The Happy Ending (part i)

This chapter is the ‘happily ever after’ of the Bible. The end of Revelation is the ultimate eucutastrophe, because the end of the world is the ultimate eucutastrophe. As we’ve seen over the last few weeks, Jesus returns on a war horse, destroys His enemies, and we will reign and live with Him for ever and ever in a beautiful and secure city. As you might expect, the last chapter of the Bible sums up the story of Revelation, and in fact, sums up the story of the whole Bible. What Jesus has promised to His people has never changed, whether it’s the first or the 21st century. We see three of those promises in this chapter.

In the first six verses John finishes his vision of the new city, the holy city, made of gold and pearls and jewels. Verses 1 and 2 tells us a river, the river of life flows through the city. Isn’t that a great picture, that the city is so alive that the river of life itself runs through it. This city is more beautiful, more attractive the more we learn about it. On either side of the river is the tree of life, which heals the nations. We’re told that nothing accursed will enter the city and that we will reign, with Jesus’ name on our foreheads, forever and ever.
Everything that was lost to us in the fall, access to the tree, access to healing, freedom from the pollution of sin and being cut off from Jesus will be restored. Everything will be new, everything will be mended, and we will live and reign in this beautiful city with Jesus.

How could you not want that? To live in purity, to live with Jesus will be better than we can possibly imagine it. And it will always get better. Always Christmas, never winter.

We can trust these words, because of what we read in verse 6. These words are trustworthy and true. We have no need to doubt them, The Bible isn’t the latest press release from a self interested company, or the latest news report spun to make a point, the Bible is the true and sincere and trustworthy Word of God. And if we keep this word, we’ll be blessed. Happy, richly rewarded by Jesus in Heaven. That’s what verses 7-9 tell us, look at those with me.

What does it mean to ‘keep the words of this prophecy?’ well I think it is a call to be faithful to the Word of God. To obey it, to live it and to do it. This is a prophecy about Jesus, about how He wins for the sake of His people. Are we going to live like that’s true or not? If you were in one of the seven churches this letter was originally written to you’d know what you were supposed to do to keep these words. Stop tolerating sin. Stop being lukewarm. Keep persevering in your faith. And things haven’t changed that much for us. We need to read the Bible to draw closer to Jesus, so that our hearts are shaped more by the Word than by the world, we need to be sharing our faith, which is the most radical, counter cultural, revolutionary thing we can do. If you want to be radical, live for Jesus and speak for Jesus! Keep the words of this prophecy.