The Promise of the Holy City

 

“Those who are victorious will inherit all this…”

—Revelation 21:7a

When I was a very small boy, I would often ask my dad when I would be old enough to ride a roller coaster. “One day soon,” he would say to me with a chuckle, knowing that at five years old I was no more ready to ride a roller coaster than cross the street by myself. I would persist with my asking and he would always reply, “One day soon, Pal-ly. One day soon.”

In August, I will begin my 69th year of life. Many of my distant ancestors did not live as long as I have lived. Of course, I have no assurance that I will even live that long. The only thing I know for certain is that God has numbered my days. Every breath that I take and every beat of my heart is truly a precious gift from Him.

I no longer have any desire to ride a roller coaster. (I did have the privilege more than a dozen years ago of participating in the design of the fire protection for a major thrill-ride roller coaster at one of the central Florida theme parks. I never had a chance to ride the coaster. My disability intervened before the project was completed.)

The Apostle John had been exiled to the Isle of Patmos in the Aegean Sea just west of Turkey and east of Greece. It was a lonely rock of an island. As the oldest living Apostle, John had reached his early 90s—an almost unheard of age for a man living at this time in world history. He had long outlived his fellow “truth-carriers.”

God had preserved John’s life for a special reason. As he sat imprisoned on this bleak terrain, John was about to receive the most glorious and terrible visions from God. John wrote down what he experienced in what we now call the Book of Revelation or the Apocalypse.

Toward the end of the last Book in the Bible, John records these powerful words in Revelation 21:5-7:

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

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.”

In the previous verses, God had shown John the Holy City—the New Jerusalem. And, in these few verses God gives John, and all who follow King Jesus, the promise of that great city.

Down through the ages, brothers and sisters in Christ have prayed asking God the question: “How long before You return, O God, to claim victory over all You have created and usher us into Your Presence for evermore. How long before we can sit at the feet of Jesus and glory in His magnificent Presence. How long before we can join with the choir of angels around Your throne and sing the song: ‘Holy! Holy! Holy! Lord God, Almighty! Heaven and Earth are full of Your glory!’”

Increasingly, as I advance in age, I have a new desire welling up within me. I long for eternity to arise. I long for the New Jerusalem. If my dad were still on this earth—he graduated to heaven back in 1981—I might ask him how long it will be until I see Jesus. Just as he answered my question as a little boy, he could very well answer my new question with his quiet words, “One day soon, Pal-ly. One day soon.”

God has given us the promise of the Holy City. It’s a very good promise. It is a promise that will surely come to pass. In fact, it is just around the corner.

If you go into a very dark room during the darkest part of the night, and if you squeeze your eyes very tightly shut, in your mind’s eye, far away on the horizon, you will be able to see just the faintest bit of light peeking above the Judean hills. I know this is true. I have seen it myself once or twice lately. Not every night, you understand, but just often enough to long for its coming. For then—yes, then—I will see Jesus, my Savior, face to face.

 

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