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And I think this is like the

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most one of the most beautiful passages
in the whole Bible.

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And this is one of the things I love
about the book of Revelation, the deeper

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I get into it is, I realize it's such
a brilliant genre to end the Bible with

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because it forces you

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to constantly be connecting and thinking
about the whole rest of the Bible.

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So it's like this awesome recap.

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Paul Lamicela,

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welcome back
to the Anabaptist Perspectives podcast.

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So we did an episode with you,
a couple months back that was,

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got a lot of attention.

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I guess you could say it was on

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how to read the Book of Revelation,
and I think it's the most requested

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follow up
that we've ever had for an episode is

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get you back on the podcast
and go deeper into that,

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because there's a lot
that we didn't go into in that episode.

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And of course, you can check the
and check it out in the description,

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to those listening to this.

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So we're going to do that today.

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And I think specifically
you're going to be looking in

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a more, a narrower slice of it
instead of looking at the whole book.

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And I'd say, let's just jump right in.

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I think we're in revelation 21 and 22.

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So maybe you want to lay out
some of the groundwork

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of what we're going to cover, and,
and we'll go from there.

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Yeah. Well, it's good to be back.

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And I think that
when we're looking at revelation,

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I mean, there's so many things
to talk about.

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One of my goals for in the next few years

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is to is to develop a whole, teach
a whole, entire course on the book,

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because there's just so much,
so much to cover.

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But I think one, one thing that's helpful
is to think of the beginning

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of revelation, the middle of revelation,
the end of revelation.

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So the beginning,

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he had the letters to the churches,
and that helps to ground us and say,

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hey, this is a lens that we should use
to look to read the book of revelation.

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These were written to churches,
not to help them speculate

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about what might happen in the year 2035,
but to show them from God's perspective

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how they are to live their lives now
with the persecution and the temptations

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they face in the middle of the book.

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Is this this really interesting pivot
chapter in chapter 12 with this, story

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of the woman and the dragon and the woman
who bears the the Messiah and stuff,

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and then how the dragon,
the devil persecutes, her and her seed,

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which is sort of this in a nutshell,

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sort of stories story of,

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the, the devil's
sort of oppression of God's people

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for this whole age,
while we await Jesus return.

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But then the end of the book
is, is another one

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of these crucial points,
because this is how the whole story ends.

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And it's also,

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how the whole Bible ends.

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And it is a real significance
to the way that the closing chapters

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of revelation chapter 21
and 22 really are sort of bookend.

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The Bible and Mirror bring to completion

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the story
that started in the Garden of Eden.

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So, this revelation 21

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and in the first few verses of 22

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have a lot of,

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weird measurements,

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like the angels, like measuring the city,
New Jerusalem and very confusing.

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Yeah. It's like okay.

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And then there's also these,
like 12 stones

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that are in the foundation of the city,
and then there's like the streets

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that are made of gold,
but the gold is clear

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as glass, which is pretty sweet gold.

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And then,

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and then there's like some strange trees
that have a lot of fruit,

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and all
this kind of all this kind of stuff.

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and I think
it's really helpful as an example

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and a really important example to say,
hey, let's zoom in on this text.

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And, this is John's depiction
of how the story of the redemption,

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new creation sort of ends
the whole story of the Bible ends

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and see how what it's doing is
it's pulling together all these threads,

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from the whole story of the Bible,
specifically Eden and temple imagery.

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There's other stuff, too,
that we can't get to, in these chapters,

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like the new Jerusalem,
the theme of Jerusalem,

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the theme of marriage,
the bride, and all that.

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But I want to zero in
on those two Eden and Temple and

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and show that that's
what John is doing here.

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He's evoking those things,

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in his depiction.

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We’re essentially in the last chapters
of the Bible, and John is pointing us back

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to basically Genesis one, two and three,
if we're talking Eden.

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Right. And, and temple.

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So okay. That's interesting.

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So start walking us through that then.

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So I mean, we have to say
at the very beginning that, temple is a

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theme
that starts really in Genesis one and two.

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And scholars now commonly talk about

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how Eden is sort of like a temple space.

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I like to say that that maybe,
maybe we can say rather that temples later

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temples are a little evocation of Eden
because so Oh, I've never thought of that.

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So it's it's almost like,
I'm speculating here.

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Okay, I could be way off.

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But like Eden, that's the place
where God walks with man and so forth.

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And the temple would says,
oh, that's where we go to meet God.

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Essentially, in a lot of ways.

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Okay.

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There's there's a lot there's, there's,
there's a numerous, a number of parallels.

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So like, Eden is the place
where, God walks in with his people.

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And that's the same language that's used
later of the tabernacle, where God,

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this is the place
by which God walks among his people.

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It's the place that, you know,
there's this there's the, you know,

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this, this tree of life,
which kind of mirrors later.

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Sort of that
the possibly some of the elements in the,

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in the tabernacle
it faces, it seems to face east.

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Which all temples later do.

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Adam and
Eve are given the instructions to,

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to keep and to guard the Garden, Avad
and Shamar, in Hebrew.

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And those are instructions
that are reminiscent of the same words

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are used for what the Levites are later
called to do in the tabernacle.

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So there's the sense in which,

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the Eden is this flourishing garden space
where God's presence

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can be with his people.

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That's what a temple is.

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It's this is the sort of intersection
of God's space and human space

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and post in a post fall post sin world.

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That space has to be confined to a temple

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because God's presence
can't just roam, you know, freely.

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And so temples are, in a sense,
the little close,

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the that's the spaces where we get closest
back to Eden, this place where God

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and humanity come together.

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So, so those

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so Eden and temple are somewhat connected.

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And they and it starts right there in, in,

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in Genesis, you know, to

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three.

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What's interesting then, of course,
we have the temple in,

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in the tabernacle in the temple
in, in Israel.

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And we have this,

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this space where God is, is saying, well,

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what does it mean to be my people
and for God to be your God?

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Well, it's means that he can dwell
in your midst again. Right?

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This is the one people,

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the people of Israel is the one people
that God would actually be with.

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Right.

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Because what Adam and Eve had done in
the garden was temple desecration, right?

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They had ruined this place
where God and humanity could, could

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dwell together through their rebellion.

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And so they get booted out.

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Exile is getting booted out of the temple,
right out of God's space.

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And so the

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tabernacle and and the temple, later
temple

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are this great thing because it's
God saying, I can dwell among you.

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But it's also a really tragic thing
because it's not God

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dwelling freely
with in the midst of his whole people.

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It's God dwelling in a confined temple
within his people space.

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Right?

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Israelites weren't just freely walking

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with God like Adam
and Eve had because of their sin,

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because they actually are people
who are banned from God's direct presence.

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Only certain priests
could go into his presence,

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and only the high priest
into the holiest place once a year,

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and only after performing

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all these rituals of atonement,
these sacrifices and such.

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And so it's a beautiful thing, but
it's also this constant recognition that,

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we're never quite in that space, right?

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If you have a temple,
it means God's in your midst.

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But it also means. Means you're not.

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You're not.

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Sin hasn't been fully dealt with.

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There's it's like a barrier It it is like.

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Yeah.

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I mean, it is it's great
because the temple means

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God's there with you, you know,
and Jerusalem becomes this place where,

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you know,
this is God's city and and it's God's city

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because God's king
is there, the Davidic king, and because,

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the temple is there and God's
God's glory cloud is over it and such.

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And so that's the
if you want to get close to God,

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there is a physical location
that is closer to God in a sense,

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than anywhere else in the world. Right?

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Oh, yeah. That okay.

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That is kind of a kind of a wild thought.

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I guess. I hadn't really thought of it
like that before. Yes.

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why, that's why David and,
and the other psalmist

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will speak of how they long
to be in the temple because,

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there's the

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sense in which that, of course,
God is omnipresent and stuff,

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but God's sort of presence,
his dwelling with his people,

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is, is in this place and, and,

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and that's if you want to be close to God
and find forgiveness.

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That's why Solomon's prayer of dedication,

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says, when people when you sin,

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you pray toward
this house and God will hear your prayer.

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And when Gentiles hear the great name
of Yahweh, they come, they'll come to,

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you know, to this house,
and God will forgive them.

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And such.

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But then, of course,

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the temple is destroyed
because of the people's rebellion.

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So it's it's a recapitulation of the Adam
and Eve story.

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Really.

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Right.

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Israel as a whole rebels against God,
just as Adam and Eve had done.

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And God, God's presence is removed.

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The we have this
like vision in Ezekiel where,

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that weird book where the

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where the God's presence first
Ezekiel shown this,

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this vision of all these
like weird abominations that are is really

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creepy vision, all this crazy stuff
that's happening in the temple, right?

200
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People are,

201
00:10:03,394 --> 00:10:06,397
people are sacrificing to all crazy,
all sorts of other gods and stuff.

202
00:10:06,689 --> 00:10:09,400
And then we had this vision
where the chariot sort of lifts off,

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and God's like, leaving.

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And so the temple is destroyed because,
and the people are sent into exile.

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They're removed from God's temple space.

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What’s
really strange in the history of Israel.

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Is that the vision of God dwelling

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among his people,

209
00:10:27,710 --> 00:10:30,755
in blessing, doesn't just disappear.

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When Israel goes into exile, instead
it actually gets ratcheted up big time.

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And like the prophets
Ezekiel, especially Ezekiel, but,

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00:10:41,474 --> 00:10:44,977
but the others as well speak of this day

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00:10:44,977 --> 00:10:49,690
when God would they all speak of this day
when God would return to his people?

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00:10:50,316 --> 00:10:53,986
Isaiah speaks of this new coming,
new Exodus, when God would, would

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return to, to reign and to dwell with
and to bless and forgive his people.

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And Ezekiel, does the same thing
by picturing a new temple.

217
00:11:03,579 --> 00:11:05,414
And so that this is what

218
00:11:05,414 --> 00:11:08,918
in Ezekiel, like 40 to 48,
there's this huge vision,

219
00:11:10,461 --> 00:11:13,464
of of this eschatological temple.

220
00:11:14,048 --> 00:11:17,677
So he goes through as like chapters
and chapters because he's like,

221
00:11:18,844 --> 00:11:21,555
measuring, counting, doing all these
measurements and all this kind of thing.

