Participants:
Series Code: ICJ
Program Code: ICJ190024A
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00:01 A new body?
00:02 A new world? 00:04 A new beginning? 00:05 Brand new. 00:07 The opportunity of a lifetime. 00:31 You know, everybody likes a new beginning. 00:33 Particularly in a world that's been filled with such sorrow, 00:36 and difficulty, and failure. 00:38 And today we're going to talk about a beginning that's coming, 00:41 a new beginning that is just marvelous. 00:44 Actually, we're going to one of the parables of Jesus 00:46 in the book of Matthew chapter 13. 00:50 And He talks about a parable about tares. 00:53 And let me just read that text. 00:55 It says, "The enemy who sowed them is the devil." 00:59 In other words, there's a field, and somehow they end up 01:01 with tares in the field. 01:05 Tares! How in the world could that happen? 01:07 But He says how it happened. 01:09 So we live in a world that's been filled with trouble, 01:11 and sorrow, and difficulty. 01:13 And there's somebody responsible for that, 01:15 and it's not the Lord. 01:17 The devil sowed all of these tares that are in the world. 01:21 Now it says, at the end of the age these tares are going to be 01:24 gathered and burned, and the wheat is going to be gathered 01:27 in God's barn. 01:29 And Ephesians chapter 1 talks again about this 01:32 new age that is coming. 01:34 A wonderful new age. 01:36 It says, Ephesians 1:18-21, "...that you may know 01:40 the hope of His calling..." 01:42 I want to tell you, this hope we have of a new beginning 01:44 and a new age, that hope is not going to be disappointed. 01:48 It's going to be a reality. 01:51 And you don't want to miss out on that. 01:53 "...what are the riches of the glory..." 01:55 We're talking about, "...the riches of the glory 01:56 of the inheritance in the saints..." 01:58 He goes on to say, "...not only in this age..." 02:01 So there's two ages here. 02:03 "...not only in this age, but in the age to come." 02:08 Titus 2:11-12 says this, "For the grace of God 02:13 that brings salvation has appeared to all men..." 02:17 So everybody has an opportunity for a new beginning. 02:21 There's no need to be left out of this. 02:23 And then he goes on to say, 02:25 "...teaching us that denying ungodliness..." 02:27 There has to be a change in our hearts. 02:29 Because this new beginning is going to be a place 02:32 where there's none of this tares left in this world. 02:35 No problems in this new age. 02:37 We want to be part of that new age. 02:39 But I like the way Titus ends this. 02:41 He says, "...denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, 02:44 we should live soberly, righteously, and godly 02:47 in the present age..." 02:49 The age that we're living in. 02:51 In other words, in this present age 02:52 we're getting ready for the new age that is coming 02:56 that Jesus is going to bring. 02:58 And then he says this... 03:00 My mother and dad are sleeping. 03:02 I lost my mother a little over a year ago. 03:04 Wonderful parents. 03:06 And they looked forward to the coming of the Lord. 03:10 And there on their tombstone are these words, 03:13 from Titus, from Titus, and Titus says this, 03:18 "...looking for the blessed hope." 03:22 "...looking for the blessed hope." 03:27 Now I'm looking for that blessed hope. 03:28 That blessed hope is that new age that is coming. 03:32 Now Revelation describes this present age. 03:35 The present age, we've been talking about it. 03:37 It's not going to end pretty. 03:39 It's going to end with a great terrible conflict. 03:42 The culmination of these ages of conflicts 03:46 between Christ and Satan, this thing is coming to an end. 03:49 It's going to end with the mark of the beast, 03:51 with the destruction of Babylon. 03:54 And this home of the wicked is going to be passed away. 03:58 The Bible says in 2 Peter 3:10-13, 04:02 it says, "But the say of the Lord will come like a 04:05 thief in the night, in which the heavens pass away 04:08 with a great noise, the elements melt 04:11 with fervent heat; both the earth and the works 04:15 that are in it will be burned up. 04:17 In other words, this age is going to pass away. 04:21 This earth is going to be destroyed. 04:24 It's going to be replaced with a new world, a new age. 04:28 The start of a new age. 04:30 Well, let's talk about that new heavens and a new earth. 04:33 And we're going to go to the book of Revelation. 