All right, let's have a word of prayer, and then we'll get started in our passage today. Dear Heavenly Father, we do thank you for this day, and we thank you for the time to be here together today, for that you would encourage us in your word, encourage us in our fellowship. We'd ask in Christ's name, amen. We are going to finish the book of Judges today. So we are in chapter 20 to start, and then we'll go finish up in chapter 21. These last five chapters have been kind of a rough and difficult passage to go through. Kind of a dark time in the nation of Israel. Interesting thing, as I was looking this week ahead as to what it might do, I realized that the book of Ruth also takes place during the time of the judges. And that just seems like quite the contrast if you think about that story between what we've been seeing here in the book of Judges, and contrast that with the book of Ruth. It's just a whole different set of people, I guess you would say. But in Judges chapter 20, last week we started this second example of the depravity of the situation, and we saw how these men of Gibeah had killed this concubine of this Levite, and after he had taking her body home, he chops her up and sends out 12 pieces of her to all of the tribes of Israel. And because of that action, it brought about the irritation, the anger of all the nations, I mean, all the tribes. And they began to realize that they needed to do something about this situation, because if they didn't, their fear, it seems to be, was that God would step in and take retribution in regards to this evil act. And so that, I think, as we see this story unfold, it becomes their motivation for doing what they do. So the men of Israel, the leaders and the soldiers, all gather together in Mizpah, and there's 400,000 of them come together. They send word to the tribe of Benjamin, which is where these men from Gibeah lived. They were Benjamites, and said, listen, this needs to be dealt with. There's evil in your midst. Turn these men over to us. We'll execute them, and God will be pacified by our actions. But as we see, starting with chapter 20, starting with verse 11, so all the men of Israel were gathered against the city. united together as one man. Then the tribes of Israel sent men through all the tribes of Benjamin saying, what is this wickedness that has occurred among you? Now, therefore, deliver up the men, the perverted men who are in Gibeah, that we may put them to death and remove the evil from Israel. But The men of Benjamin would not listen to the voice of their brethren, the children of Israel. Instead, the children of Benjamin gathered together from their cities to Gibeah to go to battle against the children of Israel. So they refused. Their choice was, no, we're going to stick by our relatives. We're going to defend them. But in so doing, it's like they condoned their actions. By supporting them, they actually condoned what they did. So they refused. They refused to turn over these guys that did this. And so instead, they sent all of their, all of the armed men of Benjamin to Gibeah to defend it. And we were told that there are 26,700 of them. The interesting thing is, is that the, Men of Israel, the other 11 tribes numbered 400,000. And if you do that math, it's like 15 to one. Now, I think that is significant because I think it plays a role in what happens when the children of Israel, their other tribes go to arrest, if you would, these perverts in Gibeah. because I think they are relying on the odds. It's 15 to one. I think they figured, well, we got this, we can deal with this. Because even when they go to God and ask God, you know, what we should do here, there's a lot of I, we, them, us, they, and everything they say, it's never, is it your will, God, that we do this? You don't ever see that in the passage. So let's start today with verse number, We're at 20, no, we're at 18. I'm gonna read verses 18 to 20. Then the children of Israel arose and went up to the house of God. Now, notice how this is phrased, to inquire of God. They said, which of us shall go up first to battle against the children of Benjamin? The Lord said, Judah first. So the children of Israel arose in the morning and encamped against Gibeah. And the men of Israel went out to battle against Benjamin. And the men of Israel put themselves in battle array to fight against them at Gibeah. What did they ask of God? Did they say, God, is this your will for us to do this? God, is this the right thing to do? What did they ask? Who should go first? Yeah, and it seems like an odd question to me personally. It says, they rose to inquire of God. They said, which of us shall go up first to battle against the children of Benjamin? And the Lord said, Judah first. I got really sidetracked on that phrase, just so you know, if you looked at your notes at all, because it's an interesting study. Judah first. Why did God say that? You know, that concept of Judah first begins clear back in the book of Genesis. Actually, in Genesis chapter 49, when we see, well, let's turn there real quick. Genesis 49 verses one through, it's about 12. Jacob has reached the end of his life, and he calls for all his sons to come together, and he is going to bless them. So it's his final words to his sons. You get to verse eight, and we notice Judah is mentioned, but in verses one through seven, we find