“The Four Last
Things: Heaven (2)” October 9,
2011
Revelation
21:1-22:6
SCRIPTURE INTRO:
We’ve
come to the end of our study of the Four Last Things—
Death, Judgment, Hell, and Heaven.
I
hope that your faith in the Bible’s teaching of these things has been
strengthened.
And I hope you’ve been reminded that these
are not hypothetical questions—
but matters of supreme importance.
What
is going to happen at the end of my life as an individual?
What
is going to happen at the end of the world?
The way you answer those will determine the
way you live every day.
Bible
says that if there is nothing after this life—
then you might as well eat, drink, and be
merry, for tomorrow you may die.
But
since, in fact, we do have souls that live forever,
and since there is eternity and a
judgment—lives here matter greatly.
I
told you last week we would spend two Sundays on heaven,
and that we were going to read the same
passage—
all of Revelation 21 and the first six
verses of Revelation 22.
These
are the most important chapters about heaven in all the Bible.
INTRO: A few months ago my parents told me that they had
found an old
photograph, taken in the 1920s. It was a picture of my grandmother,
my dad’s mother, she is about six or eight
years old.
Also in the picture is her
older sister, who is about 12, and her father.
They are standing in front of a tent on the
beach.
In the 1920s and 30s her
family would go to
especially during the Depression.
They didn’t have work in
Ohio, so they would go down and pick winter crops.
They lived in tents on beach in a place in
Palm Beach Co. called Briny Breezes.
If you have ever driven to
from north
Millions of people,
interstates and shopping malls.
Back then,
And for a little girl from
My grandmother would tell me
wistfully what Florida was like back then.
How she and her sister and other kids in the
Briny Breezes tent village
would drag washtubs down to the surf, and
they would catch enough
fish and spiny lobsters for supper every
night.
Of course, there hasn’t been
fishing like that for decades.
There were crystal clear
lakes and rivers, fed by springs.
There is a river that runs through
My grandmother remembered when it was clear
and fresh.
When
to the intra-coastal waterway, they dredged
for ships and canals.
The
My grandmother also claimed
the climate was different in the old
that it was cooler and more pleasant.
I once asked her why and she
thought it had to do with the Everglades.
They used to be so much larger. But vast expanses of the Everglades
have been drained by canals—first for
agriculture, then housing developments.
My grandfather thought the
only way to save
He was certain that would drive all the
Yankees out.
For some reason he didn’t consider himself a
Yankee.
But, of course, even if the
Yankees leave, South Florida is permanently scarred.
It will never again be what it once
was. Or will it?
There is a stunning promise
that the Lord gives us over and over in the Bible.
The promise is that after Christ returns,
after the wrath of God has purged
all sin and evil, there will be a new heaven
and a new earth.
This is what I want us to
focus on in our final study of the last things.
What theologians have called
the final estate.
Not just the heaven your spirit goes to when
you die, but the heaven you will
live in after Christ returns and after the
resurrection.
After you have been raised a
glorified body. What then?
This is the promise—what Scripture calls the
new heavens and new earth.
The Old Testament prophets
spoke about it.
We read earlier Isaiah’s
prophecy of the new heavens and new earth,
the lion lying down with the lamb, the
fruitfulness and prosperity.
Amos speaks of it very
vividly as we read last week, it’s in the Psalms.
It was a hope of the Old Testament
saints. That’s what Hebrews 11 says.
They were looking forward to the heavenly
country.
They were looking for city with foundations
whose architect and builder is God.
The Apostle Peter’s second
letter is about the promises of God, and how those
promises give us power for the spiritual and
moral transformation for our lives.
He presents the new earth as
one of the greatest of all God’s promises.
“But in
keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven
and a new
earth, the home of righteousness.”
I hope to show you that this
new world will not be a purely spiritual world,
or another, totally different world—it will
be this world redeemed.
Everything about creation
that is good and beautiful will be restored to a glorious
newness that will even surpass the goodness
and beauty of
We will be given this new
earth as God’s redeemed race to enjoy, use, tend,
and explore for glory of God and the love of
Christ.
It’s wonderful, it’s beyond
our comprehension. Bible even tells us
that.
It says that our minds cannot conceive what
God has in store.
And yet, he gives us hints. He gives clues. He wants us to imagine and wonder.
Two points.
Anticipating
and applying the promise of the new heavens and new earth.
MP#1 You must
anticipate the promise of a new heaven and a new earth.
When you promise your
children something fun they anticipate it,
they start to ask you questions about
it.
