Please do turn back to Isaiah 27. Has he struck Israel as he struck those who struck him? Or has he been slain according to the slaughter of those who were slain by him? If you recall from last time, we are in a period where Israel and Judah are being, well Israel's already gone into exile, but Judah's being threatened with exile. with going to Babylon, 70 years, great suffering. Many will go to Babylon and never return. There'll be great slaughter. You can go to the British History Museum and you can see what the Assyrians did to Israel and what the Babylonians did to Judah. in their own depictions in their artwork. It was a terrible, terrible, terrible, tragic time of suffering. The temple was brought down. The walls that surrounded Jerusalem were smashed and destroyed. Sufferings were coming. Now let's not be misled here. Yes, the nation as a whole had fallen into absolute apostasy. It had turned its back on the pure and true worship of God and was living like the nations in the land of promise. But there were still true believers among that mass of ungodly people. There were the prophets at the very minimum, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel. Many of these had to contend with the ungodliness that they were surrounded with. And yet, if you were alive at the time of the exile and you were a righteous man or woman seeking to keep the law of God and uphold the purity of worship, you were not going to get away with exile. It's not like God was only going to take the unrighteous into experiencing discipline. You were going to experience it too. In fact we know from the prophecy of Daniel in one particular place it speaks of the fact that many of the righteous will be killed before things get better. So you would have been left with all sorts of questions in your mind as a Christian. We don't have that term then, but you know what I mean, to kind of put ourselves in the narrative. You know, you're a Christian and you'd have been asking yourselves, you know, I'm waiting for the Messiah. I'm seeking here to leave my family in the ways of God. I'm having family worship and I love you Lord. And yet you are going to experience the same rod that the whole nation is going to experience. God is not going to distinguish between righteous and unrighteous, the nation is going into judgment and into exile for 70 years. Firstly, well, because God must be true to his threats. The Bible says that when we are faithless, he is faithful. Now people misunderstand that verse, especially Christians. It doesn't just mean if we're faithless, then we're saved. It simply means when we're faithless, God doesn't stop being faithful. We're faithless, we may be faithless, fall away and apostatise. God's still faithful. His faithfulness has not been made null and void by our unfaithfulness. God must be true to his words. And here is what God saw when he looked down at the whole of Israel, of his beloved vineyard. My well-beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. He dug it up and cleared its stones and planted it with the choicest vine. He built a tower in its midst and also made a winepress. Why? Well, he expected it to bring forth good grapes. but it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, please, between me and my vineyard. What more could have been done to my vineyard than I have done to it? Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes, did I bring forth wild grapes? And please let me tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge, and it shall be burned. I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will lay its waste, and it shall not be pruned or dug. But there shall come up briars and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are His pleasant plant. He looked for justice, but behold, oppression for righteousness. But behold, a cry for help. So, the Lord has to deal with the corruption of the nation. The Lord is of pure eyes to behold iniquity, especially in those who profess to know him. The Bible says, judgment begins with the house of God. So there, righteous and unrighteous alike, they're all going to be thrown into exile. I can see your uncomfortableness already. It raises questions doesn't it? And it does raise questions for the genuine people of God. Because I'm sure that Jeremiah and Isaiah at one level would have understood yes we know God you've got to deal with Israel genuinely because yes we've been preaching to them and they've not been listening. But surely God you're capable of sort of distinguishing between us. You know of dealing with them and keeping us safe. And I think, you know, at one level they would have acknowledged the Lord was being just. They knew the covenant curses promised in Deuteronomy 28 that would come upon the nation if they turned their backs on God. We know Jeremiah had a heart for the Lord's people. Listen to Jeremiah's heart, a man who we're going to hear about on Thursday night. Listen to this man's heart. And by the way, he was not exempt from the sufferings that were going to come. My soul will weep in secret for your pride. He's speaking of his people. Secret, private soul anguish for his people. My eyes will weep bitterly and run down with tears because the Lord's flock has been taken captive. This is a man who loves God. Why should Jeremiah, a man who loves God, suffer the same things as the unrighteous? And I think as Christians, we ask the