Thus Says the Lord

Well, for the past couple of years, several of us have been making our way through a Bible reading plan together, a plan that has us reading all the way through Scripture over the course of two years.

We're nearing the end of that journey here at the end of August. And one of the benefits of a reading plan, whether it's a one-year plan, a two-year plan, a five-year plan, is that it forces us to read all of Scripture, not limit ourselves to just a handful of favorite books or favorite chapters, favorite genres. For pastors, there is a similar temptation, a temptation to limit our preaching to just a few favorite verses or preachable passages or familiar passages of Scripture. And if we're not careful, we could go our whole ministry never having preached the whole counsel of God, just like the individual Christian could easily go their whole lives not having read the whole counsel of God if they don't intentionally set out to do that. I want my preaching of the Word to be broad and diverse and thorough. And just as I need to make myself read difficult portions of Scripture, my personal devotions, I need to make myself preach difficult texts, difficult portions of Scripture in my public ministry. Now, on the one hand, it's true that any portion of God's Word is a good portion, right? It's all inspired.

It's all profitable. At the same time, however, there are passages that either because of accessibility or breadth of relevance or perhaps simply because of the sheer appeal of the content are more frequently turned to than other passages. We need to take note of those neglected, overlooked places in Scripture, those gold mines that have been boarded up and forgotten because those obscure places have some rich gems of truth hidden away in them just waiting to be mined. We need to go to those hard to reach places from time to time and find the gold because God has put gold there for us and for our benefit. Well, as Lauren and I made our way through the Scripture reading plan these last two years, we came to the book of Ezekiel.

And it became evident that here is one of those hidden shafts waiting to be mined for its treasure. Now, I understand why this book is hidden. It's a strange book full of unfamiliar things. It's an uncomfortable book full of devastated, broken things.

It's a sad book. But church, it's a hopeful book also because God is a God who fixes broken things. He's a God who restores devastated things.

He's a God who makes sense of unfamiliar, strange things. So I want to preach through Ezekiel because I want to understand this book. I want to preach through Ezekiel because this book is an essential part of God's word to his people. I want to preach through Ezekiel because the church, to be honest, in our post-Christian world is not all that different from the church that found itself exiled in Babylon those many millennia ago. So in the months ahead, as the Lord allows, I'd like to walk through the book of Ezekiel together with you. And my prayer is that we will learn what we need to learn, believe what we need to believe and obey what we need to obey from this portion of God's authoritative and sufficient word. I am excited and nervous about this journey. It's an ambitious goal, but God's word never disappoints, does it?

So I'm excited about it. Now, as far as our approach to this epic book is concerned, my intention is not to expound every verse in all 48 chapters of this major prophet. My goal is for us to consider the big picture, to get the big picture of Ezekiel, to grasp the overarching meaning and application by studying each major section of the book. As obscure passages arise, and there are plenty of them in this book, we'll zoom in on those and try to make sense of them, but the goal is to strike a balance between not enough detail and too much detail in order to maximize our edification. I've already begun the process of sort of structuring and outlining the series, how it might best be preached, and I estimate that we'll be able to get through all 48 chapters and about 20 sermons.

That's what I'm aiming for, but understand that number is tentative. We need to hold loosely to that pace, remembering that the goal is to understand what God is saying here so we can fully enjoy the benefits of His word. So with that said, let's dig in to the book of Ezekiel, and tonight we'll consider the first three chapters. I'll begin by reading chapter one, verses one through three. Can I get you to stand up again in honor of God's word as we read Ezekiel one, verses one through three? In the 30th year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the Kabar Canal, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. On the fifth day of the month, it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin, the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the Kabar Canal, and the hand of the Lord was upon him there.

Let's pray. God of heaven, you pursued Judah all the way to Babylon and back, even when they deserve to be abandoned and forgotten by you. You did that because you love your people. Lord, our hearts, like Judah's hearts, are easily divided, easily defiled by idols. Left to ourselves, we are nothing but dry bones decaying on the ground. But you are the God who pursues and resurrects and restores. Would you take these words of truth and pursue us with them? Lord, use this word to reorient our minds and our affections and our behavior, our very lives, Father, around you. Holy Spirit, pursue us and bring us safely to the land of promise, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

You can be seated. We need to begin by understanding the historical situation in which Ezekiel's ministry took place. And we actually know quite a lot about the historical situation. These opening verses that I just read give us a fairly detailed record of the date and the place and the person. The date of the beginning of Ezekiel's ministry was the fifth day of the fourth month of the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin.

It's very specific. It was July the 31st, 593 B.C. The place was among the exiles by the Kabar Canal in the land of the Chaldeans. In the prophetic books of the Old Testament, the Chaldeans and the Babylonians are essentially synonymous. Chaldeans, Babylonians are interchangeable.

Chaldeans is an ethnic term. Babylon is a geographic term. But both of these designations refer to the region that was located far to the east of Israel.

In fact, it was over 700 miles away from Jerusalem. Did a Google map search and it will be a 12-hour drive today from Jerusalem to this area there in ancient Babylon. Babylon was, of course, the major superpower of Ezekiel's day. The Babylonians' tactic was to go in and conquer a land, a city, a region and carry its most prestigious inhabitants back to Babylon to be assimilated into Babylonian customs and cultures, an ingenious way to spread their empire. Now, we all know about the Babylonian exile. But what we might not know is that the Babylonians didn't simply walk into Judah and conquer Jerusalem, destroy the temple and take the Jewish people into exile.

Their defeat of Judah, which was the southern kingdom of the 12 tribes, the southern portion of that, their defeat of Judah was a slow, drawn-out process that spanned several years, almost a quarter of a century, in fact. There was not just one single deportation of Jewish exiles to Babylon. There were actually several deportations.

The first one recorded in the Old Testament was a very small one, but it occurred around the year 606 BC. This would have been the deportation that included Daniel, prophet Daniel. The second deportation occurred about eight years later in 598 BC.

This is the deportation that Ezekiel would have been in. A third deportation occurred in 588 BC. This was the big one in terms of its devastation to the Jewish people. It's the one that occurred during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar and resulted in the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple. Scripture speaks of a 70-year exile for Judah. Some scholars see the 70-year clock beginning to tick with this deportation in 588, depending on how you count it, and then ending in 517 when the temple in Jerusalem was finally rebuilt.

There would have been one more lesser deportation in 582, with the final number of exiles reaching into the thousands. So this timeline puts the starting point of Ezekiel's ministry at a time when Judah was beginning to fall to its Babylonian captors, but Jerusalem itself hadn't yet been conquered. Ezekiel, though, was already exiled in the land of the Chaldeans in Babylon and was living, along with many other exiled Jews, along the Kabar Canal. Extrabiblical sources identify this spot, the Kabar Canal, as an irrigation canal that exited the east bank of the Euphrates River up in the north, and then it reentered the Euphrates River further south, just above the Persian Gulf.

That's the area where this is taking place. The fact of the matter is this is a very fertile, well-cultivated area at the time. This area was home to the renowned Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. So the exiles were exiled in a beautiful place at the height of its beauty. It was a beautiful place, but it was also a godless place, a pagan idolatrous place, as most human civilizations are at their height.

When we read of the Jews' sadness over their exile then, I think it bears keeping in mind that their sadness wasn't over the ugliness and discomforts of Babylon because Babylon was not ugly, nor uncomfortable. Psalm 137 tells us why they grieved. It says, by the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our liars, for there our captives required of us songs and our tormentors mirth, saying, sing us one of the songs of Zion.

How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land? Israel had experienced the real thing, but they had lost it all because of their love for an imitation. These people who had been recipients of Yahweh's presence and protection and blessing had forsaken that grace and found themselves in a place that wasn't home, a foreign place, a wicked place where the Lord's song simply didn't fit.

They had exchanged the real thing for a cheap man-made substitute and it simply would not compare. Sin does that, doesn't it? It pretends to be shiny and new and satisfying, but when we finally bite into it, it's empty and it's bitter and it's unfulfilling. It leaves us guilty. It leaves us full of regret and unable to sing the Lord's song, unable to enjoy his presence like we once did. Well, God's people found themselves trapped in a place that was temporally beautiful but culturally godless, outwardly attractive but inwardly opposed to everything holy. This was the situation in which Ezekiel's ministry began. What do we know about Ezekiel? Well, we know that he was a priest, says so there in the first few verses.

