All right, let's pray together. Father, what a privilege it is to be in your house this morning. What a privilege it is for what we have celebrated this morning, the new birth of another sister in Christ and someone new to hope for the promise of heaven, to hope for the glory that will be revealed to us in the end. So as we come to your word, especially this word that speaks so near and dear to the heart of those of us who have been saved by grace through faith. We pray that you would that you would open our hearts to receive what you would have to show us this morning through your words. Sanctify us through the power of your spirit, the sanctifying power of your word. We pray. Amen. So in Revelation 21, We are seeing now the final state of all things. Here the promise of God comes to fruition for those who have faith in Christ. It is this glimpse of the future state where God will now bring about the new heavens and the new earth. Last week we introduced this text. We spent the whole time just introducing it. We never even got into it. or by considering Scripture's definition and description of what heaven looks like. We even looked at some quotes from books in the recent years that have been poured out, touting to be written by those who have gone to heaven after dying and returned to tell the tale of their trip. We saw that those descriptions on one hand contradict some of the things in Scripture that it says about heaven, and on the other hand, many times fall woefully short of the glorious description of heaven that we do have in the sure Word of God. As we think about heaven this morning together in Revelation 21, I would remind you of how we concluded that sermon last week with the practical implications and applications for why it is important to maintain a heavenly focus. First, we said that maintaining a heavenward focus assures us of our salvation. Paul tells us in Colossians 3 to set our minds on things that are above and not on things that are on the earth, for we have died and our life now is hidden with Christ in God. And Jesus reminds us in Luke chapter 12 that wherever our treasure is, there our heart is also. One of the great authentications of the reality of our faith and the reality of our salvation is the internal desire to depart this world and be in heaven with the Lord. So the first practical reason why we want to maintain a heavenly mindset is simply for the assurance of our salvation. Secondly, we said that this heavenly mindset gives us joy in this life. Paul calls his suffering in 2 Corinthians 4, verse 17, a light momentary affliction. that is doing nothing more than preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. Paul says that and you well know the list of His own sufferings. No matter what we are going through in life, when we go through pain, and when we go through heartache, and for all the times we ask so many questions, why, and don't receive distinct and definitive answers, one thing we can know is that whatever God brings into our lives in this life, one thing we can know for certain is that it is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory that will be beyond all comparison. And so He says, Romans 8, And I consider the suffering of this present time not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed to us." It gives us joy in this life. The promise of heaven in eternity and the assurance of that promise break in to the present day suffering to uphold us in the midst of it. Secondly, it gives us a desire for holy living. Peter tells us to prepare our minds and be sober-minded and set our hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Christ. And therefore, to be obedient children and don't be conformed to the passions of our former ignorance, but instead, you will be holy as He who called you is holy in all your conduct. Peter's ground for that is setting our hope fully on the grace that will be brought to us. So it gives us a desire for holy living. And the fourth one we said is it continues or it gives us a continued vigor in Christian service to one another. If the reward is coming, if heaven is coming, if the greatest glory that we can be given is coming to us, and you lay hold of that reward as more precious than anything to you in your life, then you will be willing to give up, when the time comes, comforts in this life for the sake of another. That future reward not only breaks into present day suffering to uphold us in the midst of it, it also breaks into our present prosperity and makes us realize that the comforts of this life are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed to us. So I wanted to remind us of that as we consider heaven in these closing chapters together of our study through the book of Revelation. As we come to chapter 21, We remember the chronology of our study as we have gone through Revelation together. Thus far, we have seen the beginning, middle, and end of the final seven-year tribulation period. This seven-year period begins according to the prophecy of the 70 weeks in Daniel chapter 9. It begins when the Antichrist, who has at that point risen to some status of world power, makes a covenant with the nation of Israel. The prophecy of the 70 weeks in Daniel chapter 9 begins with the... going out of the Word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, which happened under the king of Persia, Artaxerxes. We'll read about that in