The Christian's Daily War

Paul’s Rebuke of the Judaizers in Galatia

Hey, open your Bibles up to Galatians 5 for me. In Galatians chapter 5, we're going to be looking at verses 16 -26. I started teaching on this a few weeks ago, and I'm just basically taking it one verse at a time.

There's no reason to rush. I try to dig into the verses and look and see what's there. But remember the importance of the context of Galatians as a whole. This book is written by the Apostle Paul to a group of churches in a region of the world which we would now call Southern Turkey.

At that time it was called Asia Minor, and the southern area was known as the Galatian region and the churches of Lystra, Iconium, and Derbe were all there, and Paul had planted those churches in his missionary journey.

When he left, another group came in, probably identifying themselves as having come from the church of Jerusalem. We make that conjecture because of the message that they taught. They taught a message of what we would refer to as Judaizing.

They came in and said, listen, Paul has told you about Jesus, but Paul didn't tell you the whole story. You need to keep the law, and that includes circumcision, that includes the dietary restrictions, that includes the maintaining of the Sabbath.

If you're going to truly be a Christian, you have to be a Jew, because Christians are Jews. That's the argument of the Judaizer. You have to become a Jew. Paul had taught a message that said that God broke down the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile.

Paul's message was one that there was no longer Jew or Greek. There was no longer slave or free. There was no longer male or female. They were all one in Christ Jesus, and the dividing lines that had separated the cultures in the past were now to be set aside for the unity that was found in Christ.

That was Paul's message, and the Judaizers came in and said, no, we're going to set those lines back up. We're going to put those fence posts back up, and so Paul is angry. Those of you who have been here, I've been preaching now in this book for, I don't know, a while.

Yeah, almost a year, I guess. You know, what we've noted from the beginning is Paul's writing is frustrated with their lack of fidelity to his teaching. The very first chapter, I'm amazed that you have so quickly departed from the Gospel and turned to another Gospel.

Not that there is another Gospel. I mean, think of the language. That's the way he's talking. He's not flowering his language with sweet sentiments. He is attacking them. When he gets to chapter 5, we've already read in the early part of chapter 5 how he says to them, he warns them of the danger of falling for this false teaching.

And he tells those who are troubling them, he said, I wish they would cut themselves off. Remember what it actually says. I wish they would emasculate themselves. And again, it was a play on words. I wish those who would force you to circumcise yourself would just go ahead and cut themselves completely off.

It was the language of emasculation. Paul has no patience for false teaching. Because it damns men's souls. And then we get to verse 13. And he says, for freedom you were called, brothers, do not use your freedom for an opportunity for the flesh.

Freedom in Christ Is Not Freedom to Sin

This is where Paul's message becomes very practical. Because if you've listened to Paul's message up until now, it's liable you would come away with some type of conflicting idea that, well, if Paul is teaching that we are saved by faith alone, then what Paul is teaching is all we have to do is believe and our belief won't change our behavior.

And there are people who believe that. A lot of people in churches who say, I can believe in Jesus on Sunday and I can rob, pillage, rape, and plunder Monday through Saturday and I can go back to church on Sunday and I can go dun, dun, dun, dun.

It's like taking an Etch-a-Sketch and it's all gone. No, Paul says if you are free in Christ, that does not mean you are free to sin. What it means is you are free from the condemnation that the law had placed upon you because of your sin.

And now that you are free from the condemnation of the law, live in light of that freedom. And then we see in verse 16, he says,. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

I'm jumping through this because I've already been through this. I don't want to go back through the verses I've been through. If you weren't here, I'm sorry. But I want to get to the verse for today because today we're going to go to verse 17.

But we haven't read the text yet, so let's read it. And we're going to read it in its entirety. I'm in Ephesians. Let me turn the Bible. I'm sorry. I'm in the wrong book. Galatians 5, verse 13. And we're going to read down to verse 26.

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say to you, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh.

