April 19, 2024
Photo source Wikipedia CommonsRev. 21:1-8
William Harrell, interim pastor
First Baptist Church, Wrens
There is no doubt that this world is one of trouble. Satan is the prince of the power of the air (Eph. 2) and working in the ungodly to bring about his purposes.
His purpose is not to harm us. It is not to make life uncomfortable and confusing. His purpose is to destroy people.
Our home here is a temporary place. Scripture tells us we are aliens on foreign territory (Eph. 2:19) but that after salvation we no longer occupy that status. This place we live in is not our home. We don’t fit here. That is why Christians feel so out of place in a society getting more and more wicked every day.
But, God’s plan doesn’t involve our living in such a state forever but that He will bring us home to Him where our true citizenship is and give us the peace and safety we so desire while living here. We will be in His continual presence.
God is a holy God. Sure, He is a good God and we would all agree to that. But He is more than good. He is holy. This means that He cannot, by His nature, tolerate one grain of sin in his presence.
If that is true than it stands to reason we’ve got to be made completely holy to be with Him so our presence will not violate His holiness. This is the work of Christ and we are made holy because Jesus is holy and we come to God in His Son. The whole operation of redemption has as its goal to bring us to God in our New Home. It enables us to stand in God’s presence to fellowship with Him forever.
We will all agree that our desire is to have peace. It is our desire to be rid of all sin, sickness, and sorrow. All that comes with those things will not be a part of our perfect home in God’s presence forever.
It is hard for us so accustomed to dealing with this world to imagine such a place, but God’s infallible Word states that this New Home exists and it is His provision for all that come to Him in Jesus.
In the Garden of Eden, there was no sickness, sorrow, or sin. It was a perfect place with all of man’s needs met by God Himself. Ever since Adam sinned and started the trouble on planet Earth, man has beentrying to get back into the garden. He has invented myriads of things to help him have the best life possible.
Everything man does is to comfort and help himself after he forfeited God’s total care for him by sinning in the garden. Man was created perfect. He was to have uninterrupted fellowship with God forever. Man was created to live forever. His body was so equipped that death was not a natural thing. But, death invaded the scene when Adam sinned and rebelled against God.
Our struggle to get back into the garden has been fruitless and frustrating. We can’t do it. God has to bring us there. And the place to which He will bring us is perfect. He puts us back into an unbroken relationship with Him in a perfect place.
Wouldn’t it be nice not to have to go to the doctor? Pain and discomfort would be a thing of the past. Wouldn’t it be wonderful not to have to worry about diseases such as cancer and heart disease? It would be so wonderful not to have to go to hospital beds and funerals. It would be a blessing not to have to deliver a death message to someone. Fear of the future would be a thing of the past.
God has such a perfect place already in existence and we can be a part of it if we commit our lives to Jesus Christ who is already at His Right Hand and has a place reserved for us right there with Him.
So, our struggle to get back into the garden will be over. We will be in an even more perfect place prepared for us. All the things we messed up will be made anew. All our former things with which we have been dealing are gone and a perfect home will provide us with all the things forfeited by Adam’s sin. A perfect home in the perfect presence of God is ours.
It is impossible for us to inherit our perfect home without the perfect work of Christ. We can’t go there by ourselves. We have to be taken there and God’s Word reveals that is exactly the way God has it planned. None other than the only perfect one who ever lived, Jesus Christ, takes us into our New Perfect Home.
In God’s economy of things, He placed us in His Son on the Cross. When He died, we died in Him. When He was buried we were entombed in Him. When He was resurrected, we were made alive and resurrected in Him. When He ascended, we ascended in Him and we are still IN Him and can never be removed. That is why our Perfect Home is a permanent place. We are finally safe in Jesus.
When Jesus sat down at the right hand of God, we sat down with Him, IN Him. We go to heaven by committing our lives to Jesus Christ in faith and He takes us there.
Revelation 21:6-8 declares just how perfect this new home is. Verse 8 tells us of all those who will never be a part of God’s provision for His people. There, separation will last forever and ever. But look at verse 7. There we find one of the greatest promises in God’s Word.
God declares: “He that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.” We are welcomed into our New Home, perfect in every way.
