All by Faith — Don McClure

Righteousness Reckoned by Faith

Romans 4 verse 9, talking about, if you'll recall, Abraham and his faith and Paul's tremendous stress on how Abraham was counted to be righteous. Verse 9, cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision only or upon the uncircumcision also.

For we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. How was it then reckoned? When he was in circumcision or uncircumcision. Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith, which he had yet being uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all of them that believe, though they be not circumcised, that righteousness might be imputed unto them also.

And the father of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision only, but also, you know, who walked in the steps of faith of our father Abraham, which he had yet being uncircumcised. Now this is a very difficult or awkward sort of a section of scripture, just sometimes just to read and understand, but here Paul is continuing in this section on that faith, or pardon me, that Paul is bringing the topic essentially that it is by faith, and it is by faith alone, that anybody has any hope of any form of acceptance at all before God, that any declaration of righteousness, any acceptance before God, any fellowship or relationship with God is entirely on the basis of faith.

That is Paul's whole subject here in this chapter. Now also you might remember as well, he's writing to a very religious group of people, for the most part Hebrews, Jews themselves, who were raised themselves under all sorts of rules, and regulations, and rights, and conditions, and they had been told essentially their entire lives that the things that they had to do, they had to do these certain things if they were ever going to be accepted by God, if they were ever going to please God at all and find any real standing.

Virtually their entire upbringing, all of their life was very conditional, and here Paul is coming along with some rather earth-shattering sort of things, and he says that is not true. Paul is saying all of the works, and all the rules, and all the regulations, and all the rights, and all the world will never work.

And Paul of course as you'll recall, as we've been saying in the last study as well, if you were with us last week, he uses Abraham, which is of course to the children of Israel their father, the patriarch of all of Judaism, the first Jew, the one that was separated that became the father of the nation of course.

He is the chief cornerstone essentially of their entire religion, and their understanding of God. And here Paul is telling them in a sense, he's saying hey you've always heard, and always been taught that this is the way you ought to live, and he says well why don't we just take a little look and see if this is how Abraham lived.

Let's see if this is how Abraham found acceptance or righteousness before God. And so Paul here, he's essentially talking about, you know, coming before God, acceptance before God, and living before God, and again another thing you might point out as well, is here remember that Paul was a man that I suppose when you want to look at him, you won't find anybody I suppose around that worked so hard in all the ranks of Judaism I suppose, as did you know Saul of Tarsus, of course Paul the Apostle as well.

When you look at somebody in the way he lived, in the way he struggled, in the effort he put forth, I don't suppose you'll find more modern-day, at least in their time, authority on trying to get right with God than Paul himself.

Paul's Religious Credentials Could Not Justify Him

Paul as well, he even said of his own self in Philippians chapter 3, he says, finally my brethren, chapter 3 verse 1, he says, rejoice in the Lord to write these same things unto you. To me indeed is not grievous, but for you, he said, it is safe.

Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision. For we are of the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit, and we rejoice in Christ Jesus, and we have no confidence in the flesh.

And he says, though I might also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I mourn. Circumcised in the eighth day of the stock of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and concerning the law, a Pharisee.

Concerning zeal, persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is of the law, blameless. But what things were gain unto me, those I counted lost for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss.

For the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but done that I may win Christ. Here when you look at the Apostle Paul, you are looking at a guy there who knew religion.

He was, I suppose, your classic Sunday school brat, or Sabbath, actually a Sabbath school brat, I suppose, there. He kicked the slats, I'm sure, out of the crib in Sunday school. He was one that he grew up in it all through life, there in the temple.

There's where he learned how to walk, and how to talk, and how to read, and how to write, and everything he seemed to learn, he learned in the temple. From his eighth day, when he was on the right day, presented to God, his pedigree was right, his effort was right, his own energy was right, his sacrifice of his life, it was his entire way of life there, one to live in a way that would bring pleasure to God.

And here Paul, not only is he an authority in his own self, by his own experience, but he doesn't look at that so much here. He looks at Abraham, and there he wants to tell us, essentially there, that if you are going to ever trust in any rights, you know, in a sense there, of religion, you're going to be in trouble.

