Dennis Tuuri

# John 10 – Reformation Covenant Church

John 10 beginning at verse 22. Now it was the feast of dedication in Jerusalem and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch. Then the Jews surrounded him and said to him, “How long do you keep us in doubt? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me. But you do not believe because you are not of my sheep.

As I said to you, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. Neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one. Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, “Many good works I have shown you from my Father, for which of these works do you stone me?” The Jews answered him, saying, “For a good work we do not stone you, but for blasphemy, and because you being a man, make yourself God.” Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, I said you are gods?

If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken, do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, you are blaspheming because I said, I am the Son of God. If I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me. But if I do, though you do not believe me, believe the works that you may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in him.” Therefore, they sought again to seize him.

But he escaped out of their hand, and he went away again beyond the Jordan to the place where John was baptizing at first, and there he stayed. Then many came to him and said, “John performed no sign, but all the things that John spoke about this man were true and many believed in him there.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your text and scripture. We thank you, Lord God, that you speak to us through this text and particularly through the proclamation of it as it is faithful to your word. I pray, Father, for myself that you would have me teach just those things and preach those things that are of your word in accordance with it that your congregation may be built up and matured by the work of your Holy Spirit. Thank you, Father, for our time that we can come together to hear your voice speaking through the scriptures to us. May we, Father, hear that voice, be transformed, and follow Jesus with ever more belief and faith in this place that you have set us. In his name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

This is really the second half of what is correctly put together as one chapter 10. This last half we’ll see relates back to the good shepherd discourse that we’ve seen in the first half of chapter 10 but it’s clearly marked off separate as well by this reference to a time reference to the feast of dedication in verse 22. It was then the feast of dedication, Jerusalem. It was winter.

So now we see this is separate really than what has just happened in chapter 10 and yet united to it. And just a few notes of explanation first in terms of the setting. The feast of dedication was a feast that was begun nearly 200 years before the coming of our Savior. You’ll remember that Antiochus Epiphanes had the Israeli nation, the Jews under dominion as a foreign ruler. Antiochus took control of the temple and in around 197 BC desecrated the temple that had been rebuilt by setting up worship to Zeus in the temple that was designed for the worship of Yahweh.

So this led to other things which led to the Maccabean revolt against Antiochus’s foreign domination and Judas Maccabee and other Maccabees revolted against Antiochus successfully, very courageous bold actions that are recorded in the intertestamental book of 1 Maccabees and other historic accounts of the time tell us what happened. So after they kicked Antiochus out and successfully revolted and restored their own control to the temple in about 194 BC they reconsecrated the temple.

It had become defiled through Antiochus’s offerings to Zeus in the context of the temple. You know, it’s sort of like Antiochus, like all world emperors or many of them, they want everybody to be respected and so Judaism was okay in as long as it was part of a pantheon of gods. Kind of like the national prayer service we had last year. Christianity is one voice among many. And so we had this kind of worship going on in the temple which caused desecration.

So after the Maccabees kicked them out, then they dedicated the temple anew, cleansed it. And so then they had a feast in 194 BC and it was the feast of dedication. Dedication means like the reconsecration of the temple that was defiled. They sanctified it again. They cleaned it up. They went through the requirements of the law in terms of how to sanctify the temple once it had become unclean. And then in 194 BC began offerings again on the burnt offering.

This is the festival that’s commonly called Hanukkah. It happens around the same time as Christmas. It’s also called festival of lights. Supposedly, there was a miracle where they had to have lamp oil and the lamp in the temple that they only had enough oil for one day and it lasted eight. So, there’s this kind of legend that there was this myth where God maintained the oil and the lamp. And this also was accompanied by the lighting of a lampstand with eight different lamps on it.

Different traditions say different things. Originally, the idea was that this was an eight day festival that the Jews would observe. And the first day you’d light all eight. You could light these lampstands in your home. You didn’t have to gather together. You’d light eight of them. The next day you’d blow out one down to seven. At the end of eight days, all lights would be blown out. Other rabbis said, “No, you can do it the other way. Start with one, go to two, go to three.” Kind of like an advent deal leading up to all eight. But the idea is light. It was a festival of light.

And so here in the context of this entire section of John’s gospel dealing with Jesus as the light of the world, here we have an explicit reference to not a biblical festival, an extrabiblical festival, but still dedicated or consecrating the temple. And the picture of that is shown in the temple lights that were restored.

So that’s what was going on. Now the other important thing to understand what was going on is that the Maccabees did not initiate the correct priesthood. They had their own guys. They had their own relatives. They wanted to be head of the priestly order. And so it wasn’t really something that we would want to celebrate. And we’ll talk more about that at the end of this sermon how it’s related here to the coming of Jesus here at this particular time in John chapter 10.

But that’s what’s going on. It was this feast of dedication, Hanukkah, festival of lights, wintertime, about the same time as Christmas. And it was kind of one of those joyous things celebrating the defeat at least by way of illustration of pagan oppressors to God’s people.

Now, I’ll get back to that at the end of this talk, but first I want to talk a little bit about the unity and diversity of this text.

So, we’re now in Roman numeral I on your outline. Unity and diversity of John 10:1-21 and 22-42. Now, I’ve got “I and my Father are one.” We have this text here where Jesus says that he and his Father are one. This indicates unity and diversity and is one of the proof texts normally used for talking about the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. He says this in verse 30 of the text. I and my Father are one. And the immediate implication of that is not making a statement about the essence of the Son and the Father in its first immediate application.

Rather, it’s talking about the unity of action of Father and Son. Okay? I and my Father are one. We do the same thing. The works that I do are my Father’s works. So it’s talking about a unity of action. But clearly implied in that, what the Jews saw, was an underlying unity of essence that Christ was asserting to himself and the Father as well. So he says that I and my Father not am one but are one.

Are is plural. So there’s both diversity. The Son and the Father are separate but there’s also unity. They are one God. Three persons one God. So this unity and diversity.

