God's willingness to reveal Himself to individuals across various walks of life is a central theme, illustrated through the experiences of Abraham and others. The sermon emphasizes that God's revelations are not exclusive and can occur through spoken words, angelic appearances, or even direct sight, accommodating human frailty. It highlights that personal failings do not disqualify individuals from God's purposes, as seen in the examples of Aaron and Nadab and Abihu, and that God's sovereign choice, not human merit, underpins His revelations. The message concludes by encouraging believers to recognize God as their personal shield and exceeding great reward, fostering an individual covenant relationship with Him.
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I suggested to you on Wednesday morning that the subject of our morning studies, visions of God, is taken from Ezekiel chapter one and verse one. And the evening studies of the revelation of Jesus Christ is taken from Revelation chapter one and verse one. Some of you I know will have thought when I said that, well, he could have got them both out of just one verse. And that is second Corinthians chapter twelve and verse one. When Paul says it is not expedient for me doubtless the glory, I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. So we have the two things in Second Corinthians chapter twelve and verse one, as well as individually in Ezekiel one and Revelation chapter one.
Let me suggest to you this morning that the matter of God revealing himself to different individuals is most interesting and instructive to us. in the Old Testament as well as in the New. The manner and means in which He did it, His instructor, sometimes by His spoken words, sometimes by the visible presence of an angel, some by the physical sight of God Himself. And I may quote you some verses in corroboration and confirmation of that. And then another thing that is interesting to notice, and that is the category into which the individuals fall... who received such visions from God.
You may have a king, a prophet, a priest, a shepherd. You may have a woman in distress. You may have a woman in her home looking after the regular duties of life. You may have someone very grieved and grievously treated. You may have a young man. You may have a boy. You may have an old person. And this kaleidoscope This compilation of individuals in their different characters and walks of life encourages us greatly when we consider that God is pleased to reveal Himself, not only in these various ways and manners, but to these various individuals.
There is no exclusivism in the revelations of God to His people. In fact, I hope we may have time to look at some of these just to prove that to you. Now one of the most interesting recipients of visions of God that we have, particularly in the Old Testament, I want to ask you to turn with me this morning and consider some of the details of the life of Abraham. Abram and then Abraham. Let's look at Genesis chapter twelve please. Genesis chapter twelve. Five times in the life of Abraham the word is used that the Lord appeared unto him.
And several times it is said, the Lord spoke to him. So as I've suggested to you already, God reveals himself sometimes by the spoken word. And he has revealed himself by a personal presentation. Human eyes have looked upon the God of Israel, the God of eternity, the El Shaddai, the all-sufficient and almighty God. That's a marvelous thing to consider. And I know you were thinking, as was stated on Lord's Day morning, that God said to Moses on one occasion that no man can see or must see my face and live. And then Paul writes to Timothy and says he is the only potentate, the king of kings, Lord of lords, whom no man has seen nor can see.
And because these appear to be absolute statements that admit of no consideration or variance. For that reason, I have quoted to you some of the scriptures already, wherein it is said that they saw God. And such an unexpected person as Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, for example, the seventy elders of Israel, Exodus chapter twenty-four, they went up into the mountain as called by God, where God sent Moses down from one of the occasions in which he had been up in the mountain, and he said, Go down and bring up your brother Aaron. and bring up his two sons, Nadab and Abihu. Now that's interesting because Nadab and Abihu were to be slain, as you remember later on, because they offered strange fire before the Lord.
But the future must not mortgage the present. So what God knows we will be or will do is not necessarily going to restrict or hinder what he wants to do and will do today. Moreover, let me reverse that to you now. What we are or what we may do today does not necessarily mortgage the future. Because God is pleased so often to reverse what we have done or what we are on a certain day or in a certain circumstance regarding the future. Whoever would have thought that Nadab and Abihu, who were to be slain from before the Lord because of offering strange fire, would actually be mentioned by God to come up into the mountain.
And who would have thought that God would say to Moses, Go down and get your brother Aaron and bring him up into the mountain? And then if you read farther on in that passage you will read it and it says, They saw the God of Israel. Twice over it says, They saw the God of Israel. Now it describes the pavement that was under his feet and what his presence looked like. These are some of the intriguing things that we discover in the scriptures of truth. When God accommodates himself to our frailty, to our humanity, who would have chosen Aaron to be the high priest of Israel, to be invested with the royal robes and to go into the presence of God after he made a golden calf?
