If you'd take your Bibles, please, and turn with me to the book of Isaiah. And our text this morning is found in Isaiah chapter 59. If you'd open your scriptures, please, there. It's good to have some of our friends from far-off places visiting with us today, and good to always have them in our service this morning. Yesterday I had the privilege of going over to Rockford, Michigan to watch my son Jeremy run a couple of races. Got there early and it was supposed to be overcast, cloudy, thunderstorms supposed to be in the area. I thought, well, that'll be good. I'd rather be under the clouds, even if it's a little bit wet, than sit and bake in the sun. The weatherman doesn't always get it right. And it was a sunny day and it was hot. I got a sunburn on my neck. And you get there because you love your kids and you want to see these events and you sit in the stands for four, five, six hours in the sun and bake. And you do it without complaint because you want to support your children's activities. And as I sat there sweating and burning and wondering, what in the world am I doing here? I thought about, you'll do that for an event like that, but how often do we hear people complain when they're in an air-conditioned building and maybe the preaching's a little long or maybe, whatever. Where is our priorities and our hearts in these days? I'm opening Isaiah 59 to a reminder from Isaiah to the people of God. And it's a very powerful text. And it's a text that reminds us that we need to have our priorities right. And that if our heart is in love with the Lord, that we make sacrifices and we go the extra mile to serve our Lord that we love and serve. Our text this morning is Isaiah 59. I want us to read down to verse 8 if you'll follow as I read this portion of God's Word. Would you join me please as you follow me? Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither His ear heavy that it cannot hear. But, notice verse 2 carefully, but your iniquities have separated your sins, have separated rather between you and your God and your sins have hid His face from you that He will not hear." What a powerful verse. Verse 2 is, but your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid His face from you that He will not hear. Do we live in a day of the hidden face of God? Is it possible that there might be those of us here today that God has hid His smile from us because of our sin and disobedience? For your hands are defiled with blood, your fingers with iniquity, your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness. None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth. They trust in vanity, they speak lies, they conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity. in these verses as he's describing the sins of Israel. Notice he is talking about hands that are defiled with blood. There is murder and deceit and iniquity and mischief in their hands, no justice. In verses 3 and 4 it is a terrible description of the nature of man. As a matter of fact if you go back in your mind to the book of Romans chapter 3 verse 13 through 18 that passage that Paul gives us in Romans 3 describing the sin of man is based on what he is reading here, what we are reading here in Isaiah chapter 59. Notice the powerful and striking imagery that we have in verses 5 and 6. He says, "...they hatch cockatrice eggs, and weave spider's web. He that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh into a viper." Here is the prophet of God comparing the children of Israel to a venomous snake. A cockatrice is a very deadly snake. A bite from that snake would bring death. He says the people of Israel you're like a cockatrice. You're like these deadly dangerous venomous snakes. You hatch eggs and when these eggs hatch they bring forth vipers. I mean the imagery here is powerful and striking. Then he says you're like the spider that weaves his web. The spider is the most deadly of all insects. The spider weaves its web and of course the whole purpose of the weaving of the web is so that some unsuspecting insect might fly through and it hits the web and it's caught fast in the meshes of that web. And then the spider comes down and sinks its venom and its fangs into the helpless victim that's thrashing its wings in the spider's web. He says, Israel you're like a dangerous viper. You're like a poisonous snake. You're like a spider that tries to slay and capture people. Verse 6, Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works. Their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands. Verse 7, Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity. Wasting and destruction are in their paths. There's a verse in Scripture where God says to His people, My thoughts are not your thoughts. and my ways are not your ways." And here again he reminds us that for many people their thoughts are continually upon evil. They think evil things continually. At night they lie awake thinking of evil things. They have evil plans. They have evil machinations. Evil thoughts, wickedness, corruption is always on their mind with ungodly people. Verse 8, the way of peace, they know not. One of the hallmarks of a true child of God is that they are peacemakers, picking up the mantle of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in crises, in difficulties, they are peacemakers and mercy showers and encouragers. They are those who, though they