Privilege To Pray

The Well-Being of the Soul and the Call to Preach the Word

The third stanza of that song we just heard says, My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin, not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh, my soul.

I was thinking, that sounded so beautiful, I can't wait to get to heaven where I can sing as beautifully as the flute was just played and the piano. If you don't know the behind the scenes background for the Spafford's tune, after he lost his children at sea, he took a ride across the Atlantic Ocean and the captain said, this is about the place where your children perished.

And he sat down and he wrote that song, it is well with my soul. And how can your soul be well after you lose your children? When you know you don't have to bear your sins anymore, praise the Lord, oh, my soul.

Well, it is great to be back here at Bethlehem Bible Church, thankful for the men who have preached the word in my absence and for those ladies ministering to the ladies as well. You know, you go out of town and you visit other churches and then you come back here and you think, our church isn't as bad as I thought it was.

I got an email this week from Nate, I believe. And Nate said, you should have seen some of the churches that I've been at and I thought, same with me, you go someplace and you think, just preach the word of God.

Pastors aren't called to be orators or persuasive with words of wisdom, they are called to preach the text. Whenever I wanna get really riled up, I just turn on 102 .5, Sunday mornings, the classical station in Boston.

And instead of classical music, they have, I think it's, I won't even shame them by mentioning their name, but it's some liberal church in Boston. And I listened to the sermon. And I said, I just today want to hear the word Jesus, sin, or the Bible quoted in the 15 minutes sermon and I heard none of those things.

Just somebody stand up and say, I've determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ in Him, what? Crucified, we serve a risen Savior and He needs to be proclaimed. And if our focus isn't upon Him, no wonder we're in the doldrums, because when we look to ourselves, we don't see much because we're still, although redeemed, we have that sin dwelling in us.

And with too much introspection, things aren't good. And so today for worship, we come looking to the Lord and Savior and give Him praise and ascribe to Him wisdom and sovereignty and strength. And even now, beloved, may I remind you, as you listen to the sermon, as the word is preached, it is an act of what?

Worship, you worship by listening. If you have an ear to hear, then you hear what God says through His word, not because of me. You get to know me well enough, you'll realize how frail and feeble I am.

But the word of the Lord does not perish and it does its work in those, Paul said, to the church at Thessalonica and those who believe. And just imagine, God loves us enough that He won't let us stay like we are.

He says, here's perfection, my son, perfect perfection, the God-man, God incarnate. And my work's not done until you're glorified like Him, but on earth we'll continually be made more and more like Christ as you look upon the word of God.

How do you have a better marriage? Sit underneath the teaching of God's word and study God's word. How do you work for your boss? I just saw somebody poke their husband. Study God's word. The key to Christian life is not, here's five principles that work this week, it's look to the Lord.

And even if work caves in, you'll still see God high and lifted up and He's the one that deserves our attention. I think we have a good church. For those of you, by the way, wanting me to finish Ephesians today, we'll do that next week, Lord willing.

But you know, you go out of town, you have some things on your heart, and so today's not exposition per se, it will be textually based, it will be biblically based, but it's not in Ephesians. And I was asking myself the question, are we a great church?

I think we're a good church, but I don't think we're a great church. Sometimes people critique the church a little bit and the men who are going to seminary have critiqued the church. Here's what we do well and here's what we don't do well.

And almost sheepishly, they show me their papers to say, well, you know, I want to be part of the solution and these are some of the things I don't think we do well. And I said to one of the guys, if that's as short as your list is, you should see my list.

I mean, I know we have not arrived. And if five years ago was ground zero, what do we do with the church? And so here's my philosophy. Healthy sheep reproduce. So how can you go out and begin to evangelize like mad?

Well, we're not that great in evangelism. So you pour the ministries from the women's ministry at Dallas Brown and the men's ministry here led by the pulpit. You pour in the word of God. You teach morning, noon, and night.

You teach the Bible every time you can, hence Bethlehem Bible Church. And you teach the Bible and God begins to grow the foundation. And as the church grows in maturation, then the church is healthy and then they reproduce.

They evangelize more. And so I think we've got that first one. I don't wanna say we've got it down, we've got it wired, we're perfect in that. But I think we all realize that the foundation that stands is Christ and his word through his apostolic messengers in the Old and New Testament.

