After the Sand Bernardino shooting in California, the cover page of the Daily News read “God Is Not Fixing This” with highlights from some tweets from conservative leaders concerning their thoughts and prayers being with the victims of the mass shooting. The irony in The Daily News’ cover is that in an effort to fix our world without God, we have made more of a mess of it. In fact, human history has shown us that every effort to create a better or utopian society apart from God has not moved us closer, but rather further away from a utopian society.
When we started this sermon series, I told you that God’s plan was always for a King to rule the nations, but a different kind of King, one that the world could never manufacture. What the world can manufacture is what the devil manufactures, and that is a life lived apart from God, which is only a cheap substitute that robs a person of the kind of life God designed for us to experience.
From the manger to the cross was One who lived among Adam’s helpless race as God’s plan “A” to mankind’s sin problem. God is fixing this! God has been fixing this! God is sure to fix this! Jesus was always the King intended for Israel and the nations and the remedy to reverse the curse of sin!
“This is what the Lord says, He who is the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of armies: ‘I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God besides Me.’” (Isa. 44:6)
“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “When I will raise up for David a righteous Branch; And He will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land. “In His days Judah will be saved, And Israel will live securely; And this is His name by which He will be called, ‘The Lord Our Righteousness.’” (Jer. 23:5-6)
“The scepter will not depart from Judah, Nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.” (Gen. 49:10)
“He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” (2 Sam. 7:13)
“Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:10-11).
Jesus said: “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.” (Rev. 1:17-18)
Jesus is the fully divine and fully human King! He is the first and the last, and there is no other like Him! He is not only the King of kings and Lord of lords, but He also bears the name, “Yahweh our Righteousness.” Jesus is the only One qualified, able, and willing to redeem lost sinners as the Lamb of God who, “takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Jesus is our Kinsmen Redeemer who is qualified to take the deed of creation by reversing the curse of sin and why all of heaven celebrates: “Worthy are You to take the scroll and to break its seals; for You were slaughtered, and You purchased people for God with Your blood from every tribe, language, people, and nation. You have made them into a kingdom and priests to our God, and they will reign upon the earth” (Rev. 5:9-10).
God is “fixing this” one life at a time through the Son: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Cor. 5:17). It is through the Son that the Father is restoring all that was lost, and so we are promised that the way God is “fixing this” will exceed our wildest imaginations:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I 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 the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.” (Rev. 21:1–5)
There is so much that is packed into the final two chapters in the book of Revelation that there is no way that we can plumb the depths of what is promised to those of us who have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. However, there are some things that we do have time to reflect upon that ought to encourage you.
Life Will Be Purged of Sin, Death, Evil, and the Devil
There is not a whole lot I need to say on this point, but I simply want to point out that what will follow Jesus’ second coming is His final victory over the antichrist (who is yet to come), the false prophet, and the devil (the unholy trinity). All three will be thrown into the lake of fire where they will never again be able to tempt, deceive, and harm. Their destruction will be in a place of eternal torment that Jesus described, “where their worm does not die, and their fire is not extinguished” (Mark 9:48). Satan’s judgment will be the final crushing of his head that was promised in Genesis: “And I will make enemies of you and the woman, and of your offspring and her Descendant; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise Him on the heel” (Gen. 3:15).
After the antichrist, the false prophet, and the devil are judged, we are told of a final judgment where Death and Hades will also be thrown into the lake of fire, which is described as, “…the second death.” What is most sobering about Revelation 20:11-15, which describes this coming judgment, in my opinion, is what we read in verse 15, “And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” Ultimately what the second death means for the Christian, is the death of death, sin, and the devil.
Mortality will be Swallowed up by Life
The new heaven and earth that we read about in the final chapters of Revelation will not be new in the way you trade in your used car so that you can afford a new one. The new heavens and earth will be new in the same way Jesus’ resurrected body was; think about what had to happen for Jesus’ dead body to come back to life again. Jesus’ body began the process of decomposition several minutes after he died on the cross. When His heart stopped beating, the cells in His body became deprived of oxygen forcing them to break down. Within 24-27 hours after death, Jesus’ internal organs were already decomposing, and his body was beginning to bloat. For Jesus’ body to be resurrected, the DNA in His body had to change.
The resurrection of the heavens and the earth will be like Jesus’ resurrection, and it will include a DNA change. We are told in the Bible, “…the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly people” (2 Pet. 3:7). Randy Alcorn, in his book, Heaven, writes of the coming Day: “The earth’s death will be no more final than our own. The destruction of the old earth in God’s purifying judgment will immediately be followed by its resurrection to new life. Earth’s fiery “end” will open straight into a glorious new beginning.”[1]
Of the resurrection the Christian will experience, the apostle Paul describes it this way: “For we know that if our earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made by hands, eternal in the heavens…. For indeed, we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life” (2 Cor. 5:1, 4). Quite literally, the resurrection we will experience, the earth will experience too, and when the earth is resurrected— “…what is mortal will be swallowed up by life.”
What I find so amazing about Revelation 21 is that God will not stop with making all things new; He will also move His dwelling place from the present heaven to the new earth. God making His dwelling place with man on a new earth is His promise: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them…” (Rev. 21:3). This has been the plan from day one.
Do you remember the two principles that God operates on? They are not the only principles, but they are important principles. The principles are the Incarnation Principle and the Grace Principle.
- The Incarnation Principle: God does not need a building because He intends to dwell with His people.
- The Grace Principle: God will do what only God is capable of doing apart from any help from any other person.
The plan was always for God to tabernacle with His people and the way that he would do it would be through a grace not conditioned on His creation, but totally and unconditionally upon His own sovereign will and infinite love.
Joy will be the Serious Business of the New Earth (vv. 5-8)
When God makes His dwelling place on earth with mankind, all that clouds your joy now will be no more. The love, joy, and happiness we will experience on the new earth will never crest, abate, or recede. As C.S. Lewis wrote in one of his books, “Joy is the serious business of Heaven.”[2] This is why we are told that only when God resurrects this dying and cursed creation, will He wipe away our tears: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there by mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away” (21:4).
The new earth will be like the Garden of Eden but better; it will also be like heaven today, but better. We will enjoy physical bodies and a physical planet. We will enjoy a full and perfect creation that will include trees, mountains, and rivers. There will be one City… the City of God where we will be able to go in and out of. We will run through the forests, climb mountains, eat amazing food, run barefoot through the prairies, enjoy the light of something more powerful and radiant than the sun, which will be the Glory of God Himself. We will dwell on a new earth that will never again know the cold of night, but only the light of a day illuminated by the Glory of God.
The new earth will be a place where, “The wolf and the lamb will graze together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox; and dust will be the serpent’s food. says the Lord” (Isa. 65:25). On the new earth, we will walk on streets of gold with those who have gone before us… men and women like Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Daniel, David, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We will be able to sit at a table and share a meal with Joseph and Job who suffered much in their lifetime. We will laugh with the Apostle Paul and Peter, and we may even go fishing with the rest of the apostles. When God makes all things new, our world will be a world of love in the purest sense.
Application
In his final book in his Narnia series, The Last Battle, on the final page, C.S. Lewis concludes his epic story with words that resonate with what we are promised in the Bible. Aslan, the great Lion and Christ-figure of Narnia had won… just as Jesus has already won:
And as He spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.
[1] Randy Alcorn. Heaven (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.; 2004), p. 157.
[2] C.S. Lewis. Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company; 1963), p. 93.
