Revelation 22 – The Water and the Tree of Life and the End

Four Hands1 I can do anythingNow that I have completed this pictorial, archaeological and historical walk through the Bible my work done?

I can write pages of how Jesus has changed my life. How He changed a literally stupid boy, a convict, a drug addict, an alcoholic, and violent person into trustworthy and safe person.

Actually I did write it down in my eBook, “Where Will You Spend Eternity: Heaven or Hell?” And yes, the Holy Ghost helped me write that, along with my testimony, “Jerry: A Gracious Gift From God.”

I’m not a preacher or Mother Teresa or anything like that, I still distrust cops, politicians and our entire government, but I’m no longer the arrogant, selfish, greedy person trying to become king of the hill.

Revelation 22
The Water and the Tree of Life
and the End

2 11 And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.

2 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

3 And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him:

4 And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads.

“They shall see his face” – an idiom for “have an audience” with the king in ancient times criminals were banished from the presence of the king (Est 7:8; cf. 2 Sam 14:24).

One blessing of eternity will be to see the Lord face-to-face (cf. 1 Cor 13:12).

5 And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.

6 And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to shew unto his servants the things which must shortly be done.

7 Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book.

8 And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things.

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9 Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God.

10 And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand.

11 He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.

“Unjust, let him be unjust still” – this verse speaks of the stability of the eternal state – both for the wicked and the righteous.

12 And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.

13 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

14 Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.

15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.

“Dogs” – a term applied to all types of ceremonially impure persons.  In Deut 23:18 it designates a male prostitute.

416 I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.

“Bright and morning star” – these are Messianic titles applied to Jesus Christ.  See Num 24:17.

17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

22:18-19 – cf. the commands in Deut 4:2, 12:32.  The warning here relates specifically to the book of Revelation.

“Grace” – the New Testament begins with Jesus Christ (Matt 1:1) and ends with an expression of His grace.  Throughout, He is the subject.

The New Testament begins with the fact of His first coming and ends with the promise of His second.

18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:

19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

6 This well known
This well-known verse states God’s requirements for blessing us; it requires humility, prayer, devotion and repentance.
While this promise was originally given to King Solomon regarding the people of Israel, it is certainly applicable to all who will call on the Lord in repentance and faith.

This verse stands as a high expression of God’s readiness to hear the prayers of a repentant people.
Yet…

If My People…

by Richard White

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land (2 Chr 7:14).

7 Behold the Lords
“Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:
But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear” (Is 59:1-2).

The sentence, as it continues, forms what is probably the best known and most loved verse in all Chronicles. It expresses, as does no other passage in the Bible, the stipulations that God lays down for a nation to experience his blessing, whether that nation be Solomon’s, Ezra’s, or our own.

Those who have been chosen to be His people must cease from their sins, turn from living lives of proud self-centeredness, pray to the Lord, and yield their desires to his Word and his will.

The subject “His chosen people” has been debated for centuries.

In the beginning, the Jews were His chosen people, but they were (and still are) so horrible that Jesus had to come to save the world.  Today anyone that believes in Jesus is God’s chosen people.

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28).

Some people also believe that God has chosen some people to live and others to burn in hell.  I don’t think that because it just doesn’t make since why He would do that, besides as the Bible says,

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (Jn 3:16).

Therefore I believe anyone can be saved, but God does choose certain people to do special things, like He did with Abraham, Moses, Paul, etc.

I also believe that God will guide any believer to do something for Him, as I am doing this blog for Him.

This has taken me over three years to complete, but know that Jesus did not say do this and let me know when you get it finished.  He has been with me all the way.

There have been a couple times I was ready to quit, but He kept me going.  Jesus will never let  you down, nor ever leave you.

Our situation in this nation cannot be solved by human means, we need Divine intervention to bring this country back to being a God-fearing, Christian nation.

Jesus tells us that without Him we can do nothing.8 2

“I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing” (Jn 15:5).

God tells the Nation of Israel and us that apart from Him we have No Savior (Is 43:11), No God (Is 44:6), and that there is no God apart from Him (Is 45:5, 21). But this is getting ahead of ourselves.

If My People…

What are we called to do?

Humble Ourselves

9 1Stop being so full of ourselves and realize that whatever we have, we have because of God and not of ourselves.

God will visit when his people reach a point of desperation. When we surrender that pride, the idea that we can do pretty good on our own, and we get down on our knees and admit things are not as they should be, then God will come to His people.

It is calling us to come down to earth so to speak. To humble ourselves is to recognize God for who he is.

It reminds me of a line I heard in the movie “Rudy.”

The priest tells Rudy, in all my years I have learned two things, there is God, and I am not Him. The blessings we have are not because of us, but because of God. Humble ourselves, bring ourselves low and exalt GOD.

Seek His Face10 1

That is to come before Him to seek what His will is in any and every situation. We read His word and do what it says not what we think it says. To seek His face is to desire an audience with Him.

