Please take your Scriptures with me this evening, if you would rise and turn to Hosea, the Old Testament prophet of Hosea, chapter 14, and we will read the entire chapter. Hosea 14, beginning with verse 1. Let's give our attention to God's Word. O Israel, return to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. Take words with you and return to the Lord. Say to him, take away all iniquity, receive us graciously, for we will offer the sacrifices of our lips. Assyria shall not save us. We will not ride on horses, nor will we say any more to the work of our hands. You are our gods, for in you the fatherless finds mercy. I will heal their backsliding. I will love them freely for my anger has turned away from him. I will be like the dew to Israel. He shall grow like the lily and lengthen his roots like Lebanon. His branches shall spread. His beauty shall be like an olive tree and his fragrance like Lebanon. Those who dwell under his shadow shall return. They shall be revived like rain. and grow like a vine. Their scent shall be like the wine of Lebanon. Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have heard and observed him. I am like a green cypress tree. Your fruit is found in me. Who is wise? Let him understand these things. who is prudent, let him know them. For the ways of the Lord are right, the righteous walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them. Let's turn to the New Testament, to Romans, the epistle of Paul to the Romans, chapter five, and we'll begin reading there in verse one. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, But we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance and perseverance character and character hope. Now, hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man, someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of the son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only that, but we also rejoicing God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have received the reconciliation. This is God's Word. I would ask you to turn with me in your Scriptures this evening. You may still have them open there to Paul's epistle to the Romans. Paul's epistle to the Romans, chapter 5. This will be our text for the preaching of the Word this evening. Before we come to the preaching of the Word, Let us bow our heads and our hearts together in prayer, asking for the Lord's help to rightly come to His Word. Let's all pray. O Lord, our gracious God and heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You that You have spoken to us, that though We could not understand, we do not have the wisdom on our own to rightly understand You, Your ways, particularly the way of salvation. We thank You that You have made Yourself known to us in the Word. We thank You for the way in which the Word points us to Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, in His person and in His work, doing everything necessary for our salvation. And we pray tonight for the help of your Holy Spirit, that Christ would be magnified, that he would be lifted up. We pray for the filling and help of your spirit and the preaching and the hearing of your word. And may souls be edified, may sinners be saved, may your church be blessed. In Jesus' name, amen. I want to thank our pastor and the session for this opportunity to get to preach God's Word to you. It is a joy and a privilege to get to open God's Word and preach the unsearchable riches of the Lord Jesus Christ. So here in Romans 5, we're going to particularly study verses 6 through 11 this evening. But before we get there, I want to point out that our natural human tendency is to love those who are like us. We love those, maybe a friend or a family member who, they share the same interests that we do. They have a welcoming or approachable personality. We strike up, particularly with a friend, we strike up a friendship with that person. We love that person because of something in them, some quality that we perceive in them. Our love is drawn out to that person. That's the natural human tendency, obviously, in Christ, in the new man, as we are renewed, we are to love We are to love all of God's people and to extend that love as well to the lost. But I'm speaking to our natural human tendency to love those who are like us. But thank God, His love is not like ours. As we've read here in Romans 5, God extended His love to those who are unlovable. When we were yet without strength, when we were still sinners, Christ died for us. We see the beauty of the gospel of God's free grace to us in Christ. As you walk through chapter five here in Romans, you understand that Paul in the initial four chapters of the epistle has established the doctrine of justification by faith alone in Christ alone, apart from the works of the law. And now here in chapter 5 of Romans, the apostle starts to enumerate the fruits or the blessings that flow from justification. We know that justification, a big word that we use a lot, but we understand, as the Westminster Shorter Catechism tells us, that justification is that act of God's free grace wherein He pardoneth all of our sins. and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone. So that's the doctrine in summary form that Paul has established in the opening chapters of the epistle to the Romans. Here in chapter five, in the opening verses, you have an enumeration of the blessings or the benefits that accompany justification. Verse one, as we read a few moments ago, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. So we have peace with God. Secondly, in verse two, through whom also we have access by faith and into this grace in which we stand, we rejoice and hope. of the glory of God. We rejoice and hope of the glory of God. And then in verse 3 and following, you have the blessing of joy in tribulation, glorying in tribulations, knowing that these things, these tribulations were perseverance. Perseverance, character, and character, hope. This hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. So the apostle ends this short list of the blessings that accompany justification by making this statement in verse 5, that the love of God has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. But he doesn't end there. It's