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A question I received a few weeks back addressed the issue of egregious sins in relation to whether or not we can be forgiven. What is meant by egregious sins are sins that stand out more than others because of their heinous nature.
Some sins are worse than others, and we know this from our experience. Losing one's anger is not nearly as bad as murdering another. To get angry at someone means you need to ask for forgiveness, and then both sides reconcile and move on.
But to murder another means you may spend the rest of your life behind bars, or even get the death penalty. The consequences are much greater. So we know from experience that not all sins are equal. Scripture agrees with this.
When Jesus stood before Pilate at his trial, before his crucifixion, he said this to Pilate in John 19 .11, You would have no authority over me unless it had been given you from above. For this reason, he who delivered me up to you has the greater sin.
The people who committed the greater sin than Pilate were the Jewish leaders, the ones that we just sang about, who wanted Jesus dead. These people were known as the scribes, the Pharisees, and the teachers of the law.
They wanted him dead because the crowds were going after Jesus. Multitudes, thousands and thousands of people were going after Jesus, and the Jewish leaders were losing their control. They were losing their power.
And if they couldn't keep their own people in check, then the Romans, who had the ultimate authority over this land, would take away the authority of the Jewish leaders. So they were in a cushy position, and they were afraid that would be gone.
Not only would they lose their power, but they also feared that their distinction as a nation, the nation of Israel, would be lost because the Romans would take it away. The high priest Caiaphas, who was the high priest at this time, said in John 11, 50, It is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.
They hated Jesus and wanted him out of the picture. At this point in Jewish history in the first century, the Jewish leader's right to put someone to death had been revoked. Remember, they were under the authority of another.
Only the Romans could perform capital punishment. In other words, the Jews needed the Romans to do their dirty work for them. That's why Jesus was delivered over to the Romans to crucify him. Now Pilate was the one who ultimately sentenced Jesus to be crucified.
Pilate's sin, however, was more of a sin of cowardice. He caved to the pressure from the Jews. He would rather not have put Jesus to death. We know that he struggled with that as you read the Gospel accounts.
But the Jewish leaders wanted Jesus dead. The sin of murder by the Jewish leaders and the plot and their hatred of him was greater than the sin of cowardice by Pilate, because even though Pilate technically is also a murderer, the murder of the Jewish leaders is much greater.
And Jesus says that right here as we saw in John 19. Now the focus of this sermon is answering the question from Scripture, are there sins that are so bad that they cannot be forgiven? We just saw, as I just explained, that there are some sins that are greater than others.
So are some sins unforgivable? There's one instance in the Gospels, and I read this in the call to worship, where Jesus says that a specific sin will not be forgiven. This is where we will be spending quite a bit of time this morning.
So I encourage you to turn with me to Matthew 12. We'll be looking at verses 31 and 32 and also the verses before that. This episode also shows up in Mark chapter 3. In Matthew 12 verses 31 and 32, Jesus said this that has perked the interest of many for a millennia.
He said, Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
So what Jesus says is that blasphemy in the Spirit is the unforgivable sin. So what is this sin? We learn from the context of this passage what the egregious sin of blasphemy in the Holy Spirit is, and we will also see the ones who were committing it.
So let's read what this unforgivable sin is in verses 22 through 30. We need the context here to understand this. Then a demon-oppressed man, who was blind and mute, was brought to him. And he healed him.
Jesus healed him. So that the man spoke and saw, and all the people were amazed and said, Can this be the Son of David? But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.
Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself.
How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
For how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
So what we see is that in this conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees, Jesus is harder on the Pharisees, arguably than anybody else in this whole ministry. You know, some people Jesus is so gentle with.
But with the Pharisees, He's not gentle. He's very forthright with them. These were the religious leaders. The ones who were supposed to be holy and walking with God. The ones who were supposed to be an example to the people.
But in reality, they were not. They were the worst of the worst. In Matthew 23, 27, and 28, Jesus said this of the Pharisees, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all cleanness.
So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. So they only appeared to be righteous outwardly. But Jesus said, truly you are unrighteous people.
And the Pharisees did something here that was unforgivable in the eyes of God. The Pharisees, like everyone else during this time on earth, witnessed extraordinary things. In fact, the word extraordinary is very appropriate for the first century.
Jesus did things that no one else did. He turned water into wine. He healed the blind and the mute. He healed people from their diseases and he was able to make people walk who had been lame from birth.
He walked on water. Nobody walks on water. He walked on water and calmed the sea in the midst of the huge storm. What we see in this text in Matthew 12 is that he also cast out demons. What verse 22 tells us is that the demon-possessed man was blind and mute because of the oppressive power that the demon had over him.
