“The New Heavens and New Earth” LW Searching Scripture, November 2025: Isaiah 65-66

About this episode

Rev. Carl Roth joins Sarah to discuss the themes of the November 2025 issue of the Lutheran Witness, focusing on Isaiah 65-66 and the concepts of the new heavens and new earth.

November brings us to the end of another church year, which focuses our attention on the last things, on death and resurrection, on heaven and hell. We confess in the creeds, “I believe in … the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting”; “I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” It is remarkable that these creedal truths were already as good as accomplished thousands of years ago, with prophecies inspired by the Holy Spirit and written down by men such as Job (19:25–27), Daniel (12:2–3) and Isaiah (26:19). Some Christians take Revelation, Daniel, Ezekiel and other prophetic books of the Bible to be “guidebooks to the end times.” However, careful study of both the Old and New Testaments shows that their focus is on comforting the church on earth with knowledge of the victory of Jesus Christ over sin, death and the devil and His promise to take us to Himself for eternity. As we open the Old Testament and see our present and future revealed there, we will need to keep in mind the “prophetic perspective” that could be observed in Jeremiah 31:31–34 and Joel 2:28–32, in which some predictions have been fulfilled in the messianic age but…

People in this episode

Host: Sarah

Guest: Rev. Carl Roth

Topics covered

• last things
• death and resurrection
• heaven and hell
• prophecy
• comfort in scripture
• victory of Jesus Christ

Keywords

• resurrection
• prophecies
• Old Testament
• New Testament
• eternity
• comfort
• messianic age

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Grace Lutheran Church, KFUO Radio

Books & works: The Lutheran Witness, Searching Scripture, Isaiah

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