Lord, help. That is the prayer of our heart, or the desire of our heart: to be in Your presence. Lord, we do lean on the everlasting arms now.
We pray that, as we open Your Word, Lord, You would reveal it unto us. Lord, we thank You and praise You for Your holy Scriptures, for what they show us. Lord, we are so totally dependent upon Your Holy Spirit now to open our eyes. Lord, we bless Your name. Amen.
My voice is a little dry this morning, so bear with me. Turn to Revelation, chapter 21.
I was at a meeting in another place, and the preacher was sharing. He said how barren the church is, how much in a wilderness she is—basically, how bad off she is.
And as I’ve been meditating on this Scripture for two or three months, my heart was kind of broken when he said that.
Brothers and sisters, what is your view of the church? How do you view her?
Is she a heap of stones of limestone in a quarry, chips and rubble all laying around? That is a picture.
But as we read this passage today, let’s see if your view of the church has changed.
Revelation 21:2-3:
And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,
made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
“Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men,
and He will dwell among them,
and they shall be His people,
and God Himself will be among them.”
Verse 9:
Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and spoke with me, saying,
“Come here.
I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.”
So this morning, we’re asking the Lord to show us the bride, the wife of the Lamb.
And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain,
and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,
having the glory of God.
Now listen to this great description:
Her brilliance was like a very costly stone,
as a stone of crystal-clear jasper.
And it had a great and high wall, with twelve gates,
and at the gates twelve angels;
and names were written on them,
which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel.
There were three gates on the east,
three gates on the north,
three gates on the south,
and three gates on the west.
And the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones,
and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
The one who spoke with me had a gold measuring rod to measure the city, and its gates and its wall.
And the city was laid out as a square, its length as great as its width;
and he measured the city with the rod, fifteen hundred miles.
Its length and width and height are equal.
So, fifteen hundred miles each way.
Verse 18:
And the material of the wall was jasper;
and the city was pure gold, like clear glass.
The foundation stones of the city wall were adorned with every kind of precious stone.
The first foundation stone was jasper;
the second, sapphire;
the third, chalcedony;
the fourth, emerald;
the fifth, sardonyx;
the sixth, sardius;
the seventh, chrysolite;
the eighth, beryl;
the ninth, topaz;
the tenth, chrysoprase;
the eleventh, jacinth;
the twelfth, amethyst.
And the twelve gates were twelve pearls;
each one of the gates was a single pearl.
And the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.
The city has no need of the sun or the moon to shine in it,
for the glory of God has illumined it,
and its lamp is the Lamb.
This morning, I have a few short points about the radiant beauty of the bride of Christ.
To start off, I want to talk about the bride adorned for her husband in Revelation 21:2:
And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,
made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.
As I was meditating on this, I was asking the Lord, “Where should I go just to start off with this adornment of the bride?”
And there’s a book of the Bible that I rarely read. Can you guess what book that is?
Do what? Yes, how did you know?
Turn with me to Song of Solomon. Just a few verses. I’m always a little embarrassed to read it, to tell you the truth. I don’t know about you.
Just a few phrases here—and a lot of it’s repetitive—but this is to show the bride and the Bridegroom.
Chapter 1, verse 15:
How beautiful you are, my darling,
how beautiful you are.
This is the Bridegroom speaking.
Chapter 4, verse 1:
How beautiful you are, my darling,
how beautiful you are.
This is the Groom speaking of the bride.
And then verse 10:
How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride!
Chapter 7, verse 6:
How beautiful and how delightful you are.
Then turn to Isaiah 61:10. We’ll put these verses together.
I will rejoice greatly in the Lord,
my soul will exalt in my God;
for He has clothed me with garments of salvation,
He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
And Isaiah 62:5:
As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so your God will rejoice over you.
What a love relationship there is between the bride and the Bridegroom.
I love the fact that—and it goes without saying—that our Lord Jesus, as the Groom, wants a beautiful bride. He wants a beautiful bride.
We often don’t think of it that way, but there is a great love relationship between the bride and the Bridegroom. And the Groom, our Lord Jesus, wants a beautiful, pure bride. And He calls us His darling. I mean, don’t you find that amazing?
And then Isaiah says He rejoices over the bride. So our Lord Jesus rejoices over the bride. He takes great delight in her beauty.
Ephesians 5:29 says He cherishes. So let’s go ahead and turn there. Thank y’all for turning in the Scriptures. I appreciate it.
No one ever hated his own flesh,
but nourishes and cherishes it,
just as Christ also does the church.
So Christ delights in us. He cherishes us. He thinks that we’re beautiful because we are the bride of Christ. He takes great delight in us.
And that love relationship means that the bride adorns herself with jewels, as it says in Isaiah. The bride decks herself out so that she can be beautiful for her husband, the Lord Jesus.
Brothers and sisters, how do you view the church?
We often—and I was so convicted of this—we often speak negatively of the church, the bride of Christ.
