I ask you to remain standing and please turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians. This morning we'll be in 1 Corinthians chapter 10. 1 Corinthians chapter 10. Our verses for this morning are going to be 6 through 13. And for some context, we'll start in verse 1. So, now hear the word of the Lord. For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. how these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were, as it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and 23,000 fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer. These things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed, lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it. I'd ask you to pray with me, please. Father, we ask that in this hour you would glorify your name, glorify your son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Send Your Spirit among us to fill us that we might have a renewed zeal and a renewed vision of our Lord Jesus that would sustain us in our temptations. In all of these things we pray for His honor and glory. Amen. Do you think that there is a connection between the cravings that we have on a physical level and the cravings that we have on a spiritual level? Do you think that there is a connection between cravings on the physical level and cravings on the spiritual level? Let me make it a little more concrete for you. Do you think that there is a connection between something like our craving for food hunger that we have for food and craving on the spiritual level in a bad way as idolatry. Do you think there's any connection with a craving for food and idolatry? Or do you think that there's any kind of craving that we have are sexual desires and idolatry? Have you ever thought about a connection between those two things? Or maybe a connection between our need for power, to be in control, and idolatry. Have you ever thought about a connection between these things? Well, I wouldn't be asking you the question if I didn't think that there was a connection. So let me trace this out for you as we go. To remind you, here we are, 1 Corinthians chapter 10, and as Dirk very helpfully reminded us last week, we're kind of in the middle of a section that really started in chapter 8, where there is a question about idols. And at least in that moment, the question was, can you eat food that's been offered to an idol? And we know, Paul tells us pretty plainly, there's no such thing as idols. So if you want to eat food for them, give thanks for the food that you eat, you may eat it. There's no such thing as an idol. But it turns out there's an extra consideration in this, which is to say, you may have brothers and sisters who have weak consciences, and when they see you eating this food offered to an idol, then they take it as worship. They see that you seem to be okay with worshiping this idol, and so they follow you into this. Therefore, sinning against your brother, you wound their conscience when it is weak. And that's not good. Don't do that. So, out of consideration for your brother, even though you have a freedom that you can eat meat that has been offered to an idol, however, don't exercise your freedom if you would make your brother stumble. And that was one consideration. And then chapter 9 was giving us more examples of how Paul also gives up his freedoms for the sake of his brother, for the sake of love, for the sake of the gospel. Now as we move into chapter 10, we're coming back to idols again. And this time there's a different aspect to idols. Before, the question was, could you eat food that had been offered to an idol that now is being sold in the marketplace? Is that okay to eat? And the question was, yes. We know that idols are not real, but just because an idol is not real doesn't mean it won't kill you. It turns out that even though you and I may not be bowing down to statues in this way, Still the threat of idolatry is very real and pulls us away from God and results in death. It turns out that there are ways that we act physically. Again, you and I are not necessarily bowing down to carved images, what we would think are idols, but there are other things, things that pull us away from our worship of the living and true God. So my task for this morning is to proclaim to all of us, let us not be foolish. Let us not be foolish. Let's see these connections. See the connections that exist between the physical world, that most often we're thinking in these terms, and how those translate into connections to the spiritual world or our spiritual experience. And so this first question we will ask is, what are some of these connections, or how do these connections work? And the way that we will answer it is, with the text, seeing some Old Testament examples. And after we understand these connections that exist between the physical and the spiritual, and the devotion that we give to one is very much related to devotion to the other. Then we'll ask, how do we fight against bad kind of connections, and how do we fight for the right kind of connections, or good kind of connections, that lead us back into communion with God? So that's how we'll perceive these two questions. First is the question of, where are the hidden connections? And second is, how can we fight for the good kind of connections and against the bad kind? So let's go to our text here. Now, the first question, what are some of these hidden connections between the physical world and the spiritual world? Well, really, in verse 6 of our text, Paul says, now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did, and also in 11, It says, now these things happened to them, them as the Israelites, as an example. But they were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come. And in between those two, and kind of backing up, so with verse six, these things, it's actually referring backwards and forwards. There's a first instance which is given. the water that came from the rock. Then there are these other examples. The incident with the golden