REVELATION 5:9–10
“They sang a brand new music, saying, ‘Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you had been slain, and by your blood you ransomed individuals for God from each tribe and language and other people and nation, and you’ve got made them a kingdom and clergymen to our God, they usually shall reign on the earth.’”
COMMENTARY FROM THE SERMON “Lamb on the Throne” BY ALISTAIR BEGG.
“It’s attention-grabbing: ‘They are going to reign on the earth.’ I’m so glad they’re going to reign on the earth! I’m so glad there’s going to be a brand new earth, aren’t you? I imply, frankly, many of the stuff about heaven that I used to be informed as a boy made me distinctly uncomfortable. You too! Even now, I’m not enthusiastic about it, I’ll let you know straight-up. I don’t know what alabaster partitions seem like. And I’ve by no means performed a harp. And the considered taking part in one, particularly for an interminable time period, appears completely unattractive. Certainly, if anyone stated to me, ‘Would you prefer to go and get fish and chips in Sidmouth or play the harp in an alabaster hallway?’ I’d go for fish and chips in Sidmouth each time.
“And I perceive why it was when the Sunday college trainer requested the boys within the class what number of of them needed to go to heaven, and everyone put their palms up aside from one wee boy. And she or he stated to him, ‘Jimmy, what’s up with you? You don’t need to go to heaven?’ He stated, ‘Oh, I need to go to heaven, however I assumed you had been gettin’ the group to go simply now.’
The last word objective of God was truly not Adam and Eve within the backyard; it was Christ in Gethsemane, and it was His individuals in a brand new heaven and a brand new earth.
“I don’t need to get off on a diversion right here, and I don’t need to unsettle lots of you. In reality, I need to encourage you. In a brand new earth, all of the issues that we’ve got loved in a fallen world will probably be rectified. Each friendship that’s valuable to us now will probably be much more valuable to us then. The query of what you’re going do along with your partner, or no matter else it’s, ought to in all probability be subsumed beneath absolutely the assurance that God will make all the things that may be a blessing and an encouragement and a assist to us on this fallen world even higher when He makes a brand new heaven and a brand new earth.
“And truly, most of our footage of heaven, most of our songs about heaven have extra to do with Victorian Christianity and Platonic views of the universe than they must do with a rigorous, considerate consideration of what God is definitely planning on doing. ‘For the entire creation groans in travail, ready for the redemption of the sons of God.’ Why? As a result of He’s going to make a brand new creation. The last word objective of God was truly not Adam and Eve within the backyard; it was Christ in Gethsemane, and it was His individuals in a brand new heaven and a brand new earth. For the cross of Christ was not one thing that was slotted into time in an effort to right a defect in a system that had gone flawed. It was the everlasting counsels of God’s will that purposed, within the view of man’s inevitable riot, that issues could be this manner.”
