Let's turn to Isaiah 65. We'll
just read three verses, verses 17 through 19. Isaiah 65, 17
through 19. God says, Behold, I create a
new heavens and a new earth. And the former shall not be remembered,
nor come into mind. But be ye glad, and rejoice forever
in that which I create. 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. Now try
to imagine a world where everything is new. Imagine having all new joy. Imagine
having no sin, no curse, no weeping, no crying. Imagine a world with
no disappointments, no vain labor. Imagine a world where God delights
in you. Well, that's the description
God gives of the new heavens and the new earth. It's the new
heavens and the new earth that He creates. Now, when you hear
me say a new heavens and a new earth, do you think about some
far off distant time where God will create this new heavens
and this new earth? Well, indeed this text does speak
of the end. Whenever Christ shall return
and take all His people to glory, and there will be a new heaven
and a new earth, wherein dwells nothing but righteousness. But this text can't describe
one time. It just can't. You'll see it
as we study out the rest of the chapter next time. And you'll
see it this time as well. It just can't speak of one specific
time. And this new heavens and new
earth, the fact is, is it began, truthfully it began when God
gave all into Christ's hand from eternity. But as far as we can see and
tell, it began when He came to this earth and redeemed His people. That's when this new heavens
and new earth began. And for us particularly, it begins
when He calls us into this new heavens and this new earth. This
exists right now for every regenerated child of God. It exists right
now. And as we wait for Him to come
for that consummation, it's just getting better and better. We
can look forward to it just being so good we can't even imagine
how good. That's the hope we have. But
I want you to see today, God our Savior is the creator of
the new heavens and the new earth, wherein everything is the righteousness
of Christ. Now first we see plainly that
God our Savior is the creator of this new heavens and new earth.
He says there in verse 17, Behold, I create a new heavens and a
new earth, and the former shall not be remembered nor come into
mind. Now three times in this text
he says, I create, I create, I create. He said in Revelation
21 5, Behold, I make all things new. I do, God said. It was God's purpose from eternity
to make all things new. Did you know that? It was not
God's purpose from eternity that we would dwell on this heavens
and this earth forever. It was God's purpose from eternity
that He would create a new heavens and a new earth. Because God
determined from eternity He's going to give His Son all preeminence
and all fullness would dwell in His Son. And the way God chose
to give Christ all glory and for all preeminence to dwell
in Him, He gave Him the reigns from the beginning to create
all things. To create all things. And so
Christ came forth, God the Father came forth in Christ the Son,
and He created the first heavens and the first air. Look over
Colossians chapter 1 and verse 16. I'm sorry, verse 15. It speaks here of Christ who
is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. What does it mean by firstborn
of every creature? For by Him were all things created
that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible.
Whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers,
all things were created by Him and for Him. And He's before
all things, and by Him all things consist. And He's the head of
the church, the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn
from the dead, that in all things He might have the preeminence.
For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell."
God gave this work to His Son from the beginning. And so God
our Savior, after He created the first heavens and the first
earth, He created the first man. He created that first man as
a figure of Him, as a figure of Christ. How so? They both were representatives,
heads and representatives, of their respective offspring. Adam is the head of all mankind,
because all mankind will be born of Him. And Christ is the head
of all His people, because all His people will be born of Him.
So He made Adam. And according to His purpose
now, not by accident, according to His purpose, He allowed Adam
to have his will. To do what his will was to do.
and in a perfect environment with no sin, Adam sinned against
God. And when he sinned against God,
what Adam did went to all his children. And so sin entered
and death passed upon all Adam's children because in Adam we all
sinned and we all died. And his seed was passed on to
us and we're born of his corrupt nature. That wasn't by accident.
It wasn't by accident. Either God was in charge or the
devil was in charge. And God was in charge. He was
ruling everything. And that's what He means when
He says in the Scripture, has evil happened in a city and have
I not done it? It doesn't mean God's doing the
evil, but God's ruling it so that it's serving His purpose
to bring glory to Christ. And so when sin entered, we polluted,
we corrupted the heavens and the earth. You say, we corrupted
the heavens? I thought the curse came on the
earth. It did, but we've corrupted the heavens too. Isn't that amazing?