the reasoning why Judah is blessed with the leadership of the children of Israel and not his three older brothers. Because see, Judah was the fourth in the family of Jacob. Jacob and Leah had seven children. They had six boys and one girl, by themselves, not counting the handmaidens and the other wife, Rachel. So they had seven, six. No, it was seven. It was seven. They had seven children, right? There was six boys and one girl. So they, Judah had three older brothers, Reuben, Simeon, and Levi. In Genesis chapter 49, it tells us why all of them were disqualified to take the leadership of the tribe of Israel after Jacob died. Verse one says, and Jacob called his sons and said, gather together that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days. Gather together and hear you, sons of Jacob, and listen to Israel, your father. Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power. "'Unstable as water, you shall not excel.'" That's a great epithet there. "'Because you went up to your father's bed, "'then you defiled it, you went up to my couch.'" So Jacob is giving his last words to his sons, and he gets to his firstborn, which should have inherited the blessing, which should have inherited the birthright, but instead, Jacob says, you're disqualified, because you slept with my wife. Actually, it was Rachel's servant that he slept with, which was one of Jacob's wives. And so because of that, Reuben's out. Then we get to the next two, Simeon and Levi. Simeon and Levi are brothers. Instruments of cruelty are in their dwelling place. Let not my soul enter their council. Let not my honor be united to their assembly. For in their anger, they slew a man. And in their self-will, they hamstrung an ox. Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce. And their wrath, for it is cruel. I will divide them in Jacob. I will scatter them in Israel." Now, if you remember the story there when Diana was basically raped by, I can't remember the name of the city there, Simeon and Levi concocted this plan to have all the men decapitated, or not decapitated, whatever, decapacitated, that's the word I'm looking for. And so then when they were all in pain because they'd been circumcised, then they went in and killed them all. I don't know what the deal is with the ox. Maybe they had other instances of cruelty that characterized their nature. But what Jacob tells them, is that you're not even gonna have an inheritance in Israel. You're not even gonna have land. And we know that to be true. Levi didn't inherit any land. Remember, they were dispersed throughout all the tribes into the cities of refuge where the Levites stayed. They didn't inherit any land. Simeon was actually absorbed by Judah, and they really didn't end up with any designated land either in the end. And so then we get to Judah, verse eight through 10. Judah, you are he whom your brothers shall praise. Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies. Your father's children shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion's whelp. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He bows down, he lies down as a lion. As a lion, who shall rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a log ever from between his feet until Shiloh comes. and to him shall be the obedience of the people. You see, when Jacob blesses his sons, Judah is given this position of leadership. He prophesies that your brothers shall bow down, that you follow your leadership. Interestingly enough, if you trace it through the Old Testament, when the children of Israel were traveling from Egypt to the promised land, and they spent that 40 years moving around in the desert. They had these particular orders in which they camped around the tabernacle. Judah and two of his other brothers camped on the east side. And whenever they broke camp to move, it always says, Judah went first. That was interesting. Judah was always in the lead. Judah had the largest army. We're told, I think it's in numbers, I think I had a reference there someplace. Numbers chapter two, they had an army of just Judah alone of 64,000 or something like that. So they were the ones who led the assembly whenever they moved the tabernacle in the wilderness. Judah was always first. We find Judah taking the leadership in the family, especially in the story of Joseph. Pastor went through that just recently. Now Judah wasn't perfect, he had issues as well. He got his daughter-in-law pregnant, and yet God, if you go to Matthew 1, you will find that that offspring of Perez from Judah and Tamar becomes part of the line of Christ. So he wasn't perfect man, but he's the one who God chose to be first. It doesn't stop with just that. We find in the story of Joseph, he recognized the fact that it was him who had suggested that they sell Joseph into slavery. Well, in so doing, he actually saved his life. But when they get down to Egypt and Joseph confronts the brothers there, Judah steps up, he admits it, he takes responsibility. He says, you know, let my brother Benjamin go home and I will take his place. And so he acts like a leader in that instance, We find later, as they get to the, in fact, turn back with me to Book of Judges, chapter one. When they get to the promised land, and they're about to enter the promised land, Judges chapter one, verses one through three, it says, now after the death