REVEALING THE REVELATION
Chapter 22 – “The River of Life”
May 2, 2010
It was in August of 2009 that we began our study of this book. I had originally planned on studying and preaching only on the Churches that this book starts with – only a couple of chapters -but it’s like eating one potato chip. Once you start you can’t stop until the whole bag is gone – or is that just me? Anyway, here we are at the end of the book and it has been a fun and enlightening journey for me. I hope you have been blessed by it as well. Let’s take a look at it.
REVELATION 22:
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. The angel said to me, "These words are trustworthy and true. The Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place."
"Behold, I am coming soon! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy in this book."
I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me. But he said to me, "Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers the prophets and of all who keep the words of this book. Worship God!"
Then he told me, "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, because the time is near. Let him who does wrong continue to do wrong; let him who is vile continue to be vile; let him who does right continue to do right; and let him who is holy continue to be holy."
"Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
"Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
"I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star."
The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.
I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
He who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming soon."
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people. Amen.
Revelation 22
How would you like for an angel to show you around heaven? That is exactly what happened to John. It must have been overwhelming. Chapter after chapter we have been reading about an angel instructing, explaining, revealing heavenly things to John. He saw the seven headed dragon, the prostitute with vile things written on her, the woman dressed in light, Satan being cast into the pit, the Lake of Fire with the Beast and the false Prophet in it, and in the last chapter we saw heaven through John’s eyes. Streets of transparent gold, foundations of precious stones, gates of pearl and God providing the light in the city through His powerful presence. We found out that nothing impure will ever enter it – only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
This chapter begins with John seeing a crystal clear river of water flowing from the throne of God, down the middle of the street. But where does this river go? One commentary had an interesting solution. He did not believe the Holy City was on the new earth at all. He thought the Holy City is in the shape of a pyramid and the throne of God and the Lamb would be the capstone of this pyramid. The water of life would flow down from the throne through the city to the tree of life and then back to the throne by some unknown force. He says,
“What is shown here is taking place totally within the Holy City. The passage does not say that water actually flows to the new earth at all. The whole system might be a closed system within the Holy City. We cannot even assume that physical laws will be the same in this Holy City. The Holy City will have any physical laws that God wants it to have. There are likely to be more than four dimensions in the Holy City. The Holy City may have real physical manifestations that will demonstrate eternal spiritual truths. The spiritual truth in this case is the living water of the Holy Spirit flowing from the throne of Father God and His Son to the nations.” (Don Koenig)
I think the solution is close to the spiritual truth here. The water is ‘Living Water” – which is the Holy Spirit. I think the truth is that we will have an endless supply of the Holy Spirit in our lives and what happens to the Living Water is that it doesn’t sink wastefully into parched sand- it becomes of part of us as we drink deeply and freely from the Living Water.
And let me encourage you not to wait until heaven to drink of the Living Water. Jesus told the woman at the well that we could have it now. How do we do that? Well first, we have to empty ourselves of anything that would prevent the infilling of the Holy Spirit. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit is only for the obedient. (Acts 5:32) We, therefore, have to rid ourselves of any disobedience in our lives. We need to take a moral inventory of our souls to see if there is any unclean or wicked way in our lives. If there is, we need to repent of it and rid ourselves of it. That only makes sense. Have you ever tried to lead a rebellious child? Maybe you are asking him to come into the kitchen and he wants to stay in the playroom. You can’t lead him to the ice cream if he won’t follow you. The same is with us and the Holy Spirit. He can’t lead us if we are rebelling against Him. We have to ride our hearts of all rebellion and resistance to the Holy Spirit.
Then we are to consecrate ourselves to the Lord. Psalm 25:1 in both the Amplified and Living Bible version says, “Unto You, O Lord, do I bring my life.” The NIV and King James says, “Unto You, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.” The meaning is the same. We are to consecrate our lives to God. Consecration is a complete voluntary surrender to the Lord. In a prayer of consecration you are saying, “Here I am, Lord. I give myself totally to you. Not just my money, not just one hour on Sunday morning, not just a portion of my day, but myself. I give myself. I bring my entire life to you and I lay it on Your alter. That is what it means when we say, “Unto you, O Lord, do I bring my life.” Or “Unto You, O Lord, Do I lift up my soul.”
When we consecrate something, we set it apart for God’s use. When we consecrate our lives, we turn our backs on our fleshly desires, worldly values, carnal thinking, undisciplined living, bad habits and on everything that does not agree with God’s Word. We intentionally put distance between ourselves and ungodly things so that we are prepared and available for God to use us.
If you have not done that- if you have not fully surrendered your entire life to God – then you are not filled with the Holy Spirit. You may have tasted a little of Him. You may have experienced a measure of His goodness. He may be working in your life, but to be filled completely with the Holy Spirit – you must empty yourself completely of all else. You have to empty your hands of all else to receive the Living Water. And when you do – your life will be changed. This Living Water means more power, more life, more cleansing, more love than we could ever imagine. One day the Living Water will be fully available and we can come and drink to our heart’s content.
