A Glorious Vision of the Church

Would you take your Bible's please and turn to Isaiah chapter 60 as we look tonight as Isaiah's glorious vision of the church John Newton was a An Anglican pastor who lived from 1725 to 1807 we know him best for his Famous song amazing grace. He was a Shipman a sailor captain of a ship in fact he was for a time a slave trader and for a short season of his life even a slave himself Later was converted became a a lay preacher and then an ordained Anglican minister in the Church of England and Abolitionists and a hymn writer He ministered a great portion of his life in little town called only in Buckingham Shire small little town that even today only has About less than three thousand members in the town He teamed up with a young man named William Cooper a poet and together in 1779 they Published the first English hymnal called the only hymnal and in that him were such Famous hymns is how sweet the name of Jesus sounds Let us love and sing and wonder arise my soul and Approach my soul the mercy seat And him called faiths review and expectation that we know by its opening lines amazing grace how sweet the sound The saved a wretch like me But I think in that only hymn all in in the body of work that Cooper and John Newton wrote together Their greatest hymn was one called glorious things of the art spoken It comes from Psalm 87 Where David writes on the holy mountain stands the city he founded The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob Glorious things of your spoken O city of God Newton took those words and he wrote this glorious things of the our spoken Zion city of our God He whose word cannot be broken formed before his own above On the rock of age is founded What can shake by sure repose With salvation wall surrounded Bound may smile at all by foes. He went on to write a stands about The glory of the Lord surrounding the city of God the church took that from from Psalm 105 and being fed by the man of from heaven He reaches the end of his song with this marvelous little stanza Savior if of Zion city I through grace a member and Let the world deride our pity. I will glory in thy name Fading is the worldlings pleasure all His boasted pomp and show Solid joys and lasting treasure None but Zion's children know

Solid joys and lasting treasure None but Zion's children know what a glorious vision of the church. I'm afraid that A view of the church was lost in our age What has to be true of Evangelical Christianity America is that we have a very low view of the church I Had the blessing to have lunch with Dr. Tim Laniac who's the Academic Dean and professor of Old Testament here at the Charlotte campus of Gordon Conwell seminary this summer. We were talking about church and ministry and he said Today people want their music They're small group of friends and short live causes rather than the church Because that's so much easier And I think he hit the nail on the head Today we tend to look at the church as being a burden to Jesus Christ I've even heard people say you know, it's amazing that people come to Jesus Christ despite the church And yet the opposite is really true We forget sometimes how unbelievers think we forget how we thought before we were converted and unbelievers inevitably see the church And Christianity and Jesus Christ is one in the same It's only later when we become Christians that we begin to make Refined distinctions between Christ and his movement in the world called Christianity as Kingdom and his local bodies of believers called the church but in the Unconverted mind they're one in the same However the church goes well, that's what Christianity believes and that must be what Jesus Christ is about And when we have a low view of the church which we do in America then people in our society Have a low view of Christianity and they don't think much about Jesus Christ I remember sitting in Germany having dinner with Stefan Mueller And Stefan said you know Mike the biggest challenge I'm going to have in Germany is to overcome people's opinion of the church Because they see the church the state church the Lutheran church His synonymous with that organization that approved of eight-off Hitler and oppression and anti-Semitism There is a visible reaction against Jesus Christ and anything to do with Christianity I said Stefan. How are you going to overcome that? He said I'm going to have to teach them first how to love the church And if I do that They'll inevitably come to love Jesus Christ And that's what Stefan's doing He lives with the doing a fine work over there Creating a genuine New Testament body believers that is radically different from the liberal dead Politicized state church and people are beginning to take notice and say you know This must be what real Christianity is about and I like this person This Jesus Christ who Stefan Mueller is introducing me to That is always true when revival and reformation come People begin to return to the church and they begin to have a five-view of the church again What is surprising to us as I have been reading for years now for decades about revival and reformation It is usually that people first Begin to change their mind about the church That leads them to faith in Jesus Christ and not the reverse It's not as if the Holy Spirit falls upon a people and all of the sudden they're enamored with Jesus Christ No, he first comes upon the church And when the church begins to change its attitude About the solid joys and lasting treasures that none but Zion's children know when they begin to return to their first love Which really was the church That into which they were baptized grew up in that body believers that introduced them to Jesus Christ and to the Christian way of thinking and living It's when they return to the church the revival begins to happen Any preacher worth his salt Has some great cause That he devotes his life to and Isaiah's is the revival of the church In this final section of his magnum open