of Joshua, it came to pass that the children of Israel asked the Lord, saying, who shall be first to go up for us against the Canaanites to fight against them? And the Lord said, Judah shall go up. Indeed, I have delivered the land into his hand. And Judah said to Simeon, his brother, come up with me to my allotted territory that we may fight against the Canaanites. Interesting, if you read the whole chapter one of Judges, you'll find Judah is mentioned 12 times in chapter one. Judah is the one who led the mop-up, if you would, after the initial destruction of the forces in Canaan. Judah was the leader. But something happens. Because between Judges 1, we never hear of Judah again until Chapter 10, when he's associated with idolatry. And then in Chapter, I think it's 15, We find that 3,000 men of Judah arrest Samson and turn him over to the Philistines. And then we find Judah mentioned again in Chapter 17 when Jonathan, that Rennepriest, is said to have come from Bethlehem of Judah. Somewhere along the line between Chapter 1 of Judges and now in this story in Chapter 20, Judah has ceased taking the leadership. Even though throughout all the rest of the Old Testament, we find him being the leader, the leader. It's as if he's isolated himself. He's the largest tribe. He's self-sufficient. You don't see him taking the leadership any longer. Something happened. But it's interesting. When you get here to chapter 20, And these soldiers are gathered together. They're about to arrest or go out and face the Benjamites. And so they say, God, who should go first? And God says, two words, Judah first. You know, if you trace this even through the whole rest of the Bible and you get to Revelation, and there's the scroll that's brought out, And John is upset and sad because no one's worthy to open the scroll. And then the lamb comes out. The lamb, and what's the description? Of Judah, of the lion, the tribe of Judah. Once again, that whole thread throughout the whole scripture of Judah being first is there. And God used an unperfect man to be a leader. And apparently here in this time of the judges, Judah was not taking the leadership he should have. But when it came down to enforcing God's commands, and they said, who should we go first? God says, Judah first. So let me get back to our story. Like I said, that got me sidetracked this week. What did they do? You know, Benjamin made the choice to refuse to turn over these guys. Now the 400,000 make preparation to attack them. You find three things. They, first of all, seek God's direction in their plan, not necessarily God's direction at all, but mostly in, you know, bless our plan, God. We got this plan. We're going to do this. And all God says is Judah first. Then we find them. They go and they camp at Gibeah. And verse 19, so the children of Israel rose in the morning and encamped against Gibeah. And then they put themselves in battle array. which simply means that they lined up in ranks, they set up like they would do in that ancient time prepared for battle. They're going to attack. So they got, you know, swordsmen in the front, archers in the back, whatever it is, they set themselves in array. 400,000 of them and there's only 26,000 inside the city of Gibeah. What happens? Verse 22. Then the children of Benjamin came out of Gibeah and on that day cut down to the ground 22,000 men of Israel. And the people, that is the men of Israel, encouraged themselves and again formed the battle line at the place where they had put themselves in array on the first day. Who is to go first? Judah. Judah was the vanguard, as they would call in those days. They were the front line soldiers. They're going to attack. How many of the 22,000 were from Judah? Probably a lot of them. Maybe not all of them, but I'm sure the majority of them because they were first. Interesting. Notice the other thing that's interesting here. They encouraged themselves. I mean, that tells us a couple of things. It tells us that they were discouraged. I mean, they thought there was a done deal. I mean, they got 400,000 men. They only have 26,000. And 22,000 of them died. 22,000, that's a bunch for one day, especially with the type of warfare they did. Those slingshot guys must've been really accurate. So here we have, they've lost 22,000. What do they do? They encouraged themselves. There's this pep talk, you know, hey guys, hey, you know, we blew it today, tomorrow's gonna be a better day, it's gonna be great. They encouraged themselves. And they lined up again. Verse 23. And the children of Israel went up and wept before the Lord until evening, and asked counsel of the Lord, saying, shall I again draw near for battle against the children of my brother Benjamin? Shall we go again? And the Lord said, go up against him. Interesting. Been short and sweet here on God's responses. First of all, it says Judah first, go again. You know, this kind of brings you to the thought of why bad things happen to people. I mean, were they in the right to do this? Well, according to scripture, they were. This was the right thing to do, to arrest these men who had performed these acts. But even though they were in the right, bad stuff still happened. People ask that all the time. Why is this happening? Why did God allow this? God could have intervened. You know, really the only logical answer we can come up with is