Fellow-Redeemed,
Who does not like to reminisce about the “old days?” I’m probably going to do that this afternoon with many friends I expect to greet at the Seminary’s anniversary service. I suspect we will recall some of our history as even better than it actually was.
God’s Word exhorts us to look forward to the completion of our redemption when our bodies will rise to live apart from the influence and damage of sin. In that eternal present we will not want even the vaguest memory of the old days we lived under sin’s curse.
Speaking about our triumphant life as his saints, the Lord through Isaiah calls us to Say Goodbye to the Old Days. The former things will not be remembered. God will create new heavens and a new earth.
The Lord put on Isaiah’s prophetic pen words about the kingdom of the promised Savior. He would come and deliver his people from the burden and pain of sin. His first coming would commence the New Testament era. His second coming will bring the destruction of this world and the universe as we know it. He will create “new heavens and a new earth.”
In this life, death takes the young and old alike. There is injustice and loss of material property. We work and get nowhere, or have to hand over the fruits of our labors to someone else. Jerusalem is a city that is not a delight and glory to the Lord but the home of two major heathen religions and unceasing tension and conflict. Yet as his saints, we can be glad and rejoice forever.
The LORD through Isaiah is speaking first about conditions in the New Testament Church, the community of saints. We are triumphant in the blood sacrifice of God’s holy Lamb. We do not remember the old days when we were conceived and born in sin because we are clean through Holy Baptism. We do not remember the sins of our youth secure that God’s love has taken our guilt and punishment and dropped them onto Christ on his cross. Even when a baby dies, or aged parents do not live out the long lives they anticipated, we do not remember their loss with dismay. In the midst of our grief and loss, we know they are with the Lord according to his gracious promise.
We work hard and others sometimes unjustly take what is ours. Our children suffer misfortune in business or family. Yet we know in faith that these things are only temporary. We do not remember those things with a grudge that we must avenge.
In our New Testament lives, such former things will not be remembered in that sense. We will look back on them as opportunities to serve our Lord with our gifts and accept the outcome according to his plan to work for our good.
We say goodbye to the old days of our sins and the consequences of those sins because God has forgiven all of our sins in Jesus Christ. We remember our sins no more because God remembers them no more, as he says in Isaiah 43:25.
It will get even better. The Lord showed Isaiah the day of eternal life in all its fullest measure of joy, peace, and permanence. God will created new heavens and a new earth.
The Bible speaks a couple of times about God creating new heavens and a new earth. He will create a New Jerusalem that will be a delight. It will be the home only of the holy, Christian Church, the communion of saints. For now we saints live in the Church militant, still fighting. Then we will live in the Church Triumphant, which is what today is about.
What will things be like; some things we do not know, some things we do know. We know this, “The former things will not be remembered.” No thought of the difficulties in this life will come to mind. “The sound of weeping and crying will be heard in it no more.” No enemy will storm her gates, knock down her walls, or shed the blood of God’s people in her streets. Babies will not die in the womb either in miscarriage or by abortion. They will not die because of illness or accident after living only a few days. We will not age and then die. A hundred years of life will be an instant.
Nothing can rob us of anything we have in heaven. The LORD compares the days of our lives in heaven “as the days of a tree.” He most likely is referencing the strength and permanence of the tree. Think of the California redwoods that have stood strong for countless years against all the elements.
Our labors for the Lord will not be in vain. Everything we do in heaven will glorify God without ceasing and make our lives nothing but pure joy. As in the Church Militant God answers our prayers before we call so it will be in the Church Triumphant.
As Thanksgiving and Christmas approach people do lots of baking and candy making. When you add flavoring, you put in only a drop or two. That is like the drops of joy, peace and permanence we have as saints living in the New Testament Church. In heaven, it will be like the whole bottle, overwhelming in its power “for they will be blessed by the Lord.”
We do not have to wait to say goodbye to the old days until the trumpet sounds and Christ the King returns in glory to judge the living and dead. We say goodbye to the old days of our sins and their consequences today. We are Saints Triumphant living under the banner of the gospel of Jesus Christ. On that banner is the bloody Lamb who had been nailed to the cross but now is sitting on his throne in heaven.
Next to him are the thrones we will occupy under the new heavens over the new earth. Below us are all the creatures living in harmony with each other and us on the Lord’s holy mountain. Amen. <SDG>