Midweek Bible Study | Revelation 21:9-22:2 | Gary Hamrick

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] chapter 21 as we're gonna be and then we're gonna move into chapter 22 perhaps if we have enough time tonight but let me set out the timeline and then we'll we'll read a little bit and we'll pray so we've been working off of this timeline for the past many months and we are now in the end of the book of revelation dealing with the new heaven and the new earth um the bible tells us that this present earth and the present heaven where god resides will both be destroyed and replaced and this is god's doing so this is not a terrible thing this is this is a completely new beginning and this is the reason why god is doing it because he's bringing about a new heaven and a new earth because it's a new day and he talks about in chapter 21 we mentioned last week how the old order of things have passed away behold i make all things new and so he doesn't want to just do a makeover with the earth and all of the history that's happened on the earth and all the sin and the terrible things he wants a completely new beginning so we can spend eternity with him on a new earth where literally heaven comes onto earth because in chapter 21 and into chapter 22 john writes about the new jerusalem a city that comes out of heaven onto earth and john's not the only one who writes about it here in revelation in fact the prophet isaiah would write about it in chapter 65 for behold i create new heavens and a new earth and the former shall not be remembered or come to mind but be glad and rejoice forever in what i create for behold i create jerusalem as a rejoicing and her people a joy i will rejoice in jerusalem and joy in my people the voice of weeping shall no longer be heard in her nor the voice of crying so even 700 and some years before christ isaiah prophetically saw this which is in our future so you know he's looking way beyond the timeline to this day when there's going to be a new heaven and a new earth by the way again no more weeping's ever going to be heard and we read about that last week there's going to be no more crying no more pain the apostle peter also saw this he would write in second peter 3 10-13 but the day of the lord will come as a thief in the night in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise and the elements will melt with fervent heat both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up therefore since all these things will be dissolved what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness looking for and hastening the coming of the day of god because of which the heavens will be dissolved being on fire and the elements will melt with fervent heat nevertheless we according to his promise look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells because there will be no unrighteousness there will be no unbelievers and so we went through this list last week but as we make our way through it here the first five things we already covered last week in this new jerusalem this new heavenly city that comes on earth this new earth uh god will be present he will be among us dwell among us walk with us you know this is all a a um a full circle to you know god's original intention um because in genesis it talks about how god would walk with adam in the cool of the day there was this real fellowship that god had but then man broke that fellowship because of man's sin and rebellion against god but in the new heaven and new earth we're going to have god present among us again we're going to walk with him and have fellowship with him in fact we're going to see tonight john even writes about how we will see his face so we will see him face to face death pain and all our sorrows will be absent that's a good thing nobody likes death nobody likes sorrow nobody likes pain and this is physical spiritual emotional we're talking about you know no more physical chronic pain no more emotional pain no more tormenting yourself over your past still feeling the shame of what you've done even though jesus has forgiven you sometimes we're unforgiving about ourselves so no more death pain or sorrows all things will be new uh believers will be present unbelievers will be absent because there's been a final judgment at the end of chapter 20 all the unbelievers have been thrown into the lake of fire along with the satan satan and the antichrist and the false prophet we also talked last week about these three in chapter 21 no sun or moon will be present but the light will be bright with god's glory no sun or moon god will illuminate the whole place with his shekinah glory um you know sun obviously is a regulator of heat so god is going to be the perfect regulator of heat no more arguments between husbands and wives about the thermostat it's going to be a glorious day no moon you know moons are involved in the the ebb and flow of the tides the gravitational pull of the tides but back in chapter 21 verse 1 it says no more oceans so you don't need to worry about the tides right now the earth is covered approximately 74 of the earth's surface covered in water but not with the new earth and not the new heaven there's no sea there's no oceans there's no beach i don't know if my wife's going to be happy here or not some of you won't either you will i'm you know because everything is new and so you won't even care the wall will be high and