Turn in your Bible to Revelation chapter 21 and we'll open up in a word of prayer. Our heavenly Father, we now ask that our minds would be sharp and our hearts ready to receive what your Spirit would say to us. We know that worship didn't end, it's continuing, and part of our worship is to attentive to your word as your Spirit conveys it to our lives and makes application. And Father, as we continue our study, we pray Father that our appetite would be whet for the future we're going to experience in heaven. Not only would you whet our appetite but Father we pray that we would be motivated to bring as many people to your kingdom as possible. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Well you may have heard about the elderly gentleman who was on his deathbed. He only had days to live and everybody knew it including himself. One afternoon the old guy smelled a familiar aroma, it was his favorite chocolate chip cookies. Well this sort of gave him a new lease on the last few days of his life. He managed to push himself out of bed, get up, lean himself against the wall, work his way to the edge of the room, find the railing, went down the stairs, took him a long time but he made it. And he slumped himself toward the threshold of the kitchen and looked in the kitchen and there spread out on newspaper were hundreds of chocolate chip cookies. And he thought, "Am I in heaven? Or is this the last act of kindness from a devoted wife who wants her husband to leave this earth experiencing one last pleasure?" All those thoughts tumbled through his mind. His last bit of energy he lunged toward the counter, crumpled over on his knees, his parched lips parted, he could already taste it in his mouth. And that withered hand reaching forward to grab one cookie, and it was smacked by a spatula. And his wife said, "Stay out of those, they're for the funeral." Poor old guy, just wants one final pleasure and his wife's already burying him. 
Well, we have spent including today sixteen weeks looking at what happens to a Christian when that Christian dies and is in the presence of the Lord and awaits the resurrected body. And what the resurrected body will be like and what heaven will be like. And all the different phases of eternity including the millennial kingdom and what we'll be doing in it. In all that we have discovered we've got to admit it's a whole lot better than a few cookies, what God has planned for us. Well last time, the last couple of times and today, we're looking at that last piece, the final installment which we call the eternal state. It includes new heaven, new earth, and a new city. You know some people are a little bit put off that heaven will include a city. They think that, "Well this is heaven, it should have lots of beach and lots of open spaces and I think that's going to be there on the new earth. But they somehow don't like the idea that it's going to be this big city. All I can say to that is God would disagree, because it's going to be there. And the obvious point perhaps is that heaven is going to be a very social place, it's going to be a restored renewed community where we interact with God and we interact with each other on a whole new intimate level. 
Now I just want to cover this thought again before we dive into it. Some actually believe that what we read in Revelation 21 and 22 is not physical at all, it's not a real city, it's simply an allegorical presentation in the Bible of the people of God. Well, all I can say to that is it's called a city over and over and over again. Not only that it's given actual dimension, right? It's given color, materials, texture, and it's laid out. It's measured fifteen hundred miles by fifteen hundred miles by fifteen hundred miles. And we saw last time that means just the base level is two million two hundred and fifty thousand square miles. That's just the first level, you've got to go up fifteen hundred miles, it's a huge city. And it's able to house every redeemed person who has ever lived.
Now John gets a personal tour of this city. You know, in the Bible there was only two people in the New Testament that saw a vision of heaven. One was Paul, the other was John. Now Paul doesn't help us very much because he says, "Yeah I was taken to the third heaven and it's just so cool I can't even tell you about it." So, well that doesn't help us. John however was told to write these things down and we're given this description. Last time we looked at the description of the outside of this city. Now we look at the inside of the city. Today we view it from the inside not the outside. This is the walkthrough today where we see it as we go in and we notice what's not there and what is there, and who's there and who's not there and what they're doing there. This is the inside of the city as spoken by John.
Let's look at it in verse 22 of Revelation 21 and we'll follow down several verses. "But I saw no temple in it for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple." And the city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it for the glory of God illuminated it and the Lamb is its light. And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it. Its gates shall not be shut at all by day, their shall be no night there. And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles or causes an abomination or a lie but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life. And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street and on either side of the river was the tree of life which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it and his servants shall serve him. And they shall see his face and his name shall be on their foreheads. And there shall be no night there, they need no lamp nor light of the sun for the Lord God gives them light and theys hall reign forever and ever." So what we have here is the internal view of the eternal city. And because John approaches it a bit different than the outside view, we're going to notice in closing, and I say in closing because this is really the last study in this series. We'll do a summary explanation next week but this is really the last, this is the end of it. So I want to give you this morning five conditions that will sum up lfie in the eternal city, the new Jerusalem, heaven, the eternal state.
