Let’s take our Bibles and turn to Revelation 21:1-8. I want to begin a two-part sermon on heaven. I know I said we’d wrap it up today, but as I get into this, one sermon on heaven, which is where we’ll be for all of eternity just doesn’t work. At least that’s my excuse for just studying long and having more material. And I’m not going to waste it, so you’re going to have to listen to it.
June chastised me yesterday, “When you say you’re going to be done, be done. Don’t say it if you’re not going to do it.” So I heard her and then just kept moving on. And Revelation 21:1-8, all things made new. Now, if you’re with us this morning, we’ve been in a series and we are wrapping it up here in the next couple of weeks, on Things to Come.
There’s an old song, Que Sera, Sera, whatever will be will be. The future is not ours to see. Wrong. The word of God is a word of prophecy. God has opened up a window into the future and He has given us details and an outline of the future you and I will live. So the future is ours to see and we’ve been looking at the things to come.
We’ve looked at the rapture, the judgment seed of Christ. We’ve looked at the tribulation, the rise of the Antichrist, God’s special love and covenant with the nation of Israel, which will still have a future fulfillment. We have looked at the millennial kingdom, we’ve looked at the great white throne. And for the next two Sundays, we’re going to look at the new heaven and the new earth. And I trust that these things are shaping us and helping us to determine who we are and how we ought to live.
I came across a very interesting quote by Abraham Lincoln. It’s not specifically related to prophecy, but it has an application. Here’s what that great president of our country said. “If we could first tell where we are and where we are headed, we could better tell what to do and how to do it.” And you know what? God is telling us where we are on the prophetic clock and where we’re headed, and given that information then we are better placed to know what we ought to be and what we ought to do.
So all things made new, Revelation 21:1-8, remain seated but open your copy of God’s word and we’ll read it together. I’m reading from the New King James translation of holy scripture. What a passage of scripture. This is your future. “Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people.
“God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death (amen), no more sorrow (amen), no more crying (amen). There shall be no more pain (amen), for the former things have passed away.’ Then He who sat on the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’ And He said to me, ‘Write, for these words are true and faithful.’
And He said to me, ‘It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.'” So reads God’s infallible word.
Some years ago, Forbes Magazine was enjoying its 75th anniversary and so it put together a special issue, and the issue was focused on this question, why do we feel so bad when we have it so good? That’s a great question. Here we are, the richest nation in the world and yet our people feel poor in spirit and depressed in life. What’s the answer to the question, why do we feel so bad when we have it so good?
Well, nine authors, philosophers, poets and cultural observers were invited to answer that question, and one of the writers was Peggy Noonan who worked for CBS for some years and then became the speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and George H. Bush. In fact, she said that part of our misery is tied to the fact that we’re putting all our eggs in this one basket we call life. We’re forgetting to believe in two worlds, and she believes that the loss of that idea, the loss of a future life, a higher life is at the seat of our misery.
In fact, I’ll let her speak. She said this, “I think we have lost the old knowledge that happiness is overrated, that in a way, life is overrated. We have lost somehow a sense of mystery about our purpose, our meaning, and our role.” She goes on to say, “Our ancestors believed in two worlds and understood this to be the solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short one. We are the first generation of man that actually expected to find happiness here on earth and that search has caused such unhappiness.
The reason. If you do not believe in another higher world, if you believe only in the flat material world around you, and if you believe that this is your only chance at happiness, if that is what you believe, then you are not disappointed when the world does not give you a good measure of its riches, you are absolutely despairing.” I think she’s right. I think she’s onto something.
I like her observation about the modern mood, where people are today, feeling so bad when they have it so good. A one-world worldview invariably does lead to despair and despondency and it’s very simple. When you and I put all our eggs in a basket where the bottom is falling out, it’s not a very happy experience. But a two-world worldview is very different. The hope of a better world, the looking beyond the precipice of death, the expectation of a second chance at happiness in a world to come adds immeasurable joy, brings meaning to our everyday existence in a world that’s constantly taking from us, in a world that’s constantly disappointing us, in a world that doesn’t live up to its promises.