this, is it's not God's fault. We live in a fallen world. And in a fallen world, bad stuff happens because it's all broke. It's falling apart. And really, God could intervene, but God doesn't always intervene. And he didn't here too. I'm also, I guess my thought is, is that maybe part of this is to teach Judah a lesson. So we get to the next verse 24. So the children of Israel approached Benjamin on the second day. And Benjamin went out again from Gibeon the second day and cut down to the ground 18,000 more of the children of Israel. All these drew the sword. Do a quick math. How many have died in Israel already? Forty thousand. Interesting thought. Forty thousand is 10% of 400. It's as if God has taken a tithe in men. Now, this has a major response, major reaction by the children of Israel. Their attitude changes. Something seems to happen different here. We find, starting there in verse 25, is that right? No, verse 26. Then all the children of Israel, that is all the people, went up and came to the house of God and wept. They sat there before the Lord and fasted that day until evening, and they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord. So the children of Israel noticed the question this time, inquired of the Lord, the ark of the covenant of God was there in those days, and Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, stood there before it in those days saying, shall I yet again go out to battle against the children of my brother Benjamin or shall I cease? It's a different question. It's not who should go first. It's not, shall we go? It's God, what is your will? I mean, should we go or should we not? It's different. They're repentant. They're hurt. They're discouraged. They're down. They're sitting. It says they just sit. Interesting thought. Have all these soldiers come up there and they just sit down and they wait. And the Lord said, go up for tomorrow I will deliver them into your hand. Now it's not them. It's God. I think it's different because always before it's, if you look at all, if you look at the adverbs in there, there's a lot of, you know, us, themselves, they, I, but now it's God. There's a difference there. They were relying on themselves and on their numbers and not God. And they weren't right. I mean, even these 400,000, even though what they were doing was just, they weren't right with God. Judah was involved in idolatry like all the rest. They weren't right with God. They needed to come to a place of repentance. And I think this is what we see happening here in these verses 26 through 31. However, the men of Judah, the men of Israel, make a choice here as well. See, in all these choices that are being made, Benjamin refusing to turn over these convicts, it's gonna cost them. And now Israel is going to make a choice in how they respond. And I think the way they respond is related to the number of men they've lost. They're angry and they react that way. They don't react justly. And what happens next is terrible what happens next. Instead, they act out of revenge and anger. So the next day, they've been promised by God that God would turn them over to them. So in verse 28 or 29, it says, then Israel set men in ambush all around Gibeah. And the children of Israel went up against the children of Benjamin on the third day and put themselves in battle array against Gibeah as at the other two times. So the children of Benjamin went out against the people and were drawn away from the city. They began to strike down and kill some of the people as at the other times in the highways, one of which goes up to Bethel and the other to Gibeah and in the field about 30 men of Israel. And the children of Benjamin said, they are defeated before us at first. But the children of Israel said, let us flee and draw them away from the city to the highways. So all the men of Israel rose from their place and put themselves in battle array at Baal Tamar. Then Israel's men in ambush burst forth from their position in the plain of Geba. And 10,000 select men from all Israel came against of Gibeah. The battle was fierce. But the Benjamites did not know that disaster was upon them. The Lord, and notice that word, the Lord defeated Benjamin before Israel, and the children of Israel destroyed that day 25,100 Benjamites. All these drew the sword. How many did they have to start with? 26,700, we're told. 25,100 are dead. You know, this tactic that they used is the same tactic they used at Ai with Joshua. They hid men around the city. They attacked. They pretended like they were beat. They drew the armies from inside the city out, and then the ones in hiding attacked the city, set it on fire, and then they came out, and the Benjamites were trapped between the two forces. The next section here gives us the detail of the battle. We'll read through that quickly because it's the same result. It says, starting with verse 36, so the children of Benjamin saw that they were defeated. The men of Israel had given ground to the Benjamites because they relied on the men in ambush whom they had set against Gibeah. And the men in ambush quickly rushed upon Gibeah The men in ambush spread out and struck the whole city with the edge of the sword. Now, the appointed signal between the men of Israel and the men in ambush was that they should make a great cloud of smoke rise up from the city, whereupon the men of