WWUTT 2194 New Heavens and New Earth (Isaiah 65:13-25)

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In Isaiah 65, 17, God says, behold, I am creating a new heavens and a new earth, and the former things will not be remembered or come upon the heart when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the word.

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Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, we feature New Testament study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our

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Q &A on Friday. Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Isaiah, we're still in the middle of chapter 65, and we're gonna pick up there this week hearing about the new heavens and the new earth that God promises near the end of Isaiah.

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But first a recap. If you'll recall, at the end of chapter 64, there was a prayer where God's people humbly acknowledged their sin and that they are deserving of the judgment of God, yet it was asked of God, will you keep silent and afflict us beyond measure?

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And then chapter 65 and 66 is God responding. We end with the words of Yahweh.

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Now it was said in chapter 65, verses one through seven, that those who continue in their sin and rebellion will come to destruction.

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Then we heard in verses eight through 10 that God has preserved a remnant for himself, including

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Gentiles who will come to him as mentioned in verse 10. But then those who forsake

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Yahweh, he comes back to them in verses 11 and 12, they are destined for the sword.

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And we pick up with the address to them as we're gonna come into verse 13 today, and yet the blessings of God still reserve for those that he will preserve for himself.

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That'll be in verses 17 to 25. So let me begin reading here in verse 13, and I'll go through verse 25 out of the

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Legacy Standard Bible. Hear the word of the Lord. Therefore, thus says

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Lord Yahweh, behold, my slaves will eat, but you will be hungry.

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My slaves will drink, but you will be thirsty. Behold, my slaves will be glad, but you will be put to shame.

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Behold, my slaves will shout joyfully with a merry heart, but you will cry out with a pained heart, and you will wail with a broken spirit.

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You will leave your name for a curse to my chosen ones, and Lord Yahweh will put you to death, but my slaves will be called by another name, because he who is blessed in the earth will be blessed by the

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God of truth, and he who swears in the earth will swear by the God of truth, because the former distresses are forgotten, and because they are hidden from my sight.

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For behold, I am creating a new heavens and a new earth, and the former things will not be remembered or come upon the heart.

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But be joyful and rejoice forever in what I create, for behold,

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I create Jerusalem for rejoicing and her people for joy. I will also rejoice in Jerusalem and be joyful in my people, and there will no longer be heard in her the voice of weeping and the voice of crying.

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No longer will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fulfill his days, for the youth will die at the age of 100, and the one who does not reach the age of 100 will be thought accursed.

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They will build houses and inhabit them. They will also plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

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They will not build and another inhabit, they will not plant and another eat, for as the lifetime of a tree, so will be the days of my people, and my chosen ones will wear out the work of their hands.

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They will not labor in vain or bear children for terror, for they are the seed of those blessed by Yahweh and their offspring with them.

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And it will be that before they call, I will answer, and while they are still speaking,

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I will hear. The wolf and the lamb will graze together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent's food.

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They will do no evil nor act corruptly in all my holy mountain, says

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Yahweh." So this section where it talks about the new heavens and the new earth, there are various views on eschatology, views of the end times that take this very literally.

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We're talking about a literal kingdom on earth, and this is how that people will live in that particular place.

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We'll consider that though when we come to it. Let's go back to verse 13, where God is contrasting those who will bear his curse with those who will receive his blessing.

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He says, behold, my slaves will eat, but you will be hungry. Again, the slaves are gonna be those that will serve

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God. They are the remnant, the portion that God has preserved for himself, while those who have remained in rebellion will be destroyed.

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And this directly applies to the Jews coming out of exile, who had been exiled to the

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Babylonians and then to the Medes and the Persians. So the application of this is first for them.

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Those who continued in rebellion will go to their destruction. But those who had repented and come before the

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Lord, he will feed them. He will bring them back into the land. But of course, as they come back into that land, they will see that the things that are promised here in Isaiah 65 never come to fulfillment for them.

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So they realize there is a future fulfillment to this prophecy. It's not yet.

