Isaiah 65:17-25
Let’s hear God’s word together. Isaiah 65, beginning at verse 17. So remember God is responding to the prayer of Isaiah. Does God hear us? And does God care about our condition? So he’s begun to answer that. And we pick up in 17, for behold, I create new heavens and a new earth and the former thing shall not be remembered or come into mind. but be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create.
For behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy and her people to be a gladness. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people. No more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.
They shall build houses and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit. They shall not plant and another eat. For like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be. and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity, for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the Lord and their descendants with them.
Before they call, I will answer. While they are yet speaking, I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall graze together. The lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, says the Lord.
Amen, God’s great and gracious word. I wanna read something to y’all. It’s usually not customary to begin with something like this, but I have a couple of these big thick books that I always look at every week to make sure my passage is not in there. might be the Sunday morning and there was a lot in there this week.
It’s called a new Testament biblical theology. The other one I always look at as the commentary on the new Testament’s use of the old Testament. And this, this has to do with how we should view anytime something geographical is brought up in the older new Testament. So Bruce Waltke, who was called Second Moses by most of the people who taught him, he says this, the New Testament redefines the word land. So anytime you read about land, promised land, Israel, Jerusalem, whatever, he says the New Testament redefines land in three ways. spiritually, transcendentally, and eschatologically.
I think y’all know what spiritually means. Transcendentally, that sounds like those poets up in New England in the 1700s or 1800s. And then eschatologically sounds like something we shouldn’t explain, but here goes. Okay, spiritually, the land refers to the person of Jesus.
Jesus is true Israel. We read that in the New Testament. Who is true Israel? It’s Jesus. Um, So it’s a reference to the person of Christ, second transcendentally, whatever that big word means. Go home and look it up. It’s a reference to the heavenly Jerusalem. So anytime post, I don’t know, post coming of Jesus, church age we might say, when we think of crossing over the Jordan, we think of death and going into heaven. When we think of Jerusalem, we think of the Jerusalem that is above.
When we think of, The temple we think of, the temple not made with human hands, but God has laid a stone in Zion, a cornerstone, a precious stone that is Jesus. Unrighteous people will trip over it. But righteous people will be cut and chiseled and laid stone upon stone until that edifice, that building, is complete. And so spiritually, land references are to Jesus.
Transcendentally, it’s a reference to heaven or Jerusalem above. And then third, eschatologically, a reference to the new Jerusalem after the second coming of Jesus. I know this is probably a rather confusing quote, but I wanted to read it because I want us to think about what’s ahead for us. So much of our end times beliefs, at least that have popped up in America in the last 150, 200 years, they seem to me to go backwards. when we should be looking onwards and upwards.
Where is God? He is in heaven. Where is the son? He is in heaven on the throne. Who rules and reigns in the place of King David? It is Jesus. Where will we end up in our ultimate destiny? We’ll end up in heaven with God under his heavenly reign and in his heavenly tabernacle.
Do we want to go back to Eden? Probably not. Do we want to go back to the first Eden? Do we want to go back to the wilderness? Definitely not. Do we want to go back to the city of God at Jerusalem, the Jebusite city? No. Do we want to live in America for eternity? I hope not. Where do we want to be? We want to be in heaven.
And so when Bruce Waltke explains that land references in the New Testament point us to Jesus. He’s true Israel. We want to be with God. We want to be with Christ wherever he is. When it points to us going there, being there, that’s a big thing. And then it points also to the one day, say Revelation 21, when the new Jerusalem in heaven comes down on earth.
God wipes away all our tears. We enjoy his presence. I didn’t read it this morning. I was trying to be as careful as I could and sort of lean towards who are the righteous and how do the righteous get in heaven and not go through the list of nasties.