222
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And some people have, like,
mistakenly thought of this

223
00:11:25,101 --> 00:11:28,229
as some literal new temple
that's supposed to be built someday.

224
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okay,

225
00:11:30,439 --> 00:11:32,566
okay, this shows
maybe the limitations of my understanding,

226
00:11:32,566 --> 00:11:35,277
but that's the only way
I've heard that section we're in.

227
00:11:35,277 --> 00:11:36,237
Sorry. Ezekiel.

228
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Where is Ezekiel 40-48. Yeah.

229
00:11:38,322 --> 00:11:39,073
Yeah, exactly.

230
00:11:39,073 --> 00:11:42,118
So the only one I've ever heard is that.

231
00:11:42,159 --> 00:11:44,245
Yeah. This is a new thing
that's going to happen at some point.

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00:11:44,245 --> 00:11:45,788
There's going to be this new temple,
blah, blah, blah,

233
00:11:45,788 --> 00:11:48,082
and people actually go through
it and have a very literal,

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00:11:49,375 --> 00:11:52,378
you know, working through all
the dimensions and building plans for it.

235
00:11:52,378 --> 00:11:52,753
Right.

236
00:11:52,753 --> 00:11:54,797
So you're saying that's off.

237
00:11:54,797 --> 00:11:55,548
No, no. Yeah.

238
00:11:55,548 --> 00:11:56,340
That's misguided.

239
00:11:56,340 --> 00:11:56,716
Okay.

240
00:11:56,716 --> 00:11:59,468
So so why like well, for a couple reasons.

241
00:11:59,468 --> 00:12:04,098
One, what he's speaking of
is like right before it is this day,

242
00:12:04,098 --> 00:12:07,059
he's he's speaking of this day
when God would,

243
00:12:07,184 --> 00:12:09,437
put his spirit within his people,

244
00:12:09,437 --> 00:12:12,440
forgive them, inaugurate a new covenant
with them.

245
00:12:12,857 --> 00:12:14,859
It's this age,
this this age of restoration.

246
00:12:14,859 --> 00:12:16,068
All the prophets have.

247
00:12:16,068 --> 00:12:18,529
Yeah, have in mind.
This is this broad idea.

248
00:12:18,529 --> 00:12:22,116
Someday God will cleanse us, forgive
us, renew our hearts.

249
00:12:22,366 --> 00:12:24,076
The new covenant, you know.

250
00:12:24,076 --> 00:12:24,702
And then.

251
00:12:24,702 --> 00:12:29,457
Or he pictures it in chapter 37 as the
as resurrection, the valley of dry bones.

252
00:12:29,749 --> 00:12:32,877
It's his vision of like the corporate
resurrection, almost as though

253
00:12:32,877 --> 00:12:36,464
Israel is dead and someday God's
going to breathe new life into them,

254
00:12:37,381 --> 00:12:40,676
you know, and and restore them and stuff.

255
00:12:40,968 --> 00:12:44,597
And then the, the, the vision.

256
00:12:44,597 --> 00:12:47,600
We are,
of course, used to thinking that like

257
00:12:47,892 --> 00:12:52,062
anything monotonous, must be there
for technical reasons, right?

258
00:12:53,230 --> 00:12:54,523
Yes. Because that.

259
00:12:54,523 --> 00:12:54,732
Yeah.

260
00:12:54,732 --> 00:12:55,483
Like immediately

261
00:12:55,483 --> 00:12:58,819
I think brings sort of like instruction
manual to mind or one of those things,

262
00:12:58,819 --> 00:13:01,697
are you supposed to build this kit,
you know, like just like blueprint.

263
00:13:01,697 --> 00:13:02,323
Exactly.

264
00:13:02,323 --> 00:13:05,326
So we're reading Ezekiel
you know 40 whatever.

265
00:13:05,326 --> 00:13:08,287
You know, 40-48
as some kind of instruction manual.

266
00:13:08,287 --> 00:13:08,746
Right.

267
00:13:08,746 --> 00:13:11,540
But I don't think that's the case
for multiple reasons.

268
00:13:11,540 --> 00:13:15,669
One, I think he's deliberately
trying to evoke the,

269
00:13:16,712 --> 00:13:18,714
the dimensions
and the description and stuff

270
00:13:18,714 --> 00:13:23,928
that were the kind of tedious description
of the tabernacle back in the Torah.

271
00:13:24,470 --> 00:13:25,721
He's he's doing that again.

272
00:13:25,721 --> 00:13:28,098
But by by going on
and on about this many cubits,

273
00:13:28,098 --> 00:13:29,058
this many cubits,

274
00:13:29,058 --> 00:13:30,893
you're supposed to go back and think,
oh, yeah,

275
00:13:30,893 --> 00:13:33,270
this is like when God told us
to build the first temple.

276
00:13:33,270 --> 00:13:35,189
So it's meant to point back to that.

277
00:13:35,189 --> 00:13:39,527
But there's other there's there's really
weird, fantastic features to this temple.

278
00:13:39,735 --> 00:13:41,695
And as some scholars point out,
there's no height.

279
00:13:41,695 --> 00:13:44,156
It doesn't seem to be
any height dimensions on this tabernacle.

280
00:13:44,156 --> 00:13:46,242
So temple.
So good luck trying to build it.

281
00:13:46,242 --> 00:13:47,409
It's hard to say how high it should be.

282
00:13:48,953 --> 00:13:50,621
But what's.

283
00:13:50,621 --> 00:13:51,705
And the other reason?

284
00:13:51,705 --> 00:13:52,915
The other thing is that,

285
00:13:52,915 --> 00:13:56,293
when the temple was rebuilt
and what we call the second temple,

286
00:13:56,961 --> 00:14:00,798
no Jewish person thought that it was a
it was the fulfillment of this,

287
00:14:01,841 --> 00:14:02,716
at the time. Right.

288
00:14:02,716 --> 00:14:04,760
Everyone was pretty bummed, right?

289
00:14:04,760 --> 00:14:07,763
There's a I mean, there's the passage in,

290
00:14:08,097 --> 00:14:10,099
in Ezra, right?

291
00:14:10,099 --> 00:14:10,474
Yeah.

292
00:14:10,474 --> 00:14:14,895
Where there's like, the new temples
erected and there's people like.

293
00:14:14,895 --> 00:14:19,149
Yeah, yeah, but there's a few, like,
you know, 90 some year old guys there

294
00:14:19,358 --> 00:14:22,361
that still have,
like the first iPhone version.

295
00:14:22,862 --> 00:14:25,990
And they're, they're scrolling back
and looking at their photos

296
00:14:25,990 --> 00:14:28,909
that they had taken of the first temple
right before they got carted off to exile.

297
00:14:28,909 --> 00:14:31,537
And they're like,
look, there's no comparison, right?

298
00:14:31,537 --> 00:14:35,457
This new, this new, this new thing is it's
small, it's insignificant.

299
00:14:35,457 --> 00:14:35,749
It's,

300
00:14:37,126 --> 00:14:39,169
you know, it's anticlimactic.

301
00:14:39,169 --> 00:14:40,254
Right?

302
00:14:40,254 --> 00:14:42,923
So they didn't think that
that's what it was.

303
00:14:42,923 --> 00:14:45,217
I think really significantly
at the middle of his vision.

304
00:14:45,217 --> 00:14:46,260
So there's all these,

305
00:14:46,260 --> 00:14:49,638
there's all these sort of measurements
and this and that and the other thing.

306
00:14:49,930 --> 00:14:53,893
But when it comes down to it,
right at the,

307
00:14:55,519 --> 00:14:59,648
in chapter 47, you get this, I'm
just going to look at a couple of these

308
00:14:59,648 --> 00:15:02,651
because what Ezekiel himself
seems to be doing

309
00:15:03,110 --> 00:15:05,988
is reflecting on Eden

310
00:15:05,988 --> 00:15:09,950
as he's and weaving
in some Eden imagery into his temple.

311
00:15:09,950 --> 00:15:11,285
Yeah. Okay.

312
00:15:11,285 --> 00:15:14,288
So like so chapter 47.

313
00:15:14,538 --> 00:15:17,541
The angel brings
Ezekiel back to the door of the temple,

314
00:15:17,917 --> 00:15:21,712
and water is issuing from below the
threshold of the temple toward the east.

315
00:15:21,712 --> 00:15:22,796
The temple faced east.

316
00:15:22,796 --> 00:15:24,965
All the temple's, it’s common,

317
00:15:24,965 --> 00:15:28,052
and the water was flowing down from below
the south end of the threshold.

318
00:15:28,886 --> 00:15:31,847
And this is when you start thinking of
water that's flowing out of the temple.

319
00:15:32,473 --> 00:15:34,850
This itself may remind you

320
00:15:34,850 --> 00:15:38,395
of the way that these rivers
flowed out of the Garden of Eden.

321
00:15:38,437 --> 00:15:39,021
Yeah.

322
00:15:39,021 --> 00:15:42,274
So the Garden of Eden had this
tree of life, this sort of

323
00:15:43,567 --> 00:15:46,278
tree of immortality in the middle of it.

324
00:15:46,278 --> 00:15:48,822
And it also had these four rivers
that like,

325
00:15:48,822 --> 00:15:51,825
symbolically,

326
00:15:51,825 --> 00:15:53,827
sort of bring life to the whole world.

327
00:15:53,827 --> 00:15:54,161
Right?

328
00:15:54,161 --> 00:15:57,164
It's like at the middle of this, this,

329
00:15:57,623 --> 00:16:02,127
this garden is the source of life
that that goes throughout the whole world.

330
00:16:02,127 --> 00:16:03,128
Right?

331
00:16:03,128 --> 00:16:06,131
Here it's similar idea,
but it's flowing out of the middle

332
00:16:06,131 --> 00:16:11,136
of this new temple, this this new space
where God, when God finally restores

333
00:16:11,178 --> 00:16:15,099
his people, will dwell with them
on this grander, permanent scale.

334
00:16:15,099 --> 00:16:17,434
He goes through all these details to show
this is going to be permanent.

