When Christ completed His work of creation, He brought into existence a “new heaven and a new earth.” This verbiage is often misunderstood because people are looking for a new planet and a new heaven above that planet. All that was made in the physical heaven and earth was for man and his good. It was subject to vanity because man would sin. One day it will end, the purpose of its existence being completed. All the elements of which this world is made is under a curse which can never be remedied, it has to be dissolved. What an abominable thing sin is and how man should curse the day sin overcomes him because it takes from man what God had made for his happiness. If sin destroys the first heaven and earth coupled with beauties in which it abounds, how ought we to ponder and pray that to be apart of a “new” heaven and earth “in which dwells righteousness, we should never allow ourselves to become degraded to this type of condition, again. The condition called “holy” resides in God’s house and must describe all the desires of we who make up that great assembly!! Knowing that we all began far from this state of excellence, we must strive with all that is in us to become what of us is demanded. All our manner of life which preceded our being “grafted in” can never return as a way of life and must proceed toward a likeness of Him with “whom we have to do”!! We must exercise ourselves continually with no less demand than to make our “new life in Christ” the means of entrance into that heavenly realm where “God is not ashamed to be our God.” All the things which are here and now will soon pass away and are but fleeting glimpses of a glory which awaits the faithful. To surrender our souls for what here is the here and now, is a remarkably inane lack of appreciation for all that God intended for mankind when He first created him!! The morning will dawn on a “new day” which our creator God has made available to all we who love Him and are “called according to His purposes.” Knowing that all the blessings of God are “yea, yea and not nay, nay,” we live “trusting in the God who made us” anxiously expecting the “day of God” to come.
The coming of the “day of God.” is the day when Christ shall return in His glory to be “admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in the day of the preceding world.” 2 Thessalonians 1:10 In His first coming, He appeared as a servant, clothed in humility, but, His second coming will reveal all the glory imagination can never accomplish. Not only this, but this day will be the day of our complete redemption for He will come “to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired.” God will “count us worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness, and the work of faith with power.” 2 Thessalonians 1:11 Although it will terrify and frighten all the unrighteous to see the “heavens in flaming fire and the elements melting away,” we who are expecting our Lord to so return will “shout with a voice of thunderous rejoicing that we have so lived to enjoy this day. Our faith was evidence of these things which had not been seen.” To look for anything God has not promised us would be presumptuous on our part, but to know His promises are TRUE AND EVERLASTING, and that we regulate our expectations to what has been revealed and guaranteed, we await the return of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ having been schooled in what to expect and how we should have lived by this “new heaven and new earth.”
The Judge of all the world from whom no plea will ever be silenced whose court no appeal will ever be reversed, comes to make His final acceptance of we who have been redeemed from the world by His blood, citizens of yet another “new” habitation in peace!! The happiness of being “found in Him” when He returns will then forever be underscored. Never expect to be secured in Him if we have in our day been lazy and self-satisfied not striving for that blessed holiness. It will only be the Christian who has striven with himself and the world “bringing himself under subjection to the wishes of this great Magistrate!!” For “cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully, and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood.” Jeremiah 48:10 If the Lord delays His coming, never consider it a refusal or a change of His plan, Heaven will be a happy recompense for all of us who have kept faithful, waiting on His return. His delay will in no sense show lack of concern or compassion for His servants nor a reprieve for all they who have abused their time ready-ing themselves for His coming. Joy exultant and full of glory is ours because this “new heaven and new earth” has made us ready!!
