New Heaven & New Earth
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He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
Caution: Humility is warranted at the edge of the map.
The heavens are the Lord’s heavens, but the earth he has given to the children of man.
Three Places
Heaven
Earth
The Grave
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Death was never supposed to be part of the story.
And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
God intended to be with us
Our guilt separates us from God.
Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear;
but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.
We want God to come back to us.
Look down from heaven and see, from your holy and beautiful habitation. Where are your zeal and your might? The stirring of your inner parts and your compassion are held back from me.
Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence—
as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil— to make your name known to your adversaries, and that the nations might tremble at your presence!
When you did awesome things that we did not look for, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
We want God to come back to us, but could we bear it?
I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me; I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, “Here I am, here I am,” to a nation that was not called by my name.
I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices;
Riddle: What would you call a place where God and man could be together again?
“For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness.
Thus says the Lord: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest?
All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.
Only God could make a place where we could be with Him again.
This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder,
that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles,
knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.
They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”
Christians are told to remember the ancient promises.
For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God,
and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.
But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
God is quite capable of destroying creation and starting again.
But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
When God comes to us - and He will! - all that is poisoned by sin will perish.
Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness,
waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!
But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
The age to come is something new - a place where God and man live together at last.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
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 dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.