wide with 12 gates of pearl and it specifically says that each gate is a separate pearl all by itself and it says that the names of the 12 tribes of israel are etched on each of these 12 pearls that serve as gates to this heavenly city and then number eight the foundation will be deep with 12 layers and also in the in the chapter it tells us that the names of the um 12 apostles will be etched on the 12 layers of the foundation and so again as i mentioned last week okay we know of the original 12 that jesus chose it's absent judas so who's the 12th and most believe probably paul's name will be there on the the wall of fame if you will um and so that's where we left off i'm going to read here from chapter 21 i'm going to read um verse 15. we'll start at verse 14 actually verse 14 down to the end of the chapter and then we'll we'll unpack this tonight so chapter 21 verse 14 says now the wall of the city had twelve foundations and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the lamb the lamb of course the reference to jesus that that name that title given 29 times in the book of revelation about jesus and he who talked with me had a gold reed to measure the city its gates and its wall now by the way who is he who speaks with john well that's back up in verse nine one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven blast plagues came to me and talked with me so um that event the seven bulls was back in revelation chapter 16. there was an angel who poured out each successive bowl and one of those angels is kind of taking john in in the spirit realm taking john on a tour of this new heavenly city and so this this angel talked with him there in verse 15 and he had a gold reed to measure the city its gates and its wall the city is laid out as a square its length is as great as its breadth and he measured the city with the reed twelve thousand furlongs its length breadth and height are equal and then he measured its wall cubits according to the measure of a man that is of an angel the construction of its wall was of jasper and the city was pure gold like clear glass the foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with all kinds of precious stones the first foundation was jasper the second sapphire the third chalcedony the fourth emerald the fifth sardonics the sixth sardius the seventh chrysalis the eighth barrel the ninth topaz the tenth chrysopraze the 11th jason and the 12th amethyst the 12 gates were 12 pearls each individual gate was of one pearl and the street of the city was pure gold like transparent glass but i saw no temple in it for the lord god almighty and the lamb are its temple the city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it for the glory of god illuminated it 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 gate shall not be shut at all by day there 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 let's pause and pray father we come before you tonight and we we thank you for your word and as we make our way through the closing chapters of of your book we pray god that you would open our eyes and open our hearts to receive and to believe these things that are to come and we thank you for the the glimpse of hope that you have given us in these closing chapters of a new and an eternal city where we will spend eternity with you lord for those who know you as lord and savior and i i pray especially for those who hear this bible study and they're not sure if they know you that they would come to the place of surrender that they might open their hearts to a personal relationship with you jesus and we thank you that you first loved us that you would give your son jesus to die for us we praise you together in jesus name and everyone said amen so i'm going to put up the last three points here about this city this heavenly city of the new jerusalem and it tells us here in the first few verses of what we just read tonight in verse 16 that the city will be large now it tells us here that in verse 16 the city is laid out as a square and that its length is as great as its breadth and that he measure the city with the reed that's 12 000 furlongs but notice this its length breadth and height are equal so even though it talks about how it's laid out as a square it's actually describing a cube here that this city is built like a cube and it is large because it tells us that it measures 12 000 furlongs now if you have other translations of the bible if you have an niv or an esv it says 12 000 stadia and we're talking the same kind of ancient measurement that turns out to be about 1500 miles in every direction fifteen hundred miles in every direction this is basically the distance between here and colorado fifteen hundred miles wide fifteen hundred mile miles long 1500 miles high because it says there that he measures the length breadth and height and they're all equal so this is very interesting it's very large now to give you a perspective the old city of jerusalem presently is only one mile square not one square mile just one mile in about every direction and and what we're talking comparatively here is 1500 times that i mean it's 1500 miles in every direction it by the way is roughly the size even though we're talking a sphere versus a cube but it's roughly the size of the moon that the city the new city of jerusalem is roughly about the size of the moon now some translations when they translate