Well, it's so wonderful to be back here in your new building. This is great. I remember it was a couple of years, a year and a half ago now, when things started locking down and we heard that you guys were without a building. I remember just crying out to God myself, and I know many others up in Riverside, just asking the Lord to bless your fellowship. And He's provided. It's awesome. God is good all the time. And I really have grown to love your pastor, Pastor Kurt. Especially, I get to know him a little bit better when we're at the RBNET conferences, General Assemblies, because we spend a lot of time hanging out at those and sit together and pray together. And so it's been great to get to know him in the last five years or so. We've been in fellowship at those meetings. Well, if you'd open with me to the book of Proverbs, chapter 15. Proverbs, chapter 15. Hey, this is pretty nice, you have the air flowing right up here, this is, cool you off, that's really nice. It's a secret, I guess, sorry. This is great. Proverbs chapter 15. And we're just reading verse three. So says the word of the Lord. The eyes of Jehovah are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good. Let's pray real quickly. Father, we do pray that you bless this time drawn near to us. Oh God, give the preacher help from heaven, Lord, and give our ears, hearts to worship and receive what you would say to us. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. Well, perhaps you've heard of the stories of the golden days of sailing. You know, 150, 250 years ago, when sailing vessels were all over the place, doing trade and work, back in the old days, there were fishing villages or whaling towns, or just towns where the main trade was in sailing on the coast. And if you lived in the town, you spent a good deal of your year out at sea. And in those days, the men who went out to sea left their wives at home, often to tend to the house or tend to the business or what have you, and maybe to tend to family matters. But in some of these villages, you've probably heard the houses by the seashore would have balconies on them. And what would happen is the women, the stories say that many times the wives would stand out on the balconies. or stand out by the shore when they knew the days had come upon them, when their husbands were supposed to be returning home from the sea sometime soon. And they would stand out there for part of the day, gazing intently out at the sea's horizon, looking out with intensity to see if they could see the mast of their husband ship coming up on the circle of the horizon. You see, the women gathered with eagerness, with intensity. They wanted to see if indeed their husbands' ships had survived the storms at sea and if their beloved ones were coming home to be with them. They didn't just casually glance up and look out. They peered out. They shielded their eyes from the sun with their hands, staring out, looking out far ahead, reaching out with their hearts. to the sea, seeking and praying that their loved one would return. This intensity of gaze is exactly the kind of thing we see attributed to Jehovah God in our text here in Proverbs. The eyes of Jehovah are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good. It's the Hebrew word translated in English as watch. that conveys this intensity of gaze we were just illustrating. The Hebrew word for watch is the word tzotvoth, and the root means to keep guard, to watch attentively. It conveys the idea of a lookout point. Psalm 66 verse 7 says, God's eyes observe the nations. It's the same Hebrew root for that word observe there in Psalm 66 verse 7 that we see for the word watch in our text. The intensity with which Eli, remember the story, Eli looking down the road for the return of the Ark of the Covenant in 1 Samuel 4.13 is again this same Hebrew root, looking out peering intently out into the distance. And yet, it is also conveyed in the prophet Micah as he looks to Jehovah, the God of his salvation, waiting for him in Micah 7. Here in our text in Proverbs, it is the Lord Himself who is looking with intensity. He is watching over the wicked and the righteous both. The eyes of the Lord are everywhere. They're everywhere. They are in every place, not just glazing over, passing by in casual observation. His eyes run to and fro throughout the whole earth, as we read in 2 Chronicles 16.9 earlier. This is actually awe-inspiring, brothers and sisters. It should invoke the fear of God in both the righteous and definitely the wicked. Nothing escapes the eye of God. Nothing. He not only sees, but his eyes pierce through all deception and all manipulation of the heart. His eyes see down to the bare bones of utter truth. He sees into every circumstance happening in all points in every single historical event. and into the hearts and minds of every living soul at all times, in all places, in every circumstance." He is looking out with intensity beyond our comprehension. and his mind is simultaneously comprehending everything occurring in the thoughts and actions of every creature and the circumstances of every single piece of matter in the entire universe with a burning intensity that would utterly consume us in our sinfulness and our creatureliness were we to meet his gaze full face with our own finite puny viewpoints. It's awe-inspiring. In Revelation 4, verse 6, we read of the