Imputed righteousness can never serve as the light of the world. People are waiting to see upright, honest, morally pure behavior. Until they do they will not glorify God.

God's desire is to bring the Gentile nations to Himself. The Gentile nations will never come to God until they see His Glory in His people. That Glory includes miraculous power. But vastly more important than miraculous power is righteous, merciful conduct that walks humbly with God.

The light of the new Jerusalem is like a jasper stone, clear as crystalùperhaps better translated crystal-clear jasper. This would be remarkable because jasper is a variety of quartz and is opaque.

Jasper may be red, yellow, or brown, according to the dictionary.

Perhaps all three colors are seen radiating from the city. Red portrays the blood of the Lamb of God, an eternal reminder that God has forgiven our sins only because of the blood atonement made by Jesus Christ on the cross.

Brown speaks of the earth. Although every member of the new Jerusalem is alive, body, soul, and spirit, in the Spirit of God, yet each person still will be a human being, albeit a transformed human being. God is making all things new, not all new things.

Yellow reminds us of gold, and gold symbolizes Divinity. But there is a problem with gold. Gold is soft while yellow jasper is hard.

The holy city is not soft, it is a fortress. The holy city, the new Jerusalem, is God's answer to the rebellion of his angels many eons ago.

The splendor shining from the new Jerusalem will be glorious beyond all that can be imagined in the present hour. But it is a hard splendor formed by heat and pressure. Sin and rebellion will never enter inside the walls of the new Jerusalem, not by grace, mercy, or any other means. What will it take to get American Christians to believe this?

The Garden of Eden was soft, unwalled, vulnerable to the ancient cunning of the serpent.

The new Jerusalem will be hard, walled, invulnerable to the deceitfulness of sin.

The Tabernacle of the Congregation was beautiful within but covered on the outside with some kind of tough material, perhaps porpoise skin.

The Evangelical churches in America are presenting a gospel that is too soft. We are going to have to be much harder than we are if we expect to survive the days ahead. The love that is being preached is not God's love but human sentiment. It will fail in the age of moral horrors that is upon us.

Isaiah tells us there will be a canopy of protection over the Glory that is to come in the last days, a cloud of smoke and a flaming fire. Let us be patient as God teaches us to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.

God's people in America have been spoiled with the concept of God as a Santa Claus in the sky, with the false hope of being "raptured" before trouble comes. My concern is that when the Christian people enter the tumultuous days ahead they will not stand, becoming angry with God because He allowed them to suffer.

It is possible that war will come to our shores. If it does our way of life will be changed, perhaps forever.

Other Christians have remained true when their comfortable lives were torn apart. We can too if we prepare ourselves by walking with the Lord Jesus today.