Sunday Morning, May 24, 2026

Kingly Obedience, Ecclesiastes 8:1-9

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

You have your Bibles if you'll turn with me to Ecclesiastes chapter 8. We're going to look at verses 1 through 9. And I want you to bear with me this morning on this because this is a little bit challenging. I've been we've been walking through the book of Ecclesiastes, and we know that King Solomon wrote this. King Solomon was a wise man. He had prayed to God. God said, Pray, give you what you want. And he prayed and he asked God for wisdom. So because of that, God gave him an immense amount of wisdom, but he also, as king, gave him a lot of other treasures and articles and fine things of clothing, et cetera, et cetera, really bust his life. So when we think about this, we've been walking through Ecclesiastes about what is wisdom, what does it look like? And you gain wisdom. And then as you gain wisdom, it's possible that that wisdom could be in vain if not used properly. We've looked at that. The King Solomon who wrote this is going on and on about this idea of living a life to find true enjoyment and finding true peace in Jesus Christ. No matter who you are, no matter what your background is, there's going to be good days, there's going to be days of prosperity, there's going to be difficult days, there's going to be days of loss. But either way, he's saying enjoy your life and at the same time find meaning in your life, not in what you may have or not have, but find meaning in your relationship with God. So that's kind of the an overview of as we look at the book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament. But this morning there's something a little bit different. As we look at this, remember number one, Solomon, who wrote this, is proper title would be King Solomon, son of David, right? The one who's going to build the temple. Okay. As a wise man, when he writes the book, he writes it as a teacher, and he's often referred to as a teacher or a preacher. But we cannot forget that even though he wrote that way, he was still king. Now, if you have your Bibles and you look at Ecclesiastes chapter 1, uh as we walk through this, we're going to start with verse 1. You'll notice maybe up above, it depends on what Bible you have, it may say something similar to the king's command or keep the king's command. I put as a title, I just put kingly obedience. Now here's where it gets tricky. Here in the United States, we do not function with a monarchy. We don't have a king or a queen. Now, yes, you could say that there have been kings in the past, uh like the king of rock and roll, and you might say Elvis Presley, right? If you remember when Michael Jackson passed away at his skin room when they marched his body in, they played the song The King is coming. Good or bad, that took place, okay? But note that here in the United States, our government is set up not with the king, but as a democracy, we have a president, we have vice president, and the list goes on and on. So just understand this may be a little bit difficult to understand. So what we're going to do as we break this down verse by verse, I'll give a simple little statement for each verse at the end of the verse, and then after that, we'll switch over, take all those little statements together, and see how we can apply that sayings to the true King of Kings. How we can apply that to the Almighty God, how we can apply that to his son, Christ Jesus. So let's jump in and take a look at this. It starts off in verse one. It says, Who is like the wise? And who knows the interpretation of a thing? A man's wisdom makes his face shine, and the hardness of his face is changed. I don't know about you, but there's times in my life and in your life where we want to understand something. We want to gain some wisdom, some insight, right? When it comes to working on a tractor or something like that, a lot of times I'll call my father-in-law, ask him. Sometimes I'll talk to Darwin about it, and sometimes I'll Google it, try to learn more about it. Go back to the life of kings, real kings, in Old Testament times. Didn't they like having wise people around them? Wasn't it Daniel? Wasn't he one who could interpret dreams? Wasn't he one who could give wisdom to the king? For a king, as Solomon was, for him to say, who is like the wise? He understands the value of those who have wisdom who display wisdom and can show wisdom. And he goes on to say, and who knows the interpretation of a thing? Now we know all knowledge comes from the Lord. We know in biblical cases, especially with Daniel and others, that knowledge didn't just come from Daniel. He admitted that. He said, Daniel would say, I'll go, I'm going to go pray and I'll let you know in the morning. He would come back and answer that he had received that interpretation that came from God. But when we when we get wisdom or when kings get wisdom, I would imagine, I'm pretty sure that would please them, would it not? The second part, a man's wisdom makes his face shine, and the hardness hardness of his face has changed. So if you've got somebody looking for true wisdom, you're circing for the answer, you get that answer, you feel relieved. Now, in the Old Testament days, it's a little bit different. Yes, you can be relieved, but at the same time, aren't there times when kings would be upset with the answer they got because their face would be hardened because of the destruction coming upon them because they didn't follow the one true God? But keeping within the context, normally, especially