The ancient belief of two worlds is a force multiplier within life. So I think Peggy Noonan is right, our culture has lost that old knowledge, but here we are with God’s word and I want to take you to Revelation 21:1-8 it because there is a two-world worldview that’s set before us and we want to explore it this Sunday and the next time we’re together. There’s two worlds here in Revelation 21:1-8. There’s the old world and there’s the new world. There’s the world of the present and there’s the world of the future. There’s the world that’s passing away and the world that’s coming that’s permanent.
There’s the world that’s marked by the presence of all that is bad and there’s the world that is marked by the presence of all that is good. There’s this present world cursed because of man’s sin. There’s a future world blessed because of God’s goodness and mercy. See, one of the great truths of the Bible is that there is a new world coming. There’s going to be a new order, a new arrangement of things marked by righteousness, a world without funerals, feebleness, frustration and failure. You see, our present world is passing. It’s scarred and marred by the consequences of human sin, but because of Christ and His work of redemption, we have the hope of a divine deliverance in a day to come.
See, God right now is putting together a community of people described as new creatures in Christ. Those who have been born again, whose lives have been transformed, who were once dead in their sin but who are now alive in Jesus Christ. God is creating a community of new creatures, and someday He will create a world for those new creatures, a new creation for the new creatures. Our future’s not up there, it’s down here in a new Eden on a new earth. That’s what we’re going to look at here as we wrap this series up on Things to Come.
I want to say this. As Christians, we live between those two worlds. We live between those two worlds; the world we’re living in and the world we will live in. And if we live between those two worlds, the present and the future, the future world must shape our present experience. What we think the future holds for us should hold us at this present moment. It should define us and direct us. It should control our actions and our attitudes. Isn’t that the point of Peter in 2 Peter 3:11 where he anticipates the passing of the old world and the coming of a new world? And he says, “In the light of that living between those two points, what manner a person ought you to be in all holy conduct.”
1 John 3:3 says something similar. If we have the hope of Jesus’ return and all the promises that are attached to that in terms of future blessing, then that hope ought to purify us. John MacArthur in his commentary on Revelation and Chapter 21 says this, “A genuine, strong longing for heaven ought to produce the highest and noblest of Christian characters. A genuine and strong longing for heaven should produce joy and comfort in the midst of life’s harrowing trials. A genuine and strong longing for heaven is a preservative against sin.
A genuine and strong longing for heaven helps us maintain our spiritual service where we’re always abounding in the work of the Lord and remaining steadfast in it. A genuine and longing for heaven helps us to honor God in all that we do since we’re going to be a part of a world that glorifies God in all that it is.” In this idea, you can be too heavenly minded to be of any earthly use. The Bible turns that on its head. You need to be heavenly minded to be of earthly use. Some years ago in Maine, a little town called Flagstaff was flooded to become part of a large lake for which a dam was being built.
So in the light of that, all repairs and improvements in the town stopped. Why paint a house? Why put new windows in your residence if the whole thing’s going to be destroyed? And so week after week, the town deteriorated in the light of its future. In fact, one man looking back on that experience said this, “Where there is no faith in the future, there is no power in the present.” But we do have faith in the future, a glorious future and it ought to bring power and meaning and enthusiasm and endurance to all that we do.
So let’s begin to look at this text. Let’s put the text in its context. Very simply, the verses we’re about to look at, and they are the front step into the climax of the book of Revelation, this is a context of wonderful culmination. We’re at a point where God says in verse six, “It’s done. The world is done. What I’ve sat out to do in Jesus Christ is coming to its fulfillment and accomplishment and there’s going to be a new heaven and a new earth and all the strands of scripture are now being tied together.”
We’ll come back to that before we’re done this morning. We’re going to see that what God started out to do in Genesis 1-3, He finishes in Revelation 21 to 22. This is a context of culmination. One, the culmination of God’s plan from beginning of time. You go back to Genesis verses 1-3, from the onset of the curse of God due to man’s sin, God promised the reversal. In Genesis 3:15, He talks about the seed of the woman, that one is coming to crush the devil and all his works. And here in Chapter 22 in verse three, we read that there shall be no more curse.