So we realize our foundation. I think the Lord has blessed us. Don't you think so? With the amount of people that teach the word here, women, children, adults, men. I can't believe it. I've never been part of a church like this where I think we have now 10 men that I can send to different churches to go preach on Sunday.

It's unheard of. I don't know how many people we have. Please, if you really wanna rub me the wrong way, say, how large is our church? Have you done a head count lately? A head count, schmed count. I mean, I don't wanna count.

I don't wanna know how many people I'm responsible for on the day of judgment. No, it's not about how many people come. You preach God's word and the church will grow. Maybe by numbers, but certainly in maturation.

And so you keep preaching, you keep preaching, you keep preaching, and you say, Lord, we fall short, but let's build on that foundation. If you had to answer this question, next to the word of God being preached at this church and other churches, I think we do that, we're good at that.

We know, we understand, God has illumined our minds so we understand the sufficiency of scripture, the authority of scripture, the inerrancy of scripture, the infallibility of scripture. Scripture is central as scripture proclaims Christ.

What's the next building block of that foundation to make a good church a great church? What's another essential that we need to build upon here at the church that I don't think we've arrived at? And by the way, this isn't going to be a scolding message.

Oh, how could you? This is gonna be an exhortation message. And even if it was scolding, imagine 1 Corinthians, how many chapters? 16, 2 Corinthians, how many chapters? 13, 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians were written to the same church.

You put 16 chapters and 13 chapters together, that's how many chapters? 29 chapters written to a church to say, get with it. And why does God do that through Paul? He does that because he loves him. It's not an exhortation of how could you or how I can't believe that.

It's an exhortation of we love you and we're going to give you God's word so you're corrected so your mind thinks properly. You think this way, but you repent and now your mind thinks differently according to scripture.

It's out of love. And so today, this is not scolding, this is not how could you, this is if God is going to have this church in New England, don't you want this church to be great? I don't wanna be great.

Well, I do, my pride says, Mike, you wanna be great. But I know biblically and theologically that the greatness should be shown through the bride of Christ here at the church. And so I want this church to be great.

And we've got the foundation of the preaching of the word of God. And so what would you guess the second foundation must be? Fellowship, I think fellowship is good. Friendship, social calendars, coffee house, these things we all can do.

Italian night, by the way, you need to come tonight because we had Indian night last quarter and we have the Indian food here and the going food over here, I mean, the American food over here. And I thought this table would have nothing and this table would have everything.

You know, American chop suey, that kind of stuff. It was balanced out and we had a great time of fellowship and then heard the word of God. And so please come tonight for Italian night and fellowship.

Well, is that the building block after the word of God? What is essential to the church that we do, but we need to do better. And I wanna encourage us to do that. Here's what I don't think we do that well.

I don't think we understand the value of praying to God for great things. I think we understand someone's got a toe that's infected. Better pray for that. I think we understand, and by the way, I don't even make light of this.

I have it in my notes and I've forgotten. I leave out of town and then we have the church attendance grows. We have Lydia who was born a couple of weeks when I was gone and then yesterday to Tom and Felicia, Claire was born in Emerson hospital, nine pounds, 10 ounces.

Church attendance is growing. We wanna pray that the church grows. We want them to be saved. We want them to be added to the church. And we know God, thank you for those gifts. But how about praying to God for things that only he could do.

So then when it happens, we all stand there and say, wow, I'm gonna give you a biblical rationale, but why don't we turn to James chapter four, please. As I wanna talk about preaching, no, praying to God for great things.

Praying for Great Things in Corporate Prayer

We're gonna start a new ministry. It's gonna start this Wednesday, by the way, here at Bethlehem Bible Church at 6 .15. We have other prayer ministries, but at 6 .15 in the morning here at the church, Steve, I'm picking up my wife at the airport.

So please lead that up. Otherwise I'd be here. 6 .15 this Sunday, we're gonna come and we're gonna pray for things that only God could do at this church and through us. And by the way, we need it. There are families in chaos.

