Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #17 of Revelation chapter 21 and we are going to read Revelation 21:7:

He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.

At the conclusion of our last study we looked at some Scriptures in the Psalms where God speaks of His people, the meek, inheriting the earth.  Once that takes place, it is the fulfillment of the promise given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob long ago.  They would possess the land for an everlasting habitation.

The word “inherit” in Revelation 21:7 is what directed us to those other verses: “He that overcometh shall inherit all things.”  We saw several Scriptures that spoke of inheriting the land, but God also speaks of something tremendous in regard to an inheritance in Matthew 19:29:

And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.

This entire passage was in response to the rich young ruler who came to the Lord.  Even though it does not say it in the Gospel of Matthew, it does say in a couple of the other Gospel accounts that he asked, “What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?”  Christ told him to sell all that he had and give to the poor and follow Christ, in order to teach that a person cannot do anything to get himself saved and that is necessary for God to do the work of salvation.  When God does the work of salvation within a person, that person will “give up their life” in various ways to do service to God and this is what Christ is referring to in this verse.  They will receive “an hundredfold” and there will be blessings they will receive in this present world, but they will also “inherit everlasting life.”  That is the rich inheritance and the abundance of wealth that each child of God possesses.

You may not have much in this world and many do not have much in this world.  You may lack a great many things.  You may be like the beggar Lazarus, full of sores, lowly and despised or not even noticed by the rich men of the world.  The world does not care about the child of God and they are not concerned about the needs of the child of God, but God is concerned and He knows each one of His people and God has a remedy.  He has spiritual blessings that His people enjoy presently and He has rich, abundant spiritual blessings that they will enjoy for evermore, including life eternal.  It says in Hebrews 9:14-15:

How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.

God has promised it and it is our eternal inheritance.  We have this to look forward to and that is why we are looking forward, with good expectation, toward the date of October 7, 2015.  The child of God is looking with anticipation and intensely looking for the coming of the Lord, as we read in 2Peter 3:12-13:

Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

Again, it mentions that promise, the promise of an eternal inheritance.  This is what we are looking for and that is why there is a difference between a true believer and the unsaved person when they hear about an expected “end,” whether it be May 21, 2011 or the likely completion of Judgment Day on October 7, 2015.  When we share the information, the unsaved person will react with dread and alarm and trouble of mind; they do not want to look at it because we are spoiling their fun.  We are telling them something they do not want to hear or know about: “Let us not talk about that.”  The churches have obliged them and provided a way of avoiding the issue by saying, “No man knows the day or the hour.”  The unsaved, in effect, respond to the churches, “Thank you very much,” and then they repeat it back to the true believer that brought up the time of the end and they say, “You do not know.  Nobody knows – no man knows the day or the hour.”  Then they turn their attention back to what they want to focus on, this world and the things of the world.

On the other hand, when the true believer hears about the timing of the end, he is not troubled in mind.  It does not disturb him in that way, but rather he is very interested and fascinated by the idea because he trusts the Bible and he knows that God has spoken of these things in the Bible.  He knows there must be an end.  I am going to read a verse in Proverbs, chapter 23, because I do not think we are as familiar with this verse as we should be, in Proverbs 23:18:

For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off.

In Psalm 37, remember how God kept going back and forth between the “meek” that will inherit the earth and the wicked that will be cut off.  And that is why the wicked have no expectation of good at the end and that is why they are troubled of mind – they have no hope because they are without God in the world.  The hope is for those God has saved.  Salvation is not for everyone.  Eternal life is not for everyone.  The eternal dwelling place of the new earth is not for everyone, so the inheritance of the unsaved was this world – it was given to them and they are enjoying their inheritance.  It is all the inheritance they will ever possess, so they do not want to look at anything else.  But God guarantees, “Surely there is an end.”  It is not in question.  The world will not continue forever, as some people believe.  That is why they are so convinced it will never end.  The erroneous teaching of evolution implies some sort of eternal existence for this world, as they claim it has already been around for billions of years, so the implication is that the world will be “eternal,” but it is not eternal.  It is a cursed and corrupt place and God has determined and appointed the Day of Judgment.  He has appointed a day of destruction of the earth, the sun, moon and stars.  They will melt with a fervent heat and be destroyed.