may have to speak truth at times, they do it in love, and their whole purpose is to be peacemakers. He says, Isaiah 59 is a powerful, powerful message isn't it? Go back if you would in your book in Isaiah to what we said a couple of messages ago in Isaiah 58 verses 1 and 2. In Isaiah 58 verse 1, cry aloud and spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet and show my people their transgression and the house of Jacob their sins. And here God is asking Isaiah to show my people their sins. Can I tell you something dear Bereans, dear friends, can I tell you one of the hardest things for a pastor to do? Is the pastor simply a man of flesh like anyone else? Do you think that a minister comes to the pulpit with any delight in offending people? Do you think that I find some pleasure in coming to this church to make you feel miserable? That I'm sitting up all Saturday night thinking, now how can I make this message as negative, as mean-spirited as I possibly can? I want to make these people, Lord, squirm in the pews. When they leave, I want them to be fretting and thinking that God's a terrible God and You think that's what pastors do? Pastors, like anyone else, love people. And they want people to know the joy of the Lord. And they want people to have the smile of God upon their life. But because of that, they also know that they are to cry aloud and spare not. Tell the truth and share the truth. And here Isaiah tells us in there 58, cry aloud in spirit and in chapter 59 it's a continuation of the same theme. These people, this nation, the nation of Judah, the southern kingdom, the people of Israel had sinned. And during the 58th chapter they were murmuring and whining to God and saying, we fast and we pray. But Yahweh does not hear. foes keep coming at us, enemies keep rising up against us, and we fast, and we pray, and we beg Almighty God for deliverance, but the judgments continue to fall. What is Isaiah doing in chapter 59? He's reminding them there's a reason why God doesn't answer your prayers. There's a reason why you haven't heard from heaven. Verse 2, look at our text. but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you that He will not hear." In verses 1 and 2 Isaiah gives them a reminder of two very powerful truths. I take as my theme then in this chapter, my text will focus mainly on verses 1 and 2. My theme is Isaiah's reminder to Israel. And there are two reminders that he gives us. In verse 1, a positive reminder, and that reminder is this, God is able to save those who come to Him in faith. God is sufficiently able to save those who call upon Him in truth. That's the first reminder. The second reminder is negative, verse 2. And that is, beware of the terrible deception and the devastation of sin. He reminds them of the devastation of sin. I don't suppose it was easy for Isaiah to come and bring some of these messages to the people of God. Isaiah was a prophet, but he was a man. And from the walls of Jerusalem he surveys the the hillsides, the mountainsides beyond the gates. And it's amazing that enemy after enemy kept coming to Israel. First the Assyrians came. and they were finally... Then the Egyptians came. They finally went. And then the Babylonians came. Now the Babylonians didn't just come one time under Nebuchadnezzar, come and sack the city. If you read Isaiah carefully, if you read 1 Chronicles carefully, what you'll see is that the Babylonians came in waves. They came, besieged the city, they robbed the temple, took away gold and all the various things, carried away captives. Then they came back a second time and a third time. It was on the fourth time that Nebuchadnezzar finally sacked and destroyed the city for good. But they came in waves. And one enemy comes and they leave, another enemy comes. It was just unrelenting, the outpouring of judgment upon these people. And Isaiah is God's prophet on the hour, crying out to the people, repent! obey God that you might be delivered from these scourges. What's wrong with America today is America is a nation under judgment. We've allowed pornography. We've allowed drugs. We've allowed humanism and secularism. We've allowed crime. We've allowed abortion. All these things into our land. And the church today, the evangelical church, has never been greater in number or more numerous in number but never more weak than it is today. There are so many millions of people in America that call themselves evangelicals that if they would vote truth and in elections vote their conscience, we would have the kind of people in office that would not tolerate these kinds of national scandals and sins that scandalize the United States of America. But there aren't people sitting in the pews of the average church that connect the dots from faith to practice. And that's the great danger we face in America today. I can imagine the children of Israel looking at Isaiah and saying, this prophet, he is so negative. Here we are facing all these enemies and he has the gall to keep warning us about sin. He has the nerve to keep telling us all these negative things in spite of all that we're facing. Look how negative he is. John the Baptist taught the truth and he was beheaded. Stephen taught the truth, he was stoned. Jeremiah taught the truth and he was thrown in a dungeon. Isaiah was rejected and the Lord Jesus was crucified. We need today prophets, prophets in our