Isaiah 65:17-66:24 - The New Earth

Introduction

Let’s open our Bibles this morning to the last chapter of the book of Isaiah, chapter 66.

This is the 100th message in the series we began together more than 2 years ago.

Since we read the chapter in our Old Testament reading this morning, I will read the prelude to this final chapter: Isaiah 65 verses 17-25.

[READ ISAIAH 65:17-25]

This morning, by the light of these chapters and the rest of Scripture, I would like for us to consider the prophecy of Isaiah that is not yet fulfilled.

It is no accident, I think, that the 66th chapter of this prophecy and the 66th book of Scripture, the Revelation, both culminate with the future glory of God’s people, the church.

It is, after all, the POINT of our salvation.

We are not saved to make us better citizens.

We aren’t even saved to make us better humans, although that is a happy side effect.

We are saved to make us for eternal fellowship with God.

To be the bride that our Lord came to this world to rescue.

To be the bride that God has joined to His Son so that no man may put asunder.

In speaking of our resurrection to glory, Paul tells the Corinthians:

1 Corinthians 15:19 “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

All this in the context of that remarkable chapter 15 that points our faces to our great hope: the Resurrection on the Last Day.

The day of Christ’s glory where the dead in Christ will rise to eternal, embodied life.

The day when the corruptible will be made incorruptible.

When the perishable will be made imperishable.

When the mortal will put on immortality - to the glory of our great, gracious, and loving God.

Dear believer - read this chapter, 1 Corinthians 15, often.

Read it daily this week.

What Isaiah tells us poetically and Revelation tells us apocalyptically, the Apostle Paul tells us plainly,

To comfort us in our sojourn here on earth.

To encourage us to faithfulness in our lives here.

This morning, I would like to take the themes of our text in Isaiah, though, to explore what we know through God’s revelation of our eternal state.

But first a couple of foundational ideas:

1. The Scripture divides all the time from Creation until that Last Day into two periods:

The Former Days and the Last Days.

The dividing line? The Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

It is on that day, the entire age changed.

There is another age mentioned, though - the Eternal Day.

And that is the time Isaiah is talking about here.

I call it the “Day” instead of “days” because of the description in Revelation 21:23 “And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.”

This city will not be a mix of darkness and light like our current world, but everlasting light and life.

2. What eternity will be like is not detailed for us in Scripture.

I heard one theologian [Dr. Richard Barcellos] say recently that our understanding of our eternal state is similar to the Jews’ understanding of the Messiah in the days before Jesus.

And I think that’s a good analogy.

We have promises, but how that works our for us practically is not provided by the Scriptures.

I am certain that even if God told us exactly what eternal life would be life, we wouldn’t be able to comprehend the glory from our current state.

Like one born blind understanding the sight of a sunrise or a rainbow.

Or like an infant confronted by a calculus problem.

Promises of Eternity

But this passage, and others through Scripture, do give us glimpses, promises, that we can understand.

In words of concepts we can grasp.

So this morning I would like to quickly survey some of the promises contained in these 31 verses to help us crave the eternity for which we were made and called in Christ.

And in doing so, to warn those who live in rebellion to God to repent and believe the good news of Jesus Christ.

1. There will be a new earth.

Isaiah 65:17 ““For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.”

From the very beginning, from Genesis 1:1, this world has had an expiration date, determined by God’s sovereign will before anything was made.

Even the promise God made to us through Noah after the great Flood includes this idea:

Genesis 8:22 “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.””

Not “forevermore”, but merely the promise that so long as THIS earth remains, He ordains the orderly passage of time without destroying the world again.

But Isaiah says “a new earth”.

This is the new earth Peter talks about in 2 Peter 3:10–13 “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. 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.”

Revelation envisions it: Revelation 21:1 “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.”

You might ask how John knew it was “new”;

I am certain he noticed it was no longer broken, no longer warped.

As different as if you saw and smelled and touched and tasted a real banana for the first time, when you had only ever seen paintings of bananas before.

2. There will be no death for those in Christ in the new earth.

Not just death, but there won’t be any tragedy:

Isaiah 65:19–20 “I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.”

Now for verse 20, we have to be careful to understand what is being said and what is not being said:

The examples chosen here - no infants dying, young men 100 years old - are poetic examples.

We cannot, I think, by this verse prove that babies are even BORN there.

In Mark 12:25 , our Lord tells us plainly: “For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”

The point of this is not to imply there is death for the godly there, but exactly the opposite - there isn’t tragedy or dying there.

3. God will be there in much the same way as in the Garden.

Isaiah 65:24 “Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear.”

This is the final, ultimate fulfillment of that prophecy of Immanuel earlier in Isaiah.

We live now in the Last Days where God is with us in His Holy Spirit.

But the Scriptures tell us He is a promise, a down-payment: Ephesians 1:13–14 “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.”

