If you would, go back to the
book of Hebrews this evening, and we'll visit again a few verses
here in chapter 11 as we focus in upon the faith of Noah, the
faith of Noah. In Hebrews chapter 11, As all
of you, I'm sure, are acquainted with this portion of Holy Scripture,
the Spirit of God sets before us men and women who were blessed
of God with the gift of faith. These men and women listed in
Hebrews chapter 11 were no different by nature than anybody else in
those days. In fact, they were no different
from us. Because the scripture says that
all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. In Adam, we all fell. And in
Adam, we lost spiritual life and we inherited a sinful nature. And in that regard, we're all
the same. We're all guilty before God. Outwardly, we are different. Outwardly, some people manifest
evil more than others. But inwardly, we're all vile
before God. It's kind of a bitter pill to
swallow. In fact, there are many people
who have great difficulty with that, but it is a fact that we're
alienated from God, and we're dead in trespasses and sins,
and no matter how black we might attempt to paint the spiritual
depravity of men, we can never paint it black enough. It is enough for us to just understand
what little bit we do about the scriptures that the heart of
man is desperately wicked. Who can know it? Desperately. That means we're hopelessly wicked,
and that's all of us, and that's these people in the book of Hebrews,
in chapter 11, these people who are mentioned, they were by nature
desperately wicked, even as others, even as we are. But God was gracious
to them. God gave them the gift of faith. Faith. What a marvelous, marvelous
thing. It is a miraculous thing. It's a blessed thing. You would
think that those of us who came forth from the hand of God, having
been made by Him, you would think that we would believe Him. You
would think that we would rest in Him. You would think that
we would endeavor to carry out His every command. You would
think that we would believe God, trust in God, cast all of our
hopes for salvation forever upon Him, that we would do that. But
no, faith is a thing that is, it isn't something that we've
got. We can't muster up faith. Faith
doesn't lie dormant in the heart of man until certain circumstances
kind of blow upon it, and then faith winds up a roaring fire. It isn't like that at all. Faith
is actually something that we don't have. We have no ability to believe
God, though we ought to. Though we ought to. Faith, therefore,
has to be given. It's a wonderful picture of this
in many scriptures as far as that goes, but I love the one
in Philippians or in what happened in Philippi. And this is recorded
in Acts chapter 16 when the apostle goes down by the riverside. There
were some women there meeting to worship. And as Paul and Silas
met with these women, they began to open to them, to read to them
and preach to them the scriptures of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
there was a woman there that day whose name was Lydia. The
scripture says she was from another area, Thyatira, and she was a
seller of purple. And as she listened to the preaching
of the word, a miraculous thing happened. The Scripture says,
God opened up her heart, and therefore she attended to the
things that were spoken. There's nothing said about Lydia
opening her own heart. Isn't it amazing how much error
comes forth from pulpits today? Men say, open your heart to Jesus. But wait, the scripture says
that the Lord Jesus opened her heart. You see, our hearts are
shut against God. We're alienated from it. We have
no ability to even believe the very truth of God. Well, what
has to happen before we can believe? The Lord Himself must make bare
His mighty arm of grace, and He Himself must go to work within
the human heart. And He must Himself give us a
new heart. And that's a heart of faith.
And so Lydia, the scripture says, Lydia's heart was opened by the
Lord so that she attended to the things that were spoken. Understand this, faith is no
more to be attributed to man than redemption is. Faith is
no more to be attributed to you than regeneration is. Faith is
no more to be attributed to you than salvation is. If you say
that your faith is of your own making, you may as well say,
I have saved myself. Because faith is that hand that
reaches out and receives the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ
and the gift of His salvation. But you don't have the ability
to do that. Only God can give you that ability. These people in Hebrews 11, of
them we may say they walked by faith and not by sight. And that's the way it is with
all the people of God of every age. You see, God-given faith
sees things and perceives things that are spiritual, that are
eternal, whereas reasoning, that is human reasoning, is blind. Faith sees, whereas human reasoning
is blind. Faith sees that which is invisible
to the natural eye. Look here in Hebrews 11. Let
me just show you the verse. Go a little further into Hebrews
11 in verse 27. Hebrews chapter 11 in verse 27. And here we read, and I'm gonna
break into the context because it's talking about the faith
of Moses. Hebrews 11 verse 27. By faith
Moses forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he
endured, now watch this, he endured as seeing him who is invisible. He endured as seeing him who
is invisible. You see, faith makes things that
are invisible to the natural eye to be visible to the spiritual
eye. The Lord was real to Moses, though
the Lord was invisible to Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Pharaoh and
the Egyptians, they had their gods that they could see with
the natural eye. Of the natural man, it may be
said, as God created man, so man has created a god. Right? Of the natural man, it
may be said, as God created man, so man has created for himself
a God. And that's what Pharaoh and the
Egyptians did. They invented all of these gods.