Brothers, if, when you were getting married, someone came up in a very disrespectful tone and said, “Your bride—I can’t stand her. She’s ugly.”
Now, we’re all Christians here, but if somebody said that—gentlemen, if somebody said that to your bride—lay them out flat. How dare you say that about my bride? Don’t say anything about my wife now.
But we often speak and think in terms of the bride of Christ in that way, don’t we? “Oh Lord, the church is in such a mess. She’s ugly. She’s deformed.”
You see, we’re seeing with the eyes of man and not with the eyes of our beloved Lord, who loves His bride and even now considers her beautiful. Even now, He cherishes her in His heart. Isn’t that a wonderful thought?
You see, this picture in Revelation has a lot of applications for us today. But I just found that to be exceedingly helpful: that He loves us and cherishes us.
The second thing we see is that this bride has the glory of God. Look at that in verse 11:
Coming down out of heaven from God,
having the glory of God.
And in verse 3, it says:
Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men,
and He will dwell among them,
and they shall be His people,
and God Himself will be among them.
What a glorious thing that is for the church of the living God: to have the glory of God, to have the very presence of the Lord.
In verse 3, it says they shall be His people, and God Himself will dwell among them. And brothers and sisters, to me, this is the primary thing for the church today: to have the glory of God.
Turn with me to John 17:22.
This is our Lord’s desire. This is for us to have the glory of God.
The glory which You have given Me I have given to them,
that they may be one, just as We are one;
I in them and You in Me,
that they may be perfected in unity,
so that the world may know that You sent Me
and loved them, even as You loved Me.
Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me,
be with Me where I am,
so that they may see My glory which You have given Me.
This is the Lord’s heart. It’s always been the Lord’s heart that His glory would dwell in His people. And what a wonderful thing that is, that the majestic glory of God would dwell in His people.
Around the throne, the cherubim say, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,” and His glory fills the earth. You see the Shekinah glory in the Old Testament. And this glory, the Lord wants to dwell in His people, so that it can be said, “They have the glory of God.”
The Scriptures say that where two or three are gathered together in My name, there I am in their midst. And in Isaiah, it says where He plants His feet, there His glory is.
Brothers and sisters, we are gathered together in His name, and the presence of God is with us. And whenever there is the presence of God, His glory is always there.
It’s an amazing thing that we, as His people, can gather together and be in His presence, even as it was prayed this morning. There is a promise of the glory of God to dwell in her midst, and even in our midst.
What is that verse in Psalms? Do you remember that verse where it says, “I love Thy house, O Lord, where Thy habitation is, that I may be with Your glory, that I may dwell with Your glory”? Let’s turn to that one.
See if you can find that one. It was Psalm 60—what does that say? Oh, I can’t find it. Oh, Psalm 26, verse 8. I’m so sorry.
O Lord, I love the habitation of Your house,
and the place where Your glory dwells.
Brothers and sisters, do you have a great longing in your heart to be in the presence of God, to have His glory with you and with us?
Can you honestly say before the Lord, “I love Your house, the place where Your glory dwells”? And I believe, brothers and sisters, the Lord wants us to have and know His glory, and we are to love that place. We are to love the habitation of His house.
The first primary thing we see here, back in Revelation, is that she has the glory of God. And look at verse 23:
The city has no need of the sun or the moon to shine in it,
for the glory of God has illumined it,
and its lamp is the Lamb.
Not only do we have the glory of God, but the glory of God illumined that city, that bride.
That glory has such a luminance that it is shown throughout that huge city, filling the city with glorious light.
And brothers and sisters, we know from Hebrews that our Lord Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory. So where God’s presence is, there His glory is; and where God’s glory is, there is His glorious light.
Brothers and sisters, we have the presence of God with us. We also have His glory with us. And as we do, there is a glorious light that shines through us and in us.
That glory fills all the walls, the foundation, the sky; it streams through the gates. It is the glorious light of the Lamb of God that shines brightly. This picture we have before us—the city—is just full of light and glory.
Brothers and sisters, that’s a taste of what we should have, a taste of it ourselves: that His glory would fill this place, and that the light of His glory would stream out. It even says that the nations will walk by its light.
That is the bride of Christ. She has the glory of God, and she has the glorious light of God as well.
Back to verse 11:
Having the glory of God,
her brilliance was like a very costly stone.
That glory of God, that light of God that shines, is her brilliance. It’s her brilliance.
The light of the glory of God is her brilliance, and it shines throughout each one of these stones. Think of the brilliance of that city. Let’s just read that again:
Her brilliance was like a very costly stone,
as a stone of crystal-clear jasper.
The material of the wall was jasper,
and the city was pure gold like glass.
And you have all those wonderful, beautiful foundation stones and the streets transparent as glass.
Brothers and sisters, this city, this bride of Christ—her greatest beauty, her only beauty, is that she displays the glory of God. That’s it.
She has no beauty of her own. The city has no beauty other than the glory of Christ.