For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you're led by the Spirit, you're not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of rage, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, things like these.

I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another and envying one another.

Father in Heaven, I thank You for Your Word. I pray even now that as I seek to give an understanding of this passage, Lord, that You would keep me from error. For God, I am a fallible man and I am capable of preaching error and I don't want to.

For the sake of Your Name, for the sake of my conscience, and for the sake of the hearts of these men, may Your truth be proclaimed, may Your Holy Spirit be the teacher. May He go out this day and may what is said be mixed with faith.

May it go past the ear and the mind and into the heart. And those who know Christ, Lord, may they be encouraged. May they be even rebuked if necessary. And may they be led to repentance if needed. But Lord, for those who do not know Christ, Lord, may today be a day of reckoning.

That they might see in themselves the absolute void of a life that is lived outside of Jesus Christ. And it's in His Name we pray. Amen. Alright. Verse 16 is what we spent most of our time last week on.

And my goal, let me give you the breakdown. Last week we had the call which is walked by the Spirit. Today we're going to look at the competition which is the desires of the flesh versus the desires of the Spirit.

And then next week we're going to look at the distinction or the comparison between the works of the flesh and the works of the Spirit. And so what we're going to do next week is we're going to write on this board, we're going to write all of the works of the flesh that Paul lists.

We're going to define them. We're going to talk about them. We're going to identify what he's saying. And then we're going to write on the other side the fruit of the Spirit. We're going to identify what those are.

But that's next week. Before we get there, however, we're going to look at verse 17. We're going to spend our day today looking at verse 17. Paul has just told us in verse 16, he has given the imperative, walk by the Spirit.

Remember what we said last week. To walk by the Spirit does not mean to listen to the little voice inside of you. Because the problem with the little voice inside of us is the little voice inside of us often is not the Spirit but is rather the flesh.

The little voice inside of us doesn't encourage us to commit adultery, but we commit adultery. The little voice inside of us does not encourage us to steal, but we steal. I'm sorry, the little voice...

I'm saying this wrong, excuse me. The little voice inside of us might encourage us to do those things that God tells us not to do. So if the little voice is telling us to do things that God tells us not to do, it's not God.

It's not the Spirit. And so what did we say last week that we ought to listen to instead of the little voice inside? Anybody remember? It's only a week. Okay, I... Yes. How do we know if the little voice inside of us is from God or from the flesh?

It's the Word of God. That's the objective standard. The difference between objective and subjective is objective is always true no matter what. Subjective is dependent upon you. For instance, I like chocolate ice cream.

I like vanilla ice cream. And I like strawberry ice cream. I just like ice cream. But... But I imagine, John, you probably have some ice cream that you don't like. Like my wife likes mint chocolate chip.

I don't know why anybody wants to eat ice cream that tastes like toothpaste. I mean, just to me, it's mint. Mint, it tastes like toothpaste. I don't know why, you know. That's a yes. Exactly. So my point being is we all have subjective things.

But there has to be a standard, an objective truth. And the standard of objective truth is the Word of God. Therefore, if I have a desire in my heart that is truly there, but the Word of God says it is ungodly, then I can know that that's not being led by the Spirit.

So when Paul says, be led by the Spirit, I think we have to first realize that that's not a subjective thing. It's objective because we have the Spirit's Word. Subjectivity has become the great danger that most people don't even realize is a danger in our world.

And this is how it usually goes. Someone will do something that is wrong and heinous. Someone will say to them that's wrong, and they'll say, hey, that's not wrong for me. It's wrong for you. And I get to decide what's right for me and what's right for you is up to you.

I want to say this. Everybody, cops, non-cops, everybody are sinners. And therefore, while people should be held to the standard of the positions they take, like a pastor, a policeman, anybody. And they should be punished when they do evil, without doubt.

We can't say that, okay, this one group here is all bad and the other groups are all good. Everybody's a sinner. The problem with the world is everybody is bad. You understand that? Well, yeah, and I just want to be careful that we don't diverge into something...

