The New Beginning - The fourth of three series of Study The Revelation of Jesus Christ
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The New
Jerusalem – Lesson 2
Revelation 21:9-27
And there came to me one of the seven angels who had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, “Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb's wife.” And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal; and had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel: On the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the south three gates; and on the west three gates.
And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof. And the city lies foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal. And he measured the wall thereof, one-hundred forty- four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel.
And the building of its wall was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald; The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.
And I saw no temple within: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them who are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it. And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. And they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into it.
And by no means shall any thing enter into it that defiles, or works abomination, or makes a lie: but they who are written in the Lamb's book of life.
I will meet you in the morning by the bright riverside
When all sorrow has drifted away
I’ll be standing at the portal when the gates open wide
At the end of life’s long dreary day
I’ll meet you in the morning with a “How do you do?”
And we’ll sit down by the river and with rapture auld acquaintance renew
You’ll know me in the morning by the smiles that I wear
When I meet you in the morning in that city that is built foursquare[i]
We sing of the New Jerusalem, the streets of gold, meeting our loved ones, no more tears, and no more parting, but very seldom do we ever really study about this wonderful future place that our Lord is preparing for us. So, with no more ado, let’s get right into learning about that Bright City and imagining the life we’ll be experiencing there.
Let’s take notice that one of the angels who poured out one of the seven bowls of the wrath of God came to John, talked with John, and offered to show him the Lamb’s wife. This tells me that the angels who have the power to execute vast atrocities are also capable of being congenial to God’s elect. They are servants, simply carrying out God’s orders, and this angel obviously has multi-functions – his purpose did not end with pouring out the bowl God provided for him. As he obediently poured out the bowl of God’s wrath upon the earth, now he is obediently showing John the Lamb’s wife.
Isn’t it strange that immediately after the angel said he would show John the Lamb’s wife, he showed John the great city – the New Jerusalem? One cannot help but ask, “Is the city the Lamb’s wife? What about the church being the Bride of Christ? Do we, as God’s chosen, turn into precious gems to make up a house for our Lord?” F. B. Meyer actually stated:
“The ‘new Jerusalem’ is the redeemed Church united with her Lord in the act of governing the whole world. A city is obviously the seat of imperial rule. In that blessed condition the saints will rule the earth as the powers of darkness rule it now. We shall enjoy the fellowship of the good and great of every age. In a literal sense we shall be fellow-citizens with the saints.”[ii]
I disagree with Bro. Meyer on several points. I do not believe we will be fellow-citizens with the saints, I believe we ARE the saints! I also do not believe the city itself is the Church. I believe the Lord Jesus Christ built this city for Him and His wife to inhabit, and as the angel was showing John the Lamb’s wife, he brought John to their home, the New Jerusalem. Actually, I totally disagree that this is a symbolic passage – I believe the New Jerusalem is an actual, tangible city with walls made out of precious and semi-precious gems and roads of genuine gold where we will walk, run, laugh, and play.
The New Jerusalem is a city like no other city in history. Many cities were walled with great walls to protect its citizens from outside forces, but no city ever had walls of such magnitude as the New Jerusalem will have. These walls have twelve foundations, each made from massive stones. The first foundation is of jasper (a bright red or yellow tone of quartz mingled with browns[iii]), then sapphire (a lapis-lazuli or bright blue gem[iv]), chalcedony (an uncrystalized transparent white stone[v]), emerald (a deep, bright green – said to be the most beautiful of all gems[vi]), sardonyx (an onyx[1][vii]), sardius (sardine or carnelian – a blood-red or flesh colored stone[viii]), chrysolite (a type of topaz[2][ix]), beryl (a pale blue-green gem[x]), topaz (a beautiful, transparent yellow or gold stone[xi]), chrysoprase (a quartz of apple green[xii]), jacinth (a deep blue gem – probably a zircon[xiii]), and amethyst (a gem of deep purple to violet[xiv]). Imagine the colors! We display these gems in a piece of jewelry and marvel at the rich colors, but just think about a foundation carved from a massive bright blue sapphire, a deep green emerald, and a blood red carnelian! Wow! Remember, the pure light of our Lord Jesus Christ lights the city. His brilliant light rays shining through these walls is simply too magnificent to imagine! The walls measure 144 cubits, or 216 feet (depending upon who was the standard measure[3]). Some suppose this to be the height of the walls, with the city itself extending far above, but that seems a little strange. Others have suggested this is the width of the walls, which is far more believable. In the ancient cities, many times the walls were large enough for people to live within them, such as the harlot Rahab who lived in the walls of Jericho. A wall 216 feet thick surrounding a massive city is very believable.