And Jesus healed him. The Pharisees heard this and verse 24 tells us what they thought of this miracle. They said, this is their conclusion, it's only by Belzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.
You can see how serious the sin is. Belzebul means master of the house, referring to Satan. The most wicked being there is. In other words, according to the Pharisees, the power that Jesus had to do miracles, and specifically this miracle, came not from God, but from the devil.
That's quite a charge.
Now the Pharisees were right about one thing. And one thing only. All the supernatural things that happen in this world come from one of two sources. God or angels. And of course, Satan and his demons are fallen angels.
Sometimes people talk about, they see these horror stories of scary things happening where people see the supernatural. Some of these things are made up, but some of these things are real, where demons are just trying to make things up.
They're trying to distract you from really what's happening. Because God does the supernatural and angels do the supernatural, whether good angels or fallen angels. And what we know about this is that the Pharisees were oh so wrong in their diagnosis of the source of Jesus' miracles.
The Pharisees' thought process went something like this. We strongly oppose this guy. We don't think he's from God, because we are from God. And he opposes us. And he's a false prophet who is leading people away from our authority.
We would not despise this man as deeply as we do if he were from God. Now this thought process led them to conclude that this man is not from God, but from Satan. Now what's interesting about our passage is that the Pharisees did not even verbalize in this specific instance their outrageous belief as to the source of Jesus' miracles.
This miracle of casting out this demon. What verse 25 tells us is that Jesus knew their thoughts. So they were thinking, he's doing this with the power of Satan. And what Jesus does in verses 25 -28 is challenge their flawed logic.
What he basically tells them is this. Why in the world would Satan cast out demons? Only the light casts out darkness. Demons serve Satan. Satan isn't going to cast out the ones who serve him. So anyone thinking through this carefully knows that it is obvious that God is the one who casts out demons.
And Jesus says in verse 28 that he casts out demons by the Spirit. By the power of the Spirit. And the Kingdom of God is before them. He says. These miracles that I'm doing are showing you this Kingdom that is upon you.
This Kingdom that is coming to this world. Then in verses 29 -30 Jesus says that he is the strong man who casts out evil spirits. So we see here what the only unforgivable sin is in Holy Scripture.
That is.
The blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. And let me give you a simple definition of this. Rejecting the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
The only unforgivable sin. And in this text this is specifically calling Jesus spirit empowered miracles works of the devil. So you see how they're denying the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said in verse 28 These are the works of the Spirit.
And the Pharisees rejected this and called them the works of Satan. You will notice that the Pharisees could not deny the reality that Jesus performed miracles. They didn't say he's just doing magic tricks here.
It would have been hard to find an atheist in Palestine in the first century with all of these visible miracles happening all around. Everyone knew there must be a God. And of course the Pharisees were people who grew up following the Old Testament.
And they of course believed in God. They believed in demons. And their conclusion is these miracles are happening, but it's not coming from God. It's coming from Satan. And not only were the Jews at this time saying this but there's even a source called the Babylonian Talmud that says that Jews later on over the next couple centuries believed that Jesus was doing these miracles from the power of the devil.
Which is a huge lie.
So.
Their sinfulness, their sinful hearts led them to believe this lie as to the source of the miracles of Jesus Christ. And they outright rejected the clear ministry of the Spirit that was right before them.
Their heart of stone was so thick and solid that there was no softening in their hearts anymore. The sin of the Pharisees was so egregious that there was no opportunity for them to repent. There was no offer of forgiveness waiting for them any longer.
The tragedy is that their eternal destiny was already sealed even though they were still breathing. They were going to hell. And words cannot express what a horrible position they were in.
Forever,.
They would be the ones who crucified the Son of God and they rejected the ministry of the Holy Spirit. We need to understand why this sin committed by the Pharisees was so serious. The Pharisees had tremendous exposure to truth.
God incarnate who refers to Himself as the truth in John 14 .6 walked among them and spoke to them. And when Jesus spoke, God spoke. He is God. He spoke the very words of God. He did such wonderful things among them and the offer was there for them to repent and believe just like it was for everybody else.
And yet,.
They rejected it. The Pharisees are similar to Judas who is arguably the most tragic figure in all of Scripture. Judas was up close and personal with Jesus for over three years. And yet, he sold Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
How wicked is that? Both the Pharisees and Judas are in hell right now. And their punishment is very severe. That's a sobering thought of the reality. We know Judas is in hell. He betrayed Jesus Christ and he showed no repentance and he hanged himself.
