All Things New
INTRODUCTION
Happy New Year! You will hear it often as you face the new year. Yet, one wonders if it really will be a good year. Let us pray that it will be a better year, a prosperous year, a more peaceful year, and a year that will bring a spirituals awakening to America. Let’s pray that it will bring a spiritual awakening to the church!
Our text the promise of our Lord, “Behold, I am making all things new" (Rev. 21:5). What bride has not heard the words, “something old, something new”? Well, we are going to be looking today at what our Lord did when the time came for something new - and occasionally what He did about something old.
1. FIRST, THERE WAS THE CREATION
There was a heavenly council at which God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit - one in essence, three in Person - made the decision to create the world. The word world to means our solar system, our planet, or maybe just our little part of it - but to God it means galaxies only He could number. The Bible tells us how he did it - “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” That is it! If you spell God with a capital “G” that is enough.
As the crowning act of creation, God said, “Let us make man in our own image” - and that is what He did. He created man with the privilege of making choices, and the capacity to make moral choices. But when it comes to God Himself - every person is free to choose but no one is free not to choose.
2. NEXT, THERE IS THE FALL
Adam and Eve chose to rebel against the Lord, and with their sin, death entered the picture. Nothing has ever been the same since the Fall, and it will never be the same until God makes all things new again. Paul was inspired to write that all of nature groans for that time.
Man fell and man died, as all men have and will die (with the exception of Enoch and Elijah). Man’s choice did not catch God by surprise, a fact which we learn when we read that Jesus is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the World.
3. NEXT, WE HAVE THE FLOOD
The human race had become so corrupt that God decided - well, it was out with the old, in with the new. He would destroy the entire human race and start anew with Noah, his wife, their three sons and their wives. He started over with the animals that were preserved on the ark. Noah and his family left the ark with God’s law in their hearts and minds. They were to teach them to their children and encourage them to teach them to their children, from generation to generation.
4. THEN CAME THE CALL OF ABRAHAM
The world had become corrupt, its people were in rebellion against God. Again, he was not at a loss as what to do. He called Abraham and told him to leave Ur of the Chaldees and go to a land he would give him, the Land of Promise. God established a covenant with Abraham which only He could maintain. That covenant involved the land, descendants which no one could number, and the promise that one of the descendants of Abraham would be a blessing to the nations. That is why the genealogy of Christ establishes the fact that Jesus was descended from Abraham.
5. NEXT, WE COME TO THE EXODUS
Abraham and Sarah finally had the son God promised and named him Isaac. Isaac had twin sons, Esau and Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. Jacob had twelve sons. Ten of those sons sold the favorite son Joseph into slavery - but God brought good from what they intended for evil. Famine came and Joseph saved his family from starvation and arranged for them to live in the fertile land of Goshen.
Four hundred years later, they had made no effort to return to the Land of Promise. A new Pharaoh came to power who ordered that the male babies born to the Hebrew women be put to death. They cried out to the Lord and He send Moses to deliver them. It was by the mighty hand of God that they were delivered, and led first to Mount Sinai where He made a covenant with the children of Israel, now numbering about two million. It was by the mighty hand of God that they were delivered.
6. NOW WE COME TO THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN
Because of their rebellion against God, the Israelites were forced to wander in the wilderness forty years, or until all those rebellious adults were dead. Then when the time came for them to enter the Promised Land to possess their possessions, God chose Joshua as the successor to Moses, parted the waters of the Jordan Rive and led them across on dry ground. He blessed them in the Conquest, even though they stopped before the victory was complete and left pagan people and pagan worship in the land God had commanded them to drive out. That sin opened the door to a cycle of rebellion, punishment, repentance, and deliverance that continued through the Period of the Judges, some four hundred years.
7. NEXT WE COME TO THE PERIOD OF THE KINGS
Israel demanded a King and God told Samuel to anoint Saul. Saul did not obey the Lord and God rejected him and his house from ruling over His people. Instead, he sent Samuel to anoint David. It was David who became a mighty general and powerful king. He conquered enemies right and left and expanded the boundaries of Israel. In 2 Samuel 7 we find the David Covenant. It had been one thousand years since God had made the covenant with Abraham and Abraham was long since dead. Isaac was dead, Jacob was dead, and all the sons of Israel (Jacob) were dead. But God was not one day older! He had maintained His covenant with Abraham and He would maintain His covenant with David through the next one thousand years. In spite of their rebellion, their disobedience, Israel’s backsliding and Judah’s treachery, God never lost sight of that covenant.
