Please turn in your Bibles to the book of Ezekiel, chapter 34. The book of Ezekiel, chapter 34. And I'll read the passage we'll be looking at this morning, beginning verse 20. through the end of the chapter, Ezekiel chapter 34 and verse 20. Therefore, thus says the Lord God to them, behold, I, even I will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. "'cause you push with side and with shoulder, "'and thrust at all the weak with your horns "'until you have scattered them abroad. "'Therefore I will deliver my flock, "'and they will no longer be a prey, "'and I will judge between one sheep and another. "'Then I will set up, I will set over them, "'one shepherd, my servant David, "'and he will feed them, he will feed them himself "'and be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them. I, the Lord, have spoken. And I will make a covenant of peace with them, and eliminate harmful beasts from the land, so that they may live securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods. And I will make with them and the places around my hill a blessing, and I will cause showers to come down in their season. They will be showers of blessing. Also, the tree of the field will yield its fruit, and the earth will yield its increase, and they will be secure on their land. Then they will know that I am the Lord. When I have broken the bars of their yoke and have delivered them from the hand of those who enslaved them, And they will no longer be a prey to the nations, and the beasts of the earth will not devour them. But they will live securely, and no one will make them afraid. And I will establish for them a renowned planting place, and they will not again be victims of famine in the land, and they will not endure the insults of the nations anymore. Then they will know that I, the Lord, their God, am with them. and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, declares the Lord God. As for you, my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, you are men, and I am your God, declares the Lord God. The prophet Ezekiel lived in a most tumultuous time in the history of the nation of Israel. Great changes came during his lifetime. He was born in the city of Jerusalem into the priestly family of Aaron, and it was his expectation that he would become a priest in the great Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. The kingdoms of the world were shaking and the nations were at war with one another and first the Assyrians came down and conquered the northern kingdom of Israel about 609 BC. They were followed by the Babylonians under King Nebuchadnezzar who destroyed the southern kingdom of Judah and tore down the city of Jerusalem and burned the great temple of Solomon. And so, rather than entering into the priesthood, Ezekiel was sent as a captive into the land of Babylon, and there he was with his fellow Jews, an exile in that foreign land. And the exiles in Jerusalem, they thought that God was finished with them. kingdom of God was coming to an end, the most terrible judgments had come upon them in all that had taken place in Judah and Jerusalem, the complete destruction of the city and its great temple. But while they were in their captivity, God came to Ezekiel and made him his prophet. And Ezekiel, in this chapter, the word of the Lord comes to Ezekiel to tell the people that there is a future and there will be a great hope for the people of God. And their great hope will not be found in those false shepherds, those kings, those princes of Israel. Their great hope will be found in the true shepherd, in the prince that God himself will send, the coming Messiah, the shepherd who will be a prince among his people. And we know him to be the Lord Jesus Christ. And so in this passage that we've just read, we have this wonderful prophecy of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And as is often the case in the Old Testament prophecies, what we have is we have multiple fulfillments. Part of these things are fulfilled in the Old Testament nation of Israel, when they were brought back from the captivity into their own land. But then they come to a fuller, higher fulfillment in the first coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and they come to their final eternal fulfillment in his second coming when he returns from heaven. When the Old Testament prophets wrote, they knew that what they were prophesying, it would take place in the future, but they could not distinguish, they did not know the exact time or the sequence in which their prophecies would be fulfilled. But for us who have the New Testament, we may look back upon their prophecies and see things more clearly, and we know what took place in the first coming of Christ, and we look forward to what will come when He returns. This morning, we will see this passage as it is fulfilled in our Lord Jesus Christ. The first thing we want to see is that it is the Lord Jehovah, God the Father, who now appoints and sends His great Shepherd. We see this in verses 23 and 24. He says, Then I will set over them one Shepherd, My servant David, And he will feed them, and he will feed them himself and be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them. I, the Lord, have spoken. It is God the Father here who speaks and He is commissioning, He is sending His beloved Son, the Son of God, into this world because His sheep are lost and they are scattered and they are perishing and the only way of recovery is to send this great Shepherd God the Father has such love for His lost and perishing sheep, and He does not desire that any of them would perish, and so here He is commissioning His beloved Son and setting Him apart, sending Him into the world. We see in verse 23, he says, then I will set over