pulpits, to speak the truth in love but to tell people they need to turn from their sins. I'm saying, dear ones, Isaiah 59 verses 1 and 2 is a reminder to the people of God. I would hope that as we look at these two verses that you would see it as a reminder to each of us to each of us as well. The reminders are one positive and one negative. The positive reminder is that God is sufficient to save those who come to Him in sincerity and in truth. The negative reminder is to remember, to remember, to remind yourself of the devastating effect of sin on a person's life. Let's bow in prayer, ask the Holy Spirit to speak to us today that these two reminders would come home in power to our hearts. Our Father and our God, we bow before Thee. We ask, Lord, today that You would speak through Your Word and that we would remember that You are indeed a great God and able to save. Father, I also pray that you'd help us to remember that we'd be reminded today, all of us, of the devastating effects of sin, whether it be in our church, or in our lives, in our families. Oh Lord, speak to thy people today. Speak to each of us. For this we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. The first reminder is a positive reminder. It's to remember the sufficiency of God to save sinners. Look at verse 1. You have to understand the context of why Isaiah says this in verse 1 of chapter 59. Because in the previous sections these people have been whining. They've been complaining. They're saying, we've been fasting, we've been praying, but the heavens are like brass and God doesn't bring His blessing to us. And they're saying, what's wrong here? Aren't we sincere? No they weren't sincere. If a person says, you gather here today, we gather here today and we say, I love Jesus. And we worship God and we sing the anthems and we sing the choir numbers and we sing the hymns and we go through the pastoral prayer and Don reads scripture and we express our love and our adoration and we go through all this lovely sense of worship here. Then we walk outside the doors of this building and if we do not practice holiness, if we do not connect the dots that along with our worship needs to be followed by obedience and holy living, if we don't do that, can we expect God to hear? Do you think for one moment that if we're practicing sin, allowing sin in our lives without repenting of it, without mortifying, do you think for a moment God's going to answer your prayers? God is a loving God and He's patient and He's wise, but listen, God is no fool. And if we live in disobedience, don't expect you'll hear from heaven. In verse 1 it's a word picture he's describing here and it's very striking. Behold the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save. Now it's a word picture. Now this is what we call in theology an anthropomorphic expression. Anthropomorphic comes from the word anthropos meaning man. Anthropomorphic means that we are ascribing to God attributes that we would normally find in a man. God is a spirit. does not have a body like men. But here he's describing God as if he were a man and he says God's hand is not shortened that it cannot save. And the picture here, the word picture is very clear. It's like somebody fell into a pit and they can't get out. And somebody walks along and he hears the cry of somebody in this pit. And so they look down, oh you're, but there's no rope and there's no ladder. And perhaps the pit's filling up with water or something. And so the person reaches down there because he knows it's dangerous. This person needs to get out of the pit or they're going to die. And he reaches down, but oh, alas, incredibly amazing, his arm is just a little bit short and their fingers are reaching forth, but they just can't basically get to one another. And he strains, but he can't lean any further or he'll fall in the pit. And all he can do is to watch the one in the pit slowly die. because his arm and his hand is too short. He can't reach the one that's in danger. I'll never forget years ago we visited, took our children to Niagara Falls and there's an IMAX theater there and it tells the story of a true account where there are two young people in a boat with an older man there further up the falls and the man's motor on his little motorboat shut down. All right, and it wasn't the father, it was a friend taking his other friend's two children out on, you know, I'm gonna stop and say this, I mean, I'm not the wisest guy in the world in all kinds of things, but if someone says to me, I want to take your two kids out on the Niagara Falls River above the falls in a little motorboat. It's a little tiny little metal boat with a little motor. I'm thinking, no, he's not taking my kids out right above the falls in a little motorboat. The motor quit. And what happened? That current just swept it down. And eventually the motorboat turned over. Tragic. Now here's what happened. The man went over and perished. There was a little girl and her brother, and as she's floating rapidly along the current on the Canadian side, somebody saw her coming and she was just close enough to the side that they were able to reach out their hand just enough to grab her and pull her to safety. But the other little guy, the little boy, he went floating by. He was too far out and they couldn't reach him. And over the falls he went. And he's the only one they know in