Why should we be talking about idols at an evangelism conference in my case when I came to New York City as a church planter 19 years ago? When I would talk to people about Sin using fairly traditional means For example of any of you have ever been exposed to D. James Kennedy's evangelism explosion presentation. He goes after sin by trying to explain to people look You have to be perfect if you're going to please God. It's not enough just to avoid adultery You have to avoid lust. It's not enough just to avoid murder. You have to avoid Unkindness and I I remember when I would talk to people about sin like that. It's of course true. It's a biblical That's one biblical avenue into the subject of sin But when I talk to people about sin like that They looked at me as Martin Luther said like a cow stares at a new gate And when I began to talk to them about sin in terms of idolatry, I began to get traction So I want to share something of that with you in these three talks today but first before before idolatry is a tool to use on other people as Rico has already hinted it's it's got to be something to use on yourself in other words as evangelists before idolatry is a method you use on others. It's something you have to use on yourself in a sense idolatry helps us first be something Before we can do something When I I actually am actually pretty old though come to think of it now I've actually preached through the book of Jonah three times once when I was about once when I was turning 30 Once when I was turning 40 and once when I was turning 50 and when I was turning 30 I preached on it And I saw it basically as a book on missions and evangelism because look chapter one verse one The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amitai and said go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because it's wickedness has come up against me Up before me preach against it because it's wickedness has come up before me and that's clearly a Missionary mandate. There's no reason why God would send Jonah to Nineveh if he just accept if he just was about to smite them There's no reason to send a preacher unless there was hope for them and so I looked at the book of Jonah is about evangelism and missions When I was turning 40 which was at the beginning of my Planning of the church at Redeemer I preached to the book of Jonah and I noticed something else that Jonah is actually about idolatry The passage you just heard read which in some ways is the apex It's it's where Jonah seems to understand what God has been trying to say to him It's a prayer of repentance and you see at the at the height of his understanding of what God is trying to say to him He says those who cling to worthless idols for fit the grace that could be theirs and I began to realize if you read the whole book Of a Jonah through the way you actually have is an irony Jonah has been sent To go preach judgment and grace to pagan idolaters But before he is equipped to go preach to other people about their idols he first has to be confronted with his own That's what the first part of a Jonah's about in fact That's what the whole book of Jonah's about that though. He's a Bible-believing prophet preacher He has got a problem a problem with idolatry which is everybody's big in some ways as those pagans Approach the idolatry and that shouldn't surprise us because that's what Romans 1 2 3 is about Here's the pagans and you know they're idolaters and look at them look at them writhing in the streets and Look at look at look at the Look how gross their sin is and then Romans 2 and 3 here's Bible-believing people and they have Problems in their lives that can be understood as idolatry. It's not the same kind of overt idolatry That also alienate them from God just as much as the pagans and actually the book of Jonah is a precursor to two Romans 1 2 and 3 And I began to see Jonah has a problem with idolatry Actually, I just started I preached on it again as I was turning 50. It was actually right over 9 11 the very first Jonah Semin was two days before 9 11 the rest of the Jonah's serve sermons came right after and And I realized there in some ways that those two themes come together that unless you understand idols you can't do Evangelism and missions. So what I'm going to do is I'm not actually going to be able to expound Jonah in by you know chunk by chunk can't do that But what I want to do is each of each of the three talks I want to pull out one spot Where where these themes intersect in the book of Jonah just in a sense expound one part of Jonah and then apply it Because I really have three insights. I'd like to share with you. I want us first to all to see that idols Helps us Understand our own heart so that we can be good evangelists first idols helps us work the gospel in our own heart Jonah didn't understand the gospel of grace well enough to preach it to other people He didn't understand it himself because he said well, I'm already a believer But he didn't understand it himself. That's the first talk right now The second talk is how idols helps us communicate to other individuals and the third talk is how idols helps us embody the gospel communally to the world First let's go right to it What I really would like you to see is that Jonah as a book Is similar to the movie the sixth sense Have you ever seen the movie the sixth sense miss Bruce Willis? Should I tell you the ending? This is a movie in which The brilliance of the storytelling