We've put so much junk in the heavens and if we touch it, it's
polluted. It's corrupt if a sinner touches
it. And we've corrupted heaven and earth. I mean the space and
the earth. We've corrupted it by our sin
whenever we touch. Well, then later God created
a world He called Israel. A nation. He called them Israel.
Put some stars in that nation, some priests. Created some all
things in that world that was created by Him. Just like He
created the first heaven and earth. Why did He do that? Why did He create Israel? We
say a picture is worth a thousand words. And in Israel, God drew
us a picture. He drew us a picture. And that
picture was showing how that Christ would come forth and create
a new heavens and a new earth. But you know what we did because
we're sinners? You know what we did? We did
what everybody does today who's not born of God. Men today who
are not born of God will take this Word and the things that
are in it and all the oracles of God and they'll say, now we'll
take the law and we'll take the ceremonies and we'll take all
these things we can do and reject Christ, who had all was given
to glorify and all given to typify and to drive us to. And that's
what they did. They took the law and the ceremonies
and they forsook God. That's what the context in Isaiah
65, he's been telling, reprobate Israel. They won't inherit the
new heavens and new earth because they went and worshipped their
idols. Even when they were in the temple, they were worshipping
their idols. Worshipping their idols. But here's the fact of
the matter, brethren. God never intended. It was never
His purpose for this heaven and this earth to continue. And it
was never His purpose for Israel to continue. That wasn't His
purpose. We need to be sure we state that because, you know,
there are people out there that think that God created Israel
and that's how He wanted it to be and when they rebelled against
Him, then He had to go to a different plan. He had to go to plan B
because He failed in the first plan. That's not so. Everything
that came to pass, came to pass exactly like God ordained. Exactly. He never intended for Israel,
political Israel, to last. But he says here now in our text,
the former shall not be remembered, nor come to mind. He said there
in verse 16, the former troubles are forgotten. There he is for
my eyes. You see, this new creation began for God's elect in Christ
and by Christ whenever Christ came the first time and redeemed
us from iniquity. That's when it started for us.
Look at 2 Corinthians 5.17. I'll show you this, where it
means this. 2 Corinthians 5.17. We often
refer to this to mean regeneration. And it does have to do with regeneration,
but the Scripture here is talking about our standing with God.
And our standing with God was accomplished by Christ. Now look
here at 2 Corinthians 5.17. It says there, if any man be in
Christ, in Christ when he went to the cross, in Christ when
he fulfilled the law and laid down his life, if any man be
in Christ, he is a new creature. All things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new, and all things are of God. who hath
reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ." He reconciled his people. He made all things new. That's
why God can say, I don't remember the former troubles, your former
troubles. They're gone. They're hid from
my eyes. Our curse, our sin, and our death are not remembered
by God. Do you hear that? Our sin, our curse, and our death
is not remembered by God anymore. Now believer, you latch on to
that and quit looking back at the past and bringing it up again.
God says, I don't remember it. I don't remember it. It's forgotten.
Old things are passed away. Our old sinful, cursed, condemned
standing with God is passed away. We're righteous in Christ, reconciled
in Christ. And then this too, the old things
are passed away. Christ fulfilled all the law
and the ceremonies and the prophets. All those carnal ordinances of
legal worship, they're gone, they're passed away. The sacrifices,
gone. The Sabbath days, gone. The holy days, gone. The yearly
feasts, passed away. Altars, passed away. That entire
carnal priesthood is ended. It's all passed away. Because
every bit of that typified the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me show
you that. Turn to Colossians 2. Colossians
chapter 2. Look at this. Verse 16. Let no man judge you
in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new
moon, or of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things
to come, but the body is of Christ. You see that? They're just a
shadow. That's all they were. They were to picture Christ.
And now Christ has ushered in an entirely new way to worship.
