I used to say that if God doesn't
give a man liberty to preach, he can't preach. And he said,
we're so weak in ourselves, he said, a fly flying around can
steal your liberty. That's true. Let's go to 2 Corinthians
chapter 4. Our subject is seeing we have
this ministry. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4.1,
Therefore, seeing we have this ministry. This ministry is ours. It's we. We have this ministry.
It's not just mine. It's every child that God has
called and planted here. It's our ministry. We have this
ministry. Now what is our ministry? Well,
we're not preaching the old covenant of works. We're not preaching this do and live. We're preaching
the new covenant of grace wherein our triune God in Christ has
fulfilled all the obligations in this covenant. And so our
message is believe on Christ and thou shalt be saved. It's
all done. All the works are done. We're
not preaching the old, we're preaching the new. He says, therefore
seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we
faint not. Now how do we receive mercy?
If we find out how we received mercy, We'll find out how it
is that we faint not. We'll find out how it is that
we continue to preach the truth rather than fainting and going
back and preaching the things we've renounced. How is it we
received mercy in the beginning? It was by the grace of God which
we could not resist. That's how we received mercy.
The grace of God that we could not resist. Irresistible grace. The power of God. We can no more
resist the power of God's grace than a man can resist the sun
coming up. Because God's the power of that
sun. He has more power than that sun.
He controls that sun. If God's pleased for gravity
not to work anymore on a man, He can make a man stand before
His disciples and rise up into heaven. And they said, watch
him go out of sight. He can make an axe head which ordinarily
gravity would make sink to the bottom of the stream. He can
make that axe head float. We are talking about power, the
irresistible power of God. The Spirit of the Lord came and
entered in and removed that veil off the heart and gave us a new
spirit and a new heart so that God who said let there be light
said He shined. He shined into our hearts. And
He gave the light. He gave us the light. We heard
the glorious gospel of light of Christ Jesus and He made the
light shine. And shine in our hearts and reveal
the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus. That's how we
receive this ministry. And that's how we will continue
to faint not. By that same power, by that same
grace. That's the way we continue. Christ
is our strength. He keeps us and He keeps us preaching
Him. He keeps us believing Him and
He keeps us preaching Him rather than fainting and preaching lies. Look down at verse 11. He says
in verse 11, He's picking up. Paul, you know, when you read
Paul's writings, you notice this. He'll take off on something.
that he said, but then he'll come back to his original thought.
And this is what he does here in verse 11. He's talking about
why we faint not. He says, for we which live are
always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake. Isn't that so? You know, the preaching of the
Gospel of Christ, believing Christ, trusting Christ, standing for
Christ is the most heart-breaking thing there is. You know, you
preach, you labor to bring a word, And you have folks on your heart
that you want to preach to. Sometimes God saves a child in
their family. You see God working and you're
thankful for them. And then one day they depart
over something that amounts to nothing if they would have just
talked to you about it. They won't even give you the
benefit. They won't even... They treat you like they never
knew you. Like you never did anything profitable
for them whatsoever. And that's heartbreaking. And
if it wasn't for God keeping us, we would faint. Well, let
me see. You're offended by a certain
doctor? Let me change that. Because I want you here. See,
we'd faint, but Christ keeps you preaching the truth. Look
down here now, look at what he says. He says, We which live
are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life
also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh, for which
cause we faint not. He's saying that the life of
Christ is manifest. It's manifest Christ is living
at God's right hand because He's working in us to make us not
faint. That's the only reason we don't
faint. So even in these heartbreaking situations, He's working to glorify
Himself in making His people not fall away. And He says, but
though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed
day by day. When that happens, that's being delivered unto death. And the outward man perishes. There's a part of me that just
wilts and breaks and is sorrowful every time something like that
happens. But then the inward man is renewed and you just keep
on preaching the truth. Verse 1, Therefore seeing we
have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not.
Now he is going to tell us what that means. But we have renounced
the hidden things of dishonesty. This word hidden, it references
the veil that he was talking about in chapter 3. I've heard
men say it really should have been translated veiled. It would
have kept you in the context. You know the chapter division
put here by men, and let's go back and read it together. Go
back to verse 12. Seeing then that we have such
hope, we use great plainness of speech. And now Paul is going
to leave that thought just for a minute and come back to it
at verse 1 in chapter 4. But watch what he says here.