Lamb having, what, seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth, which really means that the Spirit of God penetrates every nook and cranny of creation with His mind's eye. burning down all shade, all deception, all manipulation, every device of the devil and his children, every perplexity of the struggling nations, every conspiracy, every plan formulating in man's thoughts, his eyes sift through everything and he sees everything according to the truth of his infinite holiness and his pure divine attribute of omniscience. He knows all, He sees all. Again, the idea conveyed in our word and our text for watch is a gazing out from a lookout point. In many of the mountain areas around us in Southern California, there are lookout towers. Men sit up there gazing across the forests of the mountains looking to see if there's any fires Springing up anywhere and once they see smoke they alert the fire teams with the exact location of the fire if they're not watching a Fire can consume the mountainside and get out of control very very quickly as we know by experience here living here Well, this is what our text is saying. The eyes of Jehovah are in every place keeping watch on the evil and the good. It's not that God has to search and overturn rocks and look under them, as it were. God doesn't have to do any detective work, okay? He already knows everything that will ever happen because He has decreed whatsoever comes to pass, as our confession of faith states. Nothing catches God by surprise. Nothing. For He has decreed all of history before the very foundations of the world were created. But the idea conveyed here in Proverbs 15.3 is it's anthropomorphic. It's anthropomorphic. It's using human language, human illustration to declare a reality about God's attributes and God's ways. God is a spirit. He has no eyes. And yet in our humanness, we need to hear the Bible tell us that His eyes are in every place, that they are searching to and fro throughout the whole earth, that He is keeping watch on the nations. We need to read of God described in that kind of language so we can better understand and comprehend who He is, how powerful He is, how in control He is, how faithful He is, how good He is. We'll never be able to gaze upon the utter fullness of God for all eternity. You have to realize that. Because we're finite creatures who would be consumed if we gazed upon the very fullness of God and His complete fullness. God is infinite. His attributes are beyond our ability to fully grasp. And so the Bible continually uses anthropomorphic language, language that uses human terminology and concepts for us to be able to get a vision of who God is and what he's like. And we just have two main points to go over for the rest of the sermon, very, very basic, very basic. First point, maybe you guessed it, God keeps watch on the evil. Second point, God keeps watch on the good. So first, God keeps watch on the evil. Again, God is gazing intently into the affairs of the nations, into the very minds of wicked men. Nothing escapes him. And the world, with all of their conspiracies to gain control and power, Satan and his demons, with all their attempts to orchestrate the destruction of the church, None of it is unknown to the mind of God. He knows all and He knows, listen, He knows how to deal with it. God's got it under control. None of it's unknown to his mind. He knows all. He knows how to deal with it. All the plans and purposes of evil men and women, and all the plans and purposes of the spiritual hosts of wickedness, all their plans and attempts to execute them, they fall perfectly into God's plan and purposes. They cannot ultimately escape being pawns of the mighty God. What did Martin Luther call Satan? He called Satan God's puppet. Even Satan himself cannot escape God's purposes for him. The plans of all the militaries of the nations, the movements of secret agents of each government's spy networks, all the attempts at espionage and usurping one another, it's all known by God beforehand. He sees it all happening, And it all plays fully and completely into His ultimate plan. Completely, perfectly. And though we're horrified at many events we see happening, we read about things that happen to our own families, we read about what's happening in Myanmar right now, it horrifies us. And the wind is continually knocked out of us as legislation after legislation is passed in our own country. It's all seen and known by God. He is keeping watch over it all so that nothing can happen outside of his predetermined purpose and foreknowledge. God is keeping watch, he's keeping watch. The gates of hell will never prevail against his church, ever. Now darkness may cover the lands, hardship, will be experienced, but the hand of God lays on the helm of history so that nothing can escape the purposes of his decree to bring him glory and to save his people from their sins. The church will continue to be built until the end of time, and should the devil and the world become a serious threat to the utter eradication of God's people and the gospel of Jesus Christ in this world, then that is the time when the Son of God will return. and put an end to the kingdom of darkness. And then the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of the Lord and of his Christ. Amen. Indeed, part of the way God watches over the evil is to keep them