them, I will set over them one shepherd, so that this shepherd will be over his people, and he will be between God the Father and his people, the shepherd will be over them. He will be the mediator, in other words. There must be a mediator, because we have been separated from God because of our sin, and there is none who can approach God in himself And we are in this fallen and sinful state in which there must be one who comes to be our mediator. We see in verse 24, he says, and I, the Lord, will be their God. So he is God, we are his sheep, we are his people, Christ, the good shepherd, he is the mediator. We notice in verse 23, he says, I will set over them one shepherd. The emphasis is upon the singularity, the uniqueness of this one shepherd. There will be no other like him. There will be none who can ever be compared to Him. He is exalted above all of them. He stands by Himself alone. He is the only one, the only Savior of sinners. The work of recovery that God the Father is accomplishing here, it is one in which there is no angel in heaven who could ever bring it to pass. There is no seraphim at his right hand. There is no man on earth who can ever accomplish it. This is a work that only God can do. And so he looks at his right hand and he sees his beloved son and he says, here is one whom I can send with divine power and grace and wisdom to accomplish all of these things. I will send this great shepherd into the world. The first person of the Trinity here is sending, appointing the second person of the Trinity to seek and to save the lost sheep, and he will set him over them, and there will be only one such shepherd. And so the verse speaks of the exclusivity of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is only one way back to God. There is only one way, only one Savior for sinners, and the whole Bible affirms this. Paul says in 1 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 5, he says there is one God and one mediator, the man. Between God and man, the man, Christ Jesus. And Peter says in Acts chapter 4 and verse 12, he says there is salvation in no one else. For there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved. And Jesus himself said, I am the way and the truth and the life and no one comes to the father but through me. And so men can imagine that there are many different ways to God. Men can think that they can choose the way that they like and the way that is most comfortable to them, but it is all not true. There is only one shepherd, one mediator, one savior that God has appointed, our Lord Jesus Christ. But then we see that he is called my servant David. He is God's servant, and the Savior, the Messiah, is often called my servant by the Lord in the scriptures, especially in the book of Isaiah. He is my servant, but then he's also called David. The name David comes from the Old Testament, King David. But David was dead more than 400 years when Ezekiel spoke these words. And so what this refers to is that there would be a son of David. There would be one from the offspring of David who would be the Savior. God had promised David back in 2 Samuel chapter 7. He said, I will raise up a descendant after you. I will establish his kingdom, which shall endure forever. His throne shall be established forever. And so from that time, The Messiah was always seen to be the Son of David. The Jews expected Him to be the descendant, the Son of David. We come to the New Testament. Matthew chapter 1 and verse 1. The very first verse of the New Testament. This is what we read. The genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David. He is the Son of David. He is the great servant of David who is to come. The angel Gabriel said to Mary, you shall call his name Jesus. The Lord will give him the throne of his father, David. One shepherd, my servant David, Christ who is to come. We notice in verse 24, he is also called Prince. My servant David will be Prince among them. And so he will be a shepherd, he will be a prince, he will be the highest among them, and he will be exalted among them as prince. David was a shepherd, caring for his father's flock before God called him to be king. And Jesus Christ will be a much greater shepherd, caring for his father's sheep as well, for his father's flock. and he will be king, he will be prince over his people. We notice just a little detail here perhaps. In verse 23, the servant is over them, he says. He is over them as the Messiah. Then in verse 24, he says, the prince, my servant David, will be prince, he says, among them. So in verse 23, he is over them. In verse 24, he is among them. He is over them as mediator, and now he is among them in his incarnation. And he is among his people again by the Holy Spirit when he comes in the Holy Spirit. And so he is over them as mediator. He is among them by his people, by his spirit. When he says, I will set over them one shepherd, there's significance in that little phrase, one shepherd, because in this passage, there is one flock. the sheep of God, and now there will be only one shepherd, one flock with one shepherd. And we see in verse 13, back in verse 13, he says, I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries And so this refers in the time of the gospel to the gospel going to the ends of the earth and wherever the sheep are scattered to the remotest part of the earth, the great shepherd will go and seek and find them and bring them in to his flock. And there will be one flock with one shepherd. And so there will be this one flock with Jews and Gentiles together under the one shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ. And we'll see this fulfilled if we turn for a moment to the gospel of John and chapter 10. In John chapter 10. And Jesus says