In 1857 there was a 46 year old man named Jeremiah Lamphere who lived in New York City. Jeremiah loved the Lord tremendously, but he didn’t feel that he could do much for the Lord until he began to feel a burden for the lost and accepted an invitation from his church to be an inner city missionary.

So in July of 1857 he started walking up and down the streets of New York passing out tracts and talking to people about Jesus, but he wasn’t having any success.

11Then God put it on his heart to try prayer. So he printed up a bunch of tracts, and he passed them out to anyone and everyone met.

He invited anyone who wanted to come to the 3rd floor of the Old North Dutch Reform Church on Fulton St. in New York City from 12 to 1 on Wednesday to pray.

He passed out hundreds and hundreds of fliers and put up posters everywhere he could. Wednesday came and at noon nobody showed up.

So Jeremiah got on his knees and started praying. For 30 minutes he prayed by himself when finally five other people walked in.

The next week 20 people came. The next week between 30 and 40 people came. They then decided to meet every day from 12:00 to 1:00 to pray for the city.

Before long a few ministers started coming and they said, “We need to start this at our churches.” Within six months there were over 5000 prayer groups meeting every day in New York.

Soon the word spread all over the country. Prayer meetings were started in Philadelphia, Detroit, and Washington D.C.12

In fact President Franklin Pierce started going almost every day to a noonday prayer meeting.

By 1859 some 15,000 cities in America were having downtown prayer meetings every day at noon and thousands were brought to Christ.

The great thing about this revival is that there is not a famous preacher associated with it. It was all started by one man wanting to pray.

See only God can start a revival and God is quite clear about what He expects before He will return to His people.

Are we willing to do His will, not yours?

I think most people today are pretty satisfied with the state of the church. Do you think that the church in America today is pretty healthy? Does the Church seek His Face?

13Turn From Your Wicked Ways

Does the Church speak out against sin? Does the Church call sin a sin? It is not that the Bible has to change to society, it is that society must change its ways to conform with the Bible, nothing less will do.

This is repentance, it is a turning and changing. Some change happens slow, remember some of our habits have taken years to develop, the idea is moving toward that end.

It is moving closer to God and His ways. Some of us are still stuck where we were just before coming to Christ.

Time to get up and get moving harder, striving more and more to be Christ like, just as the name we wear says.

14Pray

This is the most awesome command. We are to pray. We seek His face, we turn from our evil ways and we pray. What is our prayer life like?

Wayne Watson wrote a song “When God’s people pray” he says “we take the pains of earth to the doors of heaven. When we pray things happen, miracles we cannot explain away.

When the Church prayed things happened. (all verses come from Acts)

1. Peter and John had the courage to challenge the Sanhedrin Chapter 4.
2. The Church w
as added to daily Chapter 2, 5.

3. Peter was freed from prison (Chapter 12).

In I Thess 5:17 Paul doesn’t say sing without ceasing, or fellowship without ceasing or even preach without ceasing.

He said, “Pray without ceasing.” That’s revival praying! In Lk 11:1, the disciples said to Jesus, “Teach us to pray.” Notice they did not say, “Lord, teach us what to say.”

Rather I think they were saying, “Lord teach us how to pray, to pray like you do.”

Miracles happened, revival happened and the Church grew.

Let me close with a great story.

I started by telling you about the great prayer revival of 1857. It moved from New York to Detroit, Buffalo, Washington D.C. and it moved to Philadelphia in a powerful way.

One of the leaders in Philadelphia was a young man named Dudley Ting. He started a noonday prayer meeting at the YMCA, and some days 5000 people would come at noon and pray.15

One day Dudley stood up and he read Ex 10:11, “Go ye that are men and serve the Lord.” He then said, “I had rather my right arm cut off than not give you that word.”

Later that week Dudley went out into the country to see some friends. While in a barn at his friend’s place he got his arm caught in a corn threshing machine and the main artery in his arm was severed.

They took him to a bed and tried to save his life but he had lost too much blood. So his friends gathered around him and asked him what he would like to say.

He said, “Tell them to stand up for Jesus.” So the next Sunday his good friend George Duffield stood up at church and preached in memory of his friend.

He said, “I just finished writing a poem in honor of Dudley and I want to read it to you.”

16Stand up, Stand up for Jesus, ye solders of the cross. Lift high His royal banner, it must not suffer loss. From victory unto victory His army shall He lead, till every foe is vanquished, for Christ is Lord in deed.

Stand up, Stand up for Jesus, the trumpet call obey. Forth to the mighty conflict in this His glorious day. Ye that are men now serve Him, against unnumbered foes. Let courage rise with danger and strength to strength oppose.

Stand up stand up for Jesus, the strife will not be long. This day the noise of battle, the next the victor’s song. To him that overcometh a crown of life shall be, he with the king of glory shall reign eternally.

All across America, city after city people would meet for one day and pray for their country, and sing Stand up Stand up for Jesus.

It’s time to decide if we want to do business with God or with man? 

I hope this has been helpful and this site will always be on line and free because Jesus is free.  Thank you for reading it.

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