What He Will Do with Heaven and Earth, Part 1

Introduction to the Series and the Day's Topic: The Renovation of Creation

0:01 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, August 26th, 2001, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:12 Now may I encourage you to turn with me in your own Bibles to Peter's second letter, 2 Peter, and chapter 3. I shall read in your hearing the first 13 verses.

0:28 2 Peter, chapter 3. This is now, beloved, the second epistle that I write unto you, and in both of them I stir up your sincere mind by putting you in remembrance that you should remember the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first, that in the last days mockers shall come with mockery, walking in the streets of the world, walking in the streets of the world, looking after their own lusts and saying, Where is the promise of His coming? For from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willfully forget, that there were heavens from of old, and an earth compacted out of water and amidst water by the word of God, by which means the world that then was being overflowed, flowed with water, perished. But the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

1:47 But do not forget this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack, concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering to you word, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief, in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up, seeing that these things are thus all to be dissolved. What manner of persons ought you to be, in all holy living and godliness, looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God, by reason of which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. But according to His promise, we look, we look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness.

3:10 Well, let us again pray and ask God by the Holy Spirit to attend the preaching and the hearing of His own holy word. Let us pray.

3:22 Our Father, we thank You for helping us as we have sought to worship You in spirit and in truth, for putting a song in our hearts as well as upon our lips. Amen. Now we come to this pinnacle point in our worship when we seek reverently to bring our natively proud, insubordinate minds subject to Your words and to Your thoughts. And we pray that the Holy Spirit would be present to help the preacher accurately and winsomely and powerfully to open up Your words and help every listener to receive those words with discernment, with faith, with a disposition of obedience. O Lord, we lay hold of Your promise. You have said, So shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth. And as even now, the rain You sent several days ago is accomplishing its purpose, so we trust You to accomplish Your purpose in the sending forth of Your word in this place, in this hour, to Your praise.

4:32 Amen. Amen. When true and mature believers confront the over-emphasis upon, or the distortion of a specific truth of scripture their natural tendency is to shy away from that truth altogether or worse yet to construct another distortion as a corrective to the distortion of that truth which they perceive in others. One reflective man has very helpfully said that the pendulum moves swiftest through the center of its arc and is stationary at both extremes. Now, you don't need to be a profound philosopher to validate that. Just go look at a clock with a pendulum. It is stationary when its arc moves as far as it can in this direction.

5:34 Gravity is about to take over and pull it back. It is stationary at its extreme here. Gather speed through the middle of its arc begins to lose it and becomes stationary on the other extreme. And what is true with regard to the activity of a pendulum is true of the human mind and heart as it interacts with God's truth.

5:57 When we perceive a distortion, a skewing of the center point of truth, we tend either to ignore it. Or, seeking to bring things back into proper balance, we create an equally distorted perception on the other end of the pendulum. And certainly this is true with respect to the precious truth of the second coming or the return of our Lord Jesus Christ in power and glory at the end of the age, fulfilling the words of the two men who stood by the eleven and said, You men of Galilee, this same Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven. Now, in order to avoid both the reactive or the ignoring evils, we have been engaging in a study this summer for the past several months on the subject of the return of Christ in New Testament belief and experience. I began the series fifteen sermons ago by demonstrating from six clear texts in the New Testament that eagerly awaiting and loving the return of Christ was a vital element of normal Christian experience

7:26 and that in infant churches. This was not some truth to be reserved for the post-graduate students or the accelerated class in theology and in biblical truth. Among the rank and file of the people of God, some saved out of the synagogue context who would have been Old Testament believers, some proselytes, but many of them raw pagans saved out of wretched idolatry. Very early in their Christian experience came to this persuasion that Jesus revealed to us in the preaching of the Apostolic Gospel is not only the Jesus of the history that is now recorded in the Gospel records, the Jesus of crucifixion, burial, and resurrection, but that that same Jesus would return again in power and in glory. Well, having opened up those six texts, I then sought to address the question, why is this eager expectation, for and love of the return of Christ, a part of the experience of every healthy true believer? And I gave you four lines of answer to that question from a number of biblical passages.

8:50 Now, having shown the fundamental place of the return of Christ in ordinary Christian experience, and having sought to answer the question, at least in part, why do true believers in a healthy spiritual state, love the return of Christ? We then proceeded to take up what I've called crucial or foundational issues with respect to the coming of Christ. Matters concerning which we as the people of God ought to be well settled in our understanding, in our convictions, and in the way we live. We saw first of all as to the event of His coming, it is certain.