Had he still been in Jerusalem, he would have been among those who served at the temple, only he wasn't in Jerusalem and soon there would be no temple. So Ezekiel was a displaced priest without a land, without a temple, but not without a call. Verse 3 says, The word of the Lord came to Ezekiel in the land of the Chaldeans and the hand of the Lord was upon him there.

Now, can we just pause and think about the graciousness of that sentence? The word of the Lord came to Ezekiel. God was under no obligation to speak, to reveal himself, and yet the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel. Judah was rebellious. Judah was idolatrous. Judah had broken every stipulation of God's covenant with her, and to put it simply, God had justifiable biblical grounds to divorce her, and yet what does he do?

He pursues her. The word of the Lord came to Ezekiel. These opening three chapters are simply a lengthy description of Ezekiel's call to the office of prophet, and if we could summarize these chapters in a single sentence, it would be this. In spite of their sin, God still speaks to his people. In spite of their sin, God still speaks to his people. The word of the Lord came to Ezekiel.

Church, don't miss it. The word of the Lord comes to Grace Church. The word of the Lord comes to you, to me, in spite of our sin. That is incredible, amazing, and scandalously undeserved grace. Now, let's see how this grace unfolds in verses 4 through 28 of chapter 1.

We see the divine arrival. I said that I'm not going to read or explain every verse in the book, but I do want to zoom in on some of the strange passages that we find in Ezekiel, and this is one of those strange passages. So let's look at these verses for just a moment, and as we read this description of Ezekiel's vision, perhaps you'll begin to pick up on some correlations between Ezekiel's vision and some other visions described in the Bible.

I'm thinking Isaiah 6 or Daniel or John in the book of Revelation, and this correlation brings up an important interpretive principle. Whenever you see explicit correlations in Scripture, recurring verses, parallel stories, repeated phrases and descriptions, it's usually not incidental or accidental. Whenever you see correlations, it's usually not a side thing. It's a main thing. It's not accidental. It's on purpose. Parallel passages, especially in prophetic and apocalyptic passages, are parallel for a reason.

They often explain each other, so we should be looking for those correlations, those connections, and looking for them to interpret each other. The vision begins in verse 4. As I looked, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, and a great cloud with brightness around it, and fire flashing forth continually, and in the midst of the fire, as it were, gleaming metal, and from the midst of it came the lightness of four living creatures. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Our Bible bells should be going off.

Where else do we see four living creatures like these? Well, they show up in Isaiah, and they show up in the book of Revelation, and we're meant to assume a correlation. Now let me just pause just a moment and offer another interpretive principle here. Hyperliteralism, especially when it comes to prophetic literature, is often unhelpful and misleading. We need to be careful how we read prophetic literature. If we compare Ezekiel's description of the four living creatures to say John's description in Revelation, and notice that here they each have four faces, while in Revelation they each have one face, or that here they have four wings, while in Isaiah they have six wings, and we conclude these can't be the same creatures, we're doing something that's very typical of modernists, but not typical of biblical, prophetic, and apocalyptic writing.

We're imposing standards of precision and thoroughness on prophetic visions that were never intended to be imposed, and so we need to be careful. Let me use an illustration. If we had two families that visited Grace Church one Sunday, and the following week they were describing our campus to their friends, and one family said the sanctuary has a high ceiling and an arched stained glass window, and the other family says the sanctuary has low ceilings with a clear arched window. Are they describing two separate sanctuaries?

No. Because this room has both high ceilings and low ceilings. It has an arched stained glass window. It has a clear arched window, and if we thought about it for a hot minute, we would see that they're describing the same room, and we would see that they're probably describing it from different vantage points. Family one sat in the middle, high ceiling, window.

Family two probably sat over there, low ceiling, clear window. Don't dismiss correlation on account of differences of perspective or detail. Prophetic visions aren't meant to be read like exhaustive treatises in a scientific journal, and if you're still not convinced of the dangers of hyper-literalism, here's your proof text, Numbers 12, verses 6 through 8. If there's a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision. I speak with him in a dream, not so with my servant Moses.