The first condition I want you to notice is what I cal proximity. Now in verse 22, John, the first thing he notices is there's no temple in new Jerusalem. And later on in chapter 22, it says they're going to see his face, there's a close intimacy and proximity, that means we don't need a temple in heaven. Now understand that to ancient peoples it was unthinkable to have a great city without temples. Every great city had several temples and even the city of Jerusalem had at its centerpiece the great temple where God was worshipped and animals were sacrificed. But the idea here is that you don't need one, the Lord God is the temple and the Lamb, they're the temple. So in heaven you and I will have direct access to God. No need of a holy place, you don't need a church, a cathedral, a chapel, a synagogue, a house of worship; you don't need special days of worship. 
And there won't be separate groups gathering in heaven grumbling, "Let's make another heaven, we don't really like this place," like there happens to b eon earth. I heard about a guy who was stranded on a desert island, you may have heard this, he was there all alone and finally after years he was rescued. And the captain of the ship that rescued him noticed that there were three huts on the island. And the captain said, "Now wait a minute, I thought you were stranded here all alone." He said, "Well I was, the first hut that's my house, that's where I live. And the second hut is my church where I went every week." And the captain said, "Well what's the third hut?" The guy said, "That's the church I used to go to." None of that in heaven, God's presence will literally fill every spot, every place in the new heaven and the new earth and the new city.
Now you know it's always been God's desire to be close to his people, to be in close proximity to his people. Before the fall of man, God was seen walking with Adam in the cool of the day in the garden. But sin marred that, sin ruined that and there was a separation between God and man. And so the Lord provided a tabernacle where he could be worshipped and then later on a temple where he could be worshipped. But there was still distance between God and man in those places. You couldn't just barge in, you had to go to a priest who represented God to you. You couldn't walk into the holyof holies, there were courts that separated you from God's presence. There was a sacrifice you would have to bring to be worthy. But the Lord Jesus has always anticipated this very time. You remember one of his great promises is, "In my Father's house there are many rooms, if it were not so I would have told you. I'm going to prepare a place for you and if I go I will come again and receive you to myself that where I am there you may be also." It's always been his desire. And Jesus prayed in John 17 these words, "Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am. Then they can see all the glory you gave me because you loved me even before thw rold began." Listen, in heaven, you'll never feel far from God ever again. If you feel that way today, if you feel lonely, you'll never feel that way ever again. You'll be totally satisfied all the time. You'll be in his presence, you'll see his face. 
Have you ever been at a camp or a retreat or even a worship service where it's just so powerful, it's almost like you can touch and feel the presence of God. And it's so utterly cool you feel like, "I don't ever want to leave." That's how heaven's going to be like all the time. That's why there's no need of a temple because of proximity.
The second condition that will be in this eternal city is what I call majesty or glory, God's glory. Look at verse 23 of chapter 21, "And the city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it. For the glory (or the majesty) of God illuminated it and the Lamb is it's light. And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light. And the kings of the earth shall bring their glory and honor into it. It's gates shall not be shut at all by day (and notice this parenthetical statement), there shall be no night there."
Now we're getting a little bit of insight into what the conditions will be like in this new setup. Right? New universe, new heaven, new earth, new city, very different dynamic than what we presently know now. You see, on earth now, we depend on cycles of the sun and the moon and alternate conditions of light and darkness. For instance, the moon provides tides for the ocean, it controls the flow of tides in the sea. But that isn't an issue here because there's no sea. Verse 1 of chapter 1, there was no ocean. And so there's no need for the moon, there's no need for the sun, there's never going to be a night there. Never going to be night. Now just to remind you what John saw so far is that the city is so well lit that when he first saw it it was like this gigantic cube fifteen hundred miles by fifteen hundred miles by fifteen hundred miles descending from heaven toward earth and light was cascading out of it, pouring forth from it. A huge light show, dazzling and the way I describe dit last time, it's like a giant holy of holies coming down toward the earth. And I said that because the only place we find a cube where God dwelled was in the Old Testament the holy of holies. It was fifteen feet wide, fifteen feet deep and fifteen feet tall, a perfect cube. And that's in the tabernacle where the ark was kept. And so this new city of Jerusalem is sort of like the holy of holies on steroids, fifteen hundred miles cubed coming from heaven toward the earth. And notice, in our verse the source of this light is the Father and the Son, they're together glorified. A very different kind of light.