9:30 Secondly, as to the place, of His coming in redemptive history, it is both central and climactic. It is the next great event in redemptive history, and clustered around it will be everything that winds up history as we know it, and ushers in the eternal state. Thirdly, as to the time of His coming, for us the people of God, and for God's people in every age, it is always, imminent, it is at hand, it is indefinite, and it is unknowable. And then fourthly, as to the events connected with His coming, they are clearly revealed and manifold. And that's where we've parked now for a number of weeks. What events are clearly revealed as unfolding in connection with the return of our Lord Jesus Christ? And I have suggested, and I will keep repeating this, that we must not approach this question hoping to come up with a mathematically precise list, a shopping list of every event connected with His coming, lined up in perfect ironclad sequential arrangement.

10:51 But we ought to think rather in terms of a number of events that cluster around the coming of the Lord Jesus, or to use my very mundane, mundane analogy, think of the pie. And the whole pie is all of the events connected with the return of Christ. And we've tried to look at the major slices in that pie. Slice number one was what will happen to those who are in Christ at the return of Christ.

11:23 And then slice number two, at the return of Christ, what will happen to those who are not in Christ. And then last Lord's day in two messages, slice number three, at the return of Christ, what will happen to the devil and his angels. Now all of that took up some 16 to 17 hours of exposition of many texts, and obviously I can't even cite the watershed text, but to give that broad overview particularly for those visiting with us. Now today, both morning and evening, and this may possibly spill over into two weeks, from this morning when I will be back in the pulpit, God willing, here is slice number four.

12:06 At the return of Christ, what will happen to the physical creation or universe as it now exists? We've seen what will happen to those in Christ when Christ returns, both the living and the dead. We've seen what will happen to those who are not in Christ, both the living and the dead. We have seen what will happen to the devil and his angels at the coming of Christ.

12:35 Now this fourth segment of biblical truth, in which things that cluster around Christ's return are clearly addressed. At the return of Christ, what will happen to the physical creation or the universe as it now exists? And as with all of the previous segments, I'll state what I believe, is a helpful and at least somewhat accurate answer to the question, and then we will open up a number of scriptures, which have influenced me in coming up with this answer. Here's the answer to the question.

The Physical Creation in Light of Creation, Fall, and Redemption

13:17 What will happen to the physical universe? I answer, according to the scriptures, at the return of Christ, the present physical creation will undergo a radical renovation, by the purifying and restorative action of Christ, thereby making it a fit dwelling for the glorified saints in Christ. At the return of Christ, the present physical creation, what is described in Genesis 1 as the heavens and the earth, at Christ's return, this present physical creation will undergo a radical renovation, by the purifying and restorative action of Christ, thereby making it, the physical creation, this present universe, a fit dwelling for the glorified saints of Christ. Now, in order to appreciate this category of biblical concern, we must think of the physical creation, that is, the heavens and the earth, as they now exist in the light of the biblical doctrine, the biblical doctrines of, and I hope some of you kids are already saying the words, creation, fall, and redemption. That massive grid through which all reality must pass,

14:46 if we are to think biblically, if we are to think accurately about any sphere of reality, we must think of it in terms of the biblical doctrines of creation, fall, and redemption. And if we are to appreciate, what Christ will do to this physical creation, and why he will do what he says he will do, we will only understand that if we view this physical creation in all of its dimensions, in the light of creation, fall, and redemption. So what I propose to do this morning is to set that grid before you in relationship to this great issue of what Christ will do, at his return, and then God willing tonight, we're going to open up what I will call, at the close of this morning's message, the two passages that are the twin towers of the whole landscape of biblical revelation, with respect to what Christ will do with the physical creation at his return. So we're going to look this morning at first of all, the condition of the original creation, as it came from the word, and hand, of the triune God. And I use the terminology, it came from the word and hand, because the creation account, again and again, confronts us with these words,

16:14 and God said, God spoke, and God made, and God created. So creation is the result of the creative word, and hand of God, and it is the triune God, the only God who has ever existed from all eternity. And though we agree with those who help us to see why it is, that the doctrine of the Trinity is not clearly revealed, until the incarnation of the eternal word, we do not in any way think that God became triune at the coming of Christ. He has always existed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And there are many specific texts that attribute this creation to the Father, or to God, generically, as well as to the Son, and to the Spirit. So we're going to think together, first of all, of the condition of the original creation, as it came from the word, and hand, of the triune God. And so we turn back to Genesis.

