Well, good morning. Before we begin our study of chapter 13, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father in heaven, we come to you this morning and ask that you would that you would use the words written by John Owen so many years ago to illumine our minds, to what you have for us, in fact, in your word, in the scriptures, that we might learn to wait for you in faith, that we might wait for you to carry out your promises, knowing that your promises are sure, and that you are faithful to do all that you have said you would do, and even though sometimes you make us to wait for you to fulfill those things, nevertheless, they are no less sure, and so we ask that you would give us a spirit of faithfulness, that we might learn to wait for you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Well, this morning we're coming to the second-to-last study of John Owen's book, The Mortification of Sin, and we're in Chapter 13, which is titled, Wait for the Verdict of God. So if I may, I'd like to briefly summarize where we've been in the previous few weeks. Because what John Owen has been doing is giving us what he calls preparatory directions. And it's maybe a strange way of speaking, but it's pretty common in some of the works that Owen writes. In a sense, what he's doing is he's giving us instructions to follow to prepare for the actual work that we're going to do. By analogy, if you were to go and to bake a cake, for example, and you pulled out the cookbook, you would begin not by starting to mix eggs and flour, but you would begin by gathering your utensils and all your ingredients and setting the oven to the proper temperature. And so, too, what Owen has been giving us is similar directions. This is how to prepare for the work of mortification, which we will come to next week, the actions that directly lead to mortification. But this week, we're in the final preparatory direction Before we go there, though, I just want to briefly summarize the previous eight. The first one, if you recall, and I'll give you these in my own words, is that Owen encouraged us to evaluate the symptoms of our sin. If we're dealing with a particular sin or several sins, look at their symptoms to determine what kind of sin is this. Is this entrenched fully, if you will, like a bacteria that's become resistant to antibiotics that requires fuller remedy or is there some other characteristic of it? That's going to help us to determine what kind of remedy we require. Secondly, he looks at clearly assessing the guilt, the danger, and the evil of our sin. And really what he's saying there is we need to think properly about sin itself and what it is that we do when we sin, who we're sinning against, and how it offends a holy and righteous God. We don't want to think of it as a light thing, as something that we can just deal with or that time will heal, if you will. And thirdly, he tells us to charge the guilt of that sin, then when we've properly conceived of it, charge it to our conscience. And what he means there is to consider it in light of the law and in light of the gospel, and to continue in that action, in that effort, until which time your conscience is impressed with the seriousness of your sin. The fourth thing that he says is to nurture a constant longing for deliverance from the power of sin. That we want to be like Paul in Romans, who longs for deliverance from his body of death, earnestly desiring that that power of sin be broken in his life. And so we too ought to nurture that constant longing. Then he says evaluate your sin both in respect to your personal makeup, your personal constitution. Are there things that you are prone to simply by who you are and your personality and also according to your circumstances. Are there circumstances that occasion particular sins in your lives? He doesn't present these as excuses for our sin but rather a way for us to again properly understand what it is that causes us to sin so that we might actually pursue the work of putting to death sin in our lives. And then he says to respond immediately against sin. And really what he's telling us is to develop that awareness that when the first sign of sin comes, when temptation arises, that we don't wait for it to grow and allow it to gain a foothold, but we respond immediately with overwhelming force against that sin. So you have to develop that sense of urgency as you perceive sin and temptation arising in your life. And then the eighth rule that he gives us is to foster humility by meditating on the excellencies of God. And what he wants us to do here is to really consider the greatness of God and his majesty and his glory and our weakness in respect to him. And this is vital in the fight against sin, because we don't fight sin on our own, not in our own power. We don't do it by our own strength. And if we don't have a proper understanding of ourselves and proper humility, then we expose ourselves to temptation and to sin. And so we come this morning to the final preparatory direction, which is to wait for the verdict of God. And what I want to do is I want to emphasize two key ideas. that come from the text this morning. And the first, as I prayed earlier, is the concept of waiting and how waiting accompanies faith. Waiting for God to act, waiting for God to speak in our lives is, as Owen writes in this chapter, the