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Today we're going to hear the tale of the "Old and Restless"
Richard is going to actually bring a soap opera to its conclusion.
Unlike those on television that just keep going and going and going,
today's soap opera actually has an ending. But this soap opera
started some 2,000..4,000 years ago with Abram.
Abram had been told by God that he was going to have
a son, and through this son the world would be blessed. Abram believed God and
it was accredited to him as righteousness. Well the very next
chapter in the Bible, Genesis 16, Sarah says, "You know
"We haven't had children, and I don't' know if we'll ever have children,
"but I have this slave, Hagar, and maybe Abram, you
"and Hagar can get together and we can start our family that way."
So, after ten years of living in Canaan, Abram and
Hagar got together and they had Ishmael.
We know that story. Well as soon as Hagar found out that she was pregnant,
she began to despise Sarah.
Sarah didn't know why, but that hostility started flowing
back and forth. Some thirteen years
later, God comes to Abram again and says, "That son
"Ishmael is not your heir. That is not the son of
"promise. The son of promise is Isaac. Isaac is going to be
"born to you and Sarah. That was My plan from the beginning.
"you just had to jump in and try to help Me out.
"I'm God; I don't need help." If
we'll get that truth in our minds, life would be a whole
lot simpler. I was thinking about this yesterday
as a parent of kids who are in sports,
when you sit up in the stands, you try to 'help' your kids,
but the coaches have already told the kids, "Ignore your parents,"
And they do, but we think we can help. But we
can't. That's the way it is with God. We can't help
in His plan. We can make ourselves available, and He can use us
but we can't add anything to what He said is going to happen.
So He told Isaac, I mean Abram, "You're going to have a son, that was going to be Isaac,"
and that was going to be the son of he and Sarah.
Well, he...they get pregnant,
he's 99; she's 89,
about a year later, 100 and 90, they give birth.
Isaac. The son of promise. Well, what about Ishmael?
Well he starts to mock this new baby.
Sarah gets a little heated.
What's going to happen? What does that mean to us?
That's what Richard's going to tell us about today. Richard?
[praying] Lord, You told Paul to write
something, to say something that is shocking beyond
words. Please help us, in spite of
the confusion, to internalize the shock
so that we began to understand just how serious
this matter is. We thank You in advance for
driving the point home, in Jesus name, amen.
Well, thanks Bob for that intro. Perfect intro. Nothing like
a soap opera, right? For the life of me,
[chuckles] I'm just wondering what Abraham was thinking
[mocking] "Yeah, this'll work" But.. no..
and the fantastic thing about this is that God
works through it all. Actually worked in Ishmael's life. Made
nations out of him, because he was Abraham's son. He protected Ishmael
and Hagar when they finally were thrown out. God
had His hand in all of this. Just like He does in my life.
So, we're going to be in the second half of
Galatians 4; if you have your Bibles, feel free to open them.
I call this...this teaching today, "Who is the
real slave" and that's part of the whole
story. Now, remember last week, when Bob was teaching about the
first half of chapter 4; that we have this change of status.
That as children of the promise, we go from immature, people who can't
speak, right? A baby; to a full fledged
full grown adopted son or daughter in Jesus Christ.
That's worth everything. But still,
he's dealing with this situation.
The Judaizers. Remember the book of, or the letter of
Galatians, is not a letter about Judaizers. It's
a letter about "Gospel and Not Gospel".
It's about whether we're going to be man pleasers,
or God pleasers. Now it should be obvious by now that
the man pleasers are after the Not Gospel. The God pleasers
are following the Gospel. The Promise.
And yet, these Judaizers, the people who in all of the racists
ferver they could muster, were telling the Gentiles, "No, you cannot
"be a child of God unless you become a Jew, and the entrance
"sign into Judaism is circumcision, As a result,
"of that circumcision, you will keep the Mosaic Covenant. That's the only way you can be
"God's friend," and Paul is pulling his hair out.
over these arguments. He's met every argument head on,
and deconstructed every one of them. Just blown each argument out of the water.
Now he's getting ready to wrap up the entire argument in terms of
which gospel is meaningful, with the story of
Hagar and Sarah.
Now, this is
a whole story, and he's been dealing with it for like three
chapters now. What is always the contrast? The contrast is between
law and promise. Contrast
is between Moses and Abraham.