And of course, all of the plagues that God sent were to defeat
and expose the uselessness of the gods that the Egyptians had
made, the ones that they worshipped. but the God of glory, the God
of salvation, the God of truth who created us must recreate
us anew in Christ Jesus. No wonder we read in Ephesians
chapter two, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto
good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk
in them. Understand this, our gracious
God and his method of salvation by redemption, by reconciliation,
by the substitutionary death of the Lord Jesus, our gracious
God and his method of salvation can only be embraced, can only
be perceived, and can only be observed with the eye of faith. Like Abraham. You know, Abraham,
he saw things in his day that others didn't see. In fact, our
Lord Jesus, and you can read about this in John chapter eight,
our Lord Jesus stood with the Jews, and they were confronting
him and accosting him, and of course they had nothing good
to say about him, and they said he was of his father the devil,
that's how he did his works. They said, Abraham is our father. And our Lord Jesus said to them,
your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. Now listen to
the wording. He rejoiced to see my day. And he saw it and was glad. Well, how did he see the day
of Christ Jesus? Not by natural perception. Not with natural eyesight. He
saw the day of Christ by faith, by faith. And those people to
whom our Lord was speaking, he was standing right in their midst.
And he is saying to them, Abraham, he saw, he saw something that's
absolutely invisible to you. He saw my glory. He was glad. He saw my day. When did Abraham
see the day of Christ Jesus and rejoice? When he saw substitution. A glorious example of substitution. When, obeying God's command,
he put Isaac upon the altar to offer him as a burnt offering
unto God. And God said, stop. I see you,
believe me. There's a ram caught in the thicket.
Kill the ram. Free Isaac. And in that, Abraham
rejoiced in Christ Jesus. He saw his day. He saw the Lord
Jesus Christ as God's substitute for sinners, as the sacrifice
who would die in the stead of the guilty. He saw Christ's day
and he rejoiced. And yet the people in whose presence
the Lord Jesus stood, they couldn't see the glory of him at all. But Abraham did and he lived
hundreds and hundreds of years before that ever happened. He
saw the glories of Christ Jesus. He saw what was invisible to
those people who stood in the presence of Christ Jesus. Let
me tell you something about faith. It's always on the lookout for
Christ. It's always on the lookout for
Christ. Little wonder then that we read
in Galatians chapter three, the writing of the apostle Paul,
know ye not that they which are of faith, the same of the children
of Abraham. We rejoice to see Christ's day,
just like Abraham did. And we thank God for the gift
of faith. The gift of faith. You see, to
unbelievers, the invisible, spiritual, and eternal things of God are
unreal to them. They're unreal. Because they
have no means, they have no ability, they have no faith to perceive
them. And if this evening you rejoice
in God's salvation, you rejoice in the blood sacrifice of the
Son of God, if you rejoice in His righteousness and you see
that all of your acceptance before a holy God is tied up in the
Lord of glory and His obedience unto death, even the death of
the cross, God has given you eyes to see. And you see things
that other people don't see. We read in the Scriptures that
the natural man doesn't receive the things of the Spirit of God.
They have no discernment. No discernment. And that is obvious
to us, because it's obvious to preachers, it's obvious to those
of you who are believers, because you speak of the things of God
to others, to unbelievers, and they just don't get it. And you
tell them about salvation by grace alone. Set forth in the
Word of God alone. By Christ Jesus alone. And you speak of the wonders
and the glories and the majesty of King Jesus. And of the successful
death of the Savior upon the cross of Calvary. And still upon
the faces of the ones that you're talking to, you just see a blank
look. Oh, okay. And they don't have
the interest that you have. They don't have the heart faith
that you have. Their hearts aren't warmed by
the Gospel. The Spirit of God is not dealing
with them in grace as He's dealing with you. What is the issue?
What is the problem? They have no spiritual discernment. They have no spiritual eyesight. Which is another way of saying
they have no faith. They just can't see. They can't
see. You take, let's say, on deck
of a ship. I'll give you an illustration.