The Condition of the Original Creation: 'Very Good'

17:26 The opening words of our Bibles, are uncomplicated, straightforward, and utterly disarming by their artless simplicity, and by their unashamed dogmatism. Can you imagine calling together a convocation of the world's greatest astrophysicists, and biologists, and paleontologists, and geologists, and all the other ologists, and say, Brethren, I have one simple statement to make concerning all of the realities that you focus all of your mental powers upon, and all of your devices, to understand it. I have an answer that covers the whole shebang. And then you were to stand and quote Genesis 1-1, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. You'd be laughed out the back door.

18:28 Surely these words are, indeed, artless in their simplicity, disarming in that simplicity, and unashamed in their dogmatism. In the beginning, God. Who put God there? God himself was there.

18:45 End of discussion. With whom did he consult, as he commits to create? None but himself. And where does he get his raw materials, and his wisdom from?

18:56 Out of himself. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Don't you love it? God catches the proud in their craftiness.

19:07 He says, you want to understand the world around you? Start here. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1-2 asserts that the initial creative act brought forth the raw materials, as it were, and then God proceeds to bring order, and things, and people into that situation.

19:31 The earth was waste and void. Darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God set. And in that lovely booklet that I recommended in the previous hour, by Pastor Dunn on Male and Female Relationships in the Light of Creation and the Fall, listen to Pastor Dunn's very helpful summary of this initial work of God in creating this universe. God meets the needs expressed in Genesis 1-2.

20:07 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was upon the surface of the deep. Here is the working agenda for the creation week. The primal murky mass, which is brought into being by God's word, needs light, form, and inhabitants. God meets those needs in his cosmos by creating light, Genesis 1, 1-4, giving shape and form to the universe, 1-4 through verse 20, then filling the void with inhabitants, Genesis 1, 20-31.

20:44 His work encompasses the days of the creation week, and is punctuated by repeated acts of divine assessment, whereby the creation is morally judged to be very good. You'll remember that several times in those opening words, God, pronounced what he made good. Good, good. And when he looks at the finished product, he backs off and pronounces it very good.

21:14 Now, contrary to the theorizing of evolutionists, the physical world did not come into being by a self-generating cell or glob of matter acted upon by mindless chance mutations influenced by random cosmic forces over millions or billions of years in which the law was the survival of the fittest. There's no way you can squeeze that paradigm into the Bible. In the beginning, God created. He is the creator of matter.

21:57 He is the sorter out of matter. He makes the seas and the dry land. He makes the trees. And he makes the animals.

22:08 And he creates man. From the outset of the original creation brought into existence by the creative word and power of God, that creation was orderly, mutually sympathetic and harmonious in all of its parts and in all of its functions. That's why God himself can stand back, as the God of beauty and of order and of power and of love and of aesthetic sensitivity and say every facet of it to its farthest reaches down to its subatomic particles. It is all very good because it reflects something of the wisdom, the aesthetics, the power, the love, the concern of God for that which he makes. As Adam and Eve stood hand in hand in total nakedness, looking one another into the eyes back to their retinas with nothing but sheer delight and shameless innocence, as they looked above them and reflected, they saw the universe above them smothered with the fingerprints of the God of wisdom, of power and of love,

23:33 as they looked about them and saw that symbiosis, that harmonious interaction of all that God had made, no stream breaking its banks and causing devastation in a plotted, planted area, no withering under the horrible fierce sun that produces drought. They looked above them and they saw the entire universe smothered with God's fingerprints. They looked about them and saw everything reflective of God's concern, everything perfectly suitable for them to fulfill their mandate, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, subdue all of the other facets of creation. And as they stood hand in hand and looked outward at that creation that God pronounces very good and reflected upon their mandate to be fruitful, and multiply and to subdue the earth, they saw that there were sciences to be uncovered and mastered, forces to be harnessed and channeled for good. There was, as one author says, a prodigality, a profuseness of life, so that the garden had to be tended and cared for, not to pull out weeds,

24:58 but to shape and to direct the expressions of that inherent life that is bound up in that which God had made. They saw that there were structures to be built, societies to be formed. In short, Adam and Eve were given a mandate to spread the beauties of Eden to the ends of the earth. That was their mandate.