No, it's okay. The point is when we deal with the subject of objectivity versus subjectivity, well, I believe it's okay for me, so it's okay. Like the lady who said, I don't believe in God and that's true for me.

You believe in God and that's true for you. I say, no, that ain't the way it works. Because my belief in God will not make God exist if He doesn't exist. And your disbelief in God will not make God not exist if He does.

So your belief in God is like gravity. You can say I don't believe in gravity, but if I put you up on that roof and push, gravity is going to kick your tail whether you believe in it or not. And that is the difference between objective reality and subjective reality.

And the danger in the church is people have turned being led by the Spirit into a subjective reality. Well, the Spirit led me to do this, Pastor. No, He didn't. The Spirit didn't lead you to leave your wife.

The Spirit didn't lead you to mistreat your children. Do you see where I'm going with this? People want to blame God for their own sins when James tells us that we should not say that we have been tempted by God.

But we have been led away by our own desires. The responsibility for sin is always laid at the foot of the sinner. And therefore, we have to consider the idea when Paul says be led by the Spirit, that is an imperative.

That is a command. We have to know how that leading comes. And I think that more often than not, people think that that's some kind of a subjective feeling. Now as I said last week, and I'm not contradicting myself here, but there are times when the Spirit will prompt us.

How do we know it's the Spirit prompting us? When it agrees with God's Word. If the Spirit prompts me to do good and to love and to encourage and to give and to be generous, then I can know that's God.

As Augustine said, all of my sin is my fault and all of my goodness is God. Anything that I do is good, I attribute to the goodness and grace of God. And anything that's bad, I attribute to my weak and destructive flesh.

And that's where we get to verse 17. Because verse 17, Paul outlines a very important principle. And by the way, I want to mention historically, very quickly, Galatians is one of the first books Paul wrote, if not the first book.

So what Paul gives us here, he elaborates more later in his later writings. So this is early Paul. Not that it's different, mind you. I'm just saying that oftentimes we see in Scripture a process of growth in the writing.

And that happens with the Apostle Paul. So we're going to look here at verse 17 and we're going to see what he says. And then we're going to see that in other places in Scripture, he actually elaborates even more on this idea and fleshes it out more.

But let's look at verse 17. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit. And I don't know if you have an ESV, but I don't know what translation you have. But if you have a translation where they capitalize divine names and divine pronouns, you will notice that the Spirit is capitalized.

Is that true for everyone? King James is capitalized? Okay, that's important because that's the translator's choice. Because the actual original languages didn't have capitals. Well, actually, the Greek is all capitals, no space, no punctuation.

It's very difficult to read. So the idea of capitalization, that's a later invention. But capitalization helps us to see... What did you say, brother? You were saying?

That means the definition is in the back.

Oh, okay, it's a translation thing. Well, the point I'm trying to make is when he's talking here, the translator is trying to indicate to us that this is not talking about our human spirit, but this is talking about the Holy Spirit who lives within us.

I think that's important to note. Because when you become a believer, when God saves your soul and gives you the gift of regeneration, the Holy Spirit of God, the third Person of the Trinity, comes to live in your heart.

He is omnipresent, which means He's everywhere, but He makes a specific and unique presence in your heart. This is the gift of the New Covenant, by the way. Remember when Peter on Pentecost, when he preached, he said God will pour out His Spirit on all flesh.

That was a prophecy from Joel 2, where God had promised that with the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, there would be the coming of the Holy Spirit. And remember what Jesus said, I must go away, because when I go away, I will send you another Comforter and He will be with you.

That's the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes to live in the heart of the believer. What we don't have in the presence of Christ, we do have in the presence of the Holy Spirit. You see, the disciples walk with Christ beside them.

We walk with the Spirit inside us. And so we have the Holy Spirit. And that's why the capitalization is there. I want to point that out. It's because the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh.