And the text itself in chapter 10 has this unity to it. It’s all talking about the good shepherd. Jesus says this in the context of reminding them that they don’t hear him. He’s clearly told them he is Messiah. They don’t hear the voice because they’re not of his sheep. His sheep do hear his voice. So he picks up whether it’s a separate time or not. It’s certainly separated textually by this reference to the feast of dedication, but he picks up the same theme we have just been considering in the first half of the chapter. Jesus as the good shepherd.

So there’s a unity of subject matter that Jesus is the good shepherd. But there is also diversity here because we have this feast of dedication described. And then at the end of this section, we have as the other bracket for this discussion that happens through verses 22-42. At the end of this section, Jesus goes back beyond the Jordan where John had baptized at the first. And this reminds us again of the discussion in the early chapters of John’s gospel, chapter one, where Jesus is baptizing beyond the Jordan. The picture of being outside of the land, coming back across the Jordan later on.

So our Savior goes outside of the land so to speak the other side of the Jordan to be with John where he is baptizing. So we have these bookmarks that take this second section and make it unique although it is related. So there’s unity and diversity in the very text itself.

Now the second thing I want to point out about this text is to say that we can take this whole chapter as a whole then and if we take John chapter 10 as a unity as a whole discussion. If we look at it all together, it asserts the basics of Reformed soteriology. I cannot move on. I want to move on from chapter 10 today. I want to move on in a couple of weeks to get to chapter 11. But I can’t move past chapter 10 without pointing out some rather obvious assertions here that really can be used to remind ourselves where we can go in the scriptures to see the basics of the Reformed faith asserting the sovereignty of God in terms of our salvation.

Soteriology means our salvation. Soter is savior. So, you know, God’s saving of his people is a result of his sovereign actions and the Reformation articulated these five points of Calvinism. And we can see reflected in this particular chapter of John’s gospel these various aspects of what we’ve come to know be known as Reformed soteriology.

First, unconditional election. Verse 26, Jesus says, “You don’t believe because you are not of my sheep.” As I said to you, okay. So the Jewish leaders here, the reason why they don’t believe is not because Jesus hasn’t said over and over again who he is. But the fact is that the Father has not given these particular people to Jesus as sheep. They have not been elected by God or chosen by God to have their ears unplugged. You know, remember that the blind man is the picture of this as well. All this is building off of the healing of the blind man in chapter nine.

And the blind man, you know, Jesus said at the end of that, everybody’s blind, right? It’s only people that think they’re not blind that remain in their sins. So, everybody is blind. We’re all deaf. Nobody can hear the voice of Jesus apart from the Father giving certain ones that he has chosen of his own for his own purposes and glory to Jesus. And those that the Father gives to Jesus unconditionally electing them, choosing them not on the basis of anything in their well in terms of who they are, but rather just on the basis of his sovereign free choice.

Those are the ones who hear the voice of the shepherd. John 6 Jesus said in verses 36 and 37, “All that the Father gives me will come to me. The one who comes to me I will by no means cast out. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” So here in John 10, Jesus says there’s certain ones the Father has given to me. And in John 6, it says that only the ones that are drawn by the Father are those who will be given to Christ. Drawn is that idea of being pulled almost against one’s will by the Father in heaven.

So here we have the clear indication that you’re here today hearing the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not because you’re better than somebody else, not because you were more willing or more receptive to the voice of Jesus. No, the reason why you heard the voice of Jesus and responded is because God set his love upon you from before eternity. He chose you unconditionally with no, you know, precognition of what you would do. You know, he didn’t look down the annals of time and say, “Oh, I know that this person will choose for me and therefore I choose him.” No, we choose for Jesus because God chose us first. And that’s portrayed for us here in these sheep who hear the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is connected to the second great truth of the Reformation, total depravity, that all men are in every aspect of their being twisted by the results of sin. They intellectually cannot comprehend that Jesus has told them that he is the Messiah. I mean, I’ve told you I’ve told you many times by the words, I’ve told you many times by the signs of the works that I did. Why can’t they understand it? Because they’re blind even their intellect is depraved.

And it’s so depraved that when he tells them again that indeed he is Messiah, well, then they want to kill him. So there the depravity of man is pictured in this account in John chapter 10. And again, building off the blindness of the blind man, the only reason he gets sight is from the sovereign election of Jesus Christ. Why did God cause you to see the eternal truths of the Lord Jesus Christ? How did you get your ears unplugged?

For what reason did all these things happen? Jesus reminded us way back at the beginning of chapter nine, “These things are given for the glory of God.” It is the glory of God to take someone that has no ability in and of themselves to choose for the Lord Jesus Christ. You and I are completely deaf, completely blind, completely unable of ourselves to come to salvation in Christ. So that when we do receive sight, when we do hear the voice of the shepherd and follow him, all glory, praise, and honor is to give unto the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

It’s so that we might not boast of our works, our ability to make a decision. You see, ultimately our antinomianism builds pride in the people who think that somehow there was something better about them. Everybody had the same chance to believe in Jesus, but I mustered up enough will to do it. You say, “No, we would say that is absolutely false. The only reason we’re here today is because of the sovereignty of God choosing us unconditionally. Apart from his sovereign election, we in our total depravity will not respond to the voice of Jesus. It’s his enabling that does that.”

Third, we can see irresistible grace here as well. In verse 3, Jesus said to him, “The doorkeeper opens.” The sheep hear his voice. The voice of Jesus speaking to undersherds. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. All of the sheep are led out irresistibly called by the undershepherds and they follow. How can they believe if they haven’t heard Jesus? They hear Jesus through the proclamation of the word and they follow irresistibly. Verse 4, when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them and the sheep follow him. They know his voice. Verse 16, “Other sheep I have out of this fold, them also I must bring and they will hear my voice.” They’ll hear his voice and as a result they’ll follow into the fold of the shepherd.

In verse 27, my sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. You see the irresistible grace of the shepherd’s voice. All the sheep who have their ears open unconditionally, sovereignly by God then follow the Lord Jesus Christ irresistibly with his grace. Fourth, the perseverance of the saints in verses 28-30: “I give them eternal life. They shall never perish, neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one.”