The God who implemented the curse against man’s sin also planned a reversal in the work of His son, Jesus Christ. And when we get to Revelation 21:22, through Jesus Christ and His atoning death and His resurrection, His power and His glory, God is going to reverse the curse. So that’s where we’re at. We have come full circle in the story of redemption. Secondly, we have the culmination of God’s plan for the last days. In one sense, it’s a capstone on everything God said He would do at the beginning. In another sense, it’s a capstone on all the promises and events of the book of Revelation.
Verse five says this, “Behold I make all things new.” That’s in the present tense in the Greek, which speaks of the progressive accomplishment of the task. And so the events leading up to this bring us to this. Just think about the immediate context of Chapter 19 and 20. Jesus has come back in power and glory. He has destroyed His enemies. He then establishes His rightful reign on planet earth for a thousand years in the millennium. At the end of the millennium, He sends the devil to hell and into the lake of fire.
And that is followed by the final judgment of the lost with the resurrection of the unsaved dead who are judged at the great white throne. And on that occasion, what happens? The heaven and the earth flee away. So all of that brings us to this, a new heaven and a new earth in an act of culmination. So let’s jump right in. There’s four things I want to say, only going to cover one of those this morning. But if you want an outline, we’ve got the renewal. There’s going to be a new heaven and a new earth. We’ve got the residence. The holy city, the new Jerusalem comes down out of heaven, which is the future world’s capital and God dwells among man. We’ll get to that. The removal. Heaven is the absence of all that is bad and the presence of all that is good.
So one of the ways to define heaven is not just what is there but what’s not there. There’ll be no sin, no sighing, no dying, no crying. Well, look at that, the removal of all the effects of sin and human experience. What a promise. And then the redeemed. Who will inhabit it? Well, those who are thirsty for the water of life, they’ll inhabit it. The overcomers will inhabit it, and those whose lives have been transformed in Jesus Christ and who are no longer cowardly, no longer sexually immoral, no longer lying to themselves or to others.
So let’s jump in the renewal. The renewal. Our text begins with a vision of a new and an improved world. Verse one, “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth…” That’s the heaven and the earth we are seeing and living on today, that will pass away. That’s a staggering statement. Everything you see, everything you smell, everything you taste, everything you touched, wiped away, gone and all the works in it burned up because God intends, verse five, to make all things new.
Here’s the promise of a new act of creation. Here’s a new beginning, distinct from the beginning. We have it not only in the New Testament here in Revelation 21, but we have it in the Old Testament, Isaiah 65:17, Isaiah 66:22. This has been the promise of God and this has been the hope of the saints of God throughout history; a new creation, a new world because you see, God’s got new creatures that He’s redeemed and made alive in Jesus Christ and He wants to provide them a new creation, a new environment, and that’s what’s being promised here.
Now, this could take us a while. I’m not going to spend a long time on it, but I want to just throw out this idea that I believe that this new creation is the old creation made new. I don’t believe this present world will be totally annihilated and become extinct. The word new in verse one and verse five can mean new in quality and character and arrangement, not just new chronologically as in a new thing. This present world will become something it’s not. It’ll be radically different to what it is, but there will be both continuity and discontinuity.
Just as God will make new bodies out of our old bodies, so God will make a new world out of an old world. I think you can argue that from Romans 8:19-23, John Piper does it, Randy Alcorn does it, where you see that this old world that’s groaning and longing for liberation is awaiting the liberation that the sons of God know in their resurrection. And as God resurrects our body and we come into a dimension we have never known before in terms of new life and eternal life, God will do the same for this old world.
I know it will be burned up. I know 2 Peter 3 talks about the fire that will destroy it, but I think that’s a fire of purification more than destruction. This world will enjoy a makeover and a rollover. It’s not a blotting out of the old, but a bringing out of the old a new and improved world where we’ll have the absence of all that is bad and the presence of all that is good. And several writers argue for the fact that God will want to do that to declare His triumph over what Satan intended to do against man and against this world, and God will show his utter triumph in redeeming mankind and redeeming the present creation. Love it.