Scripture describes that there will be different degrees of punishment in hell depending on how sinful people were in this life. In Matthew 10 .15 Jesus said, Truly I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.
Satan will have the worst punishment in hell. His demons probably the second worst. The Pharisees are going to be high up there as far as the greatest punishment ever. And these were the ones who were supposed to be righteous.
Think about that.
In our text, the Pharisees saw the glory of Jesus Christ right before them. And they hated Him. The glory of God was right before them and they chose their sinful desires instead. They despised Him so much that they said His mighty works came from the hand of the devil.
The Spirit worked on their hearts to show them the glory of Christ. To bring them to repentance. And they rejected it. They blasphemed the Spirit. Now you're probably wondering, can this be done today?
Is the blasphemy of the Spirit still around? Now, there is disagreement among Bible interpreters on this. Some say that anyone who rejects Jesus today is committing the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. While others say that this could only be done in the first century because this is the only time in history when God incarnate was right before people doing visible miracles and these people called these the works of Satan.
So this was an especially horrible sin. And it was so bad that it's unforgivable. Both of these are possibilities. One of my professors in seminary, in fact, holds to the view I just told you that this cannot be committed today.
However, I disagree with them.
I think.
The body of Scripture. I'm going to take us to Hebrews here in a second. I think the body of Scripture will tell us that this sin still is committed today. Let me explain why. The Bible tells us that people reach a point where they can no longer be saved.
The prime example of this is Esau. We already saw the tragedy of Esau during our Genesis sermon series. Hebrews 12, 15 -17 says this concerning him. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled.
That no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected. For he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.
What this text tells us is that Esau loved earthly things and not the things of God. This passage in Hebrews by the way, it's not saying that he wanted to repent or sincerely repent and God would let him.
If you can still sincerely repent, you have not crossed the point of no return. That means the Spirit is working on your heart and you can be saved. What happened with Esau is that he was so in love with earthly things.
He was so profane, so unholy, that he didn't want heavenly things. He didn't want God. He wanted the gifts of God. He wanted the idols. And so when he missed out on this Abrahamic promise, it wasn't that he wanted to repent and be in a sincere relationship with the Lord.
No, he wanted the blessings that came from the promise. The earthly blessings that came from the promise. And he missed out on the whole point of these promises. That was to bring you to God. He reached a point of no return.
He was unable to repent because his heart was so hard. The author of Hebrews also talks about people who put themselves in a position where they can no longer be saved. He writes in chapter 10 verses 26 -31.
For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.
Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?
For we know him who said, Vengeance is mine, I will repay. And again, the Lord will judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. What this passage in Hebrews is teaching is that those who received the gospel, they were in a church just like this, surrounded by truth all the time, and they appeared to believe.
At first,.
But then the test of time proved that they weren't real because they walked away. The author of truly receiving Jesus was right there before them, and they rejected it. They hardened their heart. This can also be said of those who hear the gospel over and over again.
An unbeliever who maybe was never in the church, but hears the gospel over and over again, but outright rejects it. Now what we see above is that these are people who clearly rejected the gospel. They heard it, considered it, and didn't want it.
Now we need to understand the distinction between rejecting the gospel and slowly coming to believe. We know that it can take quite a bit of exposure to the gospel for someone to come into a saving relationship with Christ.
In fact,.
Luke 14, 25 -33, Jesus teaches us that it is wise for one to chew on the gospel a while before you believe. Count the cost. This is why I'm not crazy about getting people to.
Pray a prayer.
People will pray to receive Christ when they're ready. We don't want to force someone to pray a prayer when they're not ready and then have them not follow the Lord later on. We want someone to count the cost and truly be saved and sincerely follow Christ.
We don't want artificial belief. We want true belief in Christ.
Some people believe.
In Christ later in life after just years of exposure and their heart has not been hardened to a point where they can't believe. One example in Scripture where there's a deathbed conversion, and that's the thief on the cross.
So it's different for everybody. However, if one goes beyond the point of chewing on the gospel and rejects Jesus and therefore rejects the ministry of the Holy Spirit, that person has committed the unforgivable sin, and as Hebrews says, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins for that person.
As we have pondered the unforgivable sin.
Here, the.
Application for us is very clear. When people hear the gospel, they should not harden their heart because today you might be able to believe, but tomorrow it might be too late. You might be so in love with your sin, so in love with the world, that you're just not going to believe.
When people hear the gospel, they should not harden their heart. Earlier on in the book of Hebrews, the author pleads with his audience to truly follow the Lord now while their heart is still able. He wrote in Hebrews 3, 7 -14, therefore as the Holy Spirit says today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion on the day of testing in the wilderness where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for 40 years.