Perseverance of the saints. God preserves us. God is most sovereign and most powerful. And no one can take the sheep of the Lord Jesus Christ out of the hand of the Father. And no one can take you dearly beloved out of the hand of the Son. You see they’re both put here. This is the economic this is the functional work of the Father and Son that leads to this statement of the unity of Jesus God the Son and God the Father. My Father is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand. And he has just said neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. I and my Father are one.

It’s good to use this text to talk to people about the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s perfectly proper. Clearly, the Jews immediately saying he was blaspheming God and him not contradicting that. Clearly, they understood that there was a unity of essence here that Jesus was asserting. But, but understand that this text is not given first and foremost as an apologetic for the Trinity or for the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. This text, this unity of the Father and Son is given first and foremost for you to have set solidly in the midst of your being the eternal security of those who rest in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

You, dearly beloved, you may be tempted to unbelief. You may struggle with unbelief. You may look at what events have happened in your life this past week and just feel like you’re going to fall apart and feel like you’re going to fail utterly. You may think that there’s no way that the children that God has marked at baptism are going to stand firm in the Lord Jesus Christ. But God has this double picture given to you today. You’re here today because you heard the voice of the shepherd. And while you may struggle with many great things, many difficult things going on in your life, God would have you to understand that you are in the hand of the Lord Jesus Christ. And no one can snatch you out of the hand of Jesus Christ.

More than that, this hand of Jesus—Jesus says, you’re also in the hand. It’s a double wrapping here. The hand of the Son and the hand of the Father. No one is as powerful as the Father, and no one can take you out of the Father’s hand either. I and the Father are one. Our action is united and that action is specifically the preservation of those sheep of Jesus Christ who heard his voice sovereignly because of his glory irresistibly were drawn to salvation. Those shall indeed be preserved in grace to the end of their lives. They shall indeed be held by the perseverance of the Lord Jesus Christ, by the strength of the Father. They shall indeed persevere in true faith to him.

Tremendous statement of assurance here to souls that may doubt. Some people come to church every week and they wonder if they’re good enough to take the Lord’s table. They wonder. Their conscience convicts them. Jesus says, “May your conscience be put to rest. I have brought you. You hear my voice. You’re following me in obedience and you’re to be assured of our preservation of you.” And so these great Reformed truths that give us both a sense of humility before God. He chose us, not we him. A sense of the irresistibility of his grace, but also a sense then of the assurance of his love for us and our preservation to eternal destiny. These things are all wrapped together in this great chapter on the shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ.

You know, you can sort of look at verse 25 where Jesus says, “I told you don’t believe me. The works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness to me. You don’t believe because you’re not of my sheep. Unconditional election. I choose some I didn’t choose others. You can’t hear me because I didn’t choose you. The Father didn’t give you to me. You’re not my sheep. Unconditional election. Verse 27, he goes on to say, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them. They follow me.” The sheep will respond. Irresistible grace.” Verse 28, “I gave them eternal life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand.” Perseverance of the saints in the context of following the Lord Jesus Christ.

And as these verses click off these great Reformed truths, the sovereignty of God. The basis is given in verses 25-29. The unity of Father and Son. I and my Father are one.

So great Reformed truths of covenantal soteriology based upon the sovereignty of God and even limited atonement. Chapter 10 verse 11. Yeah. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. Verse 15. The Father knows me even so I know the Father. And I laid down my life for the sheep. So who does Jesus die for? I laid down my life. Talking about his death, his pending, his coming death and resurrection.

And the specific recipient of this death, the purpose of this death, he gives his life for a specific purpose. Not for the sheep and the non-sheep, not for the sheep and the goats, but he says twice in verses 11 and 15 that he gives his life for the sheep. He gives his life for the sheep. Limited atonement is that doctrine coming out of the Reformation that says that the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ is limited not in its efficacy.

The work of the Lord Jesus Christ is priceless beyond compare in terms of his death on the cross for sinners. Not limited in what it in terms of its beauty or its power or its ability, but rather limited in its purpose. The purpose of the Lord Jesus Christ in going to the cross and dying was to give his life a ransom for the sheep, not for the goats. If he gave his life as a ransom for the goats, then why does God’s wrath still abide upon them?

If the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, which means a death that propitiates God’s anger and makes God now at one with those that have made atonement for. If it was for the whole world, then God is at peace now with all the world. But we know that is emphatically not the case. We know that Jesus has been pronouncing judgment upon judgment upon the Pharisees here for instance. So we know that’s not true.

The only way you can get around that if you want unlimited atonement is to change the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross to something other than a real and effectual atonement for sins. It becomes now in some theologies a horrible monstrosity a potential atonement for the sins of some people. A potential atonement made effectual by your decision. You see, but no, we say that the scriptures say that the Lord Jesus Christ not made a potential or a picture of atonement or a picture illustrating some truths about atonement on the cross.

He made a full and final atonement for the sins of his sheep on that cross. That’s what we rest in. That’s what is the assurance of our salvation. People like Charles Finney got to the place where they didn’t even think there was an actual atonement at all affected 2,000 years ago, but simply a demonstration, a picture of the wrath of God on sin. Horrible notion of what happened at the cross 2,000 years ago.

We know that Jesus died making a full and final atonement for his sheep on the cross 2,000 years ago.

So, we have these great Reformed truths asserting the sovereignty of God. Then, it is interesting, is it not, beloved, that we have a chapter, the whole picture of which is this wondrous care of the shepherd for his sheep. All set in the context of chapter nine where a sheep of the Lord Jesus Christ has suffered the slings and arrows of abuse of the Jewish church been kicked out of the synagogue.

All of this is set then in the context of comfort. Comforting the sheep of Jesus certainly chastising those who reject him. But you know chapter 10 is one of the great places that people turn to be comforted with the picture of the great shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ, and his love for us, his sheep. This is where we turn for comfort. And it’s a comfort, you see, that is tied intimately to these great Reformed truths of Calvinistic soteriology, an emphasis of the sovereignty of God on our salvation.

You know, it’s really interesting. I said this several a month or two ago when we read the cannons of Dort—such in many ways a pastoral document. And yet we think of these truths as somehow some kind of dry dust reformed doctrine that we bring out, you know, October 31st every year. But you see Jesus says this is the basis for our comfort is the sovereign great shepherd who cares for his people. That’s the beauty of this chapter.