And not as Moses which put a veil over his face that the children
of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that law which
is abolished. They couldn't see Christ at the
end of the law. But their minds were blinded. That's what the
veil is picturing. For unto this day remaineth the
same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament,
which veil is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when
Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. And so they veil
the gospel. They veil anything that resembles
the truth because the veil is on the heart. Nevertheless, when
it shall turn to the Lord, the veils shall be taken away." Now
the Lord is that Spirit. He's the one that does this work.
And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there's liberty. But we all,
with open face, not hidden, beholding as in a glass the glory of the
Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even
as by the Spirit of the Lord. Now he comes back to his original
thought. Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, as we have
received mercy, we faint not, but have renounced the things
by which some veil the gospel in dishonesty and in shame. That's
what he's saying. The message of Christ's person
and works, by which his people are redeemed, by which we're
made the righteousness of God. That gospel we preach in verse
4, he calls it the light of the glorious gospel of Christ. It is the light. This gospel
we preach is the light, brethren. God's given us the light, not
for us to veil the light, for us to shine forth the light.
Imagine if you were given a flashlight to lead somebody out of a dark
place where they couldn't see anything. Well, you wouldn't
take a veil and put it over that flashlight and blot out the light
and expect to lead them anywhere, would you? Well, neither would God's people.
Christ said, you're the light of the world. He said, a city
set on a hill can't be hidden. You're driving through a dark
night and you're approaching a hill and on a hill you see
it. It's lit up, lights up the sky. Neither do men light a candle
and put it under a bushel. Men don't light a candle, unveil
it and cover it up, but on a candlestick and it gives light unto all that
are in the house. Let your light so shine before
men. What's our light? It's the light
of the glorious gospel of Christ. That's our light. That they may
see your good works. What are our good works? Tell
me what your good works are. When you stand before God on
the Day of Judgment, what are your good works going to be?
the works of Christ Jesus who laid down His life in our room
instead and made us the perfection of the law of God, the righteousness
of God. His works are our works. And
that's what we shine for, His works, because His works are
made our works. And it says, "...and glorify
your Father which is in heaven." That's the only way God is glorified. If we point men to us and trying
to say that we are some light in us and make men look at us,
that's not glorifying God the Father. The light we shine forth
is His Son who glorified God the Father in everything He did.
And that's how we glorify the Father. That's how we glorify
Him. Therefore, we've renounced the
shameful dishonesty of veiling and hiding Christ the Light in
both the means we use as well as the message we preach. Now
he's going to talk here about means and message. He says here,
verse 2, not walking in craftiness, not walking in craftiness, there's
the means, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, there's the
message. Walking in craftiness includes
the means we've renounced that many use to attract folks to
join with them. Let me give you some examples.
In order to attract folks, you have heard me say this many times,
most all in religion are advertising and marketing to men the very
things Christ said do not do before men. They market their
almsgiving. They want folks to know how many
ministries they have in poor countries where they are helping
poor folks. They advertise their prayer services. And so that
you come here, we pray, we all pray. They advertise that. They
advertise the education and titles of their preachers. First question
men are going to ask, where did your preacher go to seminary?
Not does he preach the gospel according to God's Word, where
did he go to seminary? Who cares? and their clothes
and their pomp and their programs, it's all walking in craftiness
to attract men. Christ said, all their works
they do for to be seen of men. To attract men by those means.
Will and I were at the gym and we met this fellow I was telling
you about. He lives right down the road here. And he was drafted
for the New York Giants, to be a running back for the New York
Giants. And he has a very interesting story about the things he overcame
in his life. He's been shot, I mean he's raised
poor, I mean there's a lot of things that he overcame. And
it's an interesting story. We could advertise that a New
York Giants running back is going to be speaking here and we could
fill every seat in this building. And people say, well, let's do
that. Churches do that. Let's do that. And then when
we get them all in here, we'll preach the gospel to them. At the end,
we'll say a little something about Christ. They didn't come
to hear Christ. They came to hear that fellow.