Yet that's exactly what God did. So I may suggest to you that our falls and our faults and our failures of today do not necessarily mean that God will not use us nor call us tomorrow. Nor may we assume that because there is tragedy ahead somewhere and a stumbling down the road, God will not use us today. He will not mortgage the present because of the future that he knows so well. I recall being in Argentina on one occasion for a visit there and... I was having some meetings in the city of Buenos Aires and then was able with the able guide of Daniel de Césary to go on a trip into the interior for about a month.
And when I was in a home of one of the brethren in Buenos Aires, he told me about his life, how he had, in his wife, had agreed to sell a house that they had and to rent another smaller place and put the money into supplying books for their workers there. and he had a partner who had a farm and sold the farm and rented an apartment and took the money to add to the first contribution between the two of them they were going to fund a book store for their younger preachers and he said to me one morning he said don't they we have a problem here between the two of us and I said what is that he said well we have just received a large shipment of books from Europe and after we ordered them and received them we heard that the author has had a Well, what we call a moral fall.
I think that's a misused term. If we are talking about a sexual fall, we should say sexual fall, not a moral fall, because I've heard it said so many times that Peter, when he denied the Lord, did not have a moral fall. Well, he did have a moral fall. Dishonesty is morality abuse. Morality takes in more than sexuality. So a man who is defeatful, a man who lies, a man who denies, has a moral fall just as much as the other one does. So he said to me, we've just learned since this big shipment of books came in that this man has had a moral fall. Now he said, my partner believes we should not give them out to the workers, that we should not read these books now because of the scandal that has arisen due to the author's conduct.
And he said, I think we should give them away, and the younger folks should prophesy them. Now, what say ye? You know, that's how you get into a rock and a hard place. And I generally can get out of those by saying nothing and listening a little longer, and then I get the answer given to me anyway, because oftentimes when they ask you a question, it isn't really what the answer. They want to give you the answer. But on this occasion, I didn't get out of it. And he said, now, we want to know what we're going to do with these books, and we'd like your opinion. Well, I said, I suppose if you are not going to use them, then you'll have to at least throw out some of the Psalms of David. You won't be able to read the thirty-second Psalm.
You won't be able to read the fifty-first Psalm. You won't be able to read some of the subsequent Psalms, which David wrote after he had his fall. So I hadn't said more than that. And I said, just cut them out of your book and don't use them any longer. So he turned to his partner who was there and he said... Are we prepared to do that? And he said, no, we're not prepared to do that. I guess we'll give the books out. Certainly God does not do as we would do. He does not condemn us flat out. He does not put a mortgage on anything we may do after we have had an experience like that. And so some of these individuals, particularly I was thinking of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, go up into the mountain and says they saw the God of Israel.
And then it says they did eat and drink and on then he laid not his hand. So with such packages in mind, we are encouraged to look back at some of the instances in which God has appeared to those perhaps to whom we would not have conceded that they were competent to receive a vision from God. Genesis chapter twelve, we have two appearances of the Lord to Abram. The first verse starts as you Let's see. The Lord had said unto Abram. Now, that in itself does not appear to have been a vision of God. But when you go to Stephen's defense in Acts chapter seven, you remember how Stephen starts off this defense before the Sanhedrin.
He says, the God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham when he was yet in Mesopotamia and Ur of the Chaldees. So hidden under this opening statement of chapter twelve is a vision, a vision of God. The God of glory appeared unto our father Abram when he was in Mesopotamia in Ur of the Kaldis. Now some of these statements of scripture are left for our consideration and sometimes I think to our imagination. Why is he called the God of glory? When he appears to a man who's living in an idolatrous land, a land of pagan unbelief, he is called the God of Glory.
He appeared. Now it does not say in which fashion he appeared. It does not say how he appeared. It does not say why he appeared. Why did he choose Abram? How did God reveal himself? How did he make himself seen? The word is to see. Let me pause a minute here. And let me suggest to you that this business of seeing, in connection with God, sometimes is directly visible, something visible by the human eye. At other times, to see means to perceive by the spirit, by the mind.