calf. The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. Then there is a reference to indulging in sexual immorality where 23,000 fell in a single day. This was the incident with Cineas. Now it's not the Phineas who is the unfaithful one. This was the Phineas who took a spear and speared a man and the Moabite woman whom he was with. So we'll look at that. The next example is going to be the bronze serpent. Do you remember this episode where the snakes were coming out to bite the people? Moses lifted up the bronze serpent. We'll look at that one. And then finally is going to be the rebellion of Korah when Korah protested. Why are you, Moses, the one who gets to lead us? So these are the ones that we're going to go through as we proceed. And if you want to follow along, some of these I'll be reading from the text, some of them I'll be more summarizing, but I'll at least give you references for these. The first one is the water from the rock. This was Exodus chapter 17. Now there's a craving that's happening here, and I'm not going to read to you this particular text, and you can read this on your own if you want. But what you'll see here is that the people are out. They have seen, as Dirk told us last week, they have seen the miracles of God, the miraculous way in which God brought them out of Egypt. Walls of water walking straight through the Red Sea. And now they're on the other side of that and they're lacking water and they're getting thirsty and they have this physical craving for water. And that physical craving leaves them to complain against God. What are you doing bringing us out here without any water? Did you bring us out here to die? It would be better for us to be back in Egypt right now. Is that why you have brought us out here? So this is the context for the water that comes from the rock. And when God hears the grumbling of the people, he says to Moses, here's what I want you to do. I will go and stand on the rock. You strike the rock and water will come out before the people. I will stand in judgment before the people. Strike the rock, water will come out. And this is what happened. And the people had their thirst satisfied. Now, with their thirst initially, though, there was an unbelief in God because they said, what have you done bringing us out here? Because of their physical craving for water, that led them to have an unbelief in God. There's a connection. Do you see that? There's a connection there. And in fact, their hunger, their thirst for water, led them to even say, why don't we go back to Egypt? Presumably because the God there can provide for our needs. Maybe this God is one more worthy of worship than the God who brought us out. God's like the Nile God. There was so much water there in Egypt. Do you remember what happened to the Nile God? There's a connection. Let's go to the next example, the golden calf. This is Exodus chapter 32. If you'd like to follow along, you can, or just listen, that's fine. Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. So Aaron said to them, take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons and your daughters and bring them to me. So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord. And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. And the Lord said to Moses, Go down for your people whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf, and have worshipped to it, and sacrificed to it, and said, These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now, therefore, let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them, and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you. But Moses implored the Lord, God and said, O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, with evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. Remember Abraham and Isaac And Israel, your servants to whom you swore by your own self and said to them, I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and all this land that I have promised that will give to your offspring and they shall inherit it forever. And the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people. And as soon as he came near to the camp, Moses saw the calf and the dancing and his anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it. And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose for Aaron had let them break loose to the derision of their enemies, Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, Who is on the Lord's side? Come to me. And all the sons of Levi gathered around him, and he said to them, Thus says the Lord, your God, put on your sword on your side, each one of you. And go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor. And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And that day, about three thousand men of the people fell. And then the Lord sent a plague on the people because they had made the calf, the one that Aaron had made. Now, this is a fascinating one, because here you have the people even proclaiming this is a feast, a festival to Yahweh himself. And yet they had transferred the living and true God into this idol, a calf, a golden, a very impressive, I'm sure, calf, a sight to be seen. But they craved to be just like the world, the gods of Egypt that they had seen and know for all of their lives. They had something they could look at. And so they transferred this worldly aspect of worshipping the living and true God. They had a craving to be able to see with their eyes. And so they made the calf. And there was a connection on the spiritual level with what they were doing. Good intention, though it may have been, they were idolaters. And God didn't just tell them, no, no, that's not right. It was far worse than that. Some of them were killed. Some of them were destroyed with a pestilence and a plague. These are very serious things. Next. Numbers chapter 25. This is the incident with Phinehas. The text that Paul tells us here in 1 Corinthians says, We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. So again, this is Numbers 