Visible light today as we know it, visible light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum, this is the stuff I used to have to study. And the retina of your eye responds to the measurement on the electromagnetic spectrum of somewhere between 390 and 740 nanometers in wavelength, that's what it responds to. But light as we know it usually has a source of combustion or fuel that burns and needs to be replenished, whether it's sunlight or whether it's a lightbulb. But notice here that God Almighty and the Lamb are the source of light. This is from the majesty and glory of God, it never runs out. God isn't going to say after twenty thousand years, "I'm sort of tired of shining now." It says there's going to be no night there. Ponder that for a moment: no night. Experts tell us that human emotions can become very vulnerable late afternoon and early evening, not with everyone but with quite a few people. It's called sundowner's syndrome. And it is more acute in the elderly. In fact in pre-Alzheimer conditions they say that certain people can become very agitated and confused in late afternoon and early evening when the sun is setting. Darkness does something to us. I have a friend who lost his son recently and when I was with him he said, "You know what? I dread nighttime. I hate it when it's dark, because your thoughts are focused, you're not distracted by visible things in this world that is shown by light." There's going to be no night there because the lgory of God permeates that place, God's majesty. Do you remember when Jesus in John 17 prayed that prayers and part of it is where he said, "Father glorify me with the glory that I had with you before the world was." Remember that prayer? Glorify me with the glory I had with you before the world was. This is the answer to that prayer. They're together, they're glorified, and it's radiant, it's brilliant, it's majestic. Heaven will display the glory of God.
Now that gives us a little insight actually into the incarnation. I just want you to follow me here for a moment. Think of what Jesus gave up to come to this earth for thirty-three years. He gave this up. And so when he prayed, "Glorify me with the glory I had with you before the world was," think about that. He gave all of this up to come here to be rejected, scorned, misunderstood, beaten, crucified; so that you and I could be in heaven with him forever. That's amazing.
Charles Wesley wrote a song, we sing it every Christmas, "Hark the Herald Angels Sing." There's a little phrase in that song and it goes like this: "Veiled in flesh the godhead see, hail incarnate deity. Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel." It's picking up on this thought, here is God in all of his splendor and glory but veiled by human flesh. Now every now and then while Jesus was on earth, you could see through the veil, you could peek at the glory. For instance, on the Mount of Transfiguration; Peter and James and John who wrote Revelation were there. And it says in Matthew 17, "He was transfigured before them and his face shone like the sun. His clothes became as white as the light." What was that all about? That, my friends, is a preview of coming attractions, that was the trailer to this movie. What they saw is what ultimately it will be like in the kingdom, brilliant, bright resplendent light of the glory of God. And I've heard people say, "It was a miracle that Jesus shined." Listen, the greatest miracle is he didn't shine all the time. But it was veiled but just every now and then the disciples were able to see into it. So heaven will display, let's call it the unedited widescreen version of the glory of God, the take-your-breath-away Wow glory of God. So majesty is a condition.
A third condition I want to draw you attention to is activity. Activity. Now we're not going to go through all these verses again but I'm just going to point out a couple things. A big question people have is, "So like what are we going to do in heaven." We've covered this before in part. Like we talked about in the millennium what we'll do and what positions will be like, how we'll help administrate. But now this is forever, that's gone, this is now the eternal state. "What are we going to do like forever." That worries some people. As I work my way through the text, there's a few words that pop out. Verse 24 of chapter 21, the word walk, we're going to walk, we're going to move, we're going to be going places, probably in and out of that city, maybe exploring the new earth or the new heaven. Verse 26, we're going to walk and bring honor and glory into it. That's the idea of praise and worship which we talked about before. In verse 3 of chapter 22, serve is another verb. It's an action, that's what we'll be doing, we'll be serving Him. And in verse 5 we'll be reigning. So here's action words that describe actions that we'll be doing forever and this is just a small sampling of it but it helps answer that question.
