Transcription

Matthew 19. We looked at this two weeks ago. We started um and we saw that there were three questions that were posed to Jesus. Two by the Pharisees, one by the disciples. We got halfway through the second question. Um and so we're going to work our way back through that text. Um you'll recall that the first question that we looked at was this question, is divorcing your spouse for any cause acceptable or should there be some restrictions on um what um what the cause for the divorce is? Then there was a follow-up question by the Pharisees based off of Jesus's response to the first question and they asked why did Moses allow for divorce? Um and then the third question that's going to be posed to Jesus is should we avoid marriage altogether because the standard is so strict that Jesus um gives. And you'll remember that in our discussion two weeks ago, we talked about the difference between the ideal that Jesus responded with when he was posed with the first question and then um the response to this question about Moses in Deuteronomy 24. He said Moses made some accommodations. And I'm going to walk through some of that material. again so that it's refreshed in your memory. But I want to put the text in front of you um just so that you again see exactly where we're at in Matthew 19. Starting in verse three, it says that some Pharisees approached him to test him and they asked him, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife on any grounds?" "Haven't you read," he replied, "that he who created them in the beginning made them male and female. And he also said, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God is joined together, let no one separate. Why then? They asked him, did Moses command us to give divorce papers and to send her away? He told them. Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of the hardness of your hearts, but it was not like that from the beginning. I tell you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery. His disciples said to him, if the relationship of a man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry. He responded, "Not everyone can accept this saying. but only those to whom it has been given. For there are Unix who were born that way from their mother's womb. There are Unix who were made by men and there are Unix who have been made made themselves that way because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who is able to accept it should accept it. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word and it's um that it speaks not to big the seems unrelated to us but gets into the nitty-gritty of our lives, marriage, relationships, singleness, um our sexuality. And Lord, as we are studying um your words, the words of Jesus, we ask that you would teach us how to be followers of you. We want to learn from you this morning and learn from this text. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. And that is our goal as we're going through the text, we're really listening to the teachings of Jesus with a desire to learn what does it mean for me to follow Jesus? What does it mean like like you know we talk about becoming a Christian and we we we use a lot of um or we place an emphasis on maybe praying a prayer or some pastor may say repeat this prayer after me and and it's said well you know that's the moment at which you became a Christian and that's well and good. There is a point where you need to decide. You need to make a personal decision on where you stand. Are you willing to be a follower of Jesus? But that's just the beginning. And and that beginning is called conversion where you convert from being in the kingdom of darkness and you're brought into the kingdom of light and you've accepted the work that Jesus has done on your behalf. half through the cross to put away your moral guilt. But but God doesn't just save you through his son Jesus so that you're changed from one kingdom to another kingdom, but he saves you so that your whole life is radically changed so that you know how to do a Monday morning and a Monday lunchtime and the workplace and neighborhoods and relationships and navigate your own personal health. uh with the victory of Jesus that he's purchased for you. And and God wants to get all into the nitty-gritty of your life as your friend, as your advocate, and lead you into those green pastures that Psalm 23 speaks of to lead you into a life of victory. And that's going to mean some changes occur, but it's all based on the goodness of God that God has a greater vision for your life than any anything you could ever dream up. And so on Sunday mornings as we're going through Matthew, we're we're here gathered like, "Wow, God, what's the next thing you have for us?" as we're developing this catalog of lessons of what does it mean to be a follower of Jesus? And so in these two parts here in Matthew 19, he's talking and responding to a question about divorce. And he's giving um a vision for marriage. And what we saw last time was that when Jesus is posed with a legal question about when can I get divorced, Jesus talks about marriage and the ideal. Again, what what Jesus is doing is he's taking his followers and he's pointing them back to the perfect before the fall. He's saying, "No, the the ideal is the state in Genesis 1 and two from your holy scriptures. And that is that's that place where what God has joined together. Let no man put us under. God's put you together as a husband and wife. Don't break it