Where Is All This Going? #2

Welcome to The Truth Pulpit with Don Green, Founding Pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Hello again, I'm Bill Wright. It is our joy to continue our commitment to teaching God's people God's Word. Today Don is continuing with the second part of a message we started last time.

So let's get right to it. Open your Bible as we join Don now in The Truth Pulpit. We want to consider the plan for man, the plan for man, and the way that I am addressing this is kind of in sequence with the presentation in the book of Genesis, and that means it will go back and forth a little bit in Revelation. We saw the plan for creation.

Secondly, I want to speak briefly to the plan for man, the plan for man. Now Scripture opens with the first Adam, raining on earth, and go back to Genesis 1, therefore. After the six days of creation, at the end of the sixth day, God, as you know, makes man in his own image. And so we read in Genesis 1 26, then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created him.

And then as you read on in chapter 2, verse 8, actually go to verse 5, chapter 2. When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground, then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east and there he put the man whom he had formed.

Verse 16, the Lord commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. God created man, planted him in the garden, gave him dominion over the earth and told him to name the animals and to tend to the garden. This is before the colossal fall of man in Genesis chapter 3. You know the story, you know that first Adam fell, we all sinned in him, with him, we fell with him and there was a colossal failure as a result, but man started in the creation of God.

He started with dominion. He started with authority that God had given him in the garden. But when you come to Revelation chapter 21, you find something different. What you find is given to us in Revelation chapter 21 beginning in verse 3. And the Apostle John says, 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. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away. And here we go, he who was seated on the throne said, behold, I am making all things new. Also, he said, write this down for these words are trustworthy and true.

And he said to me, it is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end to the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. What do we see going on here in very general terms? The first Adam, having received authority and failed and sinned against God, having sacrificed dominion, as it were, is replaced by the second Adam, which is the Lord Jesus Christ who is speaking here. And where is he?

He's seated on the throne, the throne being the position of authority. And so whereas Adam had authority on Earth but failed, the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, will have authority from which he reigns and dwells and asserts his authority, reigning in glory in the new heaven and the new earth. You have a central figure in Genesis one and two, given authority, the creation, the plan for man. The first man failed, the first Adam failed, the last Adam succeeds. The last Adam reigns without failure and reigns in glory. So whereas Adam, Adam began in a state of innocence from which he fell, Christ, in his impeccable nature, having accomplished everything the Father gives to him, Christ ends, reigning in glory, keeping in mind, beloved, that in Jesus Christ we have not only the nature of God but the nature of man, perfect man, reigning from the throne in the new heaven and the new earth. And everything that Adam failed and lost in, the perfect Adam, the second Adam, comes, accomplishes, and reigns forever. That's the plan for man, culminated not in our first parent, certainly not represented in any of us, or any king, prince on earth. God's plan for man is that there would be a perfect man. The Lord Jesus Christ, reigning from the throne in the new heaven and the new earth. And what the first Adam lost, the second Adam regained and secures forever. What do we see in that? The plan of creation yielded to the glory of Christ.

That was point number one. What we see here is that the very nature of man himself, man as representative of all of humanity, all of humanity, the very nature of man, the very purpose of man, finds its fulfillment and yields to the glory of Jesus Christ. It's phenomenal.

It's phenomenal. Now thirdly, moving into some of the details, going back to Genesis. Actually, I need to correct myself. We're following what's the sequence in Revelation. We go back and forth in Genesis here.

Let's consider the plan for night. The plan for night in Genesis chapter one. And we'll pick it up in verse two, for example, where we read that the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light, and there was light. And God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And there was evening and there was morning the first day. Now, beloved, it's really a challenge.

It's really remarkable to see the Word of God address the most fundamental aspects of our existence, the things that we presuppose, the things around which we order our lives, and realize that God has a plan for them in a way that transcends our presuppositions and our experience. We're so accustomed to day and night, we refer to it when we talk in logical ways. We'll say it follows as night follows the day, right? You ever heard anyone say that?

You ever said that yourself? It follows as night follows the day. The inevitability of night following day and the purpose of God in this present realm of existence, we say, is so much that there is a logical necessity to the things that I'm saying. It follows like that.

It's inevitable. Well, God's plan for night is that it's temporary. In the eternal state, there will be no night. Look at Revelation chapter 21. Revelation chapter 21. And again, we're going to start in verse 22. Revelation 21, we're going to begin in verse 22, because it just helps us see the centrality of Christ and the centrality of His glory in the things that we are reading and we're seeing.

And John, as he's in the Spirit, God is revealing these things to him to be recorded for the use of the church in the ensuing 2,000 years. John says in 21, 22 of Revelation, I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day, and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. Nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.

You see it, beloved? You see the centrality of the glory of Christ as John describes this. The temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.

The kings will bring their glory into it. Its lamp is the Lamb. How great, how glorious is Christ that he's at the center of this glorious eternal state that is being revealed to us. And incidentally, he says, there won't be any night there. Apparently night doesn't always follow. Night itself is temporary. The glory of Christ is eternal. And what is central to our existence, the division between day and night, will yield, will bow like every knee of every man who has ever lived or ever will live.

Every knee of every man who has ever lived or ever will live will bow to Christ and praise him and acknowledge him to the glory of God the Father. Well then, like man, night itself will yield to the Lamb. Night yields to the glory of Christ. I love this.

I truly do. So we see creation yields, the heaven and earth yield to the glory of Christ. We see the nature of man yielding to and fulfilled and culminated in the glory of Christ. We see night yielding to the glory of Christ. Point number four, the plan for light. The plan for light. And as I said, go back to Genesis 1.

Keeping your finger there makes this all go quickly and easily. In that first week of creation, God made two great lights, the sun and the moon. And we read about it beginning in verse 14 of Genesis 1. God said, let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.

And it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night and the stars. He incidentally says, oh yeah, and God created trillions of stars also.

Like that's incidental. The sun ruling the day, the moon ruling the night. Again, these things that we assume in the natural course of our existence.

We have never known and we will not know until the return of Christ any kind of existence. Mankind will never know an existence where sun and moon don't dominate and become the whole basis of the astronomical calendar by which we order our existence. This is so fundamental to the nature of everything that we know by direct personal experience. God made the sun and the moon. And they regulate our existence and our calendars.

It's remarkable. And yet, beloved, in the time to come. In the eternal state. Those bodies which are fundamental, essential to our existence, without which we would be in complete and utter chaos.

They will no longer be needed. We already read that, but go back to Revelation 21. Beginning in verse 22. I wonder as you're turning there, I wonder how many times we've read this. I wonder how many times I've read these things.

And just casually passed over them without any serious contemplation of exactly what it means. How it displays the power and the sovereignty of God and the execution of his decree. Revelation 21 verse 22.

Let's look at it again. I saw no temple in the city. For its temple is the Lord God, the Almighty and the Lamb. 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. By its light will the nations walk and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.

And its gates will never be shut by day and there will be no night there. We could not exist for five minutes. If the sun and moon collapsed out of existence in the present heaven and earth. That would be so catastrophic our minds can't even begin to speculate on what that might be like. So fundamental and foundational and dependent we are upon it. And yet here is scripture telling us that God has a plan for those heavenly lights. And his plan is they're not going to be needed.

They will be discarded. The greatness of the glory of the sun so powerful that we can't begin to look on it with our unprotected eyes. You can't even drive in the early morning and have that sun hit you without having to take immediate evasive action.

Doing something to protect yourself from it. So great is its might, so great is its light, so great is its power. And here's scripture telling us God is infinitely greater than that. He'll sweep them aside with a brush of his hand and his own intrinsic manifest glory will replace it. In a way that renders these heavenly bodies no longer needed.

Do you see it, beloved? The sun and the moon will yield to the greater glory of Christ. The sun and moon, as it were, will be looked upon and said, You served your purpose. You're not needed now.

Exit stage right. And the children of God will have that which is the only thing that we've known, replaced somehow by a greater glory of the Lamb, the greater glory of Christ. Permanent, unyielding, unchanging, putting an end. To them. It's remarkable. This is another one of those times, those of you that have been around for a while know that I often say things like this. This is yet another one of those times where a simple elementary reading and study of scripture brings you to a point, brings the speaker to a point where his tongue does not have the ability or the vocabulary to express the magnitude and the greatness and the glory of the things that we're contemplating. Creation yields to the glory of Christ. Man yields to the glory of Christ. Night yields to the glory of Christ.

Sun and moon, the light yields to the glory of Christ. Let's talk about another aspect, another unavoidable aspect of our existence here. Point number five, the plan for death.

The plan for death. We spent last year dealing with all manners of presuppositions in building a Christian mind and things that we fundamentally assume and take for granted and having to examine different things. Well, we saw earlier the way we assume day and night, so much so that we speak in terms of logic. Well, it follows as night follows day and we just assume these things and we shrug our shoulders as if we were talking about matters of eternal principle, not recognizing that we're talking about things that are temporary, as fundamental as they are.

Here's another one. Think about God's plan for death. We speak about death in a similar way. People will say, two things that are certain in life, death and taxes.

And you just assume that death is an open-ended reality. Well, let's consider the plan for death. God in Genesis warned Adam and Eve of the consequences for their sin. Look at Genesis chapter 2 verse 16.

The plan for death is what we're considering here in the brief time that we have left. Verse 15, Genesis 2, 15. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. Adam warned in the beginning, don't cross this boundary, don't transgress this commandment because you will die. You will introduce death into the world, physical and spiritual. You will fall out of the communion that you have with me and one day your bones and flesh will cease to operate.

Don't do that. You'll surely die. You know what happened? They took the fruit, they ate, they died, we all die.

So much so that scripture says it's appointed for man to die once and after this comes judgment. Well, look ahead to what Revelation is telling us. Where is all of this going? Where is creation going? Where is man going? Where is night going?

Where are sun and moon going? Where is death going? Well, the eternal state will put an end to it.

The eternal state will put an end to it. Go back to the beginning of chapter 21 of Revelation. Verse 3, I heard a loud voice from the throne. Again, the glory of Christ, the authority of Christ, the fear of God, the worship of God, repentance from sin. 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. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more. Mourning, no crying, no pain, the former things have passed away. God had a plan for death.

It was the necessary right, just consequence for sin. But now that Christ has come, now that Christ has died, Christ has risen again, Christ has ascended. Death itself will yield to the glory of Christ and will be no more. Those of you who have loved ones that I've helped bury or walked through the process of death with you.

And we know the weight of those occasions. And it's inevitable in this life, in this realm, on the present heavens and earth to realize that that inevitable aspect of present existence itself is going to be lifted up and cast away and never be a part of the eternal state. Death will be no more. The former things have passed away. That's God's plan for death.

And he had it in operation from the beginning. Death introduced at the sin of man, death ended by the final Adam who conquered death at the cross. Conquered death in his resurrection and ascension.

And who will put all of these things away in the end. So that not only heaven and earth, not only night, not only sun and moon, but death will yield to the glory of Christ. This ineffable, inexpressible triumph of the Son of Man, Son of God over it all, over the whole realm of our existence, triumphant over it all. Unmistakably, undeniably victorious.

And one final one for this morning. Number six, the plan for Satan. The plan for Satan. Paradise was ruined in Genesis when Satan appeared on the scene. We read about it in chapter three, verse one. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And you know what comes after that, so I won't dwell on it. We see Satan introduced in Genesis chapter three. And we see the destruction that his deception wrought on humanity.

And we live in the wake of that now. And as we read on, we see Satan winning an initial battle with Eve as she succumbs to the temptation that he presented to us and to her. But the Lamb of God will have the final victory over Satan. Satan is not sovereign. Satan is a stooge of God, you could say.

He operates only within the bounds and the limits that God permits him. And when God says it's over for Satan, it will be completely done. So that we read in Revelation chapter 20, verse 10, we read that the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. And in chapter 22, verse 3, we read, no longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads, and night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light and they will reign forever and ever.

I want to bounce up and down in victory. The Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, will have the final victory. Paradise will be restored and made permanent and unloseable. Satan will yield to the glory of Christ in utter, humiliating, eternal, tormented defeat.

He will be put away. So that Satan himself will simply become a tool that gives greater glory to Christ. So where is all this going? Heaven and Earth, man, creation, the luminary bodies in the sky, death, Satan. Where is it all going? Beloved, don't you see it?

Don't you see the plan? The book of Revelation, the entire Bible itself, we're looking at the bookends of the Bible in Genesis 1 and Revelation 22, and everything in between, therefore, glorifies Christ by showing his triumph over creation, over the fall of man, and over all of eternity. Before the beginning of time, at creation, in the providential operation of things, consummation in the eternal state, Christ is supreme over it all.

That's where all this is going. And if you miss that, deny it, dislike it, you're out of harmony with the purpose and plan and revelation of God. Everything in all creation yields to the glory of Christ in the end. And only those who belong to him now will share in that glory.

The rest of you are going to be with Satan in the pit as you read in Revelation 20, 11-15. And so, when we preach the gospel to you, when we declare the Word of God to you, we are doing that which is of transcendent eternal significance, which deserves and demands your utmost attention and faith to what God has said. This is not a game.

This is not light-hearted entertainment. In Scripture, we see the plan of God and where it's all going. All that we as elders, all that I as a pastor, desire for you. We don't ask you for anything here. We don't pass a plate. We don't beg you for money.

We don't. And you know it. All we want, all we want is for you to enter into Christ, to be saved by him, and to be secure so that you are on the right side of where all of this is going. May God work in your heart to that end. In the name of Christ.

Amen. Well, my friends, before we go for today, I just wanted to let you know about a companion resource to this series that we're doing on the book of Revelation. There is a perennial interest in the end times from a biblical perspective, and there's so many different opinions about things that are out there. There's amillennialism and premillennialism and postmillennialism and various views of the rapture, and it's hard to sort all of that out.

I get it. Well, I wrote a brief book that functions both as an introduction to end times and also examines an aspect of end times that you're going to want to get. The book is titled When Christ Shall Come, and it gives you an overview of biblical end times, deals with matters like Israel today and the question about dispensationalism, and also has an expanded study on the topic of preterism, if you're familiar with that term. And so you can go to our website, thetruthpulpit.com, and look for the link to my books. And when you click on that, you'll find a link that would allow you to purchase a copy of When Christ Shall Come. It is a resource that will help you. So go to our website, thetruthpulpit.com, and look for the link titled Books. We'll see you next time. That's Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Thank you so much for listening to The Truth Pulpit. Join us next time for more as we continue teaching God's people God's Word.