in check. God keeps the evil in check. It may seem that they're given a very long leash at times. Can you imagine being a Christian in Nazi Germany during World War II? And yet the saints living under that regime took comfort in knowing that nothing could happen, that God was not ultimately purposing for their good and for the good of the gospel. See, now in our time in history, now is the time to be confident in God's faithfulness and in his goodness and in his sovereign control and in his check of the wicked. Legislation is one thing, Imprisonment or worse is another thing, but each circumstance God's people might face does not change the faithfulness of God and the truth and reality that no matter how much the wicked are permitted to wreak havoc, they are still held in check by God. You can read countless stories of those who have been persecuted or imprisoned throughout history. And in these accounts, you read over and over and over again of how God restrained the hands of those who were arrayed against them or blinded their eyes to not be able to see the Bible that they were carrying or that was in their house. or let them miraculously pass by the checkpoint they were walking through, or what have you. Even unbelievers have often harbored the righteous in times of distress and sheltered them from the searching eyes of the evil regime seeking to destroy the church. God turns the hearts of kings like the rivers of water. He uses the wicked to fulfill his purposes and he watches over the actions of the evil rulers and authorities to fulfill his plan for the world and his church. And the world goes up and down, up and down throughout history. We saw the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. We saw God holding in check throughout the Cold War what could have been a nuclear disaster throughout the whole world. God in history kept back Muslim invaders from continental Europe so that during the time of the Reformation the gospel could prosper and be studied and be promoted. God arranged that the Roman Empire would hold in check lawlessness and anarchy so that the gospel could begin to be propagated throughout the known world with speed and success during the time of the apostles in the early church. He has protected America from destruction by our enemies for hundreds of years. We don't assume he'll continue to do that, but we pray he will. He has overthrown wicked rulers in different parts of the world throughout history. He removes those in authority over and over and over again. He has stopped the advance of the tide of evil in so many places in so many moments throughout history. See, we read the news and the way the news projects things. They emphasize the dramatic and the evil and harbor on the bad news, but God is doing much more all the time in every place. He keeps watch on the wicked, on the evil. God still holds the evil in check. And when God's people see that the evil intentions and evil plans are being fulfilled in the world, and that the poor and the weak and the people of God are being oppressed, we are to cry out to our Heavenly Father to keep the wicked in check. For the Lord watches over the evil. Just as the children of Israel groaned in Egypt when they were oppressed, and the Lord heard their groans and saw their oppression. So too in our day, the church should groan in prayer to our great God who sees all, who knows all, to cry out to him to deliver his people from unrighteousness and to set the world free from evil. Listen, if that is not a regular part of your prayer life, for God to stop evil and unrighteousness, to keep sin in check, to cry out, Maranatha, O Lord, come. To cry out, how long, O Lord? If that isn't a part of your regular prayer life, I think you've been living in a dream world, numb to the realities of life in this wicked world. Cry out to your God. who's watching over the evil. God sees all. He knows all. He's also watching over the evil, not only to keep them in check, but to record their deeds for judgment. To record their deeds for judgment. The Bible often talks about, in the Old Testament, about the iniquity of the nations not yet being full in some places. Remember the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. It's this idea that God is recording their deeds of wickedness and taking note of their debaucheries and their conspiracies, and he's watching over it all. He's recording it all in order to, at the appointed time, to bring judgment on the wicked. Romans 2, verse 16 says there is a day coming when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5-10, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, whether good or bad. We read in Daniel, the prophet Daniel 7-9-10, this terrifying notion for the unrighteous. Daniel says this, I watched till thrones were put in place, And the Ancient of Days was seated, his garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head was like pure wool. His throne was a fiery flame, its wheels a burning fire. Interestingly, we read in Ezekiel of the wheels of God being full of eyes, right? God sees all. And Daniel goes on, a fiery stream issued and came forth from before him. A thousand thousands ministered to him. 10,000 times 10,000 stood before him. Listen to this, the court was seated and the books were opened. You know what the idea of the court and the books convey? All of man's deeds and