If your children had never
been to the beach, and you said:
Guess what?
We’re going to the beach for spring break.
They would be thrilled, and they would start
asking you questions about it.
Whenever Christians think
about God’s promise of a new heaven and new earth
they start to anticipate it and ask
questions about it. Lots of questions.
How old will we be? If a child dies, will they be grown up in
resurrection body?
St. Augustine said we will all be around the
age of 30. That’s speculation.
Will we own things, will
there be private property?
We don’t have time to consider all the
questions—just three.
1. Will there
really be a new earth?
Yes. The Lord makes this promise over and over
that his plan is to redeem
and restore the natural creation.
When God made the world, do
you remember the benediction he pronounced
after his creation work was finished each
day? “And God saw what he had made
and it was good.” On seventh day, “Saw all had made and it was
very good.”
Satan’s scheme was to ruin
every part of that good creation.
So he tempted our first parents to eat the
forbidden fruit. They did.
And the curse fell on them. But not just on them—on the whole world.
Do you remember Lord’s words
after Adam and Eve ate the fruit?
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of
your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat the plants
of the field.”
It is not just human beings
who are cursed by sin—creation is too.
Satan’s scheme. Not only to ruin mankind, but to ruin
goodness of all creation.
The clearest expression of
this is in Romans 8 which describes creation
as groaning because of the curse of sin and
in bondage to decay.
It is not what it once was or
what it was created to be.
Bible says that the reason
Jesus Christ appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.
That means that Jesus’ redemptive work was
not limited to saving your soul.
If he just saved you soul then Satan would
be victorious in physical world.
Jesus Christ came to redeem
our bodies as well as our souls and he came to redeem
all of creation from the curse of sin, set all
things right.
Your salvation is the
glorious resurrection of your body—like Christ’s body.
A body that is radiant and
powerful, a body that is untainted by sin and corruption
and perfectly in tune with the life and
desires of the Spirit.
And you will first flex the
muscles of your resurrection body in a world that has
also been restored by the power of
Christ.
2. Will we
recognize the new earth?
Yes. Yes, but the changes will be so tremendous
that we can barely begin to
comprehend what that new earth will be like.
As you read the description
in Revelation, there are thing you recognize—
a city with gates, walls, and streets, gold
and precious stones,
a tree with leaves and fruit, a river with
clear water.
Isaiah speaks of houses and
vineyards, and of mountains flowing with wine.
Amos speak of bountiful harvests. Those are all things that we recognize.
And yet these things have a
glory to them that we cannot comprehend.
How can a street of gold be crystal clear?
How can the gates of the city be each made
of a single pearl?
How can the tree grow have leaves that heal
the nations?
The Holy Spirit does not
intend for us to draw a diagram of these things.
There is obviously so much symbolism—the
repetition of 12 and multiples of 12,
which is so significant throughout the book
of Revelation.
Clearly, this is intended to
fill us with awe and anticipation.
And yet at the same time, it
is a world that is not completely unlike our own.
It’s this world made
wonderful. 1 Chronicles 16:33 says:
Then all the
trees of the forest will sing, they will sing for joy before the Lord,
for he comes
to judge the earth.
What are the most beautiful
trees you have every seen?
For me would have to be the
live oaks at the house where Allison grew up in
Covington, La. I still remember visiting the DuBoses the
very first time after
Allison and I had started dating. First thing I noticed when came up driveway.
Massive, ancient trees. Thick spreading branches, dripping with
Spanish moss.
When Christ comes to judge
the earth the trees will sing.
There will be trees in the
new earth. We will recognize them as
trees.
But they will be so much more beautiful than
the most beautiful trees in this
world that they can only be described as
singing. Singing trees.
Singing the praises of
Christ’s restoring work.
The very last book of the
Narnia Chronicles by CS Lewis is “The Last Battle.”
After the last battle is over, the children
go through a door into the new creation.
And to their amazement, the
recognize Narnia, but it’s a new Narnia.
As they go deeper into this new world, even
CS Lewis’ imagination fails.
This is how he ends the
story:
“But the things that began to happen after
that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them . . . All their life
in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and
title page: now at last they were
beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one
before.”
Yes, we will recognize the
new creation, but the only way we can describe it now
is with these wonderful hints and rumors in
the Bible.
3. Will there
be animals in the new earth?
I’m not kidding. This is a serious question. Will there be animals in heaven?
Many Christians have asked that
question. I haven’t—but many have.
