New Jerusalem will sit at the center with its sparkling pearl gates surrounded by jasper walls. These walls will be enhanced by the most beautiful jewels garnishing each level with a different stone. No jeweler on earth could set these stones with the beauty like the Creator of this city, Jesus Christ himself. Gleaming from within the city will be its golden streets and indescribable mansions. Overpowering all this beauty will be the throne room of the Father and His Son. The light from their presence will send forth rays of brilliant glory that will light the entire New Heaven and New Earth. Not a shadow will be found because this light cannot be shaded, but it fills every inch of His sin-free universe.

This New Heaven and New Earth is the very reason for the Seven Years of the Great Tribulation. All the carnage, suffering, death, and mutilation are the debris of sin. Man may take sin lightly. In fact, our present world treats sin like a joke, but the Holy God that sees its ugliness does not. The truth is that sin is dark as Hell and it is the source of all heartache. There would never have been a tear shed if not for sin. Every weeping child and brokenhearted mother is a result of sin’s fury. The jails of our world are full of sin’s payday. Every grave is a reminder of the consequence of sin.

Sin broke the heart of God and drove the Father to send His only begotten Son to the cruel cross. While His son was on the tree dying as the substitute for you and me, His Father had to turn His head. Heaven must have suffered for the second time. (The first was when a choice angel was cast out with his comrades.) Now, during the scene of a dying Savior, God’s only Son, He cries out, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me” (Matthew 27:46b). I believe angels cried on that day. The Father could not look on the guilt His Son was carrying into the halls of redemption.

Sin may be pretty to a lustful man looking on a shanty dressed maiden. It may look desirable to the covetous heart of a greedy person. It has stolen the souls of multitudes of earth’s handsome young men and beautiful young ladies, but it has only one face for the Father of this universe. To Him, the face of sin is the mutilated picture of His Son in the throes of death. God never sees sin without feeling the pains from the dark day His Son became His final answer to hope.

This darkness from Calvary will be uncovered for seven years of Hell on earth. No! No! God is not getting revenge; He is finishing what began on the cross. Jesus Christ’s death was a judgment of sin so a believing person could start a new life with freedom. God’s entire creation must now experience that same freedom that happens every time a sinner is born again.

That’s what the “Seven Years of Tribulation” is all about. It is the finishing hour of Calvary. The Son’s beaten and crucified body dying on the cross has earned the redemptive price to transform the world back to a garden. The carnage and upheaval of this earth are the last pains of a crucified Lamb. From Revelation chapters five to the end of that book, the Son of God is viewed over and over as a lamb. He is called a Lamb twenty-six times in this masterpiece of future prophecy.

We have never been so close to the last expression of the crucified Savior. Out of His death we shall inherit a world perfectly redeemed and beautifully finished. The New Heaven and the New Earth will be the Father’s gift to all His saints. New Jerusalem will be the Son’s gift to His bride, the triumphant church.