Roman numeral three on your outline, taken as a unity. This chapter John chapter 10 asserts the basic truth of the gospel. Jesus is God. We see that clearly portrayed in this understanding of Jesus’s relationship to the Father. The unity is there. Jesus is God. He died for his sheep. He lays down his life for the sheep. He gives them resurrection, abundant life. He does this. He says he came that we might have life and that more abundantly.

And that includes, as we understand, a little fuller understanding of the shepherds of the Old Testament. This abundant life includes the defeat of our enemies interior and exterior. It means that our sins are progressively dealt with by this great shepherd who defeats our enemies, our own enemies of our sin, and the external enemies to the church are also conquered by the great shepherd as well as this man who was kicked out of the church. Recognize that the Lord Jesus Christ was in the process of defeating those enemies as well.

The great truths of the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ and his salvation of us is found all wrapped together in this beautiful chapter articulating the truths of the great shepherd. I and my Father are one, Jesus and the Father of a unity here. And he says that if I do that you do not believe me believe the works. You may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in him. This unity of the Father and the Son are the basis for the great pastoral work that’s described in this chapter.

He is the great, the excellent, the good shepherd giving his life for the sheep. And if he gives his life, he takes it up again so that he might give abundant life to his sheep. My Father loves me, he said, because I laid down my life. The Father loves the Lord Jesus Christ with a particular emphasis because Jesus laid down his life for you, dear ones, for each of you individually and for the bride of Christ corporately.

He lays down his life that he might take it again. No one takes it from me, he said, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down. I have power to take it again. This command I have received from the Father. The thief comes to steal and to destroy and do awful things. But Jesus Christ comes as our great shepherd for the purpose of giving us life that most abundantly.

What a wonderful truth to proclaim forth today in the in the church of Jesus Christ to hear and to receive at the depth of our being the goodness of the shepherd toward us in the midst of potential great difficulties in our lives, trials and tribulations.

Jesus comes to you today and he speaks peace to you. He tells you dearly, beloved, of his great love for you that he laid down his life for you that you might indeed be risen in him that you might have abundant life and be guaranteed deliverance from all your enemies, from all your sins, and from all those that would attack you from without as well. This is the great gospel truth, and it’s focused and distilled down in this tremendous discourse on Jesus as our great shepherd who guides us and feeds us and nourishes us through his very voice coming to us through the proclamation of his word.

Wonderful truth taken as a unity.

Roman numeral 4, John 10 stresses the voice of the shepherd and undershepherds. And I talked about this at great length last week and you know, if you if you have need, that outline is available. We’ll post it up on the internet this week with all the scripture references. The tape is available. I don’t want to go back and go through all those scriptures, but clearly the scriptures very definitively say that God has in his sovereignty chosen to use the voice of people, chosen to tie the work of his Spirit to audible speech received by physical human ears.

This is how the voice of the shepherd is communicated through undershepherds. We must position ourselves to hear the voice of Jesus correctly. God has seen fit to bring us this external word. The gospel is an external word proclaimed to us. It has an internal effect.

You know, we use two words, reformation and revivalism. We talked last week about the constitution and the difficulty with the current American Constitution and the fact that it grew in the context of a view of Christianity that had a lot of Greek influences wedded to it. It grew out of the Great Awakening. And the Great Awakening was a movement not so much of reformation but stressing the great truths of the Protestant Reformation. Again, the Great Awakening was more a revivalistic movement. Okay.

Now, revivalism stresses, if we can make great generalities here, but revivalism in that sense of the term stresses that the Holy Spirit works immediately upon the interior soul of a person without use of external means. So the whole thing in revivalism is ginning up some sort of emotional response in ourselves and attributing that to the Holy Spirit. The Reformation—the Reformers saw something different at work. They saw an objective word coming from outside of man which has an effect but see it has an effect of submission to that external word. Not a withdrawal and an emotive state being the determination of what the Spirit is saying to me, but rather the Spirit uses audible words most often that the normal mode of the way the Spirit communicates is through audible words.

And so it’s important for us to recognize that it’s important because what happens in revivalism is that people with deceitful hearts, hearts that Jeremiah says you can’t know, rely upon those very hearts as opposed to external words for how they’re going to guide their lives. It, you know, a famous song by Debbie Boone years ago, “How can it be wrong when it feels so good?” Okay, how can it be wrong when the spirit has moved me?

I have these interior promptings and this is what I think I should do. No matter if your parents say, “Do not do that.” No matter if your pastors say, “Big mistake.” No matter if your godly friends tell you, “No, don’t do that.” No. Well, I want to hear their voices, you know. Wisdom and many counselors but ultimately it’s how my heart pushes me along and emotes to me this is what I want to be this is what revivalism is and the great reformed said that our hearts are deceitful above all things total depravity means our hearts are depraved as well we cannot understand the proper way to go based upon our hearts and the way we feel about things God warns us instead God says that the way his Spirit speaks to us normally is through articulate human voices coming from outside of ourselves

We must as a result of this recognize the tremendous importance of preaching and prepare ourselves accordingly for that preaching. The word is an external word that comes to us in the context of the proclamation of God’s word. And Romans 10 makes it quite clear that what you hear when the preaching occurs in conformity to the word of God, what you hear is not about Jesus Christ today. But what you hear today is Jesus proclaiming to you the good news of the forgiveness of sins. You hear the shepherd’s voice, the undershepherd’s voice now, but the shepherd speaking through the undershepherd’s voice to guide and direct you in which way you should go and follow.

And so the tremendous importance of the proclamation of God’s word and that means that we should attend to God’s word with a with a more focused attention than we would do otherwise. If all the sermon is interesting advice from another person that’s sort of like any other person. That’s one thing. But if you come here today and say that the pastor is the voice of Jesus Christ to me today as Romans 10 and all those other scriptures in which we seem to assert, then it’s different.