in verse 11, he says, I am the good shepherd. I am the good shepherd and the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. So he identifies himself here as the good shepherd and he has a flock and he has his sheep. What he will do out of his love for his sheep is he will come and lay down his life for them to save them and to recover them and bring them back to God. I am the good shepherd and the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Now it's interesting to note that Jesus makes this statement here after what has just taken place in John chapter nine. In John chapter nine, Jesus healed the blind man. And the Pharisees, the Pharisees, who were the false shepherds of his day, they persecuted the blind man and they cast him out of the synagogue. And you remember back in Ezekiel chapter 34, in Ezekiel 34, We have the condemnation of the false shepherds in Ezekiel's day, and then we have the promise of the coming Good Shepherd. And so it seems, perhaps, that when Jesus witnessed these Pharisees and what they did to the blind man, that it reminded him Ezekiel chapter 34 and those false shepherds there and the promise of the Great Shepherd to come and so Jesus when he says I am the Good Shepherd he is saying here I am the fulfillment of Ezekiel chapter 34 I am the Good Shepherd who comes to save my sheep then we read down in verse 14 he says I am the Good Shepherd and I know my own Wherever they are, I know who they are. My Father has given them to me, and I know them. And my own know me, even as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. Once again, this is how he saves them. He lays down his life for them. Then he says in verse 16, And I have other sheep which are not of this fold, and I must bring them also, and they shall hear my voice, and they shall become one flock with one shepherd. So he says in verse 16, I have other sheep. He is speaking to the Jews. He says, I have other sheep who are not of this fold. He is speaking of the Gentiles. He says, I must bring them also. I must go and find them and seek after them until I find them. And this is how I will do it. They will hear my voice as I speak to them in the scriptures, and they will all be gathered in to one flock. Jews and Gentiles as well from all the ends of the earth gathered into this one flock with one shepherd. So there's the same idea from Ezekiel chapter 34. One flock, Jew and Gentile sheep gathered from every nation in every country. One flock with one shepherd. And this is who our Lord Jesus is, the fulfillment of the passage So we'll turn back to Ezekiel and chapter 34. Ezekiel 34. And then we see in verse 23, he says, then I will set over them one shepherd, my servant, David. And then he says, and he will feed them. And he will feed them himself. and be their shepherd. So this great shepherd, he will feed his sheep, every one of them. He will feed them with his word. He will feed them by the truth and the power of the Holy Spirit. The good news of the gospel, he will feed them. And he speaks personally here. He will feed them himself, personal, for each one of his sheep, whoever they are. And he will feed them with himself because he says, I am the bread of life who has come down from heaven to give life to the world. And he who eats of this bread, he shall never hunger and he shall never thirst again. So Christ himself is the bread and he himself feeds every one of his sheep. All who come to him will never thirst or hunger again. We see at the end of verse 24, he says, I, the Lord, I, Jehovah, have spoken. And this gives us the full assurance that everything he has said here is true concerning this coming Savior. I am the Lord, he says, I am Jehovah who has all power to accomplish my will. And when I speak, he says, when I speak, it will be done. What is the certainty, what is the surety that all of these things concerning this coming servant, David the Great Shepherd, what is the certainty that they will be accomplished? I, the Lord, have spoken, and just like in the creation, In the six days of the creation each day, God said, and it was done, and it was finished. So it will be with all of these promises here. I, the Lord, have spoken. And when I speak, there is power, omnipotent power. And I accomplish all of my will. And then what we find now in the rest of this chapter We find five things that the Lord will do through Jesus the Great, the Good Shepherd, the Great Shepherd. And we'll look at each of the five things briefly. The first is the Good Shepherd will make a covenant of peace with his sheep. He will make a covenant of peace with them in verse 25. He says, and I will make a covenant of peace with them. and eliminate harmful beasts from the land so that they may live securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods. He speaks here, of course, figuratively. He speaks of this peace under the image of these harmful beasts. And what he is saying, what the Lord is saying here, what I will do when I send this great shepherd into the world is that I will take away everything from my sheep that would harm them. I would take everything from them that makes them afraid. I will bring them into security. I will bring them into safety under my love and care, and I will make them so comfortable That they will lie down, they will lie down even in the midst of the wolves, in the midst of the woods, and they will fall asleep. This is what I will do in this great shepherd that I will send. I will make a covenant of peace with them. I will set over them this one shepherd, my servant David, and I will make a covenant of peace with them. We are all lost sheep by nature. And by nature, we are all at enmity with God. The rebellion of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden has been passed down to every one of us, so that by nature, we are contrary to God's will. We will not submit to him. We will not walk in his ways. And because of our sin, God is angry with us, and God has wrath that is being stored up against us. And so there is this very great danger that if we die, we will face his wrath. There must be a reconciliation. There must be a way of peace. And so this is what the Lord is saying here. I will make a covenant of peace with them. I will make a way of peace. It will come through this one shepherd that I will send. It will be by his death upon the cross. He will come and lay down his life as we saw. And the Bible says that by the blood of Christ, he reconciles all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross. 2 Corinthians chapter 5, God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. not counting their trespasses against them. And so here we have the gospel of peace to us as sinners. Because God the Father in heaven knows that sinners will never return to an angry God. What we will do by nature in our sin, in the shame, in the guilt of our sin, is we will try and do what our first forefathers, what our first parents did when they hid themselves in the garden. That's what men do in their sins. They hide themselves under their excuses. They hide themselves under their religiosity. They hide themselves under their supposed self-righteousness and goodness. They seek to hide themselves from God. But what God is saying here is there is no need for you to hide yourself anymore because I have made a way of peace for you. I have sent the good shepherd and he has shed his blood and I am at peace with sinners all who will come to me through him. I have made a way of peace. for sinners. What must sinners do to enter this way of peace? They must repent, turn from their sins, their love of sin, and they must come to Jesus, the Great Shepherd, and look to Him alone as the Savior and the One who can reconcile them to God. By faith alone we are saved. Paul says, Romans chapter 5 and verse 1, having been justified, By faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Jews and Gentiles are all saved by the same Savior. Paul says in Ephesians chapter two and verse 14, he himself, Christ, is our peace. He is our peace. He has made both groups into one. So one shepherd over all of the flock. We notice he calls it a covenant of peace. A covenant of peace. He will make a covenant of peace with them. Covenant is a very important word in the Bible. Because in a covenant, what God does, he gives a promise. And his promises are always certain because he is the God who cannot lie and he will always fulfill his promises. But for our sake, because of our unbelief, what he does is he adds to the promise what is called an oath bound. He binds it with an oath. So the promise becomes an oath bound promise, which is a covenant. And what he says in a covenant, he says, as I live, I will fulfill every word that I have spoken. And what he means in a covenant is that if I do not fulfill every word that I have spoken in my promises, then I will cease to live as the true and living God. What he is in effect saying is I will come down from my throne If I am unfaithful to any of the words that I have spoken in my book, imagine that. What more certainty could there be than the God of heaven declaring such a thing? That's what he's done here in regard to this peace. I will make a covenant of peace with them, and I will never turn back from the peace that I established for them in the blood of the cross. This is the new covenant that he speaks of. Hebrews chapter 8, I will be merciful to their iniquities. I will remember their sins no more. Once God is at peace with a sinner who comes to Him, He will never turn back from His covenant. So we have this great encouragement here that He makes this covenant. We read in Hebrews chapter 6 and verse 17, God desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of his purpose, he interposed with an oath in a covenant in order that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we have strong encouragement, we who have fled for refuge in laying hold of the hope set before us. So he sends the great shepherd who makes this covenant of peace. The second thing we see the Good Shepherd does here is that the Good Shepherd will send showers of blessing. He will send showers of blessing. We read this in verse 26. He says, and I will make them and the places around my hill a blessing. And I will cause showers to come down in their season. They will be showers of blessing. Also the tree of the field will yield its fruit, and the earth will yield its increase, and they will be secure on their land. Blessings, showers, fruitfulness promised in these verses. Now these promises here we may understand as being fulfilled in a physical sense, when the nation of Israel returned from the captivity, because the Lord had sent drought and famine on the land before the captivity, and now there would be rain, there would be fruitfulness once again when they returned. But these showers that are spoken of here must speak of much greater blessings than just showers, physical showers of rain on the earth. we notice that rain is not even mentioned in these verses. So these are not showers of rain, they are called showers of blessings. And the Lord would not send the great shepherd to die upon the cross, to be exalted back into heaven only to send physical showers of rain on the earth. And we notice as well that there is a particular place where these showers will fall. He says, around my hill. And he says that he will bring down those showers on that hill, which is his church, which is his kingdom. So these are showers of blessing. These are