Isaiah 65. Two weeks ago, we saw in Isaiah
that Christ has begun the work of creating a new heavens and
a new earth. He's begun this work already.
When Christ came, He began creating a new heavens and a new earth.
Some of this can only be said about the day in which we live.
Some of this can only be said about the end when He shall have
completed this work. But He has begun this right now.
On the cross, Christ made all God's elect new by putting away
all our sins and making us the righteousness of God. He made
us new. That's why it says here at verse
16 at the end, He says, the former troubles are forgotten because
they're hid from mine eyes. For behold, I create a new heavens
and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered nor come
into mind. And then in regeneration, Christ
sends forth the Holy Spirit and He creates a new man within us.
A totally new man within us gives us new access to God by a new
way to come to God. Not that old way, not through
that old tabernacle, that old veil, but through His flesh. He's opened a new way. We have
a new high priest. We come with new joy and a whole
new way of worship. That's why the Scripture tells
us, because of what Christ did in our hearts, He says here in
verse 18, Be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create.
See, this is ever, this is forever. For behold, I create Jerusalem
a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
and joy in my people, and the voice of weeping shall be no
more heard in her, nor the voice of crying. So this is why, because
of what Christ did on the cross, what He does in our hearts, because
Christ is the one who creates us anew. This is why Paul said,
if any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. That's what the
word creature means in our translation. He's a new creation. Old things
are passed away. Behold, all things are become
new. And all things are of God, who reconciled us to Himself
by Jesus Christ. Now, today I want to speak to
you on the subject of the fullness of the new creation. The fullness
of the new creation. And we're just going to take
a couple of verses. Now, let me give you our points as we
read our text. Alright? Are you with me? I want
you to get this now. Here's our first point. I know
it's early, but I want you to put your thinking caps on because
this is very important. Men have said a lot of things
about this scripture that are just false. Things that are just
false. Things that don't give Christ
any glory. That's why you know they're false. This right here,
what I'm going to tell you, gives Him all the glory. First of all,
because Christ makes His people new, makes us a new creation,
All God's elect, all God's elect have all our fullness in Christ. We have all our fullness in Christ. So that we have fulfilled our
days on this earth. We have fulfilled our day. When
you're brought to Christ, behold Him, you've fulfilled your days
on this earth. When you have all fullness in
Christ. And that shall be the case for
all God's elect. And it does not matter how long
we live on this earth. It does not matter. Look at verse
20. There shall be no more thence
an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his
days. For the child shall die a hundred
years old. Now, read it again, and read
it again this way. Alright? This will help you.
You'll see the meaning when you read it this way. There shall
be no more thence an infant of days that hath not filled his
days, nor an old man that hath not
filled his days. You see, from the youngest to
the oldest, they shall fulfill their days on this earth. For
that child shall die, that child being only a few days old, shall
die as if he were a hundred years old. He will have fulfilled God's
purpose for putting him here and have all fullness as if he
were lived to be a hundred years old in the faith. You see, this
is because we're made a new creation by Christ. Now, the same is not
true of a sinner without Christ. Look at verse 20. But the sinner,
that man without Christ, that man who's not made a new creation
by Christ, the sinner, being a hundred years old, Even though
he lived a long life on this earth, he shall be accursed. He shall be accursed. He lived
a long life, but he didn't have Christ. He didn't have fullness
in Christ. And so, he didn't have fulfillment. He didn't have his days fulfilled.
Now secondly, that's the first thing we see. Because we're a
new creation by Christ, all God's elect will have all fullness
in Christ. Then secondly, Being made a new
creation by Christ, we shall have all spiritual blessings
in Christ. There will not be one thing missing.
We'll have everything God purposed for us to have. Now this is shown
to us by using things we can understand. It's shown to us
using temporal blessings. Things we can see, touch, feel,
things that are right here at home with us. Now look, verse
21. They shall build houses and inhabit
them. And they shall plant vineyards,
and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another
inhabit. They shall not plant, and another eat. Now here's why. Here's why. For as the days of
a tree... What tree is that? As the days
of Christ, who is the tree of life. He's the tree of life. And as the days of Christ, the
tree of life, so are the days of my people. And mine elect
shall long enjoy the work of their hands. Alright, here's
the third thing. Being made new by Christ, our
labor in this gospel shall not be in vain. Because these other
two things are so, we have all fullness in Christ, we have all
spiritual blessings from Christ, our labor in this gospel will
not be in vain. It will not be in vain. Look
at verse 23. They shall not labor in vain.