Abraham wins. Why does Abraham win?
Because Abraham is the line, the promised line through whom Jesus is
came. Moses was not part of that line. So as wonderful
as Moses was; as wonderful as the Law was, and is,
it was not part of the line of Jesus.
So, this contrast between promise and law finds
its greatest example right here in chapter four.
Starting in verse 21. "Tell me,
you who want to be under the law," Okay, who's he talking to?
The Judaizers. The "Not Gospel" people.
"are you not aware of what the Law says?"
Here he expands the Law to include the entire five books of
Moses. That's how Jews referred to the law. Genesis through Deuteronomy.
"for it is written that Abraham had two sons.
"One by the slave woman, and the other by the free woman."
Now, we've read this a thousand times, so
we know what's coming, but put yourself in the shoes of the Judaizers.
The Judaizers read this, or hear this,
and they say, "You're absolutely right! One son by the
"slave woman; one by the free. And you poor Gentiles
"are off spring of the slave woman.
"and what we're trying to do, is to help you join us over here
"as children of the free woman. All you have to be is circumcised
"to become Jewish," I mean, that's what they're thinking.
The explicit point of view that these people have. "So far we're
"total agreement Paul. You're right; we want to be under the law,
"because the Law came through the free woman, you know, her offspring.
"His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh;"
"Yes he was. and again, you poor Gentiles, you know you're
"out there, you're lost. I mean, we don't call you dogs without reason!
"But his son by the free woman
"was born as the result of the Divine Promise." "Oh yes. Yes, Isaac.
"the Promise." right? Put yourself in their place.
Don't presume the answer, just because we have it in a couple of verses.
Paul is setting them up.
He's got everybody in the congregation nodding: [mocking]"uh huh; uh huh, uh huh"
These things are being taken
figuratively. Well again, we're in total agreement.
And then he turns the tables. The women represent two
covenants. Okay, I'll accept that. One covenant
is from Mount Sinai, and bears children who are to be
slaves. "Whoaaaa whoa whoa, just a minute!
"That's wrong, Paul."
I didn't say "Ron Paul", I said, 'Wrong, Paul" [chuckles from audience]
The preceeding wasn't paid for by political announcement. [chuckles]
Two covenants.
The one, is from Mount Sinai, and bears children who are to
be slaves; this is Hagar. "What?"
"How could you say that?
Then he repeats it: "Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai and Arabia, and corresponds
"to the present city of Jerusalem because she is in
"slavery with her children."
You notice he wrote this in a letter
and sent it with someone else to read? This is one of those times where if he'd been
there, they'd a picked up stones to stone him. Isn't there
this one of the arguments that Jesus got in trouble with? What was it? "oh we
"never been slaves of anyone!" "Well, yes you have, you were slaves
"in Egypt, and now you're slaves to the law. Here I am to set you free and you refuse to
" me," "No, no, no, what about Abraham?" "well, before Abraham was born, I am,"
and they pick up stones.
Same argument. Paul was probably in the crowd that heard that.
I have to believe that in my heart of hearts. Paul is contemporary with everything
that is going on in Jerusalem. He's a student there, he's an up and coming Pharisee, he
had to be in some of those crowds. He had to be amongst the leaders that were trying to
ask the questions, and he hated, passionately hated the fact that
Jesus always messed up his perfectly good questions.
Then he met Jesus. Really, really met Jesus,
and everything changed. Then Paul, for years and years
of study, when you become so steeped
in one set of beliefs, how long does it take you to move to a different
set of beliefs? Long time.
It doesn't matter that when...
when you've been running a hundred miles and hour to the south and repent
and you turn around to run north? You've still run a long way south.
You may be thrilled with salvation and with forgiveness
and eternal life, but your brain still has those pathways
and satan and most of your friends and family know what
buttons to push to trigger those pathways. Paul
was no different. He'd had to wrestle with this stuff. Imagine the first time
he had this thought in his own mind. He probably begged God for forgiveness for blasphemy.
But it wasn't blasphemy. This is God
working out a soap opera that was the result of man getting in the way,
and turning it to a spiritual truth. What a God!
What grace.
So we've got this covenant from Mount Sinai.
Judaizers, which covenant is that? The Mosaic Covenant.