Maybe an analogy would be something like this. I think I stole this from Michael Youssef in one of his books on prophecy. He tells the story of a real estate developer who wanted a warehouse and so he found one. The building was empty, unused, dilapidated and in terrible condition. And so as he was walking the property as a buyer, he noticed that the walls were covered with graffiti, the windows and the doors were broken and smashed, and there was trash all around.
And as he toured the property, the owner was a little embarrassed and so he began to apologize and promised him that, you know what? Give me time before you take ownership. I plan to fix the doors and windows. I’m going to put a new coat of paint on the place. The prospective buyer said, “Don’t bother. I’ll take it exactly as it is. I’m only interested in the land. I’m going to demolish it and build something better and bigger on it and out of it.” And I think that’s what God is interested.
The new heaven and the new earth is nothing like the present heaven and the new earth. Something bigger and better is going to be built on it and out of it, but God’s going to take possession of it like the man took possession of the ground and made something grander and greater from it. And I think that’s what God will do. I think that’s what we have got here in a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth has passed away. In its present form, cursed by sin, but God will make all things new.
Now, we could move on to the residence. This new heaven and new earth will have a capital city, a holy city, a new Jerusalem that will come down from heaven. But we’ll hold that, because as I thought about this idea of this new heaven and earth, I was captured by it on two different fronts; what it says about God and what it says about glory. In fact, let me reverse that. Let’s think about some of the implications and applications of this prospect and promise of a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness, where we will dwell in resurrected bodies reflecting the glory of God in all that we are and all that we do.
So number one, what does it say about glory? Well, it says this, that our eternal experience will be lived out in a physical condition because we will have new bodies. Philippians 3:20-21, 1 Corinthians 15, Jesus is the first fruits. We’re going to have a body like Jesus had and His disciples could touch it and see it and feel it. He had with his disciples on the beach, on the shores of Galilee. So you and I are going to live out our eternal experience in a physical condition on a planet that’s been purified morally and physically.
What’s the point? It’s this, our future is not up there. Our future is down here. You and I are not going to live in the heaven above, although we will for a short time, probably without a body, but we will live in a heaven below in a body for all of eternity. We’ll come back to this, but did you notice verse two? “Then I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from heaven like a bride adorned for her husband.” So in the ultimate sense, listen to this because I don’t think we think this way, our destiny is not to go to heaven. Our destiny is on earth when heaven comes to us.
Think about that. I want to drill down on that for a few moments. Our future is physical and earthly. You’ll be glad to know that you won’t be sitting on the clouds with a pair of wings singing kumbaya my Lord, kumbaya repeatedly. Sounds awful boring, dull, uninteresting, but it’s not true thankfully. We will not sit around even looking at each other and we will not even sit around looking at God because according to Revelation 5:10, according to Revelation 22:3 and 5, we will reign with Him. We will be active alongside of God in subduing this new earth and doing what Adam failed to do.
Revelation 22:3-5 says we will reign with him and we will serve. Now, C. S. Lewis, I don’t always agree with what he says, I don’t buy into all of his theology, but in God’s common grace, he has several insights that I’ve found helpful, and some years ago I read something he said, “Christianity is the most materialistic of all the world religions.” See, our end is not some nirvana. Our end is not some disembodied spiritual state and a never-never land kind of experience. No, that’s not our experience.
Our experience is a glorified physical body not subject to death or decay or some of the present limits on a new heaven, on a new earth. That’s our future. That’s why Lewis is saying Christianity is the most materialistic of all the world’s religions. Our eternal state is not heavenly, timeless, out of the body, non-material. We will eat, we will work, we will build, we will explore. Jesus did some of those things even in the few days that remained after His resurrection.
As I mentioned, we will live as Adam should have lived. Write that down. There’s a world of theology in that little statement. This is your future. You and I will live as Adam should have lived. Throughout eternity, we will fulfill the unfulfilled creation mandate given to Adam and Eve alongside of God, and that is the exercising of dominion on the earth. Now, the original mandate included the multiplying of the human race through procreation. That will not be in vogue in the world to come because there is no marriage according to Jesus and the gospels, but we will exercise dominion, we will reign with Him. We will be, listen to this, co-creators.