And he's speaking here of spreading this gospel. They shall not labor
in vain nor bring forth for trouble. The amplified translation says
they will not bear children doomed to misfortune. They will not
bear children that are doomed to die. They just will not. And
here's why that we and those that are born through our gospel
by Christ shall never perish. We shall not perish and those
born through our gospel shall not perish. Here's why. Verse
23. For they are the seed of Christ
who is the blessed of the Lord. They are the seed of the blessed
of the Lord. That's Christ. They're His seed.
And they're offspring with them. Those born through their gospel
and them too are all the seed of Christ. So they'll never perish.
They'll never perish. Now, the fullness of the new
creation, that's what we're seeing here. And I want you to see that
the fullness of all those made new by Christ is Christ Himself. He is our fullness. The reason
all three of these points are so is because our fullness is
Christ. He is our fullness. Now, first
of all, being made new by Christ, God's elect have all fullness
in Christ. And it does not matter how long
we live on this earth, if it's a long life or a short life,
that has no bearing on our fullness and us fulfilling our days. None
at all. There shall be no more an infant
of days, that infant who just died a few days. There'll be
no more an infant of days that has not fulfilled his days. Nor
an old man that has not filled his days. For that child shall
die, being made new by Christ as if he was a hundred years
old in the face. Now, since we're sinners, we have a great cause
of frustration in our life. And it's this, we can't fulfill
what we want to fulfill. We make our plans and we say
what we think we're going to do and we have to say if the
Lord's willing we'll do this because we cannot bring our will
to pass. That's not the case with our
God. Whatever our God purposed in eternity, He brings it to
pass. What do I know? What is God bringing
to pass? How do I know God's bringing
His purpose to pass? Look around you. Do you see it
happening? God's doing it. That's His purpose. That's what
He's bringing to pass. More than likely in the next
48 years, we're going to have four or five seats come open
in the Supreme Court. And we may just see this country
go completely, thoroughly under the judgment of God. The Constitution
may just be thrown out. If it happens, you know who purposed
it and who did it? God did it. You can rest right
there. God did it. And He's going to
bring good out of it because that's our God. And when Christ
makes us a new creation, He brings all His people to God's ordained
purpose. He makes us to fill our days.
He makes us to have fulfilled what we were put on this planet
for. Now that purpose is that all His elect glorify Christ. That's the purpose for which
God makes His people is that Christ get all the glory. God
the Father purposed in eternity to glorify His Son by giving
His Son the work to save His people. You can read it in Colossians
1.18 if you want to turn there with me. Colossians 1.18. Here's the purpose for which
God creates His people anew. Colossians 1.18, that in all
things Christ might have the preeminence. For it pleased the
Father that in Him should all fullness dwell. You see, our
text is telling us how our days are going to be full. How our
days are going to reach all fullness. And they are going to reach all
fullness when we are brought to behold Christ is all our fullness. And we have all fullness in Christ.
Look down at Colossians 2.9. In Him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in Him. Brethren,
we believe in salvation by grace. Salvation not of works. Salvation
that we don't contribute anything to it from beginning to end.
And all points in between. It's all of the Lord. And that
means, brethren, that this salvation doesn't depend on how long we
live in this earth. It's not dependent on a short
life or a long life. If we ever say that, then we're
saying we have something to do with it. Do you understand that? In Christ Jesus, this is what
Paul is telling us here. What Isaiah is telling us, we
can modify Paul's words to the Galatians. In Christ Jesus, neither
a short life avails anything, nor a long life avails anything
but being made a new creation. That's what avails. That's what
avails. It's all of grace. It's all of
God. And the best way for God to illustrate
this is to redeem and regenerate His elect who die in infancy. They have not sinned after the
similitude which we've sinned. They've not sinned willfully.
Yet, they can't do anything. They're helpless. They're totally
helpless. There you see a sinner. There are sinners. And there
you see a sinner, totally, thoroughly helpless to do anything to save
himself. What a good candidate for God
to do all the saving and show you, I told you from the beginning,
I save them all by myself. I save them all by myself. King
David said of his infant son, When He died at childbirth, He
said, I shall go to Him, but He shall not return to me. Christ
said, Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them
not, for of such is the kingdom of God. And you be sure to read
that article I put in the bulletin. It came across yesterday when
I was just finishing up the bulletin, and I rearranged it to put that
article in it because I was preaching from this today. It's by John
Newton. And he says essentially when Christ gives us that verse
that the kingdom of God is made up of little children, it's not
just saying not only do we, must we become little children, and
we must, but he's saying that predominantly the kingdom of
heaven will be made up of little children. Those who died as infants
or those who were born without a mind to be able to believe
or do anything for themselves. You see, We were talking the
other night, Kevin and I were, and you see all these abortions
going on in the world. You can be sure of this. Maybe
sin is causing the murder of an unborn child, but God's populating
heaven with it. And not one of them is going
to be lost. You see, that's hard for us to understand because
we're carnal, ignorant creatures. And if we can't get our minds
around it, then we have trouble believing it. The audiologist
told me that the first bones to develop in a body are the
bones of the ear. There's three bones in the ear.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Those are
the first bones to develop in an infant in the womb. And they
develop at six months old. They develop. The child can hear
at six months old. You know how old John the Baptist
was when Mary ran in and told that she was carrying the Lord
Jesus Christ in her womb? He was six months old. You know
what he did? When he heard that gospel, he leaped in her womb.