action of faith and the grace of faith waiting. And the second key idea that I want to emphasize is that we ought to have a right attitude about our sin, a right attitude about our sin. And we've seen this again. We've seen this earlier in other chapters. And he comes back to it and presents it maybe from a slightly different perspective. So some of that may sound a little bit repetitive, but hopefully it will still be encouraging. And then I want to offer one qualification. Because what Owen is going to say is, he's going to say that we need to wait for God to speak peace into our lives, repeatedly. Wait for God to speak peace into our lives when we're dealing with sin, when we've repented of sin. We don't want to speak that peace to ourself. And if we read him wrongly, we can think that Owen is saying that our eternal salvation is in the balance, and he's not. He's speaking to people who are presumably regenerate, who are believers, who do have the full and free pardon of God. And yet, if we recall what he says in Chapter 4, We don't always sense the reality of the benefits that we enjoy as children of God who have been adopted into his family. And he's speaking about that sense of it. Just as in chapter four he said, our life and our comfort depend upon the mortification of sin. Here then he comes to that situation where we find ourselves when we don't have comfort. We don't have peace. We don't sense the benefits and blessings of our adoption as children. because of sin in our lives. And what he's warning us against is a flippant attitude towards sin that simply claims that peace without waiting for God to speak it into our lives. So I want to give you that qualification and then also emphasize those key ideas which I hope to bring out this morning. Preparatory direction number nine, wait for the verdict of God. Owen writes this, when God stirs your heart about the guilt of your sin concerning either its root and indwelling or its breaking out, be careful you do not speak peace to yourself before God speaks it. Listen closely to what he says to your soul. Previously in chapter four, again, I emphasize, he said, our life and comfort, our strength, comfort, power, and peace, they depend greatly upon the mortification of sin. They don't proceed from it. That comes from the Spirit. Only God and His Spirit can communicate that to our hearts. And yet, sin does darken our soul. It removes from us that sense of privilege as adopted children. And so he compares, in chapter four, mortification to the pruning of a plant. When we mortify sin, it allows the graces of God to grow in our lives. The mortified soul is then ready to receive a word of peace from God. So Owen then warns us, though, of speaking that peace to ourselves without waiting, and he gives us two observations to hold in mind as we think about how to discern when is it that we're speaking peace to ourselves and when is it that we're hearing it from God. He gives us these observations. The first is that it's God's prerogative to give grace to whom he pleases. In accordance with Romans 9.18, God has mercy on whom he wills. And it's not just speaking about the grace that we receive in salvation when God brings us to faith. It is speaking about that, but much more that all that we receive from God from his hand is by his grace and by his mercy, and he dispenses that according to his good pleasure. That's God's prerogative and not ours. And so we must hold that truth in our mind. It's not to suggest that he is stingy with his gifts, but he's a wise father. And so what Owen illustrates this as though sometimes one might sin and repent and God immediately receives that person, but other times he might leave that person to wait at the door and wait for him to come to them and receive them in grace. And God does it wisely according to his will and his providence. And we're to wait for him to act as he so chooses. Nevertheless, Owen tells us he's the God of all comfort, as we see in 2 Corinthians 1, 3. And he has a peculiar way of healing the brokenness and the misery of his people, citing Isaiah 57, 16, and 18. So I want to look at an example of this. I want to look to the Book of Habakkuk. We won't read it all, of course, but it is short, and I do commend it to you. It's just three chapters. in the book of Habakkuk, we see that the prophet goes to God as he witnesses great injustice in Judah. And he wonders, when will God come and do something about this injustice? And so he opens with a complaint. And again, it's a very simple book to read. It's really an interchange between the prophet and God, a kind of back and forth. almost an argument, if you will. And the prophet says, Lord, how long will I cry for help and you will not heal or cry to you violence and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity and why do you idly look at wrong? And you see what Habakkuk is doing is he's wondering, when is God going to act and intervene to bring about justice in our world? And what God tells him in chapter 1, verse 5, is, look among the nations and see, wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. This goes to the point what Owen is saying about how so often God's ways confound us, that he works in a way that's so completely different than how we would expect. And what he goes on to tell Habakkuk is that he's raising up the Chaldeans, he's