There are kids who are out of whack. There are friends of yours that need to be saved. Well, I'd like to have this church be a beacon in New England with a Bible Institute and maybe a seminary. There's all kinds of things we could pray for.

More baptisms, not because we have a number, but because I want us to preach the gospel and see people saved. And then we come and rejoice and say, wow, God still saves people. So on Wednesdays at 6 .15, man or woman, you can come.

We're just gonna have four rules of this prayer meeting. These are the four rules. And you're already saying it's legalistic. Well, remember, it's not legalism if the pastor asks for something and you can't show me a Bible verse that says you can't do that.

So these are the four rules. Rule number one, there'll be no sharing prayer requests. God knows our requests. How many times have you been to a prayer meeting and it's an hour meeting and for 35 minutes you share?

No prayer request given. Number two, you can't pray for yourself. You can pray for other people, but real love, the body loves one another, you have to pray for someone else. Number three, you have to pray for something that is so great that only God could do.

So when God does it, we all stand there and say, God, you're to be praised. Holy and righteous are you. Oh God, you're so wonderful. That might be salvation. That might be a variety of other things. And number four, if you are physically able, you have to be on your knees and on your face before this God whom we are entreating these great things.

Now, you can pray in all kinds of ways, but sometimes your body matches, your soul and your spirit kind of match your body. And so we're just gonna get on our faces in the prayer room and we're just gonna pray from 6 .15 to 7 .15.

And I want you to be there. I want you to be there to say, God, it's not about programs and fun and being busy. That's all part of the church, but we've got the word of God down. And I think now the second layer is we need the praying of the saints, not only individually, and I'm glad for that, not only in your Bible studies at home groups, I'm glad for that, not only with Jack and Bill and their men's group, I'm glad for all that, but we need to have more corporate prayer where we beseech this great God.

And if you take a look at James chapter four, it's very interesting. He says at the very end, James is as great sermon as it were from the apostle James. And after he talks about lust and murder, and he says, you do not have because you do not ask.

We wanna ask God to do great things through us. He's going to have to do it because we're not great in and of ourselves. Listen to what the Baptist preacher from London said last century. Brethren, we shall never see much change for the better in our churches in general till the prayer meeting occupies a higher place in the esteem of Christians.

When's the last time you came to a prayer meeting for the church? Sometimes once a quarter we'll have them on Sunday nights. Dare I say that when we have Sunday night prayer, do you think attendance increases or decreases?

What would you guess? It decreases. I don't want you to be afraid to pray and say, well, I've got to pray in King James English or they think I won't be spiritual. We already know you're not spiritual, so come and pray.

I'm not spiritual either. You know, it's like, can you imagine my kids, you know, Gracie at four coming to daddy and I'm not gonna really listen to her or talk to her if she kind of has kind of broken four-year-old grammar.

She's just talking to her dad and I want to honor that and I wanna talk to her. And Luke's not gonna get mad as a seven-year-old and say, I can't believe Haley's talking baby. I mean, Gracie's talking baby talk.

No, we love one another. The object of our prayer is God, not how do we match up to the next guy. By the way, I should probably give a fifth rule, no preach praying. Dear God, you know these other people showed up at about 6 .15 and I was here at 6 .10 early.

Oh God, convict them. You know how you do preach praying? Preach praying's only good for Easter and Christmas or if you get asked to pray at some unbeliever's house, then preach pray all you want. But at prayer meetings, God Almighty, you're the God who has a mighty right arm.

You're the God, the Bible says, who answers prayer. You're the God who wants to hear from his people and hear through his apostolic messenger, James. He says in his own divine way, we understand the sovereignty of God.

Yet he says, as we believe the sovereignty of God has both the end and the means, here are the means. You do not have because you do not ask. By the way, on that note, could God be waiting to do great things or could he be promoting us to say, I want you to pray because through your prayers, I'm going to do great things.

Scratch the waiting thing, I didn't mean that. But God is motivating the saints to pray and through those prayers, God has decreed, I'll do great things. Acts 2 .42 says, they were continually devoting themselves, the apostles teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and what?

Prayer. Colossians 4 .2, devote yourself to your work. Your career, devote yourself to your hobby. I got a road bike yesterday, pedal bike. I'm all excited about it. A couple nights last week, I couldn't sleep thinking about it.