apart. And so Jesus, when given the opportunity to talk about marriage, he points us back to Genesis 1 and two, which is very important. It's really important because as we're trying to understand like what is this vision of the kingdom? If Jesus's standard is Genesis 1 and2 that informs us about a lot more than just marriage, it teaches us about work. That work came before the curse and that work is a part of our our uh process. It teaches us about our relationship with God. It teaches us about our identity. I mean, there's so much in Genesis 1 and 2. If Jesus uses that as the ideal then man we need to go and read it and read it and read it some more because that is what Jesus does with his with this crowd as he's helping them understand the kingdom that he's the king over and that we're now in and trying to follow him in. And so we got through that first question and we saw that he pointed them back literally to man God made them male and female and he says what you know and then um he gives the instruction from the end of Genesis 2 that um a man should leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and then he gives an application what God's joined together let no man put us under and so the Pharisees put to him this question well then why did Moses in Deuteronomy say that you can give a letter of divorce that you can end a marriage and um Jesus says, "Well, it's because of the hardness of your hearts." So again, here's the question uh from the Pharisees. And then um we have Deuteronomy 24, which we looked at last time, and I'm going to come back to that in just a second. And then he says this. Jesus says he told them, or Jesus told them, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because the hardness of your hearts. But it was not like that from the beginning. So Jesus acknowledges that this is scripture, but Jesus says, here's why Moses gave this accommodation. Um he says it's not the ideal, but it's a carve out because of the hardness of human hearts that the after Genesis 3, after humanity rebelled against God, the world became broken. in and we've got hearts that are messed up. And so Moses, as God is setting up this um societal law, he gives an accommodation for divorce. Now, we read that last week and there was some questions about this which I want to address uh for just a moment. You'll see here this is Moses writing to the nation of Israel. This is what Jesus and the Pharisees are referencing. If a man marries a woman but she becomes displeasing to him because finds something indecent about her, he may write her a divorce certificate, hand it to her, and send her away from uh his house. What's indecent? Yes. So, that's the next vers jelly sandwich, right? That's right. And so, we have these two. That's exactly right. So, we have these two different Jewish traditions. We have the um uh the school of uh Shemi and the school of Hel. And one school is very strict about this idea of indecent. And they're like, well, indecent should just be um adultery. That that that unfaithfulness to the marriage covenant breaks the covenant. They've unified. That spouse is created a new union with another party other than their spouse. And so the original covenant is been broken. And so the divorce just uh ratifies that act. that the spouse has done through adultery. But then you have the house of or the tradition of uh Hel I think is what it is. And um he would say he was very liberal in saying well look if you you know she burns the toast or makes the peanut butter and jelly sandwich bad then you can divorce her and you get rid of her. You're just unhappy you can end the divorce. Um which side does our culture what what happens in our culture which which which is the case? Adultery. The adultery side. Yeah, we definitely have adultery, but we got people that get divorced all the time, right? What do they call We call it irreconcilable differences, right? What adultery? Adultery. Yeah, that's what it means. Yeah. So, adultery is like Yeah. So, adultery is a long word. It is. It Well, I And I've I think what we're talking about is sex with somebody other than your partner. So adultery. Yeah, that is if you divorce women, you're adulter. Yeah. So that's in Mark. So that's to me it's ludicrous. Oh yes. Yeah. So that's why that's exact. I feel like we're stuck in the same place we were last time we talked on this. So yes. Okay. So in Mark in Mark it says so as you understand divorce divorce and remarage, both divorce and remarage. It's important to take all those different verses and put them together. So Mark does like they Mark as he talks and retells Jesus's teaching, he says, listen, if you get divorced and then remarried, um you've committed adultery. And so it's like, well, that seems like that seems real. Well, then you got to go back over to Matthew. Matthew 19. You go here. You go to um Romans. Go to Romans 7. There's other passages. So, and I'm going to show you 1 Corinthians 7, too. So, let me develop it. Let me develop it a little bit. The question though, I want to go back to the question that came up here because there was questions about how Deuteronomy is written in that um it says that this woman once she is divorced, if she goes and gets into another marriage um she um if after leaving his house, she goes and becomes um another man's wife. So, she gets remarried. And the second man hates her. She's got problems here. Her and gives her a divorce certificate. So, she's on the second divorce. Hands it