All Things New #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. Let's go on to point number nine, the plan for sorrow. The plan for sorrow.

And. Let's go back to Genesis 3. We'll just let scripture kind of speak for itself. Sin introduced pain and sorrow to the human race.

And when God judged. Satan judged the woman, judged man, pain was part of what he introduced, so we read in Genesis Chapter 3, verse 16 to the woman, he said, I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children.

Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you. And to Adam, he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which you have been, of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you in pain, you shall eat of it all the days of your life, thorns and thistles. It shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your face. You shall eat bread till you return to the ground for out of it you were taken for you are dust and to dust you shall return pain, pain, pain, curse. All introduced there as the righteous judgment of God upon the sin of man, and again, the subsequent 1185 chapters of the Bible.

Show the outcome of that. Well, what do we find in? What do we find in Revelation?

What do we find in the eternal state? You find that sorrow and pain will be no more. Sorrow and pain will be no more.

Look at Revelation 21 verses four and five. 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 he who is 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. My my my aching friend in Christ, my aching brother and sister in Christ, those of you that have lived long enough to know something about the cumulative weight of pain and disappointment and sorrow and affliction. Who knows something of things not turning out the way that you hope relationships going south that you had such high hopes for, and just the and just the accumulated pain of all of it. Look to what lies ahead and as if there were if there were a way to personify the pain.

And to have a conversation with it, to be able to declare to it. You're not here for long. This is temporary.

You are a temporary aspect of my existence. Because in the eternal state, God will wipe away every tear. God will do away with every pain. No more crying, no more mourning.

You would say that it's too good to be true. And yet, almost in anticipation of that response, because it's so endemic to the way that our life existence is, God says there at the end of verse five, he says, write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true. And so whatever pain occupies your mind, whatever disappointments occupy your your heart, whatever plagues you, whatever the temptations are. All of that, gather it all up and realize that God has declared in advance the time is coming no more. And that aspect of our existence will be banished and sorrow. The very existence of sorrow and pain itself will yield to the glory of Christ.

Christ will drive it all out so that there is no remainder left. Often, people will ask me, you know, what about my what about my loved ones that died without Christ and people, you know, sometimes will outwardly reject the gospel because, well, if you know, I don't want to go to heaven if my loved ones aren't there, and what about that, this and that? I can't tell you exactly how God will, how God will sort all of that out for us. And certainly I have, you know, my heart's heavy standing before you thinking about loved ones gone, loved ones that for whom I have concern.

And I have no promise of outcomes that I would choose in this life for that. But I can tell you this, beloved, those of you that share in that with, you know, with loved ones gone and still with us, somehow based on his own promise by the God who cannot lie, the God whose word is trustworthy and true, God says and promises us that there will be no pain associated with those things in heaven. Will it be that we have no memory of them? Maybe. Will it be that we'll just be so enraptured with the glory of Christ that it will drive out every other thought?

Probably. Will there be a sense that if there is a memory that will be completely satisfied with the wisdom and righteousness and justice of God, you add it all up, add it all up, and the equation comes out that there's no pain, no sorrow, no crying. Our hearts will be fully satisfied with Christ, and everything that has weighed us down in this life will not have an effect on the glory that will be ours in the eternal state.

It's remarkable. It's staggering to realize that even the very principle of pain and sorrow will be removed in the eternal state. And this is kind of outside the scope of tonight's message and certainly outside the scope of the text in Revelation 21 and 22, but I need to say this just by way of comparison's sake. In hell, there's another theme for you to see, listen for. Does this teacher, does this church ever mention that? Wrath of God, repentance? What about the doctrine of hell? Can we have... go to a new pastor. Can we have an honest discussion about hell? Tell me what you think about that. When did you last mention that from the pulpit? That would be a good conversation for a lot of people.

But. In hell, it's going to be the reverse. There will be no comfort in hell. There will be no relief in hell. There there will just be there will just be intense sorrow, intense pain, intense crying, intense mourning, probably for for for many under the sound of my voice and within the circle of my affections. Intense, enormous, everlasting regret at squandered spiritual opportunity, hardening hearts against the gospel, hardening hearts against earnest pleas to come to Christ, hardening hearts for a preference for intellectual pride and. Sexual sin and whatever else that would harden people against a loving call to repentance from the Lord Jesus Christ and to have an eternity like that. An eternity to remember that that that forgiveness and eternal life were offered and promised to you if only you would come to Christ and you foolishly rejected it for the sake of.