same questions, don't we? Why do we experience the same things as the unrighteous? And in fact we can often be worse than that. Sometimes it can seem like Christians have it harder than unbelievers. I know someone right now who just says to me, it's just one thing after another. you know, problems with the kids, then the car breaks down, get it fixed, then the clutch goes, then the fridge breaks down, you know, just the things are stacking up. And they look at their friends, and their unbelieving friends, and it doesn't seem to have all these problems in sequential sequence. One after the other, after the other, after the other, after the other, after the other. And what do we say to this? It raises questions in our mind. In what way, if we suffer the same things as the ungodly, in what way then are we the Lord's treasured and peculiar and special people? Because the Lord doesn't seem to be distinguishing between us and them. I don't treat other kids the same way I treat Reuben and Jesse because they're my sons, they're my special possession. They have a peculiar favour upon them from me. It's not that I don't love other children, but it's just the nature of our relationship. And it's the same for you as your parents with your children. It shouldn't be any other way. And yet, so often, if you look at a righteous person's life, if you looked at Charles Haddon Spurgeon's life, you looked at John Bunyan's life, you looked at these great saints of the past, nothing but suffering, misery, hardship, rejection, betrayal, loss, ruin, disappointment. And we ask, We ask questions. How are we then the objects of your peculiar love and care? In what way are we still your special people if you discard us as a man wipes his dish clean? How are we different to the nations if we experience the same lot as the nations? How could this be a reflection of God's goodness to us as a nation or as a people? And furthermore, I'm sure it was in the Prophet's mind, how does this glorify you? Because the way the nations worked then is because it was a case of if you beat that army it meant your gods were better than their gods. So for the Lord's people whom the Lord's name was associated with to experience defeat at the hand of the Babylonians and the Assyrians is effectively to say the idols, the gods of Babylon are greater than the gods of Israel. So your name is being reproached and your name is being dishonoured because of this suffering that we are experiencing. And we ask the same questions, church. We do. As they would have asked, as I've mentioned to you. We have sufferings, don't we, Christian? Like everyone else. Becoming a Christian is not a get-out-jail-card, is it? You still have to work through things. It's a lie of the charismatic movement and the prosperity movement that becoming a Christian means it should be easy in our families and in our churches. It's not. We still have suffering. We still have sickness. We still have disappointments. We still are let down. We still have job losses. What befalls the righteous and the unrighteous is common to each. And so we find ourselves saying, Am I your child? In what way are you caring for us? The world will look at us and wonder, because I've had this said to me, if Christians are the Lord's special people, why are there so many Christians, why are they like this? Or why are they suffering like this? If God was a loving father, wouldn't he take care of them. In fact the same thing has been said by many liberal theologians concerning Christ because they don't agree with penal substitution, the idea that God poured out his wrath on the son. And they say well what kind of father would give his son over to such horrors? These are questions that people ask. If God was really real and in your life wouldn't he help you? Wouldn't he remove this pain from you? Wouldn't he change your circumstance and make it easier? If you were really a child of God, wouldn't you be employed, hated? Why would you be hated? Why would you be laid aside? These are genuine questions. And then what we're realising then, because I'm establishing a fact that it is true that what befalls one befalls the other, it's very hard then, isn't it, to distinguish and tell a child of God from an unbeliever from circumstances. It's very hard to tell the favour of God on a man or a woman from their circumstances. You see, we often conclude if that man or woman is suffering or experiencing hardship, they've done something wrong. Maybe they have, maybe they haven't. Christ was righteous and he suffered like no one else has. You can't presume that you're not in the will of God just because you're suffering or because things aren't going for you the way you want them to. Through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God. In this life you will have troubles. Take heart, Jesus says, I've overcome the world. So this gives rise then to this fact that it's hard to distinguish between the righteous and the unrighteous from circumstances. To my first point, which is that the Lord's dealings with his people are different to his dealings with the world. It's a bit of a Puritan title, this one. It's a long one. There's more paragraphs. I don't plan to work my way up to their level, don't worry. I just couldn't think of a way of reducing it. So it's a sentence. The Lord's dealings with his people are different to his dealings with the world, even if, and this