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Last verses of Isaiah’s great prophecy where significantly he speaks about the miseries of Hell.
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Let’s begin then in Isaiah chapter 65 and verse 13.
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I wanted you to notice as Isaiah introduces This Last Great Theme of His Prophecy
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that he is speaking the word that Almighty God Himself had given.
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That’s what prophecy is, it is the speaking of a word uniquely given by God.
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And so verse 13, a phrase that often occurs in the book of Isaiah,
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this is what the Sovereign Lord says!
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This is not Colin’s ideas, this is not Isaiah’s ideas,
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Isaiah speaking as a prophet says this is what God says,
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this is what has been revealed to Isaiah, the prophet
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So that you and I and everyone elsedeath
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with eyes to see and ears to hear might know what God says
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and He describes two groups of people, two destinies.
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He speaks if you look through verse 13 through 15
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of one group of people who are eating and then they are drinking
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and they are rejoicing and they are singing.
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And then he speaks of others who are hungry and they’re thirsty
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and they are ashamed and they are crying out from anguish of heart.
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Now he’s introducing here the theme of two destinies
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about which the Bible speaks again and again.
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It was never spoken of more clearly than by our Lord Jesus Christ himself
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who put it this way.
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He said that there is a narrow road and it leads to life
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and that there is a very broad road and it leads to destruction
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and lots of people are walking on that broad road.
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So every person then in this worship service right now
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will personally experience either heaven or hell.
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It is an awesome reality just to ponder and consider for a moment.
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Every person in this sanctuary right now
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will personally experience either heaven or hell.
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This is true of every American.
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It is true of every European, of every person from Africa and Asia.
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It’s true of every confident millionaire.
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It is true of every person on the minimum wage and earning no wage.
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It is true of every student and every teacher and every stay at home mom.
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Every person will one day enter forever
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God’s blessing or forever live under God’s condemnation.
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Now it would seem from the scriptures that these two groups introduced to us in the verses
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we’ve looked at will have awareness of one another.
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I mention this because pondering it has brought a freshness of force about this whole issue
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to my own heart over these last days.
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You remember our Lord Jesus spoke in Matthew chapter 25 of the nations being gathered before
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him.
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And he tells how he will separate the sheep from the goats.
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This is Matthew chapter 25.
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And He will speak to the righteous, in the hearing of the wicked, telling the righteous
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what they have done and welcoming them into everlasting life.
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And He will speak to the wicked, identifying what they have done and what they have not
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done.
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And He will do it in the hearing of the righteous.
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He will assign all of us to our respective destinies.
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So the righteous will hear the sentencing of the wicked.
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And the wicked will hear and see the salvation of the righteous.
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Jesus spoke about this in Luke chapter 13, in verse 28 and 29, where he speaks of the
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wicked.
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And he says to them, you will see Abraham.
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You’ll see them.
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You will see Isaac.
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You’ll see Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom.
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You’ll see them and you yourselves outside.
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In other words you will see what you have lost, Jesus is saying.
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The converse is also true and I think it is stated here for us in Isaiah chapter 66 in
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verse 24, the last verse of Isaiah’s prophecy, where he says of the righteous that they will
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go out and they will look upon the dead bodies of those who have rebelled against the Lord
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whose worm does not die and whose fire will not be quenched.
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In other words the righteous will see what they have been saved from.
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And you will love and worship Jesus and your own mouth, my mouth will surely be stopped
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completely as we see in full measure.
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Just what it is that Jesus saved you from.
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Now I want us just to ponder the significance of this for one moment.
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The righteous will hear the sentencing of the wicked and the wicked will see the salvation
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of the righteous.
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What that means is this, some who have friends who love Christ and serve Christ will see
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their friends entering everlasting joy while they themselves enter into everlasting loss.
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Think about that.
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Some who have children who love Christ, but they don’t, or parents who love Christ, but
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they don’t.
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They will see parents or children entering into everlasting joy while they themselves
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enter into everlasting destruction.
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Think about that young person as you go on resisting the love of a father or a mother
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who wants to draw you to Jesus Christ, think if you’re to stay on that path of what that
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will mean for you one day.
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Some who have been hypocrites within the church, blending imperceptibly into the congragation,
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pretending to be Christian, but living a double life.
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You will see those you sang beside and served beside.
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You’ll see them who you know entering into everlasting joy, while you yourself enter
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into everlasting sorrow.
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I want us to feel the weight and the reality of this because no one here will say, why
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didn’t someone say something about this.
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You’re listening to OPEN THE BIBLE with pastor Colin Smith and we’re going to pause our message
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briefly there.
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But we’ll be back shortly so I hope you’ll stay with us.