For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. That is such a powerful use of language because that's Paul's statement basically saying that the Christian life is one ongoing battle.

We're going to get there. You're going to outrun me, John. But we're going to get there. But my point to say now, before we get there, last week I compared the Christian life to what? Do you all remember?

A journey. I said it's not a sprint. It's a marathon. And it's not even a marathon you run. It's a marathon you walk. That's why it says walk by the Spirit, right? We always talk about the Christian walk.

And last week I talked about Pilgrim's Progress because Pilgrim's Progress is about the walk of the Christian through the trials of life and the different areas that you have to face and the different problems.

And so as we are walking this out, as we're going through this, we find a raging battle going on within us. And the raging battle is the battle between the Spirit who lives within us and the flesh in which we live.

So we have the Spirit within us and the flesh in which we live. And there's this battle between the two. And I want to ask this question. It's a rhetorical question, so you don't have to answer. But I want you to think about this question.

Why is the flesh so weak? The Bible says that, right? Even Jesus, when He had His disciples, He said, could you not bear with Me for even an hour? The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Why?

You can answer if you want. I'm going to give the answer. No, no, please. I want to hear it. Because everyone says to rely upon God for everything that we can't do.

That is true. That is true. And not exactly where I was going, but accurate. So I don't want to take away from what you said. That is true. But I want to talk about the actual reason behind what makes the flesh weak.

Go ahead.

Because the things of the world are against the Spirit.

Okay, that's true, but why? We've got to go back to something else. And in both of what you said is accurate, so I'm not trying to take away from it, but I'm looking back to what was the cause...

Because the cause of this world is why I decided to become a believer. All of this is true. John, what did you want to say? It's the fall of man.

Thank you. Thank you. That's really where I was headed. Because what you said is true, what you said is true, but there's a reason going all the way back to the beginning. Amen. One of the things that people often miss is the absolute necessity of the existence of Adam and Eve in Christian theology.

People think Adam and Eve is a myth. Adam and Eve is not a myth, and I'll give you the reason why Adam and Eve is not a myth. Because if Adam and Eve is a myth, then the entire Christian theology and the entire position of the Bible falls because it relies upon this one central premise.

God created one man and one woman to be His representatives on earth, to image bear Him on the earth, and they, by transgression, fell into sin, and with them took all of their posterity. That means all of their children.

So the act of sin which was engaged in by our first forefather Adam was an act that represented all of us in His fall. Turn in your Bibles to Romans 12. I'm sorry, Romans 5. Yes, it did impact all of creation.

And absolutely, Romans 8 says that. Romans 8 says the world and creation is yearning like a woman in childbirth, looking forward to its redemption. What is the promise of revelation? A new earth, right?

Because this one has suffered. And that's what you talk about the world. That's why I said you're right. But it goes back. I remember a couple years ago, every year we go to the fair, and I hand out Gospel tracts to talk about the Bible, and I have a big board with questions on it because I want people to talk to me, so I'll write big questions on the board.

And the question I wrote on the board was what causes evil? Is it men's hearts or society? Oh, it's society that causes evil. Even police officers came up to me. I know it's society! And I said, officer, what's society made of?

People. Society didn't just pop out of nowhere. Society is the people in it. And the problem with society is the evil hearts of men. So we go to Romans 5 and we look at verse 12 and it tells us this. That's why I said 12.

I was thinking verse 12. It says, Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned. For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.

Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam who was a type of the one who was to come. So what's that mean? Alright. Adam sinned. He broke a law from God.

Agreed? One law! One law! You have all the trees in the garden except that one. One command. He broke it. How did he break it? The woman ate that one. No, it says she gave it to him and they together ate.

He knew what trees did. Oh, of course! And I can prove this from 1 Timothy 2. 1 Timothy 2 says the woman did it in ignorance. But Adam did it in disobedience. He knew. He knew what he was doing. She did it because she had been tricked.

But he did it knowing it was wrong. Yeah?