Something here on Earth. It is crushing to contemplate. The eternal regret. That will accompany everyone in that.

In that condition. And to know that the most severe punishment is reserved for those who heard the gospel and rejected Christ. Now look, beloved and again, let's just come back to what we've been saying about these overarching surpassing themes of the gospel. We can play theological badminton on dispensational issues if we want to. But if we neglect. If we neglect. These weightier matters of heaven and hell, comfort and pain, forgiveness and communion with God and judgment, and we marginalize those things for the sake of stimulating our intellectual curiosity.

No. No, no, we're not going to do that. We need to set these things before us and see what the very profound issues really are. And respond to them and for us as believers in Christ to realize that there will be no more sorrow and to and to appropriate and to enjoy and draw into our possession and the comfort of our hearts. The promise of God that this sorrow that plagues us today will be gone tomorrow. And however he does that, I don't, you know, and part of me, you know, we said, Oh, how could he do this? You know, will be the glory of Christ will be righteousness and justice.

There's a sense in which I don't even in one sense the means don't even matter how God does that is secondary to the greater promise that he will do it. And you know when you start to when it starts to sink in how magnificent this will be. You know you want to you just want to say where is this? I want to run to it.

I want to I want to run and be there. Because this is going to be magnificent. That's the plan for sorrow. Let's look at the plan for the curse. The plan for the curse number 10.

If you're keeping score either in the audience or at home tonight, we've seen the plan for defilement. The plan for communion with God, the plan for sorrow. What about the plan for the curse? Well, we read it earlier going back to Genesis Chapter three in verse 17. Genesis Chapter three verse 17. God told Adam cursed is the ground because of you in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life thorns and thistles that shall bring forth for you. Of course, we know that that at the cross Christ bore the curse for us. Christ took the curse. Christ became a curse for us as he hung on the tree. God poured out his wrath upon him. Christ bore the curse so we could be delivered from it.

And what is the outcome of that? Scripture anticipates that the curse itself will be no more. Look at Revelation Chapter 22 verse three. Revelation 22 verse three. And actually, I all let's start in verse one.

Just to again to just set the context and not just the verbal parallels. Revelation 22 verse one. Then the angels showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb through the middle of the street of the city.

Also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its 12 kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month, the leaves of the trees were for the healing of the nations. And then look at here in verse three. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the lamb will be in it and his servants will worship him. In place of the curse. The curse will be removed. All of its effects will be banished and in their place will be the throne of the Triune God. In the middle of this glorious eternal paradise. And we, as the servants of Christ, will have the eternal, inestimable, undeserved privilege of falling down and worshiping him there. And the fullness of the greatness of the glory found in verse four. They will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads. The curse removed all of its effects. Banished, replaced by the glory of Christ.

Replaced by this. Transcendent, intimate worship, seeing his face. And caring for nothing else. And somehow, I suppose. Somehow we will have this overwhelming assurance, if not an intrinsic presupposition, that it can never be taken away from us. This really brings the fullness of everything in Scripture together.

And everything about the fullness of salvation in Christ together. Listen, beloved, as we read these things about the eternal state, and we talk about things that we know that are fundamental to our existence now, like sun and moon and night and sorrow, and all that we know is this cursed environment, and that's the environment in which we live, when, follow me here, this is really necessary and invigorating. As we talk about the eternal state, in the absence of these things and the presence of these glorious things, it sounds kind of alien to us, doesn't it? Because it's so different from what we know now, it almost sounds a little bit alien. I don't mean that in a science fiction way.

It's just so different. And this is the realm we know, and we have some level of familiarity and comfort with it. Understand this.

Understand this. That when we are in heaven, when we are with Christ, there will be absolutely no sense of this being different, alien, or uncomfortable. When we are in the eternal state, which God prepared for us from before the beginning of time, which Christ died in order to bring us into, we are going to have this pervasive, undiluted sense that this is home. Everything is going to be perfectly natural, perfectly right, perfectly congruent with everything in our hearts.

There will be no disconnect between the two. We are going to be in this glorious place where there is perfect communion with God, the access to the face of Christ, no sorrow, no curse, no defilement, and everything is going to be, everything within and about us is going to be, say, this is perfect. The sense of disconnect that we have as we talk about it here in the flesh, in this world, that's not going to be a part of it. If we were able to step into that and know that, we'd say this was the alien environment for us in Christ.

This world was the alien environment. This was the passing transient aspect of our existence. Now, here in the eternal state, we've entered into the fullness of the glory of it, and everything is right.