Sometimes it will be in an open area in the daylight by someone who comes to the individual who is material. And then there are other times when it happened in a trance. You remember Balaam said, These things says he who fell into a trance having his eyes opened. Or how about Peter on the housetop? In Acts chapter ten. He went up to the house stop to pray because he was hungry. It's not always a full answer to an empty stomach, you understand, but you can try it at times. And maybe it's easier with an empty stomach to fall into a trance, I don't know, but I get some of my worst dreams when mine is full.
However, he goes up on the house and he's praying while he's waiting for the preparation of the meal. And it says he fell into a trance and saw the sheet that was let down from heaven. Now that was a perception while he was in a trance. So that is not a palpable, visible, material thing that he saw. But he perceived it in the vision of his spirit. But as I suggested to you on Sunday morning, when the disciples were in the Mount of the Lord and the Mount of Transfiguration, they saw the master. They saw him transfigured. He was still the same Lord. He was still the same Jesus of Nazareth.
And he was going down the mountain. He said, tell the vision to no man. So it was a vision, you see, but it was a vision that was palpable, that was tangible, that was material. They could handle him. They could listen to him speak. Now when we put all the aggregate of this into one box and look at it, and all these instances, all these different people that I have mentioned to you already, and all these various categories of light, it is amazing to see. of God is pleased to present himself in these various ways to these various individuals under these various circumstances.
So here's a man living in Ur of the Chaldees. Very modern up-to-date city, if you can go by Professor Urquhart, who tells us of a telephone system they had in Ur in the days of Abram, who tells us of a sanitary and water system operating in Ur of the Chaldees in the days of Abram. Some of the discoveries of the archaeologists are very remarkable and turn our concept around that we've had of these olden times. Nevertheless, he's in an idolatrous country. He's in a pagan land. And the God of glory, doesn't say the God of Israel yet, but the God of glory appears to him. And he says, get the out. Now you may draw your own conclusions as to why and how God did that.
I always ask myself questions like that when I read a statement like this and I say now why Abram why did God do this did he do it because of what he said later on in chapter eighteen of Genesis I know this man and I know what he will do and I know his character and I know that he will judge his children after him I know he will keep the commandments of the Lord and because I know who this man is I will reveal myself to him five times over at least God presented himself in what is called an appearance to Abraham. And this is the first time. He's called the God of Glory. Those are very in suggested words.
These are very intriguing words to me. They're inspiring words to me. We may live in the darkest era of this century. It certainly looks like it, doesn't it? We may live in very difficult circumstances. We may have an idolatrous world all around us who are either worshiping themselves or what they can see and acquire. And is it so? Is God so covered? Is he hidden that he can't reveal himself to us today? That's when it was that the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham and he sent him out. And as you know, they left the ear of the Kaldis and went up to Karen in the north. And then after Tara died, The father then Abram moves south with Lot and his servants and he comes down into the land.
Now after he's come through the land we come down to verse seven of chapter twelve and it says again the Lord appeared unto Abram and said unto thy seed will I give this land and there builded he an altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him. The results, the fruit of these revelations, these visions of God are also our most instructive. the first time we read of God appearing to Abram after he left her of the Chaldees, not when he was in Heron or Heron, but after when he came down into the land of Canaan, then the Lord appears to him and makes to him a promise regarding the land. He makes subsequent promises regarding the same country, the same land, the same inheritance, the same possession in the following chapters.
And he enlarges them as he does this. And I think that is something, there's a principle here as well. God reveals himself to us today. He does it in his own way, at his own time, and for his own reasons. There must have been sovereignty involved in the choice of Abram when he was in Ur of the Caldees. It reminds me of Exodus chapter nineteen. When God brought Israel out of the land of Egypt and brought them to Mount Sinai, to Horeb, and he gathered them together at the foot of the mountain, and he says to Moses, Now tell this people, that if they will obey the voice of the Lord, they shall be to me a peculiar treasure and a holy nation.
