Present at the Birth (Part 4): The Creation of Man Reveals God’s Eternal Purpose

I’m going to read it again: “It is done. I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, and I will give to the ones who thirst—Christ Himself—the springs of living water without cost. Grace on grace. He who overcomes shall inherit all these things, and I will be his God, and he will be my son.” Praise the Lord. And for the coward—I’m not even going to read that one. Okay, and here we go to verse 21:9. “And one of the angels who had the seven bowls and the last plagues came and spoke to me, and he said, ‘Come here, and I shall show you the bride.’” Praise the Lord! The one who marries. Brothers, I want to show you the most wonderful verse of Scripture in all the Bible. We’re standing on it right now, and it’s not what I’ve read. Genesis ended with oneness, with union. That there is a husband and a bride is not union, because a bride is a married virgin. “Come up here, and I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” Praise the Lord! The wife of the Lamb! Praise the Lord! The wife of the Lamb. Union between God and man. Oneness between God and man. Say Praise the Lord.

“And He carried me away in spirit to a great and high mountain and showed me the holy city, New Jerusalem.” Well, here’s New Jerusalem again. What’s all this about? And there was a heaven and an earth in Genesis, is that right? And here it says, here comes down something out of heaven from God. What is this? Why is Jerusalem there? There was no Jerusalem in Genesis 1 and 2. “And in it, a great high wall with gates, and at the gates, angels, and the names were written on them, which were the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. And there were three gates on the east and west and north and south. And the wall of the city had twelve foundation—what? Stones. And written on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb of God. And the one who spoke with me had a golden measuring rod of the city and the gates of the wall.”

And I’m going to forget all this, but anyway, it says: “And the foundations” – verse nineteen – and the foundations of what? Of the city, “were stones.” Did you understand what happened to the river? What happened to the river? They grew the stones, and the stones kept growing, and they became a—what? A city. There is no more a garden. Oh, there is no more a garden! There is, in place of the garden, a great, glorious city that is growing right now. Praise the Lord! And we’re sending treasures into it, and He’s using those treasures of our spirits to build a city in a garden He took back to the heavens, that He’s going to let out of the heavens to come back to earth to build this earth again. And it’ll never be a garden. It will be a city, and that city is a woman, made up of living stones, in union and in oneness, with her Lord. Have you seen it? Praise the Lord.

“And I saw no temple in it, for the Lord, the Almighty, and the Lamb are the temple, and the city has no need of sun or moon, for the Lord Himself is the lamp. The Lamb is the lamp. The Lamb is the lamp. And the nations shall walk.” And I’m going to have to keep moving here. “And He showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming down from the throne of God and the Lamb.”

And God and the Lamb are one, and they sit on the throne together—not as two, but one, and out of the throne comes the life. Brothers, out of the life comes the throne, until finally, out of the throne comes the life. I don’t have time to explain to you again what that means; consider it. Okay. “And in the middle of it a street, and there were twelve kinds of fruit, and there was no more any curse. And the throne of God and the Lamb shall be there.”

Verse 22:3: “And His bondservants shall serve Him, and they shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. And there shall be no night, and there shall be no light nor lamp of the sun, because the Lord God shall illuminate them, and they shall reign forever and ever.” And He said, “These words are true.” Verse 7, “Behold, I come quickly, and I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And I fell down to worship at his feet, and he said, Don’t do that, fellow. Come up here and worship God. And the Spirit and the Bride said, Come. And let everyone who hears say, Come. And let those who are thirsty come.
And let those who wish, take the water of life without cost. Let them come. And down at the very bottom, it says, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

Let me see if I can explain it to you. Did we do a checklist here? Did we do a checklist? Let’s go through it really quickly. Are the sons of God there? The sons are there. Is there a corporateness of God’s people there? The entire city is made up of living stones that have been built together out of the river of life. Is the authority there? The authority is there in the throne. Is the image there? The entire city is illuminated by the face of the Son of God, inside of whom is the Lord Jesus, the Father.  The entire city is an image of God. For when He stood back from it, He looked at it, and the whole city looked like a jasper stone.

And brothers and sisters, Jasper—the stone Jasper—is the stone of God Himself. When you see that city, you see the image of God. And when the house of God gathers, not now, but ten years from now, and I beg you, brothers who gather in this city, to never lose a commitment to it. I don’t care how pitiful your meetings look; at least every once in a while, you can plan a big one. And you can have the Lord’s Supper and plan, just in the taking of it, to show forth His glory and His image. You little bitty, bitty people here in Atlanta, Georgia, can show forth God on this earth as a miniature image of the New Jerusalem. The church is a foretaste of that city. You are those living stones. You are going to be built up in this town to show forth the Jasper stone of God.

What else? We had a river. We had the tree. Who eats the tree? The whole city eats the tree. Everything in the city eats the tree and drinks the water. What else? The gold is there, the bdellium is turned to pearl, and the stones are there.  I don’t have time to go into all this. As I said, we’ll spend the rest of our lives going through all of this.

Shall I simply close by telling you that the city comes out at the very center of the throne?  The city is a throne, and also on the throne is the Son of God. And within Him is God the Father, who is the light and the lamp. And, brothers, then there is this joining—this incredible, inexplicable, indescribable joining. There is the Father joined to the Son. They sit on the throne.

Flowing from the throne is what? Water. But also, it says, and I didn’t have time to look at this, also flowing from the throne is the tree. The tree comes from the throne, and the water comes from the throne. The city comes from the throne. Everything proceeds from Him who sits on the throne. The throne comes from Christ. Christ comes from the Father.  Of them, proceeding from it is the water that feeds and makes possible the city, and the tree that feeds, waters it, and gives it drink. And from it, the tree that gives it food. And then the city itself is joined together, one with the other. Every stone fits with the other stones. The entire city is a great, glorious stone. The pearl is there to let you in. The pearl is the door. The pearl is your Lord who lets you in.

And the gold is there. What’s the gold? The gold: it doesn’t matter what the gold is.
It starts at the throne and goes all over the city. It’s one great big street upon which we are carried. It seems to me, brothers, that this divine life we have eaten has become the very way of our life. It is the very street of our life, the very issuing of the way of our life.
But it is when you step back and see that you’re looking at the New Jerusalem, the Bride of Christ. We have all joined together, finally. Not just the saints in this town, but the saints in every town. You like that? Okay. Plus, all the saints who used to be in this town. Plus, all the saints that are going to be in this town. Yeah. Plus, all the saints that are in DeKalb. Decatur? Huh? Alright, all over town. Give me another town, Georgia. What other town? Marietta? Don’t you have another big town around here? Okay. Gainesville. Is that where you’re from, John? Okay, John. All the saints who used to be in Gainesville are in Gainesville and are going to be in Gainesville. Plus, all the saints who used to be in Kathmandu, plus the ones who are in Kathmandu, who are going to be in Kathmandu.  And all the saints of the first century in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. We’re going to all have a meeting. We don’t meet—we don’t meet in a meeting. We meet and become…a girl. One great, glorious girl. Amen.