You see, you've already started off using a crafty means instead
of trusting the means that God's going to use, which is His power
and His grace, just a simple preaching of Christ being crucified.
See that? That's what we're talking about
here. Vain preachers walk craftily. They walk craftily when they
try to entangle God's preacher in His words. So they can accuse
Him of preaching lies to men and make disciples after themselves.
Go over to Luke 20. I want you to see this. Men did
this to Christ. If you don't think they do it
nowadays, you're mistaken. Luke 20. In verse 20, the accusers
are preaching things we're not preaching. Watch this, Luke 20,
verse 20. And they watched him, and sent
forth spies, which should feign themselves just men, that they
might take hold of his words, that so they might deliver him
unto the power and authority of the governor. And they asked
him, these spies came, listen to them, Master, we know that
thou sayest and teachest rightly. Neither acceptest thou the person
of any, but thou teachest the way of God truly. Is it lawful
for us to give tribute unto Caesar or not? But he perceived their
craftiness and said unto them, Why tempt ye me? You see that? Vain preachers and vain religionists
cannot deceive Christ. Nor can they deceive His people.
He said if it were possible, they would deceive the very elect.
It is not possible. It's not possible. And they can't
deceive our God either. There is no wisdom, no understanding,
no counsel against the Lord. Think about that. It looks like
to us there's a whole lot of counsel right now against the
Lord. There is none against the Lord.
How can that be? Because what looks like it's
against the Lord, though it is in itself against the Lord? The
Lord's using it to bring glory to Himself. So even that ungodly
counsel, it's not against Him, it's being used by Him. For the
wisdom of this world's foolishness with God, it's written, He taketh
the wise in their own craftiness. Let me read to you where it's
written. It's written in Job 5, verse 12. It says, He disappointeth
the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform
their enterprise. He taketh the wise in their own
craftiness, and the counsel of the forward is carried headlong.
They meet with darkness in the daytime, and grope in the noonday
as in the night. These men, you see them. I know
this is happening now. Men will start this mess of trying
to divide the church and accuse these preachers of preaching
a lie. And you see their congregation dwindle down to nothing. And
you see God's congregation increase. Because God's not going to let
His people be deceived. He brings them out and He brings
them under the sound of the gospel. And that's how it always happens.
That is how it always happens. He saveth the poor from the sword,
from their mouth, and from the hand of the mighty. So the poor
hath hope, and iniquity stoppeth her mouth. That's it. And not only do we not use crafty
dishonest means, we don't handle the Word of God dishonestly either.
What is it to handle the Word of God deceitfully? Well, it's
by preaching man-made doctrines as if they are the Word of God.
That's number one. Preaching man-made doctrine as
if they're the Word of God. Taking Scripture out of context.
I showed you a few weeks ago that man took that Scripture
out of context in John 5 and tried to say that says we have
a free will and the whole context was Christ declaring that He's
the one who draws His people and gives His people a heart
to believe. That was the context of the message. They define godly
terms by man's definition. And it seems right to men, instead
of seeing what God actually says in His Word about how He defines
it. I'll give you an example. These
accusations men are making against us right now, they're saying
that we are preaching Christ was a sinner. I'm not preaching
Christ was a sinner. I never have said Christ was
a sinner. I preach Christ was made sin. Because that's what
the Scripture says. But one of the big problems in
this is the definition of imputation. That's one of the big problems.
If God imputed sin to us without us first being made sin by Adam's
prior act, it would have been unjust. Can you agree with that? If God would have imputed sin
to us without Adam first making us sin, it would have been unjust. That's not how God imputes. God
doesn't treat you as if and He doesn't impute to you what you're
not. If God imputed righteousness
to us without Christ first making us the righteousness of God in
Him, it would have been unjust. There would have been no reason
for Christ to even come into the world. And likewise, here's
the rub. If God imputed sin to Christ
without Christ first being made sin by God's prior act of making
Him so, it would have been unjust because Christ knew no sin. Christ
was innocent. But throughout the Scripture,
imputation and all its forms are defined as God imputing to
a man what he really is by a prior act that made him so. Over in
2 Samuel 10.10, you don't have to turn there, I don't have time. I'm going to preach a message
on this very soon. But Shimei had been made sin
to David by his prior act of transgressing against David.