in the case of Solomon, a man's wisdom makes his face shine, and the hardness of his face is changed. Another way to say that his countenance changed. So the first little concept here, when it comes to dealing with a king who we would say has absolute authority, wisdom pleases the king. Simple enough, okay? Wisdom pleases the king. If you think about it today in our terms, if you take uh the current situation, our president, he's gonna put a cabinet in place, people around him that are smarter than him, that know uh different aspects and are wise when it comes to military action, when it comes to government, when it comes to leading, leading education, leading health care, etc. He's gonna put a team together to help guide him. That only makes sense that wisdom pleases the king. Look at verse 2. It says in verse 2, I say, keep the king's command because of God's oath to him. Keep the king's command because of God's oath to him. The idea of being obedient to the king. Now, specifically in this case, Solomon would be thinking of those advisors who they have chosen to serve the king and help the king and give him wisdom. Keeping the king's command is something that needs to be done. Why? Because there's been an oath. You see, scripture tells us that God is the one who puts people in charge over nations. Yes, we vote here in the United States, it's democracy, we vote. But the bottom line, at the end of the day, God is the one who puts the person in charge to lead, whether it be a president, a king, or prime minister, or whatever term you want to put in the blank. But something to think about that, because of God's oath to him, think about a relationship between a king and the people. In the old days, whose responsibility was it to protect the people that lived in the kingdom? They couldn't call 911. They didn't have a special police force necessarily. But wasn't it the king's job to protect them? He was under oath to do that. The people were to obey, and the king was to protect. So something think about about the second verse. Relationship to be a bit that should say between the relationship between the king and the people in his kingdom would be the fact that there's an oath that had been made. The people are going to obey the king, and the king is going to protect his people. Now, following through, follow with me on this one. Says in verse 3, be not hasty to go from his presence. Do not take your stand in an evil cause, for he does whatever he pleases. When we read this, think about it from the sense of the person who is giving wise counsel to the king. If you're going to give wise counsel to the king, be not hasty to leave his presence. It's going to require patience. It's going to require perseverance. It says, Do not take your stand in an evil cause, for he does whatever he pleases. The king is the one that is in control. He's going to listen. You fight for an evil cause, the king gets wind of it. What's going to happen? Remember what happened with Mordecai in the book of Esther? He tried to get people in trouble because there were children of Israel, they were Jewish. And at the end of the day, when the king got wind of it, Mordevikai received the punishment that he was wanting someone else to get. The idea here, leaving the presence of the king is to lose influence. Think about that. Leaving the presence of the king is to lose influence. If you're one of the courtiers or one of the people who give wise counsel to the king, and you step away from that, leave the room, you don't have the opportunity to continue to be patient, to give wise counsel to lead and to encourage, right? So there's something to be said about showing wisdom and helping out the king, being obedient to the king, by simply being there for him or her and being in their presence. All right. Let's look at verse 4. For the word of the king is supreme, and who may say to him, What are you doing? Now, maybe in a situation where you're like the king's brother or sister, maybe you could have a time one-on-one to talk with that king, to be face to face and be brutally honest with them. But that's not always the case. Who's the one who's in complete control? The king is. So who can say, What are you doing? You have to be careful with that when you're in the presence of a king. The king can do what he wants when it comes to the relationship between him and his people. Take a look at the next two right quick in verse five and six. Whoever keeps the command will know no evil thing. The wise heart will know the proper time and the just way. For there is a time and a way for everything, although man's troubles lies heavy on him. What's the catch here? Being patient is the key to success. For the king, if you wanted to go in and work with him and try to persuade him in a way, in a way that would be right, that takes time. That's not something that's just going to happen immediately. The king is going to want to, uh a wise king is going to want to make sure that he uh thoroughly studies and understands a situation to gather all the facts, if you will, before he makes a decision. So patience is going to be a key in success. I've got that written on that slide there. The next one, let's look at verse 8. Excuse me, verse 7. It says, For he does not know what is to be, for who can tell him how it will be? The person giving wise counsel to the king may not fully understand what the king is going to do. He doesn't fully know the future. Daniel's case was different in the Old Testament because God had spoken, and Daniel knew that God would tell him