Episode Transcript
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Chapter Twenty, verse Forty Five Is
Echiel Twenty, verse Forty Five, and
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all read through Chapter Twenty one.
Let's give our attention to God's holy word
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and the word of the Lord came
to me, son of man. Set
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your face towards the south land,
preach against the South and prophesy against the
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forest land and the Negeb. Say
to the forest of the Negeb, hear
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the word of the Lord. Thus
says the Lord, God. Behold,
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I will kindle a fire in you
and it shall devour every green tree in
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you and every dry tree. The
blazing flame shall not be quenched and all
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faces from south to north shall be
scorched by it. All fleshes else shall
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see that I, the Lord,
have kindled it. It shall not be
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quenched. Then I said, Ah, Lord God, they are saying of
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me. Is He not a maker
of parables? The word of the Lord
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came to me, son a man. Set your face towards Jerusalem and preach
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against the sanctuaries, prophesy against the
land of Israel and say to the land
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of Israel, thus says the Lord, behold, I am against you and
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I will draw my sword from its
sheath and I will cut off from you,
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both righteous and wicked, because I
will caught up cut off from you,
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both righteous and wicked. Therefore,
my sword shall be drawn from its
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sheath against all flesh, from south
to north, and all my and all
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flesh shall know that I am the
Lord. I have drawn my sword from
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its sheath. It shall not be
sheathed again. As for you, son
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of men, grown with breaking heart
and bitter grief, grown before their eyes.
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And when they say to you,
why do you Groan, you shall
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say because of the news that it
is coming. Every heart will melt in,
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all hands will be feeble, every
spirit will faint and all knees will
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be weak as water. Behold,
it is coming and it will be fulfilled,
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declares the Lord God. And the
word of the Lord came to me,
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son of man, prophesy and say, thus says the Lord, say
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a sword. A sword is sharpened
and also polished, sharpened for slaughter,
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polished to flash like lightning. Or
shall we rejo voice? You have despised
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the Rod, my son, with
everything of Wood. So the sword is
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given to be polished that it may
be grasped in the hand. It is
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sharpened and polished to be given into
the hand of the slayer. Cry Out
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and Wail, son of man,
for it is against my people, it
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is against all the princes of Israel. They are delivered over to the sword
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with my people. Strike, therefore, upon your thigh, for it will
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not be attesting. What could it
do if you despise the Rod, declares
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the Lord God. As for you, son of man, prophesy, Clap
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your hands and let the sword come
down twice, yes, three times,
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the sword for those to be slain. It is the sword for the great
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slaughter which surrounds them, that their
hearts May Melt and many stumble, and
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at there at all their gaits.
I have given the Glittering Sword Ah.
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It is made alike lightning. It
is taken up for slaughter. Cut sharply
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to the right. Set yourself to
the left, wherever your face is directed.
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I also will clap my hands and
I will satisfy my fury. I,
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the Lord, have spoken. The
word of the Lord came to me
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again. As for you, son
of man, Mark Two ways for the
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sword of the King of Babylon to
come. Both of them shall come from
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the same land and make a sign
post. Make it at the head of
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the way to a city mark away
for the sword, to come to Riba
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of the AMMONITES and to Judah into
Jerusalem. The fortified for the King of
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Babylon stands at the parting of the
way, at the head of two ways
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to use divination. He shakes the
arrows, he consults the Tariffeme, he
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looks at the liver. into his
right hand comes the divination for Jerusalem,
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to set battering rams, to open
the mouth with murder, to lift up
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the voice with shouting, to set
battering rams against the gates, to cast
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up mounds, to build siege towers. But to them it will seem like
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a false divination. They have sworn
solemn oaths. But he will bring their
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guilt to remembrance that they may be
taken. Therefore, thus, as the
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Lord God, because you have made
your guilt to be remembered, in that
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your transgressions are uncovered, so that
in all your deeds, your sins appear,
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because you have come to remembrance,
you shall be taken in hand.
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And you, oh profane, wicked
one prince of Israel, whose day has
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come, the time of your final
punishment. Thus, as the Lord God,
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remove the Turban and take off the
crown, things shall not remain as
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they are. Exalt that which is
low and bring low that which is exalted.