showers of spiritual blessings that the great shepherd will send when he has ascended back up into heaven after his great work and he pours out the waters of the Holy Spirit upon his church. The Holy Spirit is often likened to waters. Isaiah says chapter 44 verse 3, I will pour out water on thirsty ground and streams on dry ground. I will pour out my spirit on your offspring and my blessing, he says, on your descendants. So we may read the second half of verse 26 in this way. I will cause spiritual showers to come down, to come down from my throne in heaven in their seasons, and they shall be showers of blessings upon the souls of my people. Jesus said to the woman at the well, the water that I will give you will become a well of water springing up to eternal life. Whoever believes in me from his innermost being shall flow these rivers of living water. So this is what the great shepherd is doing from his throne in heaven even this morning. He is sending these showers of blessing, these spiritual showers of blessings upon the souls of his people. He is saying, this is what I will do. He says, I will cause showers to come down. He says, in their season, in their season. So they will be seasonable blessings, which means that he will send them down at just the right time. And he will send them down according to the need of each one of his sheep. His sheep are all in different seasons. They have different needs. He knows where they are scattered, every one of them. Everyone is in a different circumstance, under a different trial, in different troubles. And He has love, He has wisdom, He has power to send His showers, seasonable showers upon each one of them in their proper time. He knows how to revive our souls and to refresh us with these blessings. When we are weak, he knows how to strengthen us with the word and the spirit. When we are in darkness, he knows how to send his light down upon us. In times of sorrow, he gives comfort. When we have grief, he can turn it into joy. He can turn trouble into peace by a word to our souls. When we are discouraged, He knows how to send down a blessing of encouragement to us. When we are perplexed, He has wisdom for us when we are confused. He knows how to guide us. He is our Good Shepherd who will always lead us. When we are anxious and fearful, He knows how to speak peace to us. So there is grace, there is grace of the showers of His blessing upon our souls, seasonable in every time of need. The Good Shepherd says, my grace is sufficient for you, and my power is perfected in your weakness. So the Good Shepherd sends down these showers of blessing, and in verse 27, there is the spiritual fruitfulness of the trees with their fruit, the oaks of righteousness, as Isaiah says, they spring up, he raises them up, and he puts the fruit of the Spirit upon the lives and the graces of the Spirit upon his people. The third thing the Good Shepherd will do more briefly is he will set us free. He will set us free at the end of verse 27. He says, then they will know that I am the Lord when I have broken the bars of their yoke and have delivered them from the hand of those who enslaved them. The Jews, they were in captivity in Babylon. They needed to be set free from their captives. But we have a slavery, we have a captivity that is far worse because we are all by nature the slaves of sin and we are captives being held in Satan's kingdom of darkness. We need one who will set us free. We have no power in ourselves to set ourselves free, to break these yokes of iron and these chains that are upon us. The good shepherd says, this is what I will do. I will come to my sheep. I will break those bars of iron. I will set the captives free. He has the power in regeneration in a new heart by the power of the Holy Spirit to rescue us from the slavery of sin and from Satan's power. Jesus said in Luke chapter four, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me to proclaim release to the captives and to set free those who are downtrodden. Once he speaks, And men hear his voice, they are set free from the power of Satan's kingdom. Jesus said, if the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed. Paul put it this way, thanks be to God. Thanks be to God for this great shepherd. For though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed in the gospel. And he says, having been freed from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness. The fourth thing the good shepherd does is the good shepherd will vindicate his people. You see this in verse 28 and 29. Verse 28, they will no longer be a prey to the nations. And the beasts of the earth will not devour them. And they will live securely. No one will make them afraid. We may think of persecutions of the church. He says, I will establish for them a renowned planting place. And they will not again be victims of the famine in the land. And they will not endure the insults of the nations anymore. Verse 29, he says, he speaks of this renowned planting place. The word renowned means famous and glorious. Some Bibles translate it, a garden of renowned. So we could read it, I will establish for them a garden, a garden of renown, a garden that is most famous and most glorious. And what could be more famous, more glorious than the eternal garden of the new heavens and the new earth? This is what I will do. I will bring them into this land of safety. They will have no fear there ever again, only peace, infinite joy, happiness they will have. And they will no longer, he says, endure the insults of the nations. Believers in this world, we are often subject to the insults of the nations. We are often despised. We are scorned. As Christians, it must be so. But when this day comes, and when he brings all of his people