Isaiah 65:17-25
17 See, I will create new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered,
nor will they come to mind.
18 But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I will create,
for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight
and its people a joy.
19 I will rejoice over Jerusalem
and take delight in my people;
the sound of weeping and of crying
will be heard in it no more.20 “Never again will there be in it
an infant who lives but a few days,
or an old man who does not live out his years;
the one who dies at a hundred
will be thought a mere child;
the one who fails to reach a hundred
will be considered accursed.
21 They will build houses and dwell in them;
they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22 No longer will they build houses and others live in them,
or plant and others eat.
For as the days of a tree,
so will be the days of my people;
my chosen ones will long enjoy
the work of their hands.
23 They will not labor in vain,
nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune;
for they will be a people blessed by the Lord,
they and their descendants with them.
24 Before they call I will answer;
while they are still speaking I will hear.
25 The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
and dust will be the serpent’s food.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,”
says the Lord.
What Is Heaven Like?
I won’t say it’s the most common question I get asked as a pastor (I’ve never charted it out or anything), but I dare say it’s the most consistent: What is heaven like?
There are all kinds of reasons to ask that question. Maybe you’re facing surgery and you’re feeling the uncertainty of the outcome. What promises does God give me?
A loved one passes away or the anniversary of their death rolls around. What are they experiencing right now?
Life just feels heavy and hardly worth living anymore. What relief can I expect to find in the afterlife?
Idle curiosity around the dinner table. Is there going to be Hawaiian pizza in heaven? Not if my wife has anything to say about it…
It’s a consistent question, because while there are hints and clues in Scripture, I can’t talk to Grandma and hear her take on it now that she’s lived there for a year. And some of those pictures in Scripture are confusing. What does a gate made out of a single pearl even look like?
Well, today, on the Sunday we call “Saints Triumphant” we read 3 passages from God’s Word that describe the home that is waiting for us. I’d like to spend our time looking at Isaiah’s revelation in Chapter 65, where God says, “Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth.”[1]
You don’t have to live here long to know that there’s something wrong with the current heavens and earth. It’s plastered all over the news. This world is changing. And whether you believe in all the claims of climate change or not – whether you think human civilization will end in 2050 or not for 2000 more years – God tells us that this world will end. That, from the time of Adam and Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden this world has been caught in a downward spiral. Natural disasters are proving more devastating. People are proving more hateful. Wars and rumors of war are common. There are good things in and about this world, but it is far from perfect anymore.
That’s why God is creating new heavens and a new earth, and everything about it will be entirely new. So new, in fact, that you and I can’t even comprehend it. That’s why for most of the rest of this revelation God speaks in negatives, i.e. he tells us what will not be there:
The sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.[2]
Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years.[3]
No longer will they build houses and others live in them.[4]
They will not labor in vain, nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune.[5]
None of the problems that we have here will be there.
I’ve said it before, but I used to be a strong person; I’m growing soft in my old age. Until about a year ago, I couldn’t remember the last time I was brought to tears. But I was crying earlier this week and some more the week before, and it wasn’t from cutting onions either.
There are problems in this world that we cannot escape. Mothers who never get to greet their babies. Grandparents who are so addled by age that they can’t remember who their grandchildren are, or that they even have any. There are so many diagnoses that change the course of our lives, and not only in our later years. Young people have to deal with them too. Cancer, tumors, scoliosis, diabetes, anxiety, depression. You name it, we have it.
But not there. Not in heaven. Those things will be a distant memory. No, God goes further than that. He says, “The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.”[6] You won’t even have the memory of pain or sadness, your joy will be so complete. God promises us a paradise with complete satisfaction, where we can be glad and rejoice forever.[7]
What’s your favorite picture of heaven? Is it the baby who lives? Or the peace of a lamb and a wolf feeding together without conflict? A place without pain or weeping? I suppose that depends on who you are, and what you’ve experienced in this life, what relief you crave.