David Head wrote an honest prayer to God, he said, "Lord I've been active all my life, this idea of eternal rest frightens me. The beatific something-or-other that they talk about in sermons doesn't mean a thing to me. I shall be thoroughly miserable if all I have to do is gaze and gaze and gaze. Isn't there anything to do in heaven?" That's a good question. The answer to that: oh yeah, there's a lot of stuff to do in heaven. Did you know that there was an elderly gentleman, true story, I read about it this week, elderly gentleman, he was in a rest home and he was talking to one of the workers there, a younger gal, she was a Christian, she had been a Christian a lot longer. And the old guy said, "Are we going to have fun in heaven?" And she said, "Oh no, no." And she said it like that, like she was even dismayed that he asked the question. Like, "What? Are you kidding? You think we're going to have fun there." She said, "Oh no." And sadly, that's how many people suppose heaven is going to be like. We're just going to be bored to tears. Like the little boy who was talking to his buddy and his buddy said, "Hey what's heaven like?" And the little boy said, "Oh it's boring, it's a lot like church only longer." And it's funny to me, I've observed something, I've observed that some people fancy themselves as fun-loving people but God as a cosmic killjoy. And if you listen to them it's like, "Yeah I'm really fun and life is cool with me." But it's like they're saying, "The worst thing that could possibly happen to you is that you become a Christian because then suddenly you lose joy." I was in line one time, I'll never forget this because it was only a few blocks away from here. I was in line and there was a lady in front of me and she turned around and we were having a conversation and she said, "Well what do you do?" I said, "I'm a pastor." She took a step back. And seriously, she said, "Why?" Just like that. "Why?" like I'm so sorry, you couldn't get a real job could you? You know what? The Bible speaks of the Christian life as abundant life. And heaven is described as a place of abundant joy, fun, exhiliration. Psalm 16, here's a hint, "In your presence is fullness of joy and at your right hand are pleasures forevermore." Joy? Pleasures? How is that possible? Because there'll be many activities.
Let's go through just a few that we saw. We're going to walk together, we're going to be moving, interacting, walking together. That means we're going to have to put up with each other forever but we're going to be in resurrected redeemed bodies, we'll be able to handle it. We're going to worship together, Revelation 5, we saw that already, chapter 4 and 5 and we see it here hinted at as they're bringing glory and honor into it. And I'll remind you, if you're not a singer now, if you're tone deaf now, don't worry, your day is coming. 
Number three, we're going to serve God, verse 3 of chapter 22. And they shall serve him. I like this, I like the thought that part of eternity and part of eternity's worship is doing. That's part of it is doing, that's part of our worship, we're serving, we get to do stuff for the king as his servants. I love that, because here's the thought, the whole idea and separation of sacred versus secular is gone in that one. Everything we do is worship, every activity is worship. I love that because that's how God intended life I believe. I've told you before one of my favorite movies is Chariots of Fire where Eric Liddel discovers that even running a race can be as satisfying, and he believed a calling of God, as much as being a missionary in China. And that famous phrase in the movie where he says, "And when I run, I feel his pleasure." Remember that? He discovered that all of life can be done to the glory of God, all of it can be worshipful. We're going to feel immense pleasure in serving God in a variety of actions. Now what those actions are we're not told, it doesn't say you're going to serve him this way or in that capacity, it just says you'll serve him. It's going to be wonderful.
Some people, honestly, they don't get this and here's why: the idea of heaven includes work or service, doesn't set well with people. And I thought about this, I think it's people who hate their jobs feel this way, "You mean like I'm going to have to like work in heaven? I'm going to have to like serve in heaven? And it's because in our western culture, our work ethic says, we work hard all our lives and the reward for that is called retirement. Yeah, we take like a long vacation. So we think heaven must be just this long eternal vacation. Well God's idea of rewarding you is more service opportunities to serve him. And you know what, you'll love it, you'll love it.