That’s what Adam was. He was a co-creator, he was a co-regent alongside the one Creator, bringing God’s rule to bear upon the earth, on the earth and under the earth and around the world. Now, just run with me. We need to drill down into this. John’s view of heaven, John’s view of our eternal existence is not Platonic or ethereal. It’s not informed by or influenced by Greek philosophy or thought. Platonic means that we don’t buy into the teachings of the Greek philosopher Plato, because in Greek theology, the physical was discounted. Salvation was the shedding of your body and the leaving of this world with all its limits and confines and sorrows.
And some of that, in fact did the churches along with Gnosticism entering into the bloodstream of the early church in its history. And we need to regain this idea that heaven is not a Platonic or ethereal experience. It’s a physical one, it’s an earthly one. The final heaven will not be somewhere over the rainbow. That’s for Dorothy, but that’s not for the saints of God. Listen, God will give us a new body suited for a new world where we will continue to do those things that please Him, 2 Corinthians 5:1-8, 9-11.
Do you know what we need to do? What you need to do? We need to reimagine our view of heaven. You need to do some thinking in this. The book I’d probably commend would be the book by Randy Alcorn, Heaven, or there’s a good book on heaven by Paul Enns. They will help you reimagine your view of heaven because we need to up that old vision of a spiritual eschatology that’s non-material where we leave the earth for heaven forever, and we need to replace it with a new creation model. That’s the outcome of God’s redemptive purpose, a new creation where new creatures dwell on a new creation glorifying God.
Some of that caricature are found in the words of George Bernard. Shaw, “Heaven, as conventionally conceived, is a place so inane, so dull, so useless, so miserable that nobody would venture to describe a whole day in heaven, though plenty of people have described the day at the seaside.” Well, he’s wrong. Maybe he’s been fed caricatures of heaven. Maybe he has sat under preaching influenced by Greek philosophy and a spiritual eschatology. But if you read your Bible, heaven’s not dull. Heaven’s not inane.
In fact, let me talk to you for a few minutes on what it will be like and what we will do. Number one, it will be physical in a new world, radically new and infinitely better. I will make all things new. New in character, new in arrangement, new in order. Read the rest of Chapter 21 and 22. You can take it on faith. The Bible talks about stones and gems of all colors in the new world. There’s a city in the new world. The city talks about community and life and busyness and developing things. It’s called the holy city. Come down from heaven.
In fact, Jesus talks about those who are faithful in His kingdom now will be over many cities in the world to come. So this world will be physical and perfect. It will have a city and cities. It will have walls and gates and streets. There will be a river. There will be trees bearing fruit. Read about it in Chapter 22. And on top of that, there will be people who will be recognizable, people groups. There’ll be kings and there’ll be nations. How interesting.
We’ll get to this next time, but look at verse three, “And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people.'” Now, that looks like it’s singular, but it’s not. In the Greek, it’s plural. You’d be better translated, and they will be His peoples. There’ll be peoples there. When you get to the end of this Chapter, 22-27, you’ll notice in 24, “And the nations of those who were saved shall walk in its light and the kings of the earth shall bring glory and honor into it.”
That’s the peoples and the nations and the kings who love the Lord, Jesus Christ, who is the Lord of lords and king of kings. But I want you to notice, it seems to infer that there’ll be peoples and groups and nations. I don’t know in what form, but in some sense there’ll be Italians and Germans and British and Americans and Koreans and Chinese and Russians. There’ll be some residue of the nations left that will continue to reflect ethnicities and groups of people that God has redeemed out of every tribe, tongue, and nation.
Which by the way, would infer wouldn’t it, that in our new bodies, nations will be recognizable, people groups will be recognizable? Which would lead me to believe that you and I will be recognizable just in a better form, which I’ll be glad to know of. My daughter, Beth said to me one day, “Dad, I want to marry somebody like you, just better looking.” Well, someday I will be better looking and even more holy than she takes me to be. But will we know each other in heaven? Absolutely.