As the city itself is as high as its length and breadth, it is actually in the shape of a cube. 8 furlongs = 1 mile; 12,000 furlongs = 1,500 miles; 1,500 miles3 = 3,375,000,000 cubic miles. Now that’s a city! Bro. Bob Farber, a Messianic Jew and prophecy scholar, described the New Jerusalem as having twelve stories, each made of pure, transparent gold. Pure gold is transparent, and as the light shines through this metal, it will fracture into rainbows of color! If Bob Farber’s interpretation is correct, each story of the city would be 125 miles high. Now, if you are thinking about this present earth, it would be quite impossible. Our atmosphere is about 120 miles high, so you can see the problem. But this is the New Earth, for the first earth has passed away.
If the city is in layers, the first layer would be 125 miles high, the second would reach another 125 miles, or 250 miles, the third would reach 375 miles, the fourth 500 miles, the fifth 625 miles, the sixth 750 miles, the seventh 875 miles, the eighth 1,000 miles, the ninth 1,125 miles, the tenth 1,250 miles, the eleventh 1,375 miles, and the twelfth 1,500 miles. To give us a more precise perspective, it is about 1,500 miles from New York City to Denver, so the New Jerusalem would be about ¾ the size of the United States on the first level, and there are eleven more levels of equal size! No city in history can compare to such a colossal, beautiful masterpiece.
The designer and architect is none other than the Creator, the Lord Jesus Christ. We marvel at His artistic beauty daily as we live in this cursed world. Just for one minute, imagine what this masterpiece might contain. He will bring His bride home here to live, and He has been working on it for two thousand years, perfecting every detail so that He can present it to His one true love for their eternal future.
Some other things to notice are the gates. There are twelve – each made from one pearl. Ok… pearls come from - - - oysters! Now, we know there are many things in the oceans that we have never discovered, but God is (or will be) manufacturing some majorly large pearls somewhere. The terribly sad thing about how oysters produce pearls is that the oyster must suffer from the pain of a grain of sand lodged where it doesn’t belong. Its body, over time of suffering with this ailment begins to coat the sand with mucous which hardens and smooths out the sharp edges of the irritating sand. But, now, the sand, though smoother, is larger and more irritating; the oyster still deals with it in the same way so that the pearl continues to grow. The oyster lives with this ever growing irritating pain until it has made a beautiful pearl to adorn someone else.
I think about oysters creating pearls when I experience some otherwise senseless suffering. It gives me comfort to think that somewhere, someone is or will be benefitting, even though I cannot understand how. Just perhaps, the unexplainable, painful experience creates a beautiful “pearl” of some type for Someone’s glory.
The only place we know where oysters exist is in our own oceans. We have discovered that gold, other precious gems, and even water exist in space, on meteors, or on other planets, but we have never discovered any type of life anywhere else but on our own planet. That doesn’t mean life does not exist anywhere else or that God could not create large oysters in another ocean on another planet. As John saw the New Jerusalem “coming down” from heaven, we could almost assume these pearls are being created somewhere else.
I do not understand why many Christians seem to think the idea of life existing somewhere other than here on earth dispels the Biblical account of creation. It does not. It simply means that God could also have created life elsewhere. We have a mighty big God, quite capable of much that we cannot fathom. We do not need to shrink Him into something He is not just so we can grasp Him and His intentions. Discovering dinosaur bones caused many people to lose faith in God unnecessarily, and caused many other people to be afraid of other discoveries. This is very sad to me. Of all people, we Christians should be excitedly trying to discover all we can about the wonderful creation God has given to us. The aspects we do not understand cannot make God nonexistent. This is one reason we must have the faith of a little child. Children simply accept new information and store it until they can sort out all the hows, whys, and wherefores. We will always be as little children in this life and never know everything about everything. Our faith in God must be bigger than our understanding.
Another thing we need to pay close attention to: these gates are never closed. Cartoons depicting St. Peter at the pearly gates allowing some to enter and rejecting others is a completely false concept. I heard one evangelist say that some Christians will be on the outside of the walls of the New Jerusalem, not being allowed to enter because of unconfessed sin in their lives. This, too, is false information. Gates that are never closed indicate free coming and going to all. Remember, Satan and all his followers were thrown into the Lake of Fire before the New Heaven and New Earth – before the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven. They are nowhere near to have access. Also remember, God judged all our sin at Calvary and the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ paid our entire penalty. We will never pay for our own sins if we believe in (fully trust and commit ourselves to) the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the “Pearl of Great Price[xv]” and the entrance is only through Him! The New Jerusalem is for everyone to freely and completely enjoy! There is no enemy to keep out. For the first time, we’ll experience perfect safety, perfect peace, and perfect joy with absolutely no worries about anything. WOW! Who could not want that??