And nothing will ever intrude upon it to take it away. And so the curse will yield to the glory of Christ. Well, let's just talk briefly about point number 11, the plan for the dominion of man. The plan for the dominion of man.

I don't want to spend a lot of time here. But in Genesis 3 19, we read this about the plan for the dominion of man. Adam lost his dominion in the fall.

By the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for you are dust and to dust you shall return. And there's this, that Adam being in this place of dominion has sacrificed the glory of it. But in the eternal state, in the eternal state in Revelation chapter 22 verse 5, that lost dominion is restored as a result of the work of the last Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. In Revelation 22 verse 5, 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. No more of the defilement, no more of the lost opportunities, no more of death. The original purpose of man has been regained by the last Adam, by the Lord Jesus Christ.

He himself who reigns, and those who are in him reigning with him, the lost, the dominion which was lost in the fall of man will yield itself to the glory of Christ, and we will reign with him forever and ever. Point number 12, the plan for paradise. The plan for paradise.

This kind of overlaps with the idea of communion with God. The plan for paradise. We saw earlier that God banished man from the original paradise and closed it to him so that he could not enter back in. The loss was colossal, and we read in verses 23 and 24 of Genesis 3. Genesis 3 verses 23 and 24. 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. Sometimes I wonder if Adam, you know, what he lost in his memory, did he carry over any residual memories of paradise? Couldn't have remembered it in its perfection because his mind had been defiled, but you look into where he had come from geographically, let's say, and you just realize there's no entrance.

You can't enter Buckingham Palace because the Royal Guard is standing outside it, and there's no way inside to that place of magnificence. You're on the outside looking in, and there's no way to get there, and it's lost. And you turn to do the work of the ground and thorns and thistles and sweat and pain and lost productivity. But not in heaven, not in the eternal state. Look at Revelation 21.

24 and 25. God eternally opens the new paradise to man. Whereas in the old paradise, the gate was closed, shut, locked, barred, no way in, now paradise is freely open, freely available. The city of God has free access for everyone that is there. We read in verse 21, let's say, the 12 gates were 12 pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, transparent as glass.

I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. 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 here it is, and its gates will never be shut by day and there will be no night there. The gates are open in this place.

There is free access purchased for us by the Lord Jesus Christ. This paradise is available. This paradise has yielded to the glory of Christ. This paradise has yielded to Christ who loved his people, reconciled them to God, brought them to him, and now where God is in this place of utter perfection, his people are free to come as well. Paradise restored.

Yielded to the glory of Christ. Well, one of the aspects of the original paradise was the tree of life. This is point number 13, the plan for the tree of life. And Adam forfeited access to that tree of life, didn't he? Look at Genesis Chapter 2, verse 9.

Genesis Chapter 2, verse 9. Just to remind you briefly of the tree itself. Out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the site and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

And then in Chapter 3, verse 24. We read again, 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. There is this wonderful tree of life, but you can't touch it. You can't go near it.

The access to that is guarded and locked away from you. Kind of symbolizing the separation of our current condition as unredeemed men would say to God. But what's happened in heaven? What's happened in the eternal state? What has Christ done? Christ has reinstated access to the tree of life. Look at Revelation 22 one and two. Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, brightest crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb through the middle of the street of the city. Also on either side of the river, the tree of life with its 12 kinds of fruit yielding its fruit each month, the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. Look at verse 14.

Blessed are those who wash their robes so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Do you see it, beloved? Do you see how everything established and lost in Genesis one, two and three finds its fulfillment, finds its goal, finds restoration or finds finds its conclusion in Revelation 21 and 22?

That's the whole point. That's the whole point of everything that we've been saying for these past two messages is that this is where it's all going. This is the outcome. It's all going somewhere good and glorious for those who are in Christ, including the tree of life yielding to Christ, yielding to his glory. We could summarize it all with this one final point.

Point number 14. The plan of restoration. The plan of restoration. We could summarize it in this simple statement.

Beloved, and this is you want I'm reducing a little over two hours of teaching to one single sentence here in what I'm about to say. Our Lord Jesus Christ will regain everything that was lost in the fall and eternally more besides. He regains it all. He manifests his lordship. He manifests his power as king, his power as creator, his power as Redeemer by thoroughly, completely recovering everything that the first Adam lost in the fall, the last Adam comes and regains it all back. And makes it even better, makes it eternal, makes it so that it could never be lost again. And so we saw there in those verses in Genesis, Genesis 3 24. We don't need to look there again.