You preached on it just the other day, 2 Samuel 19.19. And so he
came to David and he asked him not to impute sin to him. Why? He wasn't asking David not to...
If David imputed sin to him, it would have been just. He had
committed acts against David. He's asking him not to because
he knew he was guilty. It would have been a just charge
to reckon sin to him. That's how it's always used.
God has given Beroth to Benjamin, therefore that city is reckoned
to Benjamin. Why is that city reckoned to
Benjamin? Because God gave it to him. That's why. It's imputed
to him because he gave it to him. There's one exception in
the Scriptures where the word reckon, I believe it's reckon,
is used, but it's the word impute. It's where Paul told Philemon,
if Onesimus has done anything to you and owes you, put that
on my account and I will pay it. That's as far as a man can
go in this thing of imputation. Because we can't actually make
a literal transfer and become the man that we're paying the
debt for. But that is what Christ did in
eternity. Christ said, whatever your people
owe me, put it on my account, I'll pay it. That's how He became
our surety. But when it came time to pay
that debt, for God to be just to pour out wrath on the innocent
Lord Jesus Christ, He had to first make Him sin. And when
we're preaching that, here's the reason I'm declaring this
is because another reason is that death, the wages of sin,
death that is the wages of sin, that death that justice demands,
it's not simply physical death. You're going to die physically.
That's not going to pay the wages of sin if you meet God without
Christ. You're going to suffer the second
death which involves being gnashed upon, with the teeth of men. It's going to involve all the
physical things we saw Christ endure on the cross, but more
than that, brethren, it's going to be bearing the weight of iniquity,
knowing your sin, so that Christ, when they were laid on Him, He
said, my iniquities are going over my head as a heavy burden,
they're too heavy for me. He bore the shame of our sins
in his conscience. So he said, my loins are filled
with a loathsome disease. There is no soundness in my flesh.
My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore, and my kinsmen
stand afar off. And by bearing our sins, he was
touched with all the feelings of our infirmities which are
due to sin, though he himself had not committed any sin and
would never commit any sin. He was not made a sinner. He
was not made a rebel against God. He was made sin itself. And therefore He said, innumerable
evils have encompassed me about. Mine iniquities have taken hold
upon me so that I am not able to look up. They are more than
the hairs of mine head. Therefore my heart faileth me.
And here is where this thing really got started. Men are saying,
and I've heard them say it, that what Christ endured on the cross
was exactly like the Lamb on the Day of Atonement. It was just a type that the hands
were put on His head and in ceremony sins were transferred to Him
and He was treated as if He was sin. No, sir. No, sir. That was a picture. That was
a shadow. Christ is the express image and
He bore much more than that. God's declaring His righteousness. His righteousness. And so because
I've renounced handling the Word of God deceitfully, when I go
through and I've studied from the first time imputations used
to the last time imputations used, and I tell you that every
point in that Scripture, it's used in the very way I'm telling
you it's used. It's a true imputation of what
is so. When Adam was made sin, God imputed
sin to him because he was sin. And we were so really in Adam
before God that God imputed sin to us because before God we really
did sin in Adam. And bless God because we were
in Christ. Now He says to us, brethren,
you died with Christ, now reckon, impute yourself to be dead indeed
unto sin. Imputation with God is not God
just putting something to your account and saying, From here
on, we are going to pretend like you are what I say you are. No. God doesn't work in that way.