Don't underestimate what God can do. God is able. God is able
just because you don't understand it. Some of the sinners though
live a long life on this earth. Some of his elect live a long
life on this earth. And then Christ regenerates them
and makes them a new creature right before they die. Did they fulfill their days?
Absolutely they did. That thief on the cross, God
gave him faith to believe, gave him life and faith just a little
short time before he died and went to glory. But he had all
fullness. He was an infant in grace, wasn't
he? He was an infant of days in grace.
He died at childbirth in grace. Was he saved? Absolutely. Absolutely. God is able. God is able. When it comes to the works God
will have His child to do on this earth, include those in
this too, you're going to do everything God ordained for you
to do. You're going to do every good work God ordained for us
to do. We're going to fulfill our purpose and perform every
ordained work because if God ordained it, God's going to bring
it to pass. Ephesians 2.10 says, we are His workmanship created
in Christ Jesus on two good works which God has before ordained.
What's the first good work you're going to do? When God creates
you anew, what's the first good work you're going to do? You're
going to repent and believe on Christ. Because God ordained
it and He gives you the gift to do it. You're going to do
it. You're going to love your brethren. You're going to want
to give yourself for your brethren to help them, support the ministry
and what have you, you're going to give yourself for the furthest
of the gospel. These are all good works that He ordained and
we're going to walk in them because He's going to create us anew. We're going to endeavor to keep
the unity of the Spirit. Why? Because that's a work He
ordained to be done. And we're going to do it. These
are all works of God and all our fullnesses of Christ. But
now that sinner, who lives a long life, maybe he accomplishes great
things in this world, maybe this world thinks great of him and
he dies without Christ. The sinner, being a hundred years
old, shall be accursed. He'll be accursed. That shows
you, brethren, that this fulfilling of our days is not by our works
and it's not by the length of time we live on this earth. Here's
a man who lived a long time on the earth, and yet he died without
Christ, and so his entire life was worthless. It was worthless. In fact, he's going to receive
a greater condemnation because he had longer time to reject
Christ. That rich man in hell. He looked
and he couldn't find any satisfaction. He could see Abraham and God's
saints and he could communicate, but he couldn't have any satisfaction. His eternity that he faced was
one of being an unfulfilled eternity. And when he looked back on his
life, all he could see was an unfulfilled life. That word accursed
means trivial. light, vow of no account. That's what a man's life is who
goes through this world and dies without Christ. It's nothing. And he'll spend eternity. That's
what hell will be. Separated from God's glory. Beholding
you're nothing and your life was nothing. And it'll never
be anything. Today's the day of grace. I'm
telling you. Would to God I could get your
attention and get you to heed this word. This is the day of
grace. We don't know how long it's going
to last. But today is the day to flee to Christ. Lay hold of
Him while He may be found. Cast your care on Him and rest
in Him. Alright, now secondly, being made new by Christ, in
Christ and from Christ, we have all our spiritual blessings.
We have all blessings, spiritual and temporal. We have all blessings.
Now this is shown by these earthly illustrations. He said, you'll
build houses and you'll inhabit them. You'll plant vineyards
and you'll eat the fruit of them. You will not build and another
inhabit. You will not plant and another eat. Turn over to Leviticus
26. Leviticus 26. What is this telling us? This is why the Lord said that
others would take their homes and take their crops. He said
they would. He said others would do this.
They would come in and take their homes and their crops. And He
said this is when they would do it, when God would permit
them to do it, and this is why He would permit them to do it.