But in Revelation 21, you know, you got the city with the big walls and the gates. You’re tempted to say big, beautiful walls and big, beautiful gates. What’s the point of the walls and the gates? It’s to keep out the detestable. Revelation 21 gives a very similar list to the one we had today in first Corinthians six Those people don’t get in those people can’t get in those people won’t get in because the city of God is to be a place of purity and holiness and so sort of a I don’t know, a quick primer on how we should think of all these geographical things in the scripture without allegorizing them, without, I don’t know, coming up with some fanciful scheme of what could happen, might happen, may happen, depending on what Russia does or whoever. But we wanna think about what we know and what good students of scripture. Second thing to bring up, this is a happier one. Chronicles of Narnia, Lucy. You remember what Lucy says to Mr. Tumnus? They’re in Narnia and it’s frozen, it’s snowy, it’s cold. And what does Lucy say to Mr. Tumnus? Will it always be winter and never Christmas?
What a great line. And, you know, the thing we understand in reading Narnia is that Aslan is on the move. God is on the move. He’s up to something. And I always think of Psalm 98 and then Isaac Watts paraphrase of Psalm 98. We sing it every Christmas. Joy to the world, the Lord is come, let earth receive her king. And then that wonderful phrase, he comes to make his blessings flow as far as the curse is found. So will it always be winter and never Christmas? The answer is no. We understand the span of scripture in three words, creation, fall and redemption.
Creation, God making the world and everything in it. He made it perfect. He made it beautiful. He made man as the crown of his creation, making him after his image and knowledge, righteousness and holiness. with dominion over the creation, with the command to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with godly, righteous offspring.
And then Adam and Eve were to spread through the generations and through the oral tradition of God’s law, God’s ways, God’s word. They were to spread the glory of God across the face of the earth. And several times we bumped into a place in Isaiah where it says, the knowledge of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the face of the earth. That’s the goal of creation, but it’s also the goal of new creation that the knowledge of God be everywhere.
In fact, if you read in the old Testament places like Jeremiah 33 and the new or 29 in the new covenant, I think, You read places like Joel chapter two or three, I’ll pour out my spirit on all flesh. Or you go way back into, is it Exodus, where a couple of people are fussing at Moses. Hey, there’s some people prophesying they shouldn’t be doing that. And Moses says, would that all. be able to prophesy.
And the goal is for the knowledge of God through the preaching of the word, through the extension of generations to get across the face of the earth. That was the goal for Adam, got blown up by sin. But it’s the goal of Christians. It’s the goal of Israel. It’s the goal of the church. It’s the goal of human history. So will it always be winter and never Christian?
No. God made the world and everything in it. Wonderful, beautiful. Satan came and man fell. Creation is under the curses you read in chapter eight. of Romans. Some of y’all know, Professor Kara, Bob Kara preached here, I think at the end of last year after Christmas, he always had, he always would say something to us as students, Jesus died for trees. And that messes with your head, doesn’t it? No, he only died for people. But then you read Romans chapter 8, all creation groans under the travails of the curses of sin.
You think of a windstorm and you hear your trees in your yard creaking and cracking and you wonder, is one going to fall and take out the south wing of the ranch or something? But you hear the creaking and the groaning. You see the travail of creation on the news with the aftermath of a of a storm like a year ago in Western North Carolina. Or you see what, maybe you ride over the Hall River, and you can look and see what 32 feet of floodwaters did a couple months ago. We’ve been vacuuming out my basement the last few weeks, still cleaning out the residue from that July 6th storm that most of us were sitting here when it came through and went home. And there was a foot and a half of water up in the basement, so still cleaning up from that. But all creation, or creation is under the curse too, and creation will experience redemption as well. Jesus died for trees. That’s a true statement, isn’t it? Well, if you believe the Bible and you read Romans 8, yes. Did he die for the souls of creation?