I researched the kind, I was riding mountain bikes in California and oh, I need to get this kind and that kind and there's all these details. I just want a road bike and it's derailers and it's saddles and it's seats.

And Bob Dunn is telling me, don't call it a shirt, it's called a jersey. Don't call it a seat, it's called a saddle. I mean, my mind is just full and I took a ride yesterday. Steve called me to make sure I didn't die because it was so hot and I'm going to have to watch myself because here's how I do it.

Well, I went for a two and a half hour ride yesterday and just had time to think and pray. Look at the glory of God and his creation. Now eventually, I'll get to that but yesterday, I didn't think of anything except does this one release the tension or does this one, where are the brakes again?

What to do? I'm trying to figure out my little computer on board there. I said to my son, I got a computer on my new bike and he was imagining this Dell. Wow, dad, that is awesome. But if I'm not careful, I'm going to devote myself to something else.

Pleasure's fine, relaxation's fine, vacation's fine. But if I ask you, what are you devoted to? Are we as a church body even remotely devoted to prayer? And if not, God, we repent and we show up on Wednesday.

If you can only make it for a half hour, fine. If you need to come a little earlier and just pray on your own, fine. It's not a legalism thing. It's not, oh God, we have to, but God says, well, yes, pray, but we get to.

Prayer's a get to. Psalm 99 .6, they called upon Yahweh, God, his personal name, and he snubbed them. He answered them, it says. And there's something about corporate prayer. You read Donald Whitney's book, Spiritual Disciplines of the Church and he gives several examples.

Here's one, in 1727 in Saxony, they began the Lord's Watch, a church-wide prayer meeting where people coming at different times would pray morning, noon, and night, 24 hours a day, and they kept up that for 100 years.

By 1792, 65 years into it, 300 missionaries had gone out from that group that had prayed every day together. That's amazing to me. How about sinners in the hands of an angry God? When Jonathan Edwards preached that sermon at Northampton, Massachusetts, what was the response by his congregation?

Falling in the aisles, repentance, crying to God. Oh, just another sermon by Pastor Edwards. He went down to Enfield, Connecticut, right there on the border, and he preached that sermon with the sermon title from Ezekiel, Their Feet Will Slide in Due Time.

Revival started. Salvation of many souls. No one could figure out it's the same sermon, the same pastor, the same Bible text. And unbeknownst to everyone else, the church had been spending the whole night, the night before the sermon, in prayer because they were concerned for their community.

I love that. Would you find it odd if you had children and they only came to you one at a time, alone? There's nothing biblical about this, but I can just see all the kids coming at once, and so all the local church would come to the Lord and say, God, do something great in our midst.

We need to see you high and lifted up. We struggle with the world and sin and self, and God, do something great. If you look at the text, you have not because you do not ask. Our own self-sufficiency, our own efforts, our own determination, kind of the Marlboro men, rugged individualism, we don't have to ask.

It's our own sweat, it's our own ingenuity. I wonder if the Holy Spirit left our church today, what would happen to it? I hope it would fall apart, don't you? Still running fine. Attendance is up, building fund is up, and cash is up.

ABCs of Christianity. Buildings, attendance, and cash. And if you notice the text there, it says ask, and that's the present tense, that's continual. Should be translated like this if we expand it. You do not have because you don't keep on asking, and it carries the idea of pleading, begging, imploring.

Just like when Jesus said elsewhere in Matthew 7, ask and it shall be what? Given you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be open to you. Whoever asks, receives. And he who seeks, finds, and to him who knocks, it shall be open.

Or what man is there among you where his son shall ask for a loaf, and you'll give him a stone? Or if he shall ask for a fish, you'll give him a snake? He won't do that, will he? By the way, that's one of the most amazing thoughts about depravity of man, that even in our desire to give good things to our children, there's still sin that dwells in us.

But if a sinful father will give things to his kids, how much more will God the Father give to his children? It says in verse three, you ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives. That's why we're not gonna ask for ourselves in this prayer meeting.

We're gonna ask for other people. We don't wanna spend it on our pleasures. Turn your Bibles to Hebrews chapter four for a minute. And again, if you want an exposition, probably should get on the internet or get an MP3 or something.

