#DailyDevotion What Do You Expect The World To Come To Be Like?

Isaiah 65:19-25 No more will anyone hear in her a sound of weeping or a cry. ²⁰No more will You find there a baby living only a few days or an old man who doesn’t live all his days, for anyone dying at a hundred years old will still be a young man. If a man is cursed as a sinner he may live to be only a hundred. ²¹They will build houses and live there. They will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. ²²They will not build and have someone else live there or plant and have another eat it. But the life of My people will be like the life of a tree, and My chosen ones will enjoy what their hands produce. ²³They will not work for nothing or have children only to see them taken by a terrible death, for they are descendants the LORD has blessed, and their children as well. ²⁴Then it will happen that before they call I will answer, and while they’re still speaking I will listen. ²⁵The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like a cow. And dust will be the food of a snake. They will not harm or destroy anyone anywhere on My holy mountain,” says the LORD.

Now it seems to me here that the LORD is using figurative language for us to understand how wonderful things will be in the New Heavens and New Earth. What I mean by that is he talks about no longer will a baby die young or and an old man dying at a hundred will be considered a young man. Why would I think that is figurative language? Because of what Jesus says and what other parts of the New Testament say about the kingdom of God. Jesus tells us at the resurrection there will be no more marriage in God’s kingdom. If there is no more marriage then it’s reasonable to believe there is no more procreating. Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 15 death is defeated at the resurrection. If death is defeated how can anyone die when they are an infant or a man of hundred years. What the LORD is trying to get across here in this passage is the curse of the fall will be lifted.

In the kingdom of God, we see some promises about our work. After the fall of Adam, we all labor with the sweat of our brow. Who knows if we’ll get to keep what we earn or not? Who knows if some disaster will come like fire, earthquakes, storms and the like? War is a great destruction of wealth. But now, we build a house and live there. We grow crops, plant vineyards and we eat and drink the fruits of our labors. In other words, in the world to come we will enjoy the fruits of our labor and rejoice in them.

In this new reality, because as Revelation 22 images that the Father and Son reside with us in this New Heavens and New Earth, before we even open our mouth the LORD hears our prayer and listens to us. We will have no doubt then the LORD hears our prayer for we will see it manifest and quickly.

Finally, even the animal kingdom will rest in peace. Wolves and lambs will be feeding together. Lions and cows will both be eating straw. I will be like before the fall of Adam and before the flood where the LORD gave every plant and herb to eat to all life here.

But to enter this Paradise, to be part of this New Heavens and New Earth, we must repent of our sins, admit our faults, turn from sin and turn to Jesus. We must trust Jesus has indeed won forgiveness for our sins by his suffering and death. We must believe we will rise to everlasting life because Jesus has conquered death and rose from the dead for us, never to die again. Only those who trust in Christ Jesus’ work and in his name will enter this place.

Merciful God and Father, we pray you would grant us repentance and faith in Jesus Christ your Son, so we may at his revelation, be welcomed into the New Heavens and New Earth you have prepared for us. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.