Two men, and they're looking out toward the horizon. Two men are. And they're both
looking for land. And the one, he's looking, he's,
oh, as keenly as he can look, he's squinting. I see nothing. And the other one says, ah, there's
land. One sees and the other one doesn't
see. One sees no land in sight. The other
one does see land in sight. What's the difference? One, his
eye is unaided to see. And so the land is out of range. But the other one has a telescope. and he sees what the other man
cannot possibly see. Let me use that feeble illustration
to make this point. The things of God are out of
range for the natural man. They're out of range. He can't
see them. He can't see the wonders of God's
salvation. He can't see the majesty of Christ
Jesus. He can't see the victorious redemption
of our great God and Savior. He's blind. And he needs the
gift of faith. And this is the gift that we
all need and we ask God to give it to us. It's a wonderful gift
to just believe God to rest in His Word, to have nothing to
prop us up, save the Word of God only. When Noah was told
of God to build an ark to the saving of his house, there was
nothing tangible that he could draw from to receive this Word
because it had never rained. It had never rained. Genesis
chapter 2 says it. God watered the earth with a
mist. A wonderful mist. that protected
the earth, protected human life and animal life as well as plant
life from the harmful rays of the sun and that's why men lived
for unusual lengths of time and plants grew big and animals grew
quite large back in those days. There had never been rain. Well,
what was it then that caused Noah to build an ark to the saving
of his house? He just believed God. He believed
what he couldn't see. But God had seen the rain. God
said, I'm going to destroy. How are you going to destroy
it? It's in the flood of water. They'd never seen a flood. Noah hadn't seen it, but God
had seen it in his purpose. And Noah just received the record
of God. He just believed God. You know,
here in Hebrews chapter 11. And I'll make mention of this
as I kind of lead up to Noah. Here we see, at the very beginning
of the chapter, we see men who were unusual. Men that God used in a mighty
way The first one is Abel, and then Enoch, and then Noah. In these three, we see an outline
of faith. I'll give this to you, and you
can think about it later. In Abel, we see the worship of
faith. In Enoch, we see the walk of
faith. And in Noah, we see the witness
of faith. The worship of faith, the walk
of faith, and the witness of faith. And wherever there is
genuine God-given faith, these three things will always be true.
Let me speak for just a couple of minutes about the worship
of faith. The worship of faith. Real faith worships God. That's
what Abel did. How do we know that? You notice
here in chapter 11, verse four, by faith, Abel. How do you know
Abel was a man of faith? Because he offered unto God a
more excellent and more superb sacrifice than his brother Cain. By which he obtained witness
that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and by it he being
dead. Yet speaketh. Here's the worship
of faith. Just how does true faith worship
God if I might personify faith? How does faith worship God? By
sacrifice. By sacrifice. Abel, his name
means vanity, by the way. His brother Cain, his name means
possession because they thought they Adam and Eve thought they
possessed the one who was the seed of the woman. Cain was anything
but that. But here's Abel, whose name means
vanity, because since the first son turned out to be a great
disappointment, they just named the next one Vanity. He's nothing. That's what Abel's name means.
But he was somebody to God. He was somebody to God. True
faith worships God and does so the right way. And here's what
Abel did. He brought a more excellent sacrifice than did Cain. A more
excellent, a more valuable sacrifice. Now Abel was no different than
Cain by nature. Oh no. But God was gracious to
Abel, whereas he just left Cain in his natural state. And Cain,
being a natural man, he had thoughts that were just like the thoughts
of all natural men. If I do something good for God,
God will do something good for me. It's a natural way of thinking. As I do for God, God will do
for me. And so Cain goes to his garden. He was a husbandman. tiller of
the soil, a grower of crops and fruits and so forth, and he brought
those to God, thinking that God would accept those. But here's
the issue with Cain's sacrifice. There was no representation of
Christ Jesus there. In other words, there was no
death in Cain's sacrifice. There was no blood There was
no taking of a life in order that a life would be spared. See, that's what's necessary
in order for a life to be spared. There must be the taking of a
life. The Lord had already indicated
to Adam that in the day you eat thereof of that forbidden fruit,
you'll surely die. And God himself killed animals
God sacrificed animals in order to spare, in order to save a
life, Adam and Eve. God illustrated this Himself. If you're gonna live, this has
got to die. If this doesn't die, you're gonna
die. It's a very simple, very simple
solution to this. And only men have complicated
it. They've taken away from the simplicity
of the gospel and they've infused into the message of salvation
works. That's what man always does.