335
00:16:17,434 --> 00:16:19,436
It's going to be grand,

336
00:16:19,436 --> 00:16:21,563
it's going to renew creation.

337
00:16:21,563 --> 00:16:22,147
Okay.

338
00:16:22,147 --> 00:16:26,860
And so then he keeps going and they talk
about how they he keeps going in.

339
00:16:26,860 --> 00:16:27,569
And verse three,

340
00:16:28,737 --> 00:16:30,739
and the water becomes ankle deep
and then it becomes

341
00:16:30,739 --> 00:16:33,826
knee deep and eventually again
so deep that you have to swim,

342
00:16:33,826 --> 00:16:36,829
you know, the water from the temple
just flows into this mighty river.

343
00:16:38,038 --> 00:16:39,999
And then he says, I went back

344
00:16:39,999 --> 00:16:43,794
and I saw on the bank of the river
many trees on one side and on the other.

345
00:16:44,294 --> 00:16:48,382
And he said to me, this water flows
toward the eastern regions

346
00:16:48,757 --> 00:16:51,760
and goes down to the... the sea.

347
00:16:51,760 --> 00:16:54,221
And when the water flows into the sea,
the water will become fresh.

348
00:16:54,221 --> 00:16:57,725
So this water is like
because it flows from God's presence, it

349
00:16:58,017 --> 00:17:01,895
it brings life and makes
fresh everything it touches.

350
00:17:02,271 --> 00:17:02,604
Right?

351
00:17:02,604 --> 00:17:06,692
It's it's it's this water
that that enlivens the whole world.

352
00:17:07,693 --> 00:17:10,571
Wherever the river goes,
every living creature will, will live,

353
00:17:10,571 --> 00:17:11,655
and there'll be many fish.

354
00:17:12,698 --> 00:17:14,033
Fishermen will stand beside the sea.

355
00:17:14,033 --> 00:17:17,286
I guess if you like to fish, that would be
a that would be an awesome place to go.

356
00:17:19,204 --> 00:17:21,790
And then, and then on the banks,

357
00:17:21,790 --> 00:17:24,752
on both sides of the river,
it will grow all kinds of trees for food.

358
00:17:25,127 --> 00:17:27,671
Their leaves will not wither
and their fruit will not fail,

359
00:17:27,671 --> 00:17:29,381
but they will bear fresh fruit every month

360
00:17:29,381 --> 00:17:32,384
because the water from for them
flows from the sanctuary.

361
00:17:32,593 --> 00:17:33,761
Their leaves will be for food,

362
00:17:33,761 --> 00:17:36,346
and their fruit will be for food
and their leaves for healing.

363
00:17:36,346 --> 00:17:40,601
So it's this he's envisioning
not a literal place that you can build.

364
00:17:40,601 --> 00:17:42,728
You really couldn't
build this if you tried.

365
00:17:42,728 --> 00:17:47,149
But this era when when God
would so come back to his people

366
00:17:47,441 --> 00:17:51,737
and renew them,
but also through his reign,

367
00:17:52,029 --> 00:17:54,698
through his presence
that's finally able to dwell fully

368
00:17:54,698 --> 00:17:57,701
and permanently with his people,
with renewed creation.

369
00:17:57,785 --> 00:18:00,079
Right? So his ultimate day of restoration.

370
00:18:00,079 --> 00:18:05,292
So then why all the tedious
or extensive details

371
00:18:05,292 --> 00:18:08,921
that are in like these eight chapters
about the temple?

372
00:18:08,921 --> 00:18:12,007
Is that just because
it's trying to point us back to

373
00:18:12,674 --> 00:18:16,178
what what we're seeing in in the Torah
say about the Tabernacle or.

374
00:18:16,261 --> 00:18:19,598
Yeah, what what's the reasoning there
Yeah, I think it's trying to point us back

375
00:18:19,807 --> 00:18:22,684
and and do something similar

376
00:18:22,684 --> 00:18:25,979
to what Moses had done,
like write out all these.

377
00:18:25,979 --> 00:18:29,108
Look, let's let's think of it
this way, this way, all these details.

378
00:18:29,525 --> 00:18:31,693
Another reason is it's visionary
literature.

379
00:18:31,693 --> 00:18:34,696
And so, visionary literature

380
00:18:34,780 --> 00:18:38,784
includes
can sometimes include tedious details.

381
00:18:38,867 --> 00:18:42,663
What's what from a modern Western
perspective seems like tedious details.

382
00:18:42,996 --> 00:18:45,999
Genealogies are another thing
that feel very tedious to us,

383
00:18:46,458 --> 00:18:49,837
but they don't feel tedious
to some people in other cultures.

384
00:18:51,046 --> 00:18:53,507
For some people that's like, wow,
this is amazing.

385
00:18:53,507 --> 00:18:56,260
I remember hearing a missionary
talk about,

386
00:18:56,260 --> 00:19:00,848
that this kind of unreached people group
that he went to, and of course,

387
00:19:00,848 --> 00:19:05,185
he is prone to just like the let's get rid
of let's go over the genealogies.

388
00:19:05,477 --> 00:19:06,145
But he starts reading them.

389
00:19:06,145 --> 00:19:08,605
Everyone is like, this is wait,
this is this is really great.

390
00:19:08,605 --> 00:19:12,109
This is really important because it shows
like who his dad was and his dad was.

391
00:19:12,109 --> 00:19:13,819
Right. Yeah.

392
00:19:13,819 --> 00:19:15,946
And so some of this cultural.

393
00:19:15,946 --> 00:19:16,572
Right.

394
00:19:16,572 --> 00:19:19,575
And we have other I mean, there's
other examples of literature,

395
00:19:19,992 --> 00:19:23,412
that something like revelation
is written way after this time

396
00:19:23,829 --> 00:19:28,375
of, of these great eschatological battles
that are going to happen...

397
00:19:28,375 --> 00:19:32,838
people wrote this, this text
and they go into incredible detail,

398
00:19:33,297 --> 00:19:36,466
mind numbing detail about how each battle,

399
00:19:36,466 --> 00:19:38,385
each of these seven battles
is going to take place

400
00:19:38,385 --> 00:19:40,512
and what they're going to write on
each of these banners. And,

401
00:19:42,639 --> 00:19:44,516
like,
who's going to win each one and all this?

402
00:19:44,516 --> 00:19:47,352
And you're like, nuh. Right.

403
00:19:47,352 --> 00:19:50,564
But that's, that's the way, you know,
that's just the way it, the way it worked.

404
00:19:50,564 --> 00:19:51,523
They were fine with that.

405
00:19:51,523 --> 00:19:54,526
So and they didn't seem to think
that this was a real

406
00:19:55,360 --> 00:19:56,737
battle.

407
00:19:56,737 --> 00:19:58,780
I mean, it's hard to be a predict.

408
00:19:58,780 --> 00:19:59,406
I mean, they already

409
00:19:59,406 --> 00:20:02,910
they knew they were writing it as though
they knew the outcome of each one.

410
00:20:02,910 --> 00:20:05,537
And yet going to all these details,
it's a vision, right.

411
00:20:05,537 --> 00:20:07,664
And you can do that.

412
00:20:07,664 --> 00:20:10,709
So but I think one of the,
the clinchers is that

413
00:20:11,251 --> 00:20:15,589
it's and the reason I spent time on this
was that is that this

414
00:20:15,589 --> 00:20:20,344
this passage is what John's
drawing on in his picture of, of the,

415
00:20:21,970 --> 00:20:24,264
the age to come, the new creation.

416
00:20:24,264 --> 00:20:28,018
So the way the New Testament authors
appropriate this, John specifically

417
00:20:28,310 --> 00:20:31,730
is not in a physical building, in keeping
with the whole rest of the New Testament.

418
00:20:31,730 --> 00:20:31,939
Right?

419
00:20:31,939 --> 00:20:34,942
Because when Jesus shows up in John's
gospel,

420
00:20:36,276 --> 00:20:39,321
John opens it up in chapter one by saying,

421
00:20:40,572 --> 00:20:45,619
the word was with God, the word was God,
and the word became flesh, became human.

422
00:20:45,786 --> 00:20:48,247
And then he says, and tabernacle among us.

423
00:20:48,247 --> 00:20:52,960
And that that word is the same word group
that's used the word,

424
00:20:53,085 --> 00:20:54,461
it means tented or tabernacled,

425
00:20:54,461 --> 00:20:57,839
literally it's it's related to the word
that that is used of the tabernacle

426
00:20:57,839 --> 00:20:58,632
in the Old Testament.

427
00:20:58,632 --> 00:21:02,886
And then in the very next chapter of John,
Jesus says, destroy this temple,

428
00:21:02,886 --> 00:21:05,889
and in three days I'll raise it up
and everyone's freaking out, and he's.

429
00:21:06,014 --> 00:21:09,309
And then John gives an aside, but
he was speaking of the temple of his body.

430
00:21:09,893 --> 00:21:12,437
So in New Testament
and the New Testament understanding,

431
00:21:12,437 --> 00:21:15,399
it's Jesus
that becomes that new temple space.

432
00:21:15,524 --> 00:21:19,903
And then because because of Jesus
for atoning work,

433
00:21:20,445 --> 00:21:23,198
the spirit being out poured on believers

434
00:21:24,241 --> 00:21:26,618
becomes makes all of his people
a new temple,

435
00:21:26,618 --> 00:21:29,621
which is what Ezekiel was saying
about the spirit being poured out.

436
00:21:30,998 --> 00:21:32,833
And then

437
00:21:32,833 --> 00:21:37,254
finally in revelation
will lead to the time and place when,

438
00:21:38,714 --> 00:21:40,299
the entire new creation will be

439
00:21:40,299 --> 00:21:43,302
God's temple space.

440
00:21:43,427 --> 00:21:44,177
And Eden space.

441
00:21:44,177 --> 00:21:45,554
Oh, that's really something. Yes.

442
00:21:45,554 --> 00:21:48,557
Now, I still have to substantiate that
by some details in this, but that's back.

443
00:21:48,557 --> 00:21:49,850
That's the backdrop.

444
00:21:49,850 --> 00:21:50,517
Yeah.