as if he anticipates a question. We know that the love of God has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. We have this declaration of God's Word, this subjective experience of the love of God in Christ. But for the Roman believers, and by extension, the whole church of the Lord Jesus Christ, we might respond, tempted on every side. We know the remaining corruption of our own hearts. We have the temptation, the pressures of a world that would have us conform to its ungodly standards. We have the attacks of the wicked one, the pressures of the dark kingdom. around the world and in the church today are persecuted or suffering. So the response might come back. Well, we we have this statement that the love of God has been poured out by the Holy Spirit has been given to us. How do we know? How do we know that that God truly loves us. And so you have in verses starting with verse six and following, you have an objective demonstration of the love of God for lost and ruined sinners in Christ. Yeah, the demonstration of the glorious love of God poured out for sinners. Yes, we subjectively experience the love of God as it's poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. But when we look to the objective, finished cross work of Jesus Christ, we have an objective display, an objective demonstration of the love of God poured out for sinners. So this evening I want to study with you this matter, this glorious truth of God's love poured out for needy sinners. We're going to study the recipients of that love, the display of that love, and the results of that love. So first you have the recipients of that love. Note how the apostle describes the recipients of this great poured out love of God here in Romans five for when we were verse six, for when we were still without strength, we were still without strength. In due time, Christ died for the for the ungodly. Skip down to verse eight. But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And verse 10. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." So here are the descriptions of the recipients of this great love of God for sinners. We're still without strength. We were still sinners. We were enemies. That describes who we were in Adam. who we were in Adam. We were still without strength. We were weak. We were powerless. We could not save ourselves. Because of our original sin in Adam, the fact that we had died in him when he ate the forbidden fruit, and all of our actual transgressions that flow from that transgression, we have died. We are spiritually impotent. We cannot save ourselves. As Ephesians 2, 1 declares to us, we are dead in trespasses and sins. Totally unable to save ourselves. But there's more here. Verse eight tells us that we were still sinners before the love of God was made known to us in Christ. We were sinners. That was our identity. This diagnosis of our condition accords with the rest of the apostles' teaching throughout the book of Romans. You have the statement back in Romans 1, verse 18, that God's wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. So the apostle there, as he writes under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he is indicting, in particular there in that context, the Gentiles who have suppressed the truth of God, who have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, who have bought a lie and worshiped the creature more than the Creator who is blessed forever. And so that rebellion, That rejection of God as creator and as sovereign Lord leads the Gentiles in particular into a list there at the end of chapter one, all sorts of sinful rebellion against God. However, the Jews are not left off the hook. They don't avoid the indictment of the apostle in the opening chapters of the book of Romans. They are sinners as well, possessing the law and covenant as they do. Yet the apostle indicts the proud Jew who would judge others for committing the same sins that he himself is guilty of. It's not the Jew who is one outwardly or ethnically who is truly part of God's people. It's the one who has been circumcised of the heart, who has been regenerated to faith in Christ, that is part of the true Israel. So whether Gentiles, the worldly pagans who have gone their own way, or the proud legalistic Pharisee, Paul concludes in chapter three, all under sin. all under the condemnation of the law, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We were still sinners, again, unable to save ourselves, unable to keep God's law in our own condition. We were still without strength. We were still enemies. And verse 10 tells us we were enemies. Paul uses the strongest term to denote our condition as sinners. We are engaged in active rebellion against God, against His Word, and against His Kingdom. Through Abbas, the indictment that our Lord Jesus gave to the Jews in John 8.44, you are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. That's us by nature. In Adam, we have followed our father. The devil. We've gone after the way of his desires. We followed the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, as Ephesians 2 tells us as well. Without strength, sinners, enemies. That's us by nature. That's our condition. John Calvin said that we were in no way worthy or fit that God should look on us. Certainly this is bad news. This is not the good news of the gospel. But for even those of us who are in Christ as believers, we hear these declarations of who we were in Adam apart from Christ, apart from His grace. We must understand who we were in Adam before we can rightly understand the magnificent, the free, the glorious love of God poured out for us in the cross of Christ. We understand that we were unlovable by nature, like our first parents who were who. ate the forbidden fruit, had to leave the garden paradise. We have fought the lie of the serpent by nature. We've gone our own way. We've rejected the good way. We have believed lies about the goodness and the generosity of God, His glory and His grace. And we've gone astray. We thus are unlovable. We are unlovable by nature. Even like Gomer, that wife of Hosea, the sinful wife of Hosea, who left the safe and abundant care of her husband and pursued the empty promises of false lovers. Where