the truth, and God is faithful to his word, for he cannot lie. But as for human beings, kings, presidents, etc., etc., no one fully knows the future. We can guess, we can make predictions, but only God truly knows the future. The next one, verse 8, says, No man has the power to retain the spirit or power over the day of death. There's no discharge from war, nor will wickedness deliver those who are given to it. Who's in control here? Who can control the spirit? And our inward spirits, we think we can control and we try to. Maybe we take medication, maybe we do things to make ourselves happy. But the Holy Spirit, who can control that? We're not God. We cannot control what God is going to do. Yes, we can pray, but we cannot manipulate God. When it comes to the power over death, the king did not have complete power over death. He had it in the sense that if he gave out an edict saying to take someone's life, that would take place. But power over death is something you and I don't have. Wouldn't life be different if it did? I would want to live a lot longer, be a lot healthier. But I am not God, and you are not God. What's the thought here? Oops. We have no control over the king, nor over God. So just briefly taking all this together, we see a couple different things about how a person who's trying to give wise counsel would speak and encourage the king. Solomon asking is giving advice about how to act in the presence of a king. I don't know about you, but that I've never been in the presence of a king before, but I've been in the presence of presidents. And for some reason, I just get nervous. I know they put on their clothes the same way we do, they eat the same food we do, but there's just something about a respect in there that just kind of makes me a little bit nervous. But listen to this last part in verse 9. Verse 9 says, All this, King Solomon's still talking, all this I observed while applying my heart to all that is done under the sun, when man had power over man to his hurt. So what's going on here? Even though we're in the middle of the chapter, and we're going to stop here with this verse, Solomon's saying, He's observed everything. He knows, after applying all things, what's done under the sun, even when man had power over another man to hurt another man? So I said at the beginning, this may be a little difficult to follow today. It's a little bit different type of sermon. Added to that a difficulty of the fact that we don't have a king and we didn't live back when this was written. So, what can we do with the brief knowledge that we've looked at to make it applicable to our lives today? So, what I did, I just put a list together of all the different little sayings that I put with these. I want you to take a look at them. The first one wisdom pleases the king. There's been an oath that's been made. Leaving the presence of the king is to lose his influence. The king does as he chooses. Patience is the key to success. No one knows the future. We have no control over the king. So let me take just a few minutes, come off the podium, get here face to face with you, and ask you to think about something. Help me figure this out. What if we look at this through the eyes of us as the people of God under the leadership of the Almighty God, calling Him our King? If we do that, what difference will it make in our lives if we think about some of these things? Number one, wisdom pleases the King. Does it please God when we show wisdom in our actions, in our daily life, in our business dealings, when we do things that bring him glory? Of course it does. Has there been an oath made? Look at God starting in Genesis. Is he not a God of covenants? If you do this, you will be blessed. If you do this, you will be cursed. Has there not been an oath made in the sense that Christ came? Lived a perfect life, died on a cross, rose again on the third day, a little more than a week later, ascended to the right hand of the Father. What was he doing? Scripture says he was taking my place and your place on the cross because Scripture tells us for the wages of sin is death, our payment for the things that we do that are sinful, the result of that is death. We saw that in Genesis with Adam and Eve, did we not? So Christ comes, takes our place on the cross, so that if we place our faith in him and believe that he is the Son of God, that he is who he says he is, if we humbly submit ourselves to him, ask forgiveness of our sins, and commit to following after him, what's scripture tell us? We'll spend eternity with him in heaven. If we don't, we'll spend the rest of our life after death in hell. So when I say the idea that an oath has been made, as believers, have we not made a commitment to follow after God? Now, if we're not a believer, this may not apply, but as a believer, we say we're gonna deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him daily. Look at the next one. Leaving the presence of the king is to lose influence. Now I want to be careful with that word influence, because it's who are we to say that we can influence God? Yes, we say that through prayer we can uh move mountains, right? You hear people say that through prayer you can move mountains, right? Or faith of a mustard seed will move a mountain. We know what scripture says about that. But what happens when we walk away from the presence of God? When we stop talking to Him? When we stop reading His Word? Doesn't that relationship kind of spread apart? Same way you take a married couple, live in the same house, they have the same bed, but what happens