Because here Paul, essentially, he turns to the most fundamental of all rights in all of Judaism, I suppose there, that of a person ever identifying himself with God, when he turns to circumcision. And here as he looks at this right, here Paul, he asked the question, essentially there, he says the importance there is, when did Abraham receive this right of circumcision?

That identifying mark that separated his life as unto God. It's one of the most important aspects of Paul's entire argument, essentially. For here Paul says in Romans 4 .9, he says, cometh this blessedness thereupon, the circumcision only, or upon the uncircumcision also.

For we say that faith is reckoned unto Abraham for righteousness. He says, I have been telling you that it is by faith that Abraham was accepted before God and was declared righteous. Now the Jews over here will say, no, Abraham was righteous because he was circumcised.

He was the first and the foremost of all of those that were ever circumcised. They're having that mark of a consecrated life to God. And by taking that, that signified the fact that now God accepted him.

And but here Paul, as he says in verse 10, well then how then was it reckoned? When he was in circumcision or in uncircumcision. In other words, was Abraham declared righteous by God when he was circumcised or before he was circumcised?

And his answer, of course, is right there. He says, not in circumcision but in uncircumcision. And of course, just to refer a little bit back here, let me take you back. You might turn to Genesis chapter 17 verse 7.

Circumcision as a Sign of God's Covenant

For here God tells Abraham, he says, and I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in all their generations for an everlasting covenant to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after.

Here God is telling Abraham, I'm going to have a covenant with you and all of the generations to follow. And I will give unto thee and to thy seed after thee a land wherein that thou art a stranger. And all of the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession and I will be their God.

God said unto Abraham, thou shalt keep my covenant. Therefore, thou and thy seed after thee and their generations. This is my covenant which he shall keep between me and you and thy seed after. The everyman child among you shall be circumcised.

And he shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. Here God tells Abraham very clearly, he said, we are establishing a covenant here. It is going to be carried on from every generation following you, there of your descendants.

It is going to be one in which you are going to do and that you are going to have everyman child born afterwards is circumcised there, each and every one. And it shall be a token of the covenant. Near God simply says there, it is a token of it.

Very clearly, this is what is it all about. But unfortunately, what the Jews did is they took that which was a token of something and they made it into a right that by going through that right, you are now declared righteous.

You are now declared accepted. And of course, that's something that's that's sort of an error is, is not uncommon. And not only happened all the way through the Old Testament, it happens in the new covenant as well for Christians.

Many of them, you know, the in the early church, when Paul was actually writing to them, they were still under tremendous fear of the Jews, though they had come to Christ. They had realized that Jesus did die for them, forgave their sin, had atoned for them.

They had opened their heart. They had come to him. But yet at the same time, they were under tremendous pressure by the Judaizers, which is why books like Galatians and Colossians and others were written Hebrews.

They're telling the Jews that had come to Christ. No, you are not under the law. You are under grace. It is all by faith. But here they were under tremendous pressure now to go on, even though now in the new covenant had been established in Christ, and they were still having every one of them circumcised.

They were insisting on upon for all the new converts to get circumcised. And until that was happening in the early church for a time, their their conversion was questioned and unacceptable. And of course, these things have also shifted over essentially in many other rights, I suppose you could say, in the church even today.

Many are oftentimes raised, I'm sure many of you grew up under all sorts of rights and rules and regulations that were conditional on any suggestion that if you did not fill these things and fulfill them, you would wonder at all if you were really saved and accepted to God.

But here Paul's great point here is is that this was not the way it was with Abraham. Abraham was somebody who was declared righteous actually 14 years before he was circumcised. If you go back to Genesis chapter 15, if you still got your finger there in Genesis 17, you there you'll note there in Genesis 15 verse 6, it says, and he Abraham believed in the Lord and was counted unto him for righteousness.

This is some 14 years before he even had the token or the symbol of his covenant with God that he by faith he had given himself and surrendered himself to God some 14 years before he himself even had the mark of circumcision.

God already had accepted him. He was already declared righteous with no right, with no rules, with no regulations at all. Unconditional. The right had absolutely nothing to do with redemption. The right was merely a response to redemption.