Is this you watch the movie and you make assumptions about what's really happening based on your Thoughts about what's really happening that turn out to be wrong and at the very end You find out it's not at all what you thought and you can never watch the movie the sixth sense The second time the way you watch the first time because once you know the surprise ending you realize that you've actually been Misunderstanding it all along and the second time you watch the movie you go back and then it's a whole new movie It's a whole new story you say oh, so that's what that meant. That's what that meant That's why they weren't looking at each other and so on John is the same way because in the very beginning John is told to go to Nineveh He goes He's been told to go to Nineveh and preach the message of judgment and grace He immediately goes the opposite direction he runs why and The assumption of almost everyone who reads it is he's afraid He's been told go to that great city of Nineveh always afraid maybe of persecution. He's afraid maybe of death Or he's afraid even perhaps at least the failure How could I a little Jonah go up to this great big city and preach against it? It's the biggest baddest city in the world. It's a London. It's a New York, okay? And so almost everybody assumes that the reason he's running is he's afraid and So we read the whole book that way he runs away but God sends a storm and a storm means that He's thrown into the sea and he down in the belly of the fish He comes to his senses and he prays a prayer of repentance and he is spit out and then he goes Finally to Nineveh as he should have gone the first time. He's repented and He goes and he preaches and in chapter three verse five We're told that from the greatest to the least the people respond they repent and Chapter three verse 10 when God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways He had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction. He had threatened now if our assumption is right God said go to Nineveh Jonah was scared he ran away God God chastens Jonah and brings them to his senses. He goes back. He preaches and everyone repents if Our assumption about Jonah's motives are right then they're there just should be a Chapter three verse 11 and that should be the end of the story and Chapter three verse 11 should say and Jonah returned to his own land rejoicing But we are shocked because of what happens in chapter four chapter four is one of the great surprise endings of any story It's a shock Because instead when he sees the whole City respond to his message We're told verse chapter four verse one But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry and he prayed to the Lord saying oh Lord is this not what I said when I was still at home That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish I knew that you were a gracious compassionate God slow to anger and abounding in love of God who relends from sending calamity now Oh Lord take away my life For it is better for me to die than to live This is the great surprise ending of I think of any It's if any book of the Bible. It's rhetorically brilliant You're sure you know what's going on and you get there and you realize you haven't at all Figured out what's going on first all were shocked by his reaction white hot fury He is furious and it's it's funny Actually almost funny. Do you see what he's saying? I knew it. I know it. I knew you were gracious I knew you were compassionate and as a result I know you know your compassion is such that it can erupt anywhere anytime You you can pardon anybody anytime I know it. I know I couldn't trust you So first of all worship surprised at his reaction, but the second thing we're surprised at is finally his motive. Guess what This is why I fled the Tarshish. This is why I fled. This is why I didn't go the first time. Why he wasn't afraid of failure He was afraid of success He wasn't afraid that the motive wasn't fear the motive was hate He hated these dirty pagans. He hated these dirty idolaters. He hated these dirty invites and all And and because we didn't understand the motive we have misread everything up to this point Now all the commentators And they're right about this Look at what what's happened here, and this is what they basically say Jonah like all people should have had a certain amount of patriotism You should love your country. You should care about your people But what we have here is not just Normal and ordinate love of country love of his national interest love of his people What we have here is someone who has made such an idol out of His own country's national interests such an idol over his own So much pride National pride racial pride That he wants to see Nineveh destroyed because it is a threat. He would rather see Nineveh destroyed He'd rather see all these people die He wants to see them dead Rather than saved Because it'll be better for Israel be better politically it'll be better economically That's not ordinate desire to see your Your nation preserved. It's an inordinate National and racial pride that leads to cruelty so that when you look at other people you don't care about genocide You don't care. That's all right Now do you see the issue It's a very big issue Jonah cannot evangelize properly because he's looking and this is irony of course He's looking at all these idolaters and he's hating them and the reason he's allows the evangelist and the reason he's not capable of being an evangelist Because of the idols of his own heart. He's an idolater So let's let's that's all on Jonah for this talk. Let's let's apply this all right. Let's get right to application first of all Let me show you how you can find your idols and then how you can start to deal with your own idols From here. Okay, first of all look But Jonah became greatly displeased and angry. Oh lord. This is what I said and so on And now take away my life for it is better for me to die than to live Now Robert Alter in his book art of biblical narrative It's not an easy read. It's an academic book But boy, I'll tell you if you want to understand how to read stories in the