unlovable, like the generation of Israelites who wandered in the wilderness for years and years, for 40 years, a whole generation, griping, complaining, rebellious Israelites who could not enter the promised land because of their sin. That's our condition by nature. You and I are unable to save ourselves. We must account for this truth. We must understand this truth, that we were unworthy and unfit recipients of the love of God in Christ, before we behold in all of its beauty and all of its glory, the magnificent love of God poured out for us in Christ. We see in the first place the recipients of this poured out love, unworthy and unfit sinners. But praise God, we're not left there. Romans 5 doesn't leave us in that place, but it declares to us this display, the display of God's love in the cross of Jesus Christ. this costly and glorious sacrifice for sinners. We see the full display of God's love for us in the cross of Jesus Christ. Read these statements with me again in verses 6 and verse 8. For when we were still without strength, in verse 6, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. Verse 8, but God demonstrates His own love toward us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Pay close attention with me as we look at the words here in these gospel statements. Note first the timing of the cross as God's love is poured out for sinners in due time. Christ died in due time for the ungodly. His death happened according to the divine plan, according to the divine timetable. God in His gracious sovereignty worked every detail Every detail of the universe for that time when Christ would come into the sin-cursed world to live for us, to suffer for us, and to die for us. Galatians 4 verse 4 says this, But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law. There is nothing haphazard about the timing here. There is nothing less here but God's intentional and deliberate plan. for Christ to come to suffer for us and to die in our place. In due time, Christ died for the ungodly. You see this as well in the life and the ministry of the Lord Jesus. Our family and family worship, we've been reading through the gospel of John together. And even as Pastor Peter preached through the gospel of John, I think he made this point at least several times, preaching through the gospel of John. You see this theme over and over again of the hour. Jesus talks about His hour and His time. At the miracle of turning the water into wine, Jesus tells His mother that His hour has not yet come. He tells His brothers that He will not go with them to the feast because His time had not yet come. But then when everything was ready and the fullness of the time, when God's plan in its unfolding glory, according to His gracious wisdom, when the time had come, Jesus prayed at the beginning of His great high priestly prayer in John 17 1, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son that your son may also glorify you. His hour had come, His hour of suffering on the cross for the sins of His people. And in that cross, we see the infinite glory, the love, and the power of God on full display. Jesus died in due time. We also see the importance of the one who died. This is a simple truth. But many times it's the simple realities of our Christian faith that we need to be reminded of time and time again. Verse six, for when we were still without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. And verse eight, Christ died for us. The strength and the power of the sacrifice rests in the One who made the sacrifice, the only Redeemer of God's elect. The One who died there is Christ, the eternal Son of the Father, the Lord of glory, true God of true God, who took on real human flesh, came into this sin-cursed world, suffered among us, and died as an offering for sin. I love the way in which the Heidelberg Catechism declares to us these twin truths of Christ's perfect humanity and His divinity. The fact that He is truly man and truly God, and thus suited to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Question 16 of the Heidelberg Catechism. Why must He be truly human and truly righteous? Answer, God's justice demands that human nature has sinned, must pay for its sin, but a sinner could never pay for others. So Christ must be truly human and truly righteous, but he also must be truly God. Heidelberg Catechism, question 17. Why must he also be true God so that by the power of his divinity, he might bear the weight of God's anger in his humanity and earn for us and restore to us righteousness and life? True man of true man, true God, true God, these twin realities in the person, these two natures of one person forever. It's Christ who died for us. Note as well that Christ died. His was a real, physical, actual death. Again, an extremely simple truth, but a gospel reality that is full of hope for you and me, because it's in his death that our sins are paid, that God's wrath is appeased, that our sins are removed, and we're declared righteous. Christ died for us. Even our children, the youngest among us can understand this simple reality that Jesus died for sinners. That He died a real and an actual painful physical death on a Roman cross outside Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. As we confess from the larger catechism together this evening, We understand that Christ laid down His life in offering for sin during that painful, shameful, and cursed death of the cross. The writer says this, although infirmities, miseries, and sufferings filled the whole life of Christ, they reached their indescribable climax at the cross. And in the cross, you see this fullness, this freeness of God's love poured out for sinners. There's another detail here that we need to take note of, and it's that Christ died in our place. In verse 6, we note that Christ died for the ungodly. In verse 8, that Christ died for us. He died in our stead as our substitute. He was made to be our curse. He who knew no sin was made sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. He died in our place for the ungodly. ruined sinners. Paul illustrates this point in verse seven, as he highlights the fact that scarcely or rarely for a righteous person will one die. Perhaps for a good