With him I speak mouth to mouth clearly, not in riddles. So God himself tells us that sometimes he reveals truth with clarity and literalism, mouth to mouth, not in riddles. And other times, specifically when speaking through prophets, he reveals truth in visions and dreams and riddles.

There's some obscurity there. Who are we then to insist that what God says is symbolic and representative and mediated through dreams ought to be interpreted as clear, direct, and literal communication. And this is a principle we need to bear in mind throughout our study of Ezekiel. Now getting back to this fantastic vision, notice several things Ezekiel mentions. Verse 9, the wings of the four living creatures touched each other. Again, ding, ding, ding, ding.

That should bring to mind a correlation. It should instantly bring to mind the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies, a place where God's presence on earth was most clearly made manifest with the touching golden angels over it. Verse 12, each went straight forward without turning as they went. Wherever the Spirit would go, they went without turning as they went. Verse 15 introduces the presence of wheels within wheels beside these living creatures. In verse 17, these wheels could go in any direction without turning as they went. Verse 19, wherever the creatures went, the wheels went.

It's all very peculiar, isn't it? But the emphasis here is on the mobility of the living creatures and their wheels. They were mobile, but not merely mobile. They defied the ordinary laws of physics by not needing to turn when they changed directions.

Somehow they were facing every direction simultaneously. It seems to be describing a sort of hypermobility. This isn't some finicky luxury car that needs pristine asphalt to get around. No, it's the most incredible off-road transportation vehicle you can imagine. It's not limited by any terrain or even by the laws of physics.

It can get anywhere it needs to go with ease. And as we're going to see in a moment, that's the point. But now there's another component to this thing. Verse 22, over the heads of the living creatures, there was the likeness of an expanse, shining like all-inspiring crystal spread out above their heads. And once again, ding, ding, ding, bells should be going off.

Correlation, bells. Book of Revelation, bells. We should be recalling another sea of glass like crystal that's mentioned in Revelation 4. And where is that crystal sea located? It's located before the throne of God. Before the throne of God. Verse 26 parallels Revelation 4.

It says, above the expanse, over their heads, there was the likeness of a throne in appearance like sapphire. And seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness with a human appearance. Church, that's Jesus. That's Jesus. Jesus has come to Babylon riding on this incredible chariot throne carried by angels, unlimited and unimpeded by rivers and deserts and mountains or by borders and earthly kingdoms.

He goes where he wants, when he wants, with ease. Verse 28, such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face and I heard the voice of one speaking. You know, Israel had a similar, I mean, Isaiah had a similar vision of God in Isaiah 6, but with some notable differences. The chief difference was that in Isaiah's vision, God was fixed, wasn't he? He was fixed in a throne room. Isaiah's ministry occurred when Judah and Jerusalem and the temple were intact.

They were fixed, untouchable it seemed. Sure, God's people were in sin, even in Isaiah's day, they needed chastening, but they had the altar and the priests and the ark and the holy of holies. God's presence was there and secure and static and stable. But what happens when the unthinkable occurs?

What happens when what you thought would never be taken away, would never be destroyed, would never be lost is suddenly gone? Ezekiel didn't have a temple he could run to. He couldn't take a quick pilgrimage to Zion and find the reassurance of God's presence and favor and protection. All of that was 700 miles away and in process of being raised to the ground by demon-worshipping pagans.

Ezekiel and the covenant community was left with nothing but memories and regrets and doubts about their future. But in the darkest of moments, here comes God on his chariot throne to be with his people. He is not static. He's a God who goes where his people are. Even when they're exiled in the wicked place of their own making. In the parable of the prodigal son, we see a father coming out to meet his repentant son. The church, in Ezekiel's vision, we see the father going to the pig pen to be with his son, with his erring child.

That is grace upon grace upon grace. Well, God has arrived and what does he do? He speaks and he says to Ezekiel chapter 2 verse 3, Son of man, I send you to the people of Israel. He calls Ezekiel to the office of prophet, one who declares the word of God to the people of God. Ezekiel's call is no ordinary call because his audience is no ordinary audience. God describes Israel in these opening verses of chapter 2 as a nation of rebels who have transgressed God's law to this very day and who are impudent and stubborn. That's your church, Ezekiel.