thoughts are recorded. and he will have to give reckoning for them on the day of judgment to the ancient of days. God's eyes observe every evil deed, every evil thought, and they are recorded in the mind of God. They are written down. And somehow they will be laid open in the court of heaven, and every mouth will be stopped. There will be no ability for them to offer an excuse for God sees the utter truth. They will not be able to say they didn't know for all creation declares the glory of God. They will not be able to say the devil made them do it because they love their sin and they refuse to repent. The books will be opened. It's a terrifying thought for the wicked. And if you've been running from God, my friend, know that he is watching over your every thought and deed, and it is all recorded in a book, as it were. All of it. The bare truth of the matter. The truth of your motives. Even though you might have deceived yourself into thinking God is okay with you, or that you couldn't help yourself, or that you had a rough childhood so you're excused, God sees the bare, utter truth of your sin and your willingness to sin. The covetous heart of man is evil through and through, and God is watching with intensity. He's recording it all. And one day, if you don't run to Jesus Christ for forgiveness and turn from a life of living for sin and self, throw yourself on the mercy of Jesus Christ. that one day your iniquity will reach its fullness. And believe me, our iniquities are a stinking high stack of filth reaching to the very heavens. And for those who don't know Jesus Christ, they will be called to judgment for those sins. We don't preach this to see that anyone's condemned. If you're not a Christian this morning, we preach this out of love for your soul. We preach this as someone himself who's stacked sins high to heaven, probably sin more than you have, I don't know. God has had mercy on us despite ourselves. And we deserve hell just as much as anyone else here. But it's in Christ alone that we find our sins blotted out of the books with His very blood. Only in Christ can our sins be removed from the mind of God as far as the east is from the west. Only in Christ can we be given righteousness and holiness in order to lay hold on eternal life. It's all because of Jesus. Nothing we've done, nothing in our hand I bring, simply to the cross we cling. God is watching over the evil. There's absolutely no hope for the wicked apart from Jesus Christ. No hope. Run to Christ if you don't know Him. So God watches over the evil. He keeps them in check. He's recording their wicked deeds for the day of judgment. But our last point, God also watches over the good. He watches over the righteous. Again, the idea of watching here is an intense focus and all-knowing, piercing involvement. God is watching you, Christian. He's watching you. God is not unaware of your struggles, of your weaknesses. He knows, He sees. He sees all of your desires, all of your pains, all of your sufferings. God is intimately acquainted with you, with all of your history, with all of your future. He sees into your person and your soul and your mind and He knows you better than you know yourself. He understands all the confusion you're confused about. He knows where it all comes from and where it's all going. God is looking out for his people. He's on the watchtower, searching to and fro. He watches in order to protect his people. He sees every danger that is threatening. He sees every possible scenario. He knows where every choice we make will lead. And as the good shepherd of our souls, He watches over us and protects us from harm to our souls. The Spirit of God convicts us and puts a check in our heart and grants us repentance when we're seeking out the wrong paths. And God steers us through life, always watching over us, always keeping us. And when we kick against the goads, when we buck His guidance, And when we go down paths of sin, as our loving Father watching out for our souls, He disciplines us. He chastises us. Chastisement of the Lord is a wonderful, wonderful grace, a precious mercy given to us because we are His children. Those who are Christ's will never be allowed to stray beyond where correction can bring them back to the fold. God breaks us and He gives us hard or dark providences many times in order to cause us to cling to Him more tightly. He takes away only that we might gain more of Him. That's why He takes away. He's watching over our lives with intense involvement. He is behind us, before us, underneath us, all around us, always caring for His beloved sheep and searching for any danger to our souls. But God protects us not just in the spiritual sense. He protects us physically in so many amazing ways. The Bible says in the Psalms that God gives escapes from death. God watches over the provision of our needs for food and shelter. He looks out for dangers from people who want to cause us harm. He protects us on the freeways, at the beach when we're playing in the waves, as we play sports. Whatever it is, God is watching over the good, over his people. Now, we know that God allows us to experience afflictions. We know, if you've been alive for a few minutes, you know God allows you to experience afflictions. Sometimes bones are broken on the playing field. Sometimes there is a car accident. Sometimes our loved ones die before we think