this great prophecy He talks about a prelude to revival that is his great prayer His great vision and dream that the Old Testament church will seem some spirit of reviving and will return to the Lord And so he talks about all the things that are necessary for revival and one of them is That people return to a glorious vision of the church That is the theme of what he's writing about in Isaiah chapter 60 The revival of Zion for him Zion Is all that God wants for the world sometimes it's hard for us to determine What this Zion that we sing about in the Psalms and that the prophets write about that Jesus spoke about Really is well? It's actually The church of Jesus Christ in three great stages It is literally The capital of the Old Testament kingdom known as Israel which was his Old Testament people We would call him the Old Testament church It then came to signify in the prophetic writings of Isaiah and others and in the New Testament The spiritual capital of the people of God the kingdom of God wherever they're found in the world Zion became synonymous with church with the capital C That invisible but real body of believers around the world that had Jesus Christ as their Lord and King And finally it culminates in the the new heaven in the new earth the city of God the Zion that comes down from above When church and world emerged together in one harmonious and glorious sanctified unit as they were in the garden of Eden So they will begin again to be in the new heaven in the new earth And all of this is seamlessly sewn together. It's hard sometimes to determine What phase of Zion or the city of God or the kingdom of God he's talking about because Isaiah talks about all three For him they're all together The revival of the Old Testament people Is is the prelude to their receiving their own son as the Messiah And in sending people out to come to the city of God to come to the kingdom of God and to join him and his kingdom under his domain So we can prepare them for a new heaven and a new earth where God dwells in the new Jerusalem The city of God from above and everything physical and spiritual is one harmonious whole Jonathan Edwards wrote It is not unlikely that this work of God spirit so extraordinary and wonderful Is the dawning or at least the prelude of that glorious work of God so often foretold in scripture Which in the progress and issue of it shall renew the world of mankind And there are many things that make it probable that this work will begin in America now we would never say that today We have become discouraged over the state of Christianity in the church in America And we feel that we're living in the last days of Christendom here in America They were going the way of Europe That our generation of children yet to come may not even have a church or Christianity to turn to But Jonathan Edwards John Newton And Isaiah Others who had this great vision of the city of God didn't feel that way So I want to look tonight at one of the things that is necessary for revival to come and that is for you and I To fall in love again with what the church can be There are four paragraphs in this little chapter of 22 verses Each one of them giving us four grand trues About God's vision and future for his church Here's the first one That the revived church will be full of Christ's glory Arise shine for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you For behold darkness shall cover the earth and thick darkness to peoples But the Lord will arise upon you and his glory will be seen upon you Nation saw come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising Here Isaiah sees the church as parallel to the creation That this city of God Made by God is really God's plan for the world See that's one of the things that's happened in our sinful state as we have become In our human minds so concentrated and focused upon the world That we lose sight of the city of God. I want you to keep your finger if you will In Isaiah chapter 60 and turn to the New Testament for just a moment to Hebrews chapter 11 You'll be familiar with this chapter sometimes called the Hall of Faith We're all of these great personalities these people in the Old Testament All give some testimony of how they Walked by faith faith that was the assurance of things hope for in the conviction of things not seen Faith by which they please God And entered into his saving grace and a constant theme to chapter 11 and 12 and 13 of Hebrews is this theme of the city of God Look at Hebrews chapter 11 Verses 8 through 10 and I'll buy faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place That he was to receive as an inheritance and he went out not knowing where he was going By faith he went to live in the land of promise as in a foreign land living in tents with Isaac and Jacob errors with him Of the same promise for he was looking forward to the city that has foundation whose designer and builder is God Verse 13 all these died in faith not having received the things promise but having seen them and greeted them from afar And having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland If they had been thinking of the land from which they had gone out They would have had opportunity returned, but as it is they desire a better country. That is a heavenly one Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God for he has prepared for them a city chapter 12 Verse 18 For you have not come to what may be touched a blazing fire and darkness and bloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice of those Whose words made the hearers beg that no further message be spoken to them Where they could not endure the order that was given if even the beast touches the mountain it shall be stoned Indeed so terrifying was the sight that Moses said I tremble with fear but you Have come to mount Zion and to the city of the living God The heavenly Jerusalem and to innumerable angels and festival gathering Chapter 13 Verse 14 For here we have no lasting