Here's a fourth condition of the eternal city and that's diversity. I want to show you this, to me it's beautiful. Verse 24 of chapter 21, "And the nations (look at that word, grab that word) and the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory and honor into it." And then in chapter 22 verse 2 it mentions this tree that is for the healing of the nations. Same word, now this is what I want to point out: the word nations is ethne. Ethne, it means ethnic groups. And the ethnic groups who are saved will walk in its light. Now typically it's a New Testament word that is most often translated as Gentiles, non-Jewish people, Gentiles, the nations. But the point here is that heaven is not just for one little group of people, it's for whosoever will let him come. The invitation is wide open and there will be people from every tribe, every tongue, every kindred. We know that, Revelation 5 verse 9, one of the things you're going to sing (in fact I like to tell people, memorize these lyrics because it's going to be part of your eternal song) "For you have redeemed us to God by your blood, out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation. And again in Revelation 7 verse 9 John said, "I looked and behold a great multitude which no one could number of all nations, tribes, peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb." You say, "Skip, what's your point?" Here's my point: all of the cultural variety that we enjoy now from all over the world will not be lost in heaven. There will be redeemed, resurrected people; but we're not all the same, we're not amorphous, we're not blended into one kind of same entity, we will have distinctions I believe. Just as Jesus when he rose from the dead was still a Jewish male in his resurrected form. But think what it's going to be like in heaven, to see aborigines from Australia, Masai from Kenya, Muldovans, Peruvians, Sudonese, Navajo; all gathered around, saved from all of those cultures, worshipping Jesus Christ, all the nations gathered together. I love this because frankly today Jerusalem is a divided city, a contentious city. New Jerusalem will be united and multiracial and multicultural and ethnic distinctions and we won't resist those differences, we'll enjoy them. Here's God's creativity in all the different kinds of people that he made, we'll enjoy that.
The fifth and final thing I want you to notice, condition of the eternal city, is what I call vitality. Vitality. Look at the 22nd chapter. "And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal. (think of it, unpolluted, glimmering, shining) proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street and on either side of the river was the tree of life which bore twelve fruits and each tree yielding its fruit every month and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. This is main street, every city has its main avenue, main street, this is main street heaven. And it's a garden-like environment. It's a street flanked by a river. The fountainhead of the river is the throne that's why some commentators don't see heaven as a cube but as a pyramid or a prism where at the very top you have throne of God and cascading outward and downward is this river of life. I don't know which it is, I just take a wait-and-see approach, either way it looks pretty cool just from this description. Now there's a great psalm, Psalm 46, that interfaces, dovetails beautifully with this. Here's part of it, David said, "There is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God for God is in her midst." But here we see the city, the new city of Jerusalem and part of it is this beautiful garden-like paradise with a river running through it and beautiful trees. And it brings us back, I hope in our minds, to the original Garden of Eden, original Paradise, where there was a river running through it (not the movie, the garden) and it branched off into four rivers that watered that garden. And so like that originally paradise, heaven is reminiscent of that, even the tree of life is there. Paradise. Do you remember when Jesus was on the cross and that on criminal trusted in him and Jesus said, "Today you'll be with me in paradise." You know the word he used, the Aramaic term translated into the Greek comes from a Persian word that literally means a walled garden. "Today you'll be with me in Paradise." The meaning a walled garden. Here's a beautiful picture of heaven, this city with walls and gates and a garden, paradise, that's in it. Now I'll just say this, there's not a sea in the new heaven and new earth, there's no ocean. And if there's no sea there's no hydrological cycle. Right? So it means this river is not replenished by rainfall that comes from a hydrological cycle that comes from having a sea. So I'm just throwing that out because people, "How can there be a river?" I don't know, God can figure that out. Obviously the source of its replenishment that is needed is God himself, it proceeds from the throne, it's replenished by him.