In our next lesson, we will be exploring what life will be like in the New Jerusalem.
__________
[1] “The onyx is an accidental variety of the agate kind; it is of a dark horny color, in which is a plate of a bluish white, and sometimes of red. When on one or both sides of the white there happens to lie also a plate of a reddish color, the jewelers call the stone a sardonyx.”
[2] “The seventh, chrysolite; a stone of a dusky green colour, with a cast of yellow; by its name it should have the colour of gold. Schroder says it is found in Bohemia, and that it is the same the moderns call the topaz. Some think it answers to "tarshish" in the breastplate, rendered "beryl", on which was the name of Asher.”
[3] A cubit was the length of a man’s forearm, usually the king’s forearm. Here, it is the “angel’s” (messenger’s), but which angel? Many believe it is the measurement of Jesus’ forearm, as He is the King.
[i] Brumbly, Albert; Hymn: “Meet You in the Morning”
[ii] Meyer, F. B., Through the Bible by Day, Revelation 9-27
[iii] Barnes, Albert, (1798-1890), Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible, Revelation 4:3.
[iv] Strong’s Hebrew and Greek Dictionaries taken from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, James Strong, ©1890.
[v] Barnes, Albert, (1798-1890), Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible, Revelation 21:19.
[vi] Clarke, Adam, LL.D., F.S.A., (1715-1832), Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible, Revelation 21:19.
[vii] Clarke, Adam, LL.D., F.S.A., (1715-1832), Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible, Revelation 21:20.
[viii] Barnes, Albert, (1798-1890), Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible, Revelation 21:20.
[ix] Gill, Dr. John, (1690-1771), John Gill’s Exposition on the Entire Bible, Revelation 21:20.
[x] Clarke, Adam, LL.D., F.S.A., (1715-1832), Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible, Revelation 21:20.
[xi] Gill, Dr. John, (1690-1771), John Gill’s Exposition on the Entire Bible, Revelation 21:20.
[xii] Barnes, Albert, (1798-1890), Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible, Revelation 21:20.
[xiii] Strong’s Hebrew and Greek Dictionaries taken from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, James Strong, ©1890.
[xiv] Clarke, Adam, LL.D., F.S.A., (1715-1832), Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible, Revelation 21:20.
[xv] Matthew 13:46
Revelation 21:9-27
And there came to me one of the seven angels who had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, “Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb's wife.” And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal; and had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel: On the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the south three gates; and on the west three gates.
And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof. And the city lies foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal. And he measured the wall thereof, one-hundred forty- four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel.
And the building of its wall was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald; The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.
And I saw no temple within: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them who are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it. And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. And they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into it.
And by no means shall any thing enter into it that defiles, or works abomination, or makes a lie: but they who are written in the Lamb's book of life.
I will meet you in the morning by the bright riverside
When all sorrow has drifted away
I’ll be standing at the portal when the gates open wide
At the end of life’s long dreary day
I’ll meet you in the morning with a “How do you do?”
And we’ll sit down by the river and with rapture auld acquaintance renew
You’ll know me in the morning by the smiles that I wear
When I meet you in the morning in that city that is built foursquare[i]
We sing of the New Jerusalem, the streets of gold, meeting our loved ones, no more tears, and no more parting, but very seldom do we ever really study about this wonderful future place that our Lord is preparing for us. So, with no more ado, let’s get right into learning about that Bright City and imagining the life we’ll be experiencing there.
Let’s take notice that one of the angels who poured out one of the seven bowls of the wrath of God came to John, talked with John, and offered to show him the Lamb’s wife. This tells me that the angels who have the power to execute vast atrocities are also capable of being congenial to God’s elect. They are servants, simply carrying out God’s orders, and this angel obviously has multi-functions – his purpose did not end with pouring out the bowl God provided for him. As he obediently poured out the bowl of God’s wrath upon the earth, now he is obediently showing John the Lamb’s wife.
Isn’t it strange that immediately after the angel said he would show John the Lamb’s wife, he showed John the great city – the New Jerusalem? One cannot help but ask, “Is the city the Lamb’s wife? What about the church being the Bride of Christ? Do we, as God’s chosen, turn into precious gems to make up a house for our Lord?” F. B. Meyer actually stated:
“The ‘new Jerusalem’ is the redeemed Church united with her Lord in the act of governing the whole world. A city is obviously the seat of imperial rule. In that blessed condition the saints will rule the earth as the powers of darkness rule it now. We shall enjoy the fellowship of the good and great of every age. In a literal sense we shall be fellow-citizens with the saints.”[ii]
I disagree with Bro. Meyer on several points. I do not believe we will be fellow-citizens with the saints, I believe we ARE the saints! I also do not believe the city itself is the Church. I believe the Lord Jesus Christ built this city for Him and His wife to inhabit, and as the angel was showing John the Lamb’s wife, he brought John to their home, the New Jerusalem. Actually, I totally disagree that this is a symbolic passage – I believe the New Jerusalem is an actual, tangible city with walls made out of precious and semi-precious gems and roads of genuine gold where we will walk, run, laugh, and play.