isn't part of the title, even if they don't seem to at the point of witnessing it. There are different hands being played by God in the same experience which is common to all. The same experience may be felt by the believer and the unbeliever but behind it stand two different hands, a hand of love and a hand of wrath. and it will accomplish then different ends and purposes in our lives. And the first thing I want then to say under this heading is elaborating on what I've just said that we must not measure then the favour of God based on our external circumstances. We must not measure the favour of God based on our external circumstances. In verse 7 the Hebrew is in this particular instance is not captured the best in our translation though our translation is better than many others. If you look down at verse 7, I will just read it to you so that you get the clarity. Where there are pronouns like he, I will replace them with who the pronoun is for the sake of getting it. Has the Lord struck you, Israel? Has he, the Lord, struck the nations which are striking you, Israel? You get the logic there. Have I dealt with you, Israel, really the same way I've actually been dealing with the nations that have actually been dealing with you? Is it really identical, is what he's saying to them. Or, has Israel been slain according to the slaughter of those who were slain by him, by the Lord. So have I slain Israel in sending them into exile? Have I wiped them out to the same extent that I've dealt with Assyria? That I've dealt with the Egyptians? And that I will deal with the Babylonians? And the Persians? And the Romans? And the Britons? Although all alike have experienced some degree of suffering, have I played the same hand with both? He's following the emphasis here. That's what he's saying. In other words, he's actually addressing their question. They're saying, it seems like we're being treated exactly the same way. Same circumstances, same suffering. Many of us are dying, many of us are feeling poverty. Our city's been destroyed, our town's been destroyed, our walls have been destroyed, just like many of the other nations gone before. You've not loved us any more than them. But God is raising the first, if you will, don't judge on externals. don't judge an external. If you were to probe a bit deeper, you would see that it's not exactly as you think, is what he's saying here. And the scriptures, if we were to use scripture to interpret scripture, the scriptures broadly are unanimous on this point, that we shouldn't measure our circumstances by, sorry, the Lord's favour on us by our circumstances. Ecclesiastes 9, verse 1 and 2, hear this. For I considered all this in my heart, so that I could declare it all. Listen carefully. That the righteous and the wise and their works are in the hands of God. So everything in our lives are in the hand of God. But then he goes on. People know neither love nor hatred by anything seen before them. He's saying, but you can't determine the love of God or the hatred of God by anything you see before you. Here it is, all things come alike to all. One event happens to the righteous and the wicked, the good and the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifices. As is the good, so is the sinner. He who takes an oath as he who fears an oath. See what he's saying there? Righteous and unrighteous alike have the same experience. You can't measure then God's dealings with you by your circumstances. We have to probe deeper and we have to see what God is doing in his dealings with us that he's not dealing with his dealings with the unrighteous. because there are different purposes in each. To go back to my illustration that I used in the children's talk, you know, we were both treated the same way to some extent, the same words were said, maybe in slightly different tones perhaps, but there were different purposes behind each of it. With the dog, it was get out and get in the kitchen and don't cause any more mischief. You're disrupting the peace. No view of its repentance or its growth or its change. But with me, it was get out, sit on the stairs, think about what you've done and don't do it again. Complete different purpose behind it. And so we make a mistake when we think we are not in the will of God or that we've been forsaken by God when we look to our circumstances. Quote the text again. People know neither love nor hatred by anything they see before them. And Job had this experience, didn't he, Job? In Job chapter 5, verses 6 and 7. For affliction does not come from the dust, nor does trouble spring from the ground, yet man is born to trouble. But he says, but as for me, I would seek God, and to God I would commit my cause. And here he acknowledges the mystery to it all, who does great things and unsearchable, marvellous things without number. We just don't always know the good things God is working out for those who love him in the events of our life. We can't probe into the secret things of the Almighty. Deuteronomy says that the secret things belong to the Lord our God. and the revealed things belong to us and to our children, which is a caveat if you've had any background in prophesying churches. What are these Christians trying to do? They're trying to get a secret word from the Lord. They're trying to probe into the secret things of God which God has said, I will not reveal. We are to be concerned with the revealed