Isaiah says that in the new
heavens and new earth:
“The wolf will live with the lamb, the
leopard will like down with the goat, the calf and the
lion and the yearling together. The cow will feed with the bear, their young
will lie down
together.”
That is obviously a
metaphor. It’s a way of saying that the
new creation will
be a world of perfect peace. There will be no war.
But is this just a
metaphor? Is that all it is?
It can’t just be a
metaphor. How could the new earth,
perfectly restored
by Jesus Christ be any less marvelous than
One of the glories of that
first creation was the animal world.
God took great delight in declaring his
benediction on animal kingdom.
He saw the fish and birds, the creeping
things and cattle and declared them good.
Psalms 104 and 145 describe
all animals—wild and domestic, small and large
as bringing glory to their creator.
There’s an old hymn that
says:
“This is my Father’s world, The birds their
carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white, declare
their Maker’s praise.”
I asked the question about
animals to make a point.
Everything good in creation that declares
the Maker’s praise will be present
in the new heavens and new earth in glorious
perfection.
Will there really be a new
earth? Yes.
Christ’s redemptive work is huge. It is nothing less that pushing back
the effect of the curse from all creation.
Every part of life is under the spell of
Christ’s redemptive love.
Will we recognize the new
earth? Yes. Just as we will recognize each other.
We’ll be changed, glorified—but as the old
creeds put it, in our self-same bodies.
It will be this world
gloriously restored to all its goodness and potential,
with every evil thing burned away, a home of
righteousness.
Will there be animals in the
new earth? Yes.
And every other good thing that brings glory
to God,
and that helps us to praise him and commune
with Him.
In the Apostle Peter’s second
letter, he says that the promise of the new creation
is the grand summary of all of God’s
promises.
If you believe it, and
anticipate it, like a child eager for his first trip
to the beach, wondering, hoping—if you are
like that—
then the promise of the new creation can be
a conduit of divine power
for the moral and spiritual transformation
of your life.
How does that happen? Let’s move on to the second point . . .
MP#2 You must
apply the promise of a new heaven and a new earth.
There is an old saying that
if a person is too heavenly minded,
then he will be no earthly good. Have you ever heard that?
The thought is that if
someone always has his mind on heaven,
then he’s not going to care about this life
very much.
He’s not going to appreciate
things here.
He’s not going to work hard
and build things—because his mind is elsewhere.
As we discussed last week,
our challenge is we don’t think about heaven enough.
It’s supposed to be the hope of the
believer, and we barely consider it.
But what if it did become
important in our minds?
What if the promise of the new heavens and
new earth captured our imaginations.
Would we be people who walked around with
our heads in the clouds?
I want to suggest, that the
more heavenly minded we are,
the more we think about and truly begin to
imagine and hope for Christ’s return
and the new creation—the more heartily we
will live here and now.
And our lives will be a
commendation of our faith and a witness for Christ.
Two points:
1. If you believe the promise of the new
creation then you will relish the foretastes.
You won’t be disengaged from
life, you will be keenly aware of it.
You will notice things, appreciate them and
thank God for them as never before.
Isn’t that what Jesus was
always doing?
In spite of his heavy load,
took great pleasure in the little gifts of life.
He noticed things in his Father’s world and
used them to point to heaven.
He spoke in his parables
about catching fish, finding a buried treasure,
the beauty of the lilies, life of little
birds, and the kiss of a father.
He picked up little children,
he noticed farmers in their fields,
shepherds with their flock, and vines heavy
with grapes.
He enjoyed those things and
used them as pointers to the world to come.
He would point out to his disciples these
good, ordinary things in God’s creation
and he would say: The kingdom of heaven is like these things.
When a woman poured bottle of
perfume on his feet that was worth a year’s wages,
he rebuked his disciples who called it a
waste and as he inhaled the scent
and declared it to be a gift of eternal
value.
Ladies, if you ever need a
Bible verse defending purchase of expensive perfume,
this is it.
Better yet, tell your husband you need a foretaste of heaven.
Christ chose a wedding feast
as the scene of his first miracle.
Have you ever thought of the glory of that
and what it means for our future?
That our Savior chose as his
first miracle turning water into wine
so a party a wedding feast could continue
with joy and laughter.
John calls that miracle a
sign. It was a sign-post pointing to the
culmination
of our salvation, the feasting we will enjoy
with Christ in the new creation.
If you believe that, you can
never look at a wedding reception the same way.
They might just be serving punch and cheese
straws, but you relish it.
You will look at the happy people and
think—some day.
And what was Jesus doing the
night he was betrayed?