04:35 And we get some descriptions there that 04:38 just boggle the mind and the imagination. 04:42 An it's exciting when you think about it. 04:44 So we want to go to Revelation 21:1. 04:48 And this comes on the heels when the first age passes away, 04:52 this new age starts. 04:54 Then we have Revelation 21:1 saying this, 04:57 "Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth..." 05:02 There it is. Brand new. 05:04 "...for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away." 05:09 Now there's no question what's going to happen to this world. 05:11 It's going to pass away. 05:13 But there's also no question about what's going to follow it. 05:16 A new heavens and a new earth. 05:19 "Also there was no more sea." 05:21 Let's think about this for just a few minutes here together. 05:25 What does this mean? 05:26 Well first of all, there's going to be a lot of things 05:28 that will pass away. 05:29 And we'll be glad that they passed away. 05:31 Death will be done away with. 05:33 And with it, the decay that brings death, 05:36 and the sorrow that brings all of this death. 05:39 And then in order for this to happen, of course, 05:41 what causes death must also pass away. 05:45 And what causes it is the transgression of God's law. 05:48 It's sin that causes it. 05:50 No more old age. How about that? 05:53 I'll go for that. You'll go for that. 05:55 No more old age. No more disease. 05:58 Filth. 05:59 You know, I've been in places where the sewer just runs 06:02 in the gutters down the street, open gutters. 06:05 There are American cities today that are experiencing 06:09 typhus because of the filth in the inner cities sometimes 06:14 in these places where people are living and congregating. 06:18 I just heard about something like that on the west coast. 06:21 Typhus in America resulting because of filth. 06:26 There's not going to be any filth in this new earth. 06:30 And no disease that goes with it. 06:31 Hunger; there's more than enough food in the world 06:34 to feed everybody, but you can't get it to everybody. 06:36 It's a lack of access, not a lack of resources. 06:41 And then there's no more war. 06:43 Think about World War II. 06:45 Seventy million people lost their lives. 06:49 Think about what happened in China 06:51 under Mao; 70 million people. 06:53 Stalin in Russia; 20 million people. 06:55 I mean, the world has just been filled with 06:58 terrible, terrible war and destruction. 07:01 And I thank the Lord that it's all going to pass away. 07:06 Think of all the suffering animals have gone through. 07:08 I mean, I go through or by not too far from my house, 07:12 about twenty miles from my house I pass it a lot, 07:14 huge chicken farms there. 07:16 These chickens crammed four to a little cage 07:19 where they spend their whole life. 07:20 No more suffering of animals in this new age. 07:25 No, the Bible says it's new. 07:27 It's brand new. 07:31 Brand spanking new, as we used to say when I was growing up. 07:35 No, a new heavens. 07:36 And there's not going to be any sea there. 07:38 It says no more sea. 07:39 That means there's going to be plenty of land for everybody. 07:43 Plenty of land. 07:44 No more division, no more great bodies of water 07:48 that separate nations and peoples. 07:50 No, the earth is going to be united. 07:54 We're going to be one, we're going to be in great harmony. 07:57 I didn't mean there's not going to be probably large 07:58 bodies of waters, but not seas or oceans like we know today. 08:03 First of all, I want to talk about the 08:04 New Jerusalem a little bit. 08:06 Now the Bible describes the New Jerusalem in some detail. 08:12 Now we have, again, it's going to be 08:14 really beyond our imagination. 08:16 But this is just a fantastic thing. 08:18 Revelation 21:10-13 says, "And he carried me away 08:23 in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, 08:26 and showed me a great city, the holy Jerusalem..." 08:31 The New Jerusalem. 08:33 In contrast to that Babylon that falls apart at the end of time 08:36 that everybody was seduced by, everybody wanted to be part of. 08:41 But that Babylon passes away. 08:43 But this New Jerusalem, again, the book of Revelation 08:46 so filled with contrast, this New Jerusalem, 08:48 this is the home of Jesus. 08:50 Don't you want to be where Jesus is at? 08:52 The incomparable Jesus that has made all of this possible. 