It bears children who are to be slaves.
Corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem.
Chew on that for a littel bit, you Judaizers.
You people from Dallas, Fort Worth.
We do this stuff automatically. We really do.
"But the Jerusalem that is above,
"is free. She is our mother. For it is written (this comes out of Isaiah)
"be glad barren woman, you who never bore a child. Shout for joy
"Cry aloud, you who were never in labor, because more are the children of the desolate woman than of
"her that has a husband," It's going back to the promise. Always back
to the promise. This comparison
with the Jerusalem that is above should ring a bell. I mean the ultimate
end of things, Revelation 21, we've got the new Jerusalem that
coming down out of heaven. Represents both a physical reality
and the spiritual truth that God's people are coming with Him as the
temple; as His Jerusalem; as His house, as His body.
Also in Hebrews
9, the writer to the Hebrews said,
You know, it was important on the Day of Atonement, that all of the earthly sanctuary things be cleansed,
because they'd been absorbing sin as it were, sin being transferred to the temple, transferred to the temple.
The Day of Atonement comes and all that sin has to be taken away.
Jesus
comes, and He takes it away.
So Jesus went to the heavenly sanctuary,
the heavenly Jerusalem, not to cleanse things,
because there's nothing there that needed to be cleansed, but
to in effect, take us with Him, and say,
"God, Father God, here they are,
"My people, My children,"
He cleansed the earth of sin,
cleansed the universe of sin, and so sin is no
longer an issue. That is why the
Sinai covenant cannot be a covenant of promise.
It can only be a covenant of
preparation. What's the preparation?
Richard needs to be convinced that Richard is lost apart
from Jesus. The Sinai covenant is perfect
for that. "Well, Lord, I'm doing okay"
"Have you beat your wife today?" "No I have not beat my wife today. I'm doing real well.
on that," "Did you lie?" "No, I didn't lie,
"I haven't coveted, I haven't commited adultry,
"I haven't had...I'm doing well!" He says, "Well,
"that's the ten. Have you read the explanation of the Ten, and the rest of the law?
"And the rest of the covenant?" "Well, no." "Well, Let Me take you through
"The book of Leviticus. Every few verses it says,
"Be perfect as I am perfect" "Well, if You're going
"to be like that.. I mean... who can do that?"
"Well, that's My point exactly, you can't do that!
"So stop trying to use that covenant to do something that it was never intended to do."
If you try keeping the Mosaic Covenant,
as a means of being a child of promise, you are
a slave. A slave
to sin. A slave to sin
and death. But if you
are of the Jerusalem that is above, that is free,
you are free.
Now, you brothers and sisters, like I
Isaac; now who's his audience?
Not the Judaizers. Not the
Judaizers, the Gospel group. People who have
stayed in there, hung in there faithfully. Responded
to God, rather than demanding God do things for them.
You are children of promise.
At that time, remember,
BC just told us about this. At that time, the son born according to the
flesh persecuted the son born by the
power of the Spirit. It is the same
now. [chuckles]
Think he's...you know.. fomenting
something here?
He's trying to let people know that it's completely natural
for people who don't understand Grace, to whack people
who do understand the grace, upside the head and say,
"you just can't have that. I don't have it, so nobody can,
"I'm going to put you under Law if it kills me, or kills you.
"Or kills us both." Quite often it does.
The same now.
What's the solution? What does the scripture say?
Get rid of the slave woman and her son.
The slave woman will never share in the inheritance with
the free woman's son.
Promise given to Abraham was for Isaac alone.
No one else. Wasn't for
Ishmael, it wasn't for any of the children that Abraham had with Keturah
after Sarah died and remarried.
[chuckles]
When God fixes things, He really fixes things.
The promise;
the inheritance was for Isaac
and Jacob and Judah
David, Jesus
and us.
Everyone of us, who accepts Jesus by faith,
who accepts His life as our life,
who accepts His victory over sin as our victory over sin.
We are children of the inheritance.
As soon as we go back to trying to keep
the Law for any reason, we act as if
we don't have that inheritance. We act as if we're slaves.
"Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free."
That's the passage.
How do you deal with a passage like
this? In our day and age?
The last I checked, nobody came running in here and said,
"You got to be circumcised, you got to become a Jew"
People don't do that anymore. So we read these
verses, and we get smug, and say, "yeah,
"we understand that," Do we?