The New Jerusalem is a city like no other city in history. Many cities were walled with great walls to protect its citizens from outside forces, but no city ever had walls of such magnitude as the New Jerusalem will have. These walls have twelve foundations, each made from massive stones. The first foundation is of jasper (a bright red or yellow tone of quartz mingled with browns[iii]), then sapphire (a lapis-lazuli or bright blue gem[iv]), chalcedony (an uncrystalized transparent white stone[v]), emerald (a deep, bright green – said to be the most beautiful of all gems[vi]), sardonyx (an onyx[1][vii]), sardius (sardine or carnelian – a blood-red or flesh colored stone[viii]), chrysolite (a type of topaz[2][ix]), beryl (a pale blue-green gem[x]), topaz (a beautiful, transparent yellow or gold stone[xi]), chrysoprase (a quartz of apple green[xii]), jacinth (a deep blue gem – probably a zircon[xiii]), and amethyst (a gem of deep purple to violet[xiv]). Imagine the colors! We display these gems in a piece of jewelry and marvel at the rich colors, but just think about a foundation carved from a massive bright blue sapphire, a deep green emerald, and a blood red carnelian! Wow! Remember, the pure light of our Lord Jesus Christ lights the city. His brilliant light rays shining through these walls is simply too magnificent to imagine! The walls measure 144 cubits, or 216 feet (depending upon who was the standard measure[3]). Some suppose this to be the height of the walls, with the city itself extending far above, but that seems a little strange. Others have suggested this is the width of the walls, which is far more believable. In the ancient cities, many times the walls were large enough for people to live within them, such as the harlot Rahab who lived in the walls of Jericho. A wall 216 feet thick surrounding a massive city is very believable.
As the city itself is as high as its length and breadth, it is actually in the shape of a cube. 8 furlongs = 1 mile; 12,000 furlongs = 1,500 miles; 1,500 miles3 = 3,375,000,000 cubic miles. Now that’s a city! Bro. Bob Farber, a Messianic Jew and prophecy scholar, described the New Jerusalem as having twelve stories, each made of pure, transparent gold. Pure gold is transparent, and as the light shines through this metal, it will fracture into rainbows of color! If Bob Farber’s interpretation is correct, each story of the city would be 125 miles high. Now, if you are thinking about this present earth, it would be quite impossible. Our atmosphere is about 120 miles high, so you can see the problem. But this is the New Earth, for the first earth has passed away.
If the city is in layers, the first layer would be 125 miles high, the second would reach another 125 miles, or 250 miles, the third would reach 375 miles, the fourth 500 miles, the fifth 625 miles, the sixth 750 miles, the seventh 875 miles, the eighth 1,000 miles, the ninth 1,125 miles, the tenth 1,250 miles, the eleventh 1,375 miles, and the twelfth 1,500 miles. To give us a more precise perspective, it is about 1,500 miles from New York City to Denver, so the New Jerusalem would be about ¾ the size of the United States on the first level, and there are eleven more levels of equal size! No city in history can compare to such a colossal, beautiful masterpiece.
The designer and architect is none other than the Creator, the Lord Jesus Christ. We marvel at His artistic beauty daily as we live in this cursed world. Just for one minute, imagine what this masterpiece might contain. He will bring His bride home here to live, and He has been working on it for two thousand years, perfecting every detail so that He can present it to His one true love for their eternal future.
Some other things to notice are the gates. There are twelve – each made from one pearl. Ok… pearls come from - - - oysters! Now, we know there are many things in the oceans that we have never discovered, but God is (or will be) manufacturing some majorly large pearls somewhere. The terribly sad thing about how oysters produce pearls is that the oyster must suffer from the pain of a grain of sand lodged where it doesn’t belong. Its body, over time of suffering with this ailment begins to coat the sand with mucous which hardens and smooths out the sharp edges of the irritating sand. But, now, the sand, though smoother, is larger and more irritating; the oyster still deals with it in the same way so that the pearl continues to grow. The oyster lives with this ever growing irritating pain until it has made a beautiful pearl to adorn someone else.