they should. But the Lord is watching over all those things with a protective intensity as well. He has complete control over what angle the car is hit. complete control. People or circumstances that cause affliction are allowed to go so far and absolutely no further by God. The pain is only allowed to go to such a level and no further. The disease is overseen by the protective eye of God at all times. I'm sure many of you know of Johnny Erickson Tata. She's a paraplegic. She paints a lot of pictures with the paintbrush in her mouth. She oversees ministries to handicapped people. I believe she was or she is on the board for Ligonier Ministries at one point. Johnny Erickson Tata was paralyzed for life from the neck down in a diving accident when she was a teenager in the 1960s. Was God watching over her then? I think if you would ask Johnny that now, she would be able to tell you the amazing ways God was looking out for her during that time and since then. For one thing, if her sister hadn't gone to see what happened to her, she would have drowned. But often throughout history, dark providences surround God's people. The Lord has never promised that living as his people in this world would be life in the sunshine. Yet he has promised, he has promised, he is watching over us. Millions of Chinese Christians worship underground, but they are worshiping. North Korean believers read scraps of scripture verses in concentration camps. The Lord is watching over all of these precious believers. God protects us in the midst of our trials, in the midst of our adversities. Listen, a protection outside of troubles and tribulation would mean we'd already be glorified. And yet we know that we are called to journey through the wilderness of this life. We have to embrace that and realize that, that's reality. But God protects His people, He provides for them. God watches over His people to bring them blessing, giving us employment, giving us peace, giving us access to goods and services, giving us access to medical technology. But there is a way where God is watching over the good that we might not think about that often. a way the eyes of the Lord are gazing at his children. This is the sense of God being pleased with his child. Being pleased with his child. God looks at the believer who is repenting, who is seeking to walk by faith, who is forsaking the ways of the world, who is hungering and thirsting for righteousness, who is hating their sin, who is looking for ways to do good to God's people, to do good to the poor, to do good to the fatherless and the widow. And God looks on these people with pleasure and delight. He sees their desires for Him. He sees their longing to be like Him. He sees them seeking to sit at the feet of Jesus. And the Lord, listen, He loves to gaze at that child of God. And yet, we know that God looks on the Christian man or woman, boy or girl, as justified in the Lord Jesus Christ. We know that. He sees the believer clothed in the righteousness of his son, and so he is pleased with the Christian because they are redeemed in Christ Jesus. But that's not what we're talking about here. What we're talking about here is the sweet aroma The sweet aroma the believer brings to the nostrils of God because of their spiritual sacrifices. Romans chapter 12 verse one has that sense about it when it says, I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. There is a degree we can please the Lord by our sacrifices of love and service and good works in this life. The Bible speaks of a righteousness that is not the sinless righteousness we gain through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, but a righteousness of living for the Lord with a closeness to His ways, keeping short accounts with Him, pleasing Him by our good deeds done in His name. Luke 1 5-6 says this, There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias of the division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. You ever read that verse before? It's not a sinless blamelessness that the gospel writer is talking about, but they lived righteous lives that pleased God. Now, it was only the grace of God that gave them that ability to live that way. But nevertheless, the eyes of the Lord searched and saw that Zacharias and Elizabeth continually lived in a way that was pleasing to Him. Yes, God chose Elizabeth to be the mother of John the Baptist before the foundation of the world. Yes, God had ordained that. But at the same time, God blessed this couple because he was watching them and he was pleased by their lives. Same thing could be said of Mary. What'd the angel say to her? Rejoice, highly favored one. She was favored by God to be the mother of Messiah, not by her own merits. We're not saying that. Okay, not by her own merits. And yet the grace of God had given her the blessing to live in such a way that as it were, she caught the eye of God's favor. It is indeed a mystery how we can please God with the aroma of our good deeds, and yet those good deeds were prepared for Him before the foundation of the world for us to walk in, and those good deeds are tainted with sin every time we do them. It's a mystery. But I don't want us to get hung up on the mystery here. The point is God is watching you, Christian. He's watching you. You're not worthy of his favor, you never will be. You deserve his judgment and yet he is pleased