Well it's time we got back to our evening series in the book of Genesis and we've arrived at chapter six Now chapter 5 ends with the birth of Noah, and as soon as you mention the name Noah, whatever your background, wherever you come from, you probably think, ah, the flood. The flood is what comes to mind. And so chapter 6 verse 17, we read, For behold, since God is speaking, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh, in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die. A universal flood. will destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life except Noah and his wife, his sons and their wives and their extraordinary floating cargo. There's a terrible irony in the naming of Noah. If you look at chapter five and verse 28, Lamech, that's his father. It's different from the Lamech in chapter four. When Lamech had lived for 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands. And in one sense, Noah will bring relief to a world in pain, but not as his father had hoped. Okay, so the flood. But before we get there, we've got to grapple with the opening verses of chapter 6, verses 1 to 4. What did you make of the reading? They're strange verses. They've been described as the most difficult verses in the whole book of Genesis. And they raise lots of questions which are not answered. And when you read them, it's very clear that life before the flood is different to life after the flood. So why are these verses here? Why are they the preamble to the flood narrative? What do they add to our understanding? So have it open in front of you, chapter six, verses one to four. Let's just read them again. When man began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive, and they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, my flesh shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh, his days shall be 120 years. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. And then verse five, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention, the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. So what's the picture we're getting? Well, as the human race multiplies, so there is a growing moral disorder. There's a deepening chaos. There's a crossing of the God-ordained boundaries. It's a helter-skelter acceleration into wickedness. an explosion of sin and anarchy and chaos and violence. So chapter 6 verse 11, the earth was corrupt in God's sight and the earth was filled with violence. So it's a world of increasing wickedness. So why verses 1 to 4 here? Because what happens in verses 1 to 4 is the crowning evil It's the tipping point. It's the final straw when God then says, enough is enough and brings a judgment of the flood. So tonight we're going to get no further than the first four verses. We're going to look at it under two headings, two things to say. Point number one, the sons of God. When man began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive." So the trigger point for the coming judgment is the sons of God taking as wives the daughter of man. And it's when that happens that God says, enough, verse 3, Then the Lord said, it says, and they took as their wives as any they chose. Then the Lord said, in the light of that, following on from that, then the Lord said, my spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh, his days shall be 120 years. It could mean that from now on, man will live no longer than 120 years. If you like, death will come swifter than it's come before. We've seen previous ages of people. As we look to chapter 5, well now, no one's going to live beyond 120. Death will become more swifter than before. But chapter, verse 3 rather, could equally be rendered, my spirit shall not contend, or my spirit shall not strive with man. forever. His days shall be a hundred and twenty years." In other words, just 120 more years before the flood comes and washes the world clean of its wickedness. You can take it either way. I think I favor the second interpretation. But whatever the interpretation, it's the behavior of the sons of God that trigger the judgment. So who are the sons of God? That's the question. Who are they? Well, some have said the sons of God are believers. They're the godly descendants of Seth. If you remember, it's the Sethites, through the end of chapter four, they're the ones who start calling on the name of the Lord. They're the ones who seek after God. And if we run with that view, here are the godly descendants of Seth, and they become intoxicated with the beauty of ungodly, unbelieving women. And so, the godly lose their godliness, the salt loses its saltiness, and now there's nothing to hold back the putrefaction of the human race. It's the final straw, and therefore, verse 3, the judgment comes. Okay. Some have said, sons of God refers to mighty rulers. It's a similar language that you find in Psalm 82, where rulers are called sons of the Most High. Not identical words, but similar words. And this view runs that, well, here's a sort of warrior class, a ruling class, that's in the mold of wicked Lamech, who we met in chapter four. And these men, they use their power to amass a harem of beautiful women. The sons of God saw the daughters