This is the Bamel Podcast with Marty Solomon. I'm his co-spread Billings. Today we wrap up the book of Revelation and the last verse of our journey through the New Testament and through the entire Scriptures.

Yeah. We hear the moving description of a new heaven and a new earth and an old world that has been made new.

Absolutely. Revelation begins to wind to a close. We see heaven and earth returning to God's original intent.

Indeed, John's message of encouragement is finding its ultimate fulfillment in the affirming close of John's vision.

John speaks of Revelation 21 of a moving reunion of heaven and earth. A reunion the whole earth has been waiting for.

You might remember only back in Romans 8, creation-growning, right? Since soil and spirit has been ripped apart.

Since all the way back at the beginning of the narrative, Genesis chapter 3, soil and spirit got torn apart and we have been waiting for soil and spirit to be reunited appropriately.

So that's where this vision picks up. Go ahead, Brent.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and there was no longer any sea.

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, look, God's dwelling place is now among the people and He will dwell with them.

They will be His people and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes.

There will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain for the old order of things has passed away.

He who has seated on the throne said, I am making everything new. Then He said, write this down for these words are trustworthy and true.

One cannot read this climatic resolution to John's visions and not think of the last half of Isaiah 65.

But in this we also see John's bringing together all sorts of other mini narratives.

Not the least of these being the material that we find all the way back in the Exodus. There is this marital, this image of marriage that we start to see with this great wedding feast.

The vision speaks of God wiping away tears, something that was yearned for by Jeremiah, see chapters 25 or 35 if you want a reference to look for there.

Everything the prophets spoke of and yearned for us finally being experienced here. It's a tragedy that we focus on and argue about so many of the apocalyptic details that we miss the driving image of worship and hope that lies at the end of John's vision.

Give us some more, Brent. He said to me, it is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.

Those who are victorious will inherit all this and I will be their God and they will be my children.

But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars, they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur.

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