Ezra chapter 1. That is when the clock, if you will, started on the 70 weeks of Daniel. And according to Daniel chapter 9, the clock stopped at the end of the 62 weeks. So you had a 7-week period, and then a 62-week period for a total of 69, in which an anointed one will be cut off. And at that point, the clock stopped. That was when Christ was crucified and theologians and church historians and all that kind of thing have done the math on this and to the date it falls on the time from when Artaxerxes made that decree to rebuild Jerusalem to the time that Jesus entered Jerusalem in the triumphal entry, it falls exactly that many years later, 70 times 69. So it's an amazing prophecy that has been fulfilled. The clock stopped and we are now living in the gap, which we call the church age. And the clock of the 70 weeks restarts when the Antichrist makes that covenant with the people of Israel. And that is what brings in the final seven year tribulation period. So at this point, all of that has taken place. We have been through the seven-year tribulation as it is recorded for us in the book of Revelation. The final judgment has been completed in the form of seven seals, you remember, on the scroll that was given to the Lamb in chapter 5 of Revelation. And the Lamb took that scroll, His deed to the universe, His rightful inheritance of the universe, and He began to open that scroll. And as He opened the scroll, He broke the seven seals that sealed up that scroll. And as He opened each of the seals, new judgments were unleashed upon the unrighteous and the ungodly of the world. When the seventh seal was broken, it unleashed new judgments, seven new trumpet judgments as a part of that seventh seal in chapters 8 and 9. And then in chapter 11, when the seventh trumpet was blown, it opened up seven bowl judgments that are given for us in chapter 16. And at the end of that seventh bowl judgment, Christ returned in chapter 19. He established the millennial kingdom in chapter 20. At the end of that millennial kingdom, Satan is thrown into the lake of fire. And then the unrighteous and the ungodly are judged. The great white throne of judgment at the end of chapter 21. So at this point, all of the enemies of God have been vanquished. They've been made, to use the terms of Scripture, footstools under His feet. They have been thrown into the lake of fire that will burn forever. And all that remains left is for Him to now create a new heavens and a new earth for His people, where He will dwell with them forever. Which of course brings us to chapter 21 and a vivid description of that event, of the creation of the new heavens. and the new earth and the resulting final state. So just by way of outline, just to kind of help you have some nails to hang your notes on. First we see the universe prepared. The universe prepared in verse 1. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more. Now, the first heaven and the first earth he mentioned was passed away. And you'll remember when that event took place. chapter 20 and verse 11, when He seized the great white throne of judgment and Him who was seated on it, and from His presence earth and sky fled away and no place was found for them. That is when the first heaven and first earth passed away. And it illustrates for us the need for a new heavens and a new earth. They were destroyed as described by Peter in 2 Peter chapter 3. They were dissolved by fire. They just simply went out of existence. At the time of the throne of judgment, nothing now exists except for New Jerusalem, the great white throne, the believers who await their final state, and the unbelievers who await their final judgment. And now He prepares a new place. As John records it, a new heavens and a new earth. And He didn't get that from nowhere. It is rooted in Scripture. John knew his Scripture well. He's pulling off of language, for example, from Isaiah chapter 65, For behold, I create a new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. Or in Isaiah chapter 66 and verse 22, For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the Lord, so shall your offspring and your name remain. He had promised to make the new heavens and the new earth. The Jews understood this. John would have understood this. John would have been at this point in his life looking forward to this as he is on the Isle of Patmos in exile, wondering what in the world went wrong with this new thing called New Covenant and New Testament Christianity. When the New Testament writers speak of this great day, when the creation itself will be redeemed, if you will, just like believers will, And Paul says in Romans 8, once again, verse 19, the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but by Him who subjected it in the hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know the whole creation groans now together in the pains of childbirth. Paul calls all of the natural disasters in the creation for all of the thousand-year floods down in South Louisiana, for all of the hurricanes that ravaged the Caribbean and eastern Florida, for all of the tornadoes that roll across the Midwest, and for all of the fires that burn in West and California, for all of the natural disasters that occur in the world, he calls them the groanings of the creation and the pains of childbirth as it waits for its redemption as well. It brings to reality that the current universe is not the way it