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A ruin, ruin, ruin,
I will make it. This also
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shall not be until he becomes the
one to whom judgment belongs, and I
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will give it to him. and
You, son of man, prophesy and
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say the says the Lord God concerning
the ammonites and concerning their reproach. Say
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a sword. A sword is drawn
for the slaughter, it is polished to
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consume into flash like lightning, while
they see for your for you false visions,
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while they divine lies for you to
the to place you on the necks
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of the profane wicked, whose day
has come, the time of their final
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punishment. Return it to its sheath. In the place where you were created,
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in the land of your origin,
I will judge you and I will
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pour out my indignation upon you,
I will blow upon you with the fire
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of my wrath and I will deliver
you into the hands of brutish men skillful
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to destroy. You shall be fuel
for the fire. Your blood shall be
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in the midst of the land.
You shall be no more remembered, for
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I, the Lord, have spoken. May God bless his word to us.
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We have a section here in is
equel that centers very much around a
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sword, doesn't it? The sword
is brought up in in many ways.
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We begin with a sword of fire, in which lightning and the sword word
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are are connected to one another.
Then we come to a section which we
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might call the song of the sword. We heard it in beginning in twenty
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one, verse eight, and then
again here, just at the end.
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This a sword, a sword is
drawn for the slaughter it is Polish to
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consume and flash like lightning. After
this song of the sword, we then
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have three sections, the sword of
Babylon against Jerusalem, the sword of Babylon
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against the ammonites and then the sword
of Babylon against Babylon. And each of
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these things we see the strength of
the Lord, his judgment against sin,
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his fury and his righteousness. What
I'd like to do this evening is walk
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through these different sections and then finish
with a couple points of application. Let's
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begin with the Sword of fire,
twenty, chapter, twenty, verse Forty
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Five. He begins, the Lord, that is the Lord, begins by
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speaking to his Zekiel, as he
does throughout in these different sections, and
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we have this this opening. The
word of the Lord came to me,
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son of man, or the word
of the Lord came to me a son
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of man. Prophesy and say thus
as the Lord God. And in this
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opening section, which I'm calling the
sword of fire, we have a parable
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in a way, and is equels
to command about a fire that is set.
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He says, son of Man,
set your face toward the south land.
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This is speaking of Judah in the
southern part of Israel. Preach against
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the south and prophesy against the forest
land. I will kindle a fire and
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it shall devour everything. It takes
green and dry. It scorches the faces
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of the people throughout the land.
Ian Do good, a commentator whom I
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very much enjoyed reading on this this
book. He notes that the fire,
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this wildfire, though not wild,
directed by the will of the Lord,
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is consuming in three ways. He
notes that it's caught, it's an all
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consuming and its content we see,
but both the green and the dry trees
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are destroyed, both the righteous and
the wicked are destroyed. The geography is
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all encompassing as it moves from south
to north, and the temporal scope of
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it is also income all encompassing.
It says that the fire is kindled and
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will not be put out. In
other words, is the word of the
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Lord, and his judgment comes upon
the land in the shape of this fire.
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It is the end of these things, and this very much corresponds to
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all everything that we've been reading up
to this point. JERUS LUM has sinned
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and send and stand and stacked or
sends up to heaven, and the time
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of judgment has come. Everyone will
know that it was the Lord who set
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the fire. Right, when we
have wildfires and fire seasons, sometimes we
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ask how did it get set right? Was it an electrical thing? Was
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it a lightning strike, or was
there a person who set it? What
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is Equel says here, by the
word of the Lord, is that then
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everyone looks at this fire, they
will know exactly who said it, exactly
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who kindled it. In Verse Forty
Eight, all Flesh Sall see that I,
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the Lord, have kindled it.
It shall not be quenched. The
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response to this is typical of the
responses of Israel and her princes and her
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elders, that is equal has frequently
been getting. As he proclaims these prophecies,
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they say, is he not a
maker of parables, he's He's speaking
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in parables and as if this was
somehow excusing them. In some way it
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doesn't excuse them. The parable,
like Jesus, is parable, is meant
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to both convey information, to express
these things, but also, in a
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way, to hide the truth and
hard in the hearts of those who do
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not have ears to hear it,
and we see them responding in that way.
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Another response that we see comes at
the beginning of Chapter Twenty one,
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where God calls Ezequel to do one
of these things that we've talked before is
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like sign acts, some sort of
thing, a physical act that is eqil
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does to either make known a truth
or to express it or confirm it in
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some way. The thing the Lord
calls him to do is to grown,
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to sigh and to Groan with a
broken heart and bitter grief. It's one
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of the interesting places, one of
just as a side no one, of
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the interesting places in scripture where we
see emotions being commanded. Emotions in some
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ways are a reaction to things around
us. Right they just sort of happen,
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but we also see that in some
ways they can be controlled, that
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we are called to feel certain ways
at certain times, and his equal here
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is being called to sigh and to
Groan, and not just outwardly, but
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with a broken heart and bitter grief. He is to think about this destruction
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that's coming and to grieve it,
and this, of course, expresses the
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Lord's own heart. God is not
rejoicing and happy and really excited or having
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a fun time. He is destroying
his people and it breaks his heart,
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brings him grief and he wants his
prophet to express that as well. And
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when the people ask, right,
when the people ask, he shall respond.