to her and sends her away from his house if he dies. That the first husband who sent her away may not marry her again after she has been defiled. Right? Remember this? So, we had this question. What does that mean? That she's defiled through this process. So, can I just have a a minute to answer that question. The defilement is not about the mor the woman's moral filth. The Hebrew word is te. It's used for ritual or legal impurity, not necessarily spiritual guilt. So, she's not defiled um in a sin way, but there is this series of covenants that she's been in that have been cancelled. The defilement here refers to the fact that after the second marriage returning to the first husband would be a violation of God's order for marriage and would be considered an abomination which is a strong word. So why why does he say this first? It's to protect the woman from being uh from being mistreated. It it's trying to keep her treated properly. In ancient Israel, men could easily dismiss their wives and then potentially reclaim claim them at will. So this this law makes it so that this woman is not jerked around back and forth. She's not divorced, sent away. She and and society marriage was a safe a primary safety net for women, right? It was not an option to be single. Like it was a shame culturally and then it was uh dangerous to be single because you had no way no so safety net to like take care of you. And so um what is happening here is uh it because the re way it reads it looks like something negative is happening to the woman. This is actually structurally protecting the woman so she's not being put out and then brought back and put out and brought back. It's making it um well the second reason why is to prevent musical chairs with marriage. You know you ever play musical chairs? Yeah. So, it's all what use the word defiled at all? Well, yeah, I I I know I know you have a problem with that. It is you got to go you got to take you got to get out of like American word defile. You you do your your translate. You learn Hebrew and you you give me a better word. Let me give you the second reason why. The second reason is to prevent musical chairs with marriage. The passage is less about divorce itself and more about prohibiting a cycle where the woman could be repeatedly divorced and reclaimed which would undermine the seriousness and the um sanctity of marriage. And the third reason the third reason is that it would discourage rash divorce by making remarage to the original husband impossible. The law would make men think twice before divor divorcing their wives in the first place cuz again if it's only the man that can divor get divorced he's making a calculation like I'm not happy she burnt the toast I'm going to put her away well he's got to really think like is this my best is this my best option right he's no what what did I hear I heard somebody said something okay what about I mean the woman Okay, hold that question. We're getting there. That's a good question. Last last little piece. La last little piece here. We're going to get through Deuteronomy 24. Not Okay. Why is the woman called defiled? Right. Is there more? Does anybody beyond Felicia have that question or Okay, good. Okay, I have one other person. It's not because she sinned, but because of the changed marital status. The defilement is is a legal condition. It's a reference to her legal standing after a second marriage. The original marital bond is considered permanently broken. To return would be to treat the marriage as a casual contract, not a sacred covenant. Okay? It's about the integrity of marriage, not personal shame. The law is designed to uphold the seriousness of marriage vows. and to prevent exploitation, not to shame the woman. Okay, I know you may not like the word. That's fine. I kind of don't like the word either, but it is referencing law, not moral code. Okay, so that is the that's the Now, y'all are Hebrew experts in in um Hebrew social code. Jesus is referencing this the uh Did you say no? the the the Pharisees the Pharisees are referencing this like why so let's talk about this for a second because this is this I rushed through this at the end last time these are these are some of these carveouts these accommodations so again God gives the ideal in Genesis 1 and two but then we see the um accommodations as we go through scripture we brought this up some of you brought this up I think we had um who was Mustafa was with us last time I taught this, right? He was talking about in Islam how you can have four wives as long as you treat them well. And then we see David like had seven wives at least. Yes. He said as long as you can afford as long as you can afford them. Yes. So polygamy. Why do we have polygamy? This is one of those areas where you have the multiple wives among patriarchs and kings. God regulated it. If we went to other parts in um uh Deuteronomy or in Leviticus and Numbers, we would see some some regulations, not prohibitions against polygamy. Why? Well, it's because it's God is regulating it rather than immediately prohibiting the practice. The ideal is one man, one woman as established in Genesis 2:24. So God somehow in his economy, what he's doing is he's saying, "Look, I'm going to accommodate the brokenness of this. But then Jesus as he's teaching, he's giving the ideal. This is the target. So if you look at history and the abolition of slavery, it originates out of a a a Judeo-Christian ethic where people are understanding the