Now look at verse 2, it says, "In the middle of its street and on either side of the river was a tree of life." Now linguistically this is an awkward sentence. In fact as I just try to mosey my way through it and make sense of it, I have difficulty. Well I discovered the word street, that's not a really great translation, literally it's path. ‘In the middle of its path and on either side of the river.' So here's just how I'm picturing this river, okay this is me. I'm picturing a river and in the middle of the river an island, a path, so that essentially you have two forks or two streams with a land mass in the middle and then it's flanked by the banks on either side. And in the middle is this tree of life which is large and covers both sides and extends on both sides. this beautiful eternal river. Notice though it says "The leaves are for the healing of the nations." Now this poses a problem to some because they read this and they say, "why do the nations need healing if there's no curse?" Right? That would be a problem. Again, this is where translation helps. The best rendering of that isn't healing or healing in the sense of "Here's somebody sick that needs to take some medicine to get better." The word is therapea, therapea, it means well-being or therapy or vitality. So it's not like nations are sick because there's no death, there's no sorrow, there's no tears, it says at the first part of Revelation 21. Why? Because it says here there's no curse. And so the nations don't need to be healed of any curse, that's gone. It's simply therapea, for their vitality or well-being. Whatever's in or on these lives is simply to enrich life, to enhance life. Look at it like supernatural vitamins, people don't take vitamins because they're sick and they want to get better, it just enriches their lives. It's for the healing of the nations.
So the Bible opens with a garden. The Bible closes with a garden. The Bible opens with paradise lost, the Bible closes with paradise regained. The Bible opens with man banished from the tree of life, the Bible closes with people invited to partake of the tree of life.
I want to close with this thought: If you think about it, the whole history of the world hinges on three trees: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the tree of life; both in Genesis 2. And the third is the tree on which Jesus Christ was hung on Calvary's hill two thousand years ago. The first tree took away man's spiritual life, right? "In the day that you eat thereof you will surely die." Man died spiritually that day when he took of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The second tree, the tree of life, threatened to keep man in that separated condition forever, if they were to eat of it. That's why the cherubim said, "You're not going to touch the tree of life, you'll forever be in this condition." But that third tree, the tree that Jesus hun on on Calvary makes it possible to have life restored again. And all of that to say this: Do you know that forever and ever and ever in heaven we're going to always be looking back to that tree of Calvary, as well as this tree of life. Because the only reason that we're in heaven is because of w3hat Jesus did for us. You say, "well how is it that we're always going to be looking back to that tree?" Because Jesus is called what here? The Lamb. That's sacrificial language. John said, "Behold the Lamb that was slain," or "The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." IN Revelation 4, John turned and he said, "I saw a lamb as thought it had been slain." It's Christ. So forever and ever we're going to be always grateful for the fact that we're in ehaven because of what the Lamb did for us on that tree which gave us access here to this tree of life. 
William Barkley puts it this way: "The cross is the proof that there is no length to which the love of God will refuse to go to win men's hearts. If the cross will not awaken love and wonder in men's hearts, nothing will." You know what? That's so true. If your heart is not awakened by the thought that Jesus left this glory to come to planet Earth for 33 years, he gave that up so that we could be saved. If that doesn't awaken love and response in your heart, nothing will. God loves you. He loves you enough to make it possible for you and everyone else who has ever lived, if they trust in Christ, to get to heaven. But he won't make you go there. If you don't want to go, you don't have to. But he wants you to go there, he's provided a way for you to go there.
Let's pray. Father, thank you for that. Thank you for the promise of heaven and then the description of heaven which includes this eternal state. Lord, one thing we've noticed is that you're a God of such variety, that's there's different phases and stages to a Christian's existence from the moment that he or she dies. Different experiences of joy and wonderment and glory and exploration. Lord as we consider today Futuretown, your town, the city of Jerusalem; we're amazed at even the description John gave us. And Lord, it could be that some are listening thinking, "I want to go there, I really want to make sure I go there, that sounds wonderful." In fact, I believe there's certain people here today Father that are just looking at their life and they're a bit aimless and hopeless, they really don't' sense lots of purpose in the choices that they've made. They want to change that, they want to live with hope, they want to live with certitude. Father we pray you'd give that to them. You said you'd give eternal life to those who ask for it and trust in you. And we pray Lord that a few more today would make that choice. In Jesus' name. Amen.