And thereby he adulterates the truth of God. But the simple
matter of fact is, God said, if you're going to live, A suitable
substitute has got to die in your stead. That's pretty simple,
isn't it? That's not complicated. If you're
going to live, there's got to be a death. Where there's a death,
there'll be a life. If there's no death, then you're
going to die. And so Abel, believing the record
of God, he kills the firstling of his flock. He kills a lamb. And in that he directs our attention
hundreds of years in the future to the Lamb of God who must die
if we're going to live. That's simple. That's not complicated. But you see in poor old Cain
and his offering, there's no death. There's no blood. There's no life taken. So that
life will continue on this hand? No, not at all. And so he's destined
to die in his sins. Abel believed that without the
shedding of blood, there's no remission of sins. Abel believed
that a life must be forfeited in order for a life to be spared.
That's the gospel. That's substitution. And then
that's the worship of faith. That's what faith, how does faith
come to God? Through the crucified Savior. Now all over this country today,
and I'll just talk about our country. I'll leave other countries
out of this, but in our country, because we're kind of a religious
nation to a point, But there are lots of different churches,
all kinds of churches. If you look around, you'll find
one you like, because it's kind of like going to a buffet, a
religious buffet. You can find somebody who's saying
what you want to hear. But in all of them, they say,
we're having our worship service. It may be a traditional worship
service or a contemporary worship service, but they're saying we're
having a worship service. But I'll tell you this, there
can be no worship service without a strong emphasis on death, the
death of the Son of God. And whenever you go to a church,
whenever you listen to a preacher, television, radio, in person,
that man, and it will be a man if he's God's man, it won't be
a woman, no offense to you women, but women's place not behind
the pulpit. But if he's a man of God, this
is his message, Jesus Christ and him crucified. His death. Because the man behind the pulpit
must understand this and must convey this to his audience. The way to life everlasting is
death of a suitable victim. And that's Christ Jesus. You see, it's like, let me give
you this example. And I have to go quickly here. May wind up finishing this on
Wednesday night. But it's like when Abraham took
Isaac up on Mount Moriah to offer him as a burnt offering to God.
I made reference to it just a little bit ago. There were two servants
went with him. Abraham said to the two servants,
you stay here. And of course those two servants
kind of a picture of the two thieves that died, one on either
side of the Savior. But Abraham said to the servants,
you abide here and I and the lad will go yonder and we gonna
do something. What'd he say? Worship. That's
what he said. We're going to worship. Well, you see, Isaac, he knew
the gospel. There can't be any worship unless
there's death. And so they went on and they
got to the place that God would have them to be. God told Abraham,
this is the spot right here. And so, as they were finally
getting toward that place, and Isaac, he's got the wood for
the fire to take hold of and burn. He's got the wood on his back,
and there's the fire, and the knife in Abraham's hand. And Isaac says, Dad, heard you
say to those two servants that you and I are going to worship.
Where's the lamb? That's what he said, wasn't he?
Where's the lamb? Where's the lamb, dad? Because
we can't worship without death, without blood being shed. Where's
the lamb? And Abraham said, my son, God
will provide himself a lamb. Was there a death on Mount Moriah
that day? Yes. But it wasn't Isaac. Because that brings into view
another picture of substitution. The ram dying in his stead. But God got death. That's what God got. Blood. Blood. Because without the shedding
of blood, there's no remission of sin. And I'm telling you,
when we meet for worship service, right here, if this is not our
message, We may go through some religious rituals and some religious
ceremonies, but if we don't preach the death of Christ Jesus, we
hadn't worshiped. Because you're not going to come
to God except through the blood of Christ Jesus. I just feel
like I need to stress that. Well then, here's the second
thing, the walk of faith. The walk of faith, and that's
Enoch. You know, two times in Genesis
5 it says, Enoch walked with God. Enoch walked with God. Well, that leads me to a verse
in the book of Amos 3.3 that says, can two walk together except
they be agreed? So here's what I know, here's
what I know about Enoch. He agreed with God. Because you're not going to walk
with God in fellowship if you're in disagreement with God over
His truth. Don't tell me that you have true
God-given faith. If you don't worship by means
of a blood sacrifice and if you don't bow to the Word of God
and believe that which is revealed to you by the Holy Spirit, you
cannot walk with God and be in disagreement with God. Well,
that's foolish. That's why I hate to hear people
say, and you preach a message or they're reading, read a book
that's the truth of God, and somebody says, I don't believe
that. You disagree with God? Well, how can you walk with God
if you disagree with God? If you disagree with how God
saves sinners, that's His glory. Isn't it? His grace is His glory. Don't disagree with God. If you
disagree with God, I can tell you categorically, you can't
worship God. Enoch walked with God. He agreed
with God. He agreed with the right way
to come to God. Just like Abel did. And I'll tell you something that
happened to Enoch. He was translated that he should
not see death. He changed his residence, but
he didn't change companions. He changed his residence, he
changed his location, but he didn't change his companionship
with God. He walked with God on the earth.