I love what W. A. Criswell said when he was asked that question, will we know each other in heaven? He says, “We really won’t know each other until heaven.” Charles Haddon Spurgeon also, “If we know each other on earth, we will not be bigger fools in heaven.” Didn’t the disciples recognize Jesus? And our bodies will be like his body. Matthew 17:1-4 talks about how the disciples in the mind of Transfiguration recognize Moses and Elijah. They hadn’t even met them. It’s not like they could Google an image of Moses and Elijah, and yet God gave them ability to know that’s Moses and that’s Elijah.
I’d like to think when we get the glory in the new state, all the heroes of the Bible and all the missionaries that we have read, God will give us an instant recognition. Walking down some street, hey, Amy Carmichael, D. L. Moody, on and on. Luke 16:19-31 talks about wanting to sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Number two, not only will our experience be physical; cities, peoples, trees, walls, streets, rivers, number two, we will worship God and explore His worth and His ways throughout eternity.
It’ll take us an eternity to thank Him for the infinite gift of eternal life. Songs and the celebration of God’s glory will be a huge part of the life to come. We see that in Revelation 4-5, don’t we? When we see people worshiping around the throne of God, if we remember, I think it was Robert Coleman in his book, Songs of Heaven, identified that throughout the book of Revelation, there’s something like 11 to 12 songs and canticles. Worship is the background music to the book of Revelation.
We hear the peals of thunder, we hear the cries of man, we hear the shrieks of hell, but the background music is worship. Hallelujah, the Lord God omnipotent reigns. And not only will our worship be deeper and fuller, our knowledge of God will be wider. Doesn’t Paul tell us in 1 Corinthians 13:12, that our understanding of God’s majesty and the mystery of His providence and the inscrutable elements of His ways, they’re past finding out? Because we only see in a mirror dimly, but someday face to face when God will untie all the knots of life and explain His ways and we’ll have an eternity to marvel at them and understand them and it will take that.
We only have a bit of an idea. That’s a reference to the fact that there was no glass. Or if it was, it was very rare. Women, when they were preparing themselves, they would often look into some burnished brass. So they could see a reflection of themselves, but darkly and dimly. Not the clarity of a piece of glass where there’s a perfect reflection, but someday we’ll have a better understanding. In fact, isn’t it interesting several times in the book of Revelation, John is invited to enter into a discussion about what he has seen and what is coming?
Chapter 4:1, “Come up here and I will show you the judgment of the great. I will show you the things that will take place hereafter.” Chapter 17:1, “Come and I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who sits on many waters.” Chapter 21:9, “Come and I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb.” I’m looking forward to that. Aren’t you? Maybe God has taken you through a very dark tunnel, the loss of a child, some tragedy, some horrendous experience where you’ve been hurt and it has raised questions about God’s wisdom and goodness and love in your life. Come and I will show you what I was up to. I want to show you the tapestry of what I was doing amidst all the tangled threads of what you saw and what you went through.
Finally, three, you and I will enjoy a developing civilization. Why would I say that? Because we have already noted that God will be among men. The holy city’s coming down. God is tabernacling among men. We’ll talk more about that. There’s kings, there’s nations, there’s cities and they will reign and serve. That talks to me about civilization, purpose, meaning, work, development, creativity. We will work and rest and play. We will live in community. We will learn, we will love, we will farm, we will educate, we will build, we will paint, we will play music, we will travel, we will seek adventure. I think that’s all there, read about it in Randy Alcorn’s book.
And the inference is here in Revelation 21-22. It’s not an ethereal, non-physical, out-of-body experience up there out there somewhere. It’s here in a glorified body, reigning with Him, the new Adam to do what Adam failed to do. And we will develop the world and we will build civilizations to the glory of God. And how great will it be? We get flashes of it here. We’re walking amidst the ruins of a once-glorious civilization. I like what the reformed theologian whose eschatology I don’t share, but in this I do agree, Anthony Hoekema. He wrote an article once called Heaven: Not Just an Eternal Day Off.
Again, he’s dispelling this silly idea of jumping from cloud to cloud, earning your wings, becoming an angel and all that nonsense. Now, here’s what he says. “Will there be better Beethovens on the new earth? Shall we not see better Rembrandts and Raphaels? Shall we not read better poetry, better drama, better prose? Will scientists continue to advance in technology? Will geologists continue to dig out the treasures of the earth? And will architects continue to build imposing and attractive structures? Will there be enticing new adventures in travel?”
