Then He who sat on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.  And He said to me, Write, for these words are true and faithful.

Revelation 21:5

Christ is the Living Word of God.  The words that He speaks are, ‘true and faithful.’  It is important for us to be clear about these things because the world has many naysayers, who deny the Scriptures, and refuse to embrace the truth they reveal.  Against their refusal we proclaim, ‘All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.’  This inspiration extends to and includes what Christ has said about the future of civilization and the world.  This is why we are not fearful about the future.  While it is true that there are some terrifying, cataclysmic events predicted in the future, our consolation is, we know Him Who holds the future.  He has made promises in the past and we have read the history of how He fulfilled those promises.  We have experienced in our own lives His fulfillment of the promises He has given to those who rest by faith in Him.  Because of these fulfillments, we have every confidence He will fulfill His promises for the future.  Therefore, we believe that His words are ‘true and faithful.’  According to Peter in Acts 2, we are living in the last days.  The events described in Revelation will come to pass, yet we are not afraid.  Christ has made promises to us and Jesus never fails.

Our Glorious and Faithful God,
we rejoice that Your Word is forever sure.
We praise You that Christ will do all that He has promised
and that all shall be well.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

Then He who sat on the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’  And He said to me, ‘Write for these words are true and faithful.’

Revelation 21:5

Christ is not satisfied to merely renovate.  He makes all things new.  Our text reflects what He Who sits on the throne says.  We live in a tired, defective, care-worn world.  It will not always be so.  God gave John an insight into the future.  At the beginning of the chapter John wrote, ‘Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.  Also there was no more sea.’  He goes on to speak of seeing the ‘New Jerusalem’ coming down to the new earth.  He then speaks of Christ wiping away tears, and putting an end to death, sorrow, crying, and pain.  After all this, Christ says, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’   Christ does this for His redeemed people.  The next portion of the chapter includes a description of ‘the bride, the Lamb’s wife.’  These are those in whom Christ did a work of grace long before He made all things new.  He prepared them for this by making them new.  ‘Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.’  The work of redemption in the largest sense includes sanctification which is that work of God’s free grace that renews us in the whole person after the image of Christ.  It is that renewal which prepares us for the new heaven, the new earth, and the new Jerusalem.  This all comes from Christ Who says, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’

Our Powerful, Creating God,
we rejoice that Your plan is to make all things new.
We praise You that You have done in us the work
that is necessary to prepare us to be part of that new creation.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying.  There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.

Revelation 21:4

We live in a world where all the things mentioned in our text are common.  All around us we behold death, sorrow, crying, and pain.  We shed tears often.  These conditions are the result of the entrance of sin and the perpetuation of it throughout the course of human history.  Regardless of how blindly optimistic the theorists are, we are, in fact, not getting better.  Who can fix what is broken; right what is wrong; straighten what is crooked, and address the issues which abound in the world?  Christ is the answer.  The verse before our text speaks of ‘the tabernacle of God.’  It says that this tabernacle will be ‘with man and He will dwell with them.’  Because the ’tabernacle’ is ‘He,’ we can only see in it a reference to Christ, Who is the living embodiment of God in a human dwelling or ‘tabernacle.’  Our text declares what He will do, ‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying.  There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.’  Here is our hope for what shall be.  Here is the resolution of all the things that plague us.  Here is Christ, Who will wipe away every tear; put an end to death, sorrow, crying, and pain.   This is a future worthy of the hope.  We have hope in Christ Who has never failed to fulfill all that He has promised.

Our Gracious Savior and our never-failing God,
we rejoice that You have great things in store for us.
We praise You that You will do all that is necessary,
to right all the wrongs, and to fix what is broken.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burnign

He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.

Revelation 21:7

God declares of ‘he who overcomes’ that he will ‘inherit all things.’  He also proclaims that.  ‘I will be his God and he shall be my son.’  These promises are desirable in every way.  The question arises, ‘how may I be such a person who overcomes?’  This overcoming cannot be anything essentially worldly or carnal.  It cannot be anything that would leave us in the state and condition that the next verse describes, ‘But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.’  What then will make us overcomers?  John defines this for us in I John 5, ‘For whatever is born of God overcomes the world.  And this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith.  Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?’  To overcome requires faith, and not just faith in something or anything.  It requires faith in Christ.  When John speaks of believing that ‘Jesus is the Son of God,’ he is implying all that goes with that.  This is to believe that Jesus is God Who has come in the flesh; that He has lived perfectly, died sacrificially, risen powerfully, ascended visibly, intercedes perpetually, will return gloriously, will judge righteously, and reign eternally.  To believe ‘that Jesus is the Son of God’ is to embrace a whole God, a whole Bible, and a whole Christ.  It is to rest by faith in His finished work and to imitate Him as the outward demonstration of the faith we have in Him.  This is what overcomes the world.

Our Glorious, Living God,
we rejoice that in Christ,
You have made us overcomers.
We praise You that day-by-day,
the work of the Holy Spirit in us
is conforming us to His Image.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

And He said to me, It is done!  I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.  I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts.

Revelation 21:6

Water is critical to life.  Without water we soon fail and die.  It is because water is so integrally related to life that it becomes an eloquent metaphor for that which produces spiritual vitality.  God has used this metaphor throughout history.  In Isaiah 55 we read, ‘Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come, buy and eat.  Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.’ In John 4, Christ spoke of living water to the woman at the well, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, Give Me a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.’  He went on in that conversation to speak of this spiritual water as that which would forever satisfy the receiver and even become a spring which would spring up into everlasting life.  Christ pointed the woman to Himself as the giver of this living water.  Therefore, we understand that Christ is the source and the means by which we receive this spiritual water of life.  Our text reaffirms this truth.  The water of life is that which Christ imparts to us which makes us spiritually alive and also spiritually prosperous and fruitful.  This fruitfulness appears as love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance, or self-control.  These arise from the work of Christ by His Spirit to give us to drink of the water of life

.Our Blessed and Eternal God,
we rejoice that You have given Christ to us
and that He imparts to us the water of life.
We praise You that as we partake of it,
so we grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning