All Things New #1

Welcome to the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Hello, I'm Bill Wright. Thanks for joining us as we continue teaching God's people God's Word. Don begins a new message today, so without further delay, let's join him right now in the Truth Pulpit. Well, it's our happy opportunity to return to our study of Revelation here this evening, and I invite you to turn to the first chapter of Revelation just to reread the first three verses.

By way of introduction, not exposition just yet. But just to orient ourselves toward the text in anticipation of what the Lord has for us here this evening. Revelation chapter one, the first three verses. Says the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place.

He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near. Now, as you read there in verse three, we're reminded immediately of things that we've already seen in our early messages here. Blessed is those is the one who reads the words of this prophecy.

Blessed are those who hear. And the challenge for the church today, the challenge for each of us in the room and those listening elsewhere, is that John doesn't stop there with simply reading and hearing. He goes on to say those who keep what is written in it, those who obey what is written in it, those who heed it, you might say, to hear and to heed. And it reminds us of what James says. James gives a warning against people who hear and do not do. He says the one who reads the word and then walks away without change is like one who looks in a mirror and forgets who he is when he walks away from the mirror. You forget the impression of it all.

That's a great, great challenge. You know, I think that it struck a chord with many of you to realize the emphasis that Revelation puts on spiritual qualifications and spiritual goals and spiritual aspirations in the word. I know that many people were expecting to just jump into things related to the rapture and related to the millennium, and that's a very serious, profound mistake to make. As shown by the first three verses that we just read, the promise of blessing is upon those who come with a heart desire and an intention to obey. And if Revelation is simply reduced to a fodder for theological debate and social media posts, we've really missed the point, and God is not going to unveil and communicate the blessings to people like that.

And there's probably a lot that we could be said about that. What we said early on in the second message, really the first full message on the book, is that Revelation has an intention to cultivate personal holiness in us. And the principles that we identified from looking at the book broadly is that there should be a desire for the glory of Christ that is evident. A fear of God in judgment, a worship of God in response to his revelation, and a serious commitment and practice of repentance from sin.

And those four spiritual attributes really frame the personal holiness that marks those who want to keep what is written in this book, who want to embrace it. There's no avoiding the centrality of repentance in Revelation, because it's mentioned to five of the seven churches. Jesus commands five of the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3 to repent of different kinds of immorality and false doctrine and false practice that they are involved in. You know, you can judge for yourself, let me leave it at that, you can judge for yourself whether there is a resounding note of a repentance coming consistently from so-called evangelical pulpits in our day or not.

And the sad absence of that illustrates something really important to us. It's not necessarily so much what a church or a pastor or speaker, teacher says that will expose them as being a false teacher. Even Catholics will have a, you know, a fairly robust doctrine of God and a Christology, but you get into their soteriology, the doctrine of salvation and the doctrine of the church, and you couldn't be more far off than they are. But it's often what people don't say.

It's what people hide or stay silent about, either out of embarrassment or whatever else. When you are listening to someone visiting a new church, perhaps in other parts of the country, listen for themes like the wrath of God. Listen for themes of repentance from sin and calls to repentance, not simply promises of Jesus and let's love Jesus and all of that, but to get serious about what scripture actually says as it in what it communicates to us. The opening of the gospels is repent and believe in the kingdom of God. Repent, repent, repent. John the Baptist, repent. Jesus, repent. In Matthew 4 17, the Sermon on the Mount, repent, repent, repent. And you come to Revelation and it's the same theme being emphasized over and over again. And the fact that men don't say that in order not to turn people away does not commend their ministry. Their silence is deafening on that, and you need to just be aware of those things, broadly speaking and also as we come to the Book of Revelation and see the emphasis that it makes.

Now, that's all by way of review. This past Sunday, we asked the question, where is all this going? And we we saw that there were many different ways to answer that question. But when you come to the Book of Revelation, it's important in my judgment anyway, it's important to have a sense of of the end from the beginning. Where is the Book of Revelation going?

What is its culmination point? Because if you're aware of that, then you can put the other questions that people like to deal with into a proper into a proper context. And so we ask, you know, where is Revelation going? Which you can expand out and say, where is the Bible going with its instruction and its teaching and its doctrine about the future? You could ask the question, where is all of human history going? And expand it to the ultimate and most important question.

Where is the purpose of God going? And Revelation answers all of those questions in an ultimate in an ultimate way. And what we saw last time is that everything that is begun in the first three chapters of Genesis finds its finds its end, finds its goal, finds its culmination in the Book of Revelation. And that's very, very significant.

That's very significant to see. You could do it this way. It would be a very fascinating way to do it and much easier if you had two Bibles open before you. One on your left open to Genesis chapters one, two and three, and then another Bible open to Revelation 21 and 22.

And then you just read them in parallel. You would quickly see how much that is introduced in Genesis one through three finds its culmination in Revelation 21 to 22. As we saw on Sunday, it's in a most in a most profound way when you realize that even such fundamental things that we presuppose like the like the sun and the moon and the existence of night.

Itself will be overturned and completed and done away with in. The eternal state, which is revealed to us in Revelation 21 and 22, what Genesis opens up with in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and then we find in Revelation 21 that there's going to be a new heaven and a new earth. And so everything comprehensively about the realm in which we exist, the only realm that we've ever known by direct physical senses and perception is going to be done away with. And God will introduce something completely new for the redeemed after he has judged the wicked, after he has judged Satan, and he introduces the eternal state for the for the benefit and for the foundation of worship for all of the redeemed throughout all of eternity. The eternal state is going to be something brand new, and that's kind of gives you the title for tonight's message.

We'll see it in one of the verses that we'll see tonight. All things new. And so the title of Sunday's message is Where is all this going? And tonight's message corresponds to that with the answer all things new. Where is all this going?

All things new. And I normally try to avoid doing this, but tonight's message is kind of part two of the first part that we did two days ago on Sunday, because there's 14 total points that I have. We did six on Sunday, and it's just ridiculous to tell people here's point number 14 of a 14 part message that you started, you know, 45 minutes earlier.

No one learns that way. But what I want to do here this evening is just remind you of the six points that we introduced on Sunday and then rapidly go through the final eight points here this evening. And we looked at God's plan for many different things. We saw, first of all, his plan for creation on Sunday.

We saw the plan for man, mankind, you might say. The plan for night. The plan for light, meaning sun and moon. The plan for death and the plan for Satan, and we're not going to take time to look at any of the verses that were around that. Creation, man and night. Light, death and Satan. And so just in those just in those six, you saw something just just just remarkably comprehensive, staggeringly comprehensive, and beloved, I just don't believe that you can really begin to understand the Book of Revelation until you see that purpose in it first.

You need to see that first in order to see where all of this is going and to put everything else into perspective. It's fine for pastors and theologians and lay people to, and I'm going to be unfairly disparaging in what I'm about to say only to make a point. It's fine to play theological badminton with different views of the rapture and different views of the millennium. It's fine to do that, and we're going to talk about those issues eventually in the course of our study of the entire book as we go through it verse by verse. But beloved, don't you see that in that these that these profound issues of the purpose of God in the course of human history and the culmination and the the the renewal and restoration and change of everything that we know in our personal experience that all of that's going to be different in the eternal state? Isn't it obvious that there's something transcendent beyond the things that typically engage discussions about the Book of Revelation? I think it's obvious, and I want to cultivate your spiritual taste buds for these greater issues, these more profound issues, because then you're in a position to put these other things in their rightful place.

And enough said about that. Let's go into the rest of what we need to see here this evening. And what we'll do is we'll finish this up tonight, and then Sunday we have a communion service. We'll step away from Revelation for a service or probably two, and then eventually we'll come back to it on the following Sunday, the first Sunday in March. But this gives us a good kickoff to what we want to see. So having seen those first six points, the plans for those different aspects, let's look at number seven, the plan for defilement.

The plan for defilement. Now we know from the end of Genesis chapter one that everything that God created was very good. Scripture goes through the six days of creation, the various stages of creation, and you just have this unfolding of this masterful wisdom of God in creating the heavens and the earth, filling the heavens, filling the earth, and then bringing man to reign over the earth, and it's all very, very good. And then so quickly it was all lost in the fall of Adam, and everything was defiled and it was ruined. There was an innocence with Adam and Eve at the end of chapter two.

They were naked and they were not ashamed. And there was just this innocence in this perfect paradise that God had placed them in. And you get a sense of what was lost and in their communion with God when you go to Genesis chapter three.

And so you're going to want to keep your hand in Genesis three and then just kind of move back and forth as we go through here this evening. In Genesis chapter three, defilement entered paradise. And you know the story, Satan tempted Eve, she ate of the fruit, she gave it to Adam, he ate, and what happened? We pick it up in verse six. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate in direct disobedience to God.

And she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate. Then verse seven, the colossal consequences begin to occur. Verse seven, then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. There was this immediate sense of shame. Their innocence had been lost. And now they recognized there was a defilement that had entered and what once was pure and pristine and lovely and good was now something dirty and wretched and needing to be hidden.

Such a colossal loss. They were conscious that they were now unclean and they take these very meager means to try to cover it up, all, of course, to no avail. And that defilement entered the Garden of Eden. Well, you could say that the next 1185 chapters of the Bible is the unfolding of the consequences of that defilement entering in, and then you get to the final two chapters in Revelation 21 and 22. And what you find in this new creation, this new heaven and new earth, that there will be no defilement there.

There is no possible way that we can understand how brilliantly glorious this is going to be. So look at chapter 21. Beginning in verse 23, we've looked at this several times in these two messages, and we'll probably look at it a time or two still yet to come.

But watch this. Actually, let me just remind you. Let me just remind you in chapter 21 verse one. John 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.

So you've got this wonderful new environment. As you read on in the last two chapters of the Bible, you find that the filth and the shame and the defilement have been removed. Verse 23 of Revelation 21. 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.

They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. Now look at this in verse 27 in light of everything we said, but 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. Everything that makes this world unclean will be absent in heaven, will be absent in the eternal state. We can't even begin to fathom that because defilement and sin and shame are just are just so wrapped like strands of DNA around every aspect of our of our existence. But somehow there will be no shame in heaven. Everything that has defiled us here on earth will be gone. It will be removed, washed away by the blood of the lamb, and there'll be none of this shame that in Genesis caused them to so loincloths and cover themselves up. The motivating factor for that shame and guilt all gone.

Replaced by. This. Glorified purity that we will enjoy as a result of our saviors redeeming work. The souls of just men made perfect. No more guilt. No more covering up. No more things to hide.

No more fear about what if somebody finds out the truth about me, my past, my day. All of that's gone, nothing defiled to diminish our enjoyment of Christ and being in his presence. And so that which defines our existence and has since the fall of our first parents, that kind of defilement picking up on what we said with the first six points, that very defilement will yield to the glory of Christ.

Christ will be preeminent and all of the other things will be banished and there will be, as Scripture says elsewhere, the former things will be remembered no more. Isn't that wonderful to contemplate? Isn't it wonderful to contemplate? Even as Christians, you know, we think back into our pre-Christian days.

We remember things that we did as Christians in our immaturity. At least I know I do. Maybe I'm the only one in the entire room like that. But I just think back to some of the things I just, oh, that was really me. I really did that. I really said that.

I really inflicted that on someone else. And even as a believer, knowing I'm forgiven of that, there's still that sense of remembering the things that caused us shame. All of that's going to be gone in heaven. There won't be any more of that. And the blasphemies, the cursings, the adulteries that are represented in this room from the past, all of it washed away.

None of it to be called back to mind. Defilement will be banished and we will know nothing but the glory of Christ in response to his saving work. And so that's the plan for defilement. It has an end point. It has an end date. It has a shelf life, and then it will be put away when God establishes the new heaven and the new earth.

Well, let's go to number eight. The plan for communion with God. The plan for communion with God.

In some ways, this all just gets better and better. You know, we've talked about the nature of the physical universe. We've talked about death and and Satan and those things being banished and put away, defilement being put away. It's almost like there's a cleansing that's taking place before we before we get to the to the positive, glorious purpose of it all, starting with the plan for communion with God and going back to Genesis, chapter three, simply reminding you of things that you know well. You know how the communion that Adam enjoyed with God was disrupted. Chapter three, verse eight of Genesis. 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. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you?

And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid my self. Instead of the evident prior communion that they had enjoyed, Adam's now hiding from God. The pristine fellowship that man enjoyed with God had been disrupted and corrupted and lost. And if you go on to Genesis 3, 23 and 24, you see that there is a there was even a geographic component to the separation. In verse 23, we read, Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the Garden of Eden, he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. Man driven out as a result of his guilt, driven out from communion with God, driven out from paradise. And I mean, that's really stark, and the loss is just incalculable, isn't it? And then we come to Revelation 21 and 22, and we find that communion with God is not only restored, it is made permanent.

It is made even better stated. It is made eternal and unalterable so that we read again in Revelation 21, verse three. 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. In Genesis 3, God, as it were, says, Get out.

Get out. And it echoes in the 65 books of the Bible that follow. Here in Revelation 21, God speaks to his people and says, Come in.

We're together and we'll never be apart. He will dwell with them. They will be his people.

God himself will be with them as their God. And so this separation from God that was established, recorded, enforced in Genesis 3 is reversed. And the separation from God will yield to the glory of Christ and full reconciliation, full communion in the immediate presence of God. We have a foretaste of that now in our union with Christ. We have a foretaste in our present life as Christians. But what you need to see, what what you need to to have the spirit of God cultivate in your heart is the sense of anticipation that at best here in this life, we have a very tiny foretaste of what the fullness of that communion is going to be when we're in heaven. And if there is any fellowship with Christ, if there is any love of the spirit, if there is any any kind of any kind of comfort in Christ that we know in this life, beloved, understand that it will be geometrically, exponentially, infinitely, much, much greater in the eternal state that God has prepared for those who love him.

And so the banishment of Genesis 3 is ended in the eternal state, and we are with God in this perfect communion forever. And just recognizing, just remembering that this was the plan of God and the intention of God all along. And you see, you get a little bit of a foretaste. You get a little bit of a sense. You get a sense of anticipation of how good God must be, how gracious, how loving, how kind he must be for his rebel subjects to be on the receiving end of a plan that blesses them with this kind of communion in the end. And it's just so very critical for you if you're going to understand your Bible is to realize that there is an intimate connection between those first three chapters of Genesis and the outcome in Revelation. God planned that end from the beginning. He appointed the end from the beginning.

He didn't figure this out as some kind of plan B along the way. This was the intention all along. And to know that this is the outcome of our sorrows on Earth, that this is the culmination of the love of Christ for our souls is a rich thing to contemplate.

Words fail me. But separation from God will yield to the glory of Christ. So defilement, in a negative sense, will be banished, yielding to the glory of Christ.

In a positive sense, communion with God will be established in an eternal way as the outcome of the end from the beginning. 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.