when they stop talking to each other, stop encouraging one another, maybe separate rooms and stay out late and don't come in together. Doesn't that mess up the relationship? The same is true with us in the Lord. The Lord loves us, he wants us to have, he wants to have an inner us to have an intimate relationship with him. We do that by talking to him, reading the word daily. That's why at church here we are going through the Bible, reading through it in two-year time period to encourage people to stay reading in the word and be in prayer. The king does as he chooses. We have to remember that who is God, he is, and that we are not, right? If I were God, things would look a whole lot different. I'd have wiped us out a long time ago. He only did that once with Noah and the flood. But God is God and we're not. Another one to look at, patience is the key to success. What do I mean by that? Walking with Jesus in a relationship with him is not always easy. Trials and difficult times come. There may be times when we're under attack, times when we feel like things are not working out like God said they would. But the catch is to be patient. And that's easier to say than it is to do. Patience, endurance to the end will see life eternal. No one knows the future. Well, we know that we don't know the future. What it's going to look like, what's going to happen tomorrow or the next day. But you know who does know it? God knows it. Why? Because Scripture tells us He is all-knowing. No one knows the future. But you know what? Even though we don't know the future, don't we know something about the future? God's given us the Bible, his holy word. Starts in Genesis, meaning the beginning, and Revelation or Apocalypse tells us about the end of times. We know, even though we don't know all the details, we do get a good glimpse of where the world is heading. The last one we have no control over the king. God is God, and we're not. Scripture tells us we can come before him humbly for the throne of grace in time of need, but we're still not his boss or his children. I'd like for us to kind of keep that in mind. So, in closing today, there's two things I want to do. First, I want to give you a challenge, and then after the challenge, I'm going to do something I haven't done here before. I want to explain something to you. But let's look at the challenge first in application. The first part of that, the first question is this How do we respond to a God or to God, not a God? How do we respond to God who is all-knowing, all-powerful, and present everywhere? We've just heard from Solomon. Wise counsel is welcome. Stay in the presence of the king, don't promote evil, etc., etc. We now knowing and having known previously that God is all-knowing, he knows everything, he's present, he's everywhere, and he is all powerful. How will that change our relationship with him this week? When we go to face a difficult time, will we go to him in prayer asking his guidance, seeking his wisdom, knowing that he is all powerful? And if it's his will, he'll take care of that situation that we can't handle? Will we understand that we can go to him in prayer and it doesn't have to be in this room? You know, I've traveled the world, you know, I've been anywhere from Latin America to England, I've been to India a couple times, and there's many places people go together, and that's where they go to find the connection with God or the spirit, whoever they're worshiping, depending on the country. Even in Latin America, there's places, cults, and things like that. The catch is: do we understand that we can talk to God outside of this room? If he is everywhere, when we're in our homes, or when driving down the road, or while we're at work, we can talk to him. I pray that we'd be faithful to do that. Now, the second part, after looking at who God is and understanding how powerful he is, the next part of this is how will we respond to God who created us to enjoy him forever? People before the kings, they could respond by sharing wisdom. They could respond by being patient and staying, by being encouraging, to take out wickedness of their own life and warn the king of wickedness. How will we respond to God who created us? You see, he created us to worship him, to give him honor to praise, to enjoy him forever. And that's going to take place after death, obviously, for those who are believers. But on this earth, can we enjoy God now? Do we know enough about him? Some people maybe just talk to God when there's a problem. Some people might think he's an ATM machine. Or maybe he's a rainmaker, right? Giving us the rain. And we know he is all powerful, he's money's nothing for him, and he controls the weather. We know that. But I pray that we would seek to respond to God when he speaks to us, to be obedient to what he's called us to do. Does that make sense? So for a time of invitation, as we close here in a minute, think about those things. How do we respond to God who's all knowing? And how are we going to respond to him as one who wants us to be in a relationship with him? Now, that being said, I want to turn the page for just a second, okay? This is something, if you're the first time you're coming today, if you've never been in the church before, or if you've been here longer than I have been, I want to talk briefly about something a little bit different for just a moment, okay? I want you to take a look at this next thing. In the Baptist Church, we had this thing called An Invitation. If you'll take a look at your bulletin, if you have your copy of your