Who Can Pray For Vindication?

Well, as I read our sermon passage for today, Psalm 26, I read it trusting and I pray you'll receive it trusting that it's God's inspired, inerrant, infallible, clear, sufficient, powerful word.

And when we proclaim the word of God faithfully, the spirit is pleased to apply that and illuminate it to our lives. And in that way, in the hand of the Holy Spirit, it's a sword that's sharp and two-edged and it will pierce through where no man's insights or words could ever pierce.

So here is God's word for us today. Psalm 26, a Psalm of David. Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity.

I have also trusted in the Lord. I shall not slip. Examine me, O Lord, and prove me. Try my mind and my heart. For your loving kindness is before my eyes, and I have walked in your truth.

I have not sat with idolatrous mortals, nor will I go in with hypocrites. I have hated the assembly of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked. I wash my hands in innocence, so I will go about your altar, O Lord, that I may proclaim with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of your wondrous works.

Lord, I have loved the habitation of your house and the place where your glory dwells. Do not gather my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloodthirsty men, and whose hand is a sinister scheme, and whose right hand is full of bribes.

But as for me, I will walk in my integrity, redeem me, and be merciful to me. My foot stands in an even place.

In the congregations, I will bless the Lord. The word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Please be seated. Let's pray.

Oh, Father, please show us what we cannot see on our own.

Please teach us to pray in words we could never come up with on our own. And please help us to behold God through Jesus Christ in a way that we could never fathom on our own.

We ask this for your namesake. Amen. Imagine being caught by surprise one of these weeks, one of these Lord's Days, by a man you've never met, don't know anything about him, and he picks up this microphone in the middle of a public worship service, and he says, please pray with me.

God, go ahead. Examine my heart. It's clean. Try my mind. It's pure. Look at my walk. It's blameless. Judge me based on my righteousness.

Amen. I think several, I can picture probably which ones, and probably walk up here, gently escort this gentleman out, and, sir, I think you came to the wrong church.

I don't think that sounds right. Didn't you just hear, we are saved sinners. That's who we are as we gather here. But it sounds in Psalm 26 like that's exactly how David is praying, isn't he?

Look at verse 1. Vindicate me, O Lord. Vindicate means judge me, avenge me, declare me innocent, O Lord. So he's appealing on God to be the judge.

That verb, it means to try a case. Like a judge will hear both sides and then make a ruling one way or the other. Either the Lord will pronounce a sentence for or against this man that's appealing to God this way.

God will either punish him because he's found guilty or vindicate him because he's truly innocent. So David is praying like that. God, evaluate me, my life, and rule in my favor.

That word vindicate is the one I'm preferring to use today. I know other translations are just as faithful, they use judge or something like that. But the reason vindicate to me is helpful is because the Latin root, vindi, it means to see.

So vindicate means to make visible. To make a thing publicly seen for what it really is. My question to you and to me today, it's our sermon title, Who Can Pray for Vindication?

Who can pray for vindication? And if the Holy Spirit will help us, once again, we'll walk through this psalm, verse by verse, and see four ways that I believe you and I can and must pray for God to vindicate us, according to Psalm 26.

So let's start at verse 1. Vindicate me, O Lord. Now listen carefully to what he says next. The basis of his prayer is this. Vindicate me based on two things.

My walk and my trust. Look what he says. For I have walked in my integrity. A person's walk points to the outer man. Your actions, your deeds, your life, what you do.

So evaluate me based on my walk. And number two, vindicate me based on my trust. He says, I have also trusted in the Lord.

I shall not slip. Who we trust reveals our inner man, our thoughts, our intentions, our desires, what we believe is good, worthy, and what we call to mind in our soul and our heart.

And so he says in verse 2, basically opening up that same initial statement, examine me, O Lord. He's going to use another synonym, another way of saying the same thing.

Examine me. Prove or test me. Try my mind and my heart. Now in verse 2, does yours also say mind and heart? Does it say it like that?

And many translations will say, like the ESV, my mind and my heart. Literally the words are first heart, not mind. And then the second word is reins or kidneys.

And the kidneys represent the lower part of the inner being. What in a time before the scientific revolution, they called the animal desires.