Those are all questions, and I think the implicit answer to all those questions is yes and yes and yes. C. S. Lewis, to go back to some of his writings on the world to come, he says, “You know what? We’ve got it back to front. We’ve got it upside down.” He says, “You know what? We tend to think that we’re in a land full of color, but after death, we enter the shadow lands, the gray world, the colorless experience.” When he says it’s really the other way around. This life is the shadow lands and the life that come will be in full color.
I like that. That’s what Moody said, didn’t he? “When I die and you hear about me passing, don’t believe it because I will be more alive than I’ve ever been before.” Full color. All right, in the few minutes that remain, the last thought. It not only says something by glory, this new heaven and new earth. It turns our concepts on their head and reminds us it’s not up there but down here, but it says something about God, doesn’t it? Something glorious about God.
In fact, something that God reveals to us. This is only the second time in the book of Revelation where God speaks, and in verses 5-6, God speaks. And we want to hear what He says. “Then he who sat on the throne…” Notice that, He’s on a throne, He’s sovereign. “Behold I make all things new. And He said to me, ‘Write, for these words are true and faithful.'” This is what the church has got to believe. This is what will bring them hope and will sustain their endurance. “And He said to me, ‘It’s done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.'”
The making of the new heaven and new earth says something about glory and says something about God. And I’ll tell you what it says about God; He’s sovereign, He sits on a throne. He rules and He overrules. He’s the Alpha and Omega, the first letter and last letter of the Greek alphabet. That’s why He’s the beginning and the end of all things. In fact, according to verse six, He’s the God that gets things done. Ecclesiastes 3:14 tells us when God sets out to do something, you can’t add anything to it, you can’t take anything from it. He’ll do it perfectly. It’s a God who gets things done.
We’ll go back to our introduction, it’s the culmination of what He started out to do from the beginning, He got it done. Christ came, and in His death and burial and resurrection, He paid for sin, He defeated death and He crushed the evil one. And in His return, He has made good on all of that in a larger manner. God got it done in Jesus Christ. That is finished. And God got it done in terms of all the prophecies and promises of the book of Revelation. Jesus came, crushed His enemy, established His kingdom, restored Israel, showed Himself true to His covenants.
At the end, He destroyed Satan, cast him in the lake of fire along with the Antichrist and the false prophet. And then He raised the unbelieving dead and He judged them at the great white throne and heaven and earth fled away in the presence of such a majesty and holiness. And now He’s making the heavens and the earth new. He’s getting it done. John Walvoord said this, “The message from the throne refers to the work accomplished through the whole drama of human history prior to the eternal state.” It is done does not mean that there will be no future works of God, but that a major work has been to completion and that the work’s now relating to the eternal state of beginning.
God brings things to their completion, doesn’t He? He closes the loop on redemptive history. There’s no loose ends. He’s the author of human history and He writes a grand and fitting conclusion. The story of creation, the fall, redemption and restoration now comes full circle and you have a happy ever after ending. I touched on this and now I’ll make it real just for a few moments. I could go a lot longer than this, but what God started to do in Genesis 1-3, He finishes and accomplishes according to Revelation 1:21-22.
Genesis and Revelation or the bookends of the Bible, listen to these simple reflections. In Genesis, heaven and earth are created. But in Revelation, the new heaven and earth is recreated, Chapter 21:1. The sun is created in Genesis. No need for a son in Revelation 21:23. The night was established in Genesis. No night in the world to come, Chapter 22:5. The seas were created, but according to Revelation, 21:1, no more sea. The curse was announced and judgment came upon man, introducing death, but the curse is now removed. Genesis 22:3, death entered history. Death then exits history, 21:4.
Man was driven from the presence of God and lost. Paradise, man is restored to the presence of God and a new paradise is his to have, 22:14. Sorrow and pain began. Sorrow, tears and pain end, Chapter 21:4. The devil appears and the devil disappears, Chapter 20:10. God closes the loop. Why? Because God is sovereign, He’s the beginning and the end. And that must have been a great comfort to the original readers and a great comfort to contemporary readers. That’s where I want to close.
