Day 365 (Revelation 19-22) - Year 6
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Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. Here we are. Can you believe it? Congratulations on crossing this milestone.

Whether this is your first trip through the whole Bible or the New Testament, or if you've done this many times before, it's still worth celebrating. I hope you have something planned. What have you learned this year? This was my 10th trip through the Bible, and I've still learned something new every single day. Let's talk about what we saw in today's reading of Book 27 of the New Testament and Book 66 of the whole Bible.

We're in the final chapters of John's vision of the revelation of Jesus. After God's massive victory yesterday, heaven erupts in a party today. The multitudes in heaven praise God for his justice and truth and salvation and glory and power. And suddenly, it's time for the marriage of the Lamb and his bride, Christ and the Church, clothed in purity, in fine white linen.

The angel who has been guiding John through these visions tells him to write down that those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb will be blessed. And guess why this is such a blessing? Because those invited are the bride. Then John falls down at the angel's feet, but the angel says, hey, hey, whoa, whoa, none of that. I'm a servant of God. Worship him. John pulls this again in chapter 22 and gets shut down again because God's angels refuse to be worshiped. So just a heads up, if you ever find an angel that receives worship, run.

Jesus comes out on a white horse and he's wearing a robe dipped in blood. He's followed by the armies of heaven, which usually refers to angels, but here it's likely referring to the people of God because it clarifies that they're wearing the same outfits as before. A sword is coming out of Jesus' mouth, and this has echoes of Ephesians 16 and the armor of God, where the word of God is our sword. His word is his weapon. His word, which comes out of his mouth, brings justice and is victorious over his enemies.

And all those armies of heaven behind him, us, it appears we do nothing. He wins on his own, and pretty quickly. In chapter 20, we hit a section referred to as the millennium, or the millennial reign. There are lots of perspectives on whether this is a literal, precise number, or if it's more symbolic. There are also lots of opinions on when this is set, past, present, or future.

In conjunction with the millennium, Satan is bound in the bottomless pit temporarily. Your view on the millennium also determines how you view Satan's binding and the resurrections that are described here. In case you missed the resources we linked to when we started Revelation, we'll drop those in the show notes again today. There's a PDF, a quick guide, and a database with lots of info.

Satan will eventually suffer defeat in eternal torment, along with the two other members of his counterfeit trinity, the beast and the false prophet. And while it appears everyone will be judged by their works, those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life will be pardoned because their sins are covered by Christ the Lamb. He has recorded our name in the pages of life.

Jesus referenced this in Luke 10 20 when his disciples were thrilled that they had power over demons. He said, Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. Given everything we're reading about eternity, you can see why having your name written in the book of life is a much bigger deal. Because the lake of fire is reserved for anyone whose name isn't in the book.

Paul also referenced this book in Philippians 4.3 when he talked about his co-laborers in the gospel. He said their names are written in the book. After all of this, heaven and earth pass away. So wait, aren't we supposed to go to heaven? How do we go there if it passes away?

God's kids who die before Christ returns do go to heaven, but heaven is just a temporary holding tank, apparently. Our disembodied spirits that go to heaven will be re-embodied and we will live in the new dwelling place of God and his people, just like John told us in 1 John 3. Here he fleshes that out a little bit more for us. He calls our new home the New Jerusalem. From what I understand, here's how this goes. Old heaven and old earth are destroyed. They've both been tarnished by sin, whether by humans or by angels, so they have to be renewed.

Then, when He renews them into the new heaven and the new earth, the new heaven descends and merges with the new earth. It's literally when God comes down to dwell with His people on the new earth in perfection and completion and the restoration of all things.

Scholars disagree on whether heaven and earth will be entirely new material or if the old versions will be purged, like with fire, and restored. Either way, the New Jerusalem is astonishing. John is blown away by the vision. It's a gold cube, roughly 1,400 cubic miles, decorated with precious jewels. I don't know if this is literal or if it just symbolizes perfection, but I tried to do some quick math on this, and if my math is close, then in volume, the New Jerusalem is slightly larger than the moon.

But again, this might not be literal. What does seem to be literal is that there's no temple here, because God himself is our temple. He is the dwelling place of him with us. The gates of the New Jerusalem are never shut, and it's always daytime there because you can't put God on dim, which also means there's no such thing as turning back the clocks, no seasonal affective disorder, and no sun damage.

He says there is water for the thirsty that they can come drink for free. And this has Old Testament echoes of Jesus, who was the rock that brought water in the wilderness, like we read in 1 Corinthians 10. This reminds us of the prophecies of Isaiah 55, as well as Jesus offering himself as eternal water in John 4. It is free to all who will receive it. But those who reject the eternal living water of Jesus will get an eternity of what they long for, complete waterlessness.

In chapter 22, the river of life flows from the throne and through the city, and on both sides of the river the tree of life grows. What Adam and Eve broke everything to get is right there for the taking, year-round. It's not forbidden, and there are no curses attached to it, and it seems to have some kind of rotating menu of fruit, a new special flavor each month.

The angel tells John to write all this down, but don't seal the envelope because people need to read this. People need to know that Jesus is really coming back, that judgment is really happening, and that the free blessing of knowing God and living with him for eternity really awaits. Spread the word, the angel says, because by the time this actually happens, the end will be here and the judgment will be upon us and it'll be too late.

In verse 14, we see the last of the seven Beatitudes of Revelation, the blessed are statements in this book. We'll link to a resource that shows you all of them in case you missed a few. This one says, Blessed are those who wash their robes so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Our robes made pure by the blood of the Lamb. Our needs met. Our unity restored.

My God shot is in the words of Jesus three times in this chapter. He says three times, he's coming back soon. I feel like he's got one foot on the gas and one on the brake, and I'm so ready for him to come back soon.

Knowing the incredible, glorious future that awaits us, John says God's kids will join with the Spirit and beg Christ to return. When John quotes the words of Jesus and says, surely I am coming soon, he leads the response so that we'll all follow him when he says, amen, come Lord Jesus. So say it with John and say it with me. Amen, come Lord Jesus. You're where the joy is. Amen.

We did it. You did it. And we'll be starting all over again with day one tomorrow. I hope I'll see you back here tomorrow because reading through the Bible, it's not just something to check off your bucket list. This is a lifelong relationship where we get to engage with the God of the universe every day for the rest of our lives. Reading the Bible isn't a box to check. It's air to breathe. But

But if you do decide to step away, I will still be praying for you. And I'll also be praying that you realize how much you miss my corny jokes and you end up coming back.

But if you're sticking around and doing the same plan and recapping with us, I'm here to cheer you on. Listen, I've done this plan more than 15 times, and I plan to keep doing it until I'm in the ground. It never gets old to me. I keep learning new things about him. So if you're sticking around, but you want to step things up a bit next year, we've got a lot of great options to help you. So you can choose your own adventure. For instance, you could join us for our daily prayer podcast that corresponds to our daily reading and recapping. It's called The Bible Kneecap.

That second daily podcast is available to our Recaptains at the Kneecap tier, but we're going to post a free sample for you to hear tomorrow. If you like what you hear, click the Recaptains link at thebiblerecap.com for more info. Or you could check out the Daily Journal, the Daily Study Guide, the Weekly Discussion Guide. Those three tools are things you can use on their own, or they also work together beautifully.

To see samples of these three books or order your own copies, check out the store link at thebiblerecap.com or click the link in the show notes. Let's keep going, Bible readers. Think of all the things God still wants to teach you through his living, active, beautiful, joy-inducing word. Let's keep looking for him. I'll see you back here tomorrow because he's where the joy is.