history that went over the falls and lived. It was amazing. And the Maid of the Mist, that boat's going down there and they see a little kid bobbing up like a cork in the water and they said, what's he doing there? And they could not imagine he came over the falls and survived to tell that story. I wonder if that little boy ever, ever really, ever came to faith in Christ. I would make you think, wouldn't you? You'd think it was a miracle of God that I wasn't killed. But can you imagine how awful it would be if that little girl comes by and they reach reach out but they just can't reach her. And Isaiah is reminding us God is sufficiently able to save those who call to Him in sincerity and truth. His arm is never too short. What about this? you're praying, and the heavens are like brass, and your heart's broken, you have some great need, and you're praying to God, Lord I need your help, I need wisdom, I need deliverance, I need understanding, I need you to hear, Lord I need you so badly, and you pray and pray and it seems like God is not hearing a word you're saying. People sometimes feel that. But Isaiah is saying God's ear is not so heavy, that means dull, It's not like he's so far away that you're screaming at the top of your lungs, Lord, here, Lord, help us over here. But he's so far off that he can only faintly hear the whisper of your voice. No, no, God is not like that at all. He can hear his people when they pray in sincerity and in truth. Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither his ear heavy that it cannot hear. Isaiah reminds these people you're whining and murmuring in the previous section because you've prayed and fasted but the Assyrians keep coming, the Egyptians keep coming, the Babylonians keep coming, and you're wondering why God's not, the Lord's not answering your prayers. He's saying, hey, don't blame God. God's arm is not shortened that He can't reach. His ear is not dull that He cannot hear. There must be something else going on here. Oh, what do you think it might be? So the prophet brings the second reminder which is a reminder of the devastating effects of sin. Verse 2, but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you. I would point out first of all the word separated. Your iniquities have separated between you and your God. The word separated there means like a wall or like a partition. There's something that's blocked fellowship with the Almighty. We must not be presumptuous. If there is unrepented sin in our lives, if we are indulging in sin in our lives, do not be presumptuous to your Berean friend. You want to hear from heaven, you want God's smile upon your life, but if there is unconfessed, unrepented, unmortified sin in your life, do not be surprised if like a wall or like a partition, it separates you from God. Even though you're a Christian, even though you're the Lord's, sin, unconfessed, unrepented, unmortified, can hinder the Lord's working in your life. Do not fool yourself about these things. You can't have it both ways. You can't, as the old saying goes, have your cake and eat it too. You can't live in sin and then expect the smile of God upon your life. But there's a reason why the Lord didn't seem to hear or save or answer prayers, or reach out to them. Your sins and iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you that He cannot hear." How do we define sin? Someone said this, that sin is anything that's contrary to the will and law of God. Anything in your life that's contrary to the will and law of God is sin in your life. Now the people here at Berean, I remind you humbly and humbly that to whom much is given, much shall be required. You who read good books, hear preaching from this pulpit and other places, You hear a lot. You know a lot. And to whom much is given, much shall be required. But there are some people, I suppose, in our Christian circles who maybe aren't fully aware of the laws of God or fully understand the will of God for their life. Why? Because maybe, just maybe, they do not study or read the scriptures on a regular basis. And if we are not reading the Bible on a regular basis to understand the will of God, the teachings of Christ, and the laws of God, it may be that there are things that we are practicing and doing that are grieving the Spirit, quenching the Spirit, hindering God's smile from being upon us, that maybe we need to get back in the Word and say, like Samuel of old, speak Lord thy servant here, I want to know the will and law of God. Now there are two words in our text in verse 2 that kind of define sin for us. The word iniquities. He says your iniquities have separated between you and your God. And the word sins. And if you look these two words up in a concordance, let me just tell you what the word iniquities from the Hebrew word avon means. It means evil or mischief. Your mischief, your evil has separated you from God. And the word sins, the Hebrew word chata means offenses. Things that you do that offend the nature of God. But your iniquities, your evil, your mischief, your sins, your offenses have separated like a wall between you and hid the face of God from you. And the word hid is like a mist or a cloud of pollution that's come up. You know sometimes you fly out to L.A. and it's one of the most polluted areas as far as the air. And sometimes there's a horrible haze that hovers in the sky. Sometimes you can't