{"id":5697,"date":"2014-08-17T00:05:39","date_gmt":"2014-08-17T07:05:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=5697"},"modified":"2014-08-16T16:23:04","modified_gmt":"2014-08-16T23:23:04","slug":"good-times-coming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2014\/08\/17\/good-times-coming\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Times Coming"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cNever again will there be in it
\nan infant who lives but a few days,
\nor an old man who does not live out his years;
\nhe who dies at a hundred
\nwill be thought a mere youth;
\nhe who fails to reach a hundred
\nwill be considered accursed.
\nThey will build houses and dwell in them;
\nthey will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
\nNo longer will they build houses and others live in them,
\nor plant and others eat.
\nFor as the days of a tree,
\nso will be the days of my people;
\nmy chosen ones will long enjoy
\nthe works of their hands.
\nThey will not toil in vain
\nor bear children doomed to misfortune;
\nfor they will be a people blessed by the LORD,
\nthey and their descendants with them.
\nBefore they call I will answer;
\nwhile they are still speaking I will hear.
\nThe wolf and the lamb will feed together,
\nand the lion will eat straw like the ox,
\nbut dust will be the serpent\u2019s food.
\nThey will neither harm nor destroy
\non all my holy mountain,\u201d
\nsays the LORD. (Isaiah 65:20-2)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

People had lived a long time on the wrong side of morning. But the dawn finally came. The last of Isaiah\u2019s prophesies predicted a new heavens and a new earth, a time when weeping would cease, when infants would not die shortly after birth, when people would live well into old age, when they would build houses, plant vineyards and harvest the fruit produced and keep it all for themselves instead of giving it to others. When we hear God telling his people about \u201cnew heavens and new earth\u201d we are tempted to imagine that God is talking about the eternal kingdom. When we see the wolf and lamb feeding together, the lion eating straw, and dust becoming the food of serpents, it is hard to think of anything else. But in between those words, God spoke of people dying: that those who died at a hundred were dying young. God spoke about babies being born. Neither death nor babies being born seems to fit the normal notion about the Kingdom of Heaven. So what to make of the passage, then?<\/p>\n

Are the blessings of the passage literal, or are they analogical? A clue comes from remembering that God chose to speak in poetry. The purpose of the passage is to tell us of the hope that is to come when God truly reigns in the lives of his people. The serpent eating dust takes us back to the curse in Genesis following Adam and Eve\u2019s first sin. God proclaimed victory over the old. <\/p>\n

In Christ, we become new creatures. The old has passed away. All things become new. The strength and power of sin are gone, the strong no longer prey on those who are weak. God spoke of the healing of old ills, of joy and life, of security and fellowship with him and harmony in the creation that comes to us in Christ. The kingdom of heaven even now lives in our hearts. No matter what the world may throw at us today, God still reigns.<\/p>\n

Send to Kindle<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cNever again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; he who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere youth; he who … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5697"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5697"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5699,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5697\/revisions\/5699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}