raising up Babylon as the instrument of his justice. And he's right. Habakkuk is shocked by this. He doesn't understand it, because later on he asks, how is it possible that the Lord could judge a people by a nation less righteous than them? He looks at the Chaldeans, and if Judah is guilty of great wickedness, certainly Babylon's guilty of much more. They devour people. They destroy them. They don't think anything of it. They glorify their own might. pagan people who reject the God who is our creator. How could God judge Judah by this people? Indeed, Habakkuk is confounded by it. And yet what the Lord assures Habakkuk is this, that the righteous shall live by faith. That he is going to judge Babylon too, that he will set all things right eventually, that ultimately the earth will be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. but the righteous shall live by his faith. And so that book of Habakkuk closes with this wonderful prayer of faith where Habakkuk acknowledges God's prerogative to be gracious when he wills, to execute justice when he wills, to do as he pleases, and he waits. He writes this. In chapter 3, verse 16, I hear and my body trembles. My lips quiver at the sound. Rottenness enters into my bones. My legs tremble beneath me. Yet, I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us. Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail, and the fields yield no food. The flock be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls. Yet, I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation. So you see what the prophet learns in this interchange with God is that the action of faith is to wait. And so, too, Owen points us to that truth in chapter 13, that we ought to wait for the verdict of God in our lives. We ought to wait for him to speak peace in our lives and not to claim it flippantly. Well, the second observation that Owen gives us, just briefly, is that it is Christ's prerogative to apply the peace of God in our lives. And without turning there, I think that one of the great examples of this is found in the Gospels, particularly in the story of the disciples and Peter, especially. Recall in the Gospel of Luke, what Jesus says to Peter before he is arrested and crucified. He tells him that you will deny me. Peter, of course, says, I would die for you, Lord. I would not deny you. But in Luke, the way he records it, Jesus says, Satan has demanded to sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you. And when you turn, strengthen your brothers. He points to a time when Peter will turn from that sin, will come in repentance, and will be used chiefly by God to build the church, to strengthen his brothers, to teach them, and to show them how it is to live by faith. And yet right now, he's going to learn a hard lesson. Because not long after that, Jesus is arrested in the courtyard when questioned by a child. What does Peter do but deny? Jesus three times. And Luke records it vividly. He tells us that Jesus looked at him when he denied him three times. And that immediately the rooster crowed, just as Jesus said. And what did Peter do? He went out and he wept bitterly. He wept bitterly because he knew how grievous his sin was. Well, he didn't receive the comfort the peace of God spoken to him through Christ until after the resurrection, and yet he had the full assurance of it in Jesus' own words, saying, you will deny me, but when you have turned, strengthen your brothers. And yet it's not till after his resurrection when Jesus comes to his disciples, and what is the first thing that he says to them? Peace be unto you when he appears to them. Peace be unto you. And there's a special focus on Peter in that whole narrative that he says as he rises and he appears to the women at the tomb, go and tell the disciples and Peter, you see. Well, each one of the gospels records the denial in a peculiar way, records the way that Jesus speaks of that denial, and records the way that Jesus restores his disciples in a unique way, and yet, It's consistent throughout all four Gospels. It's important. And so this is an illustration, I hope, that helps us to understand this second observation that Owen gives us, that it's Christ's prerogative to speak the peace of God to our conscience. So holding those in our mind, Owen gives us some methods or some rules for how we might know if we're speaking peace to ourselves, if we have a right attitude about our sin, or if it's God who's speaking that peace to us. So when peace is falsely spoken, there are five rules that he gives us, and just briefly, let me go through all of them, and then I'll come back and revisit each one. First, there's no hatred of the sin. There's no hatred of the sin that accompanies repentance. Second, It's a merely rational kind of faith. It's a rational claim to God's promises. Thirdly, it's superficial. It deals lightly with the promises of God and with the forgiveness that we have. Fourth, it's narrow. This is a point that Owen has made before in a different context. It's narrow in the sense that we deal with one sin while neglecting other sins of equal weight, other sins that are very serious as well. And lastly, it's conceited. That is, there's no accompanying humility. We're not humbled by this word of peace that comes to us. So let's go back through and consider these again. There's no hatred of