Tell them that I have chosen them to be this. On this basis, Deuteronomy seven adds something to this. Moses said later on in Deuteronomy seven, he said, the Lord didn't choose you because you were many. For you were few. You were insignificant. You didn't have a glorious past. You didn't have something that you could look back on. Some of us are very proud of our past, aren't we? Someone was asking me yesterday, I think it was, about some of my ancestors. I like to think that my grandfather on my father's side was one of the first brethren who met in assemblies in London, England in the last century.
some of our family friends or cousins rather have decided to look up the family history and build a tree you know how it is and then send you the crest and all that and I said to my mother one day I said we know a lot about my father's family but our father's family but we don't know anything about your family she said I suggest you don't bother and I said well I think it'd be interesting to know we know so many my father's family there were seventeen children and fourteen of them lived and they're scattered across the world from Malaysia to Australia to Africa to England and United States here and other places. And I said, we know a lot about Father's family, but I'd like to know something about your family. She said, just leave it alone. If you go back too far, you'll just find a lot of thieves and rogues. So leave it alone.
So I left it alone. What else could I do? He said, I didn't choose you as a nation because you were mighty, because you had a glorious past, because you were the least of all the nations when I chose you. And the reason I chose you says God, and the reason why you will be a peculiar treasure unto me is because all the earth is mine. And as we say in Spanish, ni mas namenos. This is the substance of it. This is the reason for it. This is the heart of it. It's sovereign, selective grace. And they could not claim to anything else.
I've chosen you. I'm going to make you a peculiar treasure. I'm going to make you a kingdom of priests if you obey my voice, because all the earth is mine. And he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy. He will choose whom he will he choose. What is the clay going to say to the potter when the potter's design is to make it as he wills? So I look at Abram and I say, God chose him. The God of glory appeared to him. I look at myself, I look at others and I say, but why was I chosen in Christ from before the foundation of the world? Why did God put his hand upon me?
For I know of no reason he should have done this on the basis of what we would call competency or personal ability. But that love which is causeless is selective. we may glory in the grace of it so he appears unto Abram in verse seven of chapter twelve and he said that he had promised to give him the land in which to which he had come now let's look further over to chapter thirteen chapter thirteen you recall I'm just going to briefly make a summary of some of these chapters as we move through them it's the first mention of the word brethren in the Bible by the way and you know what happened well there was strife amongst them That's right.
That's what it says. That's what it says. The herdsmen of Lot and the herdsmen of Abram were striving together and quarreling together. And Abraham said, Abram said to Lot, let us not have strife amongst us because we be brethren. Yes. Not said about that. So Abram said, now you take the choice. You go where you will and I'll go wherever you don't. So he gave Lot the choice as you know. And Lot looked down to the well-watered plain of Jordan. And he said, it looks like the garden of the Lord. As thou comest into Egypt. Now, isn't that a strange combination of things? It looks like the garden of the Lord. It looks like the paradise of God.
And it looks like the same, the land as you come into Egypt. Now, what distorted vision would make a man compare the paradise of God with the land of Egypt? Only a man. whose mind is centered strictly and specifically on material things. The world never can look to us comparable with the paradise of God, can it? The land of Jordan, the veil of Jordan, and then of course the comment is made that the sinners of Sodom were exceedingly wicked before the Lord. It never could be compared, could it, with the garden of the law, with the paradise of God. And yet sometimes our hearts actually want to settle down in this valley of Jordan because it is so comfortable.
In our traveling around Latin America, Central America and South America, particularly in the last twenty-five years or thirty years, I'm always impressed when I leave these countries, and particularly Cuba as it is today, which we've been visiting recently, to discover how many things a Christian doesn't need to be happy, and how he can or she can be happy and joyous in the Lord. with nothing of the things that we consider make us happy. They're comfortable. And they don't measure the sacrifice they have to make to go to a conference. They'll travel in the train for anywhere from twenty-three to thirty hours and get off the end of the train and get on a cattle truck and hitch rides and so forth to go away down to an assembly at the foot of the mountains in the eastern part of the country for a conference.
And... They're joyous. They're exulting. They're exuberant about their Christian faith. No. And yet, they're living under very stringent circumstances. They're still rationed. They still get one pair of shoes a year. Providing the store where they're allowed to buy them on the date in which they're allowed to buy them has their size. And if it doesn't, you can come back next year. Or you can take whatever size they have and try and trade with somebody else who has your size. And the ladies get one dress a year and the men get one pair of pants and shirt a year. And they get so many pounds of sugar a month and four ounces of meat a week and so many beans and so on. That kind of thing is still there, still existing.