Israel would turn in battle. Now, Benjamin had begun to strike and kill about 30 of the men of Israel, for they said, surely they are defeated before us, as in the first battle. But when the cloud began to rise from the city in a column of smoke, the Benjamites looked behind them, and there was the whole city going up in smoke to heaven. And when the men of Israel turned back, the men of Benjamin panicked, for they saw that disaster had come upon them. Therefore, they turned their backs before the men of Israel in the direction of the wilderness, but the battle overtook them. And whoever came out of the cities were they destroyed in their midst. They surrounded the Benjamites, chased them, and easily trampled them down as far as the front of Gibeah towards the east. And 18,000 men of Benjamin fell. All these were men of valor. Then they turned and fled towards the wilderness of the Rock of Rimen, and they cut down 5,000 of them on the highways. Then they pursued them relentlessly to Gaidam and killed 2,000 of them. So all who fell of Benjamin that day were 25,000 men who drew the sword. All these were men of valor. But 600 men turned and fled toward the wilderness to the Rock of Rimmen, and they stayed at the Rock of Rimmen for four months. So that, like I said, it just gives you the detail. Eighteen were killed here, 5,000 killed on the highway, and another 2,000 later on as they chased them. So God has given them the victory since the Lord gave them the victory. But what else has happened? Those 10,000 that were in hiding that attacked the city destroyed every person in the city and set the whole thing on fire. So not only did the soldiers all die, but everyone in the city of Gibeah died, all of them, men, women, children, everything. But that's not all, it doesn't stop there. Because the anger and revenge that takes place is horrendously worse. Look at the last verse of that chapter, verse 48. And the men of Israel turned back against the children of Benjamin and struck them down with the edge of the sword from every city, men and beast, all who were found. They also set fire to all the cities they came to. So they go and they annihilate the entire tribe of Benjamin. They kill everyone, men, women, children, animals, and burn all their cities. There's none left, except for we're told there in verse 47, there's 600 men that are out there in the desert, the rock of Ramon. The consequence of Benjamin's decision to not turn over these perverted men has had a huge toll on their entire tribe. It didn't just affect them, it affected everyone. But we're going to see here, and as we start this next chapter, there's a huge consequence that we're going to see also that hits the men of Israel who've just committed this slaughter of all these people. All of a sudden, they're going to go, what have we done? How could this possibly have happened? God, why'd you allow this to happen is what they ask. Look at verse 21, verse one. Now the men of Israel, we're gonna give some detail because it's gonna come into play into what happens next, had sworn an oath at Mishpah, that's when they had gathered together to decide what they were gonna do about the situation, saying, none of us shall give his daughter to Benjamin as a wife. Then the people, came to the house of God and remained there before God till evening. They lifted up their voices and wept bitterly. So they've just slaughtered an entire tribe. And now they go back and they cry. And they said, Oh, Lord, God of Israel, why has this come to pass? Well, that's a no brainer. They did it. That today there should be one tribe missing in Israel. So it was on the next morning that the people rose early and built an altar there and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. And now we're gonna give some more detail, verse one and verse five also give us detail, something else that's happened earlier. The children of Israel said, who was there among all the tribes of Israel who did not come up with the assembly of the Lord? For they had made a great oath concerning anyone who had not come up to the Lord at Mishpah saying, he shall surely be put to death. So two things that they had dictated or whatever vows they had made or oaths they had made at Mishpah when they initially gathered with the 400. First of all, they all made an oath. They swore we will never. give any of our daughters to the men of Benjamin from now on. That was the first. The second, in order to recruit everybody, they said if everybody doesn't come to this gathering to judge Benjamin for what's happening, then we're going to go back and we're going to kill them. That's pretty harsh as well, but that's, that was the motivation. You either come help us or you're going to die, is what they were saying. Okay, so that was, those are just two information things. that they give us that's going to play into the decision they make next. You know, the decision they make next is that, you know, when you make a foolish choice, it doesn't help to try to correct the foolish choice with another foolish choice. What they should have done is repented of both of those oaths. and said, God, this was stupid. We did this out of anger and frustration, and we confess this to you, and we'll give our daughters to these guys to get married. But no, they didn't do that. Instead, they came up with another idea. Another