99 GOD F O O T ================================
- H O L D
READING
99 GOD’S NEW WORLD
PRAY Thank you Lord, for your word, your power and your presence today. —————————————————————- READ Revelation 20:11-21:8. —————————————————————- THINK What does 21:1-8 teach about God’s nature? Notice also, the things that are missing from God’s new city. —————————————————————- FOCUS HUMANITY JUDGED (11-15). At the final judgement the dead will stand before the great white throne. (In the word pictures of Revelation the throne represents ‘rule’ and white ‘purity’.) Books will be opened (12). Some are a record of human deeds but this does not mean that we shall be saved by our ‘good works’. What decides that issue is whether or not we are in ‘the book of life’; and we get there because of God’s mercy and Christ’s love. But if we are there, our deeds will show it. NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH (1-8). In the beginning sin had opened up a gap between God and man when Adam was driven out of the garden. Since then,, death, grief, crying and pain (4) have dominated human experience. But finally the split is to be healed, and these things will be no more? It’s almost impossible to imagine what that will be like. God will make his home with mankind. All our needs will be staified, as when a thirsty man finds a spring of fresh water (6). But note that not everyone will enjoy the bliss of that wonderful world (8). In this section of Revelation we do not merely have a picture of the future. The Bible is never interested in the future merely as future, but in its bearing on our lives in the present. So repeatedly there is a word to the reader. —————————————————————- PRAY Help your people so to live this day, Lord, that others may catch some glimpse of the glory that will finally be realised in Christ’s everlasting kingdom.