God makes it a reality. And that's how it is. How God
says it is, is how it is. Now that's so. And I tell you,
because I'm not using it deceitfully, I'm not going to preach a lie
on that. I'm going to preach the truth, come what may. Men
want to divide, and the reason they want to divide is because
they want to divide. They want to cause a following
after themselves. I have brethren that don't agree
with me, and I don't agree with them. But we're not dividing
over this. We trust God to teach one another. But men who want
to divide, they divide because they want to. I guarantee you. Handling the Word of God deceitfully
is to use it to achieve a selfish carnal purpose. Self-promotion. Numbers on the church roll. Money
in the plate. Change your doctrine in order
to take a pulpit for selfish glory. I don't think I could
trust a man if he had switched pulpits. I know God moves a man
sometimes. But if a man moved four or five
times and every time he moved, he moved up and bettered himself,
I'm going to have a little bit of problem with that. I'm going
to have a problem with that. The apostles warned the believers,
and I warn you, through covetousness shall they with feigned words
make merchandise of you, whose judgment now of a long time lingereth
not, and their damnation slumbereth not. If it is truly a covetous
heart, and it's making merchandise of men's souls for filthy lucre,
God's going to damn everybody that does that. to seek, using
God's Word, to please men instead of preaching the offense of the
cross. Paul said, if I pleased men, I wouldn't be the servant
of Christ. If I changed this doctrine and said that there's
some little work you can do whereby you can save yourself, I'd take
the offense completely out of the cross. If I preach progressive
sanctification in the way men are preaching it today, sending
you back to the law and telling you now you can get more and
more perfect and more and more mortify your flesh by your deeds,
I'd be preaching to you nothing but works. That's not offensive. Man wants to hear he can do something.
But I tell you, Christ, out of His side came blood for justification
and water for sanctification. And Christ is the one who creates
us anew in the heart. And when He does that, He makes
you follow Him. And He makes you grow in Him.
Handling the Word of God deceitfully is to conceal or keep back part
of the truth. Will workers accuse us of not
preaching man's responsibility and not preaching man's works?
We do most certainly preach man's responsibility, but we declare
the truth that man is so depraved because he fell in the garden
that he can't fulfill his responsibility. Not until God comes in the power
of Christ and gives him a new heart and makes him willing to
fulfill that responsibility. And then when he does that, his
responsibility is one thing, trust Christ to have done it
all. That's it. So yeah, we preach man's responsibility,
but we preach it according to the Word. And we preach man's
works, believers' works, but we declare the truth that it's
God who creates those works in His people and brings them out
and brings them to pass. He foreordained them and He brings
them to pass. And so in all of this, whether
we're preaching man's responsibility or we're preaching the believers'
works, we're preaching God's glory who does it by His works.
That's why they say we don't preach it. Because we don't give
man glory, we give God the glory. That's right. And verse 2, But
by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every
man's conscience in the sight of God, opposite to veiling and
hiding the truth of God, we openly make known before all men by
preaching the truth according to God's Word. That's what we
do. God blessed His people with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly place according as He chose us
in Christ before the foundation of the world. We don't hide that.
We don't tell people that's family doctrine. We don't preach that
publicly. We preach it publicly. It's one of the first messages
Christ preached when He stood up in the temple. And they got
mad at Him because He said, this day this word is fulfilled in
your ears. And they got mad and they thought because they were
children of Israel, that means they were the elect. And He said,
oh no, there were many widows in Israel, but God only called
one of them. He said, there were many lepers
in Israel, God called a Gentile leper and saved him. He preached
election is what he preached. That's why they want to throw
him off the cliff. And we preach God imputed sin to every man
born of Adam because Adam made us sin. And we preach that Christ
obeyed God for His elect by willingly going to die the just for the
unjust and God made Him sin for us and reckoned all our sins
to Him and punished Him in our room instead so that now by His
doing and dying we are made the righteousness of God in Him and
therefore God imputes righteousness to us. We preach the fruit of
Christ's shed blood is that the Spirit of God comes and He creates
a new man within you, and that new man within you is righteous
and holy because the righteous and holy Christ created him.
And it's not the old flesh, it's a new man. We don't veil the
gospel and say that man has one nature. If you have one nature,
this is what my accusers are saying, man's got one nature,
not two. If you've got one nature and it's just that old sinful
flesh, where are you believing? Who's believing? What part of
you is believing in Christ? Because the flesh don't do nothing.
No, He puts a new Spirit in you. And it is distinct from the Holy
Spirit. That's why Christ said that which
is born of capital S Holy Spirit is little s Spirit. They're one,
but they're distinct. That's right. And we preach this
work of saving His elects begun in us and it's continually carried
on by our triune God through the foolishness of preaching.