Therefore I was provoked with that generation and said, they always go astray in their heart. They have not known my ways. As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.
But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.
What the author of Hebrews is addressing here is those who were a part of the church in the first century where many had fallen away. These are people who appeared to be Christians. And what he told them is that if you fall away just like those people fell away, he's warning the people who are still in the church, then you're not going to enter God's rest.
You're not going to reach the finish line. You're not going to go to heaven. You're not going to enjoy eternal life with God. As we look at this, you may be thinking about people in your life who were once in the church but no longer.
These are loved ones, family, and friends. You may be asking the question, I knew people who grew up in the church who walked away from the Lord. Is there any hope.
For them?
As I already mentioned, it's not a one-size-fits-all answer. Someone can believe at the very end of their life. Jesus gives us the story of the prodigal son where one at least appeared to start out in the faith and walked away and then eventually came back after a period of time.
People also have dry seasons where maybe they were committed to church and then for some reason they fall off the wagon but God brings them back, proving that they truly were saved. That would be another example.
Sometimes this is one I wrestle with. I grew up in a church where my parents are here today but they can attest to this where it was pretty shallow, pretty superficial Christianity and a lot of the youth that I grew up with are not following the Lord today.
They weren't exposed to the whole counsel of God. Jesus was more sold as fire insurance. Pray this prayer, you'll avoid hell and you can go live however you want. There was no counting the cost. The whole counsel of God was not taught.
People kind of grew up in this false understanding of what Christianity was truly all about. They rejected the false version of Christianity but maybe not the true version of Christianity. I still pray for those people when they come to mine, praying that they would believe and I even pray that I would have an opportunity to share with them.
I don't think you were told the whole story. Let me tell you this and maybe the Lord will use that to save these people.
So,.
Just because someone walked away, don't be hopeless and say they've committed the unforgivable sin, it's over. It might not be the case. However, it could be the case. We have to recognize.
That.
We have to recognize that.
Now,.
If we think someone may have passed the point of no return, sometimes you see someone and their heart is so hard and you're thinking there's no way. There's no way that this person is coming to faith in Christ and you think that they have committed the unforgivable sin of blaspheming the Spirit, rejecting His ministry.
Now, only God ultimately knows if they're past that point, right? If they're like Esau where they have no chance to repent. We should still pray for all unbelievers till the day they die.
About people in my life and I'm still praying for them. You never know. The Lord could still do the miracle of the new birth in them. Now, this sermon should motivate us to get the Gospel out and call people to believe in Jesus Christ as Lord, Savior, and Treasure.
Once people see that Jesus is the meaning of life and all other paths lead to destruction, this is when you know that someone has received the ministry of the Spirit. The sorrows of those who run after another God shall multiply.
But when you find the Lord, fullness of joy, pleasures.
Forevermore. What people.
Don't understand is that Jesus is the only one who can fully and forever satisfy you. Everybody wants to be fully happy and live forever. And the reason why, if you ask someone, do you want to live forever in this life?
And people say no, because there's so much pain in this world. But what if you told them all the pain is gone and you'll be fully happy forever knowing the one for whom you were created. When people get that message, then they're saying, okay, I can see why you'd give up everything to follow Jesus Christ.
I can see why all those people throughout history died for Jesus' sake. Because it's that important. It's everything. It's not just the cherry on top in your life. It's everything.
So I.
Hope that you can see in the sermon that there's an urgency to this. I hope that you can see in the sermon that when we think about egregious sins, we should not see specific sins as unforgivable. Typically when we think of the unforgivable sin, we think in those terms.
Like murder or suicide or someone who did a genocide or someone who's a serial adulterer. We think in those terms. We think this person did something so bad that there's no way that God.
Can forgive them.
But you know what? Some people who have done unspeakably horrible things, maybe even in this room right now, all of us have done bad things.
We know that.
But there's some people who have done especially horrible things who will be in heaven because at some point they truly repented and found their refuge in the Lord for their salvation. Many people in scripture did horrible things and yet they are in heaven right now.
King David, what an excellent example he is. He committed adultery with Bathsheba. Then he sends Bathsheba's husband Uriah to the front lines to be murdered.
King David.
Is a murderer and an adulterer. And yet, you know what the Bible says of him? He was a man after God's own heart. He was one who truly repented. And if you read Psalm 51, we see his repentance. When he says, Create in me a clean heart, a new heart, O God.
There have been many egregious sins throughout history where people's sins have been covered by the blood of Christ. And that will be an interesting conversation in heaven to have with people when they talk about what they did in this life and we see how great the grace of God is.
