Praise

By Elizabeth Prata

Before I was saved, I went to Italy. One of those times I visited the Colosseum. I wrote about that visit here. For a short while immediately after I was saved, in reading the passages in Revelation and Peter and Isaiah where the earth will be completely deconstructed and remade, I was sad that all the pretty things would be swept away too. All the “great art”, all the “monuments” like the Colosseum or Pyramids. All the castles and mansions and bridges and things tourists go to see. Awww, I thought.

But of course all those were made by sinful man’s hands and many of them, particularly in art, are odes to false gods. (Botticelli’s Primavera for example). As I matured I began to see man’s works for what they were, pretty, sure, awe-inspiring, yes, but ultimately symbols of debauchery against a holy God amid our history across human epochs. The Colosseum will fall. Now or later, it is guaranteed to be swept away in the calamity of judgment imminently bearing down on us. Let’s start seeing these cracked and tottering monuments of rebellion for what they are- and get used to thinking about the glories ahead made by Jesus’s hands. (John 14:3).

What Jesus has built for us is a body that shall never perish. A universal body of believers who eternally will worship Him in praise and sing, myself included. He has prepared a place for us to be with Him always. He will share with us a new heavens and a new earth whose riches and beauty stunned Isaiah into woeful silence.

Praise God for his coming promises to be fulfilled.