Bible It's hard to find a better book And Robert Alter points out that we was not read biblical narratives the way we read modern fiction You know modern fiction modern novels Put lots and lots of embellishment lots of details in the the narrative just to give it an error of reality That's not the way Hebrew narrative was written he says every single Statement in Hebrew narrative is important Everything There's there's nothing that's just there It's very spare. It's very economic and therefore when Jonah says I don't want to live If these people survive and remain as a threat to Israel's national security, I don't even want to live Take away my life in fact it happens later too where he actually says I'm angry enough to die That's a sign of idolatry in your life Why Alfred Adler Not a Christian by the way, but a psychologist Many years ago said it's very hard to find out what people are really living for if you ask them In fact, it's very hard to find out what you're really living for even if you ask yourself. What are you really living for We always say I'm living for my family. I'm living for my god or I'm living for Other people or whatever But he says the way the way to find out what you're really living for is Nightmares What's your worst nightmare or another way to put it is this what if you lost it would make you lose the desire to live because all meaning in life would be sucked out I'll desire to move ahead Those are your idols Because see anything if it's removed That causes you not even really want to keep on going with life Is your real god? It's your real justification It's the real thing that gives your life meaning it's the real thing that gives you significance It's the real thing that justifies your day-to-day life that makes it worth while or valuable So for example you're dating somebody And this person boy you're really falling in love And of course this person Gives you a tremendous amount of meaning in life this person loves me And then something happens and you break up If it's a really great relationship and you break up you will be devastated For a good long time great grief If it's a good thing and you lose it it'll be devastating But if you've turned that person into an ultimate thing If that person is the reason why you're getting up in the morning if that person's love is the only reason you know that you're any good at all you know uh You know remember the righteous brothers years ago saying a song it said you are my heart's inspiration There's one line where it says without you baby what good am I without you I have no sense that I'm really worth anything at all If you turn something that's a good thing into an ultimate thing then you lose that then you want to kill yourself Do you know the difference? It's one Some years ago I was counseling two women Many years ago. I was a I was a young minister in my 20s And I was I counseled two different women who were my church They both had similar problems. They each of them had a husband Who was not being a very good father? They each had a single child a son who was adolescent and it was beginning to act up and get into trouble Larger because one of the father's attention the father wasn't giving it Both mothers came to me both women came to me and said I am really really mad. I'm angry enough Angry enough. I don't even know if I want to keep this marriage together. I'm so angry at him. He's ruining my son One woman had been in the church not a very long time wasn't what I would have considered a very mature Christian And had a husband who was really a problem a big problem I sat down with her and said well the first thing you got to do is you have to forgive him You got to get ready your bitterness so you can work on your relationship otherwise the marriage is doomed So we sat down looked at what the Bible said about forgiveness and She did it who was hard, but she did it She got past it. She thought about it. She forgave him and because she forgave him He became more her ally and he listened to her He saw that she forgave him and he he softened toward her and they began he began to listen to her about about his fathering and so on and that made improvements and the marriage went better and the family went better and the son went better Everything went better On the other hand there was another woman the other woman Excuse me who actually had been in the church a lot longer I would have said was much more of a mature biblical Christian. I would have said And who actually had a husband who wasn't nearly as bad as this guy over here, I would say if She couldn't forgive him She couldn't she looked what the text said she listened to me she tried Her anger was so over the top at him. It was inordinate anger It wasn't normal anger. She was angry enough to die if she lost her son If her son went off the rails and she lost her son's love and she lost her son's happiness and her son wasn't happy Because of this man she couldn't forgive him. She could never get rid of her anger And so now so even though she was open to me and she I think listened to me she couldn't forgive him and as a result By the way she didn't forgive him and the marriage went got worse and worse And because the marriage got worse and worse and the husband saw her allied with the son And because he was getting more and more angry at her He actually pulled further away from the son the son wanted the father more than in a way in a way that didn't want the mother And as a result the whole family fell apart
