The Home of Righteousness

Is there such a concept of the “end of the world” found in the bible? Certainly, if you read the book of Revelation, you’ll find terrible plagues that kill the majority of humanity – but it’s not the end of the world. You’ll then find the return of Christ to reign on earth for 1000 years with the saints in Revelation 20, followed by the Great White Throne Judgment… But what happens then? Is that it? Earth over? Everyone goes to either heaven or hell, while earth has outlived its usefulness? Let’s see what God’s Word has to say about the fate of this terrestrial ball:

2 Peter 3:10-12

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. 

According to Peter, it sounds like the earth is done for… But, wait a sec, it says “that day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire” – not only no more earth, but no more heaven either?!? Let’s keep reading: 

2 Peter 3:13

But in keeping with His promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.

AHA! According to the bible, there will be both a new heaven and a new earth – the ones that now exist are going to be destroyed by fire. Not only that – these places will become the “home of righteousness.” Keep in mind that God’s law defines righteousness, and notice what Christ says concerning the coming of the new heaven and new earth:

Matthew 5:17-18

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

The law defines righteousness, and the earth will be purified by fire and made into a dwelling place for men and women who have been made into righteous, spiritual beings who keep God’s law perfectly.

Hebrews 12:26-29

… but now He has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken – that is, created things – so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.”

The new heaven and new earth will be the home of righteousness. Righteousness cannot be shaken. Therefore, what kind of people ought we to be?

6 Things Every Christian Should Know About the 1000 Years

Revelation 20 refers to a 1000 year period immediately following Christ's return. This period of time is pictured by the next of God's annual festivals: the Feast of Tabernacles, which is also called the Feast of Ingathering and the Feast of Booths. This feast begins this Wednesday night and lasts for 7 days. Here are some important points about the Millennium that we should be familiar with and keep in mind during this time:

7 Things Every Christian Should Know about the Day of Atonement

Tomorrow at sundown begins the Day of Atonement, the only day in the bible on which God commands His people to fast. This day has great significance for Christians today, and the following list contains just some of the important points that this festival of God represents.

7 Things Every Christian Should Know About Christ's Second Coming

The Feast of Trumpets, referred to as "Rosh Hashanah" by the Jews, begins tonight at sunset and continues until tomorrow at sunset. For the Jews, this day represents the beginning of the civil new year, a time of restoration and repentance leading up to the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). In truth, this Holy Day pictures the second coming of Jesus Christ to earth, as I explained in a previous article. This Feast is not just for the Jews, and Christians today should be observing this day. Here are 7 important points about Christ's second coming that are pictured by the Feast of Trumpets:

God on Globalization

Yet another snack that originated from the food safety conference last month. When the representative from the CDC was speaking, he was talking about all of the difficulty in tracking outbreaks on a national scale. One of the things that he noted was that if 10 people who ordered the same dish in a restaurant in a small town on Tuesday all get sick on either Wednesday or Thursday with the same symptoms, then it’s not hard to trace the source. The difficulty comes in when you have a national outbreak with cases sporadically strewn across the nation. It’s much more difficult to diagnose food-borne illness when the patients have never met each other, their respective doctors don’t know each other, and there is no reason to think that the person is sick from something that they ate rather than from some other source. The curious thing is that these types of nation-wide outbreaks only occur because products are shipped from a single producer to retailers all over the country – so if it’s contaminated when it leaves the packaging plant, it’s contaminated in dozens of stores across several states.

I’m not necessarily advocating that we all buy local, but it does seem that life would be a lot simpler if we did. This lead me to pondering what God thinks of globalization. Globalization is good for consumers because it gives us greater variety and better prices. It's bad for consumers because it causes more pollution, more potential for spreading disease, and fewer local jobs in areas that are not productive enough to attract large-scale businesses. When I put it like that, globalization doesn’t look so great. It's not enough to effect a drastic change in my behavior, but it does make me wonder if this is the sort of thing that God was getting at in these scriptures:

Micah 4:4

Every man will sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the LORD Almighty has spoken.

