what he's describing.
This place that you thought was contained in the in the boxes you carried in the wilderness. This that you thought was constructed on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem? Oh no, no, no, no, no. Too tiny. Too tiny by far.
Come into the very presence of God, the very throne room of God, the very glory of God. There's room for you all. There's room for you all in this place, in this holy place. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. And he invites us to to just stand in The the the human measurement, he said, 144, 12 times 12.
You see what he's doing, he's just grabbing all of these images that because we're so well acquainted with the Old Testament, makes sense to us. He has over 500 allusions to the old testament, not one single quote in the book of Revelation. He's just anticipating, you read the book, because if you haven't, you're not gonna make sense of the book. And so he has this idea, this angel measuring this and the wall was made, and then he goes into these these these these descriptions and I and you can feel him. Can you in the power of the spirit just struggling.
How do I talk about this in ways that will make sense to people? That doesn't the streets of gold and the walls of Jasper and Chrysalis and all of the things. He's just trying to grab all of these images and we and we get so we wanna know, do we get mining rights on the street outside our mansion? No. No.
No. You haven't understood this. It's my one of my favorite jokes. Guy shows up at the gates, Saint Peter ushering him into the heavens. The guy's got a suitcase.
Peter says, no, you you can't bring anything with you and no, I got a special arrangement. I I was able to bring something with me. What what is it? Open a suitcase. There's bars of gold.
And Peter said, you brought pavement? You feel the tension, don't you? How do we even talk about this in ways that make any sense at all? That we don't wanna just it's just so much, and we wanna we wanna particularize. We wanna and go ahead, go ahead, but don't grab a hold of it and let not let go.
Let it let it let it take it in, take it in, sing the song, but then move on. There's another verse coming. There's another wonder coming. There's another thing emerging. This is, oh, and did look at what he does.
Look at what he does. He's echoing Ezekiel's temple. He's echoing the temple in Jerusalem. It's it's the importance is not is not to translate the 12,000 to 1,500 miles even though it technically translates to that. He wants you to say, he wants you to notice, he wants you to be aware that this is beyond your 10,000 was the biggest number they could write.
So he's saying this is 12 times that. In other words, it's not a precise measurement you get to 12,000 and you stop. It's an invitation to an ever expanding wonder of the glory of God and then he he he has this perfect cube reflecting the holy of holies and then he just makes this I love this. I didn't I didn't see a a temple in the city. The place where we meet God is missing.
Anyone wanna guess why? Don't need it anymore. The whole city is a place of meeting. The whole city is this is the holy of holies. The whole of your exist the whole the whole of your existence is one in breathing and exhaling of the love of God for you.
The glory of God manifest, manifest, seeing in the center of your soul the holiness of God inviting you to your own life, to your own life in him. It is astonishing beyond description, beyond description. I saw no temple in the city. Why? Because the lamb slain, because the Lord God Almighty, they're the temple.
They're the Oh, wait. I thought it was a city. Yes, it's a city. Oh, no. It's a temple.
Yes, it's a temple. No. It's it's it's it's the trinity. Yes. It's the trinity.
Anybody else just feeling like out of your league here? I have no idea what I'm talking about. I can say the words but I don't know what I'm talking about. I really don't I mean, I I don't mean that's that's that's God's honest truth. Because I I just I and you can feel John, can't you?
I mean, he's just under the inspiration of the holy spirit saying, let's Oh, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, why? Because he wants you there. He doesn't want you to miss it, not for anything. He doesn't want you to miss it and and he recognizes even as he writes this that there are people who who who will sing their own song rather than the song of the lamb. Don't don't miss it.
Don't don't miss out on what he's doing this temple moment that that that that is is given way to the reality of which the temple itself was a just a a a a shadow. And then he says, and the nations will walk by its light. What? Sun, moon, stars? Unnecessary.
They're but unnecessary because the emanation of light from the holy of holies is adequate to illumine the earth. How does this work? Haven't a clue. Have not a clue. Can say the words.
Don't know what I'm talking about. You you know? And and he just he he just invites us into this vision of wonder. The light of the sun and the moon are not doesn't mean that the sun and moon go away, it's just that they're not needed. Can you imagine the sun itself casting a shadow because of the glory of God?
That's the image that he draws here and invites us to participate with a sanctified imagination in such a way that the rest of our life you will be spoiled for anything less. You you you will you will go through hell and high water, and you will. That's why he's writing this because people to whom he is writing this are going through hell, figuratively and in some instances literally, if you will. And he says, oh, guys, oh, guys, don't quit. Don't quit.
Don't don't give up. Don't give up. Hang in there. Come on. Come on.
Come on. Come on. By the grace of God you can do this, it's gonna be so worth what God is up to here. So we live and move and have our being in him so we've got all of these collapsing images and then he goes on and says the nations will walk by its light. The kings of the earth.
So he's again drawing all of these images, the best ways that he has of describing all of these nations, all of the folks coming, the gates won't be shut. Why? There won't be a need to, there's no night, there's no place in which evil can invade and push in. The promise of Isaiah and Zechariah of God's glory filling the earth is being fulfilled, it's being brought to fruition, the nations are coming to this holy city and celebrating with their worship, their gifts to God, the gates never close in an ancient culture, imagine what that means. There is no zero nada reason to fear.