Not in those old legal ceremonies and ordinances. He's issued in
a new way to worship now. He said, now's the time when
those that worship God are going to worship God in spirit and
in truth. For the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a
spirit, He said, and those that worship Him must worship Him
in spirit and in truth. We've seen this a couple of times
lately. We're the circumcision given a new heart who worship God in the spirit and
rejoice in Christ Jesus. We don't have any confidence
in the flesh. We'll worship God in the Spirit. Now look over
at Hebrews 10, 15. Here's the new way in which we
worship. Hebrews 10, 15. You know that
the old way was the sinner had to go to the priest, earthly
priest, and the priest had to bring a lamb, kill that lamb,
and that priest had to take his blood into an earthly tabernacle,
into an earthly holy place, and he sprinkled that blood on an
earthly ark, An earthly bursary seat? No more. That's all gone. Christ is the Lamb. And Christ
is the Priest. And He's entered in. Look here,
verse 15. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is
a witness to us. For after that He had said before,
this is the covenant that I'll make with them after those days,
saith the Lord. I'll put my laws into their hearts
and in their minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities
will I remember no more. Now where remission of these
is, there is no more offering for sin. Having therefore, brethren,
boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus by a new
and living way. See, this is an old thing. The
old way is gone. This is a new and living way
which He hath consecrated for us through the veil. That is
to say, through His flesh. And having a high priest over
the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full
assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil
conscience and our bodies washed in pure water. That means let
us draw near in spirit and worship God in spirit, in Christ, through
faith in Christ. You see, that's the new way.
The only ordinances we have now are baptism, believers' baptism
and the Lord's table. And soon, just like Israel faded
away, vanished, soon this earth's going to pass away. That's what
we see. Look at 2 Peter 3. One of the things, everything
he showed us in Israel was a picture of what God's doing in this earth
in Christ. It shows a picture of Him saving
His spiritual Israel. And when it ended, it showed
us a picture of what's going to happen to this world. In 70
A.D., He sent in there troops from Rome and destroyed Jerusalem. Well, in the end, God's going
to destroy this heavens and this earth. Look here in 2 Peter 3.10,
The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which
the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements
shall melt with a fervent heat. The earth also and the works
that are therein shall be burned up. seeing then that all these
things shall be dissolved. What manner of persons ought
you to be in all holy conversation in godliness, looking for and
hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens
being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with
fervent heat? Nevertheless, we, according to
His promise, look for a new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth
righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that
you look for such things, be diligent that you may be found
of him in peace, without spot and blemish, and just to count
this, you reckon this to be the truth, the longsuffering of our
Lord, salvation. He is going to save every one
of His people, every one of them. But you see there, this will
be a new heavens and a new earth, and this one is going to pass
away. I was not going to mention this,
but I will. Back a long, long, long time
ago, when God began to give some men some light, and they began
to come out of papacy, out of the Roman Catholic Church, and
they began to talk about the Pope being Antichrist, there
was some Jesuit priests who were trying to saved the Pope from
that. And they came up with an inventive
doctrine called Preterism. And they said that Christ returned
in 70 A.D. And they did it to, if they could
show that he returned in 70 A.D., then they could say that the
Antichrist was somebody beside the Pope. Because the Pope came
later. But that doctrine was just created
to protect falsehood. Well, Christ indeed was ruling
over everything when the Romans came. And He indeed was present,
just like He was present in the destruction of Babylon and the
destruction of Israel. You know, throughout, every time
they were carried captive, He was ruling everything. But we
see a picture in that of this world, and this world's going
to end. We don't dare say we're living now in the second advent
where Christ has come already. He's coming again in the end. And this is going to happen to
this heaven and this earth. But now rest in what He said. I've
created everything new now. And believer, that's where He's
brought us. We're in Christ. And if any man be in Christ,
he's a new creature. You've got a new standing with
God. New delights in the new man. Everything's new. Now let's go to the second point
here. For us who are translated into this new heaven and new
earth, God our Savior has given us new joy. We got new rejoicing. Look here in verse 18. But be
ye glad and rejoice forever in that which I create. That shows
us a little bit of our sin right there, doesn't it? He said, I'm
going to create a new heaven and a new earth and the former
is not going to be remembered anymore. And he begins the next
sentence with a but. But, you be glad and rejoice
in that. He goes, we're so prone to look
at this earth and this life and these things and think this is
our joy. He says, no, you be glad and rejoice forever in that
which I create. For behold, I create Jerusalem
a rejoicing, and I create 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. The first
colonel Jerusalem is forgotten. That first carnal Jerusalem is
forgotten. Not forgotten by some men. Some
men are looking for us all to go to that Jerusalem one day.