I was going to ask about the ignorance part because she said to the servant.

We need to get a tree. Well, it says she was deceived. So maybe not ignorance, but she was deceived. But Adam was not deceived. And the point there, that makes it worse. Because if you're deceived, you have a little bit of an out.

But here's the other thing about Adam and Eve. Eve was not the representative of mankind. Adam was. Adam was the federal head of mankind. Do you guys know what the word federal means? We have federal government.

What does federal mean? Federal means representative. We have a representative government. I'll get to you in just a second. Adam represented all mankind when he acted. And this verse proves it. Because what Romans 5 .12 -14 is saying, is saying people died from Adam to Moses even though they didn't have a law to break.

Why did they die? Because of Adam's sin. You see, we are born into this world sons and daughters of Adam. And we bear the guilt. You say, I don't think that's fair. God ain't looking for your vote. God didn't ask for your opinion or your permission.

God sent a representative over this world. His name was Adam. And He sent a second representative into this world. His name was Jesus. And that's what the verse goes on to say. Read it. Because it says, verse 18, As one man's trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification in life for all men.

For by one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners. So by one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous. You see, Jesus is called the second Adam. Actually, He's called the last Adam. Because the first Adam is our representative in death.

And the second Adam is our representative in life and righteousness. And you are either in the first Adam or you are in the last Adam. If you're in the first Adam, you are headed towards hell because that is where death and sin deserve to go.

Or you are in the last Adam and you are headed towards heaven, not because of what you have done, but because of the One who represented you. We live in a representative world. You're either represented by Adam or you're represented by Christ.

You're either under the banner of man or you are under the banner of the God-man.

It's one or the other. Okay, I'll go back. I don't want to get too far away from your point because I know you're back in Galatians or whatever, but you said Adam sinned when he ate from the tree, but he first knew that it was bad to do it.

Him being all good at that point, I don't understand how he knew...

Him knowing that it was bad that he was capable of doing sin.

I kind of get what you're saying. The Bible does talk about iniquity and uses the word mystery. Now, I don't like to use the word mystery just as a throw-off, but the Bible uses it, so I feel it's at least as safe.

It talks about the mystery of iniquity because we can take it back even further. We can say we know what caused Adam to fall. He was tempted by his wife. We can say we know what caused Eve to fall. She was tempted by the devil.

And both of them blamed the other. Remember when God came to Adam in the garden? What was Adam's response? The woman whom thou... Who did he point his finger at? God. He blamed God. That's bold. The woman whom thou hast given me.

God didn't accept that excuse, by the way. And Eve blamed the serpent. But who does the devil get to blame? Only himself, right? So there's a point at which we have to go back and say iniquity has an origin that we don't really understand, but iniquity in and of itself is a rebellion against God.

And it began with the devil, and he encouraged man to fall, and we fell as well. So there's no answer as to what the impetus was in him because he was made righteous. He's called the anointed cherub. This is the devil.

He's called the most beautiful of all the angels. And yet, he fell. The only answer that I've been able to come up with is that pride, and the Bible says pride goes before the fall, pride in the desire to be like God in the wrong way.

We should all desire to be like God in the right way. But the desire to be like God in the wrong way is the desire to want to take God's place.

Yes, sir? Didn't you tell me one time years ago that R .C. Sproul had a problem with it?

Yeah, it was a question Dr. Sproul mentioned is the question of what caused Satan, Lucifer, what would cause him to fall. And the Bible doesn't try to give us that answer. It just simply says that he did.

And therefore, it would be... God's sovereignty made him that way. Well, but the Bible says God doesn't tempt us to sin. God is not the one introducing... God doesn't introduce that into the heart. So we have to be careful when we believe in the sovereignty of God that we do not ascribe to God iniquity.

In fact, the confessions of faith that we believe in, I teach on several confessions of faith, 1689 Confession, the Westminster Confession, the 1646 Confession. They all make a very strong emphasis on though God is sovereign, God is not responsible for sin.