Just sit with that for a minute. Take all of the things of which you might yourself be afraid. Not anymore. Not anymore. Even light casts a shadow in the goodness of God.
The citizens are those who are redeemed and and at this point it's just like, John, stop. I I don't I don't know how to take this in. I know. I know. Can't you feel him?
I know. But there's more. There's more. Come on. Don't don't don't don't don't don't check out yet.
Don't check out yet because the angel then showed me the river of the water of life, clear as crystal flowing from the throne of God and from the lamb. Down the middle of the great street on each side of the river stood a tree of life bearing 12 crops of fruit yielding its fruit. Every month the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nation. No longer will there be any curse. What?
All of human history, all of the all of the warfare, all of the bloodshed, all of the thieves and robbing and all of the dynamics that have characterized our interactions with other, all of that is consequence. Remember, curse is not God's idea. Curse is not something God does because we broke the rules. Curse is the consequence of breaking the rule. It's built into the system.
He didn't make it happen. It's what we chose when we didn't choose him. And he says, no more curse means that we will, by nature, by nature we will have been transformed to make the right kinds of choices willingly, not under coercion, not with the promise of of reward, but our souls will have been transformed, our souls will have been shaped to a reality within which you will naturally and easily and without difficulty or forethought choose the right every single time. Can you imagine? I can't.
I can't. I just can't. I just can't. Lewis made the case that C. S.
Lewis made the case that it's much easier to talk about evil. To talk about this kind of radical goodness, we run out of words. We just run out of words. We we we the images are are are impossible and and he goes on. Oh, and he said, oh, by the way, did you notice?
Did you notice? He's not restoring Eden. He's putting Eden in the center of the city. Eden was never intended to be our final resting place. Eden was our introduction into the city which is built for us.
You're not going to the garden, you're going to the city in which the garden was in the first place. You need to you need to become capable, you need to become, in solid enough, real enough, otherwise the blade of grass in the Garden Of Eden is going to cut your feet. You need to become solid enough, real enough, that heaven will be home for you. That's what this is all about. That's why some of you are going through what you're going through right now.
He is working at strengthening your grip on the deeper reality beyond what you see, beyond what you experience, beyond what you're going through in this current moment. He's saying, come on, Let's do the strength training. You're gonna need it later. Let's sit with reality. You're gonna need it later.
Don't don't get pushed off by by don't no. No. No. No. I know it's hard.
I know it's hard. Yeah. Don't don't don't get distracted. Don't get distracted. Better days are coming.
Better days and nights are coming. Better days. Better days. There oh, sorry. There are no better nights coming because there will be no more night.
Think about how this lands in a first century culture in which nighttime is the playground of evil and you can hear what he's saying. There'll be no more night. So it's this reconnection to Eden not as our destination but as our station stop on their way to exploring the rest of the city. We're not going to Eden, we're going to a city in which Eden belongs. We are going into a place where there's plenty of room for all of us.
You did do the math, 12,000 by 12,000 by 12,000, roughly the size of the Mediterranean, roughly the size of overlay of what existed as the Roman empire. Don't get too particular in the numbers because he he works hard to make sure that we don't do that, but 1,500 miles by 1,500 miles by 1,500 miles, just to give you a snapshot of how tiny our understandings of this are. There's plenty of room for y'all so y'all come and would you mind just bringing somebody with you? Can you help them fall in love with the one who thought of this thing in the first place? Don't worry about taking out the trash that'll get taken care of that's not your job.
It's not your job. Help them to fall in love. Help them to fall in love with the one who thought this was a good idea, who invited us, invited them into this wonder, that access. Did you catch it by the way? The tree of life lining the streets of the city?
Everybody can touch the tree of life, everybody. Come on, chow down. 12 different fruit for each of the twelve twelve I mean, it's just yeah. How do you how do we you don't. You don't.
You just you just take it in. You let it overwhelm you. You let it realign your soul to the wonder to coming. Brothers and sisters, John writes in another place, we are now the sons of God, but it does not yet appear what we shall be. Here's what we know.
When we see him, we'll be like him because we will see him as he is. So here's the challenge. This is this is the invitation in this moment to become the kinds of people for whom heaven will be home. The city will be home. That's why you matter.
That's why what's happening this afternoon in your life matters. That's why. Because you ain't seen nothing yet. Let's pray. Oh lord, as we sit with this story again, I just find myself running out of language, running out of words.
The the the vision is to become the kinds of people who can at when you decide have capacity to behold the face of God and with thoughts and actions that reflect his character, his name, his identity who will carry that name into the world and we wanna be those people Lord. We wanna be those people And I pray, oh God, for courage to respond to the invitation, to allow and invite the spirit to do the work of of of taking out the trash now, of inviting us into a surrender, to the knowing of you in all of the ways of our lives. We ask this, Lord, in Jesus' name for your honor, for your glory, because nobody else in the universe is worth singing the song of but you. Amen.
Intro/Outro: Thank you so much for listening. For more information, please visit us at garden.church.