Just for a few minutes, I want you to go home with this thought. This idea of a new heaven and new earth speaks about glory and it speaks about God. And the thing it says about God is that when the world seems out of control, God’s got it under control. In baseball terms, there are no swings and misses in God’s kingdom, God can play and God can hit every curveball the free will of man throws at Him. God’s always on top at the bottom of the seventh, and God’s game plan is unbeatable, for God cannot be defeated. He’s the Alpha and the Omega. He sits in heaven and does whatever pleases Him, Psalm 115:3.
His counsel will stand, Proverbs 19:21. History is not time and chance, history is His story and His plan will be perfectly executed and completed. So as you re-enter a world of sickness and illness, car accidents, acts of crime, in a world marked by crying and dying and sighing, in a world where tyrants reign, in a world where the church is persecuted, remember that He’s the alpha and the omega. The future’s not uncertain. Que sera, sera, whatever will be will be. The future’s not ours to see. Que sera, sera. No, it’s not time and chance. It’s a sovereign God bringing His kingdom that’s in heaven to earth.
Tomorrow’s not up for grobs. There’s no alternative end to human history. God’s will will be done on earth as it’s done in heaven. The end of all things and the beginning of a new world is fixed and settled just like God’s throne in heaven. Talk about alternative endings, close with this. I was fascinated when reading a book by Danny Akin on pastoral theology, to learn that when it came to Apollo 11 landing on the moon or the D-Day invasion of France, there were alternative endings that were anticipated, like the crashing of Apollo 11 or the astronauts getting stuck on the moon, or the Germans repelling the advance of the allies.
And so in 1969, President Nixon had written this alternative pronouncement. Now, we know it worked out good. Neil Armstrong stepped on the surface of the moon, one small step for him, a giant leap from mankind. But if it hadn’t have worked out, here’s what Nixon would’ve said. He said this. “Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace These brave men, Neil Armstrong, and Edwin Aldrin know that there is no hope for their recovery, but they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice. These two men are laying down their lives in mankind’s most noble goal; the search for truth and understanding. Others will follow and surely find their way home. Man’s search will not be denied, but these men were the first and they will remain foremost in our hearts.”
That was an alternative ending, thankfully, that we never had to experience. And the same with D-Day, Dwight Eisenhower had a confidence in the invasion, but also had some apprehensions, which he shared privately; the weather, all the logistics pulling off one of the greatest sea to land maneuvers of military. Say that hadn’t have worked out, this is what he was going to say. “Our landings on the coast of France have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold, and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air, and the navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attached to this attempt exists, it is mine alone.”
Two alternative endings. Thankfully, in God’s goodness, we never heard them. But there is no alternative ending. God hasn’t written an alternative ending. There’s nothing accidental or haphazard about life, nothing accidental or haphazard about what’s happening to you and the outcome that God can work it together for good. No alternative endings. Here’s the ending. The old will give way to the new. The passing will give way to the permanent. And a world scarred by sin will give way to a world delivered to a state of holiness and happiness and health that’s everlasting. Amen.
Let’s not lose that old knowledge. Let’s have a two-world worldview, for therein lies hope and therein lies happiness. Father, thank you for our time in the word. We thank you that the future is ours to see. We get a glimpse at things to come. We get to anticipate where we’ll be and what we’ll be and what we’ll do a thousand years from now. We thank you that eternal life is not some out of the world, out of the body existence, but it’s very much what the first man was meant to be and the first man was meant to do. And we thank you for the second Adam, our Lord, Jesus Christ, who has brought about the promise of a reversal and the promise of a new heaven and a new earth. We thank you for that hope.
Where there is faith in the future, there’s power in the present. May we be men and women who, like Jonathan, Edwards, have eternity on our eyeballs, who, like David Brainerd, will not linger or loiter on our way there. Help us to live purposefully. Help us to serve steadfastly. Help us not to give up or give in. Help us not to be pressed into the mold of a world around us whose fashion is passing away. These things we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.