RESOURCES — SHORT ARTICLES

 

SHORT ARTICLES BY TOM ELSEROAD
	2021-03-12	Suffering and When All Things Are Made New (Re.21-22)
		Rev 21:3  And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. Rev 21:4  And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away." Rev 21:5  Then He who sat on the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." And He said to me, "Write, for these words are true and faithful." Certainly, one of the most difficult problems we face is the issue of suffering. Christianity is not a system where we pretend everything is OK even when we are enduring the worst of things. At the same time, we do not forget that our hope is that suffering will be gone forever. When we deal with suffering, we tend to look at the present, but the Christian answer is to look beyond the present to the future. Yet we still want to alleviate our present suffering as much as possible. The very essence of worldly thinking is that to only consider the here and now. There is no realm of the eternal. But we as Christians are called to consider the present in the light of the eternal (Lk.9:25). If we focus our attention on the end, we can begin to understand our pain in the right perspective. It is easy to focus merely on the now and the pain we experience here. In unfolding the new heavens and the new earth, Revelation 21-22 gives us a clear glimpse of the future. When God wipes away our tears, they will never flow again for all eternity. That is the eternal perspective. Right now, we live in the valley of tears. But this is not permanent, because God will wipe away all our tears. Revelation 21:4 tells us death, sorrow, crying, and pain all belong to the former things that will pass away. Revelation 22:3 tells us, “And there shall be no more curse.” All creation groans together waiting for that moment when the curse is removed (Ro.8:19). There will not be any weeds or any tares in the new Jerusalem. Then we get the highest hope, the most incredible promise in the New Testament. We will see God's face (22:4). All our lives we can come close to the Lord, we can sense His presence, and we can talk with Him, but we cannot see His face. Can you imagine looking into the unveiled glory of God for one second? It will make every pain we have ever experienced in this world worth it to see that. Then He tells us “These words are faithful and true” (22:6). We can have confidence because God is faithful and true. Pastor Tom Elseroad

 

An Evangelical Free Church of America

23304 E Wellesley Ave. Otis Orchards, WA 99027 Church Office: 509.926.9552 Church Cell: 509.342.9145 Pastor Cell: 509.828.8843 tomelseroad@gmail.com