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How shall he respond when they say, why do you Groan? In
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verse seven, he says because of
the news that it is coming. Every
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heart will melt and all hands will
be feeble, every spirit will faint and
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all knees will be weak as water. Behold, it is coming and it
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will be fulfilled, declares the Lord. I think there's an opportunity for us
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to grieve our own lack of grieving
when it comes to the judgment of the
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Lord. The Lord promises that judgment
is coming in a way that is even
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greater than is expressed here in is
Eqil, that on the last day,
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when the Lord Jesus returns the mountains
will shake, the hills of the rocks
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will fall on the sky will be
rolled up like a scroll and the Lord's
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Flaming Sword of Judgment will come down
upon the world. That will be a
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hard day and a difficult day and
a terrible, terrifying day for many.
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That should make us grief. It
should make us concerned for the loss of
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people who reject it and who laugh
at it, who despise it and who
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aren't listening, who aren't paying attention
to the news. It should also make
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us passionate about sharing the good news
of the Lord's salvation, passionate about telling
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people about the Lord and what he
is doing, about the salvation that he
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offers. From that very day,
the news of the word of the Lord
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should affect our hearts well. Next
we come to the song of the sword,
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as and calling it, beginning in
twenty one eight, the word of
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the Lord came to me, son
of man, prophesy, and say,
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thus say us, thus says the
Lord, a sword. A sword is
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sharpened and also polished, a sharpened
for slaughter, polished to flash like lightning.
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And here is why, earlier I
called that passage the sword of fire,
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right even though a sword wasn't mentioned
directly in that that earlier passage,
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this lightning, in this flashing is
connected with the sort of judgment here,
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as we sing this song of the
sword, this this poem that is here.
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He the you, you hear,
you see the image right. The
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sword is being prepared, it's being
ready, it's being clean and it's going
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to be polished so bright that the
glint of it, the flash of it,
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is like lightning just flashing in your
face, making you close your eyes.
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A terrifying thing, as the sword
is sharpened, is the sword is
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polished, as the sword is ready. What is the purpose of this sword?
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Why is it given to be polished? Verse Eleven. The answer is
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that it may be grasped in the
hand. It is sharpened and polished to
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be given into the hand of the
slayer. What is the effect of this?
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Melting hearts? Cry Out, verse
twelve. Cry Out and Wail,
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son of man, for it is
against my people, it is against all
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the princes of Israel. They are
delivered over to the sword with my people.
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He then calls is equal to clap
his hands. In verse fourteen,
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and perhaps another sign act like the
groaning were and the sorrow we heard before.
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He says in Verse Fourteen, Clap
Your Hands and let the sword come
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down twice, yes, even three
times. I'm not sure exactly what the
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clapping hands means. Perhaps it's confirmation
of the message, or maybe it's something
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like pounding the table to make the
point. Perhaps it's getting their attention and
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an announcement in some way. But
whatever it means, it's clear that what
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the Prophet represents there he represents again
the Lord's own actions. He speaks on
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the Lord's behalf, because we read, as we go on later in the
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Prophet in in the prophecy, in
verse seventeen, it says I also will
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clap my hands and will satisfy my
fury. Again we see that the prophet,
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he's not just acting on his own, he's not just saying these things.
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Notice how that's emphasized over and over
again, how he speaks the word
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of the Lord. When we hear
these words of Ezekiel, we are hearing
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the word of God. And so
we have this parable to begin with,
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this flashing lightning that goes throughout the
land. Than it is connected with this
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sword. In this second section in
which we hear what it is to do,
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to slaughter in the hands of the
slayer, causing people, of course,
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to die in their hearts to melt. Then we get into three specific
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instances of judgment. First Jerusalem,
than at the AMMONITES, and then Babylon.
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So first the sword of Babylon against
Jerusalem. We call it the sort
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of Babylon, even though it's already
been identified as the sword of the Lord,
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because Babylon is his slayer, Babylon
is his executioner that he has called
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and so in a way the sword
does belong to Babylon, even as it
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belongs to the Lord, and this
is an important point, as will come
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to see in a moment. In
first eighteen through twenty seven we see exactly
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how the sword of God will be
wielded, that the executioner is Babylon.
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In the way this is expressed is
in another sign act. Ezekiel is to
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in this case actually make a sign. He is to create a sign post
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on a road that splits in two
ways. So you might imagine a road
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coming down out of Babylon and then
splitting right, going into directions. One
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Direction it goes to Jerusalem and in
one direction it goes to the ammonite.
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So you can imagine, right the
Lord's executioner, the Lord's the Lord's Judge,
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coming with his sword in his hand
down the road and then he comes
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to this crossroads. Will he go
to Amman? Will he go to Jerusalem?
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And the king there is described as
making this choice. And what's very
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interesting is he does not inquire of
the Lord, but he uses lots something
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with arrows, he's looking at a
liver, he's using all of these things
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of pagan divination, of Pagan idolatry, to decide which way to go,
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and he will lie through this divination
discover that it is to Jerusalem first that
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he will go. However, we
know very clearly from the prophecy that is
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being spoken of ahead of time,
from the work that God is doing,
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the one that he that is directing
all these things, that it's not Nebuchadnezzar's
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gods or fate that is causing him
to go to Jerusalem. It is Yahweh.
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The Lord is the one who's directing
them. The Lord is the one
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who is sending him here. We
see an irony in a way, and
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and and a sort of sweet justice, as we sometimes say, and which
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the Lord is using the very means
by which Israel has gone astray to bring
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about their destruction. They're chasing after
false gods, they're chasing after idolatry and
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divination. It is there undoing in
a number of ways. They're running after
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Babylon and all her gods. There
are accepting of false worship and and these
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sorts of things. They are there. It is our undoing. So just
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as God uses the foreigners whom Israel
sought after for their own destruction, he
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will also use these foreign religious practices
as a means to their end. Finally,
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in this section of Judgment Against Jerusalem, we see that is the king
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of Babylon goes to Jerusalem, that
this punishment is both for Prince and people,
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and do good makes another helpful note
here. He points out that it's
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not merely Zeedekiah who is going to
be judged at this moment. He's not
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even named here. He's simply called
unworthy prince. It is the all,
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ultimately the whole office of the King
in Israel that is being judged. As
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dug it puts it, a divine
reordering of society in which the Lord will
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exalt the lowly and bring down the
exalted. This reminds us, beloved off,
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one of the central problems that has
been happening in Israel. She doesn't
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have a king where she has a
king, but not one that she needs.
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She has kings that continually swing her
to idolatry, that lead her into
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false practices and adultery. Under the
Lord, the Kings have, over and
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over and over again, failed and
not been shepherds to their sheep. And
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the Lord is going to bring all
that to an end. All the corruption,
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all the false judgment, all of
the money, all of the power.
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It's over. It's over and,
as he says, as the Scriptures
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say, the sword of Brat Babylon, as it comes on the Prince and
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the people, will bring nothing.
But this is verse twenty seven. Ruin,
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ruin, ruin. I will make
it the beginning. Earlier, in
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Verse Nineteen, we read about the
sword of the King of Babylon to come,
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and then here at the end of
this section, we read that this
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ruin will come as as this king
comes, the one to whom judgment belongs,
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and I will give it to him. That said, as we will
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soon see, the King of Babylon, though he exercises the will of the
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Lord. Though he is used in
a tool of the Lord, he will
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not stand forever. Nebuchadnezzar, it
doesn't have any of this in mind.
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Nebuchadnezzar thinks he's a great king conquering
nations. He thinks that he is accumulating
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wealth and power for himself, and
in some ways he is, but he
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is blind to the fact and prideful
to the fact that it is God who
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establishes these things. He will not
stand forever, as is obvious from the
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fact that he is not our king
today. The King Jesus is, praise
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be to God. God, our
king, may use humans to do his
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will, but that doesn't make them
gods under themselves. He can overturn them
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as easily as he lifts them up, which should remind US never to fear
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men more than God. Having come
to Jerusalem in Verse Twenty Eight, then
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we see the sword of Babylon going
to amm the to the AMMONITES, Verse
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Twenty Eight, these wicked neighbors of
Israel. We read that and you,
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son of man, prophesy and say
thus, as the Lord God, concerning
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the ammonites and concerning their reproach.
And then we have this song again.
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I'm calling it a song a sword. A sword is drawn for the slaughter.