things that God has revealed and make them our chief concern. So externally, same things are happening. But they are not as they seem. And as I said, next time I'm going to prove this from the passage. Because there is actually, in the passage itself, verse 10 and 11 speaks of the absolute judgment on the unrighteous. In verse 11 he says They are a people of no understanding, therefore he who made them will not have mercy on them. And I will prove to you next time how that is speaking not of Israel but of the nations, the cities of the nations. This is absolute wrath. Their experience of judgement is final and absolute and clinical and without mercy. But for the people of God, verse 8 and 9, and again I'm going to have to rephrase it a little bit. We read, in measure, by sending them, Israel, by sending Israel away, the Lord contended with them. He removed them by his rough wind in the day of the east wind. So it says in a measured way God has contended with his people. He's removed them by his rough wind. Verse 9, why? But by this the iniquity of Jacob will be covered. and this is all the fruit of taking away sin. And you will see next time in more detail exactly what was accomplished by this process. But it was completely different. And so, to conclude this point, what we are saying is that yes, the Prophet is saying to Israel, yes you are experiencing a judgement of sorts. and it may make it seem like I'm treating you like the rest of the ungodly. But the truth is there is a vast difference between the judgment of God over his people and the judgment of God against the unrighteous. An immeasurable difference in the Lord's heart in it, in the Lord's purpose in it and in the Lord's accomplishments through it. In the unrighteous the judgment of God only hardens the heart. In the righteous, who are truly the Lord's, the afflictions soften the heart and humble the heart and make them more dependent on the Lord. of his grace. And we know from the passage that God does not have any wrath towards us. We did that last time, do you remember? Verse four. Fury is not in me, says the Lord. So he's saying to them, whatever you're going to go through, whatever you're going to go through, there is no fury in me. So you can be absolutely assured. You suffer, you lose loved ones, you go through hardships. It's not because I hate you. It's not because I'm against you. These words would have been no benefit to apostatized Israel who were hardened in their hearts. These were written for the saints in Israel. These were written for those who were genuinely sad about what was going on and were downcast and depressed and discouraged. To give them hope. To give them stability in their times. With the unrighteous end, the Lord deals as an enemy. And with the righteous as a loving father. And we see this in a number of places. Please do turn to Proverbs. Proverbs chapter 3. Proverbs chapter 3. Verse 11 and 12. I'll wait for the thumb turning noises to stop. It's good to yourself to turn the Bible and look at the words yourself. I want to encourage that in this congregation. Read the text. My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord nor detest his correction for whom the Lord loves he corrects just as a father the son in whom he delights and then Hebrews 12 verse 8 we read but if you are without chastening of which all have become partakers notice that word all Every Christian is a partaker of chastening. There's no get out of jail card. You enlist in the Lord's care, you will experience the Lord's chastening. If you haven't yet, it's coming. I don't say that to frighten you, because as we're seeing here, it's the love of a father who brings it. You should rejoice that you have a father who knows what's best for you. And if you're not chastened, you are illegitimate and not sons. Verse eight. So actually, we could actually go further then on this point. We could drive this further and say this. The afflictions of the righteous are evidence of God's faithfulness. Do you believe that? It's because God is faithful that he afflicts you. If Israel and Judah had remained as they were in the land without the chastening of God, the Messiah would never have come. Because the corruption that was in the nation would have so spread among the nation that the righteous seed, your Marys and your Josephs and your Annas and your Simeons, they would never have come to be. because in the end the whole nation would have become godless. God had to take the nation into exile to break off the branches which were yielding no fruit and to bring back a changed people. And I'm getting ahead of myself. But this is what we're seeing. So actually it was because God was so determined to fulfil his promise to bring Messiah that he was chasing them. So when I'm chastened by the Lord, when he allows the suffering to come into my life, it's because he's faithful to his promise that you shall be holy even as I am holy. This is the will of God, it says in Thessalonians, your sanctification. And for a true Christian, that's good news, because a true Christian, a true Christian wants nothing more than to be holy. Blessed are you when you hunger and thirst for righteousness. But a false Christian, a hypocrite, a Christian name only, only wants an easy life, and have made profession in order to have an easy life and an easy eternity. Holiness is not their concern. And so when afflictions and