furlongs and stadia they will come up with different slightly different measurements 380 miles 1400 miles the new american standard version of the bible actually says fifteen hundred so it's this is approximate but it's um but that gives you an idea of the size and the scope here it is huge now some interesting considerations about the size of this particular city that's coming dr henry morris somebody i've quoted many times before he was the founder of institute for creation research and um he he died in 2006 i had a chance to meet him before he died but back in the 60s he was the dean of civil engineering at virginia tech he got his phd at rice so you know very smart man um and he did some mathematical calculations of the size of this city and the population that may likely be in it and dr morris this is just intriguing it's not you know decided that he just kind of was crunching some numbers and he said look roughly if you look at past present and potentially future population until jesus comes until this new city that there will be roughly a hundred billion people who have who have come and gone 100 billion past present and future and his calculation was if you were to consider and this is just a random number that he drew that maybe 20 came to faith in christ over the course of those hundred billion people who lived and died on the planet then you're talking 20 billion people will be in the new jerusalem twenty billion now right now there's only about eight billion people on the whole planet but if over the course of human history twenty percent of people came into relation with chris again that number is just you know a random number but it could very well be we're talking 20 billion people who are living in the new jerusalem that feels crowded to me yeah i don't know about you but i i just i was thinking you know maybe just you know million you know how i i don't know what number you had in your head like what do you think is going to be in heaven but i thought we might have a little bit more elbow room but here's what's interesting dr morris continued with the calculation he said listen since the city is described in the bible as a cube now this is this you have to think outside the cube on this all right but he said it is likely that a city block is not a square block it is a cube block and that you have avenues going vertical and you have avenues going horizontal so it's kind of a an interesting concept to think about but he said when if you were to calculate 1500 miles in every direction and you have avenues city streets that are going both vertical as well as horizontal within this cube you have more than enough space to accommodate 20 billion people so it's it's very intriguing i just throw that out there because a man a lot smarter than i am came up with some of these figures but you know that's the size at least the bible tells us the approximate size is 1500 miles in every direction and and it's huge but also number 10 on our list is the city will be beautiful with every precious stone now it tells us in verse 18 that the wall itself and again this is a walled city the wall of the city was made of jasper that's in verse 18. and the city was of pure gold but when it tells us that it was made of pure gold it adds like clear glass and in fact the the same thing is mentioned in verse 21. at the end of verse 21 it says and the street of the city was pure gold like transparent glass so it's hard for us to grasp that something gold could also be transparent because we think of something gold as opaque we don't think of it as transparent you can see through it but but it has a gold glimmer to this whole city and yet it's transparent the the glory of god is going to shine through every wall every street everything within this city god's spirit and his glory is gonna is going to you know move within and without and around and so there's something solid yet transparent about this so when we talk about oh streets of gold and you know we sing the song i can only imagine um there's truth to that this this future city at least this is not necessarily a description of what heaven looks like now but at least it tells us that the new heaven the new jerusalem city of jerusalem which is heaven on earth is going to be made of gold and it's going to be though transparent like glass so it's interesting concept there and there are 12 foundations to the wall as we look at these colors here there are 12 foundations and each foundation has a different color and again each of the 12 foundations of the wall have the names of the different apostles etched within the wall and some people want to make a comparison between and those who love to get into this kind of a bible uh trivia you look at okay we have 12 layers here 12 different gems does this correlate if for those of you remember the high priest in the old testament had 12 different gems within his ephod or the vestment that he wore and people try to make a correlation but it's hard to make that correlation eight out of the 12 gems that the priest wore in his ephod match out of these 12 but only eight and then then it it doesn't make the full comparison so um you can do with it what you want but this is a list here of gemstones that are the color and and are the substance of these 12 foundation layers of the walls now i'm going to give you a brief overview of what these colors might look like but you