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It is polished to consume and to
flash like lightning, and Salem the
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other headed to am and now,
having destroyed Jerusalem, Babylon takes the other
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road and they will march and they
will destroy the wicked and the profane there
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as well. But with that happening, then we see a judgment coming against
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Babylon, as I said, the
sort of Babylon against Babylon. How do
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we see this? I think we
see it in verse thirty, though Babylon
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is not mentioned. We read,
we do read this. Return it to
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its sheath in the place where you
were created, in the land of your
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origin, and I will judge you, I he will judge, in other
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words, the sword itself, the
judgement, will judge the judgment, and
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the one who brings that judgment.
This sword that is brought, that is
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unsheathed back in twenty one five,
is now sheathed. And there might seem
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to be a little contradiction there,
because in twenty one five it says it
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will never be sheathed again, and
then later on we read that it is
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sheathed and I think the way that
we ought to understand that is that this
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sheathing in the beginning, in the
end, they're different in a way,
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and the continuity is the judgment of
God. In other words, when he
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says the sword will be unsheathed,
he means that the judgment of God will
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continue and it will not stop until
it's complete. And in a way we
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see that even in its sheathing,
right at the end, not that the
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judgment stops, but that now it
returns on the people to from from which
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it began. The sheathing is not
an end of judgment for Babylon. Now,
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without her weapon, a weapon supplied
by God, Babylon will come under
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judgment herself. We read that in
verses thirty, thirty one and thirty two.
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I will judge you, God says. I will pour out my indignation
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upon you, I will blow upon
you with the fire of my wrath.
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I will deliver you into the hands
of brutish men skillful to destroy. You
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shall be fuel for the fire.
Your blood shall be in the midst of
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the land. You shall be remembered
no more, for I, the Lord,
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have spoken. So this takes us
through our passage. We see the
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opening parable of that, this lightning
going forth. We see the lightning connected
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with the sword and the grief that
is to come over that. We see
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the sort of Babylon going against,
first being the the work of the Lord,
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the judgment of the Lord, first
against Jerusalem, then the ammonites and
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then against Babylon herself. So what
are we to take from this passage about
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God's wrath and God's judgment through his
sword? I'll mention just a couple things.
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I think there's a lot to think
on and reflect on and be humbled
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by. One thing to remember is
that God is the one who is sovereign,
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and that's a kingly term, isn't
it? A sovereign it means he
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is the one who exercises all power
and authority over all his creatures and over
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all their actions, to an extent
that we can't even really begin and kind
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can accumulate. For itself is the
tiniest, most infinitesimal, smallest thing compared
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with the infinite power of God.
When we forget that, we go astray
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so fast. We think we can
control God, we think we can be
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God's for ourselves. We can do
our own way, we can worship whom
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we want and where we want,
we can do the things we want.
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We think that when we're strong and
powerful, that those things will save us.
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Whether we've got money or fame or
relationships or whatever, we think that
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these are the things that hold us
secure. Nebuchadnezzar thought thats. He goes
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and he stands and he looks out
on all his land. He's look at
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all that I've accomplished. Not that
much longer he's eating grass and a field
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and not much longer after that,
giving praise to God. We must remember,
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no matter how great we may become
in this world or how small we
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may feel in this world, that
there's really only one ruler, there's really
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only one king, and to him
all honor and glory and allegiances do no
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matter what, no matter what,
and this king is a very powerful king.
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A lot of times we minimize the
power and the strength and the glory
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of God. We think of him
and small ways, and the world,
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of course, is constantly tempting us
to do this, distracting us, minimizing
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him, these kinds of things.
But a passage like this is it sets
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in our minds and in our hearts
hopefully forces us not to do that.
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It unlock something in us that goes
Oh, I remember now. He's that
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kind of God. He deserves to
be feared, he deserves to be honored,
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he deserves to be obeyed. This
is very important. God is sovereign,
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not people, not swords, not
even the bearers of the sword,
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God and God alone. Related to
that point is this when the Lord Jesus
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comes, the sword and the fire
of God do not go away. They
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don't go away. Jesus says in
thirty five he comes not to bring peace
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to Earth, but a sword.
In Luke forty nine, a parallel passage,
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he says I have come to bring
fire on the Earth, and how
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I wish it were already kindled.
