Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas
Jeremy approaches Bible teaching with a passion for getting the basic doctrines explained so that the individual can understand them and then apply them to circumstances in their life. These basic and important lessons are nestled in a framework of history and progression of revelation from the Bible so the whole of Scripture can be applied to your physical and spiritual life.
Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas
NT Framework - Like but Not Alike
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Spiritual or Physical? Remodeled or Recreated? Once we pass through the Messiahs Kingdom, what will heaven be like? Will it be familiar to us and yet completely different or something wholly unique?
More information about Beyond the Walls, including additional resources can be found at www.beyondthewalls-ministry.com
This series included graphics to illustrate what is being taught, if you would like to watch the teachings you can do so on Rumble (https://rumble.com/user/SpokaneBibleChurch) or on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtV_KhFVZ_waBcnuywiRKIyEcDkiujRqP).
Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner.
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and our series on the New Testament framework. Today, a smaller, bite-sized piece from the larger lesson. We hope you enjoy it.
SPEAKER_01:I also saw a holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride, and so forth. And it goes on to describe that God will dwell among us, and we shall be his people, and he will be our God, right? That's God's ultimate desire in history is to dwell with man. It started that way in the garden. He wanted to dwell with man, and what came in between and caused a barrier between us and God? Sin, right? And so he has ever since been seeking to reconstitute us so he could dwell among us. And that took place in the form of the Shekinah glory in the Old Testament, right? The pillar of fire by night, cloud by day. In the tabernacle, it says Exodus 25, build the tabernacle, I will dwell among you. You will be my people to Israel, and I will be your God. Um and so he dwelled with them until the Shekinah glory left the temple in the Babylonian exile. And then of course he has never returned in that sense, but he has returned in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, which God dwelt among us, right? And um ultimately then he's going to return in the millennial kingdom and dwell among us. But then finally, the ultimate realization of this hope is here in the new heavens and new earth. He'll wipe away every tear, verse 4. There will no longer be any death, no longer be any mourning, no crying, no pain. The first things have passed away. Now, none of those things are normal, and this is one of the most important points for Christians to get in their mind. Death, crying, suffering, tears, these are not normal, right? Because we've got the original creation when God made everything, God said it was very what? Good. And there was no tears, there was no crying, there was no suffering, there was no pain, there were no inefficiencies in labor, no problems in life. That's normal. That's normal. So with the introduction of sin into our world through Adam, now we experience what is called abnormality. And so death is an abnormal adembration or addition to what God originally made and designed us for. So this will all be removed, though, and we will go back to what is quote unquote normal. Okay? No death, no crying, no tears, no pain, no mourning. And then you begin to sit and read about all the things that He made. Now, there's things that are unlike, you know, for example, there's no sea. But notice things like, let's come down in the chapter, let's read verse 12. We're going to get a view of the holy city, Jerusalem. It comes down out of heaven. It has the brilliance of God's glory, right? Shining through this stone wall. Now we have stone walls today, right? So this is a similarity. And they may not be made of jasper, crystal clear jasper wall, by the way, 72 yards thick. A 72-yard thick wall. That's 226 feet or something like that, 23 feet. Thick wall. Almost the thickness of a football field, right? And it's crystal clear, you can see right through it, and the glory of God shines through that wall. But this is something that's similar to our world because we have we and known cities in the world that have been surrounded by walls. What is this saying anyway? I mean, I believe this is literal, this will literally be there, but what is it saying? It's talking about the security, the security of the city, that nothing evil will ever enter it, nothing evil will ever topple it. By the way, did the Garden of Eden have, so to speak, a barrier around it? It must have, because there was a gate that the angels, the cherry beam, were stationed at to guard entrance into that garden to go to the tree of the knowledge of the tree of life. So you'll see some similarities between the garden and the ultimate city. Everything starts in a green lush garden, it ends in this beautiful city. So that's a similarity to our present creation, showing the derivative nature of it. Verse 12, it had a great and high wall, which was twelve gates. Okay, we have gates. The gates have twelve angels. Why are these angels there? Well, we find out later in the chapter. They're basically standing there to guard it. Now the gate remains open. These gates are composed of pearls. Okay, so well, we've heard of the pearly gates. But anyway, there's one great pearl for each gate in reality. And an angel stationed at each gate. Again, showing what? Security. You set a guard there to security. And what will never come in? Well, we're being told in verse 8, 21, 8, but for the cowardly and the unbelieving and the abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. See, they'll never be able to enter. They're mentioned again later in verse 22, 15. Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral persons. Outside. See, they'll never enter. The point is that there's never ever going to be a meeting of those who were in unbelief, who died in unbelief, and those who died in belief, right? There's a total separation in the final state of things. Verse 21 14, the wall of the city had 12 foundation stones. If you have 12 foundation stones, I mean how many do you really need to have a stable foundation? So this is showing, pointing up the stability that this will never ever crumble. This will never ever fall. It's eternal, right? It's literal, but this has impact on meaning as well. Then they measure the city, you know, and you can read 1,500 miles. It's like half the size, or maybe like 40% of the size of the United States of America. I mean, this is the biggest city. I mean, we thought we've seen metropolises, you've never seen anything like this. Um, the materials are described, the foundation stones are described. Again, these are all things that come from our current reality, like pure gold for the streets, the various stones and things that compose the foundations. Why do they share something with our current creation? Well, to show that the new heavens and new earth, New Jerusalem, is derived from this creation. Okay? Um, so there are things that are like, there are things that are unlike, and that's just like the resurrection body. There's also trees there, right? There's also food you can eat, you know, the tree of life is there and it gives off a different fruit every month. Can you imagine? What kind of tree does that in our world? We have trees that give off fruit, but if it's an apple tree, it's an apple tree, unless you try to, you know, what do you call that when you graph, thank you. Graft something in, okay. But the point is basically our trees in this world have the genetic capability of producing one type of fruit. But whatever these trees are, the tree of life, whatever this is, they can bear a different fruit every month.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas. If you would like to see the visuals that went along with today's sermon, you can find those on Rumble and on YouTube under Spokane Bible Church. That is where Jeremy is the pastor and teacher. We hope you found today's lesson productive and useful in growing closer to God and walking more obediently with Him. If you found this podcast to be useful and helpful, then please consider rating us in your favorite podcast app. And until next time, we hope you have a blessed and wonderful day.