have to bear in mind that what we might call jason is not necessarily the color that of jason when when we get to this new city but um and in fact even when you look at different i'm not a gemologist obviously and uh and but when you look at different um details about what gemologists say about some of these stones there's even variants within gemologists about what how you would define for example the first one on the on the list here is is jasper again not only was the wall made of jasper and the city was pure gold but verse 19 the foundation of the wall of the city was adorned with all kinds of precious stones the first foundation was jasper is a multi-colored gem it is in the mineral class of quartz and it is usually reddish from iron oxide but then when you read different people who study these kind of things they say yeah but it can also be white it can also be yellow it can also be green it can also be orange so who knows what jasper will look like in the new jerusalem the next layer number two if you just read from verse 19 on this is the list i'm going to go through sapphire well we pretty much know sapphire is a clear deep blue gem the third layer is chalcedony that is thought to be a greenish stone with a few stripes of other colors mixed in the fourth layer is emerald pretty familiar with emerald a bright green stone dark rich green the fifth layer is sardonyx sardonyx is a reddish white onyx similar to the color of healthy fingernails so that's kind of this pinkish color reddish white the sixth layer is sardius some translations say carnelian which is a fiery red stone now that is one stone that does match the vestment of the high priest the sardius stone occupied the first place on the high priest's ephod and it represented in birth order the tribe of ruben the seventh layer is chrysolite crystallite is a bright light green color the eighth foundation is barrel barrel is a sea green emerald lighter than chalcedony the ninth layer is topaz it's a transparent greenish yellow stone the tenth layer is chrysopraze it's a yellowish pale green stone similar to aquamarine color so there's a lot of green in the new city at least in terms of what we think of these gems the 11th layer is jason it's a violet hyacinth colored gem so we get into some purple colors here at the end because the 12th foundation is amethyst and that is a purple colored stone so it's going to be a very very beautiful colorful city many years ago when i was probably i'm going to guess 12 or 13 i remember my mom taking me to some church somewhere in northern virginia i remember where we went but we went to hear the testimony of a man whose name was marvin ford and he was going around traveling the country talking about his um after death experience that he was a believer and he died he was clinically dead for 30 minutes and and um and he talked about what he saw in heaven now you know i i'm always somewhat cautious about you know people who you know talk about well i've been to heaven and dark tunnels and and or peoples that i've been to hell and and just okay i i all i'm gonna really ultimately rely on is the bible but i do remember one thing that marvin ford said in his testimony was that he saw colors that he had never seen and the description here it's interesting because all of these beautiful gems speak of beautiful colors it's a very very colorful place that we have to try to imagine now here's what's mind-boggling we have three primary colors on you know on on the color wheel from which all other colors are derived what if there was just one more primary color i mean it would open up a whole nother host that we've never seen it would open up a whole nother host of colors that we can't even imagine and so i i was reading some statistics on this just in terms of color and what the human eye can actually see now this is based on what researchers say are derived from the three primary colors that we have right now just based on on you know the red yellow and blue primary colors from which all other colors are derived on the color wheel there are 1 000 shades of light this is what we can see with the human eye 1 000 shades of light within those shades we can detect 100 different levels of red green shades and we can also see 100 levels of yellow blue shades so it works out when you take a thousand times a hundred times a hundred researchers say that the human eye can basically see are you ready 10 million different shades of color so if there was one more just one more primary color we're talking millions more of colors we can't even imagine so what heaven will look like this beautiful city is hard for us to fathom because there could be additional colors that we've never even seen then we're just going to be wild you know i guarantee you it is and for those of you i have a nephew who's colorblind and he got he got a pair of those glasses that look like shades but it opened up his whole world like you know he he's uh in his 20s now but he only got him a few years ago and for the first like 20 years of his life he just had never seen color and when he put those on it was just like it's just like he was overwhelmed with what real color is um and and it's special glasses to help colorblind people be able to see colors so it's like when we get to heaven we're all going to get our own you know non-glasses but just glasses are going to open up brand new colors there's