see the sun, it's just this horrible pollution. And that's what this word means, hid. It's as if this terrible cloud of confusion, of evil, of pollution has risen and it's hiding the face of God from you. Now the face of God is symbolic in Scripture of His joy, of His presence, of His fellowship, of His blessing. And to have God's face hidden from you is a terrible thing. To say that God's face is not shining upon you means that you don't see the goodness, the joy, the fellowship, and the blessing of God on your life. Indeed, what we need today in America, what we each need in our lives, is the face of God shining upon us. Well that's a definition of sin. Sin is anything contrary to the will and law of God. And the word iniquities and sins helps us understand that it's mischief, it's evil, it's offenses. And the only way we know what those are is by reading the Bible. But let me talk to you about the deception of sin. And I speak especially not just to everybody here obviously. When I talk about the deception of sin I'm speaking to everybody but especially to our younger people this morning. Would you listen carefully? People hit their teenage years and they begin to think about things they never thought of before. There are boy-girl relationships and there are all kinds of temptations and peer pressure in society. There are now things available for young people in all the public schools. There is a terrible problem with drugs and promiscuous sex and all kinds of horrible things. The MTV generation, kids going out on binge drinking in college and getting drunk and people dying from these terrible things. Going on spring break down to Florida or Mexico or Puerto Rico, wherever it is they go on nothing but wild orgies and doing all these horrible things. Unchaperoned Unlicensed just going out and doing whatever they want to do there are temptations in the flesh today for young people that I didn't face in my day and Many of us didn't face But here when you're tempted When you're tempted to compromise issues, when you're tempted to get away from home and away from mom and dad and away from the church and away from your good peer group, and you're tempted to make little compromises with sin. Young people, I remind you this, there is deception in sin. And a lot of people will look at certain things and say, it's not that bad. Eh, it's not that bad. Whenever the devil whispers in your ear, you're tempted to do something that you know is probably wrong, but you say, it's not that bad. You know where that thought came from, don't you? Here's another one, a deception from the evil one. Not just, it's not that bad. How about, well, hey, come on. Come on, preacher. Everybody's doing it. All the kids in my school do this. They all act this way. When you hear someone say, it's not that bad, everyone's doing it, beware. young people beware. How about this deception? It won't hurt anybody. I can get away with it. I won't get caught. It won't hurt me. These are all lies from Satan. It won't hurt you. You won't get caught. It won't hurt others. Sin will be visited to the children of the third and fourth generations. There are generational sins that sometimes we need to repent as fathers and repent and confess. As I'm reading through my Old Testament this year once again I'm amazed at how many times whether it was Ezra or Nehemiah or Solomon or David how they would not only confess their sins they would confess the sins of their forefathers and beg God for forgiveness because of the sins of family sins in the past. and seek the face of God. When we look at the definition of sin it's anything contrary to the will and law of God. We've looked at the deception of sin in that the devil is able to lie to us and deceive us about the things that we might do. Thirdly I want to talk about the danger of sin. Notice verse 2 again and you see it very clearly the danger that sin presents itself to the people of God. But your iniquities your evil and mischief have separated between you and your God and your sins, that is your offenses, have hid his face from you that he will not hear." The first thing I would say about the danger of sin is this, sin closes the window of heaven. Dear Prince, do you want God's blessings falling upon your head? My father-in-law, an old Southern evangelist, used to say this, be under the spout. where the blessings pour out. Sin will shut the windows of heaven. God will not hear his people. He won't hear me. He won't hear you. He won't hear his people if we allow sin in our lives. You love your wife, your husband, your children, your parents, your friends. You want God's blessing on them. We want God's blessing on America. Then repent. because if we don't it shuts the window of heaven. Secondly, sin grieves the Holy Spirit. It's the Spirit of God who indwells you by faith, the Lord Jesus. Is He your friend? Do you have precious and delightful fellowship with Him? Do you ever know what it is to talk with Him, commune with Him, to talk to God? at night when you can't sleep, when you're washing dishes at the sink, when you're driving in your car, when you're sitting in your chair just meditating, going out on your deck in your garden, going for a walk. Do you ever meditate and think of the God of the universe? Do you ever think of the glory and the joy of what it means to be a human being indwelled by eternity? To have the