25:25 And as they reflected upon that mandate, and as they looked at that which God had created, there was not one thing that in any way stood in the way of the joyful, successful accomplishment of the mandate that their Creator gave them. No unyielding earth, no threatening skies, no intimidating mountains, no raging streams that threatened them, all was very good. And though Adam and Eve in union before God must labor to fulfill the mandate, there was nothing unyielding in the face of that labor. Everything was in perfect harmony as it came from the hand of their Creator God. Listen to Octavius Winslow, who reflecting on this, and I'm so thankful in my reading, I found some respected writers who let their mind go in the direction I've tried to take yours this morning, in thinking about the situation in the original, the original creation. Octavius Winslow writes in his commentary on Romans 8, we read of no blight resting on the material world, no suffering in the brute creation prior to the period of Adam's transgression. The present is just the reverse of the original constitution of the world.

26:54 When God made all things, He pronounced them very good. We delight to look back and imagine what this world was when, like a newborn planted, it burst from the fountain of light, all clad with beauty, radiant with holiness, and eloquent with praise. The winds blew not rudely then, the verdure withered and died not then, the flower drooped and faded not then. There were no tornadoes, no earthquakes, no volcanoes, no electric clouds.

27:31 All the material elements of nature, nature were harmless and in harmony, because all were sinless. Innocence and happiness reigned over the irrational creation. The whole world was at rest, because man was at peace with God, at peace with his fellows, at peace with himself. There was nothing to darken, to hurt or destroy in all of God's holy creation.

28:00 Man was in league with the stones of the field, and the beasts of the field were at peace with him. Job 5.23 Oh, what a world of love, and what a picture of loveliness was our pure creation then. Does it sound like a fairy tale?

28:25 It's not, dear people. That's reality. That's reality. I've tried to take you there by laying the tracks of Scripture, and then, as it were, by filling in some of the gaps with a little element of what I trust is sanctified imagination.

28:43 And that is so foreign to our empirical interaction with this world system. It's hard for us to grasp it. But that's what God made. And it is that which God said Adam and Eve should perpetuate and extend even through the filling of the earth.

The Disruption and Alteration of Creation Due to the Fall

29:06 And the subduing of all irrational creatures and forces in the accomplishment of their God-given task. That's what it was. We've considered briefly what this creation was like when it came from the word and hand of our Creator God. But now, secondly, consider with me the disruption and alteration of the physical creation.

29:38 Which resulted from the fall of man. The disruption of the physical creation. The alteration of the physical creation. Which resulted from the fall of man.

29:54 And here we go to Genesis chapter 3. Genesis 2 concludes with that picture of Adam and Eve in total unashamed innocence, nakedness, no doubt overwhelmed with the wonder of God's provision of each other and of all in which they found themselves. But now Genesis 3. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.

30:31 And he said unto the woman. And you're familiar with how the devil seeks to seduce Eve and indirectly Adam from that place of creaturely dependence. In which all of their thinking about all reality is determined by God. They had sanctified minds.

30:55 They had a sanctified geology. A sanctified astronomy. They had a sanctified perspective. They thought and they brought every thought captive to the interpreted word of the God who made them.

31:13 And there in the garden there were many trees. With all kinds of fruit hanging from the trees. And God says they're all edible and they're all available and they're kosher. Of all of the trees of the garden you may freely eat.

31:28 However reality is Adam and you must make that known to Eve after I give you a wife. That that tree in the midst of the garden though it has fruit upon it that tree is non-kosher. That is the tree from which you are not to eat. Reality is if you eat it you'll die.

31:51 Now what did Adam know of death? I don't know. But surely he knew. It wasn't something you want to welcome in the front door.

32:00 That if you begin to think of reality in a way contrary to my statement of what reality is and you begin to act on it and if you no longer view yourself as the creature obligated to frame all of your life including your physical appetites for food, according to my word, Adam, you bring death upon yourself. All of the glory, all of the beauty, all of the wonder, all of the sheer ecstasy of creative innocence, Adam, it'll all go down the tubes. And then you know how the devil begins. As God said, at the end of the day what the enemy is seeking to do is to dislodge Adam and Eve from consciously, cheerfully taking the place of creatures in utter dependence upon and in utter joyful subjection to their good and gracious Creator God. And what he does is he subtly attacks the character of God and the assigned place of man the creature. And he said, now look, God sold you a bill of goods. He's told you that if you eat of that tree you're going to die.

