Revelation 21:1-27

All Things New

The King has returned. The thousand years are over. The devil is now permanently banished to the lake of fire. The Great White Throne judgment has taken place so the wicked are permanently banished. Now comes what we tend to think of as heaven. Here are some observations.

Now fellowship with God is restored. In Eden God waled with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. Now He lives with them always and forever.

Now every tear is wiped away. 

Now there is no more death, mourning, crying, or pain. 

The old order of things is passed away. It isn’t passing. It has passed. We really can’t conceive what this means. Back in the 60’s Bob Dylan was proclaimed the prophetic voice for a new generation with songs such as The Times They Are A Changing. One of the lines from that song said, “The old order is rapidly changing.” Not really. Things were changing but the old order wasn’t even close to budging. But now the old order has indeed passed.

The New Jerusalem appears. It is a city shaped like a cube. Strange, I know, but wait, it’s even stranger. The cube is 1,500 miles on each side. This is not just a city that would stretch from Baltimore to Denver but it is a city that would also reach 1,500 miles high! What kind of city is that? Who can imagine such a thing? The old order has passed.

There are three gates on each side so that means that there is a gate every 500 miles? Each gate is made of a single pearl? Here is where we get the famous “streets of gold” image. What must such a city weigh? Could the earth support such a thing? Some thing it hovers over the earth. What would that do to the gravitational properties on earth? Impossible? It would be but for the fact that the old order has passed.

There will be no night there. When will we sleep? Will we never sleep again? Who can imagine such a thing? The old order has passed.

I get the sense that there is much more to this new order, far more. But we can’t really take this much in so... Wow! All I can say is “bring it.” I believe that is new order for “Amen.”