REFORMED CHURCH, BELLVILLE: SUNDAY 15 DECEMBER 2002: MORNING SERVICE
Our help is in the Name of the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.
Beloved, grace and peace be to you
from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, through the mighty
working of God the Holy Spirit.
AMEN.
Psalm of praise: Psalm 122:1.
Nicene Creed
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all the
worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not
made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were
made.
Who, for us men and for our
salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit
of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us
under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He
rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and
sitteth on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with
glory, to judge the living and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no
end.
And I believe in the Holy
Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life; who proceedeth from the Father and
the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and
glorified; who spake by the prophets.
And I believe one holy catholic
and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of
sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the
world to come. AMEN
The Law : Ex. 20:1-17.
Psalm 51:8.
Prayer.
Psalm 147:1,2.
Scripture reading: Isaiah 65:13-25
Scripture text: Isaiah 65:18
"But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create;
For behold, I create Jerusalem for rejoicing,
And her people for gladness."
Believe in God and in His promises, and persevere in serving Him with
sincerity - and receive a new earth as future dwelling place.
In this sermon we shall consider the following:
1. The end goal of God's eternal plan.
2. What will life be like there?
1. The end goal of God's eternal plan.
The Lord sent Isaiah to bring to His people a message calling upon them
to repent, and conveying to them a promise. That is why there is in
this chapter a contrast between
- what will happen to the servants of the Lord, and
- what will become of those who have rejected the Lord.
Note that the Lord directs this message to the people of the church.
The heathen are not included. Among the people of the church there are
two groups:
- Some of them are the servants of the Lord.
- The others are simply referred to as "you".
God's eternal plan ordains that these two groups will each have a final
dispensation differing completely from that of the other.
- The servants of the Lord will have food to eat, and they will have something to drink.
- Where they go they will be glad and rejoice, because there will be reason for joy.
- They will also receive a new name.
- They will dwell in a place where no-one will ever again die - neither an infant nor an old man.
- Those addressed as "you" will remain hungry and thirsty, and they will know disappointment.
- Where they find themselves, there will be no joy.
- On the contrary, they will cry out with a heavy heart and they will wail with a broken spirit.
- This depicts typically what those who find themselves in hell will experience.
- This passage tells that if someone dies under such circumstances, he/she will be in the place of damnation - that is, in hell.
- The damned die the eternal death, and therefore do not share in eternal life as their destiny.
Verse 15 defines the contrast between the two groups most sharply.
- The one group comprises those chosen by the Lord - the elect.
- Those who are not of the elect comprise, by their own deserts, the rejected. Their names are therefore accursed by God.
See what happens to the elect. If we collate the various details provided, we can state their condition as follows:
- The elect are enfolded by the Lord, who gives them a new future.
- They are given a new name (chapter 62:2, 65:15b).
- Their former troubles will be forgotten, and they will again live in their land (65:16).
These words, of course, have a twofold significance:
- The first is that the Jews will return from their exile to Canaan.
- The second is that the elect will, after leaving this earth, find
a home on the new earth, a land in which the hardships of former times
have passed away.
This new earth was already promised earlier:
Lift up your eyes to the sky,
Then look to the earth beneath;
For the sky will vanish like smoke,
And the earth will wear out like a garment
And its inhabitants will die in like manner;
But My salvation will be forever,
And My righteousness will not wane. (Isaiah 51:6)
I have
put My words in your mouth and have covered you with the shadow of My
hand, to establish the heavens, to found the earth and to say to Zion,
"You are My people." (Isaiah 51:16).
No longer will you have the sun for light by day,
Nor for brightness will the moon give you light;
But you will have the Lord for an everlasting light,
And the days of your mourning will be over. (Isaiah 60:19)
"For just as the new heavens and the new earth
Which I make will endure before Me," declares the LORD,
"So your offspring and your name will endure..." (Isaiah 66:22).
This prospect and future expectation was not only preached to the Jews
on their journey into exile. In the New Testament it was also preached
to the Church which awaited the second coming of the Lord Jesus in a
cloud. We today still have exactly the same hope and expectation.
Listen to what is written in 2 Peter 3:11b,12,13:
...what
sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking
for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the
heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with
intense heat! But according to His promise we are looking for new
heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.
This expectation will certainly be fulfilled, because the Lord revealed
this to John. He saw how it would happen, and described it as follows:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there was no longer any sea.
And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from the
throne, saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He
will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself
will be among them. (Rev. 21:1-3).