going to be wow this is just like amazing we're stepping into something that is going to just be those of you who were tripping back in the 70s it's going to be nothing nothing compared to the psychedelic colors you're going to see when you get to heaven you thought that was amazing no this is going to be amazing all right back to our list so number 11 the city will have no temple now this is interesting because it says specifically there in verse 22 john john says but i saw no temple in it for the lord god almighty and the lamb are its temple and so there's no temple because god moves among us now back in in the early part of chapter 21 it talks about how he tabernacles among us he moves among us we're going to see here well if you just jump ahead i'll give you a quick preview into chapter 22 verse 4 because it goes along with the same thing we're talking about chapter 22 verse 4 they shall see his face they shall see his face we shall see god's face yeah praise god because you know paul would write in first corinthians 13 he says now i know in part but then i shall know fully even as i am fully known and he says he says then now i see a part but then i shall see face to face and there will be this time that we actually are in god's presence and we see the face of god and so he moves among us so he's not a recluse in a temple anywhere he's moving among his people we are seeing him as jesus reveals himself and as the glory of god is ever present in this place but in addition another reason for no temple because no sacrifices no sacrifices are needed no central place of worship because we're always going to be worshipping in general you don't need to go to a certain place we're just going to be you know it's going to be a constant place of worship and and so no no need for a temple god almighty and the lamb are its temple no sin or atonement necessary no lofty place for god he wants to live among us and commune with us as he originally did with with adam in genesis chapter 3 verse 8 it says and then they heard the sound of the lord god walking in the garden in the cool of the day and adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the lord among the trees of the garden because they had they had sinned but there's no shame in heaven because we've been we get glorified bodies and there's not going to be this propensity to sin because we won't have a flesh we're going to be sealed now in the holy spirit unto the lord not a chance for another rebellion not among us now there's great theological debate about what about the angels could they still rebel maybe some of you want to text that question there for next week but i'll get into that more later but not for tonight so um no no need for the temple now there's something challenging here in the way chapter 21 ends because it says and the nations of those this is verse 24 or yeah verse 24 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 okay now nations there in chapter in verse 24 can be translated gentiles um and it is specifically letting us know that this is the place that gentile believers are welcomed as well they are delineated here because god wants to make certain that we understand not just jew but gentile also belong to the new jerusalem as many as are saved as many as come to faith in jesus so the nations are are those who are primarily gentiles it speaks of here but what does it mean there in verse 24 the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it what kings of the earth i mean jesus has already ruled and reigned on the earth for a thousand years the millennial kingdom now that's gone this is the new heaven new earth new city of jerusalem why are there nations and why are there kings and i gotta be honest with you there's no explanation for this you read any commentary and every bible scholar is like we have no idea what kings we're talking about here why would there be other nations why would there be delineations of nations bringing within this wonderful large city um you know they're bringing offerings or bringing something to glorify god it's just not understood very well so we have to just let that speak for itself and we'll we'll realize it when we get there but again it talks at the end of chapter 21 about how the gate shall not be shut at all by day there shall be no night there again you know it the god's glory is constantly illuminating it the reason we have night and day here is because we have an earth that rotates on its axes and so you know when we're spinning away from the sun we we have nighttime and but we're not you're not spinning away from the glory of god you're in the city where his glory is constantly shining so there is no night and there's no need for sleep because we have a glorified body that doesn't need to get rejuvenated or replenished you you will never need to sleep anymore um and and so uh which you know some of you are catching up on right now but um but you won't but in that day you won't need to and um and and there just won't be a need for sleep and there will be no no night now we will be in glorified bodies and it's interesting when we get into the next chapter there's food to eat but the good news is you eat for enjoyment not for sustenance and you never you never have to worry about your weight so it's all good it's all good man i hope they have krispy kreme up in heaven but so that's that's how chapter 21 ends that and they shall bring the glory and honor the nations into it but there shall by no means enter in anything that defiles or causes an abomination or a lie but only those who are written in the lamb's book of life and so you get your name in the lamb's book of life because you've made a profession of faith in jesus anyone else who has rejected jesus they're not even here at this point this is just a statement that only those who have a relationship with jesus are going to have access into this new city in the last five minutes we have let's look at the first five verses of chapter 22. 