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The message is called Restore Worship and it’s part of our series Restore My Soul.
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And don’t forget, you can always go back and listen again or catch up online,
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if you’ve missed any of the series and that’s at openthebible.org.uk
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All this month we’ve been talking about C. H. Spurgeon’s book
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Encouragement For the Depressed
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That’s our free gift to you if you are able to set up a new donation to the work of Open
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the Bible in the amount of £5 per month or more.
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I’ll be talking to Colin later in the programme about that book.
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So if you’re considering supporting Open the Bible in that way,
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I hope you’ll take advantage of this offer this month.
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Full details on our website openthebible.org.uk
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Back to the message now.
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Here’s Colin.
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Now I want us to look at heaven first and we’ll spend most of the time here and
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I have described heaven as a world of love.
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And I want us to notice here and really to savour the delight that Isaiah lays before
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God’s redeemed people as he speaks about the new heaven and the new earth.
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Now notice verse 17, that he is speaking about the new heaven and the new earth, quite clearly
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stated.
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So what Isiah is speaking about here in chapter 65, according to verse 17, is the same thing
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as the apostle John speaks about in chapter 21 and chapter 22 of the book of Revelation,
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that is the new heaven and the new earth.
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In other words, he is speaking about what God will do after the thousand year reign
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of Christ that is described in Revelation in chapter 20.
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That’s very important to grasp what verse 17 clearly says, so that we know how to understand
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the rest of this passage.
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It’s about, Isaiah says, the new heaven and the new earth.
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And in the new heaven and the new earth here are some delights that God’s people will savor
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forever.
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You ready?
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Number one, a restored joy, verse 17-19,
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Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth.
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The former things will not be remembered nor will they come to mind, but be glad and rejoice
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forever in what I will create.
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For I will create Jerusalem to be a delight, and its people a joy.
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I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in My people, and the sound of weeping and
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of crying will be heard in it no more.
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Now when the Lord says here that the former things will not be remembered nor will they
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come to mind, He is not saying that we will have a collective and total amnesia of life
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in this world.
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We will know one another in heaven.
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We will know Christ’s love for us, how could we ever forget the redeeming grace of Christ
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throughout our lives.
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And since the Book of Revelation makes it clear that forever God’s people will center
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their worship around the blood of the Lamb who was slain and triumphed even over death
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and therefore is forever and ever our Savior, we will certainly not ever forget that or
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what it has meant for us to be redeemed out of our fallen and rebellious condition by
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the grace and the love of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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So, when Isaiah says that the former things will not be remembered, what he’s telling
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us is this.
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What breaks your heart now will no longer be on your horizon then.
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What causes you pain and distress right now will no longer have power over you.
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It will no longer be present with you, or to you.
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You will find joy, the Lord says here, in what I will create.
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That will be your joy.
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You will find joy in the city of God, and you will find joy in the people of God, and
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your greatest delight will be in the joy that God has over you.
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And Isaiah says, the sound of weeping and crying, therefore, will be heard no more.
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John puts that in Revelation another way.
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God will wipe all tears from our eyes, literally it means all tears out of our eyes, as if
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the very source of weeping itself is now gone.
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This is such an intimate picture.
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A loving father wipes tears from the eyes of a young child.
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Can you imagine God himself doing this for you?
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You being so close to God.
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Him having such a depth of knowledge of every sorrow you have ever experienced in your entire
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You might think that mopping up the tears of
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Christians is the sort of stuff God would delegate to an angel.
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But our loving father chooses to do that for you and for every one of his children himself.
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Now, this I
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think touches on an important question that is often asked, I’ve been asked it many
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times and surely every pastor has asked this question at some time, and it is a difficult
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question, not easy to answer.
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It goes like this, how could a person be truly happy in heaven if they have loved ones who
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are not with them?
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I imagine that probably all of us, including the speaker, have asked and pondered and perhaps
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even agonized over that question.
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It is a difficult question.
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But I think we can say two things from these scriptures.
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Number one, the former things will be remembered no more, nor will they come to mind.
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Number two, God will wipe all tears out of your eyes.
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And the sound of weeping and crying will be heard no more.
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There is ahead of every redeemed person restored joy.
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Number two, there is ahead of very redeemed person restored vigor.
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Verse 20, never again will there be in it that is in now the New Jerusalem an infant
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who lives but a few days or an old man who does not live out his years.
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He who dies at 100 will be thought a mere youth and he who fails to reach 100, considered
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a curse.
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Let’s take the last part of the verse first.
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Isaiah is telling us here, remembering that he’s talking about the New Heaven and the
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New Earth.
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He is saying in language that we can understand death will be no more.