God’s Solution to Food-borne Illness

This is yet another idea that I got from the food safety forum last week (it sort of made an impression on me). One of the main causes of food-borne disease is improper sanitation, which I discussed a little bit in a previous snack (How to Change Your Mind). You could say that the point of that discussion, as it relates to sanitation in foods, is that people need to have a compassionate heart so that they care about the people that they are growing/packaging/preparing food for, and that this is the only way to ensure that they will observe proper sanitation standards. Another point accentuated in that post was that when God gives us His Spirit, He transforms our heart so that we will keep His laws. Of course God will ultimately eradicate disease of every kind, but the aim of this snack is to make the case that the current burden of food-borne disease could be greatly reduced if everyone would simply follow God’s law today.

How is God's Government Different?

This is yet another Spiritual Snack inspired by the food safety conference that I attended the other day. At this forum, there were speakers from the food safety agencies of the federal governments (FDA, FSIS, and CDC) as well several from state food safety agencies. For those of you who are not aware (as I wasn’t), the state of North Carolina has pretty much the best food safety program in the country, so it was kind of a big deal. Anyway, as I was learning about all of these different government agencies and how they were structured, some important points of God’s government came to mind.

Jesus and the Snakes

Numbers 21:4-8 gives a seemingly odd episode from the Israelites' wanderings. The Israelites, as they often did, complained that God was just leading them around "to die in the desert," grumbling that they had no food or water. As an unusual form of punishment, God sends poisonous snakes that begin biting and killing them. After this goes on for a bit, the Israelites quickly ask Moses to pray to God to take the snakes away. Interestingly, God didn't take the snakes away; rather, He told Moses to make a "bronze snake" and put it up on a pole, and that if anyone is bitten by a snake, they could look at the bronze snake and live.

Flash forward several centuries. In John 3:1-15, Jesus is explaining to Nicodemus, a certain Pharisee who believed that Jesus had come from God, that men must be born again to enter God's Kingdom. Nicodemus asks, "How can this be?" to which Jesus tells him that since he has not understood earthly things, then neither does Jesus expect him to understand heavenly things. And then, he says something interesting in verses 14-15: "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life."

I am continually amazed by how intimately everything in the bible is connected. After some consideration, I came to the following conclusions as to the meaning of what Jesus is revealing here. Notice that in the Numbers account, God sent the snakes. Jesus prophesied that there would be many false teachers; and, given what we know about snakes in the bible, my best analysis is that these snakes are false teachers whose false instruction, their "bite," causes death. God is preparing a time of great distress to come on the earth, which will cause everyone to cry out to be saved as the Israelites did. God has lifted up Christ, so that all who will look to Him rather than to the false teachers will live, though they have been bitten by false doctrines. At that time, people will be given understanding that Nicodemus lacked, both of earthly and heavenly things.

Rich Men, Camels, and Needles

In Mark 10:25, Jesus says that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." I've often heard people use this scripture out of context as though it were literal, and it always bugged me until I read it today, but now I know for sure that they're wrong. Let's review what has just happened leading up to this verse. If you don't remember the story of the Rich Young Man, you can read it in Mark 10:17-31, but I'll give a brief review. There was a rich young man who came to Jesus and asked Him how inherit eternal life. Jesus tells Him to keep the commandments and lists a few of them. The man claims that he has always kept the commandments, and Jesus responds that he lacks one thing: he must sell everything that he owns, give it to the poor, and follow Him. The man became sad and left because he was rich and wasn't willing to give it up for God - then Jesus gives the analogy with the camel.

If we read between the lines, his problem was not that he was rich - it's that he held his wealth in higher esteem than God's kingdom and would not let it go to follow Jesus. Additionally, if we keep reading, Jesus makes this even more clear. The disciples fervently discuss this among themselves, as they typically did when Jesus said something they didn't understand, and asked him "Who then can be saved?" Jesus replied "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God."

There you go. He just told them that it is possible for a rich man to enter His Kingdom because with God all things are possible. Consider also some of the rich men in the Old Testament who will be in God's Kingdom - David, Job, and Abraham were all very rich. The key difference is that these men had the right heart, as is evident in each of their stories. They would have given up everything that they had without a second thought to follow God, and this is how we must also be.