Relationship Is Based on Commitment, Not Performance

It's almost like in a sense that, you know, the issue, you might look at it in the issue of being married almost or something there. I mean there are responsibilities in a marriage. But at the same time, you're not married merely because you do the responsibilities.

You know, it's something there that maybe I, you know, I'm not married simply because I may buy the food and Jean cooks it. I am not married because of the fact that I maybe, you know, pay the house payment and she decorates it.

Yeah, I'm not married because I do such-and-such and she does such-and-such. I am married because we went through a public confession some 35 years ago, it'll be in the next couple of months, where based upon, you know, convicting and sharing publicly our love for the Lord, for one another.

We made a commitment to one another. And we had not, at that point, I had not bought her a house. I had kind of bought her a ring in the sense that I actually had picked it up and had started making payments on it.

But I hadn't done anything to earn, you know, the marriage, you might say. It was something there. That's just when the indebtedness started, you know. How's it going, a marriage? Wonderful wife. She halves my sorrows, doubled my joys, and quadruples my expenses, something like that.

But anyway, the thing is, is that if a marriage was based upon maintaining rights, being able to maintain the rules or the regulations, and that was it, a marriage could be extremely unstable. Ours would have been tremendously unstable for a long time.

It was based on me providing a home. We're in trouble. I was trying providing, you know, other things, like cars for me, and other things. But at any rate, we won't get into that tonight. But it was something there that if she's waiting for me to do certain things in order to say we're married, or me, you know, I can tell this, it's actually 35 years ago now, but waiting for her to cook.

She kind of grew up actually in going to some wonderful Christian private schools where they did the cooking for her. And so we got married, and one of the first, I remember coming home from a honeymoon.

I walked into the kitchen. I don't know how I'm getting into this, and I'm in trouble. I already know I'm in trouble here, but what am I doing? I walked into the kitchen, and here Jean is reading a can of beans, looking for instruction.

She says, there's no instructions on this thing. I said, what? She says, there's no instructions. I said, honey, any bum by any railroad track knows how to cook beans. You know, that's when I had a hint.

We were in trouble. She's done quite wonderful since then. That is 35 years ago. But the thing is, is if you go on the basis of performance, and the ability to fulfill rights, and now to say we are married, no.

It is because of a fellowship, it is because of a commitment, because of a relationship, and so also with God. There are certain things that happen because the commitment is there, because the fellowship is there, because the union has happened.

And here Paul in verse 11, he says, for he received about circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith, which he had yet being uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all of them that believe, though they be not circumcised, that righteousness might be imputed unto them also, and the father of circumcision unto them who are not of the circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of that faith, of our father Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised.

Here he is looking, and he said, Abraham, it was purely something that occurred between Abraham and God. There was an affection, there was a love, there was a redemptive act of mercy, and atonement, and forgiveness, with Abraham doing nothing for it, of being declared absolutely righteous, without any change in his behavior, conditioned or being conditioned upon it, based only on Abraham believing that there was a God in the world that so loved him, that there was a God that could look at him as he was, uncapable, unable to perform an acceptable standard at all.

He just looked, he says, listen, I love you, and I care for you, I forgive you, I declare you righteous, do you believe me? And here Paul essentially wants to go on and tell us why Abraham essentially was given the right, and he did not, you know, of circumcision.

And you see, it did not give him righteousness there, but it confirmed righteousness that he already had. It was something there like the wedding ring or something there, it confirmed the vows had been made, and this is a token of the fellowship.

This is an identifying mark, a confirmation of it happening. You know, Paul had turned, essentially what he's doing here is he's turning the Jewish world almost, you might say, upside down. It was not the Gentile at all that had to come to the Jew for circumcision and salvation, but rather than that, he's saying the Jew needs to go to the Gentile for faith, and just realized that exactly what God was doing to Abraham, he is now doing to the Gentile.

He is now doing to every human being out there that will simply look at Christ without any right, any mark, any identifying thing, any work within themselves. And here was something there, when you look at Abraham, his righteousness was all of God, all initiated by God.