This picture of her being like a very costly stone, clear as jasper—where else in Revelation do you see that? You see that in Revelation 4:3.
Speaking of the Lord Himself:
He who was sitting on the throne was like a jasper stone and a sardius in appearance.
It seems to me that the very beauty of the walls and of the street and of this city is the Lord Jesus Himself. He has the same color, as it were, the same precious stone.
Of course, we know that Jesus is the Cornerstone, that precious Cornerstone. But it is the light and the glory of the Lord shining through each one of those stones that just shows you the brilliance and the beauty of the radiant bride of Christ: the glory displayed.
And brothers and sisters, this is you and I. This includes you and me.
All the thousands of believers that are gathering in His name, even today, and have for ages, for centuries, for thousands of years—the glory of God has been in her midst, and there has been a beauty that has shone. You and I are a part of that.
We have this beauty of Christ. How can this be? How can it be that you and I can radiate the beauty of the Lord for the world to see? What an amazing thing.
And my heart went to Ephesians chapter 5.
Chapter 5, verse 27:
That He might present to Himself a church in all her glory.
This verse carries the thought that He will present His church glorious, with splendor and with great beauty. She has no spot or wrinkle.
He’s the One who is presenting His church in this manner. He’s the One that bought her. He’s the One that built her, and He’s the One that presents her in this manner.
And the Lord is doing the same work in us. He bought us. He is making us full of His glory, and He will present us in such a manner.
What a wonderful thing this is, brothers and sisters. When the Lord says, “I will build My church,” we don’t build it. The Lord builds it. And this is the way He builds it.
Really, words fail to convey the absolute beauty and perfection of what the Lord has done and what the Lord is doing even now in our midst.
I have a little quote from Brother Stephen out of that wonderful book, Glory in Ezekiel. He says:
Brothers and sisters, all our preciousness is in Him. Remember, if there is any preciousness in any one of us, it is Christ. And God is working in every one of us to make every living stone into a precious stone. Some may be a sardius, some may be a sapphire, some may be emerald, some may be other precious stones, but it is Christ being formed in us with the many attributes of Himself.
This is what the church, the bride of Christ, looks like. If you are spiritually picturing her, she is a tremendous, absolute, perfect city, full of the glory of God, full of His radiance.
I think it’s a wonderful, wonderful picture, don’t you? To think of us this way.
May the light of the Lord shine in each one of us. May He really display His goodness and His glory in each one of us.
And in closing, just turn to Zechariah. You can find it, okay? Chapter 9, the end of verses 16 and 17. Well, let’s read all of verses 16 and 17:
And the Lord their God will save them in that day
as the flock of His people;
for they are as the stones of a crown,
sparkling in His land.
For what comeliness and beauty will be theirs!
And when I read this, I was just struck by how this pictures the people of God.
They are as stones, as gemstones from the crown. It seems to me that it’s akin to the holy city and the crown jewel that she is.
And the Lord seems to be saying, “You are plucked from the crown of God, and you are taken from the crown and scattered out over the land. And you’re sparkling and glittering with the glory of that crown.”
To me, what a wonderful picture of the church: that we are taken from the very presence of God, from His glory and His majesty, as it were, and as stones are spread abroad in the land and glittering.
You know, the church—we should glitter with the glory of God, like that gemstone that you turn in the light and it just glitters. That’s the way we are.
The other Sunday, I was looking around as I was thinking of these things, looking around at all the people here.
See, when you look at it through this lens, all of you are gemstones. God is doing a great work in you. Whether we see it or not, whether the world sees it or not, He is working in each one of you such a glorious light and life of the Lord Jesus that you’re a gemstone.
So I see each one of you not as a lump of limestone, but as gemstones, where the life of the Lord has produced such a brilliant quality of the Lord that you’re radiating the life of Christ.
Let that be an encouragement when you see the church. Sure, in Revelation 2 and 3, we have problems in the church. The Lord’s addressing them. But this picture is also in Revelation.
This picture is of a radiant bride of Christ, of which we are a part. And she is presented by the Lord Himself. He has built her. He has beautified her. Her adornment actually is the glory of the Lord. It is His beauty with which the church is adorned.
So let’s pray.
Lord, I want to thank You that You can change our view so much.
Lord, I pray that we would see the bride, Your bride, as You see her. Lord, I thank You that You love Your bride, You consider her beautiful, that You cherish her, and that You rejoice over her.
And that You’re building her to be this glorious city, full of the glory of God, illumined by the very light of the Lamb.
Lord, I pray that we would love each other. We would love Your bride. Lord, we would take great encouragement in the great work that You’re doing, even in our midst.
Lord, may we, in the coming weeks and months and years together, experience more and more of Your presence, more and more of Your glory.
Lord, that we would experience more of Your glorious light, the radiant light of our Lord Jesus in our midst.
And may we see each other as precious stones, valued by You, created by You. Lord, may Your light and Your work be done in our midst, we pray. Amen.