The weight of sin is always laid at the foot of the sinner. Right? And so Adam sinned because he wanted to. That's an important thing. Adam wanted to do what he did. And here's the thing I've always thought.

Adam was my representative. Some people say I don't like that. I always think when people say I don't like that, I always say, do you think honestly you would have done better? I mean, we don't know, right?

But I don't think I would have. I don't think I would have done better than him. I think God is really good at making choices and He chose the representative that I think represents all of us.

Yes, sir. Talking about Adam and stuff, obviously he was the only one that actually had the free will.

To make that choice, right? Yeah, and I'm careful using the word free will. It's a loaded term. We all have moral agency. And moral agency simply means we all have the ability to make choices and those choices are real choices that come from the desires of our own heart.

The problem with man is that the desires of our heart have been corrupted by the fall. We could say Adam had uncorrupted desires and yet he still fell. That's a mystery to me. I know why I desire to sin because I have corrupted desires that come from the fall and the flesh.

And that was the whole point of this was to get back to Galatians to say that the reason for the weakness of the flesh is we're all born sons and daughters of Adam. We're all born in this weak flesh. What did you call that?

Moral agency. We're all moral agents in this world. Meaning that we all have an understanding of right and wrong and we are all actors or agents in making right or wrong choices. But that is not the same as free will because free will says we have the power to do right or wrong equally.

That's not true because of the sin of the flesh we are predisposed to the evil. Therefore, we are moral agents but we are not free because freedom would indicate there's nothing in us that predisposes us to one or the other.

And because we are predisposed to evil, we cannot say that we are completely free. In fact, the Bible doesn't say we're free. The Bible says a man who sins is a slave to sin. It doesn't say he's free.

It says he's a slave. He's either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness. There's never a point where you're free. You're either a slave to sin or a slave to Christ because you're not free. Right, well that's why I'm saying Adam was the only one.

Yeah, and that's why I say the language of free will sort of has loaded. So I just say he was a moral agent who was not predisposed to evil. And yet he still sinned. Hey, reference my podcast. That makes me happy.

This message brought to you by Coffee with a Calvinist comes on every morning at 6 .30. Yeah, okay. Alright, so now I'm off topic. Okay, so the question was why is the flesh so weak? And my answer to that is because the flesh is corrupt.

The flesh is corrupt because of sin. And the sin of our first Father has affected us all. We are all inheritors of that sin. And so, there is a battle. The Spirit is completely holy. He's called the Holy Spirit.

The flesh is corrupt and unholy. And therefore, we have this battle that goes on within us. And you mentioned Romans 7, John, so I want to go there very quickly. Romans 7, if you were already in Romans 5, if you just look over a few chapters, Romans 7 is one of the most hotly debated passages in all the Bible.

And because of my lack of time, I don't really want to spend too much time on the debate. I've taught on this in the past. I even did a podcast about it. But here's the thing about Romans 7. The great debate is is Paul talking about himself before his conversion or after his conversion?

Because he says some things that sound like an unconverted man. But he says some other things that sound like a converted man. So the question of Romans 7 is which is it? And I'm not going to give you the answer.

Because I don't know. I'm willing to say. I can see merits in both sides of the argument. I can tell you what I think. But I don't necessarily need to influence what you think. You have your Bible. You read it.

I don't think it's an understanding that I would need to impose upon you. But let's read it at least to see what he's saying and compare it back to Galatians 5. So you're in Romans 7. And he begins at verse 7, but I really want to go down to verse 13 because it's such a long section.

Let's read verse 13. Did that which is good bring death to me? By no means. It was sin producing death in me through what is good in order that sin might be shown to be sin and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. That's the part that's the big debate. As Paul says, the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. People say, a believer can't say he's sold under sin.

He's been redeemed by Christ. So that's the great argument verse, right? But then he goes on. He says, I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate.

Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.