He was doing what had gotten him often
criticized by those who despised him—
eating and drinking with his
disciples—celebrating one of the great
ancient feasts of his people—a feast that
pointed to his own work of redemption.
And what did he do after his
resurrection?
Men, doesn’t John 21 stir
your manly soul? The disciples come to
shore with their
boat full of fish—it’s early morning,
chilly, fog on the water of the lake.
And there is Jesus on shore,
resurrected. He has a campfire going
with fish on it.
And bread.
Meat and bread. No salad. It’s a man’s meal.
Can’t you picture it? Can’t you smell it. You’ve sat around a campfire like that.
You know how good food tastes
when you’ve been out in nature like that.
What is this scene? It’s a foretaste of heaven, the new earth.
Jesus with his people forever. The freshness of God’s creation.
The promise of the new
heavens and new earth means that every part of your life
is under the spell of Christ’s redemptive
love.
You should relish times of
celebration and the ordinary pleasures of life
and you should consciously say—this is an
appetizer, this is a hint and rumor
of what Jesus Christ has in store for us in
the new creation.
That takes work. Our hearts are naturally cold to all of God’s
promises.
We don’t long for heaven enough. Don’t believe new creation strongly enough.
You have to be able to see
the good things God has given you
before you can recognize them as signposts
of greater blessing.
When you sit at the dinner
table with your family tonight, look at their faces.
And before you pray and eat say: “God is
good.”
When you see some beauty in
His creation, receive some pleasure
from the good things he has made, say, “God
is good.”
Then, when your heart is
moved with gratitude toward his goodness,
start to ponder this promise of a new heaven
and new earth.
Of course, God is good at all
times, even when those things are lacking.
But they aren’t always
lacking, this life is full of many glimmers.
As you think that way, it will empower you
to live a godly and holy life,
spotless, blameless, and at peace with him
because you will think of
Christ’s coming more often.
It will also make you a more
content and grateful for even the smallest gifts
that God has given you.
2. If you believe in the promise of the new
creation you will pursue your callings.
I told you last week that I
wanted to come back to something fascinating
John says in Revelation 21. After describing the new Jerusalem he says:
“The glory and honor of the nations will be
brought into it.”
What does that mean?
It means that the very best
of everything that mankind has produced
will somehow be brought into heaven.
The best music, the best art,
the best science, and the best architecture,
the best sports, the best ideas—all that is
truly wonderful and good—
will somehow be brought into heaven, and be
part of the new creation.
And that means that your best
work will somehow be preserved
and brought into the new creation and you
will build on it for the glory of God.
I have no idea what this will
look like. I can imagine some things.
I can imagine the glory and honor of music
being brought into heaven.
It’s harder for me to imagine the glory and
honor of accounting.
This week I ran into a
Christian I know who is in law enforcement.
He takes it seriously as a calling from God.
Somehow the conversation
turned to heaven and he made the comment about
being happy that one day he will be out of a
job. No bad guys to chase in heaven.
He was laughing but he wasn’t joking. His work is disheartening.
To be exposed so often to the
very worst of depravity.
The promise of heaven being a
place where no vile person is allowed—
that must be very refreshing to him.
And yet, there is some sense
in which his work will follow him.
One of the glories of nations is the
enforcement of laws, justice, defending weak.
What will that mean in the new
creation? I have no idea.
But this is the point for
you. Your callings have eternal weight.
Speaking specifically of your vocational
callings, your life’s work.
Whether you are a butcher,
baker, or a candlestick maker.
Do your work well. Do it heartily as unto the Lord.
Press on during the dreary times and the
hard times.
And not only will you
hear: Well done, good and faithful
servant.
But somehow, in the new creation you will
recognize things and say—
I built that. I worked on that.
You see, a heavenly-minded
person is the most earthly good person there can be.
Because he sees all of life,
the good and the bad, and even his work,
as a foretaste of heaven. And that carries him along and gives him joy.
CONC: Friends, do you long for heaven?
It’s your destiny and home if
you are in Christ. Cultivate that
longing.
The Catholic poet Gerard
Manley Hopkins once looked at the starry night sky,
and he imagined that those thousands of
pinpoints of light were peepholes
in the great wall of heaven.
Little holes in the wall of
the heavenly city where Christ is, even now,
with his saints and angels preparing a place
for us.
Tonight, go outside and look
up at the tars and think what a scene and a life
and a place that must be. And how you will take your place one day
there
with your Lord Jesus Christ and all his
people, in the great banquet hall.