And do you remember those pictures of the
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Lord Jesus the beginning of his Ekiel? Do you remember him riding upon his
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chariot, flashes of lightning, surrounded
by a Chaer of Beam and various angelic
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beings, a great war chariot rumbling
through through creation, the Lord on the
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War Clath, the Lord in his
fury, the Lord Jesus. Do you
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remember the pictures of him and revelation, a sword from his mouth, a
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flaming fire when Jesus comes, he
does not the the sword and image,
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the imagery of sword and fire are
they act of judgment does not go away.
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Sometimes people want to say that God
and the Old Testament is a god
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of War and judgment and that the
God and the New Testament does not.
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They pick God against himself, but
he is the same. Now there is,
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of course, another sense in which
Jesus does bring peace. He says
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it himself, the angels declare it
right, when he's born, peace on
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earth. Right, Jesus sells us
to come into him, and I will
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give you rest on the one of
the gifts of the his spirit that he
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gives to us is peace. But
the peace he brings, the peace he
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brings, is by fulfilling judgment,
not by ignoring it or a ball or
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denying it and saying, oh,
that was bad stuff back then. Now
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I'm a nice guy. No,
Jesus comes and he does bring peace,
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but he brings it by fulfilling judgment. Jesus brings the judgment of God against
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the sins of the world. But
he does that in two stages. The
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first we've already seen and the second
we're waiting for. The first stage in
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which he does it. He brings
the judgment of God against sin on himself.
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He goes to a cross, he
is despised and shamed, he goes
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through all kinds of pain and he
hangs there as a sacrifice. For what?
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For Sin. The judgment of God
is poured out on him. Jesus
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doesn't ignore or abolish or ignore or
skip over punishment in some way. He
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endures the punishment. He endures the
judgment of God everything that we see here
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and more, because it in the
punishment that he receives is not the one
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time punishment for just this time in
this place, but for all time,
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a complete judgment, a final judgment. That's the first stage in which the
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Lord Jesus brings judgment into the world. He brings it, but he brings
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it on himself. He takes it
on himself. The second phase of Jesus's
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judgment is for all those who do
not receive him in his first stage,
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for those who have refused to look
to the salvation of God that is offered
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through Jesus on the Cross. That
judgment that he took on himself will be
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experienced by them, not through him
or under his protection, but just all
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out in the open, just them
all by themselves. Revelation Nineteen fifteen says,
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from his mouth comes a sharp sword
with which to strike down the nation's
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and he will rule them with a
rod of iron. He will tread the
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winepress of the fury, of the
wrath of God the Almighty. That's Jesus.
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Revelation two thousand and fourteen says.
Then death and hades were thrown into
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the lake of fire. This is
the second death the lake of fire,
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and if anyone's name was not found
written in the book of life, he
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was thrown into the lake of fire. And so when we read this passage
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in Ezechiel and passages like it,
we have to remember this. Our hope
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is not in the fact that God
judged Jerusalem, Amin and Babylon and not
404
00:36:49.809 --> 00:36:54.489
us. Right our whope is not, wow, glad I wasn't living back
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then. That's not the thing that
saves us, because a judgment is coming,
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a greater judgment is coming, a
judgment that these things are pointing to.
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So our hope is not in the
fact that we weren't there. Our
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hope is also not in the fact
that the god of the New Testament is
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love, where the God of the
Old Testament is wrath because, as we've
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seen from the Scriptures, God is
God in his wrath and his fury and
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also in his love and in His
grace. Our hope is in God,
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the God of love and Justice in
the Old Testament, who came in the
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00:37:39.980 --> 00:37:46.289
new and fulfilled all of these things
in himself on the cross for us.
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00:37:47.690 --> 00:37:53.210
In Love, he took judgment on
himself, he took our sins on himself
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00:37:53.250 --> 00:37:59.360
so that we would not have to
endure these kinds of things and worse.
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00:38:00.199 --> 00:38:08.280
That's where our hope is. The
point about the princes of the people and
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pointing us to a king, point
us to Jesus. When Jesus came as
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00:38:15.030 --> 00:38:19.469
our King, he came in righteousness, he came in holiness, he came
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in power, a power that the
world decided to put on the cross,
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00:38:23.909 --> 00:38:30.539
but a power that nevertheless resurrected from
the dead and now rules and reigns at
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the right hand of God, the
Father Almighty, and who will come to
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00:38:32.860 --> 00:38:39.539
judge, come again to judge the
living and the dead. So let's put
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our hope in him, the God
who has the power to judge, the
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God who has the power to save
and who, right now is offering us
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a salvation from our sins. I
simply receiving that through faith in Christ.
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Let's pray. Lord God, we
ask that you