33:16 No, no. No, the reality is, let me give you my slant on reality. God knows if you partake of that tree you'll be elevated to a new level of consciousness, to a new level of experience. You shall be as God's, knowing good and evil.

33:36 In other words, being in the place of a dependent creature, utterly subject to God, is not in your best interest. There is a higher level of being and consciousness open to you, but you'll never know it unless you deliberately turn from your place of submissive creature who interprets all of reality by the word of God. You see that? That's what's behind all of this.

34:12 What made the devil the devil was his unwillingness to maintain his place as creature. And now the foul fiend who is a murderer and a liar, Jesus said, and the father of all lies, he persuades our first parents that there's something to be had beyond that which the loving, gracious Creator God has given to them. And the scripture tells us when Eve, looking at it, verse 6, saw that the tree was good for food and a delight to the eyes and to be desired to make one wise. In other words, I will accept the devil's, interpretation of reality. That's what she's saying. It will make me wise. He didn't tell me.

35:07 It will bring me under the wrath of God. It will bring the horrors of death and intensified pain in my conception and all the horrible fruits that have come. Fruits, as we shall see, that even touch this beautiful, this perfect physical universe that God had made. In which He had placed them.

35:31 Well, then you know the story, as Paul Harvey would say. God comes in gracious, dogged determination to go after the man and the woman, both in judgment and in mercy. And God begins to interrogate them as they hide in the trees of the garden. And He speaks to Adam, then He speaks to Eve, questions Eve.

35:53 But then He begins to speak His word of judgment upon the serpent. Verse 14, And the Lord God said to the serpent, Because you've done this, curse to you above all the cattle. Verse 15, I will put enmity between you and the woman, her seed and your seed. Now verse 17, And unto Adam He said, Now God's going to deal with Adam.

36:19 And notice what He says to Adam. Because you have hearkened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground for your sake. Perhaps we understand it better if we render it this way.

36:38 Cursed is the ground on your account. We say, I'm going to do this for your sake. We mean it's for your benefit. That's not the idea.

36:45 Not cursed is the ground for your benefit, but cursed is the ground on your account, Adam. The ground has known nothing but the blessing of the Creator God. No thorns, no thistles, no briars, nothing unyielding. Remember, all was perfectly compatible with the worshipful fulfillment of all the creation mandates and ordinances.

37:13 There was perfect symbiosis, no disjuncture, no warfare, no unyieldingness. But now the first thing God says, Adam, because you've sinned, cursed is the ground on your account. You came from my hand and from my breath, a perfect living soul. And I put you in a perfectly compatible environment.

37:36 Now by your sin, you've tasted of death. And the curse of death that has come upon you, Adam, I'll now make the created order to answer what you've become. That's the key. When there is no sin, no curse, there is nothing but a perfectly harmonious, compatible universe in which man the creature lives.

38:02 But when man the creature sins, God says, I'll suit your environment to what you've become. Do you see that in the text? Cursed is the ground on your account because of you. Then he goes on to say in his word to Adam, in toil, in sorrow, you shall eat of it all the days of your life.

38:30 It will not be so cursed that you cannot exist. It will yield its fruit. But now it will be with something other than work that is worship that had no element of toil or sorrow. But now he says that earth will be to some degree unyielding and stubborn and in sorrow, in toil, you shall eat of it all the days of your life.

38:55 Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you. Can you imagine telling any modern evolutionary botanist that there are certain platforms that were never here in the original creation and they didn't get here by mutations over thousands and millions of years. They were put there by God's creative act in curse. That's what God says.

39:20 Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth unto you and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you will eat bread. Think of it. He works up the sweat laboring, but the labor has been so intense that when he's done laboring and seeking to enjoy the fruit of his labor, he's still sweating.

39:40 I don't stop sweating when I leave the pulpit. I'm still sweating when you greet me at the back. As God says to Adam, you're going to be reminded even in your moments when you bask in my goodness and give me thanks for the provision that's come out of now a semi-unyielding earth. You'll have the reminders when your sweat drops, fall into your soup of what you've become and the curse that has come upon the earth for your sake.

40:07 In the sweat of your face you will eat bread till you return to the ground for out of it you were taken, dust you are, and to dust you shall return. What a tragedy. Man that was made to be placed upon the earth to subdue the earth to the glory of God. And at some point the theologians tell us we have reason to believe Adam and his subsequent generations would have been confirmed in righteousness.