This is kind of just from my heart. Hebrews chapter four. I've said it once before, and I'll say it again now. We should pray because we have to, yes, but because we get to. Can you imagine you get to pray?

I think we need a good reminder that we actually get to pray. What happened when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden? Come right on up, have any requests you want. What did God do? He banned them from Eden, didn't he?

No access sign put out as it were with that cherubim. What about the tabernacle area? Here's the tabernacle. And how many veils would a Jew have to go through? Well, any Jew couldn't do it, but the high priest.

If the high priest wanted to go into the Holy of Holies where the glory of God was especially manifest, how many veils would he have to go through to get into the presence of God? Well, if you were a pagan Roman, you could just walk right up.

Here's the thing of Diana and I'll just walk right in and stroll right into the Holy of Holies and I'm here. Aren't you glad I'm here, God? If you were a Greek pagan and you go to the Greek temple, you just stroll right in and kind of ride your Harley right up to the front.

Yes, I'm here, God, aren't you glad? But when it comes to the presence of God and his thrice called holiness, there were three veils all saying there's a separation between me, holy God, and the people.

Yet we as Christians, how can it be? We can pray to God anytime we want. God, help me. God, I'm hurting. God, thank you for my new child. How can we do that? How do we have access as Romans chapter five says to God?

The French call it entree. How do we have permanent favor with God and we can just stroll right in? A few of you do it and I'm not sure I want you to do it, but it's not my point. Some people don't knock when they come into my office.

And so when people don't knock and they just come barging right in, first of all, it shouldn't be called an office. It probably should be called a study, but they come right in. I'm like, hi, how are you?

I thought you were Luke. I thought you were Haley. I thought you were Gracie. I thought you were Maddie. I thought you were one of my kids. Decorum is you just knock before you come into our office and you just stroll like in like you're my family.

Now, if you don't want to knock, that's fine. I won't hold it against you really, but I'll just use you as a sermon illustration later. Steve and I are good friends. Steve's the associate pastor. I hardly ever walk in without just kind of a little knock.

I hear I'm coming. How about with God? Why is heaven a place that Jude says in his doxology a place where God says he's able to make you stand in his presence? Because other people, when they see the holiness of God and they realize their sin, they're on their faces, yet we, because of Christ's righteousness, because of Christ's perfect life, because of the great gift of justification where he counts us as righteous, he reckons to us the perfect life of Christ, we get to come in because we're a son, we're a daughter, we're adopted into the family, and we get to pray.

Hebrews 4, verse 16, without getting into who wrote it and why, I taught this before, and so we'll just dive right into the passage as he writes to these Hebrews. Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne.

Stop right there. Have confidence to the throne. What would a Jew say if you went up to them 2 ,000 years ago and said, you need to have confidence when you go to the throne? When you go to the throne before the king, you just have confidence.

Well, if we thought like a Hebrew did back in those days, we would realize that throne rooms were also called halls of justice. We would remember that they were called halls of judgment. 1 Kings 7 says, and he made the hall of the throne where he was to judge the hall of judgment.

Small little places, not these huge, grand, grandiose places, but small little places where you had all your eyes go straight to the throne. And the throne was lifted up, and the throne was high, and judgment would come from that.

Jeremiah 1 says that from the throne, God pronounces judgments. A king who sits on the throne, Proverbs 20, it's called a throne of justice. 2 Kings 4 talks about the throne itself. Please let us make a little walled-up chamber and let us set a bed for him there and a table and a chair and a lamp stand.

So you walk into this small throne hall, judgment hall, and down there a ways is this chair lifted up the actual throne seat. 1 Kings 10 says there were six steps to the throne and a round top to the throne and its rear and arms on each side of the seat.

2 Chronicles 9 adds in a footstool in gold attached to the throne. Now it becomes more ominous. Who could walk into a throne standing, smiling? I'm here, can I have your autograph, King? 1 Kings 10, 20, and 12 lions were standing there on the six steps, on the one side and on the other.

Reminds me of Pilgrim's Progress where he had to go through those lions, just the ferociousness of them. Why lions? How about this, Proverbs 19, 12? The king's wrath is like the roaring of a lion. The throne room, judgment, justice.