was before the fall. The effects of the fall and the entrance of sin into the world not only affected mankind, but it affected the universe as well. This is not the way that it was in the garden. In the garden it was paradise. In the garden it was bliss. In the garden it was perfect. And then sin entered the world. and plunge the entire universe into decay, chaos, and destruction. Psalm 102, 25 reminds us of old. You laid the foundation of the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain. They will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe and they will pass away. If God is going as He has promised over and over in Scripture to dwell forever with His people, then we're going to need a place to dwell with Him as His people. And so He creates one for us. He does it in what the Bible describes here as a new heaven and a new earth. By the way, the word for new there is kainos in the Greek. It means new, but not merely in the sense that this is something new that replaces something old. I mean, it does that, but it's more than that. It's new in the sense that it is fresh. It's new in the sense that it is different. It's new in its quality, not just in its chronology, which is the emphasis here. The qualitative difference is that this new creation and new earth is better and more glorious in so many ways, which will be described for us in a moment in this text, than what we currently have in the first heavens and the first Earth. One of the immediate things that we are told about it is that the sea was no more. From a literal perspective, think about what that means for our present world, which is made up of, what, two-thirds water? So much of our ecosystems and everything that we depend on depend on the relationship between the water and how we deal with it and all of the fish in the sea and everything else like that. Our bodies need water. What's the ratio? Ninety-something percent water is what our bodies are made up of. We need water to thrive. And something about our glorified bodies in eternity means that we no longer need water. There's no sea in heaven. Or there's no sea in the new heavens, in the new earth. There's no need for it. There's no need for that kind of sustenance. Think about it, because where in glory will our sustenance come from? It will come from God Himself. There is a river, by the way, speaking of that, that is mentioned in chapter 22, verse 1. It is the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. Even there, he's describing it as a river, but it's not like any river that we know. It's the river of the water of life that glows bright like crystal as it flows. Some commentators, by the way, just to make a note of this, also make the connection that the absence of the sea is also a real metaphor for the absence of evil in the new heavens and the new earth. But either way, it's clear that there need no longer be this type of body of water like we need now. So God creates this new heaven and the new earth which John just sees. He says, then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first had passed away. So the universe now has been prepared. Next we see in verse 2, the capital city established. The capital city established. Verse 2, I saw the holy city. New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Think about what John is seeing and how marvelous this vision must be to see this great city come down out of heaven from God. This is not, by the way, Jerusalem, the city of David. That went away when the first heavens and the first earth passed away. It's not either the Jerusalem that is established as the capital of the Millennial Kingdom, that is just simply a reborn, if you will, a remade, original Jerusalem made the capital of the Millennial Kingdom. For even that passed away when the first heavens and the first earth passed away. Instead, this is New Jerusalem, a final Jerusalem to which the other two pointed to, the City of God. It is not the totality of It's not the totality of the final state, by the way. It is the established capital of the final glory and the final state of heaven, or the new heavens and the new earth. Think about it, by the way, I mentioned it already, from John's perspective. You remember we mentioned that John is in exile. He's been sent to the Isle of Patmos. He's under heavy persecution. Because of his faith, he is the last of the remaining apostles. All of the others have been martyred. John alone remains. He's writing at the end of the first century. Christianity is under immense persecution. He's seen Jerusalem sacked in A.D. 70 and the temple destroyed. Christianity as a movement at this point seems to be, from an earthly perspective, an abysmal failure. And all of them had assumed Christ to be completely honest with a return in their lifetime. And John is sitting there in prison. wondering what in the world happened. And then, at the lowest point, seemingly, he sees this vision, that things are not over, that God has not forgotten His people. And He gives them this wonderful vision, or gives Him this wonderful vision of the end that He has purposed for the world, of the end for the world where all of His enemies will be brought to justice and where all of His people will reign with Him forever and live with Him forever. It is the burdened heart of a man searching that now sees the true future, holy Jerusalem that will never again fall to the enemies