city But we seek the city That is to come That is the great vision of the saints of all times this thing called the city of God Sometimes it is cloaked in darkness Just as the author he was talked about the darkness that covered Mount Sin and when the Old Testament Church went there and now they were afraid And how he harkens back even earlier To a picture of Genesis chapter 1 when darkness is over the whole earth He says arise and shine for your light has come The glory of the Lord has risen upon you for behold darkness shall cover the earth And thick darkness the peoples but the Lord will arise upon you and this glory will be seen upon you Barry Web says although it is focused on Zion the vision of this magnificent chapter is a worldwide vision in its scope It begins with the thick darkness covering the whole earth as at the beginning of creation itself But here it refers to a spiritual darkness The darkness of moral and evil and spiritual blindness It is the shroud that enfolds all peoples and covers all the nations but then As in Genesis the scene is transformed as light pierces the darkness and a new world begins to emerge If the world called into existence in Genesis one was very good Then this kingdom of God is better by far Here Isaiah says that the glory of Jesus Christ Will come upon the church once again And although she's grouping around in confusion in moral darkness and in spiritual blindness The light of Jesus Christ will inflame her And empower her and give her vision for the future that will draw people to herself This has always been the motto of the reformed church When John Calvin went to Geneva he claimed as his motto and his vision for that city post-Tetabras looks Latin that says after darkness light That motto became the model of the Calvinists if you go to Geneva today And you go to this magnificent Reformation monument called the Reformation wall you'll find in great letters and carved in the stone there After darkness light Eventually became the model of the whole Protestant Reformation John Newton in preaching about Isaiah 60 verses 1 to 3 Calling it the morning light said We are warranted to hope for still greater things For time when the gross darkness which as yet covers a great particle world shall be dispelled And the Redeemer's kingdom spoken up by Daniel the prophet as a stone cannot with hands That shall become a great mountain and fill the whole earth This promise together with the experience of its truth in our own case and our knowledge of it And its uniform effects in every age and country where the doctrine of the cross has been preached encourages ministers To persevere in publishing the glad tidings and defiance of all the opposition and disappointments they may face When he is pleased to clothe the word preached with the influence of the Holy Spirit And to apply it to the conscience it is quick and powerful penetrating and irresistible as lightning It conveys a voice which the deaf hear Yay the dead even They they must hear and it forces a light upon the mind which cannot be evaded We're going to find in the next three chapters of Isaiah 61 62 and 63 that that light and glory is none other than the person of Jesus Christ himself There are times when the church becomes So caught up with worldly things and so enamored with its own personalities and the pulpit and so given over to it's different sex and movements and and Divisions and arguments that Jesus Christ is lost in it all and then a great darkness comes over the church And the light of the world the light of the nations has been dimmed But Jesus said I am the light of the world Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of light The light is among you for a little while longer walk while you have the light less darkness overtake you The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going while you have the light believe in the light so that you may become sons of light There is a time Isaiah says When the light of Jesus Christ will shine on the church Children and men and women will become sons and daughters of light and their lights will light up The way of Jesus Christ and the city of God making it a beacon and a dark age after the darkness comes the light Through the church of Jesus Christ A light that people in the darkness Begin to see and to be drawn towards In great numbers. That's the second thing Isaiah talks about if the revived church Somehow reflects the glory of the Lord then the revived church will be full of new converts This is an exciting paragraph in verses 4 through 9 Lift up your eyes all around and see They all gathered together They are coming to you your sons shall come from afar and your daughters shall be carried on the hip Then you shall see and be radiant Your heart shall thrill and exalt Because the abundance of the sea shall return to you The wealth of the nations shall come to you A multitude of camels shall cover you The young camels of midian and ephah and those from shiba shall come They shall bring gold and frankincense They shall bring good news and praise of the Lord All the flocks of cater shall be gathered to you The rams of nebath shall minister to you They shall come up with acceptance on my altar and I will beautify my beautiful house Who are these that fly like the cloud like doves to their windows For the coastland shall hope for me The ships of Tarshis are spaying first To bring your children from afar There's silver and gold with him For the name of the Lord your God and for the holy one of Israel Because he has made you beautiful Here's a picture of a revived church in bone Myriads and myriads of people descend in order to experience conversion and new life Your sons Shall come from afar your daughters shall be carried on the hip There will be multitudes of camels Instruments of their travel that cover the city like billions millions coming to this Grand Holy Day in Jerusalem Bring your children from afar This is a new generation Coming to Jesus