What did I do wrong as a pastor? I look back and I realized something That they both love their children that's right and they both were very upset about what was happening to their sons And that was very right too but The second woman Though she said I'm living for Jesus though she said my value and significance and worth is based in what Jesus thinks of me the very the fact was Functionally It was being a mother that was her justification for living It was being a mother that was her real meaning in life And it was the happiness of her son and his love for her that was her real justification Basically the love of Jesus Christ was an abstraction that was the reality And so somewhere down deep in her heart she was saying something like this to herself She was saying if my son loves me and if my son's happy then my life is worthwhile and if not not And as a result it didn't matter what she tried to do She couldn't overcome the sin of bitterness because underneath there was a sin underneath the sin what's the sin underneath the sin Martin Luther puts it like this Martin Luther in his larger catechism his exposition of the ten commandments in his larger catechism points out But the first commandment you shall have no other guys before me Is the first commandment you say duh? Yes, but he said well, it's the first command because all the other commandments are based on it In his exposition he says you never break the other commandments unless you first broke the first commandment So for example Martin Luther would say thou shalt not bear false witness don't lie Okay, but why do you lie? Well, you say I lie because I'm a sinner Okay, yeah, but why do you lie this particular time and not that particular time and what Luther would say is If you're lying that is you're breaking that commandment It's because underneath there's something more important than Jesus Christ to you. They're human approval. You're afraid of losing face Or money you're afraid of losing money You're willing to compromise the truth why to get something that is so important you you're willing to to lie for it Why something is more important you than Jesus Christ at that time some human approval some money some power some comfort Something's more important than Jesus or you wouldn't and therefore Martin Luther says under every behavioral sin is a sin of idolatry and under every Active idolatry is a disbelief in the gospel now listen to this and when I When I read this this is years ago it changed the way I preached the changed the way I did evangelism Martin Luther says What is this woman really doing who can't forgive her son? She's made an idol out of her son, but why she made an idol out of her son? She doesn't really believe the gospel She what she's really saying is yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jesus loves me. That's right, but this is what I've got to have to really be happy Every one of us is doing that Every one of us if we're ready to kill ourselves we're angry enough to die because we've gained weight We're angry enough to die because where our job isn't going anywhere We're angry enough to die because of what's your greatest nightmare? What is the problem? There are things underneath Our behavioral sins that are idols, but the thing underneath the idols is always idols are always self-salvation projects ways of doing self-justification You say I believe in justification by Jesus. I believe in justification by grace But basically over here This is what makes me feel like a worthwhile person And because of that here we are Jonah trying to preach grace to people trying to preach You know the gospel to people and yet in our own lives We're angry. We're bitter. We're scared We've got addictions. We've got all kinds of problems. Why? Because we're trying to tell people about grace and we don't understand grace ourselves We don't really believe we're center-save by grace We're actually at the at the deep level. We're still believing in justification by works That's the reason why at the bottom of the sea When Jonah is trying to figure out what God is saying to him. He says Jonah chapter 2 verse 9 Salvation is of the Lord And my old teacher mentor Edmund Clowney now passed away Used to say that Jonah chapter 2 verse 9 is the central verse in the entire Bible There it is. That's the theme of the Bible. What is it? Salvation is I mean the old king James says salvation is of the Lord That means it's completely free grace Why would Jonah a Bible-believing prophet Not know that the answer is he did know it but he didn't know it See I do know that I'm saved by grace and yet the reason I am so scared them about to lie because I don't want people to think ill of me Means that human approval is more important to me than Jesus at that spot I know I'm center-save by grace, but at another level I don't know I mean I use this illustration you may have heard me use it before even even here I suppose it gets around but my wife Kathy years ago helped me understand what my what I was really doing when I preach She says you know in our apartment building downstairs there's a coke machine You put the money in the coke machine and you expect the coke to come out never happens You put the money in No coke you push the buttons no coke We have to do is you have to pound the machine on the side until you hear the pennies drop And then out comes the coke Almost all Christians are like that my wife says You put the gospel in them and now they're saved. I believe I'm saved by Jesus not by works I'm saved you pray the center's prayer. I'm saved The gospel is in there But the pennies haven't really dropped You see you you still are As anxious as a non-Christian At how you look you're still is driven by the need to succeed where it make money as a non-Christian in other words as my wife says you know what your job is as a preacher pounding the side of their head Because you see up here, you know that basically the gospel's gone in up here You know and you have to pound them on the side of the head so it starts to actually drop And get down into the heart And then it comes out graciousness you don't look at dirty pagans the same way You don't look at broken people the same way you don't look at people of other races the same way You don't look at people other classes the same way Because you look at them and you say there's no difference between us There's no difference between us