And if you use up all your soap, you can buy a bar on the black market for twelve dollars for our soap. Prices are exorbitant. We have a little girl, I shouldn't take a lot of time telling you stories, but we have a little girl living in our home, which was... and as an assembly family living in the house, sixteen years of age, and she said to me, I asked her what she was doing, what she was going to do, and she said, well, I've tried to get a job seven times, and each time I fail, and I said, how come? She said, well, the last question always on the form that I have to fill out is, do you believe in God? And I always put yes, and I throw it out. So she said, that's happened to me seven times.
I said, well, why don't you leave it blank? She said, I can't believe it blank. when it asks me if I believe in God. So I say, yes. I said, well, what are you going to do now? She said, well, I'm taking in children from the farm countries around, country around, and they're looking after children. And I'm getting a little money that way. She had on a pair of sneakers, running shoes, there we call them down here, these cannabis shoes, you know. And I said, those are nice shoes you've got, red and white, they were. She said, you know how much I paid for those? And I said, no, she said, I paid a hundred and eighty dollars for them. You can buy them in the tourist hotel where we go and make our purchases with American dollars. You can buy them for five ninety-five.
And the very same shoe, the exacted. And on the black market, this is what she has to pay. Now, in spite of that fact, she is one of the most excited and inspired and driven Christians that we have. She goes and lines up for three days in order to get reserved seats. You have to reserve them. It's the only way you can go to travel on a bus. to go down to the Havana area for as many as you want to go, for a conference. And she would just stand there hour by hour by hours for three days to get these tickets so that some of them can go down to attend a conference. There are so many things that a Christian doesn't need to be happy, especially to be happy in the Lord.
Lot says, I'll have that. And so he chooses the plane of Jordan. And he goes this way. And Abram says, you take the right hand, I'll go to the left. You take the left hand, I'll go to the right. And I leave the decision with you. And in the ultimate, it's left with God. Lot makes his choice. He goes his way. Abraham then takes what is left. And what happens? Well, you know what happens. It says here in verse fourteen, The Lord said unto Abram, After that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward and southward and eastward and westward. For all the land which thou seest to thee will I give it unto thy seed forever.
And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth. So that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it, for I will give it unto thee. And Abram removed his tent and came and dwelt in the place of the plain of Mamre. Now some translation of this word Mamre is from the vision. from the vision. God gives him a vision. He gives him a two-fold vision. He gives him a vision of himself, and he gives him a vision of the land. And the vision is this. You have left the choice with me. You did not choose the best for yourself.
You left it for a lot to take what he wanted. You left the choice with me. I will give you what my choice is for you. And he gave him the vision of the land. Do we experience or appreciate a vision of the land that God has given to us. The possession which is ours in Christ, and the material things drop off from us until we look full into the faith and person of our glorious Lord, which we are doing in the evening, Lord willing, and we see something of the great inheritance that God has given to us. Let us walk through the land, the length and the breadth of it, to the north and to the south of it. And he says, I will give it to you.
Reminds us of Joshua later on, doesn't it? Moses' servant and his follower. So that's the vision. Mamre means from the vision God is going to reward him for leaving the choice with him. Chapter fourteen you have the battle. Now that's a future battle. That's a prophetic battle, I should say, of the days that are coming. When the Melchizedek, the king of Salem and the priest of the Most High God, comes out in verse eighteen to meet Abram coming from the slaughter of of the kings. I suggest to you if you're interested and you want to know something about how our Lord is going to appear to Israel in the Melchizedek, in the character of being the Melchizedek high priest, you look at this valley, this battle here.
Because there's another battle going to take place shortly in the land of Israel. The consequent upon that battle and the outcome of that battle, Israel is going to discover who the Melchizedek high priest really is. So this is prophetic. And Melchizedek goes out to meet Abram and he blesses him as you have in verse nineteen and then the king of Sodom comes out and makes his offer to him and Abram refuses anything from the hands of the king of Sodom because he knows the possessor of heaven and earth you will not take us from a thread he says in verse twenty three chapter fourteen even to a shoe latch it now consequent upon that we have in chapter fifteen another vision of God to Abraham after these things Now that embraces the battle, the meeting with Melchizedek, the high priest, or the priest of the most high God.