Christ They will come with acceptance to my altar And I will beautify my beautiful house They will come to receive the forgiveness of sins to be watched in the blood of Jesus Christ They're tired of the darkness and tired of the filth And now the church the glory of Jesus Christ is shown once again and they say you know There is a place where we can find a new humanity A new life a new world and they come Myriads of them Streaming into the church and they will beautify the church. I will beautify my beautiful house With what? What do these new converts bring to the Lord to make his house beautiful? They bring praise They bring the songs of Zion Were they are you to take the scroll to open its seals For you was slain and by your blood you ran some people for God From every tribe and language and people in nation You've made them a kingdom and priests to our God And they shall reign upon the earth Worthy is the lamb that was slain

Is that happening? It is It happens so imperceptibly that we don't notice it but about 15 years ago The U.S. Center for World Missions in Los Angeles, California Published an article called The Growth of the Gospel They said in 1430 when Martin Luther was a young man Only 1% of the world New about the Bible Understood the gospel and believed in Jesus Christ 1% 1 out of every 100 people By 1740 the great awakening in America 2% of the world was evangelical By World War II when some of our older men in this congregation were storming the beaches of Normandy It had risen to 3% of the world's population By 1960 when I was 11 years old who was 4% in 1970 when I was a senior in college it was 5% In 1980 when Ronald Reagan took office it was 6% When I entered the ministry in 1983 7% of the world believed in Jesus Christ By 1986 when my younger son was born it was 8% By 1989 when the Soviet Union collapsed it was 9% By 1993 my first year as pastor at Trinity Presbyterian Church It had come to be 1 out of every 10 people 10% of the world confessed faith in Jesus Christ By 1995 it was 11% 1 out of every 9 people By a time I assumed the pastorate here It was 12% It is growing and growing by the decade People streaming in desire Coming to Jesus Christ We may think that Christianity is dying off in the weak and compromised church of the West And for now it is

But the church is not dying elsewhere in the world it is growing in leaps and bounds And just as Isaiah said people are coming with their sons and toe and their little girls on their hip Sometimes literally riding their camels to find this church in this message of Jesus Christ And Jesus Christ is bringing the nations to his house to beautify it with their praise Thirdly a revived church will be popular in prosperous and this may be the hardest thing to accept That the church of Jesus Christ would be not only prosperous but popular with people in the world Verses 10 through 14 Forner shall build up your walls and their king shall minister to you For in my wrath I struck you but in favor I have had mercy on you Your gate shall be opened continually day and night they shall not be shot That peoples may bring to you the wealth of the nations with their kings led in procession For the nation and the kingdom that will not serve you shall perish Those nations shall be utterly laid waste the glory of Lebanon shall come to you the Cyprus the plain the pine To beautify the place of my sanctuary and I will make the place for my feet glorious The sons of those who afflicted you shall come bending low to you And hall who despised you shall bow down at your feet They shall call you the city of the Lord The Zion of the holy one of Israel When the holy spirit Isaiah says comes upon a church When the glory of Christ begins to fill that church and when people from all walks of life And all places in the earth begin to stream into the church all of the sudden the world takes notice and the church Becomes popular and prosperous look how he describes it in verse 10 Forner shall build up your walls and the king shall minister to you for in my wrath I struck you but in my favor I have had mercy on you in other words The very people who afflicted you who were my instruments to discipline you a Syria a Babylon Persia Greek Rome they will come to you and want to be part of you rather than destroy you Look at verse 14 the sons of those who afflicted you Shall come bending low to you and all who despised you shall bow down at your feet They shall call you the city of God the city of the Lord The Zion of the holy one of Israel The sons and daughters of your enemies will not carry on for generation to generation Their parents hatred of you Just the opposite What is happening in Russia? The great oppressor of the church of Jesus Christ these sons and daughters and grandchildren of communists are coming to Jesus Christ Enforcing themselves into the church What is happening in China? Another communist country known for butchering the church The church is never growing faster in America or in the world than it is in in China today Places that were once close to the gospel like India are now opening up That appears to be the next great wave of conversions the Hindu world Will bow down to Jesus Christ and join the church we're even beginning to see cracks in the wall And this impenetrable This invincible force known as Islam They're in trouble They're beginning to have visions of Jesus Christ They're beginning to meet people in house churches They're beginning to read the word of God in their own language And their sons and daughters and children Are coming to Jesus Christ and into his church It's happened again and again and again It's interesting and on Pentecost Sunday The first wave of great converts were all Gentiles Every one of them Who'd come to belong to the church The Old Testament church and heard about Jesus Christ and became the world's first Christians The wealth of the nations being brought to the church for church planting For building church buildings for