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There's something greater that is coming, that he has promised for us. Behold, my slaves will drink, but you will be thirsty.

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Behold, my slaves will be glad, but you will be put to shame. Behold, my slaves will shout joyfully with a merry heart, but you will cry out with a pained heart.

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You will wail with a broken spirit. Remember that Jesus said in John six, that those who come to him and who believe in him will never be hungry and will never thirst.

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This goes also with John four, where Jesus said to the woman at the well, the water that I give, this person that drinks of this water will never thirst.

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It will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life. And Jesus talked to his disciples as well, saying to them, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.

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Jesus gives spiritual application to food and drink in John four and six.

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And this is the one who comes to the Lord, who believes in him, this is the one who will never hunger and will never thirst.

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The same one that God is talking about here in Isaiah 65. My slaves will eat the spiritual food that Jesus gives, the spiritual drink that he gives.

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We will be glad, we will shout joyfully, but those who do not know

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Christ cry out with a pained heart and wail with a broken spirit. You know, in Revelation chapter nine, there's a plague that is talked about there, where if you will remember, there are these locusts that come up like smoke out of the earth.

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And their appearance is like horses prepared for battle. On their heads, they have crowns of gold and their faces were like the faces of men, but they have the hair of women and their teeth were like the teeth of lions.

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And they had breastplates like breastplates of iron and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots of many horses running the battle.

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And they have tails like scorpions. And when they sting, they hurt men for five months.

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And those who are stung by these scorpions that are afflicted by them, it says that they will cry out for death and they won't receive it.

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Revelation 9, 6, in those days, men will seek death and will never find it.

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They will long to die and death flees from them. And do we not see this kind of affliction going on in the world right now among those who rebel against God?

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They go after things they think will make them happy. They will do things to their body. They will desire stuff in their flesh.

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And when they receive the thing that they think will make them happy, it doesn't bring them anything.

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And they long for death, but it never comes to them. They are never satisfied with life.

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They never receive any sort of resolution to the suffering and the pain and the anxiety they continue to go through.

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They'll make videos of themselves. They'll post it on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok, smiling in their debauchery and rejoicing in the sins that they run through, but it never really makes them satisfied.

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They think if they could bring some others along with them, if there are others that will rejoice in this sin with me, maybe then

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I will find some justification in the passions of my flesh, but they never receive it.

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And so those who are in Christ, even when they go through pain and hurt, yet they cry out for joy.

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They shout joyfully with a merry heart. But those with a pained heart, they wail with a broken spirit and are never satisfied.

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As the Lord goes on in Isaiah 65, 15, you will leave your name for a curse to my chosen ones.

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And Lord Yahweh will put you to death, but my slaves will be called by another name.

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Consider in Revelation 2 .17, this was where Jesus addressed the church in Pergamum.

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He says, he who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him

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I will give some of the hidden manna and I will give him a white stone and a new name will be written on the stone, which no one knows, but he who receives it.

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Now the stone is Christ. The name that we wear is Christ, but how is it that no one knows the name except he who receives the stone?

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Well, this could be understood in a couple of ways. It could be understood that nobody truly knows Christ.

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God has a relationship with him, except he to whom Christ has given his name.

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And that would be all of us. So it's not just you uniquely, but everybody within the church knows the name of Christ.

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It could be that. Or if you want to go more individualistically with understanding this in Revelation 2 .17,

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it could be the understanding that only you know the grace that God has shown to you, the unique way in which

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God has forgiven you of your transgressions and drawn you to himself.

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Only you know that. There are others that have been forgiven their sins too and been drawn near to Christ.

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And they understand uniquely the grace that God has shown to them, because only they've been through those sins, those circumstances, and have come to repentance and have come to Christ.

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Only they know Christ in that specific intimate way. So it could be that.

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It could mean that no one knows this name the way that you know this name.

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For we all are uniquely drawn to Christ in specific ways. We all have seen a demonstration of Christ's love for us in a way that other people don't know and have not experienced.

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So it could be, that's what this is being referred to. And God gives us a name.