I think about oysters creating pearls when I experience some otherwise senseless suffering. It gives me comfort to think that somewhere, someone is or will be benefitting, even though I cannot understand how. Just perhaps, the unexplainable, painful experience creates a beautiful “pearl” of some type for Someone’s glory.
The only place we know where oysters exist is in our own oceans. We have discovered that gold, other precious gems, and even water exist in space, on meteors, or on other planets, but we have never discovered any type of life anywhere else but on our own planet. That doesn’t mean life does not exist anywhere else or that God could not create large oysters in another ocean on another planet. As John saw the New Jerusalem “coming down” from heaven, we could almost assume these pearls are being created somewhere else.
I do not understand why many Christians seem to think the idea of life existing somewhere other than here on earth dispels the Biblical account of creation. It does not. It simply means that God could also have created life elsewhere. We have a mighty big God, quite capable of much that we cannot fathom. We do not need to shrink Him into something He is not just so we can grasp Him and His intentions. Discovering dinosaur bones caused many people to lose faith in God unnecessarily, and caused many other people to be afraid of other discoveries. This is very sad to me. Of all people, we Christians should be excitedly trying to discover all we can about the wonderful creation God has given to us. The aspects we do not understand cannot make God nonexistent. This is one reason we must have the faith of a little child. Children simply accept new information and store it until they can sort out all the hows, whys, and wherefores. We will always be as little children in this life and never know everything about everything. Our faith in God must be bigger than our understanding.
Another thing we need to pay close attention to: these gates are never closed. Cartoons depicting St. Peter at the pearly gates allowing some to enter and rejecting others is a completely false concept. I heard one evangelist say that some Christians will be on the outside of the walls of the New Jerusalem, not being allowed to enter because of unconfessed sin in their lives. This, too, is false information. Gates that are never closed indicate free coming and going to all. Remember, Satan and all his followers were thrown into the Lake of Fire before the New Heaven and New Earth – before the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven. They are nowhere near to have access. Also remember, God judged all our sin at Calvary and the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ paid our entire penalty. We will never pay for our own sins if we believe in (fully trust and commit ourselves to) the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the “Pearl of Great Price[xv]” and the entrance is only through Him! The New Jerusalem is for everyone to freely and completely enjoy! There is no enemy to keep out. For the first time, we’ll experience perfect safety, perfect peace, and perfect joy with absolutely no worries about anything. WOW! Who could not want that??
In our next lesson, we will be exploring what life will be like in the New Jerusalem.
__________
[1] “The onyx is an accidental variety of the agate kind; it is of a dark horny color, in which is a plate of a bluish white, and sometimes of red. When on one or both sides of the white there happens to lie also a plate of a reddish color, the jewelers call the stone a sardonyx.”
[2] “The seventh, chrysolite; a stone of a dusky green colour, with a cast of yellow; by its name it should have the colour of gold. Schroder says it is found in Bohemia, and that it is the same the moderns call the topaz. Some think it answers to "tarshish" in the breastplate, rendered "beryl", on which was the name of Asher.”
[3] A cubit was the length of a man’s forearm, usually the king’s forearm. Here, it is the “angel’s” (messenger’s), but which angel? Many believe it is the measurement of Jesus’ forearm, as He is the King.
[i] Brumbly, Albert; Hymn: “Meet You in the Morning”
[ii] Meyer, F. B., Through the Bible by Day, Revelation 9-27
[iii] Barnes, Albert, (1798-1890), Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible, Revelation 4:3.
[iv] Strong’s Hebrew and Greek Dictionaries taken from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, James Strong, ©1890.
[v] Barnes, Albert, (1798-1890), Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible, Revelation 21:19.
[vi] Clarke, Adam, LL.D., F.S.A., (1715-1832), Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible, Revelation 21:19.
[vii] Clarke, Adam, LL.D., F.S.A., (1715-1832), Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible, Revelation 21:20.
[viii] Barnes, Albert, (1798-1890), Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible, Revelation 21:20.
[ix] Gill, Dr. John, (1690-1771), John Gill’s Exposition on the Entire Bible, Revelation 21:20.
[x] Clarke, Adam, LL.D., F.S.A., (1715-1832), Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible, Revelation 21:20.
[xi] Gill, Dr. John, (1690-1771), John Gill’s Exposition on the Entire Bible, Revelation 21:20.
[xii] Barnes, Albert, (1798-1890), Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible, Revelation 21:20.
[xiii] Strong’s Hebrew and Greek Dictionaries taken from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, James Strong, ©1890.
[xiv] Clarke, Adam, LL.D., F.S.A., (1715-1832), Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible, Revelation 21:20.
[xv] Matthew 13:46