Well, creation doesn’t have a soul, unless you ask some people. Mother Earth and all that business. But part of redemption is not just people, it’s the cosmos. And so we have creation, we have fall, and we have redemption. And there are down payments on redemption now. We have a new heart. We have new life in Christ, if anyone is in Christ, new creation. And we are beginning the work of new creation as God by his word and spirit shapes us. But it’s gonna continue in this life very imperfectly until we die and are glorified. and until our bodies are raised up from the grave and united with our souls and we live, live like Adam was meant to live, live like we were meant to live, but also in a new heavens and a new earth. Thank goodness the Lord has intervened.
Have you ever thought of jobs that wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the fall? We wouldn’t have police officers, right? We wouldn’t have homicide detectives. What else wouldn’t we have? Doctors, yeah, our bodies would be perfect. We wouldn’t have lawyers.
We would have preachers, because we got to herald the good news, I think. I was wondering about that earlier today and think, yes, I got job security. Because God has always used preachers. We used to have a teacher in seminary who would, at the end of class, give a pretend benediction. He would say, go and keep on sinning, because I need a job. That was his benediction. He was jesting, of course.
But with redemption, there are now and not yet aspects to it. We look forward to future aspects of our redemption, but we are seeing down payments on them now in a couple weeks. You know, we’ll see the colors change. We’ll go through winter where things die. And then around late February, early March, we’ll start seeing the trees bud. The tulips will start to pop up out of the ground. And by Easter, the azaleas are in full bloom and we can have the masters and all the rest.
But God has intervened and he’s not left us dead in our sins and our trespasses. And there’s a way we don’t think of God that we ought to. And that’s this. God is both creator and he is recreator. And as you read through the Bible, maybe you’re partway through it this year, you’ll start over again in January. One of the challenges you ought to have is to look at how often it is mentioned as God, God as the creator or the recreator. The creation and recreation theme runs all through the scripture. And so creation and fall and redemption are really big themes.
How did God make the world and everything in it? By the word of his power. How does God sustain the world and everything in it? It’s by the word of his power. We read that in Colossians of Jesus. How does God recreate the world and everything in it? It’s by the word of his power.
We go to a place like in the gospel of John, where Lazarus is in the tomb. And I think we looked at it at Easter. Remember Lazarus is in the tomb. He heard from his friends. He’s sick. Jesus says, okay, that’s fine. Well, you know, thoughts and prayers, right? There were no Democrats to fuss about that. Thoughts and prayers. But Jesus waited till Lazarus was good and dead. I mean, days. He got past the time where tradition said, well, maybe the spirit is still hovering in some way. Maybe the spirit can go reunite with the body, bring the body out of the grave.
And so Jesus waited till, how does the King James put it? He stanketh. He stunk, he stanketh, something like that. He stinketh, behold, he stinketh. That’s what the sister said. Don’t open that tomb. He doesn’t smell good. The golden frankincense and myrrh or whatever had worn off. But anyway, God, Jesus goes to the grave and he does open it.
And does he go down there and get out his little doctrine bag or does he call Lazarus, come forth? And that same word is the recreating word. He calls each of you by the outward call of the gospel. He calls each of us by that saving call of the gospel. And a miracle is worked in us.
No longer a heart of stone, but a heart of flesh. No longer autonomous. self-ruling, self-centered person, but one who seeks to submit to the Lord and live his ways. And so creation, fall, and redemption, redemption, down payments, more redemption to come, all by the word and power of God. Well, that quickly leads us to think about three little things that pop up in our passage tonight. There’s a new creation, a new city, and a new society. And these are three features, three aspects of what we can look forward to when we get to heaven, you know, sometimes you’ll see cartoons or, I don’t know, little Christian-y type things that, you know, makes us think when we get to heaven, we’ll be floating around on angel’s wings with, you know, harps and, you know, we’re fat cherubs. Actually, God’s just gonna put things back like they were in the garden, right? Paradise lost, paradise regained. What was lost in Eden is going to be given to us again in the new creation. What’s wrong with this one? It’s subjected to futility. What’s wrong with this one? It’s bent and broken and bruised by the fall.