God's Promises Come Through Faith, Not Religious Rules

Abraham, all that anybody can ever do, Abraham included, is merely respond. When you look at how Abraham got blessed, it was all of God. God was the one who brought up the topic. God was the one, Abraham wasn't out there for years begging God, hey, I want to be the father of a nation.

I want land, and I want territory, and I want blessings, and I want a descendant, and I want a Messiah, you know, or anything like this. Wanted nothing. God came to Abraham, said, if you'll follow me, if you'll believe me.

And he took him out, and he says, look, if you'll just trust me, and you'll believe in who I am, he says, you looked in the north, south, east, and the west, all of that have I given unto you, and you're seat after you.

If you will trust me, if you will put faith in me, there he should simply say, I'll tell you, there'll never be anybody able to stand against you. Whoever blesses you, I'll bless them. Whoever curses you, I'll curse them.

And he looked, he said, if you will trust me, he said, you look to the stars of the sky or the sands of the sea, so shall thy descendants be. And here he says to him, when he has a wife who has been barren for, she's 75 years old.

And yet here, at the same time, when you look at this, God brought it all up. God was the one to do it. God made all the promises. All he wanted was to look at Abraham and said, Abraham, will you believe me for it?

And the rite of circumcision was merely Abraham's, you know, ring, in a sense, Abraham's response, Abraham's covenant, agreement with the vow, in a sense saying, yes, I understand what you've done. And I, you know, I, because of what you've done, because of the promises, because of the blessing, 14 years afterwards, he now comes around to where God says, here, it's the right.

But he didn't do it to get it. He did it because he had it. And Paul also, though, he wants to go on and tell us another thing. I'll get to in a moment why this is so critical to understand. But he tells them, he says, it's not only the rites of religion that are totally a waste, it is also, essentially, they're the rules of religion.

For in verse 13, he says, for the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. Not only there was he declared righteous there by faith, and that the promises came, but also it wasn't through rites that he took there, and it wasn't through rules, essentially, that he kept.

It wasn't through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For they which are of the law be heirs. Pardon me, for if they which are of the law, they be heirs. Well, faith is made void, and the promises of none effect, because the law worketh wrath.

But where no law is, there is no transgression. Here he looks at him essentially, he says, listen, if Abraham merely got what he got because he kept laws, then faith is void, means nothing. And the promise, he says, there is of no effect.

But actually, he says, because the law worketh wrath. For where no law is, there is no transgression. Essentially here, when you stop and realize the Jews by this time, they actually prided themselves and their whole religion based upon their rights and their rules.

The rights that they, you know, that they kept, and the rules that they kept, and they had circumcision, and they had the law that separated them from the rest of the world, and of course they had a whole huge list of do's and don'ts.

But here, Paul tells us the great promises of Abraham's faith were not because he kept the laws at all, or the rules. As a matter of fact, he says there, there wasn't the law. Anyway, at the time when this happened, the Mosaic law, Moses's law, wasn't even around for hundreds of years still yet.

He couldn't keep your laws. He didn't even know about them. They weren't even made. And so you are looking at the very father of your faith who received all of these promises. The Messiah was to come to him, through him.

All of the nations of the world were to be blessed because of him. The land separate of all of Israel given to him. All of the blessings of life. And all he did was stand there, doing nothing. There was no law to keep.

There was no right to keep. There was no identifying behavior or mark. There was nothing. Just God looking at him, saying, what do you think of it? Will you trust me? He says, yeah. This is all right.

It's all yours. And then as the years went by, there were other things that happened in a response to it. But there were only a response to it. The laws, of course, were later given, of course. We maybe need to mention a moment on that.

The Law Came After Redemption

They were later given to the children of Israel through Moses and as a covenant people. But notice as well, even when it was given to the children of Israel, it was given to them. When they had already been brought out of bondage.

They had already, you know, been delivered mightily by the love of God. And so the laws never delivered them in the first place. God brought him through the Red Sea. Brought him out there and saved them and redeemed them.

Made them his own. All of this. They had no law. Later on in Mount Sinai, they got the law. But the laws weren't even there when they had their own deliverance themselves as a nation. Wasn't there. They only had the blood of the Lamb.

They only had that which we celebrated tonight. That mark there, when the Lord told the children of Israel tonight. He said, you shall take a lamb unto your house and if your house will be too little for the lamb, then you'll share the lamb of the house.