into this eternal land, we will all be glorified. We will sit at the marriage supper of the Lamb, and it will be shown to all the universe that everything that we have believed is true, and everything that we have lived for, and everything that we have hoped for is good and right. And we will be glorified with Jesus, and He will be our God, and we will be His people forever. This is what He will do. He will vindicate His people on the last day. But then the last thing he will do, we close with this this morning, is that the Good Shepherd will bring about a final judgment of all men, a final judgment between the righteous and the wicked. And we see this back in verse 20. He says, therefore, thus says the Lord God to them, behold, I, even I, will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. He will judge. And then in verse 22, therefore I will deliver my flock and they will no longer be a prey. And I will judge between one sheep and another. So this here looks forward to the coming judgment, the final day when the great shepherd will return. He will bring about this great judgment between the righteous and the wicked, this separation between all men on that great day. And we see this fulfilled in the Gospel of Matthew. We'll turn there, Matthew's Gospel and chapter 25. Matthew chapter 25. And Jesus speaks here in verse 31 of the last day. He says, when, but when the son of man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne And all the nations, all the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate them. He will judge between them. He will separate one from another as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. So here we have the great shepherd who has returned. And verse 33, he will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, come, you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. But then down in verse 41, then he will also say to those on his left, depart from me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels. So this is the great shepherd, he comes, he makes this great distinction, he separates men, the righteous and the wicked, and then there is the beginning of eternity, the eternal time has now come. And so the question is for everyone of us here this morning, where will you be on the last day? Those who have believed in the Lord Jesus, and those who have followed him and done his will, they will enter into the eternal kingdom. But those who have not believed, those who have not bowed their knees to the great shepherd and followed him, they will be cast out into the outer darkness with the devil and his angels forever. Jesus has already told us what will happen on that day. What will you do? What will you do? Will you go as a fool to that day and face Jesus on his glorious throne? Or will you take heed to the gospel and believe and come to the Good Shepherd? He has made a covenant of peace. He will receive you. with his peace and forgive you and cleanse you. And he will give you the Holy Spirit and he will send showers of the Spirit in blessings upon your soul to strengthen you and help you to walk in his ways. So where will you be found on the last day? We've seen the five things a good shepherd will do. Five things he will do from Ezekiel chapter 34. The first three he has already done. He has already established his covenant of peace. And he continues now to send his showers of blessing down upon us. And he is setting his people free from the slavery of sin and Satan. But the last two, they await his second coming. when he will vindicate his people and he will bring judgment upon the whole world. Three of them are already accomplished and being accomplished. Two of them, we wait for the fulfillment of them now. Those three that are accomplished, they show us, they prove to us that the two that remain will certainly come. I, the Lord, have spoken, he says. We close with one last thought, and it is that faith believes what it cannot see. Faith believes what it cannot see. The people to whom Ezekiel spoke, they were exiles in Babylon. Their homeland had been destroyed. The city of Jerusalem, its temple burned to the ground. They thought there was no hope and the kingdom of God had been destroyed. But Ezekiel was telling them that despite all that had happened, they had a future and they had a hope. And it was only by faith that they could see it coming because the Lord had spoken it in his word. The word of the Lord came to me, Ezekiel said, and God has spoken it, and it will certainly come to pass. And so much of it already has come to pass, which is proof that what remains will surely come to pass as well. And so just like the people of Ezekiel's day, we must have faith to believe what we cannot see. And we must continue to hope in our great shepherd, because he will return from heaven and he will finish all things. And he will bring us into that renowned and most glorious planting ground in the garden of the new heavens and the new earth to be with him forever. Faith must look to what it cannot see. Let's pray together. Our father and gracious God in heaven, Thank you for the word of our Lord Jesus Christ in Old Testament scriptures. Thank you that all that he has said will come to pass. He has already accomplished so much of his holy word. Lord, be pleased to open our eyes to see more. and give light to us that we might understand the gospel as it is in the Old Testament. Thank you for these great promises. Continue to be at work in us, Lord Jesus, each one of us who know you. Continue to send down those showers of blessing upon our souls. And we pray for those who do not know you, may they come to Jesus and find mercy and the forgiveness of their sins. Lord Jesus, we pray and ask these things in your name. Amen.