I'm looking for us all to go to heavenly Jerusalem one day.
Be with our Lord. And that's the mountain He said
you've come to. In Galatians 4.25 He said, Jerusalem
which now is, Jerusalem below is in bondage with her children.
But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother
of us all. That's where Christ is with all
the saints He's already brought home. That's where we're headed. Where we're headed. Revelation
21.1. Let's go there. Where are we going to see this
new Jerusalem come from? Revelation 21.1. We're going
to see it rise up out of the Middle East. Listen to what the
description is. Revelation 21.1. I saw a new
heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the
first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. And
I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God
out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." You
know who New Jerusalem is? New Jerusalem is all God's elect
that have been called and robed with Christ's righteousness so
that we're complete in Him, every single one of us. And when that's
done, that new heavens and new earth, that new Jerusalem will
be complete, come down out of heaven, adorned as a bride for
a husband. Now hold your place right there
in Revelation 21. I want you to show you something
though. Back in our text. Right now in Christ, we've got
everlasting joy. We're looking for that joy to
come, but we've got everlasting joy right now. He said, Behold,
I create Jerusalem a rejoicing and her people a joy. You know
right now, believer, we glory. Right now we glory. We owe we
glory. We glory and we praise and we
rejoice right now. The difference between true religion
and false religion is we don't glory in us. We don't glory in
our flesh. We glory in God. That's our rejoicing. That's our praise. Look at Isaiah
12 and verse 4. Isaiah 12 and verse 4. He says, He says, in that day shall you
say praise the Lord, call upon His name, declare His doings
among the people, make mention that His name is exalted. That's what you're going to do
in the day God calls you into Christ, into this new heavens
and this new earth. We're going to praise God. In
Isaiah 42, look at verse 12. Isaiah 42 and verse 12. Let them give glory unto the
Lord and declare His praise in the islands. See, we glory and
rejoice in Christ. That's who we glory in. We glory
in His wonderful works and what He's done. We glory in God our
Father and what He's done for us in Christ. We glory in God's
electing love in Christ. Not just His electing love, His
electing love in Christ. We joy in His blood atonement
in Christ. We joy in God's regenerating
sanctifying grace in Christ. We rejoice in His free forgiveness
in Christ. We rejoice in free justification
in Christ. We rejoice in His preserving
grace in Christ. We rejoice in His glorifying
grace in Christ. He is going to resurrect us one
day and glorify us. A to Z, we are rejoicing in God's
work. because He saved us. And here's
the most amazing thing about our joy. God says, I will rejoice
in Jerusalem and joy in my people. Even more amazing than the fact
that we rejoice in the Lord, that's amazing because He had
to create us a new... give us a new heart to bring
us to do that. But even more amazing than that,
He says in our text, I will rejoice in Jerusalem. and joy in my people."