And he says, then you'll take the blood, you'll sacrifice the lamb. And he says, and then you'll take the blood of the lamb and you put on the doors and the lintels of the house. And when I see the blood, I'll pass over you.

He says, I'm going to judge, you know, the firstborn of all every man of every beast and all of Israel, all of Egypt. I am the Lord. And he did. But when I see the blood, no rule, no right, no regulation, no standard, just the blood.

If I see the blood, you're redeemed. You're out. You're free. You're my child. And the laws were not given to deliver, to save anybody at all. They were merely essentially given to maintain the blessings of the deliverance they had received.

There were merely things that God said, now because you have been redeemed, because you've been declared righteous, because I love you, because I want to pour out my blessing, there are things that I want to set up for you, that I want you to maintain.

And if you maintain these things, the wonderful blessings that you will have in your life, and oh, how many of the wonderful Old Testament saints did keep them and saw the Lord and walked with the Lord, shared his life and his glory and his love.

And he had some rights, some rules, some regulations there on one hand, later given in Exodus and Leviticus, but they were merely so often to maintain their health and their happiness and their communion and their fellowship with God a right relationship with one another.

How to live, how to walk, how to talk, how to continue enjoying your salvation. There were some things they told don't do. Look out for the pigs and the hogs and worms and bottom fish. They'll get you sicker than a dog.

You know you don't want it. You can't cook them right, most likely. You'll have all sorts of diseases and plagues. And so he had some things there for them. We had health risks to them. But essentially the Jews, with time, they took these things and they made rights and rules.

And they set these things up that were merely given in a response to, and they replaced them. No, this is you do this not in response to anything. You do it to get saved. You do it to find yourself pleasing to God and to be acceptable before God.

And they took these instructions that ought to help them maintain their lives in the Lord, and they made them rules for which you can even have a relationship with the Lord. And that was never the case.

Jesus' Warning About Pharisaic Religion

So here, you know, and now that's how they had lived. When Jesus came and he looked at the Pharisees around. These guys there who you called them whited sepulchers in a sense. Oh, they kept the laws and all the dietary things and they knew how to fast and how to pray and how to roam the streets looking so spiritual.

And they knew about their genealogies and their pedigrees and their education and their membership to the hierarchy to the temple and all of these other sorts of things. And, but at the same time, they meant absolutely nothing at all.

Tragically, we so often do the same thing many times ourselves. We have things, if you don't have, if you are not a member of a church, I wonder if you're a Christian. And, you know, sort of a thing. We have all of these sorts of rights and we have rules and regulations so often today, much like the Pharisees.

We can even take some of the most wonderful things God has given that ought to be a response to what has been done and we have made them a rule and a condition for blessing. Some of them can be very wonderful things.

Prayer Is Communion With God, Not a Condition for Blessing

You know, thou shalt pray two hours a day. I mean spiritually, if you don't pray a couple hours a day, how can you call yourself a child of God? He sent his Son into the world to redeem you. The most wonderful thing ever done and you don't even give him two hours a day.

What in the world, who are you? How can you think of yourself as a Christian? You ought to be praying and we can make a rule out of it and a regulation out of it. As I mentioned last week, if you're here for the study, that is one of the things that I, you know, when I went off and I was going to Bible college in England and I determined I want to be a Christian.

I want to be a good Christian and therefore I'm really gonna pray and I'd get up early and I'd go off and pray and I wanted to make sure I was really a prayer warrior and I was really about the business of praying and I had a prayer list and I'd get there and I'd begin to pray and I'd pray for the world and I pray for missionaries and I pray for the gospel going out and for Billy Graham and for the churches that preach the gospel and I'd pray for all sorts of Christian organizations around and I'd pray for my parents and my brothers and my sisters and my cousins and my uncles and my aunts and I'd pray for people I knew and people in school and I'd pray and pray and pray and pray and then after I prayed my heart out I'd look at my watch and eight minutes had gone by you know or something and I think oh man this is not prayer I guess so I'd start asking for more prayer requests and what can I specifically pray for you for or something you know so I could really become a prayer warrior and because it because somehow or another if I pray and I really break through the kingdom of heaven somehow or another and I get through the veil you know or something and I strut right in before the throne God's gonna bless me and everything I ask of him you know sort of a thing.