That's how it began. That's how it continues. When
He said it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save
them that believe. Salvation and being saved by
God is not just the first hour you hear. It's all through their
life to the end. And God's pleased to save His
people through what we're doing right here. Through the light
of the glorious Gospel of Christ. Hearing Him preach. And so by
truth we commend ourselves to every man's conscience. Now what
does that mean? We preach Christ. Well that's our message. Christ
and Him alone. And by this we commend ourselves
to every man's conscience. Look at verse 5 and it will show
you clearly what he is saying. Verse 5, For we preach not ourselves. He's not saying we preach ourselves.
We preach Christ Jesus the Lord. But here's how we commend ourselves.
When you preach Jesus Christ and give Him all the glory, you're
necessarily commending yourself to a man's conscience as this
right here. Ourselves your servants. Nothing but a minister. Like
a server that comes to your table and brings you the food. When
you give Christ all the glory and you don't use your means
and your message and glorify yourself, you're a servant who
just is bringing the bread and ministering it to the Lord's
people. And here's why we do it. Look
there at the end. For Jesus' sake. It's the same thing Paul
says later when he says we are ambassadors for Christ. We're
ministers. We're messenger boys sent by
the great God of glory, Christ Jesus the Lord, with the mail
that you need to read. And we bring it to you and that's
it. That's it. When you get a letter in the
mail, you open that letter and you rejoice in the one who sent
it. You don't rejoice in the mail
carrier who brought it. And that's what God's preacher
is, just a mail carrier. But when you preach the truth,
you commend yourselves in the conscience of God's people, because
He makes it known, this man is telling me the truth. He's a
servant. He's my servant. He's my minister.
We got this thing wrong about defining ministers as some great,
grand, glorious thing. Christ said, He that will be
great among you will be the least among you. That's what it is
to minister, to be the least. And this we do in the sight of
God, He said. This we do in the sight of God.
We are going to give account to God, not to men. The Lord's
Word to Ezekiel is the Lord's Word to His people. I want you
to read this. Ezekiel 3. And I want you to read this.
If you get sideways with me ever, you just know this right here
is where I stand. This is where I stand. Right
here. Ezekiel 3.17. Son of man, I have made thee
a watchman unto the house of Israel. Paul said, he made us
ministers. I've made you a watchman to the
house of Israel. You know what a watchman does?
He just stands on guard and gives a warning. That's all he does.
When he sees the enemy approach, he yells and says, the enemy's
coming. That's what gospel preaching is. Listen. Therefore, hear the
word at my mouth, God said, and give them warning from me. And
when I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die, and Thou givest
him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked
way, to save his life, the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity,
but his blood will I require at Thine hand. Why is He going to impute that
blood to me? Because it would be a just charge, wouldn't it?
I didn't warn him. It would be a just charge. Verse 19, Yet if thou warn the
wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his
wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered
thy soul. You did what you were supposed
to do. Verse 20, Again when a righteous man turn from his righteousness
and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him,
he shall die. This is somebody who professed
Christ, but then Christ was made a stumbling block to him. He
couldn't bear the truth and he went backwards. He says, "...because
thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and
his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered,
but his blood will I require at thine hand." I'm giving everybody
warning right now. Everybody that hears this has
the warning from me. Don't turn back from Christ.
I know what I'm telling you is the truth. I'm standing here
as somebody that's going to have to stand before God and say,
Yes, Lord, I warned them. And I'm telling you what I'm
telling you so. Nevertheless, if thou warn the
righteous man, this is one who proved by faith to be God's true
child. If you warn the righteous man
that the righteous sin not, he does not sin, he shall surely
live because he's warned. Also, thou hast delivered thy
soul. You see, we're not going to be
tried before the tribunal of human flesh, of man's popular
opinion. I don't care. I'm tried before
God. So, we preach God's Word. We preach God's Word. If you disagree with something,
if a man disagrees with something one of God's preachers says,
I'll tell you what he ought to do. He ought to spend 30 years studying
it. and 30 years studying the men
he's warning them about, that he knows everything about. He
ought to spend some time studying that before he just up and decides
to walk out. That would be the best thing
for him. Amen.