bulletin, you'll see what we call an order of worship. The idea is we want to get people prepared to worship God. It starts off with a prelude. Sometimes we'll have some music, sometimes we'll have announcements. After that, we have a time where we prepare our hearts for worship. Why do we do that? I don't know about you, but sometimes just getting here can be difficult. The traffic, the weather, in my case, not children, because mine are groaning out of the house, but there's a lot on our minds. And when we come here, the goal is to worship God. Okay. As we move through the order of worship, we have time to sing, to where we give praise to God. Okay. We have time where we speak with the children. Today we had the children to come up front. If you saw that, and they gave a little um quick story, we do that on a weekly basis as well. All these things are geared for us to give worship to God. And I know what you're thinking, this is kind of obvious maybe, but I just wanted to re-emphasize this because of the last part. As you walk through here, sometimes we have a special music where somebody can use their gifts and talents to sing. Um, other times we've had people to do uh a drama enactment, things like that, all geared to giving honor and worship to God. We take up offering, the idea that God has blessed us this week. We want to take that money and give a portion of that back to Him. Not only is obviously that helps with the church, but it also helps us as we do ministry around in the community and around the world. And then after that, we have a time where we come to the sermon, where we have a proclamation of God's word, the preacher's job to preach, to teach, to explain God's word, and we do that. Uh my style, you know by now. I've been here eight years, you know, is I'll take book by book. We're in the book of Ecclesiastes. Next week we'll be in Ecclesiastes chapter nine again, but we'll take verse uh 10 and go to I think 21 to the end of the book, right? We'll go through that book at night, so we're studying Acts. That's what we're going to do tonight, Acts chapter 13. But the pastor's role is to preach and teach God's word. Then in the Baptist church, we have one more song. And on here is called the Hymn of Invitation. Now, I want to talk about that for a second, because as Baptists, we're considered autonomous. The idea is that we don't have a Pope who tells us what to do. Okay, within the Catholic Church, everybody reports to the Pope. When you go to other churches, uh Presbyterian or Methodist, there'll be a uh a board or um, I just forgot what you call it. What do you call it? The elder, the the congress, you have a congress of the different churches get together. What's that called? There's a name for that. I'm sorry, it just went out of my brain. Um that's gonna bug me now. I know the answer to that. But Baptists, we can do what we want serving the Lord. We choose to come together with other Baptist churches for fellowship to do work together, but we're autonomous in that we don't report to the Pope, we report straight to God. Why do I mention that? It's been a tradition in Baptist churches to have what they call an invitation. Okay? I grew up in the Baptist church, I'm alive, I know how it works. But my goal is to make sure we do everything with an honest heart. So let me just mention briefly something about the history of invitations. There's a lot to be said, don't have enough time to do it now, but just a few things to think about. Back during the time of the first Great Awakening and then the second great awakening, God was moving in a mighty way. Many people were coming to know Jesus. There was a guy named Charles Finney who put together what he called an anxious bench during the second great awakening. And what it was is you would come to this tent meeting and he had he would have a bench up near the front called the anxious seat, the anxious bench. And he would tell people if you want to learn more about the Lord, if you want to uh get right with him, if something's bothering you, come sit on this bench and we're gonna pray for you. Okay? That became a popular thing. People did that. Now, in theory, there's nothing wrong with that. If people want to make a decision, that's great. A lot of people criticize that though, because it became more of an emotional thing than a true, sincere desire of the heart. Uh says there's anybody then converted to come to his bench in the front of the room and pray to be prayed for. And oftentimes people would have a breakthrough. They would come to know Christ, they would stop their sinning, stop their drinking or smoking, or whatever it was in the day. So that was a good thing. But as you know, with all good things, sometimes there can be bad things. It could be overdone. They would have this idea of um you would have what they call walk the sawdust trail. And what it was is that they had these tent meetings, they would have sawdust down because it would be muddy. So you the idea was we you want to come to know God, you want to make a decision for Him, walk down the sawdust trail. Okay. There's nothing wrong with that. We tell people they want to accept Jesus, come down to the altar, talk with the pastor, okay? But the idea is making sure that that's genuine. Does that make sense what I'm saying so far? Okay. Go up a hundred years or so, D. L. Moody, 1871, it was October, I think, the 7th or 6th. He had preached a big sermon. It says up there, um, he preached a sermon on the life of Christ in the Feral Hall to the largest congregation he ever preached to in Chicago. But he chose not to give a final altar call. Instead, he asked the audience to take a week and think about the decision. That night started that great Chicago fire where many people perished and the church burnt, his home burnt, etc., etc. From that point on, he said he would never let a Sunday go by or a preaching experience go by when he didn't offer an invitation to people, right? Now we know in scripture Jesus offered invitations to people all the time. Come follow me and I'll make you fishers of men, right? Uh he was always calling people to follow after him. So there's nothing wrong with invitation. D.O. Moody got convicted to do that on a regular basis. But what's my interest? 