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This passage, like the rest of Isaiah's closing chapters, will have completest fulfilment in the latter days when Christ shall come. But the work which is spoken of is begun already among us. There is to be a literal new creation, but that new creation has commenced already; therefore, even now we ought to manifest a part of the joy. Do you know what this work of creation is, which is here thrice promised in the words, "I create... I create... I create . It is evidently a second creation, which is altogether to eclipse the first, and put it out of mind. Concerning the joy to which we are called, we would say —

I. IT IS A JOY IN CREATION. "Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth. I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy." It is a most right and excellent thing that you and I should rejoice in the natural creation of God. The man who is altogether bad seldom delights in nature, but gets away into the artificial and the sensual. One of the purest and most innocent of joys, apart from spiritual things, in which a man can indulge, is a joy in the works of God. Much more is there something bright and pure and spiritually exhilarating in rejoicing in God's higher works, in God's spiritual works, in God's new creation. There is no one of the attributes of God which has not its illustration under the economy grace; and blessed shall your whole being be if you can to the full rejoice in that which God creates. There is one reason why you are called upon to rejoice in it, namely, that you are a part of it. When I lay sore sick and tormented in body, it seemed always to be such a joy to me that I myself, my inner self, my spirit, had been new-created, and that my nobler part could rise above the suffering, and soar into the pure heavens of the spiritual realm; and I said of this poor body, "Thou hast not yet been new-created; but thou shalt yet be delivered."

II. IT IS A JOY WHICH WILL ECLIPSE ALL THAT HAS GONE BEFORE. "And the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind." God's great new-creating work ought to fill us with such joy as to make us forget the old creation, as though we said to ourselves: — What are the sun and the moon? We shall not have need of these variable lights in the perfection of the new creation, for in heaven, "they need no candle, neither light of the sun." What is the sea, though it be the very mirror of beauty In that new creation there will be no more sea, and storms and tempests will be all unknown. What are these luxuries of sight and hearing? We shall not want them when our eyes shall behold the King in His beauty in the land that is very far off. The joy of the spiritual is such that, while it admits the joy of the natural, yet, nevertheless, it swallows it up as Aaron's rod swallowed up the rods of the magicians. As an instance of the expulsive powers of a new delight, we all know how the memory of the old dispensation is gone from us. Did any one of you ever weep because you did not sit at the Passover? Did you ever regret the Paschal lamb never, because you have fed on Christ. I want you to feel just the same with regard to all your former life as you now feel towards that old dispensation. The world is dead to you, and you to the world. You have a higher pleasure now which enchants your soul.

III. IT IS A PRESENT AND A LASTING JOY. "Be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create." Be glad in anything that the Lord has created in you. Find your joy, also, in the new creation of God, as you see it in others. I think it is very beautiful where John Bunyan represents Christiana and Mercy as admiring each other. They had both enjoyed a wash in that wonderful beauty-giving bath, and Mercy said to Christiana, "How beautiful you are! I never saw any one look so lovely as you are." But Christiana said that she was not beautiful at all; she could not see anything about herself to admire, while in Mercy she saw everything to esteem and love. Oh, to have an eye for the work of God in other people, and to rejoice in it! Such an eye sees not itself, and yet it is itself one of God's loveliest works.

IV. IT IS A JOY WHICH GOD INTENDED FOR US. "For, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy." He has made the new city, the new people, the new world to be a source of joy. Take Jerusalem as the emblem of the Church of God. God always intended that His chosen, called, and converted people should be a rejoicing. God intended not only that we should have joy, but that we should spread it among others. As soon as ever we are converted, what is one of the first things that comes of it? Why, joy. But. by-and-by, there will be a still greater joy. We shall enter into heaven, and there will be joy among the angels, and joy in our heart over God's new-creation work, which will proceed at a glorious rate. Then the nations will be converted to Cod. I know not when, nor exactly how. but the day shall come when Christ shall reign from pole to pole.

V. IT IS A JOY IN WHICH WE SHALL SHARE WITH GOD. "And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in My people."

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

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KJV: For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.

WEB: "For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.