Go preach to them. Well, there's no way Ezekiel or any prophet could fulfill this call in his own strength, but he didn't have to. God would empower Ezekiel with the only power adequate for the task. In fact, look at how chapter 2 highlights this empowering of Ezekiel. In verse 1, God commands Ezekiel to stand up and listen. Then before Ezekiel can't even do anything, verse 2 says, and the spirit entered into me and set me on my feet and I heard him speaking to me. Ezekiel can't even stand up in God's presence without the Holy Spirit's power, but God liberally gives him that power and will continue empowering him for the task to which he's being called.

And what is that task? It was the task of speaking the word of God to rebellious Israel. Chapter 2, verse 4 says, I, God, send you, Ezekiel, to them, Israel, and you shall say to them, Thus says the Lord God. Verse 7, You shall speak my words to them. Ezekiel's task was to speak God's word, nothing more, nothing less. And to make the point even stronger, God commands Ezekiel to eat a scroll in verse 8.

But this scroll bears an unpalatable message. Verse 10, it's a message of lamentation and mourning and woe. But Ezekiel obediently eats it. And to his surprise, and to our surprise, it was, chapter 3, verse 3, in my mouth as sweet as honey.

So God has put his word into Ezekiel, a word that is full of lamentation and mourning and woe, but that same word which Ezekiel is now to speak out to Israel is actually a very sweet, palatable word. I read that and it makes me think of Hebrews 12, where it says that God chastens his children because he loves them. That chastening is not enjoyable. It doesn't bring pleasure. It's not pleasant, but it yields pleasant things. It yields good things. And so in a sense, this word of judgment, at least for the child of God, is both bitter and sweet. It's hard to swallow, but it nourishes and it heals and it restores.

It's sweet as honey. And so Israel will listen to Ezekiel's message and they'll repent of their sin and they'll follow God and all will be well, right? Wrong. Chapter 3, verse 7. But the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me. Because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart. If you don't like the God of the preacher, you won't like the preacher.

And I think this has two applications. First, if you're speaking God's truth to someone and they reject it, don't be discouraged. They're not rejecting you, they're rejecting God.

But secondly and more pointedly, if a pastor or a book or a brother or a sister in Christ is conveying God's truth to you and you reject it, you're not rejecting them, you're rejecting God. You see, we are often the hard-headed, stubborn-hearted character in the story, not the obedient prophet who's being mistreated because of his association with God. Well, Ezekiel is being sent to preach a hard message to a hard-headed people, looked in at how God equips him for the task, verse 8. Behold, I have made your face, Ezekiel, as hard as their faces and your forehead as hard as their foreheads.

Like Emory, harder than flint have I made your forehead. Fear them not. Fear them not. God calls Ezekiel but then also equips him properly for the call. Notice also that God doesn't give Ezekiel any guarantee of success, at least from the vantage point by which we typically measure success.

He tells them to speak the word of God to them, verse 11, whether they hear or refuse to hear. So faithfulness rather than fruitfulness is the measure of success. Faithfulness rather than fruitfulness is the measure of success.

We need to be reminded of this in the pragmatic, performance-oriented world in which we live. An old Puritan pastor once said in light of verse 11, the servants of Christ must execute their functions without regard to success. Speak to them, whatever they be, and tell them, Thus saith the Lord. Tell them that one greater than themselves hath sent thee and will call them to account, and whether they will hear or forbear, let not that trouble thee. Do thy duty. Be not troubled at the oppositions of men or successlessness of thy labors. We need to remember that.

It's easier said than done but true nonetheless. This brings us finally to the inauspicious beginning of Ezekiel's prophetic ministry. The initial vision calling Ezekiel to fulfill the role of a prophet comes to a close. Ezekiel knows what he's supposed to do, and it utterly undoes him. Look with me at chapter 3, verse 15. Ezekiel says, I came to the exiles at Tel Aviv, who were dwelling by the Kabar Canal, and I sat where they were dwelling, and I sat there, overwhelmed among them, seven days.

