Gospel News — Sep-Dec 2013

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of mediocrity? It means that you have a mission. A specific calling which you may yet have to pray to discover. Once you get the point, and resolve to bend every fiber of your conscious being to His service and the achievement of His work in this world- then, believe me, and believe the Scriptures- life will open up before you. Even in the face of final illness and death itself, we will see that we are still willing travellers on the journey intended for us, still part of His program for His glory. And until then, absolutely all things in life are to be done and to be used within the sense of mission and specific calling which, by grace, we have each received.

--Duncan Heaster

The New Heaven And The New Earth

Bro. Ralph Green (Devon, UK.)

Towards the end of Isaiah's prophecy, God declares, "For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: ... be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying." Isaiah 65 v.17-19.

The expression `New Heaven' is a figurative one and refers to the rulers of the world in which we are involved.

The First Heaven And Earth

God began his creative work for this fair earth with one human pair who multiplied down the ages and now number after six thousand years many billions. This population was generally disobedient to God's laws hence God's decision to create a new constitution in which his laws will be obeyed. This will be accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ, God's son, who will reign on earth as King in Jerusalem for 1,000 years. His reign on earth will complete a prophetic week of 7,000 years of human history overruled by God

and his son the Lord Jesus. The great change in the religious character of the reign of the Lord Jesus is likened to a Sabbath by the apostle Paul when he wrote, "There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God." Hebrews 4 v.9.

This is also referred to in the Book of Revelation, "And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years." Rev.20 v.4. This verse describes in symbolic language the rule of Jesus and his immortal saints for one thousand years over the whole world.

This rulership constitutes in brief terms what is meant by the term, `The New Heavens'. Jesus and the saints are to be the new rulers in the age to come.

New Principles for Rulers

From the experience of the last six thousand years of human history it is necessary for these new rulers to be guided by divine principles. This is bound to follow since all will have been made immortal. For instance it is testified of both the Lord Jesus and the Saints that they shall rule with a rod of iron. God has appointed His son, the Lord Jesus, to be the great king for the new age as described in Psalm 2.v.6 "Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion. Thou art my son this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel" (Psalm 2v. 6-9). And in Revelation we read, "He that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers; even as I received of my Father" (Rev. 2 v.26-27).