In the last consummate city!

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(Alexander Smellie, "The Secret Place" 1907)

"I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband! No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and His servants will serve Him!" Revelation 21:2-3

In the last consummate city, all will be worshipers. Its inhabitants will have the godward look. They will recognize . . .
God's existence,
His government,
His watchfulness,
His faithfulness,
His grace.
To them, He will be the Reality of realities. They will breathe through all the happy year the atmosphere of the spiritual, the supernatural, the divine, the infinite, the eternal. Atheism, and unbelief, and forgetfulness of God will have spread their black wings and flown forever away.

In the last supreme city, all will be brothers. Uniting in adoration around the throne of God and of the Lamb, they will gaze with kindly eyes into each other's faces and will clasp each other's hands in love and affection. It will be a society in which a new spirit and a new law rule--the law and the spirit of love.
Antagonisms, burdens, fears, will have vanished;
selfishness and greed, will be unthinkable;
the sorrow which man causes, man will never be felt.

In the last crystalline city, all will be saints. Its foundations are precious stones:
the sapphire of hope,
the emerald of humility,
the chrysolite of truth,
the amethyst of trust.
Its twelve gates are the twelve pearls of whitest and tenderest purity. No life flourishes in its ethereal air, but the life that is redeemed from all iniquity, and that bears the image of Jesus Christ. There is . . .
no dust in the highways,
no smoke in the skies,
no harsh and discordant noise,
no chilling or arid weather,
no workhouse, nor tavern, nor prison.

"The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass. I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp!" Revelation 21:21-23

"Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city!" Revelation 22:14

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