dignity of human life and they're growing in their understanding of just theology and what's happening. It's untenable to keep a slave, right? Th this so the idea of somebody having their freedom restricted becomes so untenable that it's like this cannot stand within society. So if even people who are not Christians have um are acknowledging um the the value of an individual life and saying making a moral decision this is incorrect and so society is kind of catching up to God's ideal. Another carve out or accommodation is slavery, which I mentioned again that we have Old Testament regulations to protect slaves rather than immediate abolition. But the ideal is human dignity and equality as image bearers of God. And then the monarchy was another one um with the Israel demanded to have a king. God grants the request while warning of its consequences. But the ideal is that God would directly rule as their king. The way in which the law was written was for it honored this autonomy, this this self-governance that you're going to just follow this social code that God gave to the nation of Israel through Moses and that um people are just going to do the right thing in society and there's not a need for a king. We'll just have the priesthood. We'll worship God and but God did give this carve out this accommodation and he gave warnings with it. There's one other one here which is food laws and dietary restrictions. I'm going to move on past that to verse 9. I tell you, whoever divorces his wife, so Jesus is continuing his teaching through Matthew 19, congratulations, we made it to verse 9. I tell you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery. Right. So, this is where it's confusing. Yeah. Okay. And and I I agree this is part is confusing. What Jesus is doing is he's saying the what's the ideal? You tell me. We've had a lot of discussion so far this morning. What's the ideal? Stay married. You get married. You stay married. Right. Okay. You stay committed. That's the ideal. What God's joined together. Let no man put us under. Yes. Okay. But and he's saying you You're bringing to me this question about the grounds for divorce. Moses talked about it. So Jesus is saying whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality. So he's giving the carve out, right? The accommodation is like well a marriage can be ended in the case of infidelity, adultery. And then in that scenario, if there's, let's say you just go get divorced and then you marry somebody else, then you're committing adultery. What is Jesus doing? He's saying that original marriage, that original covenant is sacred. Okay? It is sacred. If you're just divorcing and you didn't have grounds to get divorced and you got remarried, then you're engaged in adultery. Now, we may have people in this case in our church a second time adulterous any way you look at it. Say it again. Say it again. This is It's okay for us to have the discussion because this is one of the things about Jesus's like um kingdom especially around this is like this is real life. Like we either got people married in here, want to be married, or we got people that are single. So I'm totally fine with get being messy in this setting and just talking it through and um so feel free to shout out your questions. So your question Felicia is why get married again or why is it why is it either way? Why marry anybody again? single do. So, so you're saying the person who gets divorced is going to hook up. What's the benefits of marriage? Be adulterous either way. What's the benefit? That is a very cynical view of marriage. I think the ideal that Jesus is like, "Hey, if you're a follower of me, you're going to get married. You're going to be faithful." Right? Again, so why are you an adulterous, right? You're married to the woman you were having sex with, right? You're married to the person you have. That's right. Let's say that person is unfaithful to you. Right? And they commit adultery, then Jesus is saying, "You have grounds to be divorced." And if you get remarried after that that divorce, you are not committing adultery. You had legal grounds to get divorced. Yes. Is that adultery, too? If you go and get remarried, only sexual immorality is considered adultery. No. I'm going to give you No. Remember we talked about this two weeks ago. I gave you two others. You remember the two other grounds for divorce besides adultery? Abandonment. That's right. Abandonment. What else? Abu Abuse. Abuse. Yes. So we have children is not grounds. What? No. Children. That is not grounds. No. No. So again Good, good questions. But what's the ideal? What's the ideal? Marry somebody and stay married. And what is Jesus doing here? So, this is not the only thing Jesus taught about marriage. There's other teachings on marriage by Jesus that's recorded in Luke and in Mark. I'm not going there this morning. I'm just giving you what we have in Matthew. The important thing for us, so again, who who are the Pharisees. When when we read verse three, what does it say that the Pharisees did? The Pharisees came to Jesus because they were desperate for an answer. No. What did they come to Jesus to do? To test him. To trick him. That's right. Right. So, as followers of Jesus, are we just trying to test Jesus on the limits or we are like, Jesus, teach us the ideal. Right. Know the ide. Yes. So, real life happens. Okay. You may end up in a marriage. Let's take like let's take the scenario already. You've been in a marriage that was