445
00:21:50,517 --> 00:21:53,478
That's just so interesting because like

446
00:21:54,021 --> 00:21:55,439
again the Ezekiel thing,

447
00:21:55,439 --> 00:21:58,400
you know I've oh it feels like

448
00:21:58,525 --> 00:22:01,028
I've heard people kind of getting derailed
maybe a bit on the details

449
00:22:01,028 --> 00:22:03,155
and trying to say this is a literal thing

450
00:22:03,155 --> 00:22:06,950
like this is going to happen
this exact way and etc., etc..

451
00:22:07,242 --> 00:22:09,328
But I've never heard like the,
the bigger picture

452
00:22:09,328 --> 00:22:11,163
that you're outlining here, right?

453
00:22:11,163 --> 00:22:12,497
That that that seems

454
00:22:12,497 --> 00:22:15,250
to make what little more sense is
that, you know, you know what I mean?

455
00:22:15,250 --> 00:22:16,251
And I'm just kind of

456
00:22:16,251 --> 00:22:19,254
and it fits with the whole the rest of
the whole whole rest of the story.

457
00:22:19,254 --> 00:22:21,006
Yeah, So both Old Testament and new.

458
00:22:22,341 --> 00:22:22,883
So okay.

459
00:22:22,883 --> 00:22:25,177
So, so yeah. Hit some of these details
here.

460
00:22:25,177 --> 00:22:28,180
Now. Now we're back in revelation
21 and 22.

461
00:22:28,221 --> 00:22:28,930
Yeah.

462
00:22:28,930 --> 00:22:30,682
I'll just go through
a few of these details.

463
00:22:30,682 --> 00:22:32,351
Right. So 21.

464
00:22:32,351 --> 00:22:34,770
But then I
And I think this is like the most

465
00:22:34,770 --> 00:22:37,773
one of the most beautiful passages
in the whole Bible.

466
00:22:38,398 --> 00:22:41,443
And this is one of the things I love
about the book of Revelation, the deeper

467
00:22:41,443 --> 00:22:46,948
I get into it is, I realize it's such
a brilliant genre to end the Bible with

468
00:22:48,367 --> 00:22:50,077
because it forces you

469
00:22:50,077 --> 00:22:54,331
to constantly be connecting and thinking
about the whole rest of the Bible.

470
00:22:55,165 --> 00:22:58,168
So it's like this awesome recap.

471
00:22:58,877 --> 00:22:59,836
Then I saw a new heaven

472
00:22:59,836 --> 00:23:02,839
and a new earth,
and that line comes from Isaiah

473
00:23:03,048 --> 00:23:07,594
when God's when Isaiah says, quoting
Yahwey whatever says, I will.

474
00:23:07,594 --> 00:23:08,845
I saw a new heaven and a new earth,

475
00:23:09,888 --> 00:23:11,431
that God is going to create right?

476
00:23:11,431 --> 00:23:15,018
For the first heaven in the first earth
had passed away, and the sea was no more.

477
00:23:15,560 --> 00:23:19,981
And that this imagery of the sea
in in the ancient world represents chaos.

478
00:23:19,981 --> 00:23:24,444
It represents in some ways in Genesis
one where, before God

479
00:23:25,404 --> 00:23:28,698
sort of formed the earth,
it says the earth was formless and void.

480
00:23:28,990 --> 00:23:30,575
Darkness was over the face of the deep.

481
00:23:30,575 --> 00:23:33,578
And this the waters are this chaotic,

482
00:23:34,037 --> 00:23:35,288
yeah, chaotic thing.

483
00:23:35,288 --> 00:23:37,416
And in some other,

484
00:23:37,416 --> 00:23:40,585
some other literature,
there may be, sea monsters or,

485
00:23:41,878 --> 00:23:46,508
or other other beings that are,
that represent the chaos of the sea, It

486
00:23:46,550 --> 00:23:48,635
which you would see some of that
in the Old Testament as well.

487
00:23:48,635 --> 00:23:51,054
Right in, in Job with,
you know, Leviathan, there's,

488
00:23:51,054 --> 00:23:53,515
you know, some of these things.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Totally.

489
00:23:54,683 --> 00:23:57,978
And and the ancient Israelites
were not seafaring people,

490
00:23:57,978 --> 00:24:01,690
so they're not the sea is not this place
of great exploration for them.

491
00:24:01,690 --> 00:24:04,401
It's this like it's a scary place.

492
00:24:04,401 --> 00:24:05,527
So the sea is no more.

493
00:24:05,527 --> 00:24:08,405
So there's not saying that
in in the new on the new Earth,

494
00:24:08,405 --> 00:24:11,032
there's not going to be any oceans
necessarily.

495
00:24:11,032 --> 00:24:12,033
I've heard people say, right.

496
00:24:12,033 --> 00:24:13,577
No, no, that's that misses the point.

497
00:24:13,577 --> 00:24:16,413
The point is that this,

498
00:24:16,413 --> 00:24:20,041
God will once again will fully eliminate.

499
00:24:20,041 --> 00:24:23,044
That source of chaos and
and stuff like that.

500
00:24:23,587 --> 00:24:27,174
And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God,

501
00:24:27,174 --> 00:24:28,884
prepared as a bride
adorned for her husband.

502
00:24:28,884 --> 00:24:31,511
And we're not going
to talk about that imagery.

503
00:24:31,511 --> 00:24:33,180
And then I heard a loud voice
from the throne saying,

504
00:24:33,180 --> 00:24:36,308
behold, the dwelling place,
or the tent of God is

505
00:24:36,308 --> 00:24:39,352
that same,
so related to the same word, the,

506
00:24:40,645 --> 00:24:41,229
that he

507
00:24:41,229 --> 00:24:44,232
that John uses in John chapter
one about Jesus,

508
00:24:45,108 --> 00:24:48,111
becoming human and human,
and tenting with us,

509
00:24:48,111 --> 00:24:51,114
or it's the same word that's used
in the Old Testament for the Tabernacle,

510
00:24:51,615 --> 00:24:54,117
the dwelling place of God is with
is with human beings.

511
00:24:54,117 --> 00:24:56,161
He will dwell with them,
and they will be his people,

512
00:24:56,161 --> 00:24:58,038
and God himself
will be with them as their God.

513
00:24:58,038 --> 00:25:00,373
And that phrase is called
the covenant formula.

514
00:25:00,373 --> 00:25:04,169
And it occurs all over the place in Exodus
and in the prophets.

515
00:25:04,461 --> 00:25:07,547
Is this like, it's
kind of like the very core

516
00:25:07,547 --> 00:25:10,675
essence of their of their vows
between God and Israel.

517
00:25:10,759 --> 00:25:14,304
God says, I will be God to you in a unique
way, and you will be a people to me.

518
00:25:14,679 --> 00:25:18,058
And this is going to be the day
when that will be fully true forever.

519
00:25:19,017 --> 00:25:20,227
He will wipe away every tears

520
00:25:20,227 --> 00:25:23,230
from their eyes,
death will be no more, etc.

521
00:25:24,314 --> 00:25:26,733
Verse ten, well, actually verse nine,

522
00:25:26,733 --> 00:25:29,653
one of the angels came and said, come,
I will show you the bride, the wife,

523
00:25:29,653 --> 00:25:30,278
the lamb.

524
00:25:30,278 --> 00:25:33,240
And this is one of these places
in Revelation that you hear one thing

525
00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:36,535
and then you turn around and what you see
is different from what you hear.

526
00:25:36,868 --> 00:25:40,205
So like,
behold, the lion of Judah conquers.

527
00:25:40,205 --> 00:25:43,708
And then John turns and he sees a lamb
that looks like it had been slain.

528
00:25:44,042 --> 00:25:45,418
Right.

529
00:25:45,418 --> 00:25:50,799
Things like that or 144,000 are numbered
the 12 times, 12 times a thousand.

530
00:25:51,007 --> 00:25:54,010
And then John looks and he and he sees

531
00:25:54,010 --> 00:25:57,013
a great innumerable multitude
from every tribe, people and nation.

532
00:25:57,138 --> 00:26:00,684
There, there 1 in 1 thing, one reality,

533
00:26:01,351 --> 00:26:04,563
but spoken of in two different ways,
because you have to put them together.

534
00:26:06,314 --> 00:26:07,107
So the

535
00:26:07,107 --> 00:26:11,528
bride is is also the city,
and it has the glory of God, its radiance

536
00:26:11,528 --> 00:26:15,907
like a most rare jewel,
and has this wall with 12 gates,

537
00:26:17,284 --> 00:26:18,118
and etc.

538
00:26:18,118 --> 00:26:20,996
and the,
the wall of the city has 12 foundations.

539
00:26:20,996 --> 00:26:24,749
The 12 gates and the foundations
represent the apostles and, and the,

540
00:26:25,750 --> 00:26:26,876
and and Israel.

541
00:26:26,876 --> 00:26:29,004
So it's this is this which,

542
00:26:29,004 --> 00:26:32,465
which goes back to the imagery of why
Jesus chose 12 apostles to begin with.

543
00:26:32,882 --> 00:26:37,053
It's Jesus chose 12
because this represents

544
00:26:37,345 --> 00:26:40,557
the fulfillment
of the 12 tribes of Israel, right.

545
00:26:40,557 --> 00:26:43,935
And what he was doing is renewing,
restoring,

546
00:26:44,352 --> 00:26:46,980
you know, bringing to completion
the story of Israel,

547
00:26:46,980 --> 00:26:49,149
which will,
of course, include all the nations.

548
00:26:49,149 --> 00:26:50,775
But it's that story continuing.

549
00:26:50,775 --> 00:26:55,488
And then finally back to the
so the temple imagery, the one who spoke

550
00:26:55,488 --> 00:26:58,825
had a measuring rod of gold to measure
the city and its gates and its walls.

551
00:26:59,117 --> 00:27:02,621
So now we start thinking,
oh, no, the angel with the measuring tape.

552
00:27:03,079 --> 00:27:05,040
And that immediately gets us back to

553
00:27:06,041 --> 00:27:08,209
Ezekiel.

554
00:27:08,209 --> 00:27:09,085
Okay.