sufferings come, it's revealed what they are. But it's good news for a true Christian. That's why we can say with Job, though he slay me, yet will I praise him. Yet will I praise Him. And as we see from verse 9, the purpose of God is their sanctification. Here's another sentence. I've written this sentence down because I think it's important it encapsulates what I'm saying. The Lord afflicts the unrighteous as punishment for their sins. And He afflicts the righteous to save them from their sins. Do you see the distinguishment of that? And this is illustrated perfectly in 1 Corinthians 11. Please do turn then. I sometimes think turning the Bible can just wake you up. Oh, I've got to turn the Bible. Where am I? 1 Corinthians 11, verse 30. So the context here is, it still affects exactly what I'm saying, the context here is that the Lord's people in Corinth are a pretty messed up bunch, it makes every pastor and elder and deacon feel happy, or reassured. Their church was all over the shop. And they were having an absolute mess at communion. There were people getting drunk at the communion table. This was serious business. There was heteromorality. Paul was so angry that he says to them in one of his letters, I would have come to you, but I didn't to spare you. He's like saying, I need to give you time and I need time to calm down. I'm angry, he said. There is a place for anger in the church, as long as you don't manifest it unrighteously and wickedly. But we should hate what God hates and love what God loves. Romans says, let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil, cling to what is good. And here in Corinth, they're behaving terribly at the Lord's table. and see what the Lord did. Verse 30. For this reason, because of what you've been doing, many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. He's saying many of the church have become unwell. Many have become sick, and some have gone to sleep, some have died. Why? Verse 31. 32. But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord that we may not be condemned with the world. See, if this church carried on down that road without any discipline of God, who knows where it may have ended up. But God, by doing this, was preserving the church and bringing the church back to himself. and waking the church up so that they wouldn't be condemned. It was mercy. Fury is not in me towards you. It's because I love this church. I love Corinth, he's saying. I love you. I don't want you to be condemned with the rest of the world. And I actually come to believe that those people who maybe died, they were probably believers. They've also been shown mercy by being taken. The Lord should have taken them to glory just to spare things getting any more messy. So that's of mercy in some cases. You know, sun can cause two different reactions, can't it? You put clay in front of sun and the sun hardens the clay. You put ice in front of the sun, the ice melts. And the same event, chastening, discipline, afflictions, whatever form may take, as I said, soften the believer and harden the unbeliever. So Israel had to be judged. Secondly then, This is my last point. The reason why the Lord's dealings with us are different. The reason why. And as I've said, this is the question I'm gonna have to kind of cap off next time. But I want to just do it with a main reason. What does Romans 8, 28 say? God works all things together for the good What's the next bit? Of those who love him. Of those who love him. That's the point of verse seven in our text. I haven't struck you the same way I've struck everyone else. I haven't. I haven't made a complete end of you. I haven't destroyed your souls. I haven't made a complete and full end to the nation and the promises. I am working all things together for your good. so that your sins can be forgiven, that the Messiah can come and pay the penalty for sin on the cross and be the substitute for you unrighteous people. For you, Isaiah, too. You said, didn't you, Isaiah, that you are an unclean man who has unclean lips, dwelling among an unclean people. Well, how do you think your sins are going to be forgiven? Well, in order for that to happen, Isaiah, this all needs to happen. I'm working all things together for your good, for those who love him. and therefore it's sanctifying, it's purifying. What's the goal? What's the goal, Christian? Verse six. There's a great promise here, that after God has finished dealing with all of this and doing these things in the life of the nation, those who come, he shall cause to take root in Jacob. Israel shall blossom as the bud and fill the face of the world with fruit. I'm not going to get debated here into millennial discussions. I'm not. Because I know there are differences of opinion in this room. I think one get-out-of-jail card for me, if I'm allowed one, if you allow me one, is that often prophecies can have double fulfilments. Now that's not me saying I agree with perhaps your interpretation of a second fulfilment, but I think it's certainly true to say that through the coming of Christ and coming into the world, the world has been filled with the fruit of righteousness through the preaching of the gospel and the building up of the church. So I think it's fair to say that even if you still think there's a literal fulfilment of Israel, I don't, but if you do, what's true though is that this purpose in taking Israel into exile, Judah, was