Then we understand why Paul said, “You receive me not as a man, but you receive me as Jesus Christ himself.” You see, in his proclamation of that word in conformity to the word of God, according to the scriptures, the Spirit has seen fit to bind himself to communicate life by means of the human voice especially as that voice speaks scripture or preaches scripture devised wisdom to us. Calvin said that God has appointed his ministers of the gospel to be organs of the Spirit.

They called it a sacramental word. The First Book of Discipline in the Scottish Kirk in 1560 said this: “Whosoever hears Christ’s ministers hears Jesus Christ himself. Whoever despises their ministry despises the Lord Jesus Christ.” Christ is said to be proclaiming things to us in Romans 10 in the context of the worship service of the church. Ephesians 2:17 makes the same point that the appearance of Jesus the appearance of the preacher is not just the preacher but Jesus speaking through him.

Hebrews 2:12 as we said last week says that Jesus leads our singing of our praises to God. He’s the song leader. John A. is leading us in songs but it’s Jesus leading us in praise to the Father according to Hebrews 2:12. Hebrews 12:22-24 pictures Jesus as the priest who presides at our great assembly together.

And so the officiant of worship represents Jesus Christ himself officiating our worship, our praise to God the Father. This is what happens in the context of Lord’s day worship service. The word and Spirit work through people. That’s what the text of John 10 tells us and it’s in complete conformity with the balance of the proclamation of the balance of God’s word as well. We affirm that the Lord’s ordinary normal means of delivering his gifts is indeed through his constituted means not beside them or around them or without them.

You see God can choose to communicate any way he wants but normally the scriptures tell us that God chooses to speak through articulate voices and very explicitly God chooses to use the proclamation of the word by ministers to be his communication to you. That’s how the Spirit communicates to you.

Now, the second implication of this is that to avoid deceivers, we must recognize our great need to know the written word of God. If what I’m telling you is true, it means that it’s very going to be it’s going to be your tendency to assume what’s preached to you as the voice of Jesus. It means you must also know the written word to make sure that what I’m saying is in conformity to that word because deceivers will be there. So, I said last week, I am not trying to denigrate personal study of the scriptures. That is absolutely required.

As Doug Wilson says, you got to keep one eye on the text and one eye on the preacher. And you got to make sure that these things are consistent. You don’t want to be deceived. So, it doesn’t detract from your need to know the written word of God. It increases your need to know that written word to be able to discern that the preaching from the pulpit is true and in accordance with God’s word. And praise God, we have an opportunity here at the end of every Lord’s Day for you to question me in terms of this as if it’s consistent with God’s word or not to think through the applications together.

We must know the written word of God. We must reflect on the antinomian tendencies of the voice of Jesus being linked to sound voicings. Okay. So if this is true that the Spirit works through the organs of the minister or through the verbal speech of your parents if he uses you know so-called carnal methods flesh speaking words this really implications for many other things in terms of our basic understanding of the truth.

I think it would say that we should take church membership far more seriously. What’s more important that you come here and sort of exist in the context of the invisible church at RCC? You know, you kind of are with us. You’re sort of among us, you know, but you have not verbally stated with your words to assert you’re entering into covenant with this particular manifestation of the body of Christ.

Do you see how it take makes a difference there? I mean, this is why ultimately the way that God chooses he sees fit to use means to affect his grace. This is why we believe in marriage instead of just living together because vows taken are important. Words said to one another are important. They’re not irrelevant. You see, words are important. And when someone covenants into membership like the Christers did last Lord’s day, you see, there’s something different that transpires then between us and them.

Our words define this reality, not just the way we kind of hang out with one another. Now, you know, I’m glad there are people to hang out with us. You know, I’m I’m happy to do that. I’m not trying to make anybody uncomfortable if they’re not a member, but I’m it’s just like, you know, studying your scriptures. I want you to do that. I want you to be here every Lord’s day if you’re not part of our church, a member of the church.

But I want you to be even more linked in. You see, I want you to understand that the covenant relationship changes with the membership covenant itself, with people, with them speaking words at the head of their household speaking words of commitment to us and I as the representative of the congregation or Elder Wilson speaking our words of covenant to them. It means something. It means something important.

It means something too when we put water on little babies or water upon adults in terms of baptism. You know the sacraments are just that. They’re a means of grace. And I talked about this last week a little bit, but I want to talk about it some more now. God has seen fit to use means and instruments which he himself apparently he rather determines this is expedient that all things may serve his glory.

And so he tells us that he uses baptism to affect certain truths. God uses human instrumentalities, water, bread, human voices, etc. to affect his will. And so baptism pictures a bunch of stuff to us, right? But what does this stuff do? What is its relationship to the imposition of water on the head of a child. Let me read a few scriptures here in terms of what baptism does.

Acts 2:38 says that baptism that we are forgiven, right? These are the things that baptism pictures to us. We’re forgiven. Acts 2:38 says that we receive the Holy Spirit. Acts 5:26 says that we’re cleansed. Okay? All these things related to baptism. Titus 3:5 says that with this washing we are regenerated and renewed. Colossians 2:12 says we are buried and resurrected with Christ. Colossians 2 also says that we’re circumcised in heart, right? Correlating baptism to circumcision.

1 Corinthians 12:13 says we’re joined to the body of Christ by baptism. Galatians 3:27 says that we are clothed with Christ. 1 Corinthians 6:11 says that we are justified and sanctified. 1 Peter 3:20 and 21 says that we’re saved. All right? Just like we were saved there in relationship to baptism. Hebrews 10:19-22 says, “We’re ordained as priests with access to the heavenly sanctuary.” Now, these are all wonderful truths that are spoken of in terms of the people of God.

And every one of those texts has a reference to it to baptism and to water. Okay? And so, how are we to think about the instrumentality of water that God sees fit to use in the context of baptism? And I think that what we should say is that we are to in our minds, if we’re going to think biblically and use biblical language. We’re going to think about new life in relationship to baptism.

You know, it’s interesting in John’s gospel. In John’s gospel early on, we read about John’s baptism and then we read about the Savior’s baptism and the Holy Spirit coming upon the Savior, right? And staying upon him. And then we talked about how John the Baptist also said that Jesus, while John baptized with water, Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit. Remember that. And then later in John’s gospel, we actually saw a dispute between Jesus baptizing his people, his disciples that is, and John’s baptizing as well.

