In the Book of the Revelation we are told three times that this heavenly city is not

going to stay in heaven permanently; it is going to descend to the new earth. We still

have the highest heaven where the Lord Jesus is now enthroned at the Father's right

hand; and, wonder of wonders, we find in God's Word the revelation concerning a

company of His redeemed children whom God sees positionally there in Christ!

(Eph. 2: 6). This gives us three great spheres of blessing in the wonderful purpose and

plan of God.

Then we noted, too, that this is a predominantly Gentile age because the Jew, for

nearly two thousand years, has been unusable. He is still rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ,

and he was left at the end of the Acts (Acts 28:) with blinded eyes, deaf ears and a

hardened heart. In spite of this, God has a future for the Jew as a nation because of the

New Covenant, which was ratified by the precious Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The

essence of that New Covenant is that God is going to touch their hearts and put His law

therein. That will be a heart that can believe, appreciate and obey Him, and moreover

God declares that He will forgive and forget all their past sins and failures (Jer. 31: 34).

Now all down this present age what has been happening in the purpose of God? Can

we find some part of Scripture that will cover this time? We most certainly can! And we

find that God has an appointed messenger for this Gentile age with a special message,

and he is the Apostle Paul (Eph. 3: 1; I Tim. 2: 5-7). He was able to describe himself

when he wrote the Epistle to the Romans as "the apostle of the Gentiles" (Rom. 11: 13),

and we have seen that the word `apostle' just means a `sent one'. God sends His

messengers with His truth to different companies of His children according to His

This special revelation to Gentiles is found in Paul's prison letters. The end of the

Acts finds him at Rome, a prisoner, and after the Acts period there are five of his Epistles

which are stamped with his Roman prison. Ephesians is the first one--"the prisoner of

Christ Jesus" for us Gentiles (3: 1). This very intimately, can concern you and me if we

are Gentiles, and believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Philippians is the next prison letter (1: 7, 13, 16).

After this we come to the epistle to the Colossians and the fourth chapter. He says (in

verse 3) "Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to

speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds".

And then we have in II Tim. 2: 8, 9 "Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of

David was raised from the dead according to my gospel: Wherein I suffer trouble, as an

evil doer, even unto bonds, but the word of God is not bound". There is also the short

letter to Philemon, and in the first verse we read: "Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and

Timothy our brother". So there are five letters written after the end of the Acts by the

Apostle that are stamped with his prison. The Philemon epistle is a beautiful, personal

little letter, typical possibly of many that the Apostle Paul must have written, and we are

thankful that we have one preserved like this. We can say there are four outstanding