difficult, but you don't you didn't have the three those three grounds. You didn't have adultery in your scenario. You didn't have abuse and you didn't have abandonment. Okay, let's say that you but you ended up divorced. Okay, what is the Bible teaching? That is what Jesus is teaching here. Yes. Okay. But what if what if that happened before you were a follower of Jesus and you got re and you got remarried. I'm just giving you the difficulty of this is p this is what pastoring is like. You get all these different scenarios of people are like look I just I already divorced the person you know I it already ended. What? Yes. My question is talk loud so everybody can hear. My question is It says about the man divorcing the woman. Okay. Yeah, that was Devon's or that was Mary's question too. Okay. So, in this culture when Jesus is talk, he's talking to a Jewish audience, their law was that only the man could issue the uh certificate of divorce. But Roman society, which they're inside of, either the man could divorce the woman or the woman could divorce the man. It could go both ways. Does that answer your question? So, if the woman divorces the adultery in that relationship. Yes. Then the woman can get remarried again. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Can I show you? Um let me see where we're at. Okay. We've got six minutes. We're doing pretty good, but we haven't talked about singleness yet. Um okay, let me let me show you. Can we do go to Psalms real quick? Because we looked at this verse. I feel like I feel like How about this? I have a YouTuber named is it Mike Winger? Is that his name? I can send you a video from Mike Winger that's a three and a half hour long YouTube going through every verse about divorce and remarage in the Bible where he he does the whole thing three and a half hours different ways that inter because like some of you come from a Catholic background and they believe in in in Catholicism that first person you marry you're married married through the rest of your life, there's no grounds for divorce. You've got some Christians that look at like this verse and they're like, "Yeah, if you have one marriage that ends, you can never be remarried." So, there's a lot of different like there's a bunch of different verses you got to patch together to understand this. Yes, Mary. I'm You can did not convert to me. Yes, I understand that. You're right. That is true. Okay. There is a lot of different the the reason I I think the video would be helpful for those of you that want to do a deep dive. I'll put it up. I'll send it out by email or something like that if you want to go through it because it's a good resource and I agree with his conclusion. He has 11 points. Okay. Let's go to I want to show you something though because here's the thing. We're not going to clear up all all the questions or the scenarios this morning. Okay. But what I want what we cannot miss is the the Jesus pointing his followers to the ideal like when it when the question comes up he's like look at Genesis 1 and 2. If you don't get anything else out of this morning that's I think the core of what Jesus is trying to teach. What did how did God design marriage? Let's aim for that. Let's try to honor that instead of being legal and trying to like look for the loopholes or whatnot, right? Let me read to you. Let me hold on that that question. Let me read to you Psalm 15 1-4. Lord, who can dwell in your tent? Who can live in your holy mountain? That's the question. Who can be in the presence of God? So the psalmist David when he writes this, he's like, who does God accept into his presence? What does their life look like? So he begins to name off some of the qualities of that kind of person. The one who lives blamelessly, practices righteousness, acknowledges the truth in their heart, they're honest with themselves, right? That's the qualities that God values. But he goes on, the person who does not slander with his tongue, in other words, going around and lying about other people's character in their sphere of influence. God doesn't like that, right? That person doesn't belong in the presence. He doesn't get to enjoy the presence of God is what David's saying. Who does not harm his friend or discredit his neighbor. So here David is saying look it the one who enjoys the presence of God is welcomed in is this person who's behaving themselves in society. Do you see that? I love that part about who God is. But this is the verse. This is really the gold. Who despises the one rejected by the Lord but honors those who fear the Lord. Right? So there's a you're calling what is evil evil, right? So you're literally despising the one who rejects the Lord. Now that means that you're like not trying to be their best friend, but you're wishing for them to know Jesus, right? That's the Old Testament language around enemies and friends. But this is the this is the part this is the other part I want you to see. Who keeps his word whatever the cost. And if you have a King James version, it says swears to his own hurt. You see, a person who is a Christian, a follower of Jesus, is somebody who when they talk, they keep their word. A person that's welcome in the presence of God is somebody who keeps his word, whatever it costs. You see, the disciples hear Jesus teaching and saying marriage is like a covenant. There's only a slim selection of ways that you can end a marriage legally in the kingdom of heaven. And they're like, "This is a tough thing