of God. Look at how it's described. He says he sees a holy city. It is holy, not only because it is set apart unto God as His capital city, but holy also because all of its inhabitants are holy as well. At this point, all believers, you know, have been glorified, and they have been perfected, and now they will receive a home, they will receive a place, a city that is fit for their perfection. As I said earlier, even the Edenic state of the Millennial Kingdom has now been burned up. Now, believers receive a home that is fit for their holiness and perfected state. In our current state, you know, any holy city that would be brought before us would immediately be made unholy when we step through the gate. But not so in the final state. In this state, all things will be holy. All things will be pure. All things will be unstained and spotless. All things will be free from sin, free from corruption, and free from evil. Think about that in contrast to our current experience of life. All of the corruption and evil and pain and impurity and unholiness and unrighteousness, all of it eradicated up to this point. and God establishes His capital as a holy city. He calls it here a city, which emphasizes all the things that we would expect out of a city. If He wanted it to be something else, He would have used another word, but this is a city. There's hustle and bustle. There's people moving about in the streets, talking to one another and engaging one another. But this is a holy city, so there's no traffic jams and crazy drunk drivers. There's no drug dealers on the corners or corrupt politicians in the offices. Instead, all of the inhabitants of this massive holy city will work together in perfection and harmony. There will be relationships, there will be community, there will be fellowship, but all of it done in perfect harmony and unity as we worship God together in this new home. that he calls a city. He describes it as coming out of heaven from God. Speaking of Abraham's faith, in Hebrews 11.10, it says he was looking forward to the city that has foundations whose designer and builder is who? God. God is the constructor of this great city that will be the capital. And then in Hebrews chapter 12, verse 22, He says, but you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to the innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect. Just to understand this a little bit, currently when we die on this side of eternity, we go to what we know as heaven. And right now, heaven as we understand it, contained within this new Jerusalem, heavenly Jerusalem. And when the universe is prepared for the final state as we just called, heavenly Jerusalem will come down and become the capital city of the new heavens and the new earth. And within this capital, all of the redeemed will live with God as their King forever. He calls it a bride adorned for husband, prepared that way as a bride adorned for her husband. This calls back to the fact that he comes down out of heaven from God. This is a gift of God to the redeemed. It is a gracious and loving gift of God to the redeemed. Here is your home with me forever. It also calls back the language of the wedding. The betrothal of the wedding of Christ to His people began in eternity past. When the Father purposed to give a people to His Son, or redeem people to His Son, the wedding took place in what Christ did for us. through the cross and the presentation of the bride to Him happened before the marriage supper of the Lamb began with the ceremony which lasted all throughout the millennial kingdom. And now here we have the final ceremonial aspect of the wedding, the consummation, the city given to the people of God, described as a bride because it is given to the bride as a bride adorned for her husband. Here is the promised reward that is given to us throughout Scripture. And as such, within itself, it characterizes the people of God. Not only are the people in it holy and unstained, but so also is this wonderful, massive, beautiful city unstained. And in the next passage of Revelation 21, we get into the description, very detailed, vivid description of what this city looks like. So the universe is prepared, the capital now has been established, and then we come to the reality of that final state described. The reality described in verse 3. I heard a loud voice from the throne. Once again, a loud voice announces what God has purposed, as it has done all throughout Revelation. Here, this voice comes from the throne. And this voice says, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be their God. Literally, God will tabernacle with them. It's the same word that John himself uses in John chapter 1 to describe the incarnation of Christ. The word became flesh and dwelt or tabernacled among us. It means that He made a home with us. He took up residence with us. And in the new heavens and the new earth, God will once again tabernacle with man. But the contrast is clear and it's a beautiful contrast when you consider that John wrote both John chapter 1 and he wrote the book Revelation. In the incarnation of Christ, God tabernacled with man in order to rescue them from their sins. In the consummation, He will tabernacle with those for whom Christ died. He will tabernacle with them, not as the God-man sent to redeem a people, but instead He will tabernacle with them as a friend who lives with His redeemed people. For all the Bible