You were taken in as a prisoner if you were gonna be judged and sometimes they'd put a knife up underneath your neck so you would have to look at the king because typically your head would be down. Whatever the king said went and it was time for judgment.

It wasn't time, here's some extra grain. It was judgment time. Your knees would be knocking. And to think of that king's throne on earth, how much more God's throne, listen to God's throne in the Bible.

In the year of King Uzziah, Isaiah 6. In the year of his death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted and the train of His robe filling the temple. Psalm 9, He has established His throne for judgment.

He will judge the world in righteousness. From the throne, God tests righteousness and wickedness. Psalm 11. How about Revelation? This idea of the throne, what are we gonna do? Immediately, I was in the spirit and behold, the throne was standing in heaven and one, capital O, was sitting on the throne.

Verse five, and from the throne proceed flashes of lightning, sounds and pearls of thunder, peals of thunder, and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne. Lightning, thundering, judgment and justice.

Volcanoes about ready to blow its top. Before the throne, there was, as it were, a sea of glass-like crystal. Verse eight, and four living creatures, each of them had six wings, did not cease to say what?

Holy, holy, holy. Now look at Hebrews 4 .12. To kind of tie this up, you say, where are you going? Remember, the whole idea that I'm trying to get at is we get to pray. We use this verse out of context all the time, but you see here, in terms of the intensity of all this, for the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword and piercing as far as division of soul, spirit, joints, marrow.

Able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Do you mean you can stroll into the presence of holy God and he knows everything about you? There's no strolling. Verse 13, to make it even worse, and there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are open.

Open means gymna, means naked. You're standing there naked. You can't hide anything. You can't say, well, you know, you don't quite understand. There's no kind of carnival skinny mirror kind of thing.

You know, you see those mirrors like that and they make you look better. Laid bare to the eyes of him. Laid bare is this idea. You're gonna kill a goat or a lamb. What do you do with the neck? You just go to a field someplace with a knife and run around and try to stab it?

Kind of like a, you know, grease pig game. No, you grab hold of it. You wrap the thing down and you strap it down and then somebody takes the neck and pulls the neck way out there, exposing those veins, the jugular vein and the carotid artery.

And so it's open and laid bare for the easy slice. And God says sinners are before God and we're undone. What do we do? Praise the Lord. Look at verse 14. It doesn't end there. On our own, we don't want God's presence.

It's unthinkable. It's unnerving. It's nightmarish. But here, look at the consolation. Luther said about these verses, after terrifying us, the apostle now comforts us. After pouring wine into the wound, he now pours in oil.

Here comes the oil of comfort. Since then, we have a great high priest, literally a great priest. No Old Testament priest has ever called this. There's merciful and high priests, but not great priests, who's passed through the heavens.

Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have, verse 15, a high priest who cannot sympathize. He does sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are yet without sin.

He's close. He's not remote. He's not too far away. As the song says, Jesus knows all about your what? Troubles. We have confidence in this high priest's ability. He has compassion to the point of helping.

And then let us read Hebrews 4 .16. Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of judgment. This is the only place in the Bible where it's not a throne of judgment. It's a throne of what?

Grace. And if you have a throne of grace, guess what is dispensed from the throne of grace? Grace. How many of you people need grace? I do, on a continual basis. We've been saved by grace, and by the way, we are still sanctified by grace.

We don't wanna be foolish Galatians and be bewitched. Yes, sanctification is hard work, but it's the grace of God as well. Isn't that great? It's one of my favorite verses in all the Bible. And if you're a Jew, you're gonna think, throne.

I can't believe it. He's righteous. I can never do it. But it's a throne of grace that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need. If I wanted to convict you, I would say, how much need do you really think you have if you don't ever pray or don't hardly pray?

How much need do we think we have corporately if the saints hardly get together for corporate prayer? God will listen. God will hear us. Psalm 11 says, the upright will behold his face. We don't have to have our heads down when we come to God.

Yes, confession is good, but we can say, God, we need your help. We need you. We can't do it without you. Four rules for the prayer meeting this Wednesday. You know what? I hope that we have so many people we have to come in here to the sanctuary, whatever you call it.