Ride through I-40 on the way to the split, you know, Durham and Chapel Hill, where all the construction is, just past the weigh station. And you can still see, I think on the right, remnants in the Eflin area of a tornado that touched down. The trees have begun to grow back and all, but you can still see broken stalks or pass through western North Carolina. And you’ll still see muddy overwash along the banks. You’ll see dumpsters and bulldozers. And you’ll see places where a house or building once stood, and it’s not yet been put back. It will take months, if not years, to rebuild.
I think if you drive I-40 towards the Tennessee line, it’s still not open, at least on one side, maybe the westbound direction. we live in a world that needs to be made new. Um, and God promises a new creation versus, uh, 17 and the beginning of verse 18, God says, I make, uh, I create new heavens and a new earth. The former thing shall not be remembered or come to mind. What did Peter say at the end?
It’s all going to burn up. Even the planets. Did you catch that? Everything is going to melt by the fire. This is why it’s safe to say Greta Thunberg is wrong. Right? I think we’ve already passed her expiration date of when the world was going to end. This is why Senator John F. Kerry, though he flies around in his big giant private jet, is wrong about climate change. This is why Elon Musk is wrong that we are going to have to colonize, which I thought was a dirty word, other planets because Earth is not gonna be fit to live in or too full. God is in control of when things will end and what will happen with the heavens and the Earth.
It is not gonna be because you drink too many Diet Cokes and don’t recycle. Now, should you recycle? Yes. Should Christians be the best stewards of the earth and everything? Of course we should. Probably shouldn’t drink Diet Coke either. It’s got formaldehyde in it. But you’ll be well preserved, I suppose.
But anyway, the new creation is something God will do. I don’t know what a lot of people think of heaven. I think it’s the celestial thing. It’s the get angels wings thing. But it’s going to be magnificent. You think about how wonderful this world is.
I remember back in college having to take biology my senior year. I dragged my feet, and it was a requirement. Two semesters of biology, so I dragged my feet, took it my senior year. And our school was a big pre-med school, and guess what that means for biology?
It’s not easy. So I didn’t do terribly good in there. I didn’t do terribly good in English either. I didn’t do terribly well in there, but we had this lunch at graduation with the faculty and I went up to Dr. Moyer, I think was his name, the biology teacher, and I said, look, I know I didn’t do great in your class, but I learned a lot about the world God made. That’s the takeaway. We learned about cells and you know, mitosis and we learned about chromosomes. We learned about, you know, trees and ecosystems and all the rest.
This is our father’s world, right? Everything he made is for his glory and for our enjoyment. And if it’s this good, if it’s this amazing, how much more wonderful is the new one going to be that is not bent and broken up by sin? That’s what we have to look forward to. You know, we all have ultimate questions and we all have ultimate answers. I think it’s good to have the biblical one. It’s good to have the one that has a view of creation, fall, and redemption, and what a redeemed body will be like, but what a redeemed creation will be like. So there’s the new creation in 17 and in verse 18. In verse 18, the beginning says, we’ll be glad and we’ll rejoice in that creation. This new creation will be a joy. Can you imagine not waking up with a sore back? Eating steak and not getting gout? You know, drinking water and enjoying it? Waking up late and not getting to the coffee pot, but no headache?
I mean, just think about all the aches and pains of this life. Those are the little ones, right? But think about how your heart will always beat. The earth won’t shake and quake and open up and swallow things. Though we would like to see California get knocked off before the end times. That would be a happy blessing. We joke, right?
But there’s the new creation. How about the new city? The new city, the new Jerusalem is at the end of 18 and all of 19 and 20. I create Jerusalem to be a joy. her people to be a gladness. So it’s place in people. I will rejoice in Jerusalem. I will be glad in my people. So God makes a city, new city, Jerusalem. We’re supposed to love it. He’s going to love it.
And then he says, no more shall be heard in it. The sound of weeping, no more shall be heard in it. The cry of distress, no more shall there be in it. An infant who lives, but a few days or an old man. who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.”