John saw the River of Life flowing down from the throne of God and down the middle of the city. On either side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit every month. So from the River of Life, comes the Tree of Life – and from the Tree of Life come fruit. It is fruit that continually grows without end. Fruit that is sweet and delicious and life-giving. What kind of fruit do you think that is? I think if the River of Life represents the Holy Spirit – then the fruit must represent the ‘fruit of the Spirit’. Galatians 5 mentions only nine kinds of fruit. It says,
“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control…” Gal 5:22-23
I wonder what the other three fruits of the Spirit are. Could it be there’s more fruit that we can only experience in heaven? Maybe. But the fruit is for all who will freely come to eat. The river of Life is for all who will freely come to drink. The leaves of the tree are for healing. There is no longer going to be any curse. God is going to dwell with us in the city. And His servants will serve Him.
Is it a chore to serve someone you love? No – it is a privilege. It is a blessing to serve God. Paul said it was a blessing to suffer for Him. The early disciplines rejoiced that they were found worthy to suffer for Jesus. Those who receive the honor and privilege of serving Jesus will delight in it. It is only when I was selfish and self-centered and didn’t know Jesus intimately that serving didn’t appeal to me. Now – I delight to serve those I love. I long to serve the Lord.
The Scripture says that His servants will see His face and His name will be on their foreheads. I wonder if we will see Jesus in everyone and when they look at us – they will see Jesus, too. The name on our foreheads may mean He will constantly be on our minds – I’m not sure. I think we will all be of one heart and mind.
Our Scripture says,
“No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.”
If they are going to reign with Him for eternity in the Holy City there must be people to reign over. This should make it clear that not all alive in eternity will live in the Holy City. The mystery we need to solve is who do the people in the Holy City reign over? It cannot be those cast into the Lake of Fire, because scripture says that they will not even come to mind anymore. It cannot be Israel because they are reigning with Jesus.
There is another possibility. They reign over the children of God born after the bride of Christ marries Jesus. What happens to the people born during the millennium who do not follow Satan at his last revolt? We must assume that in this dispensation there will be saved people as in every other dispensation of time. After all, the main reason for the millennial kingdom is to create conditions on earth where many people could be born and saved. It doesn’t make sense to think that everyone on earth came against Jerusalem in this last revolt and that fire came down and consumed saints and sinners alike.
There really is only one possibly, as to where these people are. The faithful in this dispensation will also be protected, as the faithful Church was protected and as Israel was protected during the plagues of Moses time. These people born during the thousand years will be removed or be in a place of shelter before fire comes down from heaven and destroys all the people deceived by Satan at the final rebellion. This fire is the renovation of heaven and earth by fire that Peter speaks of (2 Pet 3:12).
Those that are saved in this millennial dispensation would NOT be included as part of the bride of Christ, because they become His children after He is already married. They are saved individuals or they would be cast in the Lake of Fire at the judgment. Therefore, let us assume that these people are written in the book of life and are either resurrected at the second resurrection or never died and were removed from the earth like Enoch prior to the renovation of heaven and earth by fire. Now with those assumptions the body of Christ has people to rule and reign over for eternity.
We might even want to speculate a bit and take this one-step further and say that these people may still reproduce in eternity. In that event, the body of Christ would have limitless people to rule and reign over. God made Adam and Eve to populate the earth before they even fell and became mortal. The scriptures also indicate that angels wrongfully reproduced with women to produce the race called the Nephilim.
“There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.” Genesis 6:4
I know there is a scripture that says we will not marry in the resurrection but that passage obviously was talking about those who attain the first resurrection. We are told those in the first resurrection will become like the angels. The passage was not talking about those born after the first resurrection who, when death is conquered, have human immortal bodies like Adam and Eve had before the fall.
One thing we know for sure, because the Bible makes it clear, we will rule and reign with Christ. Who we will reign over forever and ever is not as clear.
Another thing we know clearly is, Jesus is coming soon! Jesus, Himself said, “Behold, I am coming soon!” Not once, not twice, but three times in these concluding words, Jesus says this. Verse 7, verse 12 and verse 20. Do you think maybe He wanted us prepared? The angel who was showing John these things said, “The time is near!” (V.10) Folks, we better be ready. The coming of Christ has never been nearer. Never before in history have we been so close to the Coming of Christ. No people in history have ever been closer to the resurrection and the end times than we are. Peter concludes his thoughts with this:
“And so, dear friends, while you are waiting for these things to happen, make every effort to be found living peaceful lives that are pure and blameless in his sight.” 2 Peter 3:14
That’s our job. We need to make the most of every moment we have to be Christlike. The angel said,
“Let him who does wrong continue to do wrong; let him who is vile continue to be vile; let him who does right continue to do right; and let him who is holy continue to be holy."
Let’s us continue to be holy. Let strive for perfection of heart and life. You will never regret making every effort to be holy – but you will regret laziness and apathy and selfishness and sin.
Have you consecrated your heart and life to Jesus? Have you given your all to Him? I invite you to do so as we sing.
“Unto Thee, O Lord”