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He gives us a new name. Isaiah 65 .16, because he who is blessed in the earth will be blessed by the

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God of truth. And he who swears in the earth will swear by the God of truth because the former distresses are forgotten and because they are hidden from my sight.

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So once again, if you remember at the end of Isaiah 64, the people asking, will you keep silent and afflict us beyond measure?

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And God is saying here, those former distresses are gonna be forgotten. I will not even bring them to mind.

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They are hidden from my sight. Good news for those who are humbly bowing before God and asking, will you deliver us from our affliction?

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The Lord says, yes. And I will not even remember the things that brought you into this affliction.

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I will put them away and will not hold them against you anymore. And so every single one of us, before we come to Christ, we might be as those in the world described in Revelation 9.

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Suffering, longing for death, never being able to find it, no meaning to life, no resolution to the pain and suffering and struggle and things like this that we go through.

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We might be as those in the world, but then we are rescued out of the world and into the kingdom of God.

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And then all those former afflictions will one day be forgotten. Revelation 21, four, he will wipe every tear from their eyes and there will no longer be any death and there will no longer be any mourning or crying or pain for the first things have passed away.

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And it's from there that we hear these words in Isaiah 65, 17. For behold,

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I am creating a new heavens and a new earth and the former things will not be remembered or come upon the heart.

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Now I have heard some say that we are presently living in the new heavens and the new earth and I strongly disagree with that, especially with the way that Peter describes this in 2

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Peter 3. According to his promise, we are looking for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

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And so if Peter is talking to Christians there, and he is, that letter is to Christians, then why would he not say to those

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Christians, we are living in the new heavens and the new earth. Now we're looking toward those things.

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Now I would agree that there is a new heavens and a new earth even presently, as these things are being built for the kingdom of God continues to expand as the gospel goes out.

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We have not yet entered into the finality of the new heavens and the new earth, but God is truly building them through the advancement of the gospel in the world and then the populating of heaven through those saints that go home to be with him in glory.

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But we've not yet come to the final culmination of these things. We haven't reached the place where the former things will not be remembered or come upon the heart, what's described in Revelation 21.

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In verse 18, but be joyful and rejoice forever in what

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I create, for behold, I create Jerusalem for rejoicing and her people for joy.

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Now there is certainly a present reality there. All of us who are in Christ, we are the new

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Jerusalem. That's exactly the description that we get in the book of Revelation. The bride of Christ is the new

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Jerusalem, that is the church. And we rejoice in Christ now, we who have been redeemed and have been called into his family.

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We rejoice every Sunday when we gather together and remember the resurrection of Christ and the promise of our resurrection and life forevermore with him.

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Verse 19, I will also rejoice in Jerusalem and be joyful in my people, present reality, and there will no longer be heard in her the voice of weeping and the voice of crying.

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Now that's not necessarily present, although there could be that. You could have a currentness to it in the sense that if somebody dies, when we lose a brother or sister in the

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Lord, we grieve as Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4, but not as those who have no hope.

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So there is grief there, but there is also rejoicing in that we know that those that we have lost are forever with God in glory.

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No longer will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days or an old man who does not fulfill his days for the youth will die at the age of 100 and the one who does not reach the age of 100 will be thought accursed.

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Now, again, this will be thought of here as something literal by some with their eschatology, that there will be a kingdom on earth where infants won't die anymore and an old man will live beyond the age of 100, but that's not what's really being talked about here.

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These things are spiritually applicable, not literally applied. An infant, there will no longer be an infant who lives but a few days.

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This is talking about those who are babes in the faith and that when they go to be with God forever in glory, it will be as though they have lived for a hundred years on earth with the justification and the blessings of God's grace that God has given to them.

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They don't die in their infancy and therefore perish, but they continue on living forever with God in glory.

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And the man who is a hundred, he will continue to live out his days. Philippians 1 .6,

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I am confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will complete it at the day of Christ.

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Verse 21, they will build houses and inhabit them. They will also plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

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This is building churches and the fruitfulness of the gospel that goes out into all the world and they will all rejoice together in the fruit that is produced in this.