to receive. Maybe it's better not to even get married." The reason why they say that, the reason why they say that is because in their culture, they had arranged marriages. It was culturally unacceptable to be one- on-one in private with your future spouse until after you're married. So, the disciples are hearing this about marriage that you can't get out of it unless your spouse is unfaithful or there's abuse or abandonment. And they're like, "Well, shoot, that's like a high bar. Maybe it's better not to even get married." And Jesus's response to that is then that's that third question. They say, "Maybe it's better not to marry." And Jesus responds by saying not everyone can accept this saying but only those to whom it is given. There are two possible things that Jesus is referring to and nobody that I read in preparation for this message like could like concretely say this. Okay, the Jesus is saying look the bar I'm setting for marriage commitment is hard and it's only for those who can receive it. Or he could be saying singleness is is hard and it's only for those who can receive it. It could be going either way. He goes on and he says and he substantiates this statement and he says for there are Unix who were born that way from their mother's womb. So um no sexual desire um for whatever reason not interested in being married because of their biology from birth. Right? So they're a unic from birth. Then there's a second group that are made unix or they're castrated which was a common practice in this time because you would have men who would be like caring for the king's harum or something like that and you wouldn't want them to have any sexual desire in that role. So you have men made um who are made by men unix made by men and there are Unix who have made themselves that way because of the kingdom of heaven. There are people who decide to remain single because of or for the sake of the kingdom. Those are the three reasons Jesus says that there is singleness. The one is who is able to accept it should accept it. Jesus is um again he could be saying accept this idea of singleness if that's your calling by God or he could be saying accept the high bar of marriage if you decide to get married. But the body because the at the end of the day, you don't have to go get married, right? You just need to know if you're a follower of Jesus and you do decide to get married, Jesus is teaching you that your way out of that marriage is very, very limited to a few select instances. You need to be like Psalm 15:4, where you've sworn to your own hurt or you keep your word no matter the cost. And I've I've I've said this to you in this setting before. Marriage is hard. It's the fire. It brings to the surface your selfishness. It brings to the surface your own personal desires. It's this incredible furnace that really can refine who you are and accomplish God's purpose in your life. But that can be a miserable process. And at the end of the day, you may be married to somebody who is very difficult, but they are not abandoning you. They're not committing adultery and they're not abusing you. And if you're a follower of Jesus, it says you need to stick it out. You need to obey and believe what Jesus is saying that God's ideal is the best. When we decide to be a follower of Jesus, one of the things that we're saying is, I'm going to follow God and I'm letting him lead me in my life and I'm not going to make those decisions. just willy-nilly on how I feel. That's called surrendering your life to the authority, the king. Because this is the thing in our culture, we got lots of people who love what Jesus talks about, feed the poor, you know, be kind to your neighbor, but it's just like, yeah, I want the I want the society that the kingdom talks about, but man, I don't want Jesus to be the king in my life. But no, if you're a follower of Jesus, what you are saying is, I'm ready to follow these hard instructions. They may be hard for you, but I'm ready to follow him. Okay, here's what we have not covered. We haven't looked at 1 Corinthians 7. We're out of time. We haven't looked at 1 Corinthians 7. We haven't looked at Romans chapter 7. And we haven't looked at First Timothy 5. All three of those passages are so critical in this whole arena. Maybe we'll come back to it in a in a few weeks. In a few weeks, especially 1 Corinthians 7. There's that's been a passage I've loved for the last couple of years and I'd love to cover that. But we got to stop there. Lord, thank you Jesus so much for letting us sit in this setting and wrestle with your words. You're not freaked out by us asking these questions about Deuteronomy 24 or, you know, feeling uncomfortable or feeling like, man, this is tough. You you meant for it to be provocative and tough because you care for people. You care about families. You care about women just being thrown away like garbage. You care about people's lives. And and you have set this standard in Genesis 1 and two. And and you're not ready to just let people's lives be wrecked at the whim of somebody else. So, thank you, God, for giving structure. Thank you for giving these laws, these um these clear boundaries that shouldn't be crossed. We pray God in our own lives that you would help us to be following hard after you and to honor honor you and what you teach. Bless each person here this week as they with sincerity go into their week stepping in how can I honor you? And I pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.