Do we really? How many times
have you put your own children under the Law, instead of under grace?
How many times have you put yourself under Law?
instead of under grace? How many times
have each of us repudiated the Gospel? "Well, yeah,
"Lord, I know You died, and buried, and was raised again. I know it
"this means total forgiveness and eternal life, and no one can take us out of your hand,
"But You don't know what I just did.."
How many phone calls do we get
from people, how many emails, they ask the question,
"I know the gospel's true, and I
"believe it with all my heart... but...
"how could God save me, in the midst of what I've gotten trapped
"in?" How indeed?
How did He save you in the first place?
He didn't come to you, or to me, and say, "Well, Richard, what are you trapped in
"in?... I... ah... I didn't die for that!
"I died for a lot of things, but not that!"
Isn't that what we normally we do? The number of
times that people on the radio, breathe an audible sigh of
relief when we let them know they're just like everyone else.
I suffered mightily
I've told you this before. With the Elijah complex? Once I figured out
that what I believed before was wrong, and that the Bible right,
I immediately jumped to the conclusion that I was the only one.
"Oh Lord, Just me!"
He had to get my attention and say, "No, no, no, there's
"a lot of people out there," and one of the great things
about coming to a conference, is that you meet people who have
been through infinitely more hell than you've ever been through.
And they've come out on the other side as Children of God.
That's fellowship. That's fellowship.
That's why we're called to not give up meeting together.
Small groups.
Blatent advertisements. Small groups are the places
where fellowship is built. You
can share things in a small group with people who have gotten to know you,
and who love you, and who care for you in the Lord, and
you can share things with them that you could never share here.
We wouldn't have the context.
And it would make us all uncomfortable...
and then there would be nervous laughter; and everybody would avert their eyes,
we'd all act so holy. You can't do that stuff here in the big group, because we'd
don't know each other. But in small groups, you get to know each other.
The first evening, or the first meeting,
you know, small groups, is not the time to say, "Well, I'm
"trapped in _________" because they don't know you yet.
Get to know each other. Build some trust. Let the Spirit
of God build His life in and through you,
as you build life together, and pretty soon you can start
sharing things. Little things will come out first,
just things everybody laughs over, "oh you did that?"
"yeah, let me tell you about high school" you know, and you go through those sorts of things.
And if you've got a healthy small group, after awhile,
you'll start hitting some big things.
People will weep with you.
They'll pray for you.
You'll be built in the fellowship into oneness that you've
can't possibly imagine.
But you can only do that if you're children of the free
if you're a child of the slave woman,
then indeed you are a slave yourself. The only
tool in your tool box,
is a hatchet. Whenever
anybody shares what's going on, the hatchet comes out,
and limbs are hacked off. Because that's what the Law does.
The Law says, "don't do that!"
"But Lord, I did it.." "Okay,
"I'm going to cut off your arm,"
Know any religions like that? I mean explicit religions like that?
Steal something? We'll cut off your hand.
Steal again, and we'll cut off the other hand. Now go out, and do good work
so that you can make money for your family. And I have no hands.
That's children of the slave woman.
Those are the slaves.
We are the free people.
Because we are children of the promise.
How do you move forward with something like this?
How do you argue with yourself, that in spite of
what it is you do, and the things you get tied up in,
what do you tell yourself? What do you remind
yourself? Well, going through the
other parts of Galatians could be helpful.
That ongoing theme: Children of
Promise versus Children of the Law. The Gospel
versus anything else being Not Gospel.
The forgiveness that is ours in Jesus.
I mean, you literally have to rehearse this stuff day after day
after day.
Reading it out of the Bible. Listening
to us talk about it on the radio is helpful, but only
so far as it points you back into the word of God, for your
own conversation with Jesus.
If you come here on Sundays and listen occassionly
on the radio, and show up at an occassional conference and you think you've got a
relationship with God, you're going to be sorely disappointed.
It's got to be your relationship.
If you've got my relationship with God,
then you're a slave. You have made me your Law, or Bob
Christopher your Law, or Bob George your Law. As soon as you
got Law in your life, you're dead meat.
Try this on:
Paul compared
Hagar and Sarah.