sin. Owen notes that a sin in our lives, an indwelling sin or one that breaks out, may disturb us, it may perplex us, but we don't hate it. We don't long to be free of it. We simply hate the consequences of it, you see. And I think this is one that might strike close to home for us, that we think of maybe particular pet sins in our lives, ones that we revisit again and again in our lives. We do hate the consequences of it, but we consistently make provision for those things again and again in our lives. we go back to that poisoned well over and over again. We don't seek to be free from it, just from its consequences. And that's a symptom that shows that we don't actually hate the sin. When we go to Christ for healing, Owen tells us, we see him as the one who is pierced for our transgressions. And if we see him as the one pierced for our transgressions, then we ought to see that sin in a different light. Not simply as something that has adverse consequences for us, but as something that Christ died for. And so what Owen says is that we view Christ from many perspectives. We see him as the son of God. We see him as the one who fulfilled all of God's promises to his covenant people in the Old Testament. We see him as a king. We see him as a priest, as a prophet, all of these things. And yet, when we're considering our sin and repentance, we ought to see him chiefly as the one who was pierced for us. This is what Owen says. He looks to Zechariah chapter 12, verse 10. And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him as one weeps over a firstborn. What Owen is saying is that when we go to Christ for healing, our faith sees Him particularly as the one pierced. And this should lead to a proper hatred of sin. So where there is no hatred of sin, then it is likely that we're speaking that peace to ourselves. And if that's our concern, then what we ought to do is look to Christ and Him crucified and contemplate His glory and majesty and the sacrifice that He made for us on the cross. And then maybe we will see our sin aright. We'll see it for the hateful thing that it is. Secondly, he says that if it's a merely rational claim to the promises of God, then it's probably peace that we're speaking to ourselves. And I think this is another one that hits close to home. It hits close to home for me. We look through the scriptures, and we search it, and we find promises of God. And so maybe we're caught in some sin, and we read through the book of Romans, and we see this applies to my situation. What Owen is saying is we read that, and that's good. But then we take that, and we apply it to ourselves without waiting for God to apply it to our conscience and to our soul. And so what it breeds is this kind of indifferent attitude towards sin. What Owen's concern seems to be is that we might have the attitude that Paul condemns in Romans 6. Remember what he says in Romans 6, verse 1. After thinking and articulating the free grace of God given to us in the gospel so clearly, he anticipates an objection. Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? You see. Now, I think if you're familiar with Romans, you say, of course not. The answer is obvious. And yet, we hear people, maybe we even say that kind of thing ourselves, perhaps not even articulating it so clearly, but saying it with our lives. We rest on the promise that God freely forgives us. We remember that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But we use that verse. not to encourage us to trust in Christ, but rather as an excuse for our sin. Everybody's a sinner. So am I. So what? I have these promises of grace. What Owen is saying is we're not using those promises rightly. And so what he's encouraging us to do is to contemplate, indeed contemplate those promises and consider them, but wait for God to communicate them to your soul. It's possible for a regenerate man to act out of merely natural and rational principles, he writes, not out of his true spiritual life. So the second point, the second rule is that we ought to not just simply consider these things from a merely rational standpoint, but to consider God's promises and wait for him to communicate them to us, to our spirit. The last three rules I'm going to consider rather briefly. I think they're pretty straightforward. The third one is that we don't want to have a superficial response to our sin. It is to take it lightly. And simply, he points to Jeremiah 6, 14, where the prophet says, they have healed the wound of my people lightly, as he condemns the false prophets of Israel. It's not something that is healed so easily. It's not something that God simply dismisses. You see, coming back to our first point about how Christ died for our sin, the Son of God took on flesh and went to the cross for us because of our sin. That's not a light thing. We ought not to think of it that way. Fourthly, we ought not to be narrowly focused on a single sin when there are other equally important, equally weighty sins that are present in our lives. And so I think that, again, that's straightforward and you can consider examples how that might play out. When there's neglected evil, no less importance, he says, than the one that causes guilt. No word of peace has come from God. And finally, Rule 5, Owen states that a true word of peace will bring about humility in the subject. And he looks to the