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He is using an analogy of what we can grasp to help us to lay hold in some measure of
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what really is beyond our grasp at this time.
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I can’t get my mind around eternity.
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I don’t suppose you can either.
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But I can get a notion of what it is for a man to live 100.
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I have known a few people who have lived to 100.
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So Isaiah is speaking to us in language that we can comprehend so that we can begin to
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think out into the realm that we cannot yet fully lay hold of.
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And he’s saying this.
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Look, as you think about it, living to 100 would be nothing in the New Heaven and the
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New Earth.
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There will be no more death.
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There will be no more crying or pain because the old order of things will have passed away.
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Dr. Alec Meetere says, we’ll have no more power and sin will have no more presence.
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Now I want you to notice that the joy of heaven is not just the absence of death, it’s not
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just that it goes on for a very long time.
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It will be the quality of life that will be the joy of your experience in Christ, in the
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new heaven, and the new earth.
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Look at the first part of verse 20.
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Never again will there be an infant who lives but a few days or an old man who does not
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live out his years.
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Now, here are two tragedies that we experience in this world.
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An infant, a young child, who does not have the opportunity or joy of reaching maturity,
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and dozens of us are thinking of a real person taken from us right now.
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And we wonder what the life of that person would have been if they had lived to maturity
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and to adulthood.
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And wish that we could have seen that.
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And then at the other end of life, there are many circumstances.
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Here’s a guy who looks forward to his senior years and all that he’s going to do, and
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then something happens in his life or in her life and perhaps some physical disability
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comes.
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The strength that was there in … their youth is no longer there, and the joys of life that
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you anticipated are no longer accessible to you, and all you know is your own limitations
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and feel what you cannot do.
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Now Isaiah is saying in the new heaven and the new earth, as there is restored vigor
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for both of these, the joy of fullness of life.
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So you who have seen a young person, very young person taken from you, in Christ among
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the redeemed in the new heaven and the new earth, you will see them full of vigor in
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the prime of life.
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And you who feel the limitations of your advancing years ahead of you are unending
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ages full of vigor in the prime of life.
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Isn’t that glorious?
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You’ve been listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith, and don’t forget
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if you ever miss one of the series you can always vouche up or go back and listen again
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online.
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And that’s at open the bible dot org dot UK.
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You’ll also find us as a podcast, follow the link on our website, or go to your
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favourite podcast site, search for Open the Bible UK, and subscribe to receive
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all our regular updates.
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Also on our website, and available as a podcast, is Open the Bible Daily.
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That’s a series of daily Reflections based on Pastor Colin Smith’s teaching and read
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in the UK by Sue McLeish, and you’ll find that again on our website, openthebible.org.uk
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Or as a podcast, follow the link on our website, or search for Open the Bible UK and
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subscribe to receive Open the Bible Daily.
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Open the Bible is supported entirely by our listeners and if that’s something you’ve
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been considering doing then this month we have a great offer for you.
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If you’re able to set up a new donation to the work of Open The Bible, in the amount
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00:22:54,459 –> 00:23:00,140
of five pounds per month or more, we’d love to say thank you by sending you a copy of
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C.H. Spurgeon’s book, Encouragement for the Depressed.
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Colin, who is this book for?
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This book is really for anyone who is discouraged or going through a dark time and I can’t imagine
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that there’s any Christian who doesn’t experience that at some point in life.
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What’s so striking to me about this book is that it’s written by a man who was known
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for his extraordinary faith.
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The Spirit of God rested on the life and ministry of C.H. Spurgeon and yet he knew what it was
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to go through times of extraordinary darkness and even a sense of despair at some points.
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You know, he suffered from smallpox, gout, rheumatism, inflammation of the kidneys, and
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his wife was bedridden for decades.
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I mean, this man really knew what it was to suffer and yet he found in all of this that
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he was forced closer to the Lord Jesus Christ.
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I love what he says.
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He says, I’ve learned to kiss the waves that throw me up against the rock of ages.
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I love that.
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Kiss the waves that throw me up against the rock of ages.
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Here’s biblical wisdom from a man of faith who knew what it was to really struggle in
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dark times, and I have found his writing to be wonderfully encouraging, refreshing and
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uplifting, and that’s why I’m really grateful that we have the opportunity of getting this
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book out this month.
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C.H. Spurgeon’s book, Encouragement for the Depressed is our gift to you if you are able
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to set up a new donation to the work of Open the Bible this month in the amount of £5
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per month or more.
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00:24:40,680 –> 00:24:47,560
Full details and a give-on-line go to our website, openthebible.org.uk.
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For Open The Bible and Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick and I hope you’ll join us
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again next time.