Because what you realize is that we're only deserving of eternal punishment. And what we need to understand here too is that maybe you've been a good church person your whole life and you've never done some of the horrible things that you see other people do.
What we have to understand is that every sin before God is serious. There are some sins that are greater than others, but every sin before God is serious. And we need the grace of God in Jesus Christ.
So we should not see the unforgivable sin as specific sins that are egregious, but rather the unforgivable sin is a complete rejection of the Holy Spirit's offer of believing in the Lord Jesus Christ.
For anyone to have a relationship with God, it comes through the Holy Spirit. He is the one who gives us new birth. He is the one, he's like a salesman trying to persuade you to believe in Jesus Christ.
I think when John 6 says that no one comes to the Son unless he's first drawn by the Father, the Father uses the Spirit to direct us toward Christ. And Jesus, as we saw, he was glorified before the Pharisees and they rejected the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Any time the Gospel is offered to people, the Holy Spirit is displaying the glory of Jesus before them. And to reject this is to forfeit any chance of salvation. This is the greatest tragedy of life. To reject Jesus is to reject eternal glory and instead to choose eternal misery.
If you are here today and have never believed in Jesus, and let me say it like this, if you're here today and you've never truly believed in Jesus, is Jesus the most important one in your life? Ask yourself that question.
That's a good litmus test to know whether you truly have the Holy Spirit, whether you truly receive the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Is he number one in your life? Would you... My old pastor used to ask this question to people when he would visit them.
He would say, if they were to find the body of Jesus, of course we know the Bible teaches Jesus is in heaven right now, there is no body of Jesus on earth, but let's just say, if they were to find the body of Jesus and to find out that Christianity is false, what would that do to you?
Would you be okay? Would you say, you know what, I'm still going to go live a good life? Or would it ruin you? Would it just... Would you jump off a bridge? Because frankly, it should ruin you if you're saved because it's everything to you.
Right? Peter said to Jesus, only you have the words of eternal life. Where else are we.
Going to go?
So is Jesus everything to you? Or would you say... Because if he's just a cherry on top in your life,.
You would be okay.
And that shows that you probably aren't saved. So ask yourself that question. Have you truly received Christ in your life? And the application for everyone here who truly knows Jesus is Lord, Savior, and treasure.
I love to add that word treasure at the end because we're not just using... Jesus doesn't just get us out of hell. He's everything to us. Right? That's why I say that. We need to get the gospel out to people.
Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. When you're doing evangelism with someone, you're calling them to believe while they still can. And so there's an urgency to getting the gospel out.
Believing ourselves and calling others to believe. So, may we have this.
Urgency. So there you have it.
That is the unforgivable sin. Blaspheming the Holy Spirit, and very much so, it still is committed today and is committed all the time as people reject his ministry as the Holy Spirit is pointing people to believe in Christ and forever have him as their Lord, Savior, and treasure.
Now next Sunday, we are going to begin a new sermon series. I mentioned this earlier in the service. We are going to be looking at the book of Matthew. We took two years to get through Genesis, and I don't know how long it will take to get us through Matthew.
I'm not going to make a sermon calendar because you have to kind of figure out as you go. So it will probably take us over a year. But I look forward to going on that journey with you. And the beautiful thing about going through the Gospels is we're up close and personal with Jesus.
In Genesis, we see Christ in Genesis too, but we're going to be up close and personal with him. And one thing you realize is we need him, right? And the Gospels give us that beautiful taste of being up close and personal with him.
And one thing I want to say too before I pray is that.
If you're.
Wondering whether you're saved or if maybe this is the first time you've ever heard the Gospel and you want to know how to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you can talk to me. You can talk to Rob. He's one of our elders.
Rob, you can raise your hand there. And Mark, you can raise your hand. And you can talk to anybody here who knows Christ too. And we'd love to pray with you. But again, count the cost. Realize that your life is going to change when you follow Christ.
And he is your everything. And it will show in your life. So let's pray together this morning. Father in Heaven, I thank you for the Word of God. I thank you for the clear instruction that we saw today from Matthew and from Hebrews about the urgency, Lord, of believing while we can.
Lord, our hearts are so hard when we're born into this world. It's only by your grace that they can be softened where we would prefer you over our idols.
Where we would prefer you over.
Our sinful desires. And so, Lord, I pray that everyone in this room who can hear my voice right now,.
Everyone in here would be in Heaven one day. Everyone in here would truly be surrendered to you. Where you would be the treasure.
Of everybody, of the.
Lives of everybody in this room. I pray that nobody in this room would reject the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And I pray for all of this. In Jesus' name, Amen.