example of David in the Psalms, how David says so often, speaks about the Lord breaking his bones and the way that the Lord has humbled him and brought him to a low estate. in his repentance. And think of his experience when he sinned by having Uriah killed and committing adultery with Uriah's wife, Bathsheba, and then trying to cover his sin and hide it through his own devices. When the prophet confronted him and brought the sin to his attention, showed him the seriousness of it, he wept and he mourned and he humbled himself. It's not a thing that It's a simple point is that, again, it goes back to the attitude that we have toward our sin and toward the word of peace that God speaks to us. Does it produce humility in us? Do we have a proper understanding of ourselves and our frame and our weakness? Or do we simply dismiss it? Well, I failed again, but I'm really not that bad. there's not really anything that's seriously wrong with me. I don't need to take any special measures to prevent that sin in the future, because I'm actually a pretty good Christian. Do you see that kind of pride in that way of thinking? That that's not the proper humility of a person who is waiting for God to speak peace into his life. So he gives us those five rules for how we can identify when we're speaking peace to ourselves versus when he has spoken peace. So then you're probably saying, well, how can we know if it is actually God who's spoken peace to us? If it's God who's communicating his comfort to us? And he gives us two answers. And the first is this. There's a secret instinct in faith that knows the voice of Christ when he speaks. I think that may be, you know, at some point you say, I wish I could have something more concrete than this. And yet, Jesus does say in John 10, 27, my sheep know my voice. They know the voice of Christ. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. Owen goes on to say, when he speaks, he speaks as no man has ever spoken. He speaks with power. He will, in one way or another, make your heart burn within you. Luke 24 is what he cites there. And we think of the Emmaus Road, where Jesus appeared to his disciples after the resurrection. And they didn't recognize him. But when he spoke, and then he had left, and they said, did not our hearts burn within us as he opened the scriptures to us? When he puts his hand at a latch, his spirit will seize your heart. So Owen leaves it to us to discern whether or not we hear Christ speaking peace to us, arguing that we are best equipped to make that determination for ourselves. And he argues that because it's what scripture teaches, that those who are Christ's sheep, they know his voice, they hear it, and they follow him. He doesn't leave us only with that, however. He offers us a final word of advice on the matter. If the word of the Lord does good to your soul, he is the one who speaks it. If it humbles you and cleanses you, it is fulfilling the purpose for which it was given to you, namely, to endear, to cleanse, to melt and bind to obedience, and to self-emptiness, and so on. If the word that is spoken, if it produces a proper response of humility in us, if it encourages our heart, then it's fulfilling the purpose that it's meant to do. If it results in greater obedience and greater Christlikeness, then surely it's a word of peace from the Lord. So, again, coming back to the key ideas that I wanted to emphasize, the idea of waiting and having a proper attitude towards sin. Go to, I'll turn to Lamentations chapter three, And simply reiterate this, and let me. Let me set the context a little bit. In Lamentations we see, at the fall of Jerusalem, Jeremiah weeping over the destruction that he sees and the sin that led to it. And he speaks of God in this way, that he prays to God and yet he describes God as having closed himself in, as if his prayers cannot break through, as if they're not heard. But he assures himself with this in Jeremiah, excuse me, in Lamentations 3, verse 22. We'll begin in 21. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in him. The Lord is good to those who wait for him. to the soul who seeks him, it is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. You see, we have a picture in the experience of Israel and Judah that is concrete and that we can draw an analogy to it from to our lives. That is, they had promises that God deliver them. And yet they had to wait in the midst of a great deal of suffering, in the midst of many trials, in the midst of exile, they had to wait for God to reveal that salvation to them, to reveal the full benefit of that salvation to them. And yet what Jeremiah says is that the Lord is good to those who wait. And so with Jeremiah, with John Owen, what I say then is this, let us wait for the verdict of God in our own lives when we come to Him repentant of our sin. We may go to the promises, we must go to the promises of God that we find in Scripture, but then let us wait for Him to communicate those to our soul. I'm gonna close with the words of a hymn that I think are appropriate to this chapter and to the passages that we've read. This hymn is titled Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted. Stricken, smitten, and afflicted, see him dying on the tree. Tis the Christ by man rejected. Yes, my soul, tis he, tis he. Tis the long-expected prophet, David's son, yet David's