Now, here’s a little theory. It’s just a theory, but I think it’s a true one. If your brain cannot understand the macro description of the new heavens and the new earth, you know, the big picture, you just can’t imagine all the trees and the seas and the lands whatever. So it’s just too big.
God gives you a microcosm of the new creation in the picture of Jerusalem. Now, I remember what Bruce Waltke said about Jerusalem or, or any land reference. You need to think about Jesus. You need to think about, um, heavenly kind of heavenly city, but you also need to think about your, uh, your being there at the second coming of Jesus. And so how do we see the, how do we see the new heavens, new earth, new creation? Well, we see it through the lens of a little city. That’s now a wonderful. And so Jerusalem gives us a picture of what the new creation will be like.
You wonder, you know, am I going to work, you know, I’ll have a John Deere tractor. Uh, what about the thorns and thistles? Am I just going to sit around playing my harp? You wonder about all these things. God gives us the big picture. It’s a place with the presence of God uninterrupted. That’s like Eden, isn’t it? It’s a place with the presence of God. It’s a holy mountain. The fellowship that we have lost has been regained. It’s like life in the garden. It’s like life around the tabernacle, life around the temple. We won’t grieve the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. We will not live in lives that are long and protracted with the struggle of sin. No, we’ll be with God in a place with his presence. We’ll be glad and rejoice, and he will be glad and rejoice.
Now, when you drive into, say, Burlington, you see, welcome to Burlington, speed limit 35 unless otherwise posted. So you cruise into heaven and you’re going to see a sign that says no sadness, right? You’re going to see a sign that says no crying, a sign that says no pain, no tears, no sorrow, no grief, no groans. You’re going to enter the precincts of a holy God and a holy people who are completely untouched by sin. time and the rudeness of the effects of sin will not be there.
And there’s two examples, kind of three maybe, are given. Babies won’t be born and die. That’s a big one. Babies won’t be born only to die and old men will live to be 100. Now, some of you are thinking, I hope I don’t make it to 100. That’s a really long time to live in my body that is getting more decrepit by the day. But you understand living is a good living. Living is a joyful living.
But how much sorrow is there in the untimely demise, not only of adults, but especially children this week? Up in Minneapolis, two school children were killed and the nation is in an uproar. Not really about the children, more about prayer and other political silliness. But two children are gone. And I heard one of the fathers interviewed and he said, well, we’ll never hold our child again. We’ll never see what this little boy was becoming and what he will be. His life was cut short. And one of the great things about the new city is that those things will not be.
You turn on Fox 8 at 10 o’clock or Spectrum News or whatever is your practice in the evening. And it’s a high-speed chase. It’s a homicide investigation. It’s a fentanyl overdose. There’s a rape. There’s a murder. There’s a kidnapping. I mean, you go down the list. Somebody extorted money. I mean, just basically all the lists from 1 Corinthians 6 this morning. There’s greed and there’s idolatry. immorality and there’s thieving and swindling and all the rest. That’s what’s on the evening news. You’re going to turn on the evening news in heaven and say, another happy person, another holy person, another whole person, another well person. And the evening news is going to be boring because you can’t write a crime novel, right? You’re not going to be watching Perry Mason in heaven. You’re not going to be watching Andy Griffith in heaven. You’re not going to be watching CSI in heaven. Those things, which are the theme and subject of most of life, are not going to exist.
And so you have a new creation. You have a new city or new Jerusalem. You also have a new society. And here’s the blessing. You know, you think about the promise of the promised land. You’re going to go in and displace the people that have been so wicked You’re going to go in and kill them all, because that’s going to be the God’s just judgment on the Canaanites and all the other wicked people.
And you’re going to live in the houses you didn’t build. You’re going to drink water from cisterns you didn’t dig. You’re going to eat from vineyards you didn’t plant. And you’re going to pluck olives from trees you did not cultivate and all the rest.
