Title: Kingdom of God (II)/Revelation 21:18-27
Contents Last week, I gave an overview about the kingdom of God.
I have been thinking about the outward appearance of the kingdom of God and its size.
Today we are going to talk about what the kingdom of God is made of.
And think about that life.
As we think about the kingdom of God, there is something we must remember clearly.
It is the fact that no matter how good a gem is, if you don't know its true value, it won't look like a gem. It's like the story of African savages who exchanged diamonds for American chocolate. No matter how good and how wonderful the kingdom of God is, we have to remember that, if we do not have the eyes of faith to see the kingdom, it may become someone else's country, but it will not become our own.
That is why he said, “He who has ears, let him hear.” He told them to buy eye drops and put them in their eyes to see clearly. Therefore, first, eyes to see the kingdom of God and ears to hear must be opened. As I said last week, you should be able to see the kingdom of God by ascending to a high mountain of faith.
1. Ingredients of the Kingdom of God
Verses 8-21 explain it. 'The wall was made of jasper, and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. The foundation stone of the fortress wall is decorated with various gems, and the first foundation stone is jasper. The second is sapphire, the third is chalcedony, the fourth is turquoise, the fifth is agate, the sixth is hongsong, the seventh is topaz, the eighth is chrysanthemum, the fourth is pale topaz, the tenth is jadeite, the eleventh is sapphire, the twelfth is midnight. The twelve gates were twelve pearls; each gate was one pearl, and the streets of the city were pure gold like clear glass.'
In short, it is adorned with the best and greatest jewels that we cannot even imagine in the world we live in.
The New Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God, is made of pure gold that is cleaner than clear glass and is adorned with all kinds of precious gems. So the crown was made of gold and adorned with jewels.
It is fundamentally impossible to convert the gems mentioned in the text into values. When I heard that a watch adorned with a diamond the size of a millet is priced at 30 million won, I was just stunned. If you had to pay money to enter the kingdom of God that cannot be converted into money, a country full of glory and splendor, even the richest chaebols in Korea, the Momo chaebols, would have to choose whether to buy a good reputation or heaven. The twelve gates in the east, west, north and south are the Jin spells.
It is said that the ancient jewelers spent their whole lives searching for one large pearl. And when he finds one, he loses all his possessions
They said they sold it all and bought it.
Let's think about it. The way I get excited when I think that I am going to enter a country whose walls are made of jasper, the entire city is made of pure gold, clearer than glass, the twelve gates are decorated with pearls, and the foundation stones are adorned with dazzling jewels of various colors. None. However, folks, the true value of the kingdom of God cannot be measured only with gold or precious stones. Because it is a world made of gold and precious stones, it is said that it is meaningless to say that a country with only the quantitative value that jewel wives like and swallow their mouths.
We certainly put a person into quantitative value, and how much does the person live in the house and how much does the ring cost? It is easy to overestimate the value of something extremely external, such as what kind of clothes you wear.
That's wrong. The value of a person is because what is hidden is more precious and higher than that which is revealed.
A young woman who was living in a luxurious apartment one day lost her cherished jewel necklace. I looked for all the possible places, but I couldn't find it. I questioned and questioned the housekeeper, whom I had always felt displeased with. _1 However, the housekeeper claimed her innocence. When he did not confess to the charges against him, he cursed and even beat him, and eventually kicked him out. A few days later, I took my coat out of the closet to put on, and found a necklace in my coat pocket. He was deeply remorseful, but after he had already mutilated a man's character.
We should not treat people in this way, and furthermore, our attitude toward the kingdom of God is that there are visible things, gold, and jewels.
2. Living in the Kingdom of God
This is important. How big it is is important, and what it is decorated with is important, but what life is like there is more important. 2I:22-27 explains it.
There are no six things in the kingdom of God.
(l) It was a temple.
Verse 22 says, “I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty? for the Lamb is its temple.'
The temple here refers to the sanctuary and means “place to meet God”.
Why is there no temple? Because the Lord God and the Lamb are the temple. The Jews built a temple in Jerusalem and went there to meet God and worship there.
Today, we also build churches everywhere and go to the altars to worship. However, because the eternal kingdom of God is a kingdom where we live together with the Lord forever, the whole kingdom becomes a temple and a holy place.
The true church is where the Lord is. No matter how splendid the place where the Lord is, there is no such thing as a church.
(2) There is no light from the sun and the moon.
This is because, as verse 23 reveals, 'the glory of God shines upon him, and Jesus the Lamb is his lamp. God, who is the source of ?, because it is the place where the Lord who said I am the light of the world resides, the sun and moon that he created to illuminate the world become useless. dark night
Just as the light of a lamp that was turned on to illuminate it disappears when the morning sun rises. There will be no need for the sun or the moon in front of you.