of man were attractive, and they took as their wives any they chose. And it's from these sort of harems, the children of these harems, that this sort of warrior class, this ruling class, this violent, tyrannical class, they perpetuate themselves. So therefore, verse four, the Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward when the daughters, sorry, when the sons of God came into the daughters of man and they bore children to them, these were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. Again, it's another verse that's got all sorts of questions that it throws up because our rendering doesn't make it particularly clear. It talks about the Nephilim. Maybe that was the sort of perpetuating of this warrior class. Just hold that word for the moment, the Nephilim. Okay, the Nephilim. But verse four is not necessarily saying that these marriages between the sons of God and the daughters of man were produced in the Nephilim. Not necessarily saying that. You could read verse 4 like this. At the same time as the sons of God and the daughters of man were producing children, the Nephilim were on the earth. They're just contemporaries. And not just then, but also later on. It could almost be in brackets. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, the same time as all this was going on. And also afterwards, when the sons of God came into the daughters of man and bore children to them, these were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. The Nephilim could simply be contemporaries of these goings-on between the sons of God and the daughters of man. They're not necessarily children of these unions. Okay, well that doesn't... What are the Nephilim then? Strange word, isn't it? Well actually the word is simply, what the word translates here, it's simply a transliteration of the Hebrew. Otherwise you've just simply taken the Hebrew word and made it sound a bit English and that's what you've got. In other words, we don't know what they were. Some translations have sort of made a stab at it and they've called them giants. You might have a translation that calls them giants, but actually we don't know. The only place we meet the word, or any other place we meet the word, is in Numbers chapter 13 and verse 33, when the spies bring back a scary report, if you remember, about the promised land. And this is what they say, I'm quoting from them. And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim. And we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seem to them. But were they what the spies saw in the promised land? Were they really Nephilim? After all, they're bringing back a scarier report. They're rather cowardly. Maybe they were just exaggerating. Maybe, if I can put it like this, the Huns terrorized Europe between the 4th and the 6th centuries. So the word Hun becomes associated with, it's a name to be feared, isn't it? It's a name associated with tyranny and invasion and attack and threat. So when Germany started the First World War and the Second World War and started invading countries, what name were they given? They were given the name of the Hun. Here comes the Hun. Not because they were the Huns, but they simply had adopted their fearsome reputation. So it could just simply be the spies are simply saying, here's a name that scares everybody. We've seen them in the promised land. Without actually really seeing them. Whatever the Nephilim were. In this interpretation, it's simply saying that there's this corrupt, violent, ruling class, we call them the sons of God, and they're perpetuating themselves by taking these harems of women, and they're producing these children, violent children like themselves, and it just accelerates this downward spiral of wickedness. That's another interpretation which people lay on these verses, and in fact, there are various variations around that, which if you want to look at, you can read about. Okay, but do those explanations really do justice to verse 3? Would you describe those explanations really as a crowning sin, the last straw? And so to the third explanation, When man began to multiply in the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive, and they took as their wives any they chose. sons of God. The ordinary meaning of that in the Bible is angels. They're called sons of God in Job chapter 1 verse 6, chapter 2 verse 1, chapter 38 verse 7. And you can see why. You can see why angels are called sons of God. Because angels are created. They're not born. So Adam is the first man. He's created. He's not born. He's called the Son of God. because God created him directly. But his son Seth is called the son of Adam. What's more, when you look at verse 1, the word there for man is the word for the human race. And therefore the daughters born to the human race, to man, are simply female children. And verses 1 and 2 are drawing a contrast. A contrast on the one hand between the human race, and on the other hand, the sons of God. It's making a distinction between human beings and the sons of God. So the oldest interpretation, and I think the most consistent interpretation, is that the sons of God are angels. angels who have sexual relations with