paying clergyman For sending out missionaries publishing the gospel promoting the faith building Christian schools No more Or the resources of the church Drained off from the church for every Tom Dick and Harry wants to start his own independent ministry no just the opposite The resources of God's people and even the world are turned around and brought back to the church It seems amazing to us Impossible to us that there could come a day when the media The television the newspaper and the internet would speak Positively about Jesus Christ, but I'm telling you they did They did a 1976 when I was converted. It was the rage And Hollywood and in Washington to find out what it meant to be born again And people like Chuck Colson and Jimmy Carter and other people were interviewed Aud nauseam by the media to find out what this meant to be born again And all of the sudden the Church of Jesus Christ found favor in the eyes of Americans once again Universities opened up their doors to Christian courses The government Under Ronald Reagan others began to fund Christian endeavors out of tax gathered money The wealth of the nations and the favor of the people was upon the church And it can happen again John Calvin says this profit shows how splendid will be the work of redemption That is the they who persecuted and despise the church shall come So as to bow down humbly before her and submit to her with their whole heart By the sons of them that afflict her He means the persecutors and enemies who once oppressed the church This was indeed Partly fulfilled when the Jews returned to their native country But that return was nothing more than a dark shadow of deliverance which we have obtained Through Jesus Christ These things were accomplished under the reign of Christ Yet such that the full accomplishment of them May be expected in a second coming as we have already laid under a different passage Saul the persecuted became the apostle to the Gentile Paul writes at the end of Philippians that those in Caesar's household greet you As brothers and sisters in Christ Peter calls Rome Babylon all who are in Babylon Who are believers in Jesus Christ greet you Constantine Once a persecutor of the church made Christianity the official religion of Rome The Roman Empire became the holy Roman Empire pagan lands like England America became the great beacons of missionaries sent out throughout the whole world China India Islam they will all take their turn Coming to Jesus Christ Bringing their children and their wealth to the kingdom of the church And spreading it abroad to the next people group Who were once our enemies Finally The revived church will be a blessing to the world Verse 15 Whereas you have been forsaken and hated With no one passing through I will make you majestic forever A joy from age to age You shall suck the milk of nations and shall nurse at the breast of kings You shall know that I the Lord and your Savior and your Redeemer the mighty one of Jacob Instead of bronze I will bring gold Instead of iron I will bring silver instead of wood bronze instead of stones iron I will make your overseers peace and your task masters righteousness Violence shall no more be heard in your land devastation destruction within your borders You shall call your walls salvation Your gates praise The sun shall be no more your light by day Nor for brightness shall the moon give you light but the Lord will be your everlasting light And your God will be your glory Your sun shall no more go down nor your moon withdrawal itself For the Lord will be your everlasting light and your days of morning shall be ended Your people shall be all righteous They shall possess the land forever The branch of my planting the work of my hands that I might be glorified The least one shall become a clan and the smallest one of my denation I am the Lord and it's time I will hasten it This may be the hardest thing to believe But there will come a time when the church is revived when it will be the blessing of the world

It has been that way, you know

World historians would tell you that the reformation is considered the dawning light The spiritual impetus and the intellectual foundation of the modern scientific industrial capitalistic western society I remember in high school studying history and how the reformation which was the spiritual arm of the Renaissance began the modern era And led to all the rights and privileges we know as free people in a free land The first great awakening is believed to have kept America during its American revolution From degenerating into a godless bloodblath like the unspiritual and christless French revolution of the same era The the evangelical awakening in England kept great Britain from a bloody civil war The second great awakening set the stage for the liberation of slaves The moral influence of America around the world And our world mission movement and the expansion of the United States to fill the continent and the vacuum of world leadership The third great awakening known as the New York Prayer Revival Prepare the American and her sons to survive our most catastrophic event the civil war And to take many sons into Christ before he brought them to eternal life The awakening in the Confederate army in 1861 to 1865 prepared the south to rebuild its society after the crushing defeat at the hands of union troops Awakening and revivals have been the cause of America's great colleges World missions movements the start of seminaries the beginning of hospitals orphanages prison ministries and mental institutions I do not exaggerate when I say That the great revivals reformations and spiritual awakenings in god's church have been the single most powerful influence for moral ethical social good and political stability in all of the eras of world history That is a fact that the salt of the earth and the light of the world the church When it is empowered by the spirit of Christ The light of the gospel and the presence of the Holy Spirit