with your efforts to live for him and to love your neighbor as yourself. He takes notice of your financial sacrifices for the kingdom of God. God takes notice of that. God is watching you when you seek out the weak and the lonely saint to encourage them and uplift them. God is watching you as you labor for your family, as you labor to provide for others on the mission field or to go on the mission field, as you stand for righteousness in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. God sees all that. He watches that. He watches over the good. You see, we can indeed quench the Spirit if we're unthankful, if we have bitter attitudes, if we fail to take the means of grace seriously, when we don't treat God's Word as precious and holy and take advantage of the fact that we have a copy of the Word of God. When we fail to pray, we all fail to pray. But there's a place where we can please God in our prayer life. Revelation talks about the prayer of the saints rising with the incense before God's throne. It's against that idea of the sweet aroma in God's nostrils. Our prayers please the Lord. They do. When we don't pray, the Lord can choose not to draw near to us. But the Bible says, draw near to God and He will draw near to you. This is scripture. What we're saying is that there are some Christians who are missing out on an intimate fellowship with Christ because so often they are walking in a direction that is grieving to His Spirit. Yes, we all sin every day. We sin every day. But we are to at the same time live Holy lives. Zacharias and Elizabeth were called blameless. Listen, they broke God's law every day, I assure you. They were sinners, but they kept short accounts with God. They drew near to him. They studied his word and sought to love God with all their heart. Stop quenching the spirit if you've been doing that with the way you talk. with what you look at on the internet, with what you listen to, with how you dress, with what you spend your money on. Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to Jehovah. Draw near to God. He is watching over the good. Let me quote 2 Chronicles 16.9 again. For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him. God sees those who are pleasing to him and he delights to show himself strong on behalf of those people, people who are living their lives for his glory. Seek to be pleasing to God. Listen, don't just say, I'm justified by faith, I'm a Reformed Baptist, you know, there's nothing that could touch me, I'll do whatever I want, right? We know that's foolish. Cling to him and his word in loyalty and faithfulness. For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." God watches over. the evil and the good, and he's steering all, both the unrighteous and the righteous, in such a way as to bring in, that's the whole point, to bring in a harvest of souls into his kingdom and to see that the gospel of his son is proclaimed throughout the whole world. That's the whole point of all this. No one, no one, no one can ultimately escape what God has decreed. All the evil in this world is going to serve to bring about good for God's people, all of it. I don't understand all the ways it will, but it will. It will. If you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, all things will work together for good for you, because you're called according to God's purpose. But for those who are running from God today, though you might exalt in your freedom to sin and to do what you want, and you think God hasn't been able to stop you, know that He sees it all, He is recording it all, and one day His patience will run out and you will be called to give an account for your life. Your iniquity will reach its fullness. The wicked will not be able to stand on the day of judgment. they will not be able to stand. Bow the knee to Jesus Christ today. Be saved from an eternity of unbelievable misery. We think this life is miserable, and it is, many times, often. Every day we experience some kind of misery, right? But that misery for the wicked in judgment is unbelievable. It's eternity. It's unbelievable. We shouldn't even really think about it too much, right? It'll drive us, as Christians, it'll drive us mad. But God is seeking out the sinner to save today. Maybe there's someone here, don't refuse his command to believe on his son. Listen, he is our only hope in life and in death. Let's pray. Lord, we do thank you that you are a God who is in control. You're not a God that we can make in our own image and think that you're this way or that way or that you're influenced by things happening in time in such a way that you change your plans or that it catches you by surprise. You have elected a people for yourself before the foundation of the world and Jesus Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost. He accomplished what he came to do and you will in time save and justify all of your elect, Lord. We thank you that for many of us here this afternoon, we have experienced regeneration and been given hearts that desire you and that long for you and that hate our sin. We're not perfect, we sin every day, but you're gracious and you're faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We ask that you bless us and go with us the rest of this Lord's Day and these things will be on our hearts and our minds throughout the week. For the sake of Jesus Christ, amen.