---

I. IN THAT WORLD THERE IS NO SPECIALITY IN THE FORMS OF RELIGIOUS WORSHIP. A city without a temple would strike the common notions of men as atheistic. To the Jewish mind especially it would give the idea of a city to be avoided and denounced. Still, whatever might be the popular notions of men about temples, with their methods of worship:

1. Their existence implies spiritual blindness and imperfection, they are remedies for evils.

2. Their history shows that men, in many instances, have turned them to a most injurious account. They have nourished superstition; men have confined the idea of sacredness and worship and God to these buildings. They have nourished sectarianism. When it is said, therefore, that there is no temple in heaven, it does not mean that there will be no worship in heaven, but that there will be no temple like that on earth; always implying imperfections. The reason assigned for the non-existence of a temple in heaven is a very wonderful one, "The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it." God and His Holy Son are not only the objects of heavenly worship, but the very temple of devotion. All there feel, not only that they have to render to God and His Son worship, but they are in them in the worship.

II. IN THAT WORLD THERE IS NO NECESSITY FOR SECOND-HAND KNOWLEDGE. The fountain of all light is God Himself. He is the Father of lights. Here, like Job, we hear of God by the hearing of the ear, there we shall see Him as He is, and be like Him. He will be the light, the clear, direct, unbounded medium, through which we shall see ourselves, our fellow worshippers, and the universe.

III. IN THAT WORLD THERE WILL BE NO APPREHENSION OF DANGER FROM ANY PART. "And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there." No fear of temptation; here we are bound to watch and pray lest we fall into temptation. Why? Because of the greater amount of motive that now exists in heaven to bind the virtuous to virtue, the Christian to Christ, the godly to God.

1. There is a motive from the contrast between the present and the past.

2. There is the motive from the appearance of the Lamb in the midst of the throne. There is no fear of affliction; we are told there "shall be no sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain."

IV. THAT IN THAT WORLD THERE WILL BE NONE OF THE INCONVENIENCES OF DARKNESS. "There shall be no night there."

1. Night interrupts our vision. It hides the world from our view, and is the symbol of ignorance. The world is full of existence and beauty, but night hides all.

2. Night interrupts our labour. We go forth unto our labour until the evening.

V. THAT IN THAT WORLD THERE WILL BE NO ADMISSION OF IMPURITY OF ANY KIND. "And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie; but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life."

(Homilist.)

---

---

KJV: And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.

WEB: I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb, are its temple.