It’s worth remembering who Isaiah’s audience is. These are the same people we’ve heard about for the last two weeks – the Israelites who were warned about the threat of invasion by Babylon. The only difference in this text is that Babylon wasn’t a threat anymore; it was the present reality. By the time Isaiah wrote these words, the Israelites were already in exile, prisoners of war, captives in a foreign land.
It paints a different picture, doesn’t it? When God says, “I will create Jerusalem to be a delight,”[8] you have to remember what hearing that name would have conjured up for the exiles. Any thought of Jerusalem would bring sadness. It would have inspired a longing for the “good ol’ days,” before Babylon, before losing the war.
These people did a lot of weeping and crying. Their lives were cut short. Their family homes and the land that had been their inheritance for two dozen generations was now in the possession of foreigners. All that they had worked for had come to nothing. They felt like food for ravenous, power-hungry nations like Babylon.
The promises that Isaiah shares were not arbitrary. They were a direct response to the reality of the Israelites’ earthly experience. In other words, for every problem they faced, every pain they experienced, there was a balm, a salve, a solution in God’s grace.
Remember, these were people who had abandoned God. They had been warned that if they did not change their ways, they would face judgment. They didn’t listen, so judgment came. In many ways, they were getting exactly what they deserved. And yet, God still gives them these promises. God still gives them reason for hope.
We are not in exile. We are not prisoners of war. But you know pain. You’ve suffered heartache. You have reason for tears, just like I do. And just like me, a lot of it is self-inflicted. Our sin ruins our relationships here on earth, but, far worse than that, it destroys our relationship with God. He has warned us that our sin separates us from him, and yet he still makes us these promises.
He calls us his “chosen ones,”[9] and, “a people blessed by the LORD,”[10] making it clear that we haven’t earned this kind of favor. He doesn’t owe us heaven; it’s a gift of his grace. It’s a promise he made us long ago.
You might have missed it before because it’s tucked in with two other picturesque promises: “The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food.”[11]
Where have you heard that line about the serpent before? It’s on the second page of your Bible: “So the LORD God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.’”[12]
After Satan had tempted Adam and Eve to sin in the Garden of Eden, God condemned him. He promised that the Devil would be defeated by the offspring of the woman – that’s Jesus. Even after Adam and Eve destroyed God’s perfect paradise by their sin, God still showed them mercy and grace. He promised forgiveness and salvation. He gave them hope and a future, despite the fact that they would have to live by the sweat of their brow and in pain and conflict here.
You and I are continuing to live out that curse – we live in a world plagued by sin and are contributors to it – but God has not forgotten his promise. Instead he sent his Son to be that offspring of a woman, to live a perfect life and die an innocent death on a cross so that your sins could be forgiven, and so that you could go to heaven. So that you could live where the wolf and lamb feed together. So that you can dwell on God’s holy mountain where there is no pain or sorrow or frustration or ruin or destruction, but where God will answer your every need before the need arises and where we will be his chosen people and he will be our gracious God.
The promises of heaven are real and they are the answer to every earthly problem we face. But they are not just a promise of some unrealized, future good while you suffer here in the present. They are the reassurance that God has not, nor ever will forget you, but has a plan that takes you from here to eternity. You will be saints triumphant forever in heaven, and while the church on earth is more militant than triumphant, the victory is already ours in our Savior Jesus. He is the answer to our prayers, the fulfillment of God’s promise, our hope for heaven and our King eternal (more on that next week).
For now, as you await the joys of heaven, don’t despair of whatever pain or sorrow you feel here. It is temporary and will be healed with everything else in the new heavens and new earth God will create. Know that God has not forgotten you. He keeps his promises, just as he sent his Son to defeat the devil and will send him again to take you home, where you will live in his presence and with all the saints triumphant, in glory everlasting. Amen.
[1] Isaiah 65:17
[2] Isaiah 65:19
[3] Isaiah 65:20
[4] Isaiah 65:22
[5] Isaiah 65:23
[6] Isaiah 65:17
[7] Isaiah 65:18
[8] Ibid
[9] Isaiah 65:22
[10] Isaiah 65:23
[11] Isaiah 65:25
[12] Genesis 3:14,15