The lower baser desires that creatures have. And then the heart is more like the higher part of the inner being that could include a person's conscience.

And so it's a good translation to say mind, my conscience, my heart in that sense. And also my base desires. Those, he's saying go ahead and examine those as well. So it's the whole inner being that is put on the balance for God to weigh.

With the inner man, whatever that inner man finds desirable. And in this case he says, I will meditate in verse 3 on your loving kindness.

That's what I'm putting before my eyes. I find your loving kindness desirable. Therefore, I have walked in your truth. So it sounds like David is making his case to God that in his inner man, he thinks of God and desires God.

And therefore, it translated into his life and his walk. It sounds like David is showing up at the tabernacle to worship God. And he's saying almost those exact same words of the Pharisee that our Lord described in Luke 18.

Remember, Jesus said, This Pharisee stood up and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.

And our Lord himself said that that proud Pharisee would not go home justified that day. When I first read David's 26th Psalm here, I thought, no wonder King Saul wanted to kill this guy so bad.

He's a self-righteous snob. Who does David think he is to plead his own righteousness like that? And so how are God's people supposed to sing and pray Psalm 26 without falling into that error of being Pharisees, being whitewashed tombstones?

Martin Luther said, My old man, my sinful nature, it was drowned in baptism, but the beast swims.

Do we pretend to not battle remaining sin? Is that how we pray Psalm 26? Just fake it till you make it? Second London Confession of Faith, chapter 1, paragraph 9, reminds us, this is how we read the Bible.

The infallible rule of interpreting Scripture is, you know the answer, Scripture itself. Therefore, when there is a question about the true and full meaning of any part of Scripture, it must be understood in the light of other passages that speak more clearly.

So let's use that help as we try to interpret 26 correctly. We study Psalm 26 in light of its immediate context, and in light of what the Bible as a whole says, for there is one divine author of Scripture.

Now, if you notice, as we've read Psalm 26 once already, there is no confession of sin clearly in this Psalm. But the Holy Spirit also not only inspired the words of Scripture, not only inspired every Psalm individually, the Holy Spirit also superintended the arrangement of the whole Psalter, 150 Psalms arranged according to His purpose.

And the Holy Spirit has placed Psalm 26, well, you know exactly where. It's right after Psalm 25. And in Psalm 25, we saw two very clear confessions of sin.

So, it's God's design that we will read Psalm 25, and as an immediate sequel, we can continue now to pray Psalm 26. Look back at Psalm 25.

It's probably on the same page for you. Look at Psalm 25, verse 5. It's also a Psalm of David, the same human author.

And in verse 5, he says, remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions. He's confessing his sin. According to your steadfast love, remember me for the sake of your goodness, O Lord.

And then look again at verse 11 of Psalm 25. For your name's sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great. So, David has already confessed the greatness of his sin that God saves, not because man deserves it, but because of God's own loving kindness for the sake of His own glory.

Psalm 25 makes clear that we are guilty of great sin, but God's grace is greater. Our salvation is all of God and all for God's glory.

It's not our own salvation. We cannot merit any grace from God. We receive it like poor beggars with an empty hand, but we are saved according to God's steadfast love.

And so, in light of Psalm 25, we can now understand better the prayer of Psalm 26. Many times as we work through the Old Testament, we'll handle the entire passage, then we'll see how Christ fulfilled all these shadows.

I simply could not keep going with Psalm 26 without showing how our Lord fulfilled it early on because there's no sense in reading the rest of it until we recognize that there was only one man in all human history who could pray Psalm 26 directly without a mediator.

And that's our Lord Jesus Christ. The standard of Psalm 26 is impossible for anyone under the curse of the first Adam, the old creation. but in Jesus Christ, Psalm 26 is now being fulfilled because he's the second, the final Adam, the firstborn of the new creation.

And then Jesus said in Matthew 5, do not think that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets. So the standard of Psalm 26 does not get lowered. Instead, Jesus elevated the standard of his own moral law even more.

In the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5, he said, whoever has been angry has committed murder in the heart. It's not just your outward deeds. It's the inward man that must be perfect before God also.

Jesus said, whoever has looked at someone that you are not married to lustfully is an adulterer. That's who you are. And you deserve death. You deserve to be stoned.

1 Corinthians 4, 5 tells us to wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men's hearts.

You see the impossibly high standard of keeping God's law perfectly. God knows our heart. He even knows our hidden motives for doing what everybody else would think is a good deed.

Only our Lord Jesus Christ could turn his eyes to God and pray Psalm 26. Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity.

Jesus could pray that. Examine me, O Lord, and prove me. Try my heart and my kidneys for your loving kindness is before my eyes and I have walked in your truth.

Jesus could say that. No one else without him. Our Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled the righteousness that David lacked.

Jesus fulfilled the righteousness that you and I lack. And he fulfilled this on behalf of everyone that he purchased with his own blood. So here's the first encouragement for you and me.

In Jesus Christ, you and I can now pray along with David for the Lord to vindicate our inner lives. In Christ Jesus, we can pray asking God to vindicate, make visible any good that's in my inner being.

Publicly display that because it's not my good. It's not my pure heart. It's Christ in me. That's what I want the world to see. You and I can pray in Jesus Christ's name because his deepest desires were fully devoted to do the Father's will.

You and I can pray in Jesus Christ's name because his thoughts, intentions, and his trust never once slipped into sin. You and I can pray in Jesus' name because his perfect inner life is now freely credited to you and me as our own.

His Holy Spirit in each believer slowly transforms our inner lives to love what Christ loves. When we find ourselves desiring good, it's all of Christ in us and it's fueled out of pure gratitude for his great grace.

Amen? This is why we resonate so deeply with those beautiful choruses like this one when we sing, I hear the Savior say, Thy strength indeed is small.

Child of weakness, watch and pray and find in me thine all in all. And we respond to the Lord. Lord, now indeed I find Thy power and Thine alone can change the leper's spots and melt the heart of stone.

For nothing good have I whereby Thy grace to claim. I'll wash my garments white in the blood of Calvary's lamb.

Jesus died my soul to save and my lips shall continue to repeat. Jesus paid it all, all to Him I own. sin had left a crimson stain but He washed it white as snow.

Well, now let's continue to work through this psalm interpreting it as only Christ could fulfill it and now He applies it to us His people. Here's the second encouragement of why we can pray Psalm 26.

In Jesus Christ, you and I now can also pray for the Lord to not only vindicate our inner lives but for Him to also vindicate our outward lives. You and I in Christ can pray for the Lord to vindicate our outer lives in Christ.

That's what David does next in verse 4. He says, I have not sat with deceitful idolatrous mortals nor will I go in with hypocrites. I have hated the assembly of evildoers and will not sit with the wicked.

David is meditating on God's word. He's praying Psalm 1. He's reflecting on the path that God promises to be blessed, that Christ ultimately could fulfill in Him alone.

And he also contrasts that with the path that perishes. And it's to walk, to stand, and to sit with those who hate God, with God's enemies.

But we think of our Lord Jesus Christ and He was known to be among sinners. And He was known to call out the Pharisees, the hypocrites. But it wasn't Jesus sitting at the feet of these evildoers.

It was them coming to Jesus because He welcomed them and them sitting at His feet, listening to His teaching, His counsel. And so many of us, we sit every day for lunch at work with people who don't know the Lord.

They're His enemies. Christians. But are you sitting there to learn, to receive counsel, to be influenced because these are your people? You'll be gathering with them. Or are you a disciple of Jesus Christ gathered with Christ's people as you are today?

That's the one thing we have in common. A healthy church is Christ plus nothing else. The moment we say this church is about Christ and one more thing, that thing is an idol. And it will tear a church apart.

We're gathered as the assembly of Christ's people, nothing else. And when we go into the world, all of the scripture teaches us that every person, every image bearer is God's workmanship.

Every image bearer still has remaining good in them just as we Christians have remaining sin. But God hates the evil deeds of men and their rejection of Him as God.

Romans 1 18 says that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. They don't want to hear about God.

God hates it when men assemble themselves to do evil. There are only two camps in this world as we read in the parable that Christ told in Matthew 18.

The field is the world, the whole world. You are either wheat that God will harvest for His glory to belong to the great assembly one day, or you are the weeds to tear that will be cut down, thrown into the fire.

There is no middle ground. If you are not assembled with God's people, you are of the world. What does it mean to sit in the assembly of evildoers?

I thought the comments by George Swinock were very helpful. Three observations about sitting. Number one, sitting is a posture of choice. It's at a man's liberty whether he will sit or stand.

Number two, sitting is a posture of pleasure. Men sit for their ease and with delight. Therefore, the glorified are said in Scripture to sit in heavenly places.

Ephesians 2, 6. Number three, sitting is a posture of staying or abiding. Standing is a posture of going, but sitting is a posture of staying.

The blessed who shall forever be with the Lord and his chosen are mentioned in Scripture to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the great cloud of witnesses in the kingdom of heaven, Matthew 8, 11.

That's the end of Swinock's quote. So, believers, in this life, in our outer man, our actions, our walk, our deeds, will it be characterized by belonging to the world or by belonging to Christ and his kingdom?

We pray that God will vindicate, that he'll see, Lord, I used to be of the world. You snatched me out of that. I am firmly with your people. In the assembly of your people, make that vindicated, make that visible.

Let me not be ashamed to be gathered in the name of King Jesus. We can pray that. Believers can ask God to vindicate our outer life by putting on display the good works of Christ that he is working out through me now.

You and I can pray in Christ's name because his active obedience to the whole law of God perfectly fulfilled every righteous requirement in our place.

So he declares us justified. And you and I can pray in Jesus' name because his passive obedience and his death fully discharged our legal debt and completely satisfied divine justice on the cross.

See, God will not punish what Christ has already borne. We deserve to be punished, but Christ was punished in our place. So on the great day of judgment, there is no punishment that a just God can or will pour out on those he already saved and redeemed and punished in Christ.

You and I can pray in Jesus Christ's name because his merit is now freely given. It's transferred. It's imputed to us by his grace alone and his spirit in us.

He puts the Holy Spirit inside believers and that spirit generates all the power and is the channel of all the power we need to walk in union with Christ.

So if we do perform a good work, it will be limited. It will not be contributing at all to our justification. But God will receive it as if it were a glorious work, as if Christ himself had done that good work.

And on that great day of judgment, the outer life, the walk of all God's people before his throne will bring glory to Christ that way. It will be the good works, those things God commanded, his church did.

Not because of any motive other than it was Christ who lives in them, performing them through them. God has commanded that his church gather and pray.

When any one of the brothers up here or I, we get the microphone and we do our best to pray publicly. If we think too much about ourselves, we just want to say, Lord, I confess, I apologize.

I was a weak prayer. It was so limited. It's not what I felt in my heart. My words didn't do justice. But God, in his grace, he receives that as if it was Jesus Christ glorified without any human constraints, praying that good work, that good prayer on behalf of that brother and on behalf of us as a church doing our best to pray with them.

Believers, our confession of faith helpfully summarizes from scripture, are accepted through Christ and thus their good works are also accepted in him. Good works are not our ideas, but what God has commanded.

This acceptance does not mean our good works are completely blameless and irreproachable in God's sight. They would be reproachable. Instead, God views them in his Son, and so he is pleased to accept and reward that which is sincere by the help of the Spirit, even though it is accompanied by many weaknesses and imperfections.

Isn't that comforting? And so we can pray for the Lord to vindicate even our outer life, even those good works he's commanded, because we know it's Christ performing them through us for his glory.

Here's the third encouragement. God vindicates us in the inner man and the outer man, and you and I and Jesus Christ can also pray for the Lord to vindicate us when we enter his presence every Lord's Day in this life.

Even now as we gather to worship in his name, we can pray that right now this worship will be vindicated, that it will make visible and be considered good and just in his eyes as we enter his presence in this life.

That's what David is describing in verses 6, 7, and 8. He's describing a public worship gathering under the old covenant regulations. Look at verse 6. He says, I will wash my hands in innocence, so I will go about your altar, O Lord, that I may proclaim with the voice of thanksgiving and tell of all your wondrous works.

In verse 8 he says, Lord, I have loved the habitation of your house, the place where your glory dwells. And under the old covenant, this was a geographic spot.

It was Zion. It was the temple, or in David's time, the tabernacle in Jerusalem, the house of God, the place where his glory dwells in a concentrated, magnified way.

I loved how our brother Jonathan pointed out during our Bible study, this is a great picture of the king, King David, praying a prayer that no king would ever pray.

He's praying the prayer of a priest. And it foreshadows how the Lord will unite a king office with the priestly office and a prophetic office. And that's only possible in the work of Jesus.

Washing the hands, it's where you would come in to do the work of a priest, the ceremonial washings. You take the water out of the lava, what they call the sea. And you wash your hands so that you as a minister will be clean to do the work.

In verse 7, proclaiming with a voice and ministering around the altar, that's calling the people to behold what's on the altar here. It's a substitutionary sacrifice to atone for your sins by blood, which God requires.

Let's sing with thanksgiving, declare God's wondrous works. The king, the priest, the prophet. I'm reminded how David also, through Samuel, knew the lesson that our Lord loves obedience more than sacrifice.

He rebukes those who approach God and they want to be only pardoned on the outside, just by the blood of the Lamb. But their deeds, their hands continue to do evil unrepentantly.

So to wash your hands, it means to have nothing to do with evil in order for sinners to approach God according to the ceremonial law. They needed to be washed before they had access to the blood.

He says, Lord, I have loved the habitation of your house, the place where your glory dwells. And you and I can pray that in the same way. Lord, make visible when I gather in your presence, even in this life, make it visible that I belong to you.

That this is sincere for me. I love to be where your glory dwells. I love the habitation of your house. I love church. An old minister of the gospel told this story of a worthy, aged woman, quote, who has for many years been so deaf as to not distinguish the loudest sound.

And yet, she is always one of the first in the public worship meeting place. On asking the reason for her constant attendance, as it was impossible for her to hear the voice of the preacher preaching, she answered, even though I cannot hear you, I come to God's house because I love it and would be found in his ways.

And he gives me many a sweet thought upon the text, the sermon passage, that is pointed out to me. And another reason is because here I am in the best company in the more immediate presence of God and among his people, his saints, the honorable of the earth.

I am not satisfied with serving God in private. It is my duty and privilege to honor my God regularly in public. Amen.

Brothers and sisters, you and I know this joy. Every time we gather in Jesus' name and we can pray when we're gathered publicly like this in his presence, in this life, because his hands, the hands of our Lord Jesus Christ in his life, in his work, they were always clean, absolute innocence.

You and I can enter into his presence today and every Lord's Day because he alone first entered the Holy of Holies with flawless obedience, which God loves more than any sacrifice.

You and I can pray in Jesus' name because Jesus Christ is our altar. He is our lamb and he is our great high priest.

Amen. We pray in his name because his soul completely loved the habitation of God's house. A zeal for the house of God consumed him that it would be a house of prayer.

And he ministers to us the acceptable way of worshiping God truly in spirit and in truth. You and I can enter his presence today and every Lord's Day because he draws us into the immediate presence of the holy, holy, holy God through our union to him.

And it's because our Lord mediates for us. He vindicates you and me every Lord's Day among his great gathered congregation in heaven, the great cloud of witnesses.

He's there vindicating us already saying these are my people too. They'll be with us soon. And he reminds you and me now of our right standing that we enjoy this moment that will one day be vindicated finally on the great judgment day.

Well, the fourth and final encouragement for today, not only does our Lord vindicate us to enter his presence in this life, but in Jesus Christ, you and I can now also pray for the Lord to vindicate us when we will enter his presence in the next life also.

Look at verse 9. David's eyes now shift to the future. He says, do not gather my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloodthirsty men.

He's talking about a soul one day being gathered. And our scripture reading said of the wheat and the tares, the weeds. David's praying, Lord, on that great day of judgment, don't let my soul be counted among the sinners, the evildoers, bloodthirsty men, those whose hands is a sinister scheme and whose right hand is full of bribes.

And it's right for us to have that healthy fear, just that reminder, that reverence that God's judgment is coming and it's a real thing. This should quicken us.

It should give us a sense of urgency to make sure that everyone has heard the gospel and been warned. George Swinnock again commented of a faithful woman who prayed on her deathbed after wrestling with natural doubts that Christians will have about salvation.

She prayed, Lord, please do not send me to hell among the wicked. For you know I never loved their company during my life. My only joy was being among your children here on earth.

Will I really be shut out from their company in eternity? Oh, do not sweep my soul away with sinners to face the wine press of your eternal anger.

That's what David's praying here as well. Verse 11, but as for me, he says, I will walk in my integrity. Integrity is wholeness.

It means a person's life is unified. My words and my deeds do not constantly contradict one another. My heart and my actions in a limited way, those stumbling, they line up.

My prayer and my walk are bound together because my life is in Christ and Christ is training me, teaching me to pray. And the great day of judgment at the end of this life and the great day when the bodies of all the dead will be reunited to their souls and all will stand before God as judge.

You'll either be with him for all eternity or you will be crushed by his holy wrath and hate for sin for all eternity.

This thought is so heavy, but it's the focus of the psalmist in these verses. We can't dodge it. Thomas Boston commented that death is God's gathering time wherein he gets the souls belonging to him and the devil gets the souls belonging to him.

They did not go long together, but then they are parted and the saints are taken home to the congregation of the saints and sinners to the congregation of sinners.

And it concerns us to say, gather not my soul with sinners. Whoever be our people here on earth on this life, God's people or the devil's death will gather our souls to them for all eternity.

Every time we have the great joy, the great privilege of calling a soul, a person into membership of this church, this little visible outpost of the kingdom of heaven.

We are calling them out of the world and into the church. And all of eternity hinges on whether you're united to Christ. And if so, you'll be with his people.

Or have you rejected Christ? And if so, your people are the world. Even in desiring and pledging to God that David will walk in integrity, in these last thoughts, verses 11 and 12, David confesses his dependence on God to save and forgive him.

Look at verse 11. David says, redeem me. Redeem means to purchase back, to ransom, to save something that belonged to someone else.

Redeem me and be merciful to me. To be merciful is to not give someone what they do deserve. Someone deserves punishment and wrath and God's anger because of sin.

But mercy means to pass over, to not pour out on them what they deserve. And the final reflection that David gives us in verse 12 is this.

My foot stands in an even place. In the congregations, I will bless the Lord. To stand before God on uneven ground means that you are wobbly, you're unstable, you're uncertain about your standing before God.

David is thanking the Lord for redeeming him and trusting God's mercy to continue. See, in the end, we can understand that David had the same faith we have in Christ.

David was enslaved and hopeless on his own. But God teaches him to pray to the Redeemer. David was guilty, deserving God's great punishment.

But God teaches him to pray, trusting in God's great mercy. Redeem me and be merciful to me. As believers, we also trust that our vindication depends on God's constant upholding redemption and mercy.

And we approach God in the same posture as David. We pray in Jesus Christ's name because Jesus' life was the only life of seamless, unbroken integrity.

We pray in Christ's name because he promises that he will gather everyone he purchased with his own precious blood into that great congregation of his people, all who are united to him.

And he will vindicate everyone that he saved. He will make our eternal redemption by his mercy visible for the whole world to see.

And there in the presence of our holy God before his throne, your feet and mine will stand stable on solid ground in the presence of God forevermore.

And we can sing what we sing now. And now in him complete, my robe his righteousness.

I'll rejoice with all my might. I am now divinely blessed. And when before the throne, I stand in him complete. Jesus died my soul to save.

My lips shall still repeat. Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, but he has washed me white as snow.

Brothers and sisters and dear friends today, make sure that you depend on Christ's mercy as your redeemer. In him alone can we ask God to vindicate us.

And we trust that Christ's prayers for your vindication and mine, God will fulfill. Amen. Amen. Let's thank him.

Father, we praise you. You are our redeemer. You're pleased to make visible, make public to prove your great salvation.

We know you will do this one day, Lord, for the whole world to see. And we trust that that same reality is our reality now, though we trust this by faith and not by sight.

We pray, Father, that you will apply the word that was preached today to the hearts and lives and walks of everyone you brought to hear your word today, Father. We ask this for Christ's precious name, for his sake alone.

Amen. Amen. Amen.