Leviticus 26, verse 15, at the end there He says, If you shall
despise My statutes, My law, or if your souls shall abhor
My judgments, so that you will not do all My commandments, that
you break My covenant, I also will do this unto you. Look at
the next part there. You shall sow your seed in vain,
for your enemies shall eat it. And then in verse 17, the second
part he says, and you shall be slain before your enemies. You see, this is why God repeatedly
allowed political Israel to be overtaken by the Assyrians and
then the Babylonians and their enemies to come in and just decimate
the city. And then at last, by Rome. Why
did He allow that? They never were able to keep
all God's commandments. And you and I can never keep
all God's commandments. Even now as believers, brethren,
as much as you want to keep all God's commandments in the new
man, sin is still mixed with everything you do. You still
can't keep His commandments. Well, the Lord said I would keep
all His laws. How does that? Because when He
creates you anew, He brings you to cast all your care on Christ,
and in Christ we've obeyed all God's commandments. We've done
everything God commanded. He said in Galatians 2, I want
you to look there, Galatians 2.16, Since we're created anew by Christ
and have all our righteousness in Christ, we have all blessings
in Christ. That's what is represented here
in this text. Look at this, Galatians 2.16, Knowing that a man is not
justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus
Christ. By His doing, by His dying. Even
we have believed in Jesus Christ. that we might be justified by
the faith of Christ, by His doing, and not by the works of the law,
not by our doing. For by the works of the law shall
no flesh be justified. And so our text is telling us
that being in Christ, having all fullness in Christ, now we
have all blessings in Christ because we can never... Forget
this thought, believer, and just rest in this. Because Christ
went to that cross. And He laid down His life on
Calvary, at Calvary's cross, and He totally, thoroughly bore
justice, and satisfied justice, and accomplished eternal redemption,
and made us righteousness. Believer, you can never, ever
break God's law. Look to the garden. You'll see
it. Eve sinned first. What happened? Nothing. Why? She wasn't the head. Adam was.
When Adam sinned, that's when she fell. Well, you and I are
Eve. You and I who believe are Eve.
You can sin and you will sin. We don't want to and we don't
want to. We try not to avoid sin. But
when you do, nothing changes because you're not the head.
Christ is. And because Christ is our righteousness,
that will always be the case. That will always be the case. That makes us want to avoid sin. That makes you want to honor
Him. That's what it does. That's exactly what it does. Now look, these blessings here,
they shall build houses and inhabit them. Christ is our house. He's built the house. He's building
the household of God and He's built our refuge and our strong
tower and we flee into Him and we're safe in Him. He's our house.
That house will never be taken from us. And He's going to bless
us in this earth with anything you need. He said, God said,
if I gave you my son, don't worry about the rest. I mean, that's
foolish. Isn't that ignorant of us to
think God gave you a son and now, oh, is God going to give
me a paycheck at a job? That's nothing compared to giving
His Son. If He gave His Son for us, He's
going to provide that other stuff for you. And then He said, you
should not plant another eight. Christ is our vine. Christ is
the husbandman and He's the vine and we're the branches. And we're
going to eat this fruit constantly from Him because we have all
spiritual blessings in Him. All temporal blessings from Him.
He says, there is the days of a tree. That's the days of my
people. There's a tree by my parents' house, an old oak tree. My great-grandfather planted
that tree. There's some pictures of him,
black and white photos of him, and that tree's just a little
sapling. My great-grandfather died in his 80s. He planted that
tree when he was a young man. He died in his 80s. My grandfather
grew up on that land. He died when he was 79. My mother I won't tell you how old she
is. She wouldn't like that. And here I am, I'm 46 years old.
That tree's still standing there. Tree's still standing there.
They just had a couple of them cut down, but there's one out there
that's still there. Christ is the tree of life. And
when we have eternal life in Christ, that means you're going
to live a long time for eternity. The days of Christ, the tree
of life, that's the days of my people. He's the blessed of the
Lord, and everything that He has is ours in Him. And look at that last part. I
love that last part right here. He says, My elect shall long
enjoy the work of their hands. Now, preacher, you've been telling
me that none of this is by the work of our hands. You've been
telling us that none of this is by our works at all. None
of it's by our works at all. That thief on the cross had his
hands and his feet nailed to a tree. He didn't do a thing.
And yet, God counted to him all the works Christ had done and
said, they're your works. You did them. You did them. He
told that thief on the cross, you established righteousness.
You put away transgression. You loved your neighbor as yourself
and God as yourself. You fulfilled our righteousness. But he had his hands and his
feet nailed to a cross. He did it all because Christ
did it all for him. And God says, now that's your
work. That's what He says of you and me. Now lastly, since all are born again, all
His people who are born again are made new by Christ, our labor
in this gospel will never be in vain. You see, what He is
showing us here is when Christ came, established righteousness,
created us anew, gave us all fullness in Him, gave us all
blessings from Him, Now He's assuring you, brethren, you go
forth and preach this Word, you're not going to do anything in vain.