talks, by the way, of mansions, and all the songs that we sing of mansions, and streets of gold, and the wonder and beauty of the great city, the wonderful reality is that in heaven, what makes heaven, heaven, is the presence of God among His people. This is what makes heaven, heaven. It is the presence of God, unhindered, unfettered fellowship with Him as the treasure and source of our satisfaction forever. That is what makes heaven, heaven. And if your vision of heaven doesn't include that, you don't expect heaven. Richard Baxter in his work called The Saints' Everlasting Rest said this, doubtless as God advances our senses and enlarges our capacity, so will He advance the happiness of those senses and fill up with Himself all that capacity. We shall then have light without a candle and perpetual day without the sun. We shall then have enlightened understandings without Scripture and be governed without a written law for the law For the Lord will perfect His law in our hearts and we shall be all perfectly taught by God. We shall have joy which we draw not from the promises, nor fetched home by faith or hope. We shall have communion without sacraments, without this fruit of the vine, when Christ shall drink it new with us in His Father's kingdom and refresh us with a comforting wine of immediate enjoyment. To have necessities but no supply is the case of those in hell. To have necessity supplied by the means of the creatures is the case of us on earth. To have necessity supplied immediately from God is the case of the saints in heaven. To have no necessity at all is the prerogative of God alone. Consider what it will be like to see God. Not seeing, as Paul says, through a glass dimly, but to see God as He truly is, to see Christ in all of His glory and in all of His splendor. When Moses asked to see His glory, what happened? He had to be put into the rock, and God could only show him His back. But in the new creation with our glorified bodies, with glorified eyes, we will see Him as He is because our new eyes will be able to take in the manifold beauty and brilliance of the brightness of His glory. And with glorified mouths, we will sing songs of praise and worship to Him. And with glorified hands and feet, we will serve Him. With glorified hearts, we will love and fellowship with Him. With glorified ears, we will listen to Him and learn from Him. All that we understand the Christian's life is in this earth will be intensified infinitely more than we could ever imagine as we worship God forever in eternal bliss and pleasure at His right hand forevermore. This is heaven. all of the promises in Scripture of what we will be in Heaven, all of that is intended to serve the purpose of glorifying God forever. We have been redeemed to praise the glory of the grace of God. Ephesians 1.6. That is why He redeemed us. He redeemed us to praise the glory of His grace forever. That's why He saved you. Notice the description that we're given. I mean, it's so wonderful, you don't even need Greek to see what He's trying to tell us here. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. There will be no mourning, no crying, no pain. For the former things have passed away. Everything in this life that causes us sorrow, everything in this life that causes us tears, everything that causes us pain and heartache, all of it passed away when the first heaven and the first earth passed away. None of it will remain. And in eternity it will be only joy and happiness and pleasure. He who is seated on the throne said, Behold, I am making things new. He said, write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true. Once again, we are reminded of the trustworthiness and the righteousness of the one who sits on the throne. These words are true. Wonderful description here that John gives us as he records this spectacular vision in heaven. Perhaps you've never heard heaven described in such a way. As I said last week, looked at many ways that heaven has been described by people in our day in books and so forth. And perhaps your understanding of heaven has been influenced by that. Or the insipid ways that people try to compare heaven to some of the best things they consider in this world. And so, you hear people talk like, you know, well, he's in heaven now playing golf. I'm sure someone like me would be more akin to hell. Some of you guys would not agree. Throw some cats in there and then you really got it. as far as I'm concerned. I'm sorry, we have too many animal lovers for me to say stuff like that. But, this is the way that God describes Heaven. This is the way that God reveals Heaven. This is what He told John to write down. So maybe this is new to you. Maybe you've never heard it described this way as the Lamb being the focus, and the glory of God being the substance, and worship being the reason. And you're wondering, how do I get in? How do I get to enjoy that? What is it that you must do to have eternal life? How do I spend eternity in this kind of spiritual bliss and satisfaction, treasuring Christ forever? Well, that's how John concludes the description. The universe is prepared, the capital is established, the reality is described, and then he identifies the inhabitants of the city. He calls them first in verse 6 at the end of the verse, the thirsty. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The first identification of the inhabitants of heaven is that they are the thirsty ones. They are the thirsty ones. The same kind of thirst that Jesus mentioned in Matthew chapter 5. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied. It's the kind of thirst that's described in Psalm 42 and verse 1. As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? The thirsty, the spiritually thirsty, are those who have realized their desperate need for spiritual life and have come to God from whom the river of life flows. When the Bible speaks of someone thirsting and yearning, by the way, remember the context. These aren't people who would hear something from the words of Christ or John or whoever. They wouldn't hear the word thirst and they're not the kind of people who can go down to the local supermarket and buy a bottle of water for pocket change. The concept of thirsting and the metaphor it is meant to invoke gets lost in our prosperity. But imagine you live in the desert, and it's hard work. Imagine being someone who's crawled across the desert, across the scorched sand, under the heat of the sun, with no water, and you thirst, and you're desperate. That's the kind of desperation that Jesus is conveying when He says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. It is those who realize how spiritually desolate they are. And He promises that He, from the river of life that flows from Him, can satisfy that thirst. Not with mere water, but the water from the river of life. And so Jesus says crazy things. like he does in John chapter 6, I am the bread of life. Whoever believes in me will never hunger, and whoever comes to me will never thirst. Crazy things that only a God-man could say. In verse 7, John also describes them not only as those who thirst, but as those who conquer. The one who conquers will have this heritage. And you say, boy, conquerors, now this is my language. I mean, I listen to Osteen. I know all about conquering. We're going to conquer fears. We're going to conquer things in this world. We're going to conquer pain. We're going to conquer heartache. What kind of conqueror is in mind here? Well, it's what the Bible calls a conqueror. Let's stay in the same author, 1 John 5 and verse 4. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes or conquers the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? When John calls them here, when God calls them here conquerors, he is talking about those who have realized their desperate need for salvation, and have seen the promises that the world has to offer, and have seen the pleasures that sin has to offer, and realizes that their only hope and satisfaction can come only through faith in Christ and in Christ alone. That is what a conqueror is in Scripture. It is those who have thirst and come to Him in faith. Verse 8 concludes with the negative depiction. of those who will be excluded from the city. The cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur forever, which is the second death. We saw that recorded at the end of chapter 20. Notice he calls them the cowardly. Who is this? The cowardly. Who's the cowardly? Cowardly would be apostates. Those who once professed faith, but like the weeds and the cares of this world and the schemes of the devil, reached up and choked out the Word that was given to them. And they walked away from the faith. John himself once again in 1 John calls apostates those who were never really part of us, because if they had been, they would have remained with us. The faithless This is a growing list that drills down more and more, those who do not have faith. The root of their exclusion from heaven is that they are faithless, and from that flows detestable murderers, sexually immoral sorcerers, idolaters, and liars. The rest identifies basic characteristics of those who do not have faith, and therefore, do not have the spirit to guide them. That's what it takes to enter the Kingdom of God. And that's what it will take to enter into the final city and the final state. Faith in Christ and Christ alone can save. And faith in Christ and Christ alone is what will allow us to enter into the New Jerusalem with Him, to dwell with Him forever. With this then, we have been given both the final home for unbelievers and the final home for believers. Chapter 20 describes the lake of fire that will never be quenched, prepared for all unbelievers who experience the great white throne of judgment. Chapter 21 describes the new heavens and the new earth, prepared for those who await His appearing. The only way to enter will be by the blood of the Lamb, pleaded on our behalf, and we have received through faith. Let's pray. Father, what an amazing word this is. The promise of heaven, the promise of dwelling with the only true source of satisfaction forever, and that is You, God, Triune God, poured out for us and for our everlasting enjoyment. And even within this description, we are reminded of how we can enter into this final state. were reminded of our wonderful, blessed Christ, the Lamb who stood before the throne as though it had been slain, worthy to receive glory and honor, because by His blood He has ransomed for God people from every tribe and language and nation. We pray that You would create in those of us who know Him a heart of gratitude and a heart of yearning and longing for that great day. And for those who don't know Him, we pray that You would draw them to Him, the power of Your Spirit. We pray in His name, Amen.