40:42 Whatever the earth would receive in its Edenic extension, it would never, never, never receive any dead body of any man, woman, boy or girl. Now it takes us all. I took a handful of earth, Adam, and I formed your physical constitution. Now you're going back to where I took you.

41:11 You're going to return to dust. Now, is this the full extent of the effects of sin upon the created order? Is it only the earth in isolation, the topsoil in which men grow their crops? Or is God simply focusing on this one aspect to give us the clue as to why a creation that on the one hand is smothered with God's fingerprints, the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork.

41:52 Romans chapter 1 is everlasting God-ness and power are demonstrated in the created order. And at times we see things that we say, surely Eden could not have been better than this. And then you see the images of what happens in a space of five minutes when a tornado sweeps through a given area and treats stable homes like they were made of matchsticks and leaves a swath of destruction as though someone had bombed, pinpoint bombing along the track of that tornado. You see an innocent stream becoming a rage and torrent at flood tide and homes swept away and the bloated bodies of cattle and men and women and boys and girls. And you say, this created order is a veritable hell! How do we fit it together? The Bible's answer is the only answer that fits reality because it is reality.

42:56 For the Bible tells us that that physical creation that came from the hand of God, perfect, in which there was this perfect harmony with man, the image-bearer, man, the worker, and all that was about him, there has been a disruption and alteration in the physical creation as a result of the fall of man. Calvin in his commentary on this very passage makes this statement and I believe he's right and I want to quote it to you. Moses does not enumerate all the disadvantages in which man by sin has involved himself, but mingle its own sweetness I'm sorry, Moses does not enumerate all the disadvantages in which man by sin has involved himself, for it appears that all the evils of the present life which experience proves to be innumerable have proceeded from the same fountain. The inclemency of the air, frost, thunders, unseasonable rains, drought, hail, and whatever is disorderly in the world are the fruits of sin. Nor is there any other primary cause of diseases. Then he says, this has even been recognized by the heathen poet Horace, but Moses who according to his custom studies

44:24 of brevity adapted to the capacity of the common people was content to touch upon what was most apparent in order that from one example we may learn that the whole order of nature was subverted by the sin of man. And to that I say my sad, amen. Think with me, if you've ever seen one of those vast grain fields out in the grain belt of our country, if you've ever seen one of those fields when the grain is all ripe and it looks as though someone literally sprayed the stalks with gold, gently waving in the wind, and you say, oh God, my God, how great and marvelous are your works. Who but a God of infinite beauty and profuseness of life could make this? You go by that same field tomorrow and it's nothing but a matted, beat down mess of tangled stalks. A hailstorm in 15 minutes changed it from paradise into that which is hellish.

45:47 How do you put that together? May I say that that's the question we ask when we look at what man is. How can we human beings in some ways be so God-like when one thinks of the capacity inherent in the human mind, the ability to create the notes in a man's head that can come through his pen and then come out with Kurt Mazur conducting the New York Philharmonic in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and you feel you've been transported to heaven. And yet the same creature with the same God-given mind can come up with the stuff that these rock groups that we mentioned in the previous hour would make you think you've been transported into the cacophony and the madness of hell. Here's the explanation. Just as man is not what he once was, sin is entered. So this creation is not what it once was.

46:58 It is under the curse of God. It is not obliterated. It is not totally cursed. But it lies nonetheless under the curse of God and that alone helps us to explain the world in which we live.

The Radical Renovation of the Physical Creation at Christ's Return

47:21 But now very briefly because this is just setting the stage for tonight's ministry, God willing. Having looked at the condition of the original creation as it came from the word and hand of God, all very good. Having considered briefly the disruption and alteration of the physical creation which resulted from the fall of man, now we'll set the plate and put on the china and lay out the napkins and God willing tonight we'll put on the main course. Thirdly, the radical renovation of the physical creation which will occur at the return of Christ.

48:00 The radical renovation of the physical creation which will occur at the return of Christ. Now why have I chosen the words renovation and then modified it with the word radical? Well, renovation you see is not replacement. We don't have very many now who were with us back when we bought the old Elks Club in Essex Fells back in the late 60s.

48:25 We have a few of you. Well, I wish we somehow could have captured, not only the sight of what it was like when we got it, but the smell. The smell of stale beer. Frank, you remember that Saturday we went in there and the minute you opened the front door, the smell of stale beer hit your nostrils.

