Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #4 of Revelation, chapter 22.  We are going to read Revelation 22:3:

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:

We are in the last Book of the Bible and we have seen God give tremendous details concerning His plan for the end of this world and the last day.  That is the point for the creation of the new heaven and new earth and this is what God is talking about.  It is the new heaven and new earth and the glorious, eternal future that awaits each child of God.  There shall be no more “curse” in that place.  Of course, this earth and all we have ever known of this present evil world has been a curse. 

If we go back to Genesis, chapter 3, to the time after Adam and Eve sinned, it says in Genesis 3:13-19:

And JEHOVAH God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. And JEHOVAH God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

What a terrible curse God placed upon the ground, Satan and upon mankind.  The woman would bring forth children in sorrow and the man would have to work in the cursed ground and in sorrow eat of it all the days of his life.  Everything would be done in “sorrow” until the day they would die and until they returned to the dust: “for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” That was the curse upon mankind.  It was a terrible curse that was placed upon man and the world and the entire creation that Adam had been given rule over and the cause was sin.

There is something else God tells us about the “curse” that He brings because of sin and disobedience.  It says in Deuteronomy 28:15-20:

But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of JEHOVAH thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee: Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store. Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out. JEHOVAH shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke, in all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly; because of the wickedness of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me.

Cursed, cursed, cursed!  It is the lot of man living in this world.  Man is cursed and, yet, he goes about his life.  He goes about his business.  He goes about building his family, his home and career, but all the while he is cursed.  In all that he does in his unsaved condition he is cursed because of sin.  This is how people live; they live with a “black cloud hanging over their heads.”  Or, even more clearly, it is the sword of the wrath of God hanging over their heads.  All their lives long they are under condemnation and the curse because they have rebelled against Holy God.  The world has operated and continued this way and it is only the goodness and kindness of God that has permitted a cursed people to live.  They are cursed and they have done nothing but rebel against Him and, yet, God is so good and so kind that He permits them to have sun and rain and fruitful seasons.  He gives them certain temporal blessings, even though they are in open rebellion against Him.  What king would be so concerned for the welfare of those that rebelled against him?  God did that throughout the history of the world.  He put up with man’s sins and mankind shaking his puny little fist at the Almighty and speaking, thinking and doing things that only provoked God to anger continually.  God put up with it all for the sake of His elect.  The longsuffering of the Lord is salvation, the Bible tells us.  God waited because there were still elect to be born into the world in the generations and, therefore, God did not bring His final wrath upon these people, but He allowed them to live.  In many cases they lived long lives and died in their wicked condition, but time continued because God’s program of salvation was being worked out.  The entire history of the world is really summed up in Romans 9:21-23:

Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,

Here, God reveals that He was longsuffering with the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction because He wanted to make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of His mercy and they had to become saved. You know, it is nothing to God if people shake their fists at Him and speak wickedly of Him. 

By the way, EBible has developed a second Twitter account and we are advertising to places in the the United States and Europe that had the Gospel, but the Gospel has long ago departed from them.  God brought them the Gospel early on and now they despise the Gospel and they think they are “better” than the Gospel.  They have no need of the Gospel or the God of the Bible and droves of atheists are flocking to our site and the things they say about God and His Word are very vile, very filthy and very arrogant.  You can just see the pride oozing from these people that think they are “free agents” and they are the ones that control their own destinies and fate.  They are in charge and in power.  Their tongues walk across the face of the earth and they lash out at God with their words and they make all sorts of claims against Him and speak evilly of Him.  And God allows it.  God says something that is really amazing regarding atheists or those that do not know God, in 1Corinthians 1:21:

For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God…

This means it was God’s plan to hide Himself from the sight of the world and allow them to develop their completely ridiculous theories like evolution, which is just a theory to try to explain how things can be without a God.  That is all evolution is and, of course, since God does exist, they are in the most terrible situation imaginable as they try to explain how the world came to be without a God.  This is why they had to come up with the most far out and foolish idea imaginable and they speak of their theories as if they are fact: “In the beginning this happened and that happened and something exploded and things developed and here we are.” They trust this theory.  They have faith and belief in this theory, but it is nothing but another false religion.  It is faith in the absurd idea that man and every other complex thing we see came from nothing.  They prefer that and they insist upon it because they do not want God.  It is all due to their blind condition because God has cut Himself off from them and shut off His power to these people and they wander around in the dark, feeling for the wall, as it were.  It is all part of the curse upon man in his cursed condition and it is a sorrowful thing to behold. 