That's a millennial title. And then the meeting of the temptation with the king of Sodom. After these three things, then what happens? The word of the Lord came unto Abram in the vision, saying, Fear not Abram, I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. The spoils of the victory were not Abrams. The spoils of the victory for Abram was God. He was to be his exceeding great reward. He would take nothing from the king of Sodom. He would take everything from the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth. Why should we live in poverty?
Why should we live in spiritual destitution? Why should we be down and discouraged and why should we feel we have nothing and are nothing? When the Lord is the portion of his people. he will be our shield shield from the temptations of the king of Sodom and our exceeding great reward when we lose nothing by choosing him so that's the vision in part of chapter fifteen then as a result of that we have the promise of an heir and that comes in verse four this will be God's subject with Abram from now on he's going to talk about the seed he's going to talk about the heir he said that he would verse five he brought him forth abroad and said look now toward heaven and tell the stars oh I recall noticing over in verse sixteen of chapter thirteen it was the dust of the earth his seed was going to be as the dust of the earth now God says look toward heaven or the heavens and tell the stars if I'll be able to number them that's the contrast between the dust of the earth and the stars of the heavens and he said unto him so shall thy seed be and then we have this famous statement repeated in the New Testament he believed in the Lord or in Jehovah, and he counted it to him
for righteousness. Now, God goes back to say, it was I in verse eight, verse seven rather, that brought thee out of her of the Chaldees. And I who brought thee out of her of the Chaldees now, not only will I give you this land, but I will give this land to your seed and to your posterity for ever and forever. Later on we have two expressions. I think it's in chapter seventeen, an everlasting possession and an everlasting covenant. My brethren, let us realize that what we have to invest in today is what we shall enjoy forever.
And that is Christ. In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. The fullness of the Godhead is in him. bodily and he has brought us out of idolatry and he has given us himself as our exceeding great reward as our possession an eternal possession I sometimes say mostly to the young folks I could say it to the older young folks I guess too that I am convinced through personal experience and otherwise that every Christian has the birthright of having a personal covenant relationship with God.
Now, I hope I will be able to consider with you some of these cases of some of the women and the circumstances under which they came into a covenant relationship with God. And I believe that the Lord deals with us not in the aggregate but in the individuality of our persons and our life. And God has an interest in being to us a very personal individual God. And revealing to us His covenant, His plans, His purpose for us now, individually. We'll see that later on in others, men as well as women, but I think for today we should understand that. Sometimes I believe that we diffuse our concept of what we have in Christ by spreading it out over the whole body of Christ and lose the individual relationship and character of what we have in Christ.
I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. I may apologize to you, modern folks, but I still like to be a thy person, a thy and a thee. The these and the thou, as you know. You know how I like it over the you. You see, you can't do this in Spanish. You can't say you as we say it in English and mean singular and plural at the same time. You can't do that. I like it because it singles us out individually. And some people have trouble with the these and the vows, but I guess I was raised in the these and the vows, and so the these and the vows are part of my makeup, and I can't change that. Not that I necessarily want to.
But I like the Ten Commandments because it says, thou, thou, thou, thou, thou, he can't pass that on in the aggregate to anybody. You can't give that to the whole nation. You can't give that to a whole congregation. You can't give it to an assembly. You can't give it to the family. It's thou shalt, no, individual. God nails us individually, doesn't he? I had a Jew came to see me. for a while back and he landed at my house with a big bible under his arm he said my four sons gave me this for christmas and i don't understand it and i said i know what's the problem he's not going to understand the these and the vows it was a king james version you know version and he uh he said i don't understand it and i was told that you could explain this to me and i said well tell me what is the problem what is it you don't understand he says i don't understand the spakes and the spokes Thou is a little bit of a development under these and the thou's.
God is to us our individual possession and reward. So we pray. May it please be our Father to bless our consideration of thyself and our glorious Lord, the one who has come to us individually and personally, who is our own. May thy blessing rest upon thy people in all our activities. Today we ask. As we commend us to these, his name. Amen.