person, someone who who is kind, someone who maybe perhaps is generous, likable, maybe maybe for this person, someone would dare to die. Yet God displays his love for for the wicked, for the ungodly and sending Christ to die for us. God's love is a love that is completely different from the human love that even that we admire, and rightfully so, the courage and the bravery of those who would lay down their lives for their countrymen, for their friends, for their family. We admire that love, and we should. But the love of God for us in Christ is a love of a far different tenor. It's a love for the guilty, it's a love for the wicked, and it's a love that demonstrates the riches of God's grace in Christ. Christian, delight in this truth that Jesus bore the wrath of God in your place, that He became a curse for you, that He bore your pain. He was broken that you might be healed. He was forsaken so that you might be welcomed home, and He died so that you might live. He died in your place. We sing and we celebrate with the hymn writer, in my place condemned He stood, sealed my pardon with His blood. Hallelujah, what a Savior. We note finally that it is the love of God as Trinity. It's the love of God as Trinity that's put on full display in the cross of Christ. Note there verse 8, that God demonstrates His own love toward us. We should never fall into the trap of thinking, that Jesus died on the cross in order to make God love us, in order to earn the Father's love for us. I think that many of us understand that Jesus loves us through and through. The love of the Son is there on full display in the cross. But sometimes I think that some of us can wonder, is there some sort of a love gap between the Son who died for us on the cross and the Father? that we almost subtly wondered, did the Son have to die in order to earn that favor of God for us? Does the Father truly love me through and through? Sinclair Ferguson is a very helpful statement in this regard. I'll share it with you. We must not confuse the truth that our sins are forgiven only because of the death and resurrection of Christ with the very different notion that God loves us only because of the death and resurrection of Christ. No, he loved us from the first of time and therefore sent his son who came willingly to die for us. There is no dysfunction in the fellowship of the Trinity. Christian, when you are tempted to doubt God's love for you, particularly the love of the Father, remember the truth of 1 John, 1 John 4, 9 and 10, these marvelous words. In this, the love of God was manifested toward us that God has sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Behind the sacrifice of the Son of the Lord Jesus on the cross stands the eternal, generous, gracious love of the Father for guilty sinners. God triune has loved you, Christian, for his own great glory and for your eternal salvation, and you see this love displayed in the cross. So we've noted that God's love is poured out on unworthy and unfit sinners. We've seen the glorious display of that love in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. What are the results of that love? What are the fruits of that love? How is that love worked out in our own experience as believers? You have several here in our text. We have been, in the first place, justified by Christ's blood. Note verse 9 there. Much more than having now been justified by His blood. We referred a few moments ago to that doctrine of justification, but let's return to it for just a moment. Remember that in our justification, that our sins have been removed. God has pardoned all of our sins. God's Word tells us that as far as the East is from the West, so far He has removed our transgressions from us. You have the statement of Isaiah as well. In Isaiah 38, 17, you have cast all my sins behind your back. Because of Christ, because of His death, His offering for sin on the cross, our sins are fully and finally put away. And the other part of justification is that we're accepted as righteous in God's sight, dressed in the righteousness of Christ, which has been imputed to us by faith alone. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, Romans 8.1. Christian, God's wrath against your sin has been removed. Your guilt and your shame has been removed as well. And you stand righteous in Christ, not in yourself, not in your own works, but righteous in Christ, accepted in the beloved. You've been justified by his blood. There's a second result. We have been reconciled to God by the death of his son. And we see this in verse 10. For when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son. Much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." We were enemies, but because of the pouring out of God's love and the sacrifice of Christ, we have been reconciled. We have been brought into God's family as His sons and His daughters. Reconciled to Him. No longer this enmity. No longer this hatred. No longer are we strangers afar off, or enemies of God, hating Him and hating His law and hating His ways. We've been subdued. We've been brought into His family. And in Christ, We enjoy communion with the Father and the Spirit. You now come boldly to God the Father because of the work of His Son and the Spirit's help and enablement. You have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. You can enjoy that peace and reconciliation because of the cross. I'll say this in passing, just a momentary application, but this also provides the basis for our reconciliation one to another. When others have sinned against us and have wronged us, we don't have the ability on our own and our own resources to make that right. But when we look to the cross, when we look to the way in which God has been reconciled to us, he has laid his wrath, poured out his wrath on Christ for our sins. And now we've been reconciled. We have peace with God. So that reality then drives our reconciliation one with another. And we are able by God's grace to pursue that reconciliation with our brothers and sisters in Christ, with those. who sinned against us. The gospel enables us to do so. So we've been justified. We've been reconciled. Thirdly, we will be saved from God's wrath by Christ's life. We will be saved in the eternal sense that our sanctification will be completed. We will be glorified. We will be eternally secure. because of Christ's life. And you see that clearly in both verses 9 and 10. We shall be saved from wrath through Him. Also, verse 10 there, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And the salvation of you here, again, is not so much the initial justification, though it would include that, but all the way through our sanctification, our Christian experience, our glorification, and our entrance into glory, we will be saved by the life of Christ. Remember that He died for our sins according to the Scriptures, who are also wonderfully taught that Christ Christ rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, that we have been united to Him by faith, that if you're in Christ, you are united to His resurrection power, His resurrection life, and because He lives, you will live also. You will make it all the way home to glory, believer, because you're in Christ and you are united to Him by faith. Because He lives, you will live. Do you sometimes wonder if you will make it all the way home to glory? You see that remaining corruption of your own heart, our own waywardness. We see and we experience the attacks of the devil, the pressures of the world, and we wonder, will I make it all the way home to glory? Realize that the gospel declares to us, forgiveness of sins, justification, reconciliation to God, also the assurance that through Christ, because He lives, because He now ministers to us by His Word and Spirit, He will bring us all the way home to glory. Because He lives. we will live also. You are united by faith to the risen Jesus, and he keeps you by his mighty grace. John Calvin put it this way. It would not have been enough for salvation to have been once procured for us were not Christ to render it safe and secure to the end so that we ought not to fear that Christ will cut off the current of his favor while we are in the middle of our course. Again, God's great love to us poured out in Christ justifies us, reconciles us, and ensures our final salvation. There's one final result of God's glorious poured out love to us in Christ, and it's found in verse 11. We rejoice in God. We also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. We are called to joy. And a joy that is not based upon a giddy feeling, a joy that's not based upon life's circumstances, but a gospel-centered, a gospel-fueled joy that rests in the poured-out love of God the Father, demonstrated by the sacrifice of Christ His Son on the cross, and a love that is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who's been given to us. Brothers and sisters in Christ, do you feel that sometimes your joy is lagging, your duties as a Christian They feel more as if they are duties than a delight. Not that we minimize the importance of duty. It is important for us to obey God's commands. But let us remember that even our obedience in the Christian life is to be driven by our joyful gratitude in the gospel. We rejoice in our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have been saved, through whom we have received this reconciliation. It is this joy that is to drive our obedience. It is this joy that is to drive our worship. May our worship be God-centered, cross-shaped, Spirit-imbued, joyful worship because of God's poured-out love in the gospel. Brothers and sisters, I exhort you to look again to the cross of Christ. See the amazing love of God poured out there for sinners. There is a fountain there and understanding God's eternal love for you in Christ, understanding all that you have in him, in his life, in his death and in his resurrection. That is the foundation of your joy. As we conclude this evening, if you're not in Christ, if you do not know the wonder of this love shed abroad in your heart, I would urge you, I would exhort you to come freely to Christ as He's offered to you in the gospel. You are unworthy. and sinful. You can't earn this love by your own works. The gospel is not a message of self-help or self-improvement. It is a sovereign announcement of a king who died for sinners and who lives again. It is love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be. Come freely to Christ, I urge you this evening. If you are in Christ, brothers and sisters, rest in the assurance of God's love. As you bask in the assurance of God's love, poured out in your heart by the Spirit, yield yourself again, body and soul, to your King who has loved you, who has given himself for you, and who now lives again on your behalf. and we sing with the hymn writer. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, and my all. Let us pray. Oh Lord, our gracious God and heavenly Father, thank you for the truth of your word. We thank you that though we are rebels by nature, though we are sinners, enemies, we are without strength. Thank you that you have intervened. Thank you for the matchless love of God poured out in the cross of Christ and made known to us by your Holy Spirit. I pray that you would take these truths and that you would apply them to our hearts for the honor and the glory of Christ. If there are any among us who are outside of Christ, I pray that they would come freely to the One who has died for sinners, who has provided the way for sins to be forgiven. Lord, we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. As we conclude our worship this evening, I invite you to turn to Hymn 295. Crown Him with many crowns as we respond to the Word. Hymn 295. Round him with many crowns, the Lamb of God is one. Hark! How the heav'nly anthem rounds, the music of his song. Awake, my soul, and sing of Him who died for me, and filled me as I'm left to sleep through all eternity. Crown Him Lord of love, ye holy saints, and sigh, which moves ev'ry circle of awe in beauty glorified. No angel in the sky can fully bear that sight, but now her lens is burning like a mystery soul. Crown Him Lord of Peace, whose power a scepter slays. From old to old that portrays, seeks atonement, prayer, and praise. And His reign shall no more end. And down his piercing fin Their powers of paradise extend Where fragrance ever seen. Crown him, Lord of years, The rose and day of time, Amen.