In fact if you think about it What what Jonas actually sings. Excuse me That's just American money. Don't worry about it Absolutely useless If you think about what Jonas is actually saying in chapter two verse eight and nine Careful he's been surrounded by idolaters right he's been surrounded by these pagan sailors in the boat And what does he say those who cling to worthless idols Forfeit their own grace literally. I know the NIV says for fits the grace that could be theirs But literally in the Hebrew it says those who cling to worthless idols for fit their own grace And all the commentators understand what he's saying. He's saying grace the grace of God is as much there as his mind They've got idols, but I've got idols And when he begins to realize that when when the grace starts to really come down He's a sinner saved by grace. He's a mess He's got all these problems too He's letting things drive him He says he believes the gospel would another level he doesn't believe the gospel Just knowing that creates a kind of new level of repentance You kind of are getting you're getting your own gospel conversion down deeper in you And when you turn around and you look at other people you are you're a humbler person you're a kinder person You're a less judgmental person See and when that that makes you an evangelist You know before you before the doing evangelism comes the being And this is how you get to the being Now look last You say okay, tell me how how do you pound Your own head so that the gospel coins drop down into your heart and out comes the graciousness out comes the courage See for example, why should we afraid if you know your sinner saved by grace? Why should you be afraid to open your mouth as an evangelist You're afraid of what people think about you right who cares now If you care so much about what people think about you that you're not you're a poor evangelist You don't believe the gospel don't just say oh I'm a coward bad Christian. I ought to be a better Evangelist. I should be more courageous Well, you know you can just work on your will or you can work on your heart and say I actually don't believe the gospel then What people think of me is more important in Jesus Christ. I am accepted. I am delighted in I am justified Not by my works, but in but by his See you it's only that that makes you into the evangelist that you want to be It's saying here. I want to talk to people about the gospel. I don't believe it myself. I'm afraid Or I'm superior So how do you pound that in let me just give you a statement and give you two or three Examples of the statement in five minutes here. Here's the statement. Here's how you pound it in I would put it like this the expulsive replacement rejoicing in Jesus in the face of your own idols if you want to change If you want to really pound the gospel more deeply into your heart You need to do explosive replacement rejoicing in Jesus In the face of your idols is just like New York. I love it Okay What do I mean by that? Let me let me be quick explosive replacement rejoicing in the face of your idols first of all explosive listen Thomas Chalmers In his very famous sermon the expulsive power of a new affection says nobody changes Bad habits by trying nobody changes Being scared or having You know stage fright or overcoming racial prejudice nobody changes by just trying just saying I shouldn't be like that I'm a Christian. I shouldn't be like that What you need is an over mastering Positive passion. That's what that's what throws out fears. That's what throws out Addictions an over mastering positive passion So for example, you know in the book of Genesis 29 We're told that Jacob was asked to work for Laban for seven years in order to get Rachel remember that in order to win Rachel he had to work for her Her father seven years That's a long time to work for a guy like Laban. That's an awful as so tedious But guess what we're told in the text he loved Rachel so much He loved Rachel so much. He said it seemed Like no time at all He had this over mastering passion of love for Rachel and that made had he had no problem with self control He had no problem with getting up every day You know the illustration I usually use is tell put one guy in this room over here Put another guy in this room over here as each of them every day for eight hours a day to make a widget Put this on this on this on this very tedious Tell this guy 12 months of that and you're done But every day only one day off the week and no vacation tell tell them both the same but tell this guy and you will be making 10,000 pounds during the year and tell this guy You'll be getting a billion pounds at the end of the year This guy will get You know very bored very quickly and this guy every day will come to work with a song in his heart No problem no problem What's the difference it's the same job He has an over mastering passion See something he he's so excited about the future or the he's so he's so thrilled with what's coming That it makes everything easy you see he has no problem with self control is an over mastering passion That's the reason why Thomas Chalmers in his great Sermon on this says it is seldom that any of our tastes Like bad habits or flaws, by the way, this is a paraphrase. Okay, excuse me It is seldom that any of our tastes bad habits or flaws are made to disappear by a mere process of natural extinction At least it is very seldom that this is done through the instrumentality