God gives His people eyes to see the truth and we see the world operating in its cursed condition and it is very grievous to us.  But when that day comes…and we do have a good hope and expectation that October 7, 2015 will be that day.  We are looking forward to that day because we can hope in it since the Bible has presented evidence which points to that day as the likely day of the end of the world and the beginning of the new heaven and new earth.  One reason we look for and long for that day is because the curse will be removed. 

Just think about it.  When people hear about the end of the world, they say, “Oh, no!  May it not be.  Do not say or even think such a thing!”  What are they saying?  They are saying they prefer a cursed earth.  They prefer for themselves to be in a cursed condition instead of having the new heaven and new earth.  Some professed Christians say that, even though they claim to have a hope for a new resurrected body, but how can they prefer this cursed condition to that glorified state?  How can that be?  It can only be ignorance if anyone prefers thing now in this present life.  They are things that are corrupt because the whole creation is corrupted and “groans” to be delivered.  It is why there is sin and sorrow and death, but in the new heaven and new earth there is no more sin or sorrow or death because there is no more curse.  Here is why there is no more curse.  We find this passage in Galatians that causes the child of God to rejoice, as it says in Galatians 3:10:

For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.

If anyone tries to get right with God by keeping the Law of God, they had better keep the whole Law.  The moment you break a single Law, you are cursed.  Adam and Eve just broke one Law when they ate of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”  Every man breaks the Law of God: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”  The wages of sin is death and, therefore, every human being was cursed.

But for certain ones that were chosen and predestinated by God before the foundation of the world, there was a remedy for the curse.  It goes on to say in Galatians 3:11-13:

But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:

Jesus took upon Himself the sins of His people.  He became a “curse” for them and died for them at the foundation of the world.  By the way, that was the actuality of being a curse, but the “type” of someone that is accursed of God is when you “hang on a tree,” so to demonstrate He had already been made a curse at the foundation of the world Jesus went to the cross (made of a tree) and He hung on a tree.  However, this was only to portray or demonstrate that He had been accursed for us.  Because He was made a curse for us, all of God’s people are free from that curse and they no longer have the curse upon them.  The curse comes as a result of sin and the sins of God’s people have been paid for and we are restored to the original condition that existed at the beginning with Adam and Eve.  They were without sin and all was good.  They had the tree of life which they could eat from and they had communion with God and there was no curse. 

When sin came, the curse was upon the ground.  It affected the conception of their children and it involved their work and labor and it meant they would die and return to the dust.  But God’s people have been granted eternal life and will not die.  Of the labors and work of God’s people, God says in 1Corinthians 15:58:

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

The labor of the child of God, even in this life, has purpose, value and meaning.  It is not cursed.  It is blessed by God.  And in that new heaven and new earth, we read of our labor in Isaiah, chapter 65 and one thing we notice is that we will not labor in sorrow and by the sweat of our brow.  In the context of God creating the new heaven and new earth, it says in Isaiah 65:21-2:

And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of JEHOVAH, and their offspring with them.

They are the “seed of the blessed.” God’s people are blessed for evermore.

Remember when Balaam was hired to curse Israel and he kept trying to curse them, but God would turn the curse into a blessing, again, and again.  The king of Moab, who had hired him, became frustrated: “I hired you to curse my enemies, but you have blessed them.”  Then it was revealed that the ones that God blesses, who can curse?  It is impossible to curse someone God has blessed and God’s people are blessed.  Jacob received the blessing and that was the point of contention with Esau.  He realized, “Jacob is blessed and I am not blessed.”  If you are not blessed in this world, you are cursed.  The only blessing that was permitted for Esau was an earthly, temporal blessing, but it was not the blessing that the children of God receive. It was not the blessing the Lord Jesus speaks of in Matthew 25.  When He comes in judgment (and He already came in judgment and it is presently doing it), it says in Matthew 25:31-34:

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

But, for the rest, it says in Matthew 25:41:

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

Then it says in Matthew 25:46:

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

It is the blessing and the curse.  The curse destroys the sinner.  The curse ruins mankind, but God rescued a people for Him and He delivered His elect out of the world and He blessed them and they cannot be cursed.  We can be “tried” and we can experience tribulation and affliction and we can go through a great many difficult things, but all the while God’s elect are blessed.  And God’s elect will be eternally blessed when they come out of this fiery trial and enter into the glorious kingdom of God.  Now it is stated that in that place there is no more curse because the cursed world has been destroyed and the cursed sinners have been destroyed with fire.  They are everlastingly destroyed. 

This is why it can then be said, “And there shall be no more curse.”  Never again will there be a curse.  Sin will not happen at some point in the future and, therefore, God’s people will be free from the curse for evermore.