That word overwhelmed means awestruck, appalled, horrified. Ezekiel felt overwhelmed by what he had seen, overwhelmed by the black condition of Israel's heart, overwhelmed at the task assigned to him. But after seven days of wallowing in his overwhelmedness, the Lord speaks to him again and gives Ezekiel some motivation, some prodding. God tells Ezekiel that he is a watchman for Israel, verse 17. A watchman is to keep a keen eye out for danger.

And if and when danger is seen, that watchman is supposed to speak up to warn the people that danger is imminent. God tells Ezekiel that as a watchman, if he doesn't speak up about the spiritual danger Israel is in and judgment comes, as indeed it would, then Israel's blood would be on Ezekiel's hands. If on the other hand Ezekiel spoke up, as he should, and proclaimed the word of the Lord, then whether Israel listened or not, Ezekiel would be free of responsibility. He will have, verse 19, delivered his soul. Well, having received a divine call, having emotionally processed that call, Ezekiel is now ready for ministry. And so the word of God comes to him with a message to deliver. In this case, it was not a verbal message that he was to speak. Rather, it was a nonverbal acting out, allegorically, symbolically, of God's word. And this would become a common occurrence in Ezekiel's ministry, as we will come to see.

His sermons were often symbolic acts that gave visible demonstration to the truths he was proclaiming. Well, what was this first word to Israel? Ironically, it was a word of silence. Verse 24, but the Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet, and he spoke with me and said to me, Go shut yourself within your house, and you, O son of man, behold, cords will be placed upon you, and you shall be bound with them, so that you cannot go out among the people, and I will make your tongue cling to the roof of your mouth, so that you shall be mute and unable to reprove them, for they are a rebellious house. God will eventually speak through Ezekiel to Israel. He will speak words of chastening and words of restoration.

He'll even speak to the nations that have harmed Israel, words of judgment and retribution. But first, there is silence. Israel has refused to hear the word of the Lord, and so the word of the Lord goes quiet.

This is where the story begins, with a deafening divine silence. We've seen a lot in these first three chapters, but I think if there's one truth that's at the center of these opening paragraphs, it's this, God's word is preeminent. God's word is preeminent. Prophets and preachers have no other word to proclaim but the word of the Lord.

God's people have no other voice to obey, but the word of the Lord. Church, when we neglect that word, we wither and die. When we heed that word, we flourish.

It was no hyperbole when Jesus said, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. His word gives life, and the neglect of that word brings despair and loss and death. I alluded to something a few moments ago, and that is that in this story, as much as we would like to identify with Ezekiel, we need to see ourselves as the house of Israel. Ezekiel, the son of man, that should ring bells in your head as well, another correlation, the son of man who eats the bitter judgment of God in order to proclaim the message of repentance and hope to Israel points to who?

The person and work of Jesus Christ. We don't get to be the savior in this story. We are the saved. We are the ones with hard heads and stiff necks who need to hear the word of the Lord.

But the good news, church, is that our Ezekiel, our prophet and priest, who was himself overwhelmed in the Garden of Gethsemane, stood up from that place and drank the cup of God's awesome wrath against our sin. He has the words of truth, and we need to listen to him. And what is it that he tells us? He tells us to repent of our sin and rest in his righteousness. If we listen to that sweet word of the gospel, sweet as honey, we will be saved. If we reject it, we will be damned. Thus saith the Lord. So let's hear, and let's heed that word. Would you pray with me? Father, in these moments tonight, we are amazed that you pursue us the way you do.

It truly is incredibly gracious. We also know that we will be leaving this building soon and returning to the busyness of another week with work and school and family and hobbies and routines, and we will forget the graciousness of your pursuit of us. We will forget your words of truth. We'll be enamored with a thousand affections that don't matter. Because, Lord, we are stubborn.

We are hard-headed. Thank you that your love outlasts our stubbornness. So we ask that you would soften our hearts, give us ears to hear, ears to listen to you with eagerness and submission and even joy. Thank you, Father, that in spite of our sin, you speak to us, and you speak most clearly through your Son, Jesus Christ. So it is in his name that we repent and in his name that we hope and in his name that we approach your throne tonight in prayer. Amen.