So there is a difference in attitude among people when they hear a prospective date for the end.  It depends on their spiritual condition as to how they respond, but, again, God speaks of His people inheriting “all things.”  It is the inheritance of the land, as well as of eternal life.  I am going to read a few wonderful verses in Ephesians, chapter 1 where God lays out His eternal counsels from before the foundation of the world in regard to His plan of predestination, and so forth.  God says in Ephesians 1:9-14:

Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

Now this is saying a lot, especially in verse 14: “Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.”  What is God saying with this grand statement?  First of all, He is saying that we are sealed with the “holy Spirit of promise” and that Holy Spirit is called a promise.  The fact that God has saved the sinner and placed within that person His Holy Spirit is, in itself, a promise.  The Holy Spirit is acting as a form of promise to the one He dwells within.  If you understand, by God’s grace, and you have seen the evidence of God’s salvation in your life, that is also evidence of the promise of God.  What promises?  They are all the promises we have been looking at in the last couple of studies.  It is the promise of the everlasting dwelling place of the new earth.  It is the promise of eternal life.  It is the promise that God will fulfill all Scripture and bring it all to pass.  The promise dwells in you in the form of the glorious person of the Holy Spirit.  It is “that holy Spirit of promise” and it is a testimony and a witness to you and to me and to everyone that has the Spirit indwelling them and it means that God will fulfill His promises. 

It is a testimony to the statement that we read earlier in this chapter: “These words are true and faithful.”  The indwelling Holy Spirit is the promise of God, but you are troubled and weary because it has been so long and you just want the promises to be fulfilled.  It is a little like John the Baptist when he ended up in prison and he just wanted some confirmation from the Lord.  He knew Christ was the Messiah.  He had known that from a child, but he sent his disciples to Christ to ask, “Are you the one that was to come or do we look for another?”  Jesus obliged and said, “Tell John the deaf hear, the blind see, the lame walk, the dead are raised and the poor have the Gospel preached to them.”  They would have shared that with John and John would have been comforted.  He did believe, but he wanted confirmation.  So we know the Bible says there is an end.  We know the Bible says there will be a day when this world passes away and a new heaven and new earth are created.  We know God has told us there is a day of resurrection in which the child of God will be equipped with a new resurrected spiritual body.  We know God is faithful to perform these things, but we want further confirmation and assurance and we get that from the Word of God, the Bible. 

We can also get assurance when we see the evidence of the Holy Spirit indwelling us.  Do you see evidence of God’s Spirit in you?  Are you a new creature?   Being a new creature in Christ is part of the promise.  It is a portion of the promise of God to the seed of Christ.  We become new creatures or “spiritual Jews,” circumcised in heart.  Are you a new creature?  Do you see a change in your life, an abhorrence of evil, a turning away from sin and an ongoing desire to do the will of God?  If so, you are seeing evidence of the Spirit of promise.  The Holy Spirit is the “earnest of our inheritance” and we are going to look at that term shortly, but somehow God the Holy Spirit is able to dwell within the new spirit in those He has saved.  I do not understand how that works, but that is what the Bible tells us and that Holy Spirit is the spirit of promise and the “earnest of our inheritance.” 

We will see that the word “earnest” identifies with what we would call a “down payment.”  If you are buying a house, you put down a “down payment,” unless you are rich and able to pay cash, but most of us cannot do that.  We put a significant portion of cash down and that tells the bank that they will finance the house for that home buyer because he has put down that earnest payment and has promised to pay the rest.  That is what our monthly mortgage payment is and as we pay that monthly payment, we are promising that we will complete the payment to them that we began to do when the money was put down.  That is what God is saying here.  Remember that good verse in Philippians 1:6:

Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

That day would be the completion of Judgment Day.  Christ will destroy the world.  It is also the time of the rapture of the living elect and it is the time of the resurrection of the elect dead and they will all meet together with Christ and be placed in the new heaven and new earth to dwell together for evermore.  That will be the completion of the promises.  That will be the time the work is finalized that was begun at the moment of salvation when the Holy Spirit was placed within us, as it says in Ephesians 1:14:

Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

So the Holy Spirit is there.  It is the down payment and “earnest of our inheritance” until the day of Christ or the redemption of the purchased possession.

In our next study we are going to look at the words “redemption” and “earnest” a little bit closer.  We will continue to look at God’s fascinating Book, the Bible, and go where it leads us.  God has such tremendous things in store for His people and there is every indicator today that we are at the door of eternity.  Yes, it is very bad in the world.  Yes, it is very bad in the churches.  It can really be oppressive in the sense that the souls of the righteous are vexed day by day with the things that are happening in the world and in the churches. 

On one hand, we are troubled by it, but at the same time we know that these things have to take place and they are sign posts which God has placed to let us know we are at the end.  We are right there.  Remember that the Lord said in the Book of Luke that there are “signs” in the sun, moon and stars.  Then He says that after you see these “signs” and Christ coming in the clouds, we are to look up for our redemption draweth nigh.  That is the same word “redemption” that is used in that verse.  There is a connection between what God is doing today and the finalizing of the overall salvation plan.  He has not saved us completely until we have our new bodies.  Our bodies need to be saved and that is what is fast approaching.