48:45 And then on the walls there were drippings from where eggs had been thrown against the wall. I mean, it was a mess. We went downstairs and saw this huge bar from which the smell of stale beer was emanating and it was one of these shuffleboard things not the kind where you do like this, but, you know, that's up about this high and the little metal discs that they have, I guess, in bars. And the existing office bears who went to look at it that day came back to our home in Cedar Grove.

49:15 And we were all of one mind. This is the place we've been looking for. We've been looking and praying and praying and looking and in spite of the stench of stale beer and eggs on the wall, we said this thing can be, what, obliterated, leveled to the ground. Now, there wasn't enough land to warrant buying the place and a little bit of land and obliterating it, but we had enough vision to say this place can be renovated.

49:45 It will be substantially, essentially the same building but we'll so alter it that our noses will not smell beer, our eyes will not see eggs dripping down the wall, we will not go downstairs and find a bar, we'll make it a suitable place for the public worship and ministry of the people of God. And so we renovated. However, our renovation was not marginal, it was not peripheral, it was radical. We gutted the place.

50:18 I mean, you come before and after and you'd wonder, is this the same building? Yes, but no! You see, renovation means there's continuity between the mess that is and the lovely thing that's going to be. And that's why I've used the term renovation.

50:37 God is not done with this earth. And when the Bible speaks of a new heavens and a new earth, as we'll demonstrate tonight, that does not mean new, replacing the old, but the very earth that He made that reflected all of His glorious attributes in which He placed a perfect man and a perfect woman in a perfect environment in perfect sympathy with one another. It has now become the theater of misery and of sweat and of agony and of death with whole patches of this earth being killing fields where man in his anger and hatred is turned against his fellow man. This very earth is going to be renovated and God's going to be glorified in the very theater where the devil's done his work. Renovation. And it's going to be radical.

51:39 The terminology that you heard in 2 Peter 3, elements melt with fervent fire. The earth and the works thereof burn. I tell you, this is no cosmetic change that's coming, folks. This is no marginal change.

51:56 This is not just taking a rotten, moth-eaten, termite-ridden, ugly building and slapping a little paint on it. This is radical, radical renovation that our Lord Jesus will do at his return. And as I said earlier, we're going to look, God willing, tonight, at two passages that are the twin towers. Now, you basketball nuts, I'm not speaking about Robinson and his buddy down there in San Antonio.

52:27 I'm talking about those buildings on the lower end of Manhattan, alright? And if you look at the Manhattan skyline, as some of us do whenever we fly into Newark Airport,

52:38 you see all of these buildings, many of them impressive in size and architectural shape and form. When you look to the southern part of Manhattan, there's those two fellows. They just impinge on your eyeballs and say, ain't nothing like them. They stand head and shoulders above all the other buildings, the twin towers.

52:58 Well, there are two passages in the Scripture that are the twin towers of telling us what Jesus Christ will do to this physical universe, at his return. 2 Peter chapter 3, verses 1 to 13, I ask you, perhaps some of you men in your homes can read the passage with your families before you come tonight. And the second passage is Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8, and beginning with verse 20, or 19 through 22.

53:32 And those two passages give us very clear data as to precisely what Christ will do. Now, they do not give us in terms of all of the Kerman terminology for physical reality, but they speak to us in such terms as to make it evident that when the trump sounds, when the Lord makes his voice to be heard as the conquerors shout when he returns, and when the voice of the archangel amen, returns the shout of Christ, when he comes, he will not only deal with those who are in Christ, dead and alive, those who are not in Christ, dead or alive, the devil and his angels, but he's going to deal with this creation, this created order. And what he will do is to effect a radical renovation that will make it the fit place for his glorified saints to live in perfect communion with him and one another forever and forever. I hope I've teased you to want to return if you weren't planning to. But I must close this morning and I want to close with this very simple pointed application.

Personal Application: Understanding Yourself in Light of Creation, Fall, and Redemption

55:00 It's relatively easy to stand back. I hope you found it easy. I hope you've even found some pleasure in it. To contemplate what this whole created order was like when it came from the hand of God.

55:15 I hope you found some pleasure in that. The pleasure you have when you look at a painting worthy of being studied, listen to a musical composition. I hope you found pleasure. The works of the Lord are great, the Psalmist said, sought out of all those that have pleasure in them.

