Consummations: eternal life, eternal death

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Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Devotions: Ps 66, 67, 116, 117; Isa 11:10-16; Rev 20:11-21:8; Lk 1:5-25

Let all the earth praise God, awesome in power, Master of nature and of humankind. Bless our God, Who keeps us from annihilation. Lord, I come before You with praise and thanksgiving. God listens and has heeded my prayers; He has kept me in His steadfast love. May we make His ways known on earth; let all peoples praise You, O God; You judge the peoples with equity. So let us bow before the holy God our Master. God has delivered me from the clutches of death; He has lifted me from anguish time and again. YHWH is gracious, righteous and merciful; He rescues the simple. I walk today by His grace; He has enabled me to keep my faith in the face of trials and temptations. I return to Him my thanks and praise. Great and eternal are His steadfast love and faithfulness. Praise the Lord!

In His day, Jesse’s Root will stand as a Banner for all the nations [Nes ammim]; they will seek Him and His dwelling will be glorious. The Lord will again gather His remnant from Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Ethiopia, Elam, Shinar, Hamath and the coastlands of the sea. He will raise a Banner for the nations and assemble Israel’s outcasts and the Jews from their diaspora in all the corners of the earth. God will make peace among His quarreling children, and they will plunder those who have persecuted them: Philistia, Edom, Moab and Ammon. He will scorch Egypt with drought and wind and create a highway from Assyria to Israel. No one will hinder the homecoming of His people.

At the Great White Throne judgment, the dead, great and small, will gather before God. The dead—from the sea, from the realm of death and from Hades—will be judged by what they have done, and by the mercies of God. Death and Hades will be cast into the lake of fire, as will any whose names are not found in God’s Book of Life. Then a new heaven and earth will appear, as the old heaven and earth will have passed away, and the sea will be no more. The new Jerusalem will come down to the new earth from God’s heaven, prepared as a bride for her husband: ‘Behold! The dwelling of God is with humans. We will be His people, and He will live among us! He will wipe away every tear; no more death; no mourning; no weeping; no pain any more. Former things have passed away!’ And God will say, ‘Look! I make all things new!’ And God commanded these things to be written, ‘for they are true and can be trusted. I AM the Alpha and the Omega, beginning and end. To the thirsty, I give from the fountain of the water of life, without payment. Those who overcome have this heritage, and I will be their God and they will be My children and heirs. But the second death, the lake of fire, is the destination of the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, murderers, fornicators, sorcerers, idolaters and all liars.’

During the reign of Herod the Great, king of Judea, there lived an Aaronic priest named Zechariah. He was of the division of Abijah, and married to a devout woman named Elizabeth. They were faultless, but had no children. Zechariah was chosen by lot to serve in the Holy Place, at the altar of incense. There, he encountered the archangel Gabriel, who told him that God had determined to answer the couple’s prayers, and soon Elizabeth would conceive their son. They would name the child John, and the boy would become great in Israel. He would be raised as a Nazirite—no wine or strong drink—and would be filled with the Holy Spirit, even in his mother’s womb. He would serve in the spirit and power of Elijah, calling many to repentance, turning them back to God, and serving as the Forerunner, preparing the people for the Messiah’s coming. Zechariah asked for proof, citing his and his wife’s advanced years; Gabriel repeated his position and God’s sovereign decision, and told Zechariah the priest would be unable to speak until the prophecy was fulfilled and the child had been born. Meanwhile, the worshipers outside became restive at Zechariah’s long time before the altar. And when he emerged unable to speak, they discerned that he had experienced a divine vision. When his division’s service was completed, Zechariah went home, and soon, Elizabeth conceived. She withdrew into seclusion, praising God for her pregnancy and the end of her public reproach of childlessness.