555
00:27:09,085 --> 00:27:11,463
we're like, oh, here we go. Right.

556
00:27:11,463 --> 00:27:13,298
But he's measuring the city this time.

557
00:27:13,298 --> 00:27:15,383
Interesting, interesting.

558
00:27:15,383 --> 00:27:17,677
Okay, okay, I think I'm tracking this is.

559
00:27:17,677 --> 00:27:19,679
Yeah. I'm not I've not thought about it
like this before.

560
00:27:19,679 --> 00:27:20,680
and then they measure it.

561
00:27:20,680 --> 00:27:24,559
And the city lies four square the length
the same as its width.

562
00:27:25,352 --> 00:27:26,686
Yeah. Okay. That's interesting.

563
00:27:26,686 --> 00:27:29,606
And he measured the city with his rod
12,000 stadia.

564
00:27:29,606 --> 00:27:32,400
And it's this 12 number again. Yeah.

565
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:36,738
Which for revelation is always means
sort of the fullness of God's people.

566
00:27:36,738 --> 00:27:39,324
It's Israel times
a thousand or Israel times.

567
00:27:39,324 --> 00:27:42,786
Israel times a thousand hundred
and 44,000 is the same idea.

568
00:27:43,828 --> 00:27:46,539
He also measured it's oh,
and then he says it's length,

569
00:27:46,539 --> 00:27:49,084
and its width
and its height are equal. So it's a cube.

570
00:27:52,003 --> 00:27:54,297
And you're like, why is that interesting?

571
00:27:54,297 --> 00:27:56,216
Yeah I've always wondered about the cube
that.

572
00:27:56,216 --> 00:27:56,424
Yeah.

573
00:27:56,424 --> 00:27:57,801
It's like it's not like

574
00:27:57,801 --> 00:28:00,804
we're going to live in some sort of cosmic
Rubik's Cube or something like that.

575
00:28:01,012 --> 00:28:03,556
But again, I've,
I've only ever heard people say,

576
00:28:03,556 --> 00:28:05,934
oh yeah, this is going to be a real thing,
these exact dimensions.

577
00:28:05,934 --> 00:28:08,436
And it's going to happen in real. Exactly.

578
00:28:08,436 --> 00:28:10,063
Just like this literally.

579
00:28:10,063 --> 00:28:12,899
And you're saying we're
we're kind of missing the point here.

580
00:28:12,899 --> 00:28:14,275
That's actually really sad

581
00:28:14,275 --> 00:28:17,737
because what John's trying to say
is something way more profound.

582
00:28:18,363 --> 00:28:23,201
So he's picturing this as this Israel
x Israel x a thousand type of place.

583
00:28:23,201 --> 00:28:27,997
In other words, this New Jerusalem,
which we've just been told is the bride.

584
00:28:28,581 --> 00:28:30,083
So it's it's all of God's people.

585
00:28:32,544 --> 00:28:35,088
This, this news
place where God and humanity will finally

586
00:28:35,088 --> 00:28:37,424
dwell together is a cube.

587
00:28:37,424 --> 00:28:40,218
And the only other cubic

588
00:28:40,218 --> 00:28:43,221
space in the in the rest of the Bible
is there's only one,

589
00:28:43,763 --> 00:28:46,599
and it's the Holy of Holies,

590
00:28:46,599 --> 00:28:47,934
Like, look interesting.

591
00:28:47,934 --> 00:28:50,311
Okay. Oh.

592
00:28:50,311 --> 00:28:53,314
Oh, yeah.

593
00:28:53,857 --> 00:28:55,108
Okay, so keep going.

594
00:28:55,108 --> 00:28:55,734
Keep going.

595
00:28:55,734 --> 00:28:59,904
what what John is saying right here and
then, so you think, okay, that's weird.

596
00:28:59,904 --> 00:29:01,698
It's a cube

597
00:29:01,698 --> 00:29:04,701
in angels
measuring it like Ezekiel's temple.

598
00:29:04,784 --> 00:29:07,787
This vision of when God
would finally dwell with his people again.

599
00:29:08,163 --> 00:29:11,958
And it's it represents the fullness
of all God's redeemed humanity.

600
00:29:12,751 --> 00:29:15,754
Israel times, Israel,
whatever times, times a thousand.

601
00:29:15,754 --> 00:29:17,380
And it's it's this.

602
00:29:17,380 --> 00:29:20,425
It's the shape of the Holy of Holies.

603
00:29:21,092 --> 00:29:22,802
And then he keeps going.

604
00:29:22,802 --> 00:29:25,346
He measured the wall and keeps going.

605
00:29:25,346 --> 00:29:26,681
The wall was built of Jasper.

606
00:29:26,681 --> 00:29:28,683
The city is as
a pure gold, clear as glass.

607
00:29:29,684 --> 00:29:32,979
The foundations of the wall, where adorned
with every kind of jewel.

608
00:29:32,979 --> 00:29:37,859
And then he goes and list 12 jewels
that make up the, the,

609
00:29:37,901 --> 00:29:40,904
the found
sort of the foundations of the city.

610
00:29:41,029 --> 00:29:45,492
The first is Jasper, the second sapphire,
agate, emerald, onyx, carnelian.

611
00:29:45,492 --> 00:29:48,369
And it keeps going,

612
00:29:48,369 --> 00:29:50,789
and you're like,
what's the significance of these?

613
00:29:50,789 --> 00:29:51,623
Yeah.

614
00:29:51,623 --> 00:29:55,084
And what's, what's amazing is that these
they're not exactly identical,

615
00:29:55,084 --> 00:29:58,296
but they are significantly
they're based on

616
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:02,425
the 12 jewels that the high priest
wore on his breastplate.

617
00:30:02,509 --> 00:30:03,676
Okay.

618
00:30:03,676 --> 00:30:06,596
And, signifying the 12 tribes.

619
00:30:06,596 --> 00:30:08,223
Right.

620
00:30:08,223 --> 00:30:12,143
And then so, so right here,
what John is trying to say is

621
00:30:12,936 --> 00:30:16,981
when when God finally creates
this new heavens and earth

622
00:30:17,690 --> 00:30:22,111
and all things as, as Tolkien says
and all things sad have come untrue,

623
00:30:23,947 --> 00:30:24,656
God's

624
00:30:24,656 --> 00:30:27,659
God will finally dwell with his people
to such a degree

625
00:30:27,867 --> 00:30:30,829
that his presence with them
will be the Holy of Holies.

626
00:30:30,829 --> 00:30:34,749
That like that, all of us together,
living with him in this new creation.

627
00:30:35,750 --> 00:30:39,170
The next line that that John says is,
I saw no temple in the city,

628
00:30:39,504 --> 00:30:42,507
for its temple is the Lord God
the Almighty and the lamb.

629
00:30:43,049 --> 00:30:46,344
There is no temple
because the entire new earth

630
00:30:46,344 --> 00:30:49,639
is the Holy of Holies,
that God's presence is

631
00:30:51,057 --> 00:30:53,601
off the charts
permanently with his people.

632
00:30:53,601 --> 00:30:56,938
That that that space where God really was

633
00:30:56,938 --> 00:31:01,192
the place where only the high priest
could go only once a year, only after all

634
00:31:01,192 --> 00:31:05,238
the rituals were done
is now the whole new creation.

635
00:31:06,406 --> 00:31:10,785
God dwells with his people
freely, fully, completely unlimited. The,

636
00:31:11,995 --> 00:31:12,871
the breastplate

637
00:31:12,871 --> 00:31:16,791
that used to used to be on the the,
the high priests

638
00:31:17,667 --> 00:31:17,959
with the

639
00:31:17,959 --> 00:31:19,586
with the stones
representing his tribe vision

640
00:31:19,586 --> 00:31:22,088
that's baked into the foundation
of the city.

641
00:31:22,088 --> 00:31:24,465
Okay. Yeah, I'm starting to see that.

642
00:31:24,465 --> 00:31:26,301
That's.

643
00:31:26,301 --> 00:31:29,929
Wow. So are
is there more pieces here about the Holy,

644
00:31:30,013 --> 00:31:33,349
holy, Holy of Holies connection
and the cube like.

645
00:31:33,683 --> 00:31:35,435
Well, yeah, just keep going,
I guess. Yeah.

646
00:31:35,435 --> 00:31:38,438
So I saw no temple in the city
because it's temple is the Lord

647
00:31:38,438 --> 00:31:41,441
God the Almighty and the lamb finally

648
00:31:41,649 --> 00:31:42,734
this finally.

649
00:31:42,734 --> 00:31:45,737
There's no more need for a
a different temple.

650
00:31:45,778 --> 00:31:48,740
Now we're back to Eden, where
we don't need a separate temple

651
00:31:48,740 --> 00:31:51,868
because God, God's throne and the lamb,

652
00:31:53,328 --> 00:31:56,664
just can dwell openly in it,
just like they did in Eden.

653
00:31:56,873 --> 00:31:58,958
I mean, just like God
walked in the garden with Eden,

654
00:31:58,958 --> 00:32:00,418
or just like the Holy of Holies.

655
00:32:00,418 --> 00:32:02,545
That's the only one.
That's that's the space, right?

656
00:32:03,588 --> 00:32:05,590
The city also has no need of sun or moon

657
00:32:05,590 --> 00:32:09,052
to shine on it, because the glory of God
gives it light, and his lamp is the lamb.

658
00:32:09,052 --> 00:32:13,014
So, like the whole New Jerusalem
or the whole new creation,

659
00:32:13,431 --> 00:32:15,808
again, this is symbolic.
We're not saying we're not telling it.

660
00:32:15,808 --> 00:32:19,771
Say anything about the physics
or the astronomy of the new Earth.

661
00:32:20,813 --> 00:32:23,816
But we're saying that like that glory,

662
00:32:23,816 --> 00:32:27,528
that that pillar of fire
that used to rest over the tabernacle

663
00:32:27,946 --> 00:32:31,908
is now what fills the whole new earth
with with light.

664
00:32:31,908 --> 00:32:33,618
Right? God's glory is full.

665
00:32:33,618 --> 00:32:33,993
Okay.