So if we have been given this guarantee, this earnest, of the Spirit - the fulness of God’s presence with His people is coming.

Revelation 21:3 “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.”

No longer will sin come between us, separating us from enjoying Him fully.

In that Day, we will gain all the remaining promises of God to His people.

4. That is because, as we see in chapter 66, verses 7-9, the curse of God upon the world will be gone:

Isaiah 66:7““Before she was in labor she gave birth; before her pain came upon her she delivered a son. Who has heard such a thing? “

You can probably see there are many meanings in this section.

But recall that one of the curses on Eve was the great pain of childbirth;

Here we see even that curse removed - with the birth happening so quickly that the pain did not happen.

Again, this is a poetic description, so it’s not talking about marriages or babies in the eternal state.

5. There will be eternal joy and peace.

This is sprinkled all throughout this passage, but we see a picture of it in Isaiah 66:12–13 “For thus says the Lord: “Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream; and you shall nurse, you shall be carried upon her hip, and bounced upon her knees. As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”

How could there be anything BUT joy and peace when we stand at last in the presence of our God and hear His pardon pronounced for our sin all because of His grace through Jesus Christ?

I know that many people have this quiet fear they are almost too ashamed to ask: “Will I be bored in heaven?”

After all, many of the things that occupy our time here on earth aren’t necessarily worship or service to God.

So if I find worshiping at church boring here, won’t heaven be REALLY boring if that is what happens there?

We aren’t told of occupations in eternity, so that is something we will just have to find out when we get there.

But I would offer these answers:

1. Weekly worship here is CERTAINLY a picture, even a foretaste, of the fulness of eternity.

We WILL be worshiping God;

We WILL have direct fellowship with Him.

We WILL glorify Him and not seek our own glory among the church.

We SHOULD practice often adoration and praise of God, tuning our hearts to enjoy Him forever.

2. I don’t think heaven will be boring because for the first time in your life, you will be completely doing what you were created to do.

Worship here can be boring for many reasons:

We are thinking about other things besides God.

We are distracted by things not of God.

We fight to keep a sin hidden rather than confessing and removing it.

Or the preacher can just drone on and on - although it can also seem that way when you would rather be somewhere else.

But when we come into eternity, when we are raised on the Last Day, our good God will finally put us into the very place He created us to be in.

He will allow us to be occupied not with scratching out life by the sweat of our brow, but living in the complete dependence on His presence.

No more thorns slowing us down or jabbing us.

Nothing but what we were created for in the first place.

You may not even REALIZE the glory of that day yet.

But I think every person will find that what God has for us there is PERFECT for us, even if it would seem foreign to us here.

But as you mature in Christ, those things of heaven will become increasingly dear to you in the same proportion as the things of this world begin to pale.

So long as you love this world, or the things in it, your enjoyment of God will be damaged.

6. But a large amount of this final chapter is addressed to those who reject Christ.

Isaiah 66:6 ““The sound of an uproar from the city! A sound from the temple! The sound of the Lord, rendering recompense to his enemies!”

The reality of eternity is that anyone who enters eternity without Christ will stand unprotected before our righteous judge and will receive everything they deserve for their sin and rebellion.

In Isaiah 65:20, the last part of that verse is “and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.”

We know there will be no sinners in heaven, in eternal glory.

So this verse, and the others in this passage, are talking about the other side of eternity - the eternal punishment of unredeemed man.

How different will that state be:

Here, in this life, the wicked are happy to live long lives,

But the torment of those who reject Jesus Christ will make every day of eternity an unbearable, unmitigating existence.

Those who die without Christ will live forever in the fulness of God’s wrath, without any of the common graces we enjoy here on earth.

Laughter, pleasure, love, comfort - those are reserved only for those who are in Christ.

Our Lord quoted this passage Isaiah in talking about what will happen to those who reject Him:

Isaiah 66:24 ““And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.””

I want you to understand that the “dead” bodies here are not like dead bodies we know here in this life.

Dead bodies here cannot feel;

But after the Last Day, the dead bodies will be in torment.

Our Lord describes is in Matthew 25:41 ““Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

This is what the Revelation calls “the Second Death” -an eternal separation from the goodness and mercy of God.

And as much as I can’t adequately describe the glory of the believer’s glorified state,

Words cannot fully express the agony of the unredeemed in their torment.

This is the eternal fire prepared for the devil himself - the unending, unrelenting, ETERNAL torment of those who remained rebels to God.

That’s why it is SO important to you, even if you don’t understand it all, to repent of your sin and rebellion and turn in faith to Jesus Christ to save you.

Follow Him, in spite of anything or anyone who might oppose you.

Trust in Him, don’t lean simply on your own understanding.

We live here, now, in the Last Days - and you are on the edge of entering one of two eternities.

Choose life. Eternal Life.

Even if it means loss here - this life is just a breath, a vapor, that is too soon and too easily ended to ignore the salvation Jesus Christ has come to give.