So John says Jesus is going to come and Jesus will baptize you not with water but with the spirit. And then we see Jesus baptizing people. That’s the way it’s said. It actually go out of our way, goes out of his way to say that Jesus wasn’t physically doing it, but he was doing it through his ministry. What kind of baptism did the people that Jesus’s disciples receive? Water or spirit? Water or spirit? Well, I think John said that Jesus was going to baptize with the spirit.

Now, that makes us uncomfortable because we’re very used to taking all of these texts that I just gave references to, which all have a reference to water rights, a water ritual, and yet referring them instead to the baptism by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit places somebody into the body of Christ. The Spirit cleanses us. The Spirit justifies us. The Spirit says that the Spirit gives us new life. And we are just so prone to immediately reading these texts in a way that separates out what happens with water and what happens through the Holy Spirit.

That’s what we do, right? This is what we’ve been trained to do. That’s what we’re trained to do as Baptists when we were in Baptist churches, the older ones among us. When we come here, we sort of think it a little different, but we don’t see that these texts want us to bring these things together.

Now, nobody’s saying I’m not saying that everyone that’s baptized ends up in heaven. Clearly, that is not true. I mean, Judas, all kinds of other people would be examples. That’s not the case. But we have that doesn’t mean because that is because people that are baptized end up in hell does not mean we should somehow jump away from all these texts that relate water baptism to the effectual work of the Spirit. You’ve heard the illustration from Rob Raver, many of you. What if he said when you have a baptism with a young person, you know, just before the water’s going to be applied, the heavens part, the sky, the roof of the church opens up, here comes the heavenly chariot, out comes Jesus.

He takes the child, puts water on the child’s head, hands it back to the parent. Child’s been baptized. What if that happened? And of course, the implications are that parents would do a better job. You know, this is and Jesus as he hands the child back to the parent says, “Do a good job. Okay, parents are going to be filled with the holy fear of Jesus Christ, right? And they’re going to work much harder to make sure they do a good job with that child.

And that child will be told stories for years to come that Jesus actually baptized you, not just the minister, right? But you see, these texts that we’re talking about, I think, tell us that is what happens in baptism. Jesus, you’re not hearing about Jesus today. You’re hearing the voice of Jesus to you as I preach. Consistent with the word of God. And as the minister representing Christ applies that water to the child consistent with biblical truths, I mean, it’s not it’s never the initiative of the minister either in the preparation of the sermon or the right of baptism.

It’s always his submission to the word of God and God’s sovereignly working through him. But that pastor when he does that right in accordance with the word of God in conformity to it, you see, I think it’s just the same thing. It is Jesus baptizing the child and Jesus and that’s why you know it told us earlier in John’s gospel Jesus is baptizing but actually it was his disciples that were baptizing because there’s really no difference you see and it wants us to understand that.

So when we baptize here are we baptizing with water or we baptizing with the Holy Spirit that does all these things. See we want to figure it all out. We want a series of discrete events. When did regeneration occur? What are you talking about when is new life and God wants us to change our thinking so that our thinking becomes covenantal. Baptism is a sign of the covenant and we are to think of our children differently after they’ve been baptized.

You see, the child is given a new name. He’s a Christian now. He’s not a Christian. Doesn’t have the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost on him prior to baptism. That name is put on at baptism, right? He’s given new parents because we recognize that our children are unable to parent those children apart from Jesus. When the child is given back to the parents, the child has been resurrected as it were and has a new relationship to those same parents.

He’s been given new parents. And more than that, he now has parents of plenty. He’s got the whole church who has witnessed the baptism praying for him under obligation to pray for him. He’s part of that covenant community. That child now has a new set of ancestors. You know, when little Levi was born, a year and a half ago. He had some ancestors. He’s got Mike’s Mike and Mike’s mom and Mike’s relatives go back to Poland.

He’s got my relatives that go back to various parts of Europe. He’s part of all that. And Levi can grow up saying, “Well, you know, my parents, you know, came from Poland at some point in time and then they came to America. But when Levi was baptized, you see, now he’s brought into the household of faith. Now he’s part of the church of Jesus Christ. And Abraham is one of his descendants or is one of his predecessors. Rather he’s a descendant of Abraham now.

Now he can say not just I had fathers in Poland and they did this and that but my father was a wandering Aramean and God saved him and brought him into a knowledge of him. That’s my lineage. You see we have new relatives when we get baptized. We have new set of parents and our own relationship to our parents is changed now as they’ve explicitly entered into those covenant vows to raise that son for the or daughter for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Everything’s changed. When the child is baptized. Can he fall away? Can he apostatize? You bet he can. But even then, when he apostatizes, he apostatizes. You know, he walks away from his obedience to what baptism calls him to do. Baptism is a repeated call for perseverance on the part of those sheep. Jesus says, “You’re my sheep. I’ve branded you. Now follow me.” Now, they can apostatize. They can walk away from that.

They can, but they do so as baptized people and is under greater condemnation because of that reality. You know, we just if we understand that the Spirit works through these mechanisms of means to work in the lives of people, then we understand that baptism is something different from what we thought it was before. It has an effect. It is a real event, a real inclusion of the covenant of grace going on through baptism.

Now, the implications of that on the other side are that if you don’t get your children baptized, then all of that can’t be said to be true. Right? Clearly baptism is a requirement that affects seals these covenant blessings. A child is brought into the church. The church is a recognizable human community existing in its common confession of the Lord Jesus Christ. And as the child is brought into that community, everything changes for the child as well.

Brought up in the context of the community of Jesus Christ that is signified by its common confession of Christ, its obedience to the word. Every child in this church when they disobey the word and remain recalcitrant in that you find out about it. This congregation, this community is a community of obedience to the word and that’s the actions upon the child placed into the covenant community. Liturgical practices that essentially recite the sort of God who has brought us into relationship to himself every Lord’s day.

Fellowship and mutual aid, formal and informal procedures of correction and forgiveness. All these things exist in the context of the Spirit-filled community of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that community is defined first and foremost as a baptized community, a community that has taken upon itself the name of the triune God. It has new life and its identity is seen in relationship to that life. This is a call to perseverance.