666
00:32:33,993 --> 00:32:37,330
So the pillar of fire, like it's like
walk me through that connection a bit

667
00:32:38,206 --> 00:32:40,708
like is you just use
that Old Testament imagery of,

668
00:32:40,708 --> 00:32:44,712
of the pillar of Fire and you're saying,
this is this is pointing us back to that.

669
00:32:44,712 --> 00:32:45,838
And I think so,

670
00:32:45,838 --> 00:32:47,465
at least at least it's reminiscent

671
00:32:47,465 --> 00:32:50,802
that that connection isn't as, like,
explicitly clear, but I think that's,

672
00:32:50,802 --> 00:32:54,097
that's that's an image that you, you would
naturally, you know, think of.

673
00:32:54,138 --> 00:32:57,850
But isn't that part of the imagery
where the cloud comes over the temple and,

674
00:32:58,184 --> 00:33:00,853
and or, I mean, the tabernacle and says,

675
00:33:00,853 --> 00:33:03,898
okay, God's presence is now in here,
you know, in the tabernacle, right?

676
00:33:03,982 --> 00:33:06,401
So maybe. Yeah.
So there's sometimes there's this cloud.

677
00:33:07,735 --> 00:33:09,278
But, but there's also be this fire.

678
00:33:09,278 --> 00:33:09,529
Right.

679
00:33:09,529 --> 00:33:12,490
And this fire was a thing that guided
the people of Israel and protected them

680
00:33:12,490 --> 00:33:15,493
by night and rested over the holiest place
or whatever.

681
00:33:15,868 --> 00:33:19,414
And, and it's God's and Holy of Holies
presence

682
00:33:19,414 --> 00:33:22,417
that's now filling the whole new creation
with light.

683
00:33:22,542 --> 00:33:24,293
Wow. Yeah.

684
00:33:24,293 --> 00:33:27,463
By its light, the nations will walk,
the kings will bring their glory into it,

685
00:33:28,131 --> 00:33:29,757
etc. there's more stuff there.

686
00:33:29,757 --> 00:33:32,677
But then,

687
00:33:32,677 --> 00:33:34,679
because that's more,

688
00:33:34,679 --> 00:33:36,889
Jerusalem related. I'm going to skip that.

689
00:33:36,889 --> 00:33:37,682
Chapter 22.

690
00:33:37,682 --> 00:33:40,685
The angel showed me
the river of the water of life,

691
00:33:40,893 --> 00:33:44,105
bright as crystal, which flowed
from the throne of God and the lamb

692
00:33:44,981 --> 00:33:46,441
through the middle
of the street of the city.

693
00:33:46,441 --> 00:33:49,652
Now, this is very clearly Ezekiel,
the river of life.

694
00:33:49,652 --> 00:33:50,361
Yeah.

695
00:33:50,361 --> 00:33:53,698
So remember, that was a river
that flowed out of the sanctuary

696
00:33:53,698 --> 00:33:56,617
of the temple, right?
And it gave life to everything.

697
00:33:57,910 --> 00:33:59,370
This time

698
00:33:59,370 --> 00:34:02,373
it's it's slightly tweaked
because it is flowing.

699
00:34:02,790 --> 00:34:05,001
It's the whole thing.

700
00:34:05,001 --> 00:34:05,877
The whole new creation is

701
00:34:05,877 --> 00:34:09,422
the temple is flowing directly
out of from the throne of God in the lamb.

702
00:34:09,839 --> 00:34:10,506
Right.

703
00:34:10,506 --> 00:34:13,509
And that the throne of God
and the lamb is,

704
00:34:15,553 --> 00:34:19,348
is just directly like rejuvenating
the world, giving life to the world.

705
00:34:19,348 --> 00:34:24,395
And I think John probably means for the
river of life, to represent the spirit.

706
00:34:24,979 --> 00:34:25,146
Right.

707
00:34:25,146 --> 00:34:25,730
This is the probably

708
00:34:25,730 --> 00:34:29,776
a Trinitarian is very John right
to think of water as in spirit.

709
00:34:29,776 --> 00:34:33,237
And he in his gospel assuming this is
written by the same, the same John,

710
00:34:34,405 --> 00:34:37,408
the spirit and water
are used interchangeably.

711
00:34:38,159 --> 00:34:40,536
And so this water

712
00:34:40,536 --> 00:34:42,246
flows from the throne of God and the lamb

713
00:34:42,246 --> 00:34:44,582
through the middle
of the street of the city,

714
00:34:44,582 --> 00:34:47,710
and also on either side of the river,
the tree of life,

715
00:34:48,252 --> 00:34:51,255
with its 12 kinds of fruit
yielding its fruit each month.

716
00:34:51,339 --> 00:34:54,217
That's straight
out of Ezekiel, the river of

717
00:34:55,843 --> 00:34:56,552
the vision that we

718
00:34:56,552 --> 00:34:59,555
that we read earlier from Ezekiel 48,

719
00:34:59,555 --> 00:35:02,391
where the river of life flows
out of this new temple,

720
00:35:02,391 --> 00:35:04,894
and there are trees

721
00:35:04,894 --> 00:35:08,064
that grow on either side,
and they bear fruit every month.

722
00:35:08,064 --> 00:35:08,731
Right.

723
00:35:08,731 --> 00:35:13,027
But John here in revelation
has a little bit confused.

724
00:35:13,027 --> 00:35:14,779
And there is a little debate on this.

725
00:35:14,779 --> 00:35:17,490
It it's possible he means to say trees.

726
00:35:17,490 --> 00:35:21,369
There's a there's a bit of a debate,
but assuming that that the singular

727
00:35:21,369 --> 00:35:24,372
is the right reading, which I think it is,

728
00:35:25,581 --> 00:35:28,543
he has the tree of life
growing on either side of the river,

729
00:35:29,293 --> 00:35:31,420
which is like super weird

730
00:35:31,420 --> 00:35:32,964
and is like one of the reasons I say,

731
00:35:32,964 --> 00:35:34,674
don't you know,
you shouldn't try to make movies

732
00:35:34,674 --> 00:35:36,217
or draw the book of revelation, right?

733
00:35:36,217 --> 00:35:40,096
It works as a literary text and it makes
terrible movies as we, as we all know,

734
00:35:43,516 --> 00:35:44,392
but what John,

735
00:35:44,392 --> 00:35:47,937
what what he's doing here
is he's combining

736
00:35:48,896 --> 00:35:53,025
the imagery from the Garden of Eden
with Ezekiel's temple vision.

737
00:35:53,151 --> 00:35:58,698
So Ezekiel, isn't it wild,
Ezekiel has has trees

738
00:35:58,781 --> 00:36:01,784
plural on either side of the river.

739
00:36:02,535 --> 00:36:05,246
John says, yeah, yeah,
I want to bring that in.

740
00:36:05,246 --> 00:36:07,123
But also

741
00:36:07,123 --> 00:36:09,208
I want to talk about the tree of life.

742
00:36:09,208 --> 00:36:12,962
And so he has the tree of life
growing on each side of the river.

743
00:36:13,337 --> 00:36:14,297
That's that.

744
00:36:14,297 --> 00:36:15,840
I've never thought about it
quite like that.

745
00:36:15,840 --> 00:36:17,508
How he is combining the.

746
00:36:17,508 --> 00:36:19,760
Yeah. Eden It's Eden and Temple.

747
00:36:19,760 --> 00:36:20,720
Yeah. Right.

748
00:36:20,720 --> 00:36:24,390
And and he's saying that this ultimate day
there will come this day when,

749
00:36:25,391 --> 00:36:29,103
the Garden of Eden will be restored,
all creation will be renewed, right?

750
00:36:29,520 --> 00:36:31,063
All creation will be renewed.

751
00:36:31,063 --> 00:36:33,649
God's presence will fully dwell
with his people again.

752
00:36:33,649 --> 00:36:38,863
The vision of Ezekiel for a world
in which, God's direct presence

753
00:36:39,906 --> 00:36:41,532
among his people, God can.

754
00:36:41,532 --> 00:36:45,494
The whole earth can be the Holy of Holies,
because sin is fully eradicated

755
00:36:46,120 --> 00:36:50,583
and God's Spirit can once again
bring life to all the world directly.

756
00:36:50,666 --> 00:36:51,000
Right?

757
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:54,003
And the tree of life is again,

758
00:36:54,587 --> 00:36:57,590
is again there is that finally,
the tree of life is back.

759
00:36:57,840 --> 00:36:58,925
Yeah.

760
00:36:58,925 --> 00:37:02,303
And then he quotes the next line,
the tree, the leaves of the trees were for

761
00:37:02,803 --> 00:37:03,930
the healing of the nations.

762
00:37:03,930 --> 00:37:06,390
That's straight out of Ezekiel
with one tweak.

763
00:37:06,390 --> 00:37:09,435
Ezekiel said, the leaves of the tree
will be for healing.

764
00:37:09,936 --> 00:37:11,979
And John adds of the nations.

765
00:37:11,979 --> 00:37:13,189
Right.

766
00:37:13,189 --> 00:37:16,192
Because in, in, in keeping with the way
he's seen,

767
00:37:17,985 --> 00:37:19,070
redemptive history play out.

768
00:37:19,070 --> 00:37:19,362
Right.

769
00:37:19,362 --> 00:37:21,906
That that it is this, this global thing

770
00:37:21,906 --> 00:37:24,909
and then the next line, no longer
will there be anything accursed.

771
00:37:25,785 --> 00:37:27,912
And what finally,
we think we think back to Genesis

772
00:37:27,912 --> 00:37:31,374
three of the curse, and we have finally
the undoing of the curse.

773
00:37:31,374 --> 00:37:34,252
So bringing back of the Pre-Fall Eden.

774
00:37:34,252 --> 00:37:34,543
Right?

775
00:37:35,628 --> 00:37:36,295
But the throne of

776
00:37:36,295 --> 00:37:39,465
God and the lamb will be in it,
and his servants will worship him.

777
00:37:39,465 --> 00:37:42,969
They will see his face,
and his name will be on their foreheads,

778
00:37:43,761 --> 00:37:46,472
and yeah, and night will be no more.