See, Jerusalem and my people are the same thing. I'm going
to joy in my people, God said. How can God joy in us? How can
God rejoice in us? Because when we're created entirely
new by what Christ did for us at Calvary and by what Christ
has done in us by His Spirit, brethren, the King's daughter
is altogether lovely within and without. We're robed in the king's
garments within and without. And so in Christ, God says, I
see nothing but joy and rejoicing in my people. There is therefore
now no condemnation. No condemnation to them which
are in Christ Jesus. That's where He sees us and rejoices,
is in Christ Jesus. Zephaniah 3 said, Sing, O daughter
of Zion. Shout, O Israel. Be glad and
rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord's taken
away your judgments. He's cast out your enemy. King
of Israel, even the Lord is in the midst of thee. Thou shalt
not see evil any more. In that day shall be said to
Jerusalem, Fear thou not, and design, let not your hands be
slack. The Lord thy God in the midst
of thee is mighty. He will save you, and He will
rejoice over you with joy. He'll rest in His love, and He'll
joy over thee with singing. Can you just try to picture that,
brethren? When you look and you see your
sin and you're down and you're on that lowest limb where you
need to be so that you're not glorying in your flesh, then
you get along with God and think on this thought right here. In
Christ, by Christ, apart from me and my works, in Christ Jesus
right now, I'm righteous and God's rejoicing over me. God's
rejoicing over me. And that's how it's going to
be. It's not going to change. He's rejoicing over His people
in Christ. And Christ is in our midst right
now in spirit. He's in our midst right now in
spirit, just like He said He would be. But in that eternal
day, we're going to walk with Him face to face. Can you imagine
that? walking with Christ side by side,
face to face. Look at Revelation 21 again,
verse 3. I heard a great voice out of
heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men. The tabernacle
of God is with men. His dwelling place is with men. And He will dwell with them.
And they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with
them, and be their God. Now hold there, hold there for
me. Right now, we're in these bodies of death, and our joy
is mixed with sorrow, because we're sinners. All our joy we
have in Christ is mixed with the sorrow that our flesh is,
and the sin that happens in this world to us, and to our friends,
and our loved ones, and what have you. But he says here, the
voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice
of crying. Now in our inner man, we got
nothing to be sad about. Nothing but rejoicing. But one
day brethren, we won't have anything but rejoicing. There won't be
any tears. Now look at verse, back to Revelation
21, look at verse 4. God shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes. And there shall be no more death,
neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain,
for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the
throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said to me,
You write, for these words are true and faithful. What's the
joy of heaven? What's the joy of heaven? Look
at Matthew 25. I'm going to end with this. What's
the joy of heaven? Listen carefully. This world
is so full of noise. Everybody is talking. Nobody
is listening. But I'll tell you what the joy of heaven is. Everybody
thinks they got joy in this life. Joy in this life. I'll show you
what the joy of heaven is right here. One day, Christ is going
to speak. And He's going to call the last
of His blood-bought children. And when He returns and brings
us into this new heavens and new earth, we're going to all
be together with Him there. And this is what, in that day
after He's said, we're righteous and holy and He's cast out the
rebels. He's going to say this to His
child right here. Matthew 25, 21. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. That's joy. The joy of your Lord. The psalmist
said, in thy presence is fullness of joy, at thy right hand there's
pleasures forevermore. Now that's so right now. Christ
is our joy right now. Can you say this believer, is
there any joy you have that lasts in this earth or in this flesh? You know, when you're younger,
you think it's going to last forever. But one by one, you
see those joys fade, fade, fade. And that's what they all do.
They all fade. But Christ, the joy we have in
Christ, never fades. It never diminishes. And it's
getting better and better and better. One day we're going to
see Him face to face. And we're going to enter. the
joy of our Lord. I pray for you that don't know
Him. I pray for you on a daily basis. I try to. I try to ask
God to have mercy on you and save you and call you and give
you this hope because I'm telling you, you're hanging on to this
life right here. Have you ever seen ants floating in the water? I used to, we'd be fishing and
certain times of the year we had these fire ants where I grew
up. Certain times of the year, I
don't know what they were doing really, but they would all ball
up and you'd see them floating in the water. You know, just
floating in the water. That's what, that's what we are. It's where everybody would just
be all crawling on top of one another, trying to stay on top
so they'd be above the water. And the ones on the bottom just
drowned. And they're just floating on them. And that's mankind. We're just crawling over one
another, floating on a bubble. And it's going to bust real soon.
And I pray for you that God will bless you. We have eternal life,
brethren. It's not something we're waiting
on. We got it. All we're waiting on is to put off this death.
And we're going to be with Him forever. Just like we saw in
the first hour, He's going to bring all this affection to nothing. Until that day we come to death
and we're going to see that nothing we had our affection on was worth
anything. And in the end, He's going to
bring us all right where we were in the beginning, with Christ,
the joy of our Lord. Amen. Alright, Brother Eric.