But it’s a call to perseverance which gives us tremendous blessings as the foundation for everything else we do. Baptism is this picture the great goodness of God to his people and it is a goodness of God that is effectual as a means of grace as the sovereign God brings people into relationship to him. Every time baptism is administered in Jesus’s name, the one being baptized is baptized not merely with water as John did but with the Spirit and life.

That seems to be the clear implication of the text. 1 Corinthians 6:11 says this, “You received, now this is one translation of it. You have received a justifying and sanctifying washing in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” You were washed. He says, “You were justified. You were sanctified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” One way to read that in the Greek is you received a justifying and sanctifying washing in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ seems here in Corinthians to be a a phrase that is linked to the baptismal ceremonies when a child is baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I think that what the text is telling us is that when we talk about baptism, when we talk about the washing of baptism, we are to see it as correlated in the word of God to the actions of the Spirit both justifying and sanctifying the person to whom the water has been applied.

And it’s supposed to be seen as efficacious. It’s supposed to be seen as doing a good thing to the person. You know, think of all the washings of the Old Testament and were they useful or were they not useful? The flood came. Was the flood useful for cleansing the world? Well, it seems like it because Noah is pictured as a new Adam walking onto a new world. So, the flood waters, which baptism is correlated, seems to have been very clearly a picture of something that actually did change the earth itself.

It wasn’t just a picture of something. It cleansed the world. The Red Sea crossing really did save the Jews from the Egyptians, right? They went through the Red Sea. The Egyptians don’t make it. They get killed in the Red Sea. And that water ritual, that’s just what it pictures. See, but the water ritual killed their enemies and delivered them. And they were baptized, right? Aaron had an ordination process involved washing of him and his sons.

And Aaron’s ordination really did grant him new standing and privileges before God and the people couldn’t do what he did until he was washed. The ordination washing ritual to make him a priest which is related to Christian baptism making us all priests before God really affected his change of state so that he could stand and minister in the context of the sacrificial system. Saul was anointed with liquid, right?

Saul was anointed as king and the Bible says that Saul was given a new heart that he became a new man. I don’t expect to see Saul in heaven. I think Saul apostatized. But you see, and that means that when we say he became a new man, he had a new heart. It doesn’t mean that something began in him which would later die. But it does mean he had a new life and that new life was affected by physical means being applied to him through the anointing process.

You see what I’m saying? We have grown up thinking of these things. In Greek, we always want to separate off the spiritual truth from the physical thing that we talk about picturing it when the word of God over and over and over again links those things together and wants us to think of them as one covenantal fact that happens as God works through means to work or is pleased to work the imposition of the Spirit’s work by means of physical mechanisms whether it’s a fleshly voice speaking fleshly water wine and bread at the communion table etc.

This is why the French Reformed liturgy said this. At the end of it, the pastor would speak these words to the newly baptized infant. Little child, for you, Jesus Christ has come. Now listen, you young ones, you’ve been baptized. You listen to these words. These are words to you. This is the voice of Jesus to you adults. This is the voice of Jesus to you because of your baptisms. Little child, for you, Jesus Christ has come.

He has fought. He has suffered. For you he entered into the shadows of Gethsemane and the terror of Calvary. For you he uttered the cry, “It is finished.” For you, he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. And there, for you, he intercedes. For you, even though you do not yet know it, little child, but in this way, the word of the gospel is made true. We love him because he first loved us.

As Rich Leithart wrote recently, “Baptism is the gospel in liquid form.” It is the gospel in liquid form. And we are to see it linked inevitably to the truths of the covenant relationship. You know, God looks upon the baptized differently. He gazes upon you differently with your with the waters of baptism having been applied to you. He sees you differently and everyone else sees you differently. Now you’re a Christian and apart from that, the gaze is different.

God brings you into those covenant realities and as I said we’re given a holy life in the sense of new descendants or new generations etc that preceded us and those are the people we walk in concert with okay. Recognize also the great importance of community which is an essential part of the image of God what we’re saying here is that the Spirit works communally the Spirit works in the context of community the Spirit doesn’t work in isolation from everybody else the picture is not going away and having a revivalistic change of heart.

The picture is getting together, talking with other Christians, encouraging each other with the faith of Jesus Christ and exposing ourselves to the inevitably social manner in which the Spirit of God speaks to us. All of this with an understanding of following the voice of the shepherd. And as we follow the voice of the shepherd, we’ll see the importance of family worship. You know, personal devotions, family worship, off by yourself, just me and Jesus in the Bible and over here me around community, people talking to me, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, all speaking together.

Good to read the Bible on your own. You’ve got to, you know, understand an increasing knowledge of God’s word as the base, the standard by which things are discerned. Good to do that. I’m not putting down personal devotions, but I’m saying we certainly want to layer on top of that family worship. And if I’ve got a choice to do one or the other, probably right now well, it seems to me very important that we engage in family worship because it’s that voice of Jesus coming to us from outside of ourselves again because of the perversity of our own hearts and plus that’s just the way God decided to do it.

Importance of family worship. That’s why it’s important is just a nice little neat thing. We want to have nice cute families get together for worship. You’ll hear the voice of Jesus Christ children speaking to your parents and parents you’ll hear the voice of Jesus sometimes speaking to your children in the context to family worship and you need to hear that voice you need to hear it the importance of family worship the importance of parents of course obviously if parents are part of the mechanism of the authority structure that God has given us it’s important to hear them.

We want to have a basic youth conflict seminar here come October why do we do this kind of strange thing having a guy that was not really Reformed in all his distinctives because the things that he did stress that the people of God are who they are and can make a difference in the world and they make that difference as they submit to the authority structures that God has placed over you.

This is vital stuff for our young people to hear. This builds upon what we’re saying here in the voice of Jesus coming from the external means. It is important that our children understand that they don’t hear about Jesus from their parents, but when their parents speak counsel and advice based upon the word of God, voice of Jesus Christ. So, it’s we think in October to try to get us all to come to a common understanding of the importance of parental oversight and structure.