part of this fulfilment of the promise, was accomplished when Christ came. And if you want to see more to it than that, you're free to. That's not what I'm seeking to accomplish this morning, another time perhaps. But the goal is righteousness. Look at Hebrews chapter 12, verse 10 and 11 and you see this echoed. Don't you just love the way the scriptures complement one another, old and new? It's a supernatural book my friends. This is God's book. None of them are collaborating with one another. They're separated by centuries in geography and places. Verse 10, chapter 12. For they indeed, our fathers that is, for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them. But He, God, for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now I know chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful, it is painful. Let's not water that down. Chastening is hard. Some of you are going through such hard things I can't begin to imagine. And no one can. And we downplay some people's afflictions when we say, oh, I know how you feel. Don't say that if you don't. Actually, sometimes the best thing you can say is, I haven't got a clue, I can't imagine what you're going through. That expresses more empathy than the other statement. Now, no chastening seems to be joyful for the present but painful nevertheless, or afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Psalm 119, 67 says, before I was afflicted, I went astray. But now, now I have been afflicted. I keep your word. Do you know something, Christian? Ease and prosperity can be more harmful to our souls than affliction. When we have riches and ease and everything we need, we become self-reliant. We forget God. We stop praying to him for our needs because we have all our needs. We stop clinging to his word and his promises because we, well, life couldn't be much better than it really is. We're fine with things as they are. When people like us and we're seeking the approval of men all the time, and we're getting it, the approval of God means nothing to us. And yet when we have rejection from even fellow believers, then we begin to treasure and value the Lord's love of us, and the Lord's acceptance of us. When we're misunderstood, and when everyone thinks we're doing a great job all the time, the fact that God knows all about us, and he knows our motives, doesn't cover up as much as everyone thinks, but when all of a sudden people misunderstand you, or misunderstand your motives, but you know, you know the Lord knows, and that means so much to you, to know that the Lord knows. you know, when we're comfortable we become fleshly, materialistic, selfish, forgetful of God. That's why in Deuteronomy 8 we're told that God said, for this reason I caused you to hunger in the wilderness and I fed you with manna so that you wouldn't forget God, that you would realise that you live by the word of God, you live by the provision of God, you live by the promise of God. And that's the case for us. Hosea 13.6 says, When they, Israel, had pasture, they were filled. Therefore they were filled, and their heart was exalted. Therefore they forgot me. They forgot me. It's good, friends, that I was afflicted. For then I learnt to keep his statutes. You know, again, a Christian just wants to be close to Jesus. A Christian just wants nothing more than to be in his will. A Christian wants nothing more than the presence of the Holy Spirit and the comfort of the Holy Spirit. And if the affliction is deemed necessary by the Lord to keep me in that place of dependence and prayerfulness and watchfulness, leaning on him, calling upon him. You know, it may be that your financial hardships are the means through which God keeps you calling on him. Because if God gave you the resources you think you need, you stop calling on God. And so for some of you, maybe it's that you have to be on the bread line because that way, that will be a means which you'll keep praying to God. And you'll maintain a close relationship with the Lord. I don't know, I'm not saying that is the case, I'm just saying we have to think about these things and it's good sometimes when we're afflicted so just ponder, ponder the Lord's ways, ponder how he dealt with the servants of God in the past, ponder how he dealt with Abraham and how he dealt with Isaac and Jacob and how he dealt with Isaiah and how he dealt with Jeremiah and all these people and how he dealt with the Lord and how he dealt We know that the scripture says that the Lord learned obedience through what he suffered. Now that's a strange statement, isn't it? Somehow there was a sense in which the Lord had to suffer to fulfil obedience to the Lord, to fulfil all holiness and righteousness. So, as we come to lands, your afflictions are not evidence, Christian, of God's hatred of you but his love of you. An unbeliever We're told in the scriptures that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness. The sufferings and afflictions which befall the unrighteous are evidence of God's displeasure against you. But there is one exception to what I've been saying. There is a nuance between those two views, those two statements, sorry, these two dealings of God. There's a third. Sometimes the Lord does afflict the unrighteous whom he's seeking to call to himself. Sometimes the Lord lays a man or woman, boy or girl low that he might lift them up, that he might save them and bring them to himself.