become An unstoppable force of good in every way They become a blessing To the world certainly Isaiah has this image of revelation 21 and 22 and it all reaches its climax But he sees us incrementally Do outpourings of the Holy Spirit over the course of human history and churches growing to that great climax of the city of god It's as if God anticipates us saying oh Come on lord you really expect us to believe that That he ends with this little statement And it's time I will hasten it and it's time I will do it It's as almost as if he's saying I guarantee it If these four things are true folks Of a revived and a renewed church Then I think it's time for us to recapture our love for Christ covenant church Not as an appendage to our life That is something we belong to in spite of its life and because of our faith in Jesus Christ But because it is the people of God the city of God it is God's first love and therefore ours We should invite other people to church We're always afraid that if we invite an unbeliever here he's going to be offended Do you want to know something? I've been preaching for 30 years I have rarely offended a pagan

Air I'm serious It's the unreviable people of the church who are comfortable in their own foolish ideas that get ticked off at me not the unbeliever We just had a guest lunch and I don't know how many of our unbelievers believers placed with full fire Placed with full of people who want to explore life with us together because they like what they see when they come here We have really nothing to be ashamed of We don't invite people to Christ covenant church. We want to bring our resources to the church What are the place can you give your money Making sure that it's going to be invested in the city of God and we need to look around and see How many ways through our school and our church and all of our ministries? We're blessing the people of this community ask the people at City Hall and Matthews ask our neighbors ask the people of The families that come to CDS the people who are recipients of our ministry at the Seek this ask them if Christ covenant is a force for good in our place in time There's always a tendency to let the devil Get in the details who convinces that the church is really something to be ashamed of. I know I know more than anybody in this room That the church of Jesus Christ in America is an absolutely pitiful shape But I want to use this illustration and closing. I took my daughter Joanna to an Ohio State game back in October to play Purdue Purdue always gives us a miserable time And they did that day the first play of the game First play of the game they throw a touchdown for 85 yards We get the ball one two three punt They run it for 60 yards down to 20 and next play they score another touchdown. I looked at Joanna said In God's world this should not happen Work less than three minutes into the game. It's Purdue 14 Ohio State nothing We went on to fumble five times to be intercepted twice With five minutes left our star quarterback suffered a concussion had to leave the game Kenny Gaiton who has never thrown a pass the whole year comes in At two minutes now we're there ahead by six points. There's a chance we can go back with two minutes left We get a holding call in the end zone, which is a safety. They get two more points We have to kick them with two minutes left and they're eight points ahead. I said to Joanna I just can't watch them lose. Let's leave so we left with 58 seconds Kenny Gaiton threw four passes scored a touchdown Got a two-point conversion went into overtime four plays later. We stopped them. We won the game

It's not over to the fat lady sings and this game's not over to the bride of Christ sings And the bride of Christ will sing the last song Glorious things of the earth spoken Zion city of our God Solid joys and lasting treasures None but Zion's children know There's going to come a day just as sure as I'm standing before you tonight When you and I will stand on the shores of a crystal sea We will be overcome with the glory and beauty of this magnificent city coming down out of heaven for us We will see billions upon billions of people streaming into this city billions They will be singing about how much they love Jesus Christ and how much they love the church And I'm going to turn to you and say I told you so The fat lady just sang It's over and the church is won again Let's pray Father we are happy to be on the winning side happy to be in the city of God Zion your great love your bride the church We know you have a glorious future for her You intend to give her a glory to marvel that of yourself so that your bride will adorn you as the book of Revelation says Like a young girl coming down the aisle all dressed in white ready for her husband That is happening even now Is you revive and reform and propel the church around the world you're bringing literally every day Hundreds of thousands of people to Christ and over the years Millions each year it seems that each each four or five years Another percentage of the world's population joins the church of Jesus Christ and comes to faith in her Savior We praise you for that We need a great reviving in the church of the west Which means that we need in our own hearts to be renewed in our love For what the church can be and for what Christ covenant is So that all of our joy and all of our Songs of praise and all of our efforts and resources were extended to her To make her all that she can be With our work and with your grace Revive us again that your people may rejoice in you And that they may find pleasure The pleasure that only Zion's children know In the church who have provided for them forgive us For all of the times we took the church for granted Distained her and ignored her Renewing us a love for your bride This beautiful woman Who will sing the final song of victory at the end of time And do it in our time we pray For Jesus sake and for our own as we ask this in Christ name Amen