In the context of our young people growing up, the importance of parents, the importance of friends, and the great importance of speaking the word of God. If the Spirit of God has chosen fit to bind himself to human speech to produce transformation, change, and maturation in our lives, what does that mean about your speech? You see, how are you going to affect those around you? You must speak. You have an obligation to speak forth the words of the Lord Jesus Christ.

If you know something about the word of God as it pertains to a particular issue of discussion that you’re involved with, whether it’s in your family or with your friends. You have an obligation by Christ and the great high privilege of being the voice of Jesus to speak that truth into the social setting in which you’re found. Recognize the importance of the Christ-like speech of the new man. As I said last week, Jesus is that new man, and we have an obligation to put on that new man.

And very specifically, Ephesians goes on to immediately say that our speech should be changed as a result of putting off the old man. Putting on the new man means putting on new speech. Putting on Jesus means affecting a change in how we speak one to the other. Our obligations are to speak Jesus’s words.

Now, let me just very briefly then in conclusion talk about these distinctives of the feast of dedication.

What is the speech of Jesus today? Well, one element of the speech of the Lord Jesus Christ reminds us one more time that we are a community of people to whom the future belongs. We are a community of people that the Lord Jesus Christ has affected victory and deliverance for. How does that picture here? Well, Jesus Christ is the temple sanctified not by man but by God. Remember the feast of dedication. It’s about the sanctification of the temple after defilement.

And in verse 36, Jesus says, “Do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, you are blaspheming. You see, at the beginning of the text, we have a celebration of the cleansing of the temple, the dedication of it, the sanctification of it. But Jesus Christ is the true temple. He’s deliberately putting himself in just the position to this feast of dedication. One more time in John’s gospel saying, “I am the temple of God.

I am the one who’ve been sanctified, set apart for the purpose that God has sent me to accomplish. I am the greater temple sanctified not by men, but rather sanctified by God himself. We recognize that we also are the temple of God. And Jesus will later in this chapter or in this gospel pray that God might sanctify us by the truth. We are the greater temple that’s pictured in the feast of dedication.

Jesus says, “I am the temple who was sanctified by the Father.”

Secondly, Jesus Christ is the great shepherd king come to drive out false religious and civil rulers. Antiochus Epiphanes was a fraud. Epiphany means the appearance of God. Antiochus drove out the Jews from the temple. Jesus however is the and Antiochus by the way called himself the shepherd king. One of many rulers to do so. But Jesus is the great shepherd king now to drive out the idolatrous Jews who have defiled the temple of God.

Remember at the beginning and end of his ministry he cleanses that temple. He is the great shepherd king, the great civil ruler and he has come to drive out all false religious and civil rulers. And so when he quotes Psalm 82, he saying something about himself, but he’s also saying something about the gods or civil rulers that are being dis disposed by him and driven out so that history marches in relationship to the great shepherd king, the true epiphany of God who has come to a truly filthy temple filled with unbelievers and he is going to come against them.

Jesus is also the hammer. Maccabee means hammer and the Maccabees hammered those who desecrated the temple 200 years before this. But the Jews really are followers of Antiochus. They’re the ones who have desecrated the temple of God. They are the ones actually set up by Maccabee and participating in a sacrificial system that is not in accordance with God’s word. And they’re the ones who have rejected God the Father.

And Jesus has come now as the great Maccabee, as the great hammer to destroy the Jews who have who have taken to themselves the very temple. They are the greater Antiochus. They are now sacrificing things in the context of the temple, not to Yahweh God. They’re rejecting Yahweh God as he came to them. They’re setting up some kind of alternate worship. And the Lord Jesus Christ will, and he I think he refers to it here, will bring judgment upon those Jews.

And then finally, Jesus is the definitive Purim. Well, this feast of dedication happening in the winter really is kind of like a replacement for the true winter feast of the Old Testament, Purim. Esther, the book of Esther, when God’s enemies went up against his people and they were delivered by God’s miraculous providential actions and the celebration for that at the end of the book of Esther was Purim and so all this feast of dedication a winter festival filled with bad guys on each side the Maccabees who didn’t really love the worship of God in instituted their own priesthood and Antiochus who certainly had no use for the worship of God all replaced by the greater work of the Lord Jesus Christ who is the temple is the great shepherd king is the great judgment of God against defilers of his people.

All of this can be seen as well in relationship to Purim. Where does he go after this? He goes to the other side of the Jordan. Yet one more reminder that the institutional church had become corrupt and was living in Egypt. They were the ones who were plotting now the destruction of the Lord Jesus Christ. They were the ones who were plotting the destruction of his followers, kicking him out of the synagogue, etc.

They were the ones who were now the opponents to Jesus. And Jesus reminds us here that we have nothing to fear. Just as the enemies of God had gathered in the time of Esther and yet were turned back. Just as the enemies of God were gathered against the Lord Jesus Christ. Just as Islam today rises up in warfare against Christianity and just as the false church today heretically asserts to itself the ability to bring together all kinds of different religion and call it all Christian.

All of these enemies to the church of Jesus Christ today have very similar times. The institutional church filled with men who are no longer submissive do not hear the voice of Jesus and follow. But God says, “Don’t worry.” God says, “The future belongs to you.” You have ancestors, Abraham, who made it through it all. Abraham’s great grandson, Joseph, ruled the world. Esther’s people ruled the world. Jesus drove out the Jews.

He cleansed the temple and then definitively accomplished it in AD 70. Jesus says that you’ve been brought into the context of a community and his voice to you today is no matter what’s happening on a grand scale that may trouble you on a small scale of great difficulties in your life Jesus says rest this day follow me learn from me be patient in meek work slowly to affect the kind of community that I would have here in the context of this church build one another up through using the voice of Jesus Christ as we encourage each other in the faith and the future belongs to us.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for our Savior. We thank you, Lord God, that he does indeed cause all things to come to pass for his glory. Help us, Father, to have heard his voice today to come forward confidently, offering ourselves anew in obedience to the great shepherd. We thank you, Father, for the great truths you’ve taught us in this chapter 10. Help us never to forget them, but to rejoice in them and to rest in them. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.