lord. By his son God now has spoken, tis the true and faithful word. Tell me, ye who hear him groaning, was there ever grief like his? Friends through fear, his cause disowning, foes insulting his distress. Many hands were raised to wound him, none would interpose to save, but the deepest stroke that pierced him was the stroke that justice gave. Ye who think of sin but lightly, nor suppose the evil great, here may view its nature rightly, here its guilt may estimate. Mark the sacrifice appointed, see who bears the awful load. Tis the word of the Lord's anointed, son of man and son of God. Here we have a firm foundation, here the refuge of the lost. Christ the rock of our salvation, his the name of which we boast. Lamb of God for sinners wounded, sacrifice to cancel guilt. None shall ever be confounded who on him their hope have built. So let me close in a word of prayer and then we have some time and I'll just ask if you have questions or if you have comments, open it up to that. Father in heaven, we come to you again and we pray that you would make us repentant people, that you would reveal to us our sin, that we might repent of it and return to you, and that in that repentance, Lord, you would visit us with words of comfort and words of peace. Help us to rightly discern when we are thinking rightly about our sin, or when we are not thinking rightly. We pray that you would help us to know when you are speaking to us and that you would speak a clear word, Lord, and press upon our conscience the pardon that you've given us freely in the gospel. And we just pray that you would sanctify us, Lord, and cause us to grow in greater Christlikeness as we seek to walk with you and seek to follow your word. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. So I'll ask if there are questions or any comments. Yes? Absolutely. Yeah, I think of the prodigal son as you say that, just how it wasn't, you know, in the parable, it wasn't when he's you know, rich and coming to the end of his wealth and perceives this is not going well, that he returns, but that he's brought to the sense of his need to return to his father when he's in the pigsty and he's wishing that he could just eat the scraps that he's feeding to the pigs. And indeed, sometimes I think that's, it goes hand in hand with the humility that Owen speaks of, that we, because of our dullness, we sometimes need that in order to bring us to proper repentance. Sure. Yeah, I think that You know, that resonates with me, especially recently as I've, through many discussions and studies of thought, you know, on things like the doctrine of the Trinity and how incomprehensible it is. But the way I'd answer that is to look to particular passages of scripture. that really show us the grace of our Lord and his attributes. And I'll say this, is that when God reveals himself to us, he reveals himself as a God of steadfast love and faithfulness. And he reveals his character to us. And so for example, when he passed before Moses in Exodus 34, and he said, I'll proclaim my name to you, the Lord the Lord, he goes on to say, a God of steadfast love and faithfulness, who by no means clear the guilty. And this paradox of how can this God be one of faithfulness and love and At the same time, this God of justice who doesn't simply write off sins. That's how he reveals himself when he makes his glory to pass before Moses. And I think that's a helpful illustration for how we might begin to contemplate it is we consider, we may not fully understand, for example, that Christ is you know, what it means for Him to be one with the Father, what it means for Him to be the Son of God, and yet we know that it's something incredible, something that's far beyond me, and yet He's the one who died for my sin. How can that be? And so I think that by thinking through Scripture's testimony in that regard, that kind of leads us to that marvel, to marvel at His excellencies in that way. How many times in the Old Testament, the New Testament, Moses, the prophets, they review Israel, how many times do they get the history of Israel reviewed with them? And then Paul, in Acts 13, these are believers, and they get hit with the fact, they get hit with their history of the rejection of God. So here in 13, Paul quotes, that one thought, and it's that constant reminder. How do I know? How do I know I'm being sincere? How do I, can I be sincere enough? And it reminds them, look, don't ever let yourself be accused of being stoppers, but maintain what we have taught you. And they're always reminded of this fallen shore, as their history shows that they did, and that it is Christ. And Christ was preached in the Old Testament. Christ was preached. It's about Jesus. And so they are reminded, and I am of Antioch, and he's telling me, don't be accused of being an unbeliever. Don't be accused of being a stalker. Well, OK, I'm not. And yet what you were saying then about recognizing And I think, you know, to that point is one of the hardest things I've found in this book is that he's giving us all of these practical instructions and it seems that they're all aimed at doing something that will enable me to recognize that I can't do anything to affect my sanctification. Yeah. Thank you. Well, thank you. And if there are any thoughts or questions, please, you know, I'll be here. I did. It was absolutely wonderful.