Well, Israel gets in the promised land. They disobey God. They’re stiff-necked, hard-hearted, fail to listen, fail to obey, fail to keep God’s righteous standards. So he kicks them out. They go off to Babylon. They come back and they have to rebuild all the rubble.
Well, in this new society, they’re going to build and move in and stay. They’re going to plant and not only eat the fruit and press out the wine and drink it at their tables, probably their grandkids and thereafter will enjoy it as well. They’re going to live. They’re going to have a full life. They’re going to have longevity, a large life. They’re going to have prosperity. they will see fruit from the work of their hands and enjoy it.
I don’t know about y’all, but I mow the grass. I run the weed eater. I run the blower. I go in the house and collapse. I get a shower, wash my clothes, and I never go out and enjoy it. I basically just look out the window and make sure it’s not grown again, because I’m gonna have to do it again. But I never enjoy the fruit of the cut yard. Now I do. I look out the window sometimes and say, boy, look at those wheel tracks. They’re straight. And in the spring, I’m really proud. Look how green that grass is. Now it’s half dead.
But we don’t enjoy life. We don’t enjoy the money we get. What is the joke? You work till May to pay your taxes? And most people are working these endless cycles of never paying for anything. Kids are getting out of college with a mortgage payment that lasts till they’re 38, but no house to show for it. Because of student loans, we finance cats and VCRs. All these gadgets nowadays, we’re so in debt, it’s hard to enjoy anything.
But in this new society, there will be no calamity. There will be no generational hurt and hardship. But the great blessing of this section in verses 21 to 25 is that God hears. We have a hearing God. Remember, before they said something like, God, do you even hear us hollering for help? And verse 24 says, in this culture, in this society, before they call, I will answer. Before, or while they are yet speaking, I will hear.
And then there’s this wonderful picture. The wolf and the lamb will graze together. I’ve got a neighbor one street over. Her name is Mrs. Strange. She’s a neat lady. We have chats every once in a while when I’m out walking. And in her yard, she has a lion and a lamb. Drive by it on Aycock Avenue, you’ll see it. She’s got this little metal table with a lion on it and a little metal table with a lamb on it. And I always make mention of it when I walk past her. I always say that’s a really good reminder.
How many other yards in Burlington do you think have a lion and a lamb. I mean, maybe a St. Francis of Assisi, you know, the patron saint of the birds or the gardens or whatever, but a lion and a lamb. But isn’t that striking? And I bet most people ride by that and say, okay, she went to the cement statuary outlet and came out with those two. But it means something, doesn’t it?
The lion will dwell with the lamb, predator and prey. No more. Think of pre-flood, pre-meat-eating days, you know, when supposedly man lived with Tyrannosaurus rexes and, you know, Jaws wasn’t a thing, right? It’s the 50th anniversary of Jaws. And then there’s another little picture.
The lion shall eat straw like the ox and dust shall be the serpent’s food. What did God say to Satan? You’re gonna crawl on your belly, and you’re gonna eat the dust of the earth. And that curse is still there for Satan, for the evil one. But they shall not hurt, and they shall not destroy. Another place in the scripture says children will play by the snake pit, basically, by the hole of the adder.
Well, how is it we will find ourself in the new Jerusalem? What will punch our train ticket? And it’s nothing but faith in Jesus. Nothing but faith in the one who works creation, who permits the fall, but gloriously planned and executed the work of redemption. It’s only by faith in Jesus that we will be rescued and redeemed from the great cosmic calamity and judgment that is to come. And so it’s good for us to renew our faith, renew our hope in the Savior, the Lord Jesus. He is both creator and recreator, and he alone is the way and the truth and the life.
Let’s pause and give him thanks. Lord, what a neat picture of what will be. Everything that’s bent and broken now will be fixed. It won’t always be winter, but it will be Christmas as we enjoy the presence and the beauty and the blessings of Christ, our great savior. So help us to think on these things in Christ’s great name. Amen.