8. NEXT WE SEE GOD’S RESPONSE TO ISRAEL’S UNFAITHFULNESS
First, there was the united kingdom under David and Solomon. Next, there was the divided kingdom which followed the death of Solomon. The people appealed to Rehoboam to lighten their load, but he followed the advice of the younger counselors and increased their burden through taxes and conscripted labor. Jereboam I led ten tribes in forming a separate nation, Israel (the northern Ten Tribes), leaving Judah and Benjamin in the south.
The Lord reached out to the northern kingdom to try to persuade them to follow Him. He sent Elijah and Elisha, Amos and Hosea, yet the nation persisted in their rebellion against Him, that rebellion manifested especially in their idolatry - God calls it spiritual adultery. When they would not listen to Him, He raised up the Assyrians to destroy the norther kingdom. This judgment was accomplished in 722 B. C.
In the southern kingdom, the Lord sent Isaiah and Micah to warn the people of the judgment that would come if they were not obedient to Him. They had a few godly kings who sought to being revival to the land - kings like Hezekiah and Josiah, but many were ungodly kings who led the people into idolatry with all the sins associated with it.
9. NEXT CAME THE CAPTIVITY
When Israel persisted in idolatry, immorality, drunkenness, political corruption, greed, and all sorts of other sins, God sent Jeremiah to warn them that if the did not repent the would be conquered by the Babylonians and taken into captivity for seventy years. The did not repent and they were defeated, the city looted, the temple destroyed, and the people taken into captivity in Babylon. Israel had refused to observe the Sabbath Year for 490 years, and now the land would lie fallow for seventy years. You do the math!
Those who returned in 536 B. C. returned purged of idolatry, but that did not mean that they always honored the Lord. He sent His prophets to teach them, warn them, and denounce their sin when it was necessary.
10. NOW WE COME TO THAT WHICH WAS REALLY NEW
The angel Gabriel appeared to a young virgin in Israel and told her that she would conceive a child of the Holy Spirit and that she should call His name Jesus because He would save His people from their sin. The miraculous virgin birth was accompanied by many other miracles: angels had appeared to both Mary and Joseph, and now an angel would announce the birth of the new born King to shepherds and be joined by an angelic choir. Wise men would be led by a star to Bethlehem where they would worship Jesus. They knew He was born king, but did they understand that He was born to become the Savior?
Jesus lived a perfect life - which is as miraculous in the moral realm as a virgin birth is in the physical realm. He preached with authority, raised the dead, gave sight to the blind, calmed the sea, hushed the storm, healed people of diseases and infirmities, and fulfilled all the promises of the Old Covenant. They, with His own blood He created the New Covenant.
Jesus provided for our salvation, gave us the Great Commission, and then announced: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). He sent the Holy Spirit, with phenomenal, supernatural manifestations of His power and presence on the Day of Pentecost.
The church, established as the bride of Christ by Jesus Himself, was now empowered to carry out the Great Commission. The success of the church is one of the most amazing things the world has ever seen - for a long period of time. Sadly, the church entered an unholy wedlock with the state, and that along with other factors led the church into the dark ages - along with everything else.
11. NEXT, THERE WAS THE REFORMATION
In time, Martin Luther would read the words, “The just shall live by faith,” and the Lord revealed to him that salvation is by grace, through faith and not by works, ritual, or ceremony. The Reformation was under way. The reformers led large numbers back to the Word of God, back to sound doctrine, back to evangelizing the world.
In time, a new commitment to missions led to mission societies, missions offerings, and support for thousands of missionaries whom the Lord was calling to take the Gospel around the world. Today, the Lord has millions of born-again believers who are worshiping, tithing, serving, praying - and waiting for the Savior’s return.
12. THE FINAL STEP IS WHEN JESUS MAKES ALL THINGS NEW
First, He will come for His bride, the church. We call that the Rapture. They the earth will go through a tribulation like the world has never seen before. After seven years Jesus will return, not as Suffering Servant, but as the conquering King of King and Lord of Lords. He will establish His sovereignty and rein for one thousand years - and whether you see that as a literal or a figurative thousand years, it will be exactly the time the Father had determined for His own purpose.
Jesus pulled back the veil just a little and permitted John to see something of what He has in store for us when He makes all things new. Look with me at Revelation 21:1-8:
Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, 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 heaven saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.
Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.” And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts.
“He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
CONCLUSION
Jesus said, “Behold, I make all things new.” What He says He can and will accomplish. But right now, I want to stress something that is absolutely critical. Jesus is making things new in the hearts and lives of men, women, and young people ever day. When you believe in Him He gives you a new life. He makes you a new person. He gives you a new perspective, a new world-view. He also gives you a new presence: “I will be with you always.” He gives you a new family - you are adopted into His family forever.
I cannot understand why anyone would hesitate for a moment to fall on their face before Him and plead for His mercy and Grace. This is the day of salvation, this is the accepted time. He will make all things new.