Isaiah 65:17-19
“For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.”
My Dear Brothers and Sisters in the Lord,
With today’s sunrise, we enter the first Monday of the eighth month of the year 2020, a year that none of us will ever forget (and there are four months remaining!!).
I’m sure that, if the Lord tarries, we will be telling our grand-children and great grand-children all about what happed in the world during this remarkable year, much like previous generations have recounted earlier times of great unrest. We will recall a virus, quarantines, face-masks, civil upheaval and burning cities, kneeling athletes, the ‘cancel culture,’ a tumultuous race for the White House, and seemingly irresolvable controversies about all of the above! We will also remember the anxiety which we all feel to one degree or another.
And, as seems all but certain now, we will also recall that it was in this year that the Church of the Savior (at least here in the West) entered into another, more painful, season of her sojourn on earth. By virtue of the way our brains have been designed and equipped by our Creator (and in light of what original sin has done to them), disturbing images of this year will flash into our minds until we take our final breaths on this side of heaven.
I’m sure you have all experienced it at some point this year. You have been awakened in the middle of the night by the recollection of something very painful and upsetting. Or, perhaps in a moment of reflection at work, your mind has drifted into a dark place where you were confronted with terrible scenes from the day’s news, playing themselves out in your head over and over like a broken record. And as this happened to you, your palpitating heart was filled with dread . . . again.
Our memories are a blessed thing for sure. But because we live in a world that is in all-out rebellion against Christ, we are able to recall, oftentimes with stunning clarity, those terrible things that fallen people do to themselves and to others (what theologians call ‘moral evils’). Along with this, we can also vividly remember those disastrous events that take place in the world of nature, which has also been profoundly damaged by human sin (what theologians call ‘natural evils’). In this way, our ability to remember is both a blessing and a terrible curse.
Well, this brings me to our source of great encouragement for today, another Monday in this incredible and unforgettable year.
Just short of twenty-four hundred years ago, the prophet Isaiah, inspired by the very Spirit of the Lord, spoke of a most blessed day, yet future, when all the redeemed of God would forget! Addressing his message to the sinful and wayward nation of Judah, which was headed into exile due to her persistent rebellion against the Lord, Isaiah promised that the Lord’s mercy would one day be most splendidly revealed in the arrival of an entirely new creation! He spoke of a “ new heavens and a new earth,” and of a new “ Jerusalem.”
In these sacred lines we have Isaiah’s vision of the eternal state, or heaven, which, as Jesus told us, is being prepared for us even now (John 14:1-3). In this new universe, also identified as an eternal ‘city’ which is called by the name “ Jerusalem,” there will be only joy, peace, and eternal life (I would encourage you to read the entire chapter). Isaiah reveals to us that all of the terrible things that resulted from our fall will be gone for good! No temptation or sin, no death, no disease, no tears, and no anxiety and fear! Amen to that!
But there is something else, another indescribable blessing, that awaits the citizens of the eternal Zion.
In verse 17, Isaiah says that when we enter that new city “ the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.” That’s right! We will be blessed with the inability to remember! And it is specifically the “ former things” that will be permanently erased from our minds! The late Old Testament scholar, J. Alec Motyer explains that it is not the “divine mind” in view here, but “the mind of the redeemed” whose “awareness will be of total newness, in which nothing prompts recollection of what once was” ( Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary, 398).
Now, these “ former things” that will never be remembered by us in the New Jerusalem are all of those terrible things that have resulted from our sins since the time of Adam, the consequences of all of those transgressions for which our Lord died, and from which we have been fully pardoned. And some of them are actually listed for us by the prophet: “ weeping and the cry of distress” (v. 19); infant death (v. 20); shortened life-spans (v. 20); vain labor (vv. 21-22); “ children for calamity” (v. 23); hostility in nature (v. 25); and destruction of any kind (v. 25).
Can you just imagine such a thing? When we close our eyes in death and open them in the Heavenly City, we will not remember anything about our former days of alienation from our Lord! It will be as if we were never lost, and had never suffered any of the effects of our sin! Everything will be “ new” in the New Jerusalem, even our thoughts! Nothing from the old life will be left over.
Some, with good intentions, have suggested that our entrance into heaven will be like waking up after a terrible dream. But this is not what Isaiah is saying at all. After a nightmare we tremble upon awakening precisely because we do remember it! But not so when we behold our Savior on His throne!
On that Day, the day of our resurrection to eternal life, we will all experience a glorious ‘re-booting’ of our ‘systems’! Everything will be restored to ‘original factory specs’! Nothing will enter our renewed and perfected minds that is connected in any way to our “ former” lives as sinners! The memories of our own sins against the Lord and against others, the memories of the sins of others against us, the memories of all of our broken relationships, the memories of suffering in body, soul, and in mind, those memories of disease, tragedy, and death, and those of every evil event ever to transpire on this earth will all be gone!
I can’t imagine it! And I can’t wait!!
So, as long as we are on this side of heaven we will remember this year (and everything that is yet to come in it). But soon, perhaps very soon, it will all be forgotten as the painful memories of our journey in this life are washed away forever in the glory of our Savior’s dear face!
“ Weeping may last for the night, but a shout of joy comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5).
I love you all with all of my heart, and I never forget to pray for you!
Mike