55:31 To stand outside and say, that's what God made. I hope you felt pain and grief as we've considered what this created order has become because of man's sin. Because of our sin in Adam. We're part of what happened.

55:49 We were in him. Through one man's sin entered into the world and death upon all for that all sinned. Where? When?

55:58 In Adam. We've brought the ruin. We've brought the devastation. We've brought the tragedy and the horror.

56:07 But you see, we're still standing outside looking at what God made in all of its pristine beauty. We stand outside looking at the created order and what our sin has brought upon it. But you see, my friend, you can't understand yourself or your destiny apart from those same biblical perspectives. You are God's creature.

56:30 He made you. And He made you accountable to Him. He made you with the stamp of His handiwork on your whole being. You cannot look in the mirror and say what you're looking at is just something that happens to fall at the top end of the scale in a process of time plus space plus matter plus chance.

56:54 You can't bring yourself to such madness. You know you're made by God and accountable to God. You do your best to try to be persuaded it were otherwise but you can't do it. You can't unman yourself.

57:07 You can't unwoman yourself. You are image of God. And that's stamped upon your very being. But you also know you don't feel comfortable around God.

57:21 You don't feel comfortable at the thought of being close to God. Why? Because in Adam you went from him and you're still hiding behind the bushes with an aversion to God, to His being, to His person, to His laws, to His ways. You've bought a lie that your true identity comes by being an independent autonomous self-governing creature.

57:45 You're a sinner under the curse and wrath of God. But the redemption that we're going to consider tonight as it touches the created order is a redemption that fundamentally has its tap roots in God's gracious work on behalf of the likes of you. Creatures made in His image made to know Him to love Him to find your greatest delight in Him but alienated and averse to God because of sin. The good news is that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. And I trust you'll face the facts of who you are and why you are what you are and beyond that to see what you can become in Christ if you will but have Him on His terms. I remember shocking a group of young theologues a number of years ago when after preaching a very focused gospel message I said to a group of sinners Christ is yours if you will have Him. And these very proper young doughty Calvinists came to me and said Pastor Martin I don't think we heard you rightly.

59:09 I said what is that? What did you hear? Did you say tonight that Christ is yours if you will have Him? I said I sure did.

59:16 Ah but you see I said you tell me where that's wrong. Does Christ ever stiff arm anybody who wants Him? Well no but. I said don't get me in your no buts.

59:26 I'm going out trying to tell sinners Christ is theirs if they'll have Him. You go to God in judgment Christless not in Christ you won't put your finger at God and say you didn't draw me. You'll have to say I didn't want you even though you offered yourself to me in the gospel. Friends that is Biblical truth.

59:44 Christ stands before you in the word and promise of the gospel and says I'm yours if you will have me. Have me. I died to turn away the wrath of God from people like you that deserve it. I died though that I might by my spirit so work in you that you'll love to be what you are a creature dependent upon God for life and breath creature submissive to God's interpretive word about every facet of life.

60:17 That's what it is. It's to be a Christian. It's really coming back to being a true human being. I never thought of it that way.

60:25 Well I hope you will think about it. You're not fully human until you're fully Christ. How can you have any fun? You don't do this you don't do that.

60:39 You should know all the fun we have. We've discovered our humanity in our salvation in Christ and He gives us all things richly to enjoy. I'm enjoying preaching to you. I couldn't bluff it that much.

60:56 Oh my dear unsaved friend have we made you jealous? Well we tell you all that we have in Christ is yours if you'll have Him. And He presents Himself to you in the word and promise of the gospel. Go to Him and then if God spares us all come back tonight and we'll look at the Twin Towers to see what God's going to do radically to renovate this creation to make it a fit place for glorified saints who once were nothing but hell-deserving rebel sinners but who've embraced the Lord Jesus.

Closing Prayer

61:31 Let's pray together. Our Father how we thank You for the scriptures. We thank You that they are a light unto our feet and a lamp to our pathway. We thank You that in them we discover who You are and what we are and how we may know You and how we are to view this world about us.

61:57 And our Father our hearts ache when we think of the utter ignorance of so many brilliant men trying to figure it all out convinced that whatever the answer is it's not found in the Bible. We pray that You'd use us to bring this message of light and truth and hope to our generation that many discovering from the scriptures and in the gospel who they are would joyfully embrace their place in Your world until the Lord Jesus comes and takes us and makes us fit for that better world of the new heavens and the new earth. Seal then Your word to our hearts we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.