I was casting about for a comparison
that might be little more current than that. Lois came up with
one, Mother Theresa
and Madonna.
Everybody wants to be Mother Theresa,
very few want to be Madonna.
However, those of us who insist on trapping ourselves
within the Law, are now children of Madonna.
Those of us who have understood
grace, begin to understand how some
one like Mother Theresa could give her life for others.
Try this:
In some ways, in the United States, Christianity
has never been more popular. In other ways it's
never been less popular. But it's still okay.
to be a Christian in this country.
And all of the churches that get the notoriety come under two headings.
Either they've got membership of thirty of forty thousand
people. It must be good, right? If you've got
the biggest store in the country, you must be good.
That's the Walmart business model. Or,
the other people who get attention, are like this last week, when one of the snake
handler pastors got bit and died. Well that made
the news. [chuckles]
I'm sayin', "it's about time!" [audience chuckles]
[mockingly]"What's the matter with these people? Haven't ya seen snakes?"
Especially ones that bite you and kill you.
You know? Those are the two you hear about.
In the meantime, we've still got, according
to most of the data that I hear, something
like 70 or 80% of the people who live in the United States
describe themselves as "Christians".
Some very large percentage of that
not really sure of Jesus, "But I'm a Christian."
So, what
we've got, in a very real sense,
is you can be a child of the living God,
and Christ, or you can be an atheist.
There is nothing worse
than an atheist masquerading as a Christian.
"Oh yes, I'm a believer!
"That Jesus thing--that's a little too far out there for me, so I just
"like the good feeling stuff. Yes, I'm a believer,
"Well yeah, my wife and I, you know play around
with some of the other neighborhood families and you know, we swap around and all
of that, but I'm a Christian,"
"I'm a Christian. I'm so strung out on drugs I cant' see straight, but I'm a Christian,"
When we ask people who are
locked into those kinds of things, what's going on?
then we'll get responses like the phone call
we literally got which was,
"well I'm under grace, you know, my friend tells me this
I tell her, "you've got to stop embezzling money from the company
and the friend responds, "Well, I'm under grace"
This is a gift of God to me"
That folks, is an atheist.
I hate to paint it in such stark terms, but that
all we've got. It's either Jesus, or nothing.
Either Jesus is who
He claimed to be, or we're just wasting our time.
Yes, we have nice music, and we get together ocassionally
and have a pot luck, and you know, that's okay. I can
do that with any number of people. Any kind of group, any topic you want to
pick on. But when I'm a practicing
atheist, and claim to be a child of God,
life is hard.
It's especially hard if I've deluded myself into thinking that I'm okay
when in reality I'm the atheist, and I'm as lost
as anyone has ever been. "Well Lord!
"I cast out demons in Your name,"
"So? I don't know you. You're an atheist,
"I don't know how you were casting out the demons, but I wasn't the One doing it."
How many
people want to face judgement? None of us.
How do you avoid judgement?
By accepting Jesus. Because Jesus was judged
for you and me. There's no more judgement for us.
There's no Great White Throne Judgement if you belong to Jesus.
If you are a child of the free woman,
you are a child of promise, there's no more judgement.
for you, because Jesus suffered it, all of it, for you.
Not just part of it, but all of it.
If you want to try any of this on your own,
Saying, "Lord, I think I've got it, now, thanks for the
"help, thanks for the leg up, I'll ride the horse now"
Then you discover you're sitting on the horse backwards.
Enjoy that ride.
Then there is the Great White Throne Judgement for you.
and God will meet you, face to face, one on one,
then say, "So how ya doin'?"
"Well, I..." "No, no, no.. I didn't finish
"have you been as perfect as I am?" "Well, no,"
"Did you accept Jesus, My Son? You know He did all of this for you,
"Well no, I mean, He helped me a little bit at the beginning, but that
"was on my own," "No, you weren't on your own. Why didn't you accept My Son?"
and you beg, and you plead,
you bring up this putrid stuff called works
and you say, "But...but...
Then when it finally dawns on you, what the truth
is, are you sorry?
No. You look God in the eye, and curse Him.
That's what being an atheist is about.
Whether you're doing it under the guise of
church going, or just out there in the world
living like the devil, it doesn't matter.
Paul is not kidding here.
To the Judaizers, he's saying,
"For every millisecond that you hold on to this law,
"you are farther and farther from Jesus.