And prayer was something you know tragically it was something I was doing in order to get blessed. I was praying because I wanted to get blessed. I was wanting to be spiritual in prayer with some I saw peril make you spiritual.

And prayer will do this and prayer will do that amazing things you know you go on. I don't think it has anything to do with the amount or with the issue of prayers. For much I wanted his hand upon me and so there was something there of how much you want to pray and how prayer is going to be this great thing.

But it isn't interestingly enough this afternoon off the wire services AP Duke University Medical Center cardiologist put God to the test to find out if prayer helps to heal the sick. The controversial results.

There's no scientific evidence that prayer heals reports the telegraph of London. The three-year study which involves 750 heart patients in nine hospitals as well as 12 prayer groups in different face located around the world was conducted after earlier but less extensive research from the University of Wales in the late 1990s suggesting prayer has a measurable benefit beneficial effect on healing.

But this study 750 heart patients who were waiting and angioplasty procedures were recruited for the experiment and it goes on through. But basically they said prayer didn't work as far as any way they could evaluate.

Well I could have told him that a long time ago prayer does not work. God works. But prayer doesn't. And there's a huge difference if I am doing something in order that this will work and I can take one of the most wonderful things God has given me prayer communion with him the opportunity to come before his throne of grace to find myself sitting in his presence to draw upon his power and his love and his life and his wisdom and his strength and his patience and his kindness.

But if I go into that same thing of which I could be drenched with all that he is but I go in there something that if I do this I'll get blessed. Prayer does not work if I am doing it in order to get if I am doing it just like they did with the law or with the right or with the rule or regulation.

No it's already been done whether you know it or not every one of us if you've accepted Jesus Christ this very moment in time you are seated in high heavenly places in Christ Jesus. You're already in the throne of grace.

You're sitting there right now. You couldn't be more wonderfully position. You couldn't have more already promised already given. And if you just decide you're gonna pray in order to get something that can almost be a complete denial that you've already got it know you pray because you have it not to get it.

And we can literally like the children of Israel we can do a thing in order to get rather than a response to we can do it to get. And if we're doing it to get will just exhaust yourself. You can take the most wonderful thing Bible reading.

I did the same thing prayer I was told pray and read your Bible. And so I'd be down I'd be praying and praying trying to pray and it was so hard because after you know I'd be praying in my mind to go off.

So then I'm gonna read my Bible and I'd be reading my Bible next thing. I know I don't even know what what it's about. I my mind went off three minutes earlier but I'm still kind of reading through it.

I don't know what I'm reading now I gotta go back where I skip off where I lose my train of thought. You know two chapters if I'm gonna get 15 done and three chapters ago I checked out so I gotta go back and try to get into it so I can be God.

And then when I still my mind would space out I know what it is. I'm to meditate on it and the only way I can meditate I'm gonna memorize it. So I'd start working on Bible memorization and I had the interest II.

I learned a lot memorized a lot. I can still I can go to sleep I can I can quote the Sermon on the Mount three chapters in my sleep. You know the I got a lot of I've memorized like most of John a lot of John a lot of some of the epistles a lot of a bunch of Psalms all you know I'm gonna get.

And when I got him God's gonna owe me blessing. You know just like the little memory verses that we so often do with kids in Sunday school who get oh you got it Johnny. John 316 give that boy a prize.

You know. And that's exactly what I was doing the most wonderful things in the world to get a prize in here so often the exact same things I was doing not because I already had the prize. If God spared not his own son will he not give us all things.

The moment I'd come to Christ he'd given me everything he's got now he says well here I gave you the greatest thing but just for fun. I want you to work for anything else buddy you know I mean just think that through if he spared not his own son.

And if you have the son you can't get anymore in here Paul he's trying to tell them with all of these things out. It doesn't mean that I don't pray. It doesn't mean I don't read my Bible. I open I believe in perhaps more than ever but at the same time there's a huge different whether you're doing it for or from whether there's something that is a result that I'm going to get it.