idea, because what they're concerned about, what they're crying about, what they're upset about, is that there's only gonna be 11 tribes now, not 12. Benjamin's gonna be wiped out. There's 600 guys left, but hey, 600 guys can't do anything by themselves. They're gonna die? No more Benjamin, because none of them have wives. They need wives. What are we gonna do? We've wiped out every woman. So there is none. So they come up with this bizarre plan to get wives for these 600 men. So, because of verse five, the children of Israel grieved for Benjamin, their brother, and said, one tribe is cut off from Israel today. What shall we do for wives for those who remain, seeing we have sworn by the Lord that we will not give them our daughters for wives? And they said, now, who didn't come to our meeting in Mishba and make this oath? Said they would be okay to give them their wives or give them their daughters, is what they're saying. And so what they do is they send 12,000 men to Gabish Gilead and they slaughter the entire town. Kill everybody except for 400 young girls, they save them because they're gonna give them to the Benjamite men to be wives. It's a bizarre plan. The problem is, we don't have time to read it all while I tell the story. There's 600 men and they've only found 400 girls. So there's still 200 short, there's still 200 guys with no wives. What are we going to do? Somebody comes up with another great idea. Well, hey, Shiloh has this festival every year. And during that festival, the girls dance and they have a party. And here's an idea. We'll tell Benjamin Min that we're making peace with them. We're going to give them these 400 minutes down payment. And what they can do is when Shiloh has this party, this festival, They can sneak down, they can hide in the vineyards. And when the girls are up dancing and having a party, they can run out and kidnap them. And they can take them home. And if the men of Shiloh complain, well, they'll say, oh, it's okay. You didn't break your oath because they stole them. And this is a bizarre plan, right? If you don't think it's bizarre, I don't know. It's weird. Nonetheless, that's what they do. So the men of Benjamin say, oh, that sounds like a good idea. We're gonna go kidnap these girls. We're gonna take them and we're gonna make wives out of them. And then they're gonna go back and rebuild their cities. Now, this whole thing, these examples in these two chapter, these five chapters, these two examples, is trying to show the reader of the book what it's like in this time. And it's not good. You know, the whole chapter is, I mean, the whole book is summed up by verse 25, which we've seen four times before in the chapter. In those days, there was no king in Israel. There was anarchy. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. You see, all of this stuff that's happening, even in these two chapters we looked at today, is because it's what they came up with, and they, this is a good idea. We're going to go kill another whole town and annihilate it. You know, we've just, we're already discouraged and depressed and we're crying because we've already slaughtered this whole tribe, so let's go do it again. Let's go, this city, they didn't come and help us. And so let's go take all their girls and kill all the men and all the women and all the beast and burn their city. Can you imagine those marriage relationships starting out that way? These people have already just slaughtered all your family, and now you're supposed to marry these guys. I don't know about you, but that's really, I can't imagine that relationship being very great to start with anyway. But that's what the author is trying to show. It's not a good time. It explains why the idolatry, because everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes. The lesson, do what is right in God's eyes. I don't see anywhere in this story, in this account, where they really sought the will of God until after they had lost 40,000 men. I don't see anything right in their solution to correcting the problem that they had created. You know, and I don't see anything right in the choices of Benjamin to defend. You know, when it comes to sin, when it comes to wrong choices in life, it's better to surrender early because the longer we continue in sin, the harder it is. In fact, I got a quote from Proverbs 13, 15. The way of the transgressor is hard. It's not easy to rebel against God and to live in that state of rebellion. God's not gonna let it go easy for you as a believer. Surrender early, confess it early. The longer you hold onto it, the harder it gets. And these guys, it is a bizarre story on their responses, on their choices, Well, as I said, the author wants us to see what it's like, and I guess we see it. It explains the first 15 chapters of why the tribes continued to go back and follow the same situation they had before. They rebelled against God, they worshiped idols, and God punishes them. But over and over and over and over again it takes place. Nonetheless, as we look at it in our own lives, we can see the lessons. Do what is right in God's eyes, not my own. My decisions generally are not right, but God's always are. Let's close in prayer. Father, we do thank you for your word. We thank you that we finished this book and that you've helped us through it. We pray now in Christ's name, amen.