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 12 fruits each tree yielding its fruit every month 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 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 they shall reign forever and ever so we're introduced here and i'll have more to say about it next week we're introduced to the water of life that is not mentioned anywhere else outside of the book of revelation and it's mentioned three times in the book of revelation chapter 21 verse 6 right here in 22 1 and one last time in 22 17. so we'll talk more about the water of life next week and then we're also introduced not for the first time but we're introduced to the tree of life in verse 2 and the tree of life is mentioned also three times in the book of revelation it is mentioned first in chapter 2 verse 7 the letter to the church of ephesus at the end where god where jesus gives this um this commendation to to those who overcome in in uh revelation 2 7 of the church of ephesus he said to those who overcome you shall eat of the tree of life so he's looking forward to this time here and then we see the tree of life mentioned again here in chapter 22 verse 2 and then in chapter 22 verse 14. outside of the book of revelation the tree of life is mentioned three other times the first time it's mentioned go ahead tell me genesis it's mentioned in the book of genesis chapter two there are two trees that are specifically named they're not the only trees in the garden of eden but two trees that are specifically named in the book of genesis chapter 2 and it's verse 9 where it mentions that god in the midst of the garden of eden planted one tree called the tree of life that's what we're talking about and another tree called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil it was a choice that god gave man are you going to be obedient to me or disobedient because he wants a love relationship not a legal one and so the only way to know if it's a love relationship is he offers mankind choice unfortunately man failed the test because god said you may eat of any of the trees except the one the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for in the day you eat of it you shall surely die literally the dying process begins death entered the human race adam and eve chose eve was the one deceived by the serpent but adam was the one who was not the spiritual leader he should have been to tell her don't eat that fruit but nevertheless she ate of it the bible says she turned to her husband and gave and he ate of it meaning he was standing right there condoning the whole thing and so thus the human race fell they disobeyed god the dying process began what is interesting about the tree of life is that it tells us after man fell that in genesis chapter 3 i'll read this to you from genesis 3 22-24 then the lord god said behold the man has become like one of us to know good and evil now us is the plurality of a single god it's a reference to god the father god the son god the holy spirit one god behold the man has become like one of us to know good and evil and now lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever therefore the lord god sent him out of the garden of eden to till the ground from which he was taken so he drove out the man and he placed cherubim at the east of the garden of eden and a flaming sword which turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life here's what the bible tells us that after adam and eve sinned against god disobeyed him because they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil when god expelled them from the garden he did it for their own good because it tells us there in genesis 3 had they turned and then immediately eaten of the tree of life they would have forever eternally sealed their sinful state of separation from god and because god wanted a plan of reconciliation to bring man back into fellowship with him i used man in the universal term man woman all of us okay because he wanted a redemptive plan to reconcile man to himself he cast man out of the garden posted angels cherubim with flaming swords so that they could not get back in to eat of the tree of life lest they seal their sinful state eternally so that's the last that the tree of life is mentioned it's mentioned uh once in chapter two twice in chapter three of genesis and then the flood happens and god and his infinite miraculous ways has supernaturally plucked up the tree of life and we see it appear in revelation chapter 22. from which all the redeemed saints will eat because at that point now your eternal state is sealed in jesus and so your eternal state is in fellowship with him having been reconciled to him and you can eat then of the tree of life it's going to be a glorious day we'll talk more about it because it talks about how it's