2. What will life be like there?
What will life be like in the hereafter? According to some descriptions in the Bible, amazingly similar to life here on earth.
- We will build houses there.
- People will have vineyards, and these will bear large crops.
- There will be no lack of fertility nor will our labour ever be in vain.
Yet there will be certain marked differences.
- On the new earth everything will be re-created in its former
state of perfection, before Adam and Eve cast all of creation into a
state of sin.
- The animals, too, will respond differently to what we are accustomed to. Read Isaiah 11:6-9:
And the wolf will dwell with the lamb,
And the leopard will lie down with the young goat,
And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together;
And a little boy will lead them.
Also the cow and the bear will graze,
And their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
The nursling child will play by the hole of the cobra,
And the weaned child will put his hand into the viper's den...
The Lord promises us a perfect new dwelling place, where we shall live for ever: the new earth.
- The new earth be arise from God's faithfulness (to His promises).
- Jesus Christ Himself promised that He would leave the earth to prepare a place for us.
- We know that the Lord has been faithful throughout the centuries and that He has always fulfilled His promises.
- The Lord Jesus also underwent crucifixion in order to conquer the
forces of hell, so that nothing might stand in His way to prevent the
coming of His kingdom.
Isaiah 65:16 emphasises once again that the Name of the Lord is
faithful (v.16). This faithfulness is manifested in two respects:
- Firstly, in the renewal and re-creation which He brings to pass in respect of the believers.
- Secondly, in that all who inhabit the new land will make their oaths by the Name of the God of truth, Who is ever trustworthy.
The promise accompanying the coming of the new earth is that the former
things will not be remembered or come to mind. This refers to all sins
and hardships and even the chastising hand of God.
- There will come a point in the grace of the Lord where all these things will lie behind us.
- There will come a day when we will rejoice because the pain of
the past has been completely superseded by the glory of the future.
That is the content of our text. In it lies a demand: Rejoice!
- Look ahead into the future, and see the re-creative power of the
Lord, because it will fulfil the future for us and our land which is
yet to be.
- We must therefore believe and pray with this vision in mind. This
is the hope which the Holy Spirit continually strengthens in us anew.
The Lord will also rejoice over this city. The Lord states His reasons.
It is remarkable that the reasons are all related to memories of the
pain suffered by people during their earthly lives.
- Nobody weeps.
- Nobody calls out for help (there is no more anxiety).
- There are no babes who die, nor are there old people who have not lived out their allotted years.
The perfection of our existence is described with reference to the age attained by people.
- All will attain an age of 100 years - this is merely a prophetic indication of a perfect life lasting for eternity.
- Anybody dying before the age of 100 years will be regarded as one accursed.
- This means that nobody will die on the new earth, because there
will be no persons accursed, nor will there be sickness or death.
- All will live there for ever.
We celebrate this festival time with much joy. One of the things
accomplished for us by the coming of the Lord Jesus, is to reset the
sights of our faith so that we can see far into the future.
- So far, that we are able, through the merits of Christ, to view ourselves in the hereafter.
- We must, naturally, bear in mind that the coming and the
crucifixion and the ascension of the Lord took place so that we may
know beyond the shadow of a doubt that there is a hereafter.
- And also so that we may know what we should expect there. There we will eventually be free from all disease and old age.
- Jesus Christ's victory over death guarantees a perfect body and a life in the fullness of vigour.
- His resurrection guarantees that we will use this vigour in the
life hereafter to work - and that we will enjoy every moment of our
activity.
When we commemorate the birth of our Lord Jesus in the course of the next couple of weeks, think of these promises of the Lord.
- The birth of the Lord Jesus and everything that followed upon
that, conforms that His objective was that we should be redeemed by His
blood in order that we might, after this earthly life, continue our
lives on the new earth.
- That confirms the fulfilment of the first promise the Lord made to Eve:
- There will be a separation between people and forces.
- The snake and its forces will be destroyed, but the woman's
seed will be separated from the other group by the victory of the One
who was to be born.
- This separation culminated in the victory of our Lord Jesus over death and hell, and in our admission to the new earth.
Live and hope and believe to that end.
AMEN.
Closing prayer.
Hymn 10:1,2,5,6.
The Lord bless you, and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine on you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance on you,
And give you peace.
AMEN
Rev. Dr. M.J. du Plessis, Reformed Church, Bellville. 15 December 2002. Scripture quoted from NASB.