08:57 What a marvelous Savior we have. 09:00 So this goes on to tell us, and he said, 09:02 "...and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, 09:05 descending out of heaven from God, 09:08 having the glory of God. 09:11 Her light was like a most precious stone..." 09:14 I got online on the internet and I just kind of looked up 09:18 on diamonds and this kind of thing. 09:20 And there's some beautiful, beautiful stones. 09:23 This whole city shines like a precious stone. 09:27 It says, "...like a jasper stone, clear as crystal." 09:30 Now we don't exactly know what all that means. 09:32 I went back and looked, the ancients usually 09:34 thought of jasper as kind of greenish, 09:36 but sometimes jasper is not as clear as other stones. 09:41 But this is going to be clear. 09:42 The Bible says it's going to be as clear as crystal. 09:44 It was the best John could do to describe 09:47 kind of what he saw there. 09:49 Now it says the city is going to be square. 09:51 It's going to be four square. 09:53 And it says that it's going to have a great high wall. 09:57 216 feet tall by my calculations. 10:01 Now that's high. 10:03 I mean, that is very high. 10:04 Now some people say, "Well, why would you need a wall?" 10:06 Well, the wall does a couple of things. 10:08 First of all, if you remember, the devil and his evil angels 10:13 have the resurrected dead at the end of the 1000 years, 10:17 we talked about that earlier, and they surround the camp. 10:20 This is the final destruction of the wicked. 10:22 And they want to take the city. 10:23 And there's a little time period in there. 10:25 So the walls, in a sense, protect the city. 10:28 But it also defines the city, and it glorifies the city, 10:31 and it makes the city beautiful. 10:34 So it defines the city. 10:37 Now it shines, the Bible says, like crystallized gold. 10:41 I don't know what that means, but I wanted to see 10:44 if I could find some golden diamonds. 10:47 Well they do have some yellow diamonds. 10:50 And they're very beautiful. 10:51 But all we know is what John described it as. 10:55 And so it shines like crystallized gold. 10:58 The whole city does. 11:00 It's going to have a lot of other mingled colors 11:03 in with it as well. 11:04 Now it has twelve foundations. 11:06 Twelve foundations. 11:08 Evidently you can see these foundations. 11:10 Because the Bible says that the foundations 11:14 had the names of the twelve apostles. 11:16 So I say this to people, I say, everybody that walks 11:20 into the New Jerusalem is going to be a true Israelite. 11:25 You know, the apostle Paul says that the true Israelite 11:28 is not one necessarily of the flesh, 11:31 but the one of the heart. 11:33 So all of us that go into that new city, 11:36 we're going to be true Israel. 11:39 Now there's also twelve gates. 11:42 Well I should say this before I leave the foundations. 11:44 The foundations are made of twelve precious stones, 11:50 beautiful gems. 11:51 Again, the colors that are going to get intermingled here, 11:57 it's just beyond imagination. 12:00 It also has twelve gates. 12:02 Now on the twelve gates are the names of the twelve apostles. 12:06 So I also say that everybody that goes into that 12:09 New Jerusalem, they're going to be a Christian. 12:13 They're going to be a New Testament Christian. 12:15 Because we go through the gates of the twelve apostles. 12:19 Each gates, and this is hard for me to imagine, 12:22 each gate is said to be one pearl. 12:26 Now pearls are beautiful. 12:28 You don't usually think of them as gates. 12:30 But think of a whole gate as a pearl. 12:33 So is this going to be round or like a tear drop? 12:36 We don't know. 12:38 But it's going to be big enough for all the saved 12:42 from all the ages to walk through into that New Jerusalem. 12:48 Now it says it's 1500 furlongs, or miles, 12:52 the circumference of it. 12:53 Now some people think that's all on one side. 12:56 I'm going to be a little bit more conservative here 12:59 and just say that it's 1500 furlongs, or miles I should say, 13:04 furlongs translated into miles, 1500 miles divided by four. 13:10 That means you've got a city that's 375 miles on each side. 13:16 Now that's big. 13:17 I mean, that's really big. 13:20 So it's going to have about 140,000 plus square miles 13:25 in the city. 13:26 And if you want an idea of how big that is, 13:31 take the state of Montana. 13:33 The state of Montana and the New Jerusalem 13:36 are going to be about the same size, 13:38 as far as the territory. 13:42 It's also going to go into space 375 miles. 13:48 Think of that. |
Revised 2019-11-11