(3) The gates are not closed.
Verse 25 says, “The gates will not be shut at all during the day, for there is no night there.” Even if you only want to enter the Central Office, you must present proof and get a pass. The same goes for trying to get into the police station. However, there are no restrictions on entry and exit into the kingdom of God. There are spies and evil people there. There are no thieves, so there is no need to keep the door closed. In the real world, where walls are high in every house, barbed wire, broken glass bottles, and even iron bars are planted, the kingdom of God that does not close its doors sometimes feels like a foreign country. Some have said that the height of the wall is proportional to the height of the disbelief. A society in which accidents do not occur even when sleeping without locking the door is a desirable church, but its realization is difficult in reality.
(4) There is no night.
The night means blasphemy, ignorance, debauchery and corruption And it means suffering and trials, and it means death. And Bam means Si Khan, ruled by the referee. The kingdom of God is a night of despair, a night of trials, a night of hardship, a night of wailing, a sleepless night. There is no night of death, night of sorrow t.1.
(5) There are no unclean things, no abominations, no liars.
The kingdom of God is a kingdom of complete freedom. But there may be uncleanness, worshiping idols, deceiving God and deceiving people.
there is no So everything is freedom, but it is a country where there is no profane freedom, detestable freedom, and the freedom to lie.
God is love. But he loves and does not condone sin. The gates of the kingdom of God are open. But profane things, those who practice abominations and liars are not allowed to enter. Revelation 20:15 says, "Whoever is not written in the book of life will be thrown into the lake of fire." There are two kinds of books in the kingdom of God.
The first is the book of life. In Exodus 32:32, Moses said that if he could save the people of Israel, he wanted to be excluded from the book of life. In Revelation 3:5, in the words given to the church in Sardis, the one who overcomes will not blot out his name from the book of life. In the book of life, the names of those who have been saved are recorded.
The second is the book of deeds. Daniel 7:9 says that the throne was set and the books were opened. Revelation 2o:12 says, "I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the Bible, and the dead were judged according to their deeds, according to the writings of the books." I did. This book of deeds will record the deeds of those who will be judged. In other words, those who are saved will be written in the book of life, and those who will be judged will be written in the book of works.
3. Bread of Life
It will be the conclusion. In the kingdom of God, the river of life flows, the water of life overflows, and the tree of life bears the fruits of life in season.
I am introducing myself. We will find again the Garden of Eden, which our ancestors Adam and Eve had lost.
{l) A river of water of life flows clear as crystal.
It is unpolluted water, and it is said that the source of this river is the throne of God. The Amnok River and the Tuman River flow from Cheonjiyeon in Mt. Baekdu, but the River of Life flows from the throne of God.
In other words, the river of the water of life flowing down from God, the source of life, flows through Shincheonshinji.
In the Old Testament, in Genesis 2:1o-15, four rivers flowed through the Garden of Eden. Its rivers were the Pison River, the Giheon River and the Tegel River and the Euphrates River. It originated from the Garden of Eden, watered the garden, and became the four sources, and it divided into east, west, south, and north and went out for holiness.
However, the source of the river of life in the kingdom of God is the throne of God. And the river flows through the middle of the road.' If it is a river that flows through Shimsanyu Valley, it is difficult to find it and to drink its water, but because it flows in the middle of the road, you can drink it anytime, anywhere. Christianity is neither a religion in the mountains nor a religion in closets. Christianity is a street religion. The Christian water of life flows through the middle of the road. And it is not a difficult truth that one has to study for Io years or 20 years to realize, but it is a truth that anyone can easily understand and believe. There is only one perfect person in this world, the Buddha. Everyone learns toward perfection by taking the Buddha as a teacher, but they cannot become perfect human beings like the Buddha. Bodhisattva is the 3rd grade, Maitreya is the 2nd grade, and the Buddha is the 1st grade. After 5.76 billion years, Maitreya will come to this earth.
that it is coming
5.76 billion years is an astronomical number. Perhaps, waiting for that day to come is tiring just thinking about how many tens of millions of times this earth will have to change. But the Bible says that he will come soon.'
You can see that Christianity is not a religion of abstraction and meditation only.
That is why it is wrong to view Christianity as a religion of escapism or a religion of meditation. Christian teaching is positive, Christian ethics is practical and connected to our lives.
(2) On either side of the river is the tree of life.
The tree of life bears twelve kinds of fruit every month, and its leaves are for the healing of the nations.' Jesus Christ is the food of life and the tree of life. When we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord, our life is renewed and we feel as fresh as a green tree.
There was a poor woman who had been abandoned by her husband. I left the house without receiving any alimony. When the case went up to court and the woman stood before the judge, the judge asked: