Biblical Proof of Jesus as Messiah

Matthew 27 and the End of the Story First

If you would grab your Bibles and open up to Matthew chapter 27, Matthew 27, we're gonna read a lot of the texts from Matthew today. It's sort of like going to a store and opening a book and then going to the very end of the book first, which is a big no-no and sort of a pet peeve of mine.

Like when my daughter tried to do that once, I think I smacked her hand, like that's, no, don't do that. You're gonna ruin the whole thing for yourself. Don't do that. We're gonna do that today. We're actually gonna read the end of the story first before I pick up to the beginning, just to show you the glorious nature of God's Word and His control over history and His keeping of His promises.

So Matthew chapter 27, the first book of your New Testament, and we're gonna skip ahead to Matthew 27, 11, it's when Jesus is before Pilate. As a matter of historical record in history, Jesus stands before Pilate and is interrogated.

I'm reading from the ESV. Now, Jesus stood before the governor and the governor asked him, are you the king of the Jews? Jesus said, you have said so. But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he gave no answer.

Then Pilate said to him, do you not hear how many things they testify against you? But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed. Now, at the feast, the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted, and they had then a notorious prisoner called Barabbas.

So when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, whom do you want me to release for you, Barabbas or Jesus who is called Messiah? For he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up. Besides, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much because of him today in a dream.

Now, the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. The governor again said to them, which of the two do you want me to release for you? And they said, Barabbas.

Pilate said to them, then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Messiah? And they all said, let him be crucified. And he said, why? What evil has he done? But they shouted all the more, let him be crucified.

So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, I am innocent of this man's blood. See to it yourselves.

And all the people answered, his blood be on us and on our children. Then he released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor's headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him.

And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him. And twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, hail, king of the Jews.

And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him. As they went out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name.

They compelled this man to carry his cross, and when they came to a place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull, they offered him wine to drink mixed with gall. But when he tasted it, he would not drink it.

And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots. Then they sat down and kept watch over him there and over his Jews. Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left.

And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, you who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself. If you are the son of God, come down from the cross. So also the chief priests with the scribes and elders mocked him, saying, he saved others.

He cannot save himself. He's the king of Israel. Let him come down now from the cross and we'll believe him. He trusts in God. Let God deliver him now, if he desires him, for he said, I am the son of God.

And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way. Now from the sixth hour, there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli, that is my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And some of the bystanders hearing him said, this man is calling Elijah. And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. But the other said, wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom and the earth shook and the rocks were split. The tombs also were open and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

When the centurion and those who were with him keeping watch over Jesus saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, truly, this was the son of God. There were also many women there looking on from a distance who had followed Jesus from Galilee ministering to him, among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and Mary of the sons of Zebedee.

When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock.

And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there sitting opposite the tomb. The next day, that is after the day of preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, sir, we remember how that imposter said while he was still alive, after three days I will rise again.

Therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people he has risen from the dead. And the last fraud will be worse than the first.

Pilate said to them, you have a guard of soldiers, go make it as secure as you can. So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard. Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.

And behold, there was a great earthquake for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was white like lightning and his clothing white as snow.

And for fear of him, the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, do not be afraid for I know what that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here for he has arisen.

As he said, come see the place where he lay, then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead and behold, he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him. See, I have told you.

So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples and behold, Jesus met them and said greetings and they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him.

Then Jesus said to them, do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee and there they will see me. While they were going, behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priest all that had taken place.

And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers and said, tell people his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.

And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble. So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story has been spread among the Jews to this day.

Now the 11 disciples went to Galilee to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some of them doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I'm with you always to the end of the age.

Thus far is the reading of God's word. Let's pray. Father, I want to pray that you bless God today as I open your word to tell your story, God, the story of your faithfulness. I pray that you'd bless God, the proclamation of your word today, the proclamation, Lord Jesus, of your perfect life, your death, your burial, your resurrection, and your ascension.

I pray you'd bless it to your glory by your spirit. Get me out of the way. I pray that you would open the eyes of the blinds and put fire underneath the feet of your people. In Jesus' name, amen. Praise God.

That's the story of Jesus' resurrection. Like I said, it's very much like going to the end of a book before you read the beginning. That's what you just got. The reason why I say it that way is because that is exactly what we just did.

God has told this story in history long before it took place. We get to read it now post-cross, post-ascension, 2 ,000 years after the coming of Christ. We get to read the story looking back on Christ's accomplished work.

We get to hear about all of what God did in Christ to the little details of Jesus' life and his ministry, his death and his resurrection. We get to hear about the little side stories that sprung out of God's bigger story of the resurrection, Peter's betrayal of Jesus, Judas the betrayer.

We get to hear about all the really interesting things Jesus did in his ministry as he displayed that he is in fact the promised Messiah, God in the flesh, where Jesus would be in his ministry and he would be healing the sick.

He'd be giving sight to blind people. He would let deaf people hear again. He would go into people's lives and he would completely transform them. People who were sinners that were just left out by everybody else, God becomes a man and he hangs out with them.

He goes to dinner with people that most of the religious elite won't go to dinner with. Think about the life of Jesus is so entirely unique. Jesus never went very far at all from his hometown, not far really at all.

He didn't have an army behind him. Jesus never wrote a book. That's compelling. If you think about it, we have today the leader of a nation. We have our president today, Barack Obama. How many books are written about Barack Obama and even his own stuff that he's had his hands on describing his own life and his work?

That's a modern day leader of a nation, right? Whether or not he's a good leader is a question for another day, okay? Amen? It's apology at church. You can say amen to that. Okay, all right. Now, the point is that the interesting thing about Jesus is that here's a person who literally changes the course of history.

When Jesus came into history, he split it. I mean, even so much that our calendars today are marked by Jesus' splitting of history. I mean, Jesus comes into history and he never leaves it the same. It will never be the same ever again.

Jesus came into the world and with his life transformed other people's lives and by his death and resurrection continues to do so. Jesus is entirely unique, entirely unique. He's the only person ever that was dead and raised again from the dead eternally in the.

Heavens.

Think about it. Buddha, Zoroaster, Confucius, Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eadie, you name it, Charles Taze Russell, all of these religious leaders in the world, they have one thing in common. They all died and they stayed that way.

They're dead and they stayed that way. Jesus displays to the world the unique nature of his person and his work and that he died as a matter of historical record and he rose again from the dead. The life and death and resurrection of Jesus cannot be paralleled by anything in history.

Jesus is unique in every way, but what makes this story even more compelling, and this is where you must draw yourself into the story, is that this is not simply about you and me. This is not about an individual thing only with you and Jesus, although it is about that to a very large degree.

God saves sinners, amen? Me and you know God. We don't fear the wrath of God when we wake up in the morning and we don't even think about that anymore, do we? Think about that. We're releasing tonight, our next episode of Apologia Radio, with all the really interesting, juicy stuff that you're going to hear before everyone else does.

On the show, I interviewed Dr. James White in Florida. One thing he said that I think I should mention as we talk about what we're saying now about the resurrection of Jesus is that Dr. White said, when I start off my messages, he says, or my lessons at a university even, on the justification by faith that we are declared righteous by faith apart from works of law in Jesus, he said, I always start off the lesson saying to the class, how many of you guys thought about the wrath of God when you woke up this morning?

You don't, and that's crazy. We don't take that in as Christians like we ought to.

You don't think about the wrath of God.

You don't wake up fearing the wrath of God.

Why?

That's right.

You don't have to think about the wrath of God as a Christian in terms of your identification with him ever again because of what God has done in Christ. You know Romans chapter 5 verse 1, there is therefore now, sorry, that is, sorry, back up here, Romans 5 verse 1, having been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And Romans 8, 1, that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Why, Christian, do you not wake up in fear of the wrath of God on your life? You know your life. You know your thoughts over the last 24 hours, the last 48 hours.

You know how you've engaged with your spouse or your family or the world. And when you think about your life and I think about my life in myself before a holy God, what must a holy God do to a person who is not holy?

What must a good God do to someone who's not good? What must a righteous God do to someone who is not righteous? He must give judgment. He must give condemnation. And brothers and sisters, you and I don't wake up in fear of the wrath of God every morning and why?

Because of what Jesus accomplished for you. Because we look back on the finished work of Jesus in history as a completed, done thing and Jesus as the ascended priest who intercedes for you forever. Brothers and sisters, you are no longer ever going to offer a sacrifice on Yom Kippur.

You're never going to be longing for the day when God will finally deal with your sin so that you can have peace with him. You're never going to step before God in Christ and experience the wrath and condemnation of a holy God.

That'll never happen in your life. It'll never happen in my life and it's not because of you. It's because of what we celebrate today, the resurrection of Jesus. He died, was buried and he rose again and that's why this is so significant.

The Wrath of God, Justification by Faith, and Peace with God

Let's go right into the story. I want to just make sure we get there so I can fill it all out for you guys. Listen, it's important for us to celebrate this today. I read you the end of the story. I didn't get to the beginning part first because I want to build it up to that now.

Remember, your Bible opens up with the story of you and the story of me in our first parent's fall at the beginning of creation. This God who is love, no question. This God who is love eternally. This God who is full of mercy and peace and goodness and holiness.

He creates, he speaks and the universe leaps into existence. This is a God who simply says something and it is. He says baboons and then there's baboons and it's awesome. And he says giraffe and then there's giraffes and he says ocean and it spills out.

He says mountains come forth and there's mountains. He speaks stars into existence. He does and it's incredible. If you think about just the sheer size of our universe, people will say, this is a common atheist argument, it's really said a lot.

It really is. They'll often say, it really seems ridiculous that God would create all of this space so that on this little tiny speck, earth, he fills it with people and he's actually concerned.

With us.

They'll say, it seems like an absolute waste of space to have all these galaxies and these amazing stars. I mean, our sun compared to other kind of suns in the universe is really quite small and honestly, it's terrifying.

Our sun, the power that our sun has, the majesty of our sun and it is tiny compared to other suns in the universe. This is the God who's spoken into existence and the world will say today, it seems like an absolute waste of space that God would create all of this and be concerned with little human beings on this nothing little planet in all of the universe.

Here's the thing that we have to recognize about this God. He didn't create it for you. He created it for his glory. All of the universe was created to bring glory and exaltation to God. The stars and those other suns that are ginormous, that's a good word for it, are shouting to the glory of God.

When God created little creatures that you'll never see in the ocean, you'll never see them. He didn't create it for you to stare at and be in awe of ultimately. He created those creatures to bring glory to himself and he delights in it daily.

When God created the universe, it splashed into existence. It all shouts to his glory and praise and he determined for his glory, he would create his image in the garden. When he created his image, he created male and female and the image of God, he created them and he came into covenant with his people and he said, this but not this.

The day you do, you'll die and the first temptation comes in. Satan comes in and deceives Eve by his craftiness, Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, deceives Eve by his craftiness. You won't die, you'll be like God, knowing good and evil.

That is to say, determining good and evil for yourself. You'll be your own little God. You determine what you can and can't do in this universe. Adam sins willfully against God. He saw it, it looked good to him and he did it with a high hand to God.

Those are our first parents and don't we display daily in this world that we are descendants of them. We will determine for ourselves what we can and can't do. Sound familiar? Sounds like 21st century America, amen?

And so we display daily, that's who we are, we're their children. And God does something glorious, Genesis chapter 3, go to it. Genesis chapter 3, when the fall enters, God does something actually pretty spectacular.

What?

Now listen, we don't like to talk about it because we're sinners. Think about it for a second, honestly, what does a good judge have to do with criminals? Does a good judge have to give criminals justice or mercy?

What kind of judge would stay on the bench for any period of time if everybody that came in who was a criminal and a violator of others, what kind of judge would stay on the bench who when these people come in, the judge says, you're free to go, I really like you, you're free to go.

Mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy, you'd be like, excuse me, there's a lot of hurt people here and this person's guilty. What must a good judge do with criminals?

Judge them.

And what must a perfect and holy judge do to criminals in his universe? Judge them. But the glorious thing about God's word is that he doesn't just judge us. As a perfect judge, he ought to, he must do that.

So what does he do as soon as Adam and Eve fall and they run from God, they try to cover themselves, which is what religion does. We're sinners, we're lost, we're violators of God's law, and so we try to fashion together things to cover ourselves up, to atone for our sins.

Good example is the many examples of people recently over the last decade or more that have committed atrocities against other human beings. People that have crashed planes into buildings or taken planes down into the ground and slaughtered masses of people.

Amazing thing is, you look at their lives pre-slaughter of other human beings, you see these people engaged in atrocious things. Strip clubs, online pornography, and all these different things. And then you see they do some amazing act against other human beings, a wicked act, all in the name of God.

What is it they're doing? They're trying to atone for their sins.

Do you see it?

People always try to atone for their sins, to cover themselves, to hide. Adam and Eve do the exact same thing, they cover themselves, and God confronts them. And you need to see what he does. Genesis chapter 3, you need to see it.

Genesis chapter 3. God comes to them, right before verse 10, and asks them, where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of the garden, of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and hid myself.

And as you move down, verse 14. The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursing you above all livestock, and above all beasts of the field, on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.

Listen, here is the first proclamation of the good news. Genesis chapter 3. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

There it is. It's amazing, you read your Bible like a hundred times before, and you're like, you miss Jesus in Genesis chapter 3. The woman's seed, by the way, in this culture, you don't do that. You don't refer to someone's offspring as the woman's seed.

I'm not saying it's right, they just didn't do it. They would refer to somebody's offspring as the man's seed. The man's offspring. Because usually the child was identified with the father. He got the father's name, and he was from that father.

That was the father's house you represented. And oddly enough, in a culture that sees it in terms of the father's seed, Moses records for us that God said, the woman's seed, he will crush the head of the serpent, but be bruised on his heel in the process.

Now you need to see this, because watch this, watch this. We're going to get to the garden in just a moment, really. And you're going to see the promise of Jesus, that promised seed. All this garden-themed stuff takes place.

God says, don't do it, they do. Death enters in a garden. Adam is naked and should have stayed naked. It's not so much that he didn't know he was not covered. It was that he was ashamed and exposed. That's what's really going on there.

But listen, they're in a garden, death enters. Adam is naked and exposed before God. And God says this, the woman's seed is going to come and he will crush the head of the serpent, but in the process of crushing the head, he's going to be wounded.

What is it if you get your head crushed? It's a mortal blow. And what is it if you're wounded on your heel? It's a temporary thing, right? It hurts for a bit, but you're going to recover from that. And God says, the woman's seed, there's the first promise of the virgin birth, by the way, because it's not the man's seed, is going to crush the head of the serpent, deliver the death blow.

But in the crushing of the serpents, in that action in history, there will be a wounding of the Messiah. And then in Genesis 3, God does the first covering of Adam and Eve. His image sins against him and he's naked.

He should have stayed that way.

God in his love says, Messiah's coming. He's going to deliver the death blow to Satan, but he takes the first animal. And this is crazy. We don't think about this often. Take a breath and think about this.

This is crazy. Who killed Jesus? Think about it real fast. Who killed Jesus? And just think about it in terms of ultimates, in terms of ultimates. The early church prayed. They said, gathered in this city against your holy servant Jesus, Pontius Pilate, the people's of Israel, the Gentiles, to do what?

To do whatever your hands had predestined to occur. So ultimately, Isaiah 53, Old Testament, the Lord was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief. Think about that. Are you following me now? The Lord was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief.

Ultimately, we know that God is sovereign, who declares the end from the beginning. Who ultimately is responsible for the death of Jesus? God is responsible for the death of Jesus. And you go back to the garden, when our first parents fell, and they were naked, and they.

Should have stayed that way.

What does it say took place? God himself covered them in the skins of the animal. Who killed the first animal sacrifice? It was God. And what does he do? He covers Adam and Eve's shame, and their nakedness, and their guilt, in the skins of the innocent sacrifice.

In the very beginning, God says, Messiah's coming, woman's seed, death blow to Satan, and he covers the nakedness and the shame of his image bearers with the innocence of the sacrifice. Are you getting it?

Are you getting it? But what does he say about the grounds? What does he say about the grounds? He says, cursed is the grounds. Adam, as God's representative, as his image in the world, listen, he represented all of creation.

He was the pinnacle. He was the crown of God's creation. And listen, when Adam fell, all of creation fell with him. Everything came down with Adam. Think about that. And God says, cursed is the ground even because of you.

Thorns and thistles it'll bring forth because of your sin. Capture it. Listen, I need you to hang on to it. Image of God, nakedness, death, covering, thorns in the garden. Now, the story continues, and God says in Genesis 15 that Abraham is justified by his faith, that he believes God, and it's credited to him as righteousness.

And Abraham is given a promise that, listen, he's going to have descendants as numerous as the stars. And God promises in Genesis 49, 10 that Shiloh is coming, and to him is going to be the obedience of the nations.

What are you getting now? You're starting to get this. This story's picking up. It's picking up, but the Jews don't know.

They don't really get it yet.

They don't understand. They're like, this is complex.

It's beautiful.

I mean, there's so many different facets to look at this from. You see, there's this death of this sacrifice, and then there's this Messiah who's coming to get the nations, and Abraham's going to have descendants as numerous as the stars, and then God says, temple, get a temple, an animal sacrifice, and sacrifice him in this way, and you need a priest to intercede between you and me because you're not holy, and the priest himself isn't holy, and he needs animal sacrifices to cover his sins, but there's got to be the innocent for the guilty sacrifice.

You need the shedding of blood because you deserve to die because you've offended me, and there must be a death because I'm a just God. Something must take place. Someone has to die, and the Jews are doing this, and the crazy thing, this is wild about it, is that they know.

They know the blood of bulls and goats didn't take away sin. I mean, this is the craziest thing.

Watch.

If I said to you, I want to represent you, I love you, and my life, I want to lay it down for you. Listen, as noble a thing as that might be, you can't take my life in place of you before God. It's meaningless.

You don't want my sin representing you before God. You don't want somebody who in his life is a liar, and an adulterer, and in my heart, a murderer because I've hated people. You don't want somebody with my record representing you before a holy God.

You know that no sinner can represent you before God, so that's why in the Bible, Moses can't take your sin.

He's a sinner.

He can't even go to the promised land because he sins against God. Abraham's a liar. David's an adulterer and a murderer. Solomon's whacked. He writes a book of wisdom, but you're like, yeah, you learned a lot of lessons to get that book done, right?

I mean, for real, like how many concubines and wives, like didn't God tell you not to multiply wives? What's wrong with you? But he's like, just straight up sin, like totally. Isaiah is like the most righteous dude in all of Israel, and when he gets a glimpse in Isaiah 6 of God's holiness, what does he say?

He says, woe is me. That's like saying, God, kill me. It is. It's he's saying, woe is me. That's a curse. He would usually say, woe to you, like woe to you Philistines. Woe to you, and you would yell it out to someone else, Edomites or something.

And what does Isaiah say? He says, woe is me. He says, I'm a man of unclean lips. I'm coming apart at the seams. So then you see like no human can take their sins, and then what do you have also? You have the fact that you've got blood of bulls and goats.

That doesn't take away any sin.

And God's saying, no, no, do it, do it.

Temple, priest, and mediator, and Yom Kippur, animal sacrifice. And then he continues to tell this story. He has his people enslaved. We just did it this week in the real way. Didn't even know you did it.

And by the way, can I say something real fast? There's a big movement these days of Christians. Christians trying to go back. Christians believing. I'm going to say this without, as much as possible, not offending.

Although I don't really care. Messianic Jewish congregations. Okay? And there's a movement today of Christians gravitating towards, quote-unquote, Messianic Jewish congregations. As though, as though, people who are descended physically from Israel are more Israel than you.

That's antithetical to everything the Bible teaches. And there's also a movement these days of people going, trying to go back to the old patterns. To say, let's really get back into the old patterns.

Because that's so Jewish. Brothers and sisters, don't you realize? Don't you realize that Jesus is the sum and substance of all that that pointed to? To go back to it is to ignore the beauty of the substance.

And this week, you and I truly celebrated Passover. Whereas the anticipation was, you're in slavery, people, to Egypt. And God says, let my people go. And Pharaoh says, no. And so God sends in the plagues to Egypt.

All the plagues. You have frogs splashing all over the place. You've got, you know, lice and crazy. It's really nuts, right?

But what did it do?

Watch this. If you don't know this, this is really trippy. When you first are a Christian and you read those plagues, you might be tempted to think, well, God's pretty cold-blooded. Cows dying, blood, water, and you've got, like, frogs.

And you're like, what is God like? He's like, he likes to dangle people in a string. He's like, just likes to just sort of, you know, like, bat him around like a cat, right?

No.

It's awesome. The Egyptians are pagans. They're worshiping the God of the frogs. The God of the cattle. The God of the waters. And what does God do? He goes to Egypt and says, let my people go. Pharaoh says no.

And God goes, okay, frogs. Go ahead and pray to your frog God.

And the Egyptians are like, get the frogs out, get the frogs out.

Frog God's not responding. And so Moses comes back, let my people go. And no, all right, have some blood in your water. Go ahead and pray to your water God. And they're praying to the water God. The water's still blood.