Not at all. Look at here, verse 23. They
shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble. They'll
not bring forth stillborn children or children that are going to
die. They won't do it. Now, our labor in this world,
we've got one purpose. God's regenerated us, given us
faith in Christ, and He's given us one purpose. And one purpose
is to serve Christ in furthering this gospel. That's our purpose. That's my work on this work.
That's not just my work because I'm a preacher. That's my work
because I'm called by Him and saved by Him. And that's your
work, who's called by Him and saved by Him. That's our work. And He's telling us here, this
labor, it will not be in vain. When the gospel goes forth, some
people don't believe. Some people leave. Some people
walk away. But some do believe. Well, was
it in vain for those people that walked away? No. No. Paul said
we're a sweet saver to God in them that perish and in them
that believe. He's accomplishing his purpose
in those that do not believe the same as in those that do.
That's right. I told a boy the other day, we
talked and I told him the gospel. And we got finished, and I said,
hold on before you leave, I'm going to tell you one thing.
I said, you're walking away from this conversation different than
when you came to it. He said, how's that? I said,
you didn't know the Gospel when you came. I said, you've heard
it now. If you perish without Christ now, you'll suffer greater
condemnation than you would have if you'd have never heard it.
You know what the Lord said? He told the Pharisees, He said,
the harlots and the publicans will go in before you will. You've
heard it and rejected it. But this Word doesn't return
void. And those born again through our Gospel are not born to perish,
they shall be kept. We shall be kept and those that
are born by Christ shall be kept. Verse 23, they are the seed of
Christ, the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them.
We're a chosen seed, we're a ransom seed, we're a chosen generation.
That means a kindred, that means a race. I heard a man one time
say, you can't say God's people are a race. God does. He said
you're a chosen generation. That means a chosen kindred.
That's a chosen race. You're God's race. We're not
Caucasians or black or Hispanic or Indian or anything else. We're
God's race. We're of a whole new generation. Neither Jew or Gentile in Christ. We're one in Christ. We're His
holy generation. And all those He's redeemed are
going to be regenerated by the Spirit of Christ and none are
going to perish. None are going to perish. When
He says their offspring with them, He's not teaching household
salvation. He's not teaching a covenant
promise to our physical offspring. I wish I could get this across
to the young people. I'm glad you're in a house where
your mom and dad knows the Lord and they teach you these things,
but that's not going to guarantee you anything. God's got to save
you just like He saved them. He's got to give you a heart,
faith, righteousness just like He gave them. What He's saying
here is though, is everybody who He saves through this gospel,
that's our offspring. That's our children. That's our
real children. They'll always be our children.
When these children we have are not our children, they'll be
our children. And they'll never perish. They'll
never perish. A seed shall serve Him and shall
be counted to the Lord for a generation. Now, when we get to fretting,
look over at 2 Corinthians 15. When we get to fretting and we
get all full of doubt and unbelief, and we think, well, I don't know
if my life's... look over my life, I don't know
if I've been useful to the Lord, I don't know if I've really fulfilled
anything whatsoever, look to Christ. Just look to Christ. And if all your fullness is in
Christ, you can be sure you have fulfilled your days. And God
will not, if you're still on this earth, God's got something,
He's using you for something, and you won't stop until He's
fulfilled your days. We get to fret sometimes about
our blessing, what we have, and think, oh boy, I wish I had more. If I had more, I could serve
the Lord more. If we don't serve the Lord with
what we got right now, we won't serve Him more if we had more.
I guarantee you that. He said, don't offer me what
you don't have, just offer to me what you got. But you look to Christ and you
find, I got all blessings. I got everything I need. Everything
I need. And we get to fret sometimes
about this gospel. You get to think, I just don't
know if it's... See people walking away, falling on deaf ears. I don't know if the Lord is fulfilling
His purpose. Look here. In all these things, verse 57,
2 Corinthians 15, 57. Thanks be to God which giveth
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. In all these things,
we have victory. Therefore, my beloved brethren,
be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the
Lord. Don't do it scantily. Don't do
it in just a small measure. Abound in the work of the Lord.
Oh, well, you're getting fanatical. Well, get fanatical. That's what
he's saying. Be fanatics about spreading the
gospel. Always abounding in the work
of the Lord, for as much as you know, your labor is not in vain
in the Lord. Ever. Alright brethren, let's
stand together. Our Lord, thank you for such
good news, such good comfort, such good encouragement, such
strength to our feeble hearts. Lord, make us just look to Christ
and follow Him like little newborn babies. Trust Him, feed upon
Him, get all strength and provision from Him. Cause us to just truly,
truly worship and serve Him. Lord, forgive us. We are so sinful
and just so forgetful and so doubting and so... How could
we doubt a God so good? Lord, please forgive us in Christ
for his sake. We ask it in his name. Amen.