spread on both sides of the river it's a little confusing in the language and the nations come for the healing what does it mean the healing is there sickness if it eats it for the healing we'll talk about all that next week but let's just pause now and pray and i just again want to appeal to those of you who don't know that you have a personal relationship with jesus all that we're talking about here is accessible to anyone but you have to make a decision that you're going to surrender your life to jesus because nobody gets to heaven for being a good person because no one is good enough to get there and so jesus dies on a cross for all of humanity so that his righteousness can be given to us through faith in what he did on a cross to die for our sins to take the penalty for our sins so that if we put our faith and trust in him we might have our sins forgiven and be saved and it really is that simple now it's not a prayer one and done kind of a thing it's that simple in that that's where the journey begins we're saved by grace it's the work of god in our hearts and lives because we by faith receive his free gift of salvation and then it is living out our lives in a journey with jesus so that our ultimate destination is what we've been talking about tonight but you have to want that it's a choice god from the very beginning in the garden of eden has given mankind a choice and you have to want a love relationship with him he's not going to drag you to heaven nobody's going to go to heaven kicking and screaming guarantee you we're going to go there because we want to and we're going to go there because we're thankful that he made the way possible through himself so let's pray together father we thank you for your word and we thank you for the hope of heaven we thank you for this glorious eternal city that you have opened wide to all who would believe and i pray tonight that those who are here and watching online and later will listen to this by podcast or watch the video lord that for anyone who does not have that assurance that they're going to be in this new beautiful city that we're talking about that they would surrender their life right now that they would surrender their life right now to you jesus that they would trust you by faith as lord and savior now i'm going to pause on my prayer with your heads bowed i'm going to invite you sitting here watching online at whatever point you listen to this if you want a relationship with jesus it begins with a decision and that decision is your choice but i'm going to invite you to make that decision tonight to just simply say yes to jesus to acknowledge your need for a savior to admit you're not good enough because nobody is to get to heaven on your own but god made a way possible by giving his son jesus to die on a cross for our sins i'm going to invite you to trust him as your savior and i'm going to lead you in a simple prayer that the journey would begin right now and if you want to receive christ as your savior i invite you to pray this prayer with me i'm going to go slowly enough so you can repeat it with me you can make it your prayer you just can whisper it right where you're seated you can say yes to jesus right now but for those who are seated here in the congregation i'm going to give you the opportunity just with heads bowed eyes closed just to lift up your hand just to raise the hand so that i as i look out no one else just as i look out and i can just affirm you and i won't call you out by name but i just want to know who whom am i praying with tonight if you want to know christ as your savior just slip up your hand yes god bless you god bless you just say yes that's me pastor gary i want to know christ as my savior yes god bless you i see you sir i want to trust him as my lord tonight when i ask him to come into my heart him in my life yes god bless you thank you sir those of you watching online pray this prayer with me any of you can pray this right now just say lord jesus i thank you that you died on a cross for me i know you died for the world but right now i thank you you died for me i ask you to forgive me of my sins and to come into my heart and into my life i surrender to you as my lord and savior i believe by faith that you gave your life as an atoning sacrifice for my sins and i receive jesus christ as my personal lord and savior thank you for loving me and thank you for dying for me i receive you in jesus name amen and amen now before you're dismissed listen if you prayed that prayer with me even if you didn't raise your hand if you prayed that prayer we'll have a pastor down front here to give you a bible just to remember it's a nice decision you can take it home with you and if you email the church we'll send you a bible too i got a beautiful email from an 11 year old girl this week who said i prayed to receive jesus as my lord and savior and then she got her bible and then she emailed back she says thank you for my beautiful bible so so you online can receive a bible too so god bless you all let's praise the lord amen

Channel: Cornerstone Chapel - Leesburg, VA

Views: 38,446

Rating: 4.8492756 out of 5

Keywords: Cornerstone Chapel, Calvary Chapel, Gary Hamrick, Biblical sermons, leesburg va, cornerstone chapel leesburg virginia, great sermons by great preachers

Id: H05FnnzuwDo

Length: 43min 23sec (2603 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 25 2021