"and more and more lost.
"If you're saved, and you're confused over the Law, I can help you with that.
"be children of the free woman. Understand
"Look for the signs
"the symptoms of being confused under the Law.
You know, we'll talk about that in the next couple of chapters.
But fundamentally, ask yourself the question, "Am I
"a slave, or am I free?"
Am I under Law--a slave, or am I under the Promise
--free? Do I accept Jesus
for absolutely everything--free; or do I
just use Him as a good luck charm--slave?
That's how serious this passage is. Thankfully he
does the contrast. Right? "Now, those of you who insist on keeping the law
versus "now those of you who belong to Christ"
So he knew both groups were there, But I'll tell you
no one can look at an audience like this and say
"oh, you're under Law--you're under grace.. you're under..." no, we can't do that.
That's not given to us. If God
chooses to show me that someone is trapped,
under the Law, and for the explicit purpose of going
to that person and helping them back to Christ, that's a different issue. But
just looking at people, we can't tell. You don't
know what I'm thinking, I dont' know what you're thinking
so we say both to everyone, in order to
cover all of the bases. If you truly
are a child of God, do not let yourself be put in slavery
You're still a child of God,
if you truly are a child of God, but you won't
live an abundant life. If you're not a child of God,
and you think that behaving is going to get you someplace,
you're living in hell already. Just as
much as those of us who are children of God are already
seated with Him in the heavenlies. That's how serious
this is.
So what will it be?
We really do have a choice;
we don't have to live defeated lives.
we don't have to grovel around, trying to to find out if
God's going to love me enough to take me back this time. We can
actually live in victory. You know what it is
to have suffered with_____pick your poison, you all have your own.
and have Jesus Christ take that away from you?
To recreate you, to have the
Holy Spirit working inside you, from the inside out
and changing you?
There's no law that can do that, because the law is on the outside.
The law is about behavior modification. I can fit into a crowd under Law
but I can't fit into heaven.
We have the limitless power of God almighty
available to us, as His children
How it doesn't consume us and turn us to ash
that fast is beyond me, but it doesn't.
He sends Himself to live inside of us
and say, "welcome to freedom, welcome to victory!"
Welcome to the children of Abraham.
Isaac and Jacob.
If you find yourself heading back
remember we do that; it's a natural thing for humans to do because of indwelling
sin. The only reasonable response is to cast
that slave woman out of your home.
Out of your life.
Another way of saying this is, "Don't come to me and tell me
"I ought to be doing something"
There's a lot of things I ought to be doing, and I don't do them
regularly. I'm just a regular person like you guys.
Child of God, I have the spirit living in me, and I
wrestle with the flesh, just like all of you.
But if someone comes to me, and says, "Well, Richard, you know, you ought to be
______" you normally get this
on the radio. I love to listen to certain
certain preachers, I just love the way they talk. Examples
as they give, the way they use their voices... it's just beautiful.
then ... then every once in a while, you'll hear something.
It's one of those 'oughts' or 'shoulds' and you realize that somebody has just
set themselves up as God in my life, or is attempting to,
and you've just got to turn it off, throw it out.
The Spirit will give you that discernment. He really will.
You don't have to be nasty about it. Just say, "I'm
"just not going there. I'm going to live free.
There was a flag, all of you have seen it,
back in the beginning of our country,
in Revolutionary days, that said, "Live free or die!"
That's what we're talking about. Live free
or die. Let's pray.
[praying] Lord, You give us
this story of Hagar and Sarah.
We look at it,
and we think we get it, and maybe
we do; but we also know that
there are issues with us.
We so easily get confused, we so easily get off
track, so easily take our eyes off of you.
Yet, the answer's there. Freedom is there.
The power is there, if we would but accept You
all of the time.
If there's anyone here who hasn't let go of the Law,
and taken full hold of You,
I pray that they will for the first time perhaps in their life
give up the Law. Give up
trying to please You. Discover
that in Christ, they already are pleasing to You.
We've been accepted in Jesus Christ.
We've been loved in Jesus Christ. We've been forgiven
in Jesus Christ. There is none of that
in Law. We thank You for
this hard words. We thank
You for the stark contrast. We want
to walk as Your Children, and stop walking as atheists.
In Jesus name, amen.