How many times do you need to read the same verse in the same message, pastor? God sent Adam away from his presence after the fall. Sent him out, banished him from Eden. And yet in that eternal state, the separation is no more. Look at Revelation 21 verse 5 and 22 verse 4.

Actually, I want to. I want to look at it in verse three of Chapter 21. 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. Verse five. He was seated on the throne, said, Behold, I am making all things new.

Write this down for these words of trustworthy and true. And then in Chapter 22, verse four. They will see his face.

And his name will be on their forehead. Beloved, we've rushed through some of these things. That's OK, we'll have time to review him again when we get.

Back here in a few months. But at the risk of repeating myself. Jesus Christ is the last Adam, not just the second Adam, as if there might be a third. Jesus is the last Adam.

What the real historical man named Adam, who was a real man who really lived some 6000 years or so ago. Everything that he lost through his sin against God. This last Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, comes and gains it all back. He makes all things new.

And as a result of that, he will receive all of the glory. Look at Philippians Chapter three and we'll close with this passage. Philippians Chapter three.

And what I would have you what I would have you walk out of here from tonight. We've laid a groundwork to have a fresh appreciation of this famous text. This well known text at the end of Philippians Chapter three. The Apostle Paul says our citizenship is in heaven. That's where we belong. That is our city.

Nothing here, nothing related to anything on this earth. Here we have no lasting city. We are seeking a city to come. And what you have seen in these past two messages is the nature and aspect of that city to come. And you can test the reality of your salvation by asking yourself whether there is anything in your heart that says, I want that more than anything else. I long for that.

I can't wait for that to come. That's I long for my homeland and I haven't even been there yet. Our citizenship is in heaven. And from it we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 21, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. What kind of things are all things? What manifests the the eternal deity of our Lord? What manifests his omnipotent power to subject all things to himself?

Well, just articulate them out. What it is that he will subject to himself that will yield to his glory, that will yield to his presence in the end. Creation, mankind, night, sun and moon, death, Satan, defilement, communion, sorrow, curse, man in his dominion, paradise, the tree of life, the restoration of all things. When the Apostle Paul in some reform says that Christ has the power to subject all things to himself, we see the fullness of what it is that he's subjecting in Revelation 21 and 22. And there's a part of us that almost draws back in fear and awe at the majesty of Christ to be able to do all of that. And then we're drawn knowing that it was for our sakes that he laid down his life.

It was for the sake of his people that he died and rose again out of love that they would enter into the fullness of this communion throughout all of eternity and know a state of being far too glorious to be fully expressed by human words, but which will be the full experience of the children of God. Beloved, what a gift we have in Christ. One pastor said, as we study this book, we should be encouraged, inspired to serve, and enabled to live clean lives that we might be ready when he returns. If you're a Christian, you've just heard what the future holds for you.

And the future for those in Christ is incomprehensibly bright. Praise his name. Please stand as we close in prayer. O Christ, thine is the glory, risen, conquering Son, and we have a sense in what we've seen, a sense of perspective of your promise in John 14 when you said that if you go away, you go to prepare a place for us. And if you go to prepare a place for us, you will come again. You will come for us so that where you are, we may also be. We've gotten a taste over these past two hours, O Christ, of the magnificence of your and the sheer immeasurable nature of your grace and kindness for those that you have drawn to yourself. And we thank you now by faith, we see what is to come, and we thank you in advance for the greatness of the glory that we will enjoy throughout all of eternity as we gaze upon your glorious face.

Whatever that's like to see you face to face, Lord, we want to see that more than anything. It will be wonderful to walk streets of transparent gold. It will be wonderful to see gates of pearl. Lord, it will be wonderful to be gathered together with saints throughout the ages and loved ones that we've known even in this life. All of that's just going to be incomprehensibly wonderful. But Lord, gather all of that up and it will all fade in comparison to looking in your face, seeing you face to face, forgiven, restored, glorified.

With the privilege of falling down at your feet. Grabbing hold of your ankles, as it were, whatever that's going to be like in your physical presence, and just to be able to say in person directly in perfect intimacy, Lord, thank you for all of this, but thank you especially for the blessing of you. We honor you now and look forward to that. We pray, Father, for everyone under the sound of my voice, everyone in our circle of influence, everyone within the affections of each one of our hearts, that as outside of Christ we plead with you for them that you would bring them in, Father, that they would not miss this glory and that they would be delivered from the wrath to come.

In Jesus' name we pray, 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.