25. While Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab. These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. And the Lord said to Moses, Take all of the chiefs of the people and hang them in the sun before the Lord. so that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel. And Moses said to the judges of Israel, each of you kill those of his men who have yoked themselves to Baal of Peor. And behold, One of the people of Israel came and brought a Midianite woman to his family in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of all of the people of Israel while they were weeping in the entrance of the tent of meeting. And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, He rose and left the congregation and took a spear in his hand and went after the man of Israel into the chamber and pierced both of them. The man of Israel and the woman through her belly. Thus, the plague on the people of Israel was stopped. Nevertheless, those who died by the plague were twenty four thousand. So here you see a craving for sexual desire. And because of this craving, it led them to be mixing with the people of the land, the Moabites. And as they did that, there's even a reference to food here, by the way. Don't miss that as well. These things are all connected. As they engaged in sexual immorality with the women of the land, something else on the spiritual level was happening. They started to worship the God of this land, Baal of Peor, and turned away from the living and true God, and again were idolaters because they followed their cravings. Fascinating. Next one, again a little shorter. The Bronze Serpent. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents. This is a reference to Numbers 21. Numbers 21, from Mount Hor, the Israelites set out by the way to the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom, and the people became impatient on the way, and the people spoke against Moses and against God, saying, Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food. Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that the people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord that he take away these serpents from us. And so Moses prayed for the people, and the Lord said to Moses, Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live. So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and he would live. Now here, there's a craving of the people for something, a provision other than what God has provided. Did you hear what they said? There is no food, there is no water, and we loathe this worthless food. There was food. There was water. But the people had rejected the way in which God had provided for them. The people rejected the bread that came from heaven. Does that sound familiar? The people rejected the true bread, even in Jesus' day, didn't they? The same thing is happening on the physical level. The foods, the drinks that they want, the cravings that they have, they're not satisfied with what God has provided for them. And in their dissatisfaction, they're putting God, putting Christ even, it says, to the test. Judgment came upon them. And their anxieties, the anxieties that they had in putting Christ to the test, they say, did you bring us out here in the wilderness to die? It's as though they're saying the Egyptian gods would never have done this to us. And again, they're idolaters. Now, there's something else interesting that goes on here. If you know the history of Israel, the serpent, the golden serpent that they were to look upon later on, it actually becomes an idol as well, which we'll come back to. Here's the last one, the reference that Paul gives in verse 10. Nor grumble, we must not grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. I think there's two possible references that this could go back to. I guess there's many more of that, that they were grumbling. But it seems the two most likely are either Numbers chapter 14 or Numbers chapter 16. I've chosen to go with Numbers chapter 16 here because I think it makes it a little bit more... the sides are lined up and you can see what the people are clamoring about. Now, in this case, the grumbling of Korah and the people who were on his side They don't like the fact that Moses is the one who's leader over the people. And they go to Moses and they say, why is it that you get to be the one to lead us? Isn't everybody here the chosen of the Lord? Can't all of us lead the people? Who made you leader over us? And Moses says, oh, is it too much that God has brought you out Do you really want to put Him to the test? Because your words are not against me, they're against Him. Okay. You want to know who it is that put me as leader over you? Everyone, whoever thinks that you're worthy, bring your censors out and we'll see whom God will choose and put His fire into their censors. And do you know what happened? When all of this was staged, fire did come. But it didn't just go into their censer, it burned up these men completely, all of those who were rebellious. And they take these censers, they've been made holy now, as they were offering them, they've now been made holy, the men are long gone, they're burned up. The censers, they're hammered out, and they're flattened, and they're placed onto the altar where all of the people can remember. Every time you see that, remember who it is that is really authority over you. And that when you reject Moses, you're not just rejecting Moses, you're rejecting God Himself. And the people, the next day, they grumble against Moses and say, why did you kill the people of the Lord? They're grumbling against Moses because they think that Moses somehow has orchestrated a trick. That he's the one who killed the people of the Lord. And they start grumbling. And a plague breaks out. A plague breaks out. And as it's described here, this is very interesting, as Paul describes it, he says, destroyed by the Destroyer. Capital D. Destroyer. Now, this destroyer has made an appearance at various times before, I think most notably at the Passover when the Israelites were to cover their doorpost with this blood of the lamb so that the destroyer would pass over them and the plague would not break out against their own firstborn. But again, here with Korah's rebellion, we see that a craving for power, craving to be in control on the physical level, actually results in a spiritual implication that they were rejecting God, even as they rejected Moses. These are the connections. I hope you can see them. Do you see them? These connections, knowing that they're there, the next question for us then is how do we fight against these connections? How do we fight them? So that we don't go down bad kind of connections, but we look for good connections. And then comes verse 12 in our text this morning. What I think it's the main point of the whole thing. Verse 12. Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed, lest he fall. The Israelites, as an example, they deceive themselves. They thought that they could engage in the various religious practices of the world and yet still remain faithful to God. But they deceive themselves. They thought they were standing firm, but they fell. To the Corinthians, the same thing is at play. This is why Paul has used these examples to them. The Corinthians were also deceiving themselves. thinking that they could also engage in some of the religious practices, like going into the temple, not just buying the food that was offered to an idol afterwards, but going to the temple, the idol's temple itself, and eat the food there. As though that's okay? No, that is not okay. You're a fool if you think you can dabble in the religious practices of the world and remain faithful to God. or elsewhere, as Paul says, to engage in sexual immorality in the way that the world does. You're a fool if you think you can do that and also remain faithful to God on the spiritual level. The Israelites deceive themselves. The Corinthians deceive themselves. You and I have a tendency, a proclivity, to deceive ourselves. Just as susceptible Because we think that we can dabble in some of these practices, feasts like wild parties or other ways in which we use food immorally and sexual immorality, the truly physical kind or the virtual kind. We think that we can dabble in this and that it won't have any effect. We can still remain faithful to God in this thing. We would be fools to think that. Don't deceive yourself. Now, I need to give you a caution here. These cravings that you have, you might be tempted to think, well, maybe the solution is to stop the craving. That's the Buddhist answer. Get rid of the desire that you have. That's the problem. If desire leads you into sin, then get rid of the desire. This won't work. The desire has been given to you by God. The only way for this to work properly is that you use it for righteousness and use these cravings in the way that God intends for you to and not to abuse them. So just a word of caution. And in fact, God loves these means, these cravings that he gives to us. The craving itself is not bad. It's when we try to satisfy them apart from God and how he has ordained for us to. God loves these cravings. Think about food. He uses food as an analogy for us. What does the Lord Jesus say of his own body? Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no part with me. In fact, once a month we do that symbolically, but we do that. We're partaking of his flesh, drinking of his blood. There's significance to that, what we're doing. Our physical cravings, we're lining them up with our spiritual cravings, which God satisfies. Or physical intimacy. God is the one who gave us these desires as well. And he describes our relationship with Christ as his bride. A groom and a bridegroom. the bride, living water, craving for water. The craving is not bad, but it has to be rightly placed on the true source where we look for these things. So we don't avoid them, but instead we look to place them on God and have Him satisfy us. And this is verse 13, no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. But God is faithful and he will also provide the way of escape. Now, I think there could be a providential way that God provides a way of escape for you. But what I think is even more central to this is that God himself is the way of escape in the midst of temptation. And we say, repent, turn away from something and believe, turn towards God. So to fight the attraction to something, you have to have something greater, more captivating. For example, God is so holy and God is so righteous that when you see yourself in light of who He is, you feel crushed under the weight of your own sin and you want to turn away from your sin. And at the same time, you see how good He is, how much love that He has for you and how good Jesus is. and that he has dealt with your sin at a very great cost to himself. And in comparison to this glorious God, in comparison to this glorious Jesus, both in his holiness and in his love, these other temptations, they lose their attractiveness. And you're able to resist them. Now, this might cause you pain. Think of Joseph. when he ran away from Potiphar's wife, the consequences for him were very painful, but there was a way of escape because he wanted to honor God himself. I want to just briefly take you back to this. What I'm trying to stress to you, God is the answer. The Lord Jesus Christ is the one who helps you in these temptations. Did you notice that in each of these examples from the Old Testament, they were actually prefiguring Christ in some way? We saw the judgment that was there, that's for sure. But even Christ himself was prefigured. The water from the rock. Paul tells us that that rock was Christ. And we know that Moses said, God said he will stand on the rock and that Moses will strike the rock. It's just not a prefiguring of Christ who would be struck for the people and life-giving water would flow from his side. Isn't the Gospel of John tell us that? When the spear struck him, water and blood came out. Christ is prefigured here, and he was the one