privilege of fellowship with the almighty creator of the universe? That you, of all the millions and billions of the world that have lived or will live, that you know the living and true God. What a joy and blessing. Do you ever smile and say, Lord, why me? Why would you be gracious to me? Then you think, oh, God's been so good to fellowship and to look to Him. But would it not grieve you? to know that your attitudes, your words, your actions may in fact be such an offense, such an offense to God that your attitudes, your actions are a stench in the nostrils of a holy God. That He looks upon you and the foul smell of what you do or your attitude or your actions wants to make Him vomit. Revelation chapter 3 tells us that God looks upon a lukewarm people who are tolerating sin. He says, I want to spew you out of my mouth. Sin closes the windows of heaven. Sin grieves the Holy Spirit. Sin separates man from God. Sin hides the face of God from man. Sin hinders our prayer life. It may be that our prayers are not being answered because of sin, but here's the most important one. Listen carefully. Sin, if continued, if practiced, eventually leads to hell. I'm a Christian, you say. I know the Lord. I hope so. But if we continue in sin, sin will lead to hell. God's people repent. God's people mortify it. God's people fight it. They resist it. They're judging it. They're running from it. They're building up their life. They're repenting of it. They're crying to God for grace to overcome their sin. If all that's missing, yet you call yourself a believer. Beware, my friend. I want to conclude this section on Isaiah 59, his reminder to Israel. Remember, two points. His reminder to Israel, one was positive and one was negative. The positive one is this, God is able to save. His arm's not too short. He can get a hold of you. He can reach you wherever you are. His ear's not so dull that He can't hear you. He's not way off someplace. He's an up close and personal God. He can hear. That's the positive reminder. Come to me in sincerity and truth. I will hear, I will save. The negative reminder is this, your sins have hid my face from you. Let us not forget that sin, if it's unrepented, unconfessed, not mortified, will hide God's face from us. I will say this in closing. I think the problem, the great problem facing America today is this fact. God has hidden His face from our land. I say that with a broken heart. I see God blessing Brazil and Korea and China and other places around the world, nations in Africa, and I thank God for His mercies there. But look upon the beloved land that I love so dearly and with all of its religion It's a land under judgment. And it's as if God has hidden His face from us. I walk into the bookstores, the Christian bookstores in our country, and I walk up and down the aisles and I look at all the titles of all the different books of all the things that people, Christian people are buying and reading, and my heart aches. And I grieve in my spirit when I think of the drivel and the false theology and the misconceptions and the misconstrued concepts that are being funneled into the hearts of the people in our country. The garbage, the reading, it's not anywhere near the God of the book. We need to hear from heaven. I say today, where is God's prophet in the pulpits of our lands? Where are the fearless preachers today? Where's the watchman on the wall? Where's the defender of the faith? Where are they? Where are you? May God raise us all up together to defend the faith, to defend the Lord Jesus, to proclaim the Lord Jesus, to adore the Lord Jesus. Berean family, have I been faithful and true to you? Do you know it's an awesome thing to realize that one day I'm going to stand before the throne of God in heaven and give an account to Him? There are times I tremble thinking of that day coming. My judgment will not just be a personal judgment for me, it will be the judgment of a man called to preach the gospel. Do you know how awesome it is to someday stand before the God of the universe and to have to give an account, was I true? Was I faithful? Did I speak the truth in love? Did I warn men to flee from the wrath of God? Have I been faithful to you? I pray God I have. I know that we're going to stand before the Lord one day and I hope by the grace of God we'll all be washed in the blood of the Lamb and covered by His righteousness. But I remind you today from what Isaiah reminded his people from many centuries ago, dear Berean friends, God's arm is not too short that He cannot save you. His ear is not dull that He cannot hear you if you call upon Him in sincerity and in truth. And I remind you as well, It may be, if we're not hearing from heaven in these days, in America, in our families, in our personal lives, it may be that our sins have hid the face of God from us. Let the Holy Spirit speak to your hearts. Obey Him. Seek His face today. In brokenness and humility, may He speak to all of us. May the greatest days and the greatest blessings be yet to fall upon every single one of us. Our Heavenly Father, I thank Thee for the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Lord who can hear and the Lord who can save. I thank You for Your promises in the Word of God, and I pray, O Lord God, that You'd speak to everyone here this morning for these things I ask. I beg of You, Father, these things in Jesus' name. Amen.