779
00:37:46,472 --> 00:37:49,475
They will need no light of lamp or sun,

780
00:37:49,684 --> 00:37:52,353
for the Lord God will be their light,
and they will reign forever and ever.

781
00:37:52,353 --> 00:37:54,146
And there's so much more imagery there.

782
00:37:54,146 --> 00:37:57,149
But I think what
I want to just emphasize here is that

783
00:37:57,650 --> 00:38:03,030
if you think of this as, as telling you
that you're going to live in heaven

784
00:38:03,030 --> 00:38:06,033
with Streets of Gold
or something like that,

785
00:38:06,951 --> 00:38:09,954
or you're saying, how is this
cube shaped thing going to work?

786
00:38:10,496 --> 00:38:14,458
You miss,
I think the the really mind blowing,

787
00:38:16,252 --> 00:38:17,920
beauty of what John is trying to say,

788
00:38:17,920 --> 00:38:21,799
which is because Jesus
gave his life for his people.

789
00:38:22,842 --> 00:38:25,761
We are as
Christians, as those who have been given

790
00:38:25,761 --> 00:38:28,764
the spirit,
who are little mini temples already

791
00:38:29,557 --> 00:38:33,936
and who as corporately as churches
are, are groups of God's temple presence.

792
00:38:33,936 --> 00:38:37,189
That's what Pentecost,
the the tongues of fire.

793
00:38:37,523 --> 00:38:38,774
Okay.

794
00:38:38,774 --> 00:38:43,237
Represent little, little, sort of pillars
of fire on each person, right?

795
00:38:43,237 --> 00:38:45,823
Oh, I've never thought of that,
but that that makes a lot of sense.

796
00:38:45,823 --> 00:38:49,201
And the rushing wind represents
the blowing wind.

797
00:38:49,452 --> 00:38:52,955
In Genesis, in Genesis,
when God creates the world, right?

798
00:38:52,955 --> 00:38:54,373
The Spirit of God hovered over the waters.

799
00:38:54,373 --> 00:38:57,376
Its new creation, a new temple, it’s
what Pentecost represents.

800
00:38:57,835 --> 00:39:00,379
And so we're living in that a little bit.

801
00:39:00,379 --> 00:39:03,466
But and John is saying the story ends
with,

802
00:39:04,216 --> 00:39:07,219
with this day when we get back to Eden,
but better

803
00:39:07,845 --> 00:39:10,639
when the real the physical creation

804
00:39:10,639 --> 00:39:14,018
will be renewed,
the curse will be will be removed,

805
00:39:14,268 --> 00:39:20,316
the tree of life will be back,
and temple will the whole, the whole.

806
00:39:20,316 --> 00:39:23,444
Instead of temple, God's presence
having to be confined to one space,

807
00:39:24,320 --> 00:39:25,404
the whole temple.

808
00:39:25,404 --> 00:39:28,824
Because of Jesus atoning work,
the whole new creation

809
00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:31,869
will be the Holy of Holies, and we will

810
00:39:33,788 --> 00:39:35,956
you know, there was this passage
in in Exodus

811
00:39:35,956 --> 00:39:38,959
where Moses asks to see God's face,

812
00:39:40,294 --> 00:39:42,129
and God says,
no one can see my face and live.

813
00:39:42,129 --> 00:39:45,132
And he gives them
a glimpse of the back of his robe.

814
00:39:45,883 --> 00:39:47,468
And right here,

815
00:39:47,468 --> 00:39:50,596
revelation ends here
saying they will see his face.

816
00:39:50,679 --> 00:39:52,139
Right? And finally that.

817
00:39:52,139 --> 00:39:53,391
And that's what the vision ends with.

818
00:39:53,391 --> 00:39:55,393
And so

819
00:39:55,393 --> 00:39:57,686
what John is back to the letter to
the church is

820
00:39:57,686 --> 00:40:00,689
John is calling his readers
to be one who overcomes.

821
00:40:00,856 --> 00:40:01,524
Right.

822
00:40:01,524 --> 00:40:02,608
And right here in chapter

823
00:40:02,608 --> 00:40:05,861
21 to the one who conquered, the one
who conquers will have this heritage,

824
00:40:06,362 --> 00:40:08,489
and I will be his God
and He will be my son.

825
00:40:08,489 --> 00:40:10,116
And that is what we're supposed to.

826
00:40:10,116 --> 00:40:13,244
We're supposed to say,
how do we live as people who belong?

827
00:40:13,536 --> 00:40:16,705
Who will belong in a world where where
that's true?

828
00:40:16,705 --> 00:40:19,708
Where God's presence is so palpable?

829
00:40:19,708 --> 00:40:21,419
Where the. When we feel the rays,

830
00:40:22,420 --> 00:40:23,546
you know, warmth on our arms.

831
00:40:23,546 --> 00:40:25,047
It'll be the rays of the glory of God.

832
00:40:25,047 --> 00:40:27,258
So to speak. Right.

833
00:40:27,258 --> 00:40:30,261
And he and he brings together
all this imagery of temple

834
00:40:30,928 --> 00:40:36,392
and, in Eden to, to portray this
so imaginatively but really vividly.

835
00:40:36,392 --> 00:40:38,310
I think.

836
00:40:38,310 --> 00:40:38,561
Yeah.

837
00:40:38,561 --> 00:40:41,689
That's, that's so interesting because it's

838
00:40:41,689 --> 00:40:45,109
very easy
with our style of reading the text.

839
00:40:45,234 --> 00:40:46,444
You read something like that
and it's like,

840
00:40:46,444 --> 00:40:48,654
oh let's draw a blueprint of what
that's going to look like.

841
00:40:48,654 --> 00:40:49,363
You know let's get out

842
00:40:49,363 --> 00:40:52,908
our, our, you know, our measuring sticks
and how's it going to be set up.

843
00:40:53,325 --> 00:40:54,910
And I guess it's not wrong.

844
00:40:54,910 --> 00:40:59,039
But what you're saying here,
there are so many more layers of meaning

845
00:40:59,373 --> 00:41:02,334
that get lost if you go down that street.

846
00:41:02,376 --> 00:41:04,003
Is that is that a fair way of saying it?

847
00:41:04,003 --> 00:41:04,503
Absolutely. Absolutely.

848
00:41:04,503 --> 00:41:08,048
And I think that I think that
just kind of misses the boat completely.

849
00:41:08,048 --> 00:41:08,340
Right.

850
00:41:08,340 --> 00:41:09,300
Because again,

851
00:41:09,300 --> 00:41:13,220
John is stacking images on top of each
other that don't literally work together.

852
00:41:13,220 --> 00:41:13,888
Right.

853
00:41:13,888 --> 00:41:16,891
Remember, I mean, the the New Jerusalem,
which he measures,

854
00:41:17,183 --> 00:41:20,186
he just said it's the bride,
the wife of the lamb.

855
00:41:20,603 --> 00:41:21,479
Yeah, right.

856
00:41:21,479 --> 00:41:22,521
That's a very good point.

857
00:41:22,521 --> 00:41:27,026
It this is this is not meant to be read
literally very explicitly.

858
00:41:27,026 --> 00:41:30,196
I mean, no bride wants,
wants this angel going and measuring her

859
00:41:30,446 --> 00:41:32,865
and turning out her
turning out to be a cube shape.

860
00:41:32,865 --> 00:41:33,699
That's not that.

861
00:41:33,699 --> 00:41:34,492
That's not cool.

862
00:41:34,492 --> 00:41:37,286
I mean, I never thought of that.
That's actually quite. Yeah.

863
00:41:37,286 --> 00:41:39,246
Because I would have read

864
00:41:39,246 --> 00:41:42,791
I mean, there's tons of stuff out there,
you know, reading about, oh, heaven.

865
00:41:42,791 --> 00:41:44,126
And, you know, what's it going to be like?

866
00:41:44,126 --> 00:41:47,213
And they're taking stuff like this
and putting it very literally,

867
00:41:47,213 --> 00:41:48,631
like literal gold, literal.

868
00:41:48,631 --> 00:41:51,008
This literally,
you know, you're literally inside a cube.

869
00:41:51,008 --> 00:41:53,177
There's like, okay, that's interesting.
I guess.

870
00:41:53,177 --> 00:41:56,555
But the problem that I ran into with
that is eventually just kind of got burned

871
00:41:56,555 --> 00:42:00,309
out with it because it's like, well,
how is this relevant to me right now?

872
00:42:00,309 --> 00:42:01,393
Like, it's not at all.

873
00:42:01,393 --> 00:42:04,396
I mean, it's interesting to think about,
I guess, like one day this

874
00:42:04,438 --> 00:42:07,358
it might be like this,
but again, what you're saying

875
00:42:07,358 --> 00:42:10,444
you're going through, there's
there's a lot of layers of meaning here.

876
00:42:10,736 --> 00:42:12,696
And suddenly you’re pulling things out.

877
00:42:12,696 --> 00:42:13,405
There's like, oh, wait,

878
00:42:13,405 --> 00:42:16,909
this is actually like, this is immediately
relevant to us right now.

879
00:42:17,201 --> 00:42:18,494
And we're kind of missing that.

880
00:42:18,494 --> 00:42:20,079
If we're relegating it
to some literal thing

881
00:42:20,079 --> 00:42:23,999
that's going to happen way down the line
somewhere, And this will happen someday.

882
00:42:23,999 --> 00:42:26,669
Right? I mean, it represents
something that will happen someday.

883
00:42:26,669 --> 00:42:30,339
Not not literally, but but really,
I mean, there will be a renewal

884
00:42:30,339 --> 00:42:33,551
of creation and God's presence
will really dwell with his people.

885
00:42:33,551 --> 00:42:34,385
And that's literal.

886
00:42:34,385 --> 00:42:34,969
Okay.

887
00:42:34,969 --> 00:42:37,513
It's just there's going to be comments,
you know, he does have

888
00:42:37,513 --> 00:42:38,806
was like he doesn't believe. Yeah.

889
00:42:38,806 --> 00:42:40,474
And that's
that's not what I'm trying to say. Right.

890
00:42:40,474 --> 00:42:40,641
Yeah.