who redeemed his people in this case. Or the golden calf. This golden calf, it was smashed up, it was burned, and the people had to drink it and consume it. Now, they were doing it in judgment, but as I said, in the Lord's Supper, we are eating and drinking the body and blood of the Lord, not for our judgment, but for our salvation. And just as the Levites cut down their brothers, The one who represented the priesthood, the high priest of the Levites, he cut down Jesus. And because Jesus was cut down, we live, we who deserve to be cut down. And the same destroyer who came among the people there, this destroyer who brought the plague upon the Israelites and of the firstborn of Egypt, this same destroyer came to the true Passover lamb. Or Phineas and his spear, unlike Phineas who speared an Israelite in his zeal for God, Jesus himself allowed himself to be speared in his zeal for God, for the sake of the people. And just like the chiefs were hung, Christ was hung for his people, not for his own sin. The bronze serpent, we know this one is a little more clear as explained to us in the New Testament. Just as the serpents were biting the Israelites, Jesus was bitten. by the serpent from of old, but on behalf of his people, so that they would not have to experience the sting of death and be overcome by him. And you know, just as this bronze serpent was lifted up, so Christ was lifted up. And finally, Korah's rebellion. Just as Moses and Aaron were rejected by God's people, so also Christ, God's chosen leader, was rejected, despised by his people. so that he could redeem them. And the destroyer, as we said before, Christ experienced himself. Let me just leave you with a few concrete applications that I tried to think of. Again, for each of these examples, let's say water from a rock. This one has to do with anxiety. When you feel physical anxiety, What do you do? Lack of water, lack of food, or some threat of disease or some other uncertainty. What do you do? To the extent that you're feeling anxiety in that moment, you're not looking to God to take care of you. Your anxiety and your fears are showing who your real God is. Just as the Israelites were anxious about water and did not trust in God to provide for them. So the strategy here to fight this, fight for a good connection, is to remember the God that you belong to, who stood in your place of judgment, and as he did so, living water came out to satisfy you, and he has even given you his Holy Spirit. Or to say it another way, remind yourself, for what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, but forfeit his soul? So turn away from this lesser God, which is causing all of this anxiety, and instead turn towards the living and true God, who has promised to never leave you. Or what about with the golden calf, a misguided kind of zeal? Let me ask you, would you say that you have enshrined some aspect of God in an image after your own making? Like, have you taken God's truth, even as captured in this Bible? And do you find that you're worshiping the Bible and the truth that's in the Bible more than the God who gave this Bible and gave this truth? Or maybe the Bible is not as much your thing, but power or experience is your thing, which God grants to his people. Have you created some gold standard of experience that a person has to have to be truly faithful or truly among God's people? Be careful. Be careful that you haven't missed God in your zeal to capture him through one of these ways. Turn away. Turn away from any kind of worldly estimation of who God is like this, like intellectualism or like experientialism. Turn away from those things and turn back instead to the true and living God, who is both God is God and God is love. Or with Xenius and his spear, are you compartmentalizing? Have you deceived yourself into thinking you can dabble in various forms of sexual immorality, even the virtual kind, thinking that it won't affect your relationship with God? Don't be a fool. Present your body as a living sacrifice. If you're married, then by your purity of thought and deed and your faithfulness to your husband or wife on the physical level, you're offering up pure and faithful worship to God. And if you're not yet married, keep yourself pure and faithful to the Lord on the physical level so that you will also be offering up right worship and right closeness with the living and true God. Just two more. The bronze serpent. Just as the Israelites rejected God's provision, something rather boring in its appearance, the same temptation comes to us. Are you bored with Christ? Are you bored among God's people? Are you tired of His body? Repent. Repent. Because whatever you think it is that will be more satisfying is a lie. Do you find yourself to be envious of others who are in control over you? Maybe it's those who are in the church, appointed as elders or other types of leaders. Those who are in positions of authority will be held to a stricter judgment. It is no light thing to stand in this pulpit and proclaim to you this truth. Don't reject me or my words if they are the words of the living God. Or maybe it's outside of this church. Do you reject the authorities that God has placed over you? Because if you do, again, you're rejecting God because God is the one who ordains these authorities to be over you. Well, in closing, Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. Amen. Please pray with me. Father, we ask that you would seal these truths upon our hearts, that you would convict us of sin where we need to be convicted, and that you wouldn't let us stay being convicted of sin, but that we would run to our Lord Jesus Christ and the salvation, the forgiveness, the pardon. that we have in Him, and that we would rejoice, and that we would find fellowship in this forgiveness with our brothers and sisters, and that we would plead with one another and bear one another's burdens. So, Lord, we entrust to You, by Your Spirit, to bring this Word active in our lives. In all these things we pray through Christ. Amen.