As a teenager living in Papua New Guinea, I used to accompany my parents to student Christian fellowship meetings at the home of Norm and Agnes Chambers in Jawani St, Lae.
Those were good times. I was unaware at the time, but I was being deeply formed, as a new Christian, in the way of Jesus. I soaked up the Bible. I observed people in worship and prayer, and began in my own tentative way to pray, and to worship, and to grow in my love for God.
But there was also a strong sense of living in the end-times in those days. Hal Lindsay’s awful book, The Late Great Planet Earth, was still popular. The Scofield Reference Bible,published by Oxford University Press, giving it street cred, was a standard text for some. There were other books, and films, such as A Thief in the Night (1972), A Distant Thunder(1977), Image of the Beast (1981), and Prodigal Planet (1983). This was a generation before Tim LaHaye’s equally awful book and movie series collectively known as Left Behind (2000-2005). And there were complicated wall-sized prophecy charts painted onto linen or canvas sheets, and special “teaching series” and associated publications heralding the end of the world.
We had a collection of contemporary Christian songs too, printed on a gestetner and held together with copper staples. Near the back was a post-apocalyptic song from 1969 by one Larry Norman, which went,
Life was filled with guns and war
And everyone got trampled on the floor
I wish we’d all been readyChildren died, the days grew cold
A piece of bread could buy a bag of gold
I wish we’d all been ready…
It’s a long way from “All things bright and beautiful” and “Amazing grace.” It’s a long way from the hope, the joy, and the bliss of what God has in store for those who love him. Hear the words of Revelation 21:1-5:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.
Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away.
Then the one seated on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new.” He also said, “Write, because these words are faithful and true.”
If there’s one thing I want you to take away from the sermon this morning, it’s this: God says, “Look, I make all things new.”
What does that mean? The “new heaven and a new earth” in verse 1 gives us a clue. The word “new” there has the sense of newness in quality rather than time. It seems that God does not create a new universe out of nothing but perfectly transforms the existing creation.
This accords with Isaiah’s prophecy 700 years before. Isaiah 65:17 says, “I will create new heavens and a new earth; the past events will not be remembered or come to mind.” Isaiah 66:22 says, “ ‘For just as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, will remain before me’—this is the Lord’s declaration—’so your offspring and your name will remain.”
In Revelation 21:2, there’s a new Jerusalem, the ideal holy city, and God makes his home there, with his redeemed people. No more death, grief, tears or pain (cf Isa 25:8f). No more faithlessness, violence, selfishness, lying, idolatry (v. 9). “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well,” as one of our own poets has said.[1]
On a day when thousands are marching in the streets of Australian cities against immigration and expressing xenophobia in various ways, it is heartening to remember that the world ends with the victory of God in a place on earth celebrating xenophilia, love for the “other,” a glorious rainbow multicultural party establishing and expressing ultimate interracial and inter-ethnic justice, harmony and joy – the fulfilment of the hopes of the people of God for thousands of years (see Gen 12:1-3; Zec 2:11; Isa 19:25).
And then we come to verse 5. This is only the second time we hear God speak in the Book of Revelation (the other time is in 1:8). Almighty God, in glorious final victory, seated on heaven’s throne, the work of world salvation completed, directs history to its climax:
“I make all things new.”
These words draw on Isaiah 43:19, there God says, “Behold, I am doing a new thing” (cf 66:22). We get a glimpse of what God is doing in 2 Corinthians 5:17, where Paul writes, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!”
The new creation becomes possible, in its fullness, only because Jesus lived and died and rose again in new life: a new quality of life never before seen on earth. The statement in 2 Corinthians 5:17 is for everyone who trusts in Jesus, identifies with Jesus, follows Jesus, and walks in the way of Jesus.
Now John widens the scope of the new creation, made possible by Jesus, to its widest scope: all biblical prophecies will now be fulfilled! The present tense in verse 5 assures the reader that this future new creation will certainly occur, just as God promised.[2] And in verse 6 we see the power and grace of God: “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will freely give to the thirsty from the spring of the water of life.”
Notice the one sole requirement for receiving God’s grace: you must acknowledge your thirst; acknowledge your need of grace. In Bernard of Clairvaux’s classic hymn, “Jesus thou joy of loving hearts,” a later verse goes like this:
We drink of thee, the Fountainhead,
And thirst our souls from thee to fill.
All who thirst for salvation, and find their satisfaction in the life-giving water that only God provides, will participate in the new creation that John sees in visionary form in Revelation 21. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!” (2 Cor 5:17).
All our differences come to nothing. All that divides us disappears. “What matters is the new creation” (see Gal 6:15). What wonderful, good news! What blessed assurance! God is now at work in our world, and in our lives, to renew and transform us, making us ready to participate in the new creation, as active agents of Almighty God and the victorious Lamb. “The old life under the dominion of sin comes to an end through the new birth into faith in Christ, and a new life begins with power from God for purity, truth, and love.”[3]
Chapters 1-3 of Revelation portray the church as frail and weak, prone to mistakes and roadblocks, throughout the old age of the world. In chapter 21:1-7, we catch a glimpse of our future as the church in its ideal, perfected and permanent state.
Let each of us persevere through temptation to compromise our faith, through temptation to turn aside because the task is too great, through temptation to give up because the burden is heavy, through temptation to rewrite the script in our own ways, so that together we may honour the Lamb, and fulfil our calling, and find lasting joy, peace and bliss in the church of the age to come, the people of God in the new creation, the new reality that no human eye has yet seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into anyone’s imagination, what God has prepared for those who love him (1 Cor 2:9).
We live today in the in-between times, the now-and-not-yet of God’s cosmic timetable, between the first and second Advents of our Lord and Saviour, the Lamb, the Christ.
Take heart from this vision of hope and final victory. Align your life with God’s glorious destiny for you. Walk away from all that prevents you from fulfilling your divine calling. Refresh your mind, heart and spirit with the water of life, flowing freely from the throne of God. Tell others the great good news about Jesus, and the hope within you.
Sermon 824 copyright © 2025 Rod Benson. Preached at North Rocks Community Church, Sydney, Australia, on Sunday 31 August 2025. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Christian Standard Bible (Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 2020).
References
[1] Julian of Norwich, Revelation of Love (ed. John Skinner; New York: Doubleday, 1997), 54f, 124.
[2] G. K. Beale & David H. Campbell, Revelation: A Shorter Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 470.
[3] Richard D. Phillips, Revelation (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2017), 622.
Image source: Unsplash
iDigress 
Thank you – very heartening to read this today.