of reasoning It is almost never done by the mere force of mental determination But what cannot be thus destroyed may be dispossessed And one taste may be made to give way to another and to lose its power entirely as the raining affection of the mind It is thus that the boy ceases at length to be the slave of his appetite But it is because a manlier taste is now brought in its subordination And that the youth ceases to idolize pleasure But it is because the idol of wealth has become the stronger and gotten the ascendancy And even the love of money may cease to have mastery over the heart of many a citizen But it's because it's drawn into the world of city politics Another affection has been brought into his moral system And he is now looted over by a love of power There is not one of these transformations, however, in which the heart is left without an object The heart's desire for one particular object may be conquered But as to a desire for having some supreme object That is unconquerable The heart is so constituted and the only way to dispose it of an old affection is by the expulsive power of a new one That's what I mean by expulsive rejoicing Now secondly, replacement rejoicing I'm going to be fast here. What do I mean by that? When you see yourself Your heart moving into fear or moving into anger or moving into something because some idol has gotten an ascendancy You have to look at Jesus on the spot and think of what he's done for you You know how that works? Listen, why did Jesus? How do I put this? What? Why did Jesus come? You say for the glory of God. He already had the glory of God. He wanted to please his father But he was already pleasing his father What do you get a man who has everything? Jesus is the Lord of the universe Why did he come and suffer The only thing that he didn't have in the whole universe was us We were lost And therefore the overmastering passion that enabled Jesus Christ to actually face hell To actually lose his father on the cross Was us there's a sense in which we were his Rachel He loved us so much that he was even able to take that and when you see him making us His Rachel that makes him our Rachel you see He becomes something so beautiful His loss of everything for us makes him so beautiful that you can turn away from these other things Do you know how to work on your heart like that? But you have to do it as you see your heart Moving toward the wrong thing. This was my last let me just give you a real brief and quick Example of this how did that happen? Never mind. My watch tells me times up It was a woman that lived right down the street from our church many many years ago in Virginia And she had been a very very she had had a terrible life before she became a Christian and she She basically had one criminal boyfriend after another And the boyfriends were all violent men and they always abused her But she had to have a man she realized That when she became a Christian she went to somebody for counseling and the thing that the counselor revealed Was it when she looked at men? She was inordinately attracted to them because she felt like if a man doesn't love me I'm worthless Somehow that got in down deep into her so men was her idol And she told me once that she'd started going to this counselor the counselor wasn't a Christian and the counselor said look honey If you're ever going to really have a life you're gonna have to get over men So, you know, you always need to have a man. Well, you don't need men. What you need is a job. You need a career She was told and then you'll be independent of men And I remember this woman who really was a new Christian, but she was brilliant here. She turned to me and she said pastor She said you know what what he what this counselor is trying to say is get rid of a typical female idol and go get a male idol
And she says I don't want to be as driven by my need to succeed in my career as the men are But I still don't want to be as driven as I was by the need for you know A guy and a husband and a family So I said well, what are you doing? And she says colossians three Colossians three says your life is hid with Christ in God So that when Christ appears you will appear with minglori and she says when I see a man looking at me This is a southern woman by the way when I see a man looking at me And I'm starting to feel like I want to get over there and I want to start flirting with him And I want to you know see if I can catch him It says under my breath in my heart I look at him and I think of colossians three and I say you know you're a man and that's nice and I'd like to have a man But you are not my life Christ is my life I'm not going to make you my life anymore. I've made you guys my life all my life no more What is she doing she's doing replacement rejoicing in the face of her idols And that changed her That can change you too and make you an evangelist Let's pray Our father we thank you that
This is a this is a the kind of subject that we we can talk about endlessly and yet I pray that we've planted a seed And maybe we've hit each hit ourselves on the side of the head and a couple more parts of the gospel have dropped deeper into our own hearts and we begin to see so many of our problems that keep us from being the The kind and gracious and happy people that we need to be in order to be evangelists Have to do with our simply Not understanding or believing the gospel, but here it is. We have the gospel. We know it We have the word we have our worship services. We have our friends We can work the gospel into our hearts and become the people who can go to Nineveh and preach judgment and grace So we ask that you'd help us to do that and better than we were before because we spent this time At this conference together today. It's in Jesus name. We pray amen