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They will not build and another inhabit. They will not plant and another eat. This is not an investment that we're making on somebody else's behalf.

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This is for the church of God. This is unto his name and we will all be blessed in one another's fruitfulness.

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Again, back to John 4, where Jesus says to his disciples, do you not say there are yet four months and then comes the harvest?

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Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields that they are white for harvest. Even now, he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.

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For in this case, the saying is true. One sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored.

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Others have labored and you have entered into their labor. Yet as Jesus says to them, that we all rejoice together.

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And so this is the promise even in Isaiah 65. They will not build and another inhabit.

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They will not plant and another eat. For as the lifetime of a tree, so will be the days of my people. And my chosen ones will wear out the work of their hands.

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They will not labor in vain or bear children for terror. And these are the saints that come to faith, more children of God that come into the family of God through the hearing of the gospel.

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For they are the seed of those blessed by Yahweh and their offspring with them.

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And we are not children of wrath. We don't bear these children to hand them into the hands of Satan that they would be turned over to wrath and be destroyed.

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Those who come to faith in Jesus Christ and are genuinely followers of Jesus will always be in the hands of God.

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And he will never lose any of them. So this is not bearing children in vain or for terror.

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This is bearing children for eternal life. Verse 24, and it will be that before they call,

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I will answer. And while they are still speaking, I will hear.

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God's affection will always be for this people. Verse 25, the wolf and the lamb will graze together.

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Doesn't say the lion and the lamb. In fact, there's nowhere in scripture where it says the lion will lie down with the lamb.

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And that is a common misquote from scripture, but it doesn't say that anywhere.

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We've had two occasions now in Isaiah where it is said, the wolf and the lamb will graze together and the lion will eat straw like the ox and the dust will be the serpent's food.

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They will do no evil nor act corruptly in all my holy mountains, says Yahweh. And what this is demonstrating here is that those who had previously been enemies will become brethren.

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We will be brothers and sisters in the Lord through Christ. The wolf and the lamb will graze together in the kingdom of God.

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The lion, those that devoured, they will eat straw like the ox, like the creature that they previously devoured and dust will be the serpent's food.

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So the serpent will still be excluded from this kingdom. He is still on the outside,

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Satan and all of his work. They will do no evil nor act corruptly in all my holy mountain, says

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Yahweh. And surely this is the righteousness that we have all been called to in Christ Jesus, that we should love one another and that the world will know that we are

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Christians, by our love. So let us not act in any corrupt way in the household of God.

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And surely we are looking toward an ultimate fulfillment of all of this when we will be in the kingdom of God forever where none of these things will be.

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There will not be death, there will not be sin. All the former things will have passed away. Behold, the

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Lord says, I am making all things new. But even now in Christ Jesus, 2

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Corinthians 5 .17, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away.

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Behold, the new things have come. And now all these things are from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

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Namely that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their transgressions against them.

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And he has committed to us the word of reconciliation. So we must go out with the gospel that reconciles people to God, brings people back into a right relationship with God when they turn from their sin to the

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Lord Jesus Christ, believe and be saved. And so according to his promise, we are looking for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

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One last chapter of the book of Isaiah to finish up, chapter 66, which

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God willing, we'll get to next week. Heavenly father, we thank you for what we have read here in Isaiah 65, the promises that are to be given to us.

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And I pray that we not only live in light of these promises, but even in light of the love that you have shown to us through Christ our savior, that we would be a blessing to one another.

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We would lift one another up. We would not be as wolves in the body of Christ, but that we would care for the sheep and build each other up and support each other and feed one another the word and prepare each other for that eternal day of glory in which we will stand before God in righteousness.

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We are clothed in the righteousness of Christ now. So may we live out these days, pursuing holiness and Christ likeness, putting off sin and desiring

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Christ with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. It is in the name of Jesus that we pray, amen.

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This has been, When We Understand the Text of Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt

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.com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com

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and let your friends know about our ministry. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's word, when we understand the text.