You could also tell them that our God expects not only to be our Creator, our Redeemer, our life, our life supply, our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption, but He also expects to be our dwelling place. Actually, this New Jerusalem is the processed God expanded into eternity for you and me to live in. Perhaps someone new would ask how God could be our dwelling place. We should answer by referring him to Deuteronomy 33:27 which says the eternal God is our dwelling place (American Standard Version). He is a strong dwelling place to preserve you from trouble. As our dwelling place He is our refuge. Psalm 90 which is a psalm of Moses, the man of God, tells us, “O Lord, You havet been our dwelling place / In all generations” (v. 1). Then you could read Psalm 27:4 which says, “One thing I have asked from Jehovah; / That do I seek: / To dwell in the house of Jehovah / All the days of my life, / To behold the beauty of Jehovah, / And to inquire in His temple.” David had a desire to dwell in the temple all the time, not just for one hour, one morning, or one evening, but all the time to behold the Lord’s beauty. Even the Old Testament saints considered God as their dwelling place and they desired to dwell in this place to behold God all the time. Then what about the New Testament believers, all the redeemed ones in eternity? Shall they live in a physical, golden city with physical pearls and physical stones? We must say no to this. They will live in God Himself. The eternal God will be their eternal dwelling place. He will be the particular dwelling place, the temple, in which we will dwell.
If we would get ourselves into this matter, then we would be able to preach, teach, and present this matter to anyone. They would have no way to debate with us. We must not take care of this carelessly, but with our full spiritual energy. Dear saints, we must study this. The last two chapters of the entire Bible are really worthwhile of our study for years. This leaven of the heavenly mansion must be purged away.
We all can see now how much the traditional teachings, concepts, understanding, and influence have held us back from the deeper study of the pure Word. We read Revelation 21 and 22 many times but we just took it for granted. We never had any thought to dig into it or to study it further. We must leave the tradition behind and go further to study. We must be like Columbus who left tradition to sail on and on. Eventually he reached a new land. We have to sail on. Year after year there should be new material—every page of the book of Revelation can be used as material for gospel preaching.
You could preach the gospel using the three categories of people in Revelation 21:3-8. The best category of people is the sons of God. The worst category of people are those in the lake of fire and the middle category of people are those who are neither in the New Jerusalem nor in the lake of fire but outside of the city. The sons are in the city drinking the river of life, eating the tree of life, and walking in the light of life. Those in the lake of fire just suffer the burning. The middle class of people do not suffer the burning, nor do they enjoy the tree of life, the river of life, or the light of life. They only eat the leaves of the tree and they do not walk in the light directly but outside the city. Many Christians are not clear about these three categories of people in Revelation 21 and 22. In their general concept there will be only two categories of people, the saved ones and the perished ones, in eternity.
Even the last hymn in our hymnal, 1348, is a wrong hymn based upon our present realization. This hymn is comprised of Revelation 21:3-4 which says, “And I heard a loud voice out of the throne, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will tabernacle with them, and they will be His peoples, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. And He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more, nor will there be sorrowor cryingor pain any more; for the former things have passed away.” The only problem with this hymn is that this word was not spoken to the believers but to the peoples on the new earth outside the holy city. When we sang this hymn were we singing it to the people outside the city? I do not believe this hymn was written with this understanding. This really troubles me that this hymn was written and placed in our hymnal. Our Recovery Version of Revelation titles verse 3 and 4 of chapter 21 as “The Peoples on the New Earth.” Verses 5 through 7 are titled “The Sons of God in Eternity.” Verses 3 and 4 were spoken to the unbelievers who are the descendants of the sheep in Matthew 25:31-46. Verses 5 through 7 refer to the sons of God, all the saints, the divinely saved ones through the generations. Hymns, #1348 says nothing about the inheritance. It says nothing about the tree of life, the river of water of life, or the light of life. This hymn says that “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes” (21:4). When we believers are there in the New Jerusalem there is no possibility of tears. In our vocabulary there will not be such a word. But the dictionary outside the city still will have this word. That means they will still have tears. If they did not have tears they would not need someone to wipe them away. I do not think that anyone of us who sang this hymn in the past discerned that this was a wrong hymn. This is because we never got into the real blessing of the eternal life in the New Jerusalem. For God to wipe away tears with no sorrow or crying or pain are the blessings outside the city without eternal life. These are the blessings rendered to the unbelieving, God-created and restored people. These are the nations, not the sons of God. We are the sons of God. Because we are still the old creation, we still have tears. But when we get into the New Jerusalem we will no longer be the old creation and there will be no tears. The restored nations, however, are still in the old creation. They still will have tears. The blessings to them will be that God will wipe away their tears. You may think this is an intimate blessing and that if God would wipe away your tears this would be marvelous. This indicates that you have never gotten into the blessing of the eternal life. The blessing of the eternal life is not to wipe away your tears but to fill you with another kind of water. If you are filled within with the living water, tears would never come out.
We have received the eternal life, yet many of us did not know what the real blessing of this life was and what the real blessing of this eternal life would be in eternity, in the New Jerusalem. If you want God to wipe away your tears, there will be no tears in the New Jerusalem. In the next edition of the hymnal we will replace this hymn with a positive one about the blessings of the eternal life in which the sons of God will participate.
The fact that this hymn made it into our supplement shows that with just a little carelessness something is able to creep in. This is why I felt an urgent need to call this gathering with all of you, and this is why I opened up the door to embrace so many young ones who are not elders. I do have a burden to present to you what the Lord has shown us in all these years. This might be considered a constitution, just as the constitution has controlled the United States for two hundred years. We do need a controlling constitution that will rule out many things such as Hymns, #1348. I do believe that the brother who wrote this hymn wrote it with a very good intention. The intention was very positive, yet the work was terrible. This shows us that in our preaching and in our teaching we may have already done things like this unconsciously. We do not realize that some damage has been caused already by our so-called ministry. However, we still think our ministry is wonderful, just as the writer of Hymns, #1348 thought his writing was wonderful. Some teachings have gone out in the same principle. They were not in the intrinsic essence of the Lord’s vision in His recovery. No damage has been done yet, but the principle of life has been changed and eventually “the mustard seed” will not grow into an herb but into a big tree. It will not be an herb for feeding people but a big tree for lodging evil things and evil persons.
This is why I was burdened to have such a gathering to make all the crucial items of the Lord’s recovery so clear to all of us. We must be on the alert. We should not merely take care of others, but we must take care of ourselves. We should not think that we are okay and that we are safeguarded. We all must take heed to our own preaching, our own teaching, our own so-called ministry. We must ask whether the principle of life has been changed or not. We must know the intrinsic essence of life in the Lord’s recovery.