women and that sense you get that sense in verse 4 where it says the sons of God came in to the daughters of man again it's a Hebrew way of saying you'll find it elsewhere in the Old Testament where people come in to so on it's a way of expressing sexual relations So sexual relations between the sons of God, between these angels and human women, daughters of the human race. You'll notice it says also, the sons of God came into the daughters of man. It doesn't say daughters of men, daughters of man, daughters of the human race. Okay, now, as soon as we identify sons of God as angels, all sorts of hands go up, because it throws up even more questions. Were angels able to mix with the human race, with human beings? Well, this is before the flood, and it appears that before the flood, angels were able to move between heaven and earth. After all, an angel is stationed outside the Garden of Eden to guard the way to the Tree of Life. Perhaps a bigger question to ask is, were angels able to have sexual relations with women and actually produce children? Well, it's clear from Abraham's meeting with angels in Genesis chapter 18 that angels could take physical form and that they could eat and drink. And Abraham just thinks he's looking after strangers, he doesn't realize that they're angels. And then when we come to chapter 19, those same angels, when they enter the city of Sodom, the wicked men of Sodom want to rape them. In other words, these angels anatomically look like men. Now all this is very strange to our ears, isn't it? So is there any scriptural backup? You know, have we gone out on a limb here? Well the answer is yes. So 2 Peter. 2 Peter and chapter 2. What's Peter doing in 2 Peter chapter 2? He's discussing false teachers. Teachers who preach and indulge in sexual immorality. Anyone, anytime, anywhere. Section immorality, is it such a big deal? asked Peter and he says yes and he backs it up with three examples from the Old Testament and the first example he chooses alludes to the passage that we're in so 2 Peter chapter 4, sorry 2 Peter 2 verse 4 for if God did not spare angels when they sinned but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept in judgment, and then he goes on to talk about Noah, and he goes on to talk about Sodom and Gomorrah, and then he spells out what it was that the sin of which these three groups were guilty of. But he goes and says, verse 10, especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. So these angels, they despised God's authority, they abandoned their calling, maybe they wanted a slice of what the human race had, And so they crash through the boundaries that God had set to take any woman they wanted, what Peter called defiling passion. And Jude, Jude, just a few verses on, a few pages on rather, Jude and verses 6 and 7, the same comes out again. Verse six, and the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, so they're coming down from heaven to earth, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day. So what is it they did? Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality, likewise indulged in sexual immorality, because the implication is these angels indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire. serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. So the sin of these angels is they leave their dwelling in heaven and they indulge in sexual immorality, unnatural desire. And of course this can't happen again because those angels we read in Peter and in Judah are now imprisoned awaiting the final judgment. So who are the sons of God? They're angels. What did they do? They left heaven. They left their dimension of the creation. And they left heaven to have sexual relations with women, to produce children, and maybe those children, verse 4, were hybrid children. Depends how you interpret verse 4. Okay, point number 2. Angels and women. Okay, well, but sexual immorality was hardly new in chapter 6, was it? Why is it the final straw? Why is it the crowning sin that brings the flood, that brings the judgment? Well, God is the God of order. So when you read Genesis chapter 1, God could have made the whole world in a moment, couldn't He? But He didn't. He builds the house in which man is to dwell. He builds that house step by step. There is a rational, orderly, wise progression. The whole thing is order. There's night and day. There's land, sea, sky. There are plants and animals. There are creatures of the sea, creatures of the land, creatures of the sky. Everything is in its proper place. Everything is within boundaries that God himself sets. It's particularly, you get it in stuff like Genesis 1 verse 24, listen to the repeated phrase that comes out, And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds, livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds. And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind, five times according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. everything within boundaries, everything ordered according to its kind. If you like, God is the master painter, but he doesn't let his colors run together to sort of form a gray-brown mass or mess. Everything is in its place. There's order, order, order. Why is that? Because it's a reflection of who God is. What God is in Himself, He is Father, Son, Holy Spirit. He's three persons, one God. But there's no confusion between those persons. No blending, they don't run into each other. No blending in the Trinity. Each person of the Godhead is unique and distinct. There are boundaries, there is order in the Godhead. And so there are boundaries, there is order in the creation which the Godhead makes. And then ruling over this ordered creation is the crown of that creation is man himself. He's unique amongst the creatures. He's the finite reflection of the infinite God. He's a living, breathing, moving, thinking statue of God himself. So chapter 1 verse 26, let us make man in our image. Let us make man. Here's the person of the Godhead. They're conferring with each other. In our likeness, so in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the hems, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. Here is man, he's the crown of God's order creation. So order, boundaries, because it's a reflection of who God is. But what happens? Adam and Eve rebel. They transgress, they cross those boundaries, they disorder the order. You see it right in that sin. What's going on? There's a serpent. What's the serpent? It's a beast of the field. A beast of the field which is supposed to be under Adam's feet. A beast of the field deceives Adam's wife and Adam's wife leads Adam. And together Adam and Eve seek to grasp after deity. It's crossing boundary after boundary after boundary. A generation later, there's more disorder, more boundary breaking. Because here is hateful, wicked Cain. And what he's doing, he murders his loving, righteous brother, Abel. And then seven generations from Adam, chapter four, we met Lamech. And there's more disorder, more boundary-breaking. Lamech is polygamous. He dominates his wives. In fact, he dominates everyone around him. He glories in violence. He threatens anyone who touches him. That avalanche which began with Adam's sin, within seven generations, has picked up such speed and such momentum, so that by the time we come to chapter 6 and verse 5, it's unstoppable. And the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Every boundary God has erected has been crossed, except one. One boundary hasn't been crossed. The boundary between heaven and earth. And so the crowning sin is the crossing of that final boundary when the angelic world breaks in to the human world and starts uniting itself with the human world. The colors of the palette are running together. Us are disorder. In the words of Jude, the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority but left their proper dwelling. They're crossing the boundaries. There is disorder. And of course it's the ultimate boundary crossing. It's the last thing to go. The boundary between heaven and earth. And God says, enough! But there's more. It's what the angels did when they crossed the boundary. In the words of the New Testament, they indulge in sexual immorality, unnatural desire. So verse 2, the sons of God saw the daughters of man were attractive and they took as their wives any they chose. Now, when God makes man in His own image, He creates him in two halves. So Genesis 1 verse 27. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him. Male and female he created them. And God blessed them and God said to them be fruitful and multiply. So God makes human beings in two halves. They're his image bearers but they are male and female. So not a person in male cladding which can be taken off and changed. And not a gender-fluid person in female cladding, which can be taken off and changed. But male and female, our sexual identity is fixed. And it's fundamental to our identity as human beings. And it's fundamental to our bearing the image of God. And these two halves, male and female, they can make a whole. Through sexual intercourse they become one flesh. And we looked at this in some detail when we were here in chapter 2. Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh. Two halves make something new. and from that union they produce children in their own image. Now all of that is a reflection of God's image. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. You see the two become one reflecting the three who are one. Actually father and son face to face through the Spirit. The two are created with the capacity to love, to relate, to belong, just as the persons of the Godhead love, relate, belong. The two produce children in their own likeness, just as God makes man in his own likeness, in his own image. You see, the image bearers of God do God-like things. They are truly His image bearers. They are truly finite reflections of the infinite God in their arena of this creation. And it's very beautiful and it's very wonderful. Here's Adam, he's the king, he's the image bearer, he's ruling over the kingdom that God has made. So God says to him, God bless them, chapter 1 verse 28, and God bless them and God says to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth. and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Be fruitful and multiply. And for that to work, God gives to humankind a special gift, human sexual desire. And the gift that he gives is good. And the gift that he gives is supposed to be all-consuming. It's supposed to glue two people together in a union that cannot be broken. And so powerful is this gift that God puts it inside a... well, puts around it, I should say, a special boundary. A unique boundary. Marriage. So human sexual desire, this gift that God has given, this gift that is good, is to be expressed only within that boundary. Only within the boundary of the marriage bond between a man and a woman. And therefore all forms of sexual expression outside of marriage, God forbids. Now fire is good. If you light a fire in the fireplace, it fills the room with a cheering warmth and with a lovely glowing light. And we love a fire. Fire is good within the boundary. But if you light a fire in the middle of the room, well then you're in danger of burning the house down and losing everything. Sexual desire is God's good gift, but it's safe only within the union of one man and one woman. That is the place, says God, to light the fire. That is the place, says God, to lose control. But if you light that fire outside that boundary, what have we got here? Angels. Mark chapter 12 says the angels were not to marry, they were not to engage in sexual activity. But that's exactly what they do. In the pursuit of pleasure, in the desire to take perhaps what human beings have, they break through every barrier that God has erected. They break through the barrier between heaven and earth. They break through the barrier between angels and human beings. And they break through the barrier surrounding sexual activity. They turn God's order on its head. They kindle a raging fire within the house of this world. And before it destroys everything forever, God will put that fire out with a flood. You see what this is saying? Our sexuality, our maleness, our femaleness, our capacity to become one flesh, our ability to produce children, these things are fundamental to our identity as human beings. They're fundamental to what we are as human beings, because they are fundamental to bearing the image of God. God created man in his own image. What does that look like? Male and female, he created them. So when angels intermarry with women and produce children, what's going on? The colors are running together. It's the blurring of the lines. It's the undoing of these distinctions. It's the crashing through the God-ordained barriers. It's the corruption of God's design. It's the fracturing of His creation. It is the deconstruction of our humanity. It is a defacing in us of the very image of God. It is the sin where we are falling short of His glory. is to disorder the order. It is to transgress the God-ordained boundaries and therefore it is to hasten the judgment of God. Do you see why this is the crowning sin? Because every loving, beautiful line that the wise, loving, kind Creator has drawn has been transgressed. And when disorder multiplies, then God in His judgment, He removes all order, the chaos of the flood. And when the moral order collapses, God in judgment collapses the physical order, the judgment of the flood. If man will not keep to his place, then the waters will not keep to their place. My friend, when God's order for the human race is overthrown, then no, His judgment is very near. When the boundaries that the Creator has put there are willingly, repeatedly, defiantly crossed by the creature, then no, God's judgment is at hand. If we despise the God in whose image we are made, and seek to recast ourselves in our own image, I choose, I decide, I say what goes for good and what goes for evil, then don't be surprised when the judgment of God falls. So it's time to close. The Emperor Caligula He used to have new laws written in very small letters and then he used to put them very high up on walls where people couldn't read them and then he punished them for breaking his laws. Is that what God is like? Is He like a capricious Roman Emperor, out to get us? creating boundaries as it were out of sight that we could never keep just so that He can punish us. God's boundaries are good. They flow from the God who is love. And He's built them into the very fabric of creation because they are a reflection of who He is. And He's hardwired them into our humanity. because we are made in His image. So they're not arbitrary, which is why when we break them, we turn order into chaos, bringing grief and ruin. Adam and Eve It's a perfect world. It's a perfect marriage. It's a perfect calling. Everything is perfect. And yet when they cross the boundary that God has put there, everything is fractured. And their perfect marriage is fractured. Here's Cain and Abel, they're brothers. They've grown up together. They play together. They've done all sorts of things together. And what happens? What happens to the brotherly love? Cain murders his own brother. He breaks through the boundary. There's chaos, madness. Lamech. You read chapter four. Family life for Lamech is one of a brutal bully who dominates everyone around him and everything about that family is violent and threatening. unrestrained boundary breaking ends up with anarchy. Chapter 6 verse 5, the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. That's what you get when you break through God's boundaries. You don't get freedom, you get anarchy, you get chaos, you get madness, you get wickedness, you get destruction. You actually get hell on earth. And then to that ultimate boundary breaking, we've been talking about verses 1 to 4, and it will lead to the ultimate hell, where God, to restore the order, has to put the guilty in prison and punish them. And God is right to do so. Every law court, every prison, every judgment that's made upon an evildoer is telling you that God is right to do so. God is wronged. No wonder He steps in. But if judgment has to be, God doesn't delight in judgment. The Bible says He delights in steadfast love, that invincible, unchanging, restless, embracing, wonderful, overflowing love, the love where God Himself committed to sorting out His creation and sorting out the mess that we've made. So, how far will He go? Well, if the rebellious angels crossed from heaven to earth, the day came when God himself crossed that boundary, when he himself stepped into our world, when he himself became one of us, and Jesus is his name. Some of the angels rebelled, most of them did not. What did those angels think on that Bethlehem night when they saw their maker? lying in a manger. They must have blinked with astonishment. How far will He go to rescue a ruined race? Well, they blinked with astonishment on that Bethlehem night. What did they think when they saw Him nailed to a cross, numbered with the transgressors, numbered with the boundary breakers? They must have wondered, what is he doing there? What is he doing nailed to a cross? What is he doing taking the blame for what others have done? So what is he doing? It's the wonder of the cross, isn't it? Because there on that cross he's dying the punishing death for sin, which we as sinners deserve to die. that every transgressor, every boundary breaker who comes to Jesus Christ can be forgiven, enjoy peace with God, and at last come to share with Him God's new world. Didn't the angels talk to each other when they saw Him on the cross? Didn't they whisper to each other, have you seen? Have you heard? He's dying for sins. Time for sins that others have done. He's shedding His blood. He's making a way back. He's paying the price. The price, the mess, the price of the mess that they have made. The price necessary to rescue a ruined humanity from sin and death and hell. I wonder if they were whispering, it was going up and down the line of the angels as they watched. Have you heard? But have you heard? Have you heard? The God of wonders, the God of love, the God who in Jesus Christ comes to our rescue and meets the whole cost of that rescue in His own blood to bring us back to God. And we've gone so far from God, so many boundaries we've broken, we've become lost and lost and further lost, so lost we don't even know we are lost. They're trying to bring us back. A new beginning, a new heart, a new trajectory, a new destination, a new me. For all who come to Jesus Christ. Have you smashed those boundaries? Have you messed up? Maybe in terms of the subject we've been talking about, have you been playing around with sex? You've crossed the boundaries, you thought you'd be free, you thought this is good, this is right, this is what I want. And actually you've gone through the boundaries and you've got burnt. Instead of freedom, you found shame. and regrets and wounds and you can't put things back the way that they were the barrier has been broken but the good news of the gospel is that Jesus is very near and he comes to our rescue and there's a lovely old chorus that says Burns are lifted at Calvary, at the cross, Jesus is very near. And so whatever you've done, whatever boundary you've crossed, however far you've gone, whatever regrets or shame or guilt you've done, or maybe you feel, I don't know, Jesus is very near. And the hands that reach out to you are nail-pierced hands. and He's paid the price so that you can find His healing forgiveness, so that you can know peace, peace with God, peace in yourself, maybe something you've not known for a long, long time. Have you heard? Burdens are lifted. Jesus is very near. So, why don't you come to Him? Come to Jesus Christ. He stretches out His arms to you. Fall upon those kind arms. God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Let's pray. Father God, we have covered only a few verses, and yet we feel we've covered so much ground, and something's hard to get our minds around, and maybe some things we've forgotten already. But Lord, we want the one thing above all other things to shine through, that if we're the boundary breakers, if we're the transgressors, then your Son was numbered with the transgressors, so that we can be forgiven. so that we can be rescued, so that we can come back to You. We pray, Lord God, as we live our lives with a judgment hastening towards us, that Father, You'd fill us with urgency, and yes, Father, alarm if necessary, that we might come to Jesus Christ even this night and find life and healing and forgiveness because we ask it in Jesus name. Amen.