2026 here at our church. Even though we don't say it, I want people not to forget this. Number one, when we had the time of invitation at the close of our service, which we're about to do in about two more minutes, that time of that time of invitation, I'll be standing up here like I always do. Normally I'm facing this way, I'm singing, I'm worshiping with you, but understand that this is a time where if you want, you can come and pray and kneel down at the altar. Okay? If you want to pray with me, that's what I'm here for. I can pray with you. Okay, but understand that I can pray with you outside those doors and in your home. If you call, let me know you need prayer. Okay? Not negating what God can do here. There's nothing wrong with that. A next one, what else can be done during this time of invitation? Maybe it's obvious, maybe it's not. I always want to re um re-remind you of this. It says here, it's a time to make a decision for obedience to Christ or what God is saying to you. Traditionally, somebody who wants to accept Christ will come down the aisle and talk to the pastor and say, Pastor, God's convicted me of my sin. I'm a sinful person, I need help. How can I know for sure that I can be forgiven of my sins? And they come to know Christ that way. Okay? Now they can also come to know Christ at home in their bedroom or at the grocery store. They can pray anywhere, but it's always open if people want to accept Christ. Another example would be to uh rededicate one's life. If you feel like you're not living for the Lord like you want, you want to come up and pray and ask the Lord to forgive you and say, Lord, I'm gonna commit to following after you more, come and do that. Okay? It's also a time where somebody's saying, you know, I'm interested in being a part of the church. I want to join the church. Now, normally you talk to the pastor before that, but when you're ready to join the church, you come up and say, Pastor, I want to join the church, you fill out a piece of paper, and then I present you to the church. Why do I say all this? It's kind of odd to have a sermon and I'm talking more about the invitation than the preaching of what Solomon has to say. I don't want us to forget that when we come into this room, the purpose is to worship. Okay? We're gonna have good days, we're gonna have bad days. We're gonna have days when the sound might not work, we might forget to play the hymn at the right time, or the computer might mess up, but that's not what it's about. It's coming together as brothers and sisters in Christ to worship the Almighty God. And as we do that, we want to make commitment to follow after Him. So God knows our heart. So know that Sunday to Sunday, during the service, people are always welcome to come up and pray, pray with me, pray privately. That's okay. But you can also pray in your seat. You can also pray at home. So just know invitation, everything you see in that bulletin, it's there for a reason. There's a purpose, even though we don't talk about it very often. The whole point is to get us to be closer to God and seek to follow after Him and grow and mature in our faith. So that being said, an invitation, understand, I'm not going to say that every week. I just want to do a reminder. I grew up in the Baptist church, it was kind of common sense. We all knew that, okay? But it's not not everybody grew up like I did, you know, back in the day in the traditional Baptist church. So I just kind of wanted you to take a look at that, okay? So in closing, just remember oops, if you back me up to the application slide, I'd appreciate it. As we close, how will you respond to God this week? We know how we respond to the king. Old days you would have no choice. If not, you'd lose your head. How do we respond to our president today? Well, that's a little bit different. Maybe we like him, maybe we don't. We respond in different ways. But you're here for a reason today because God's brought you here. How will you respond to God today? Not necessarily public, but privately. Talk to him and ask him to speak to your heart. And when he does, be obedient to do what he says for you to do. Would you pray with me? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before your presence. We thank you for this day. Thank you, Father, for the opportunity to look at your word. Father, we know that your word is true, alive, active to guide us, to strengthen us, to give us wisdom, and also, Father, to correct us at times that need to be corrected. So, Father, as we've looked at your word today, we pray that however it may fall on the ears of those listening, we pray that uh you would uh speak to each one of us to give us encouragement, wisdom, and strength and guidance, and correction is needed. Help us, Father, to be obedient to you this week. We love you. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.