891
00:42:40,641 --> 00:42:42,059
I'm trying to get the wording right

892
00:42:42,059 --> 00:42:45,729
because you again
you can miss so much of the beauty of how,

893
00:42:46,313 --> 00:42:48,857
how is this relevant to me right now?

894
00:42:48,857 --> 00:42:53,195
Which is strange because that is
John's purpose of the book,

895
00:42:54,196 --> 00:42:57,074
as evidenced by his exhortations
throughout,

896
00:42:57,074 --> 00:42:59,868
but especially through the seventh
Letter to the Seven churches.

897
00:42:59,868 --> 00:43:02,871
It's all about practical relevance.

898
00:43:03,038 --> 00:43:06,000
This is actually supposed
to be a super practical book.

899
00:43:07,418 --> 00:43:10,379
It's very saying that it is
because it's all about, look,

900
00:43:10,629 --> 00:43:13,215
you're living in a world where,

901
00:43:13,215 --> 00:43:16,135
you face persecution but also temptation.

902
00:43:16,135 --> 00:43:19,680
And if you don't have this God's eye vision.

903
00:43:19,680 --> 00:43:22,683
of the judgment that's to come,
which we didn't talk about today,

904
00:43:22,683 --> 00:43:26,103
and then the final sort of restoration
that's to come,

905
00:43:27,104 --> 00:43:29,189
you very well might capitulate.

906
00:43:29,189 --> 00:43:29,481
Right.

907
00:43:29,481 --> 00:43:32,901
You very well might end up with the beast
name on your forehead instead of God's

908
00:43:32,901 --> 00:43:37,156
name on your forehead, Back to that whole
overcoming or, like, enduring to the end.

909
00:43:37,323 --> 00:43:39,867
all about that.
And so you're supposed to say, whoa,

910
00:43:41,076 --> 00:43:44,330
that the theme of temple
is coming to his fulfillment someday.

911
00:43:44,330 --> 00:43:47,541
If I if I remain faithful to Jesus,
he will

912
00:43:47,916 --> 00:43:50,586
he will raise me from the dead.

913
00:43:50,586 --> 00:43:52,630
And into a new earth

914
00:43:52,630 --> 00:43:57,635
where, his presence with me is, forever
holy of holies

915
00:43:58,218 --> 00:44:01,472
and where everything,
everything that the Spirit's

916
00:44:01,472 --> 00:44:04,475
presence touches,

917
00:44:04,558 --> 00:44:06,477
you know, there's life everywhere.

918
00:44:06,477 --> 00:44:07,811
Yeah.

919
00:44:07,811 --> 00:44:10,564
Or I get cast into the lake of fire.

920
00:44:10,564 --> 00:44:11,940
I mean. Yeah.

921
00:44:11,940 --> 00:44:15,444
And that is the super vivid contrast that
we're seeing here at the end of the book.

922
00:44:15,444 --> 00:44:16,570
Right.

923
00:44:16,570 --> 00:44:19,990
So, okay,
so as people are listening to this,

924
00:44:20,199 --> 00:44:22,034
they're probably being like, okay,
how can I learn more?

925
00:44:22,034 --> 00:44:25,454
You know, where
where can they go to dig into this?

926
00:44:25,454 --> 00:44:28,957
More like these layers of meaning,
for example, is this just

927
00:44:29,291 --> 00:44:34,088
go and reread revelation
and reread some of these other passages,

928
00:44:34,171 --> 00:44:37,049
you know, like you were referring
to Genesis and Ezekiel and things.

929
00:44:37,049 --> 00:44:38,676
Yeah. What would you recommend
people do from here?

930
00:44:38,676 --> 00:44:42,096
There's a lot of good stuff,
that people can do. So,

931
00:44:43,472 --> 00:44:43,806
if you're

932
00:44:43,806 --> 00:44:47,851
looking for resources,
there's a bunch of good stuff, out there.

933
00:44:47,851 --> 00:44:50,521
There's some some good,
really good commentaries.

934
00:44:50,521 --> 00:44:53,524
There's one
that's fairly accessible by Craig Keener.

935
00:44:53,649 --> 00:44:55,025
In the NIVAC series.

936
00:44:55,025 --> 00:44:58,028
That's it's not like a huge, enormous one.

937
00:44:58,529 --> 00:44:59,071
It's very good.

938
00:44:59,071 --> 00:45:02,074
There is,
there are some big ones out there.

939
00:45:02,241 --> 00:45:05,244
That are that are a bit overwhelming. But,

940
00:45:05,494 --> 00:45:08,205
another good resource
that all around resource that I quite like

941
00:45:08,205 --> 00:45:11,208
is the commentary on the New Testament
use of the old.

942
00:45:11,375 --> 00:45:16,296
It's this big fat book that goes through
the New Testament and points out

943
00:45:16,296 --> 00:45:19,967
and explains not all, but the majority
of allusions to the Old Testament.

944
00:45:20,175 --> 00:45:23,095
So there's a whole there's a, you know,
chapter in there on the book of revelation

945
00:45:23,095 --> 00:45:25,514
and that can be a good
place to go to start with.

946
00:45:28,100 --> 00:45:29,435
There's yeah, I mean, there's

947
00:45:29,435 --> 00:45:32,438
there's a lot of stuff depending
on what level you're looking for.

948
00:45:33,480 --> 00:45:36,483
You know, but then also it's

949
00:45:36,608 --> 00:45:40,904
I think, to be a to remember that
what John is doing here

950
00:45:41,447 --> 00:45:46,660
is to weave together the threads of,
of the whole story of the Bible,

951
00:45:47,369 --> 00:45:50,372
and he's doing it in this vivid and

952
00:45:50,664 --> 00:45:52,791
apocalyptic way. Right.

953
00:45:52,791 --> 00:45:55,794
That tells the same story
as we read in the rest of the Bible.

954
00:45:57,087 --> 00:45:58,714
And so if you can,

955
00:45:58,714 --> 00:46:02,801
if you can come to the texts
from that perspective and look for,

956
00:46:03,552 --> 00:46:06,555
allusions to the Old Testament,
sometimes alongside to help, like,

957
00:46:07,431 --> 00:46:09,516
like, one of the resources
I just mentioned,

958
00:46:09,516 --> 00:46:12,519
that can be a good place to start,
I think?

959
00:46:13,103 --> 00:46:16,064
And then
and then the challenge for all of us is

960
00:46:16,064 --> 00:46:20,694
to not just understand what the text says,
but to let it impact the way we live.

961
00:46:22,029 --> 00:46:23,655
And that's that's the hard part.

962
00:46:23,655 --> 00:46:26,200
that's the, that's and honestly
that's kind of the real test. Right.

963
00:46:26,200 --> 00:46:29,495
Because you can tear into, oh all these
that layers of meaning and all that.

964
00:46:29,495 --> 00:46:31,830
Oh that's really interesting.
But then okay. Yeah.

965
00:46:31,830 --> 00:46:33,999
But will it affect how I live. You know.

966
00:46:33,999 --> 00:46:36,835
Yeah I think that's that
that's the big piece there.

967
00:46:36,835 --> 00:46:39,046
That,
that was really something that I like.

968
00:46:39,046 --> 00:46:40,589
The point you had there,

969
00:46:40,589 --> 00:46:43,842
how John is weaving together
all these threads of, of Scripture.

970
00:46:44,343 --> 00:46:46,345
And I feel like,

971
00:46:46,345 --> 00:46:49,389
at least for myself, I wish I would have
heard some of that sooner

972
00:46:49,389 --> 00:46:51,517
because it's so easy to get lost,
you know? Yeah.

973
00:46:51,517 --> 00:46:53,143
You just get lost in you again.

974
00:46:53,143 --> 00:46:55,562
Go back to, metaphorically speaking,
pulling out the measuring stick

975
00:46:55,562 --> 00:46:57,022
and trying to draw
the blueprint of the thing.

976
00:46:57,022 --> 00:46:59,233
And it's like, well,
there's a little more going on here.

977
00:47:00,609 --> 00:47:02,152
This is this is fascinating.

978
00:47:02,152 --> 00:47:05,155
I yeah, I really appreciate you
taking the time to dive into a,

979
00:47:05,697 --> 00:47:08,116
a specific chunk of revelation
that was definitely in

980
00:47:08,116 --> 00:47:09,952
some of the comments and feedback

981
00:47:09,952 --> 00:47:12,120
we were getting from last time was like,
wow, this is really good.

982
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:15,123
Can you go into the specifics of the book
itself?

983
00:47:15,123 --> 00:47:18,126
Is there anything else you'd like to add
as we wrap this episode up?

984
00:47:18,627 --> 00:47:20,128
I don't think so.

985
00:47:20,128 --> 00:47:24,383
I better not, because once you start
with revelation, there's no stopping it.

986
00:47:24,383 --> 00:47:26,343
Just sort of everything
just sort of keeps going.

987
00:47:26,343 --> 00:47:27,970
Yeah, there's there's a lot there.

988
00:47:27,970 --> 00:47:28,679
Well, hopefully

989
00:47:28,679 --> 00:47:32,474
this is encouraging the listeners
to pick up the book of revelation again,

990
00:47:32,474 --> 00:47:35,185
give it another read. And,
and dig into this more.

991
00:47:35,185 --> 00:47:36,854
Hopefully that's the result. So yeah.

992
00:47:36,854 --> 00:47:40,023
Yeah. Really appreciate you taking the
time to share. This has been fascinating. Thanks!

993
00:47:41,316 --> 00:47:41,859
Thanks for listening

994
00:47:41,859 --> 00:47:45,028
to this episode
about revelation with Paul Lamicela.

995
00:47:45,028 --> 00:47:48,115
If you enjoyed this conversation,
go check out the earlier episode

996
00:47:48,115 --> 00:47:50,617
we did with him
on how to read the Book of Revelation.

997
00:47:50,617 --> 00:47:53,078
That's linked in the description
down below.

998
00:47:53,078 --> 00:47:54,288
And of course, all our content

999
00:47:54,288 --> 00:47:58,166
is available on our website
at anabaptistperspectives.org.

1000
00:47:58,584 --> 00:48:01,545
Thanks again for listening,
and we'll see you in the next episode.