Lord said, just come on home with me. And he just kept on
walking with God in glory. And that's the way it is for
a child of God. We just change residence. We worship here, we worship there. We honor God here, we honor God
there. It's just a change of location.
That's all it is. So with Enoch, that's the walk
of faith. And then with Noah, and let me
spend just a few minutes here, here's the witness of faith.
The witness of faith. Or we might even say the works
of faith. Because I tell you something
that James says. Faith, we love to talk about
faith. But faith without works is dead. Now, how do I know that Noah
believed God? Look at verse seven. By faith
Noah. And it's an interesting thing.
The verse starts by faith and it ends exactly the same way.
Ever notice that? By faith, by faith. Those are
the bookends. Don't tell me faith isn't important. Those are the bookends of that
verse. By faith, Noah, being warned
of God, of things not seen as yet, moved with fear. How do I know, how do we know
that Noah believed God? Because he moved with fear. Never in the Bible is idleness
a good thing. It's never a good thing. As we
sometimes say, idle hands, the devil's workshop. That's kind
of an old saying. And if you're idle about the
things of God, that's not good. It's not good. By faith, Noah. You see, Noah, of him it is also
said like Enoch, and this is said in Genesis chapter six,
He walked with God. And we know that Noah had the
worship of faith because after they came out of the ark, what'd
he do? He took the lives of animals. So Noah had the worship of faith
like Abel. And Noah had the walk of faith
like Enoch. He agreed with God. And Noah
had the witness of faith. How do we know that he believed
God? Because when God told him to
build an ark, you know what he did? He built it. 120 years, God said. I'm not
gonna send destruction for 120 years. And this man preached. 2 Peter says he's a preacher
of righteousness. 120 years. And it wasn't like
he had a big congregation to preach to, because in the end,
all he had was himself, and his wife, and his three sons, and
his three daughters-in-law, and that's it. Noah, what do you
have to show for 120 years of being a preacher of righteousness? I bet you got a big congregation. He would have been fired from
the average church many years before that. You mean we don't, where's the
books? You mean we don't have more in
Sunday school this year than we had last year? Get us a new
preacher. Let's hire us a new preacher. Get rid of the deacon board.
No gains, no membership, growth. What kind of preacher are you
anyway? He said, I'm a preacher of righteousness. That's what
he said. And he didn't win any popularity
contests. And he just kept on preaching. You know, it's one thing for
us in here to say, I believe, well, I believe the gospel wrong. Yeah, I'm with you, Russell.
We're together. I got your back. That's what
we, I got your back, brother. But what if you're out there
by yourself? 120 years. That's nearly two
lifetimes. Preaching, preaching, preaching. and all you got's your family.
And at that point, don't have much confidence that any of them
were believers. I do have confidence that later
they became believers, but there's nothing to indicate at that point
that they were believers. Well, who was it that enabled
this man to take such a stand? It's tough to stand by yourself.
Right? You know that. Those of you,
you work, or if you are retired, when you were working, to talk
about the things of God, to talk about sovereign grace, redemption
by blood, the work of the Holy Spirit, these things are foreign,
absolutely foreign to the natural mind. And Noah never budged. I stand in admiration of this
great preacher. And the scripture says he's a
preacher of righteousness. A preacher of righteousness. He preached and he built an ark. And in that, he's a picture of
our Lord Jesus because it says he prepared an ark to the saving
of his house. And you see, that's what the
Lord Jesus has done by His work of redemption. He has built the
house of salvation for us all grounded upon Him who is the
rock. And every blow of the hammer
Every time he sawed, every wooden peg driven into the ark, that's
our Lord Jesus, as it were, building the ark of salvation. Nobody
else hit anything with a hammer, only our Savior. He built the
ark of our salvation and He did it by Himself. By Himself. He said, when I went
into the wrath of God, nobody was with me. Nobody could help
Him. Don't you dare try to pick up
a hammer and help. That's none of your business.
You're just a receiver of the goodness of God in Christ Jesus,
that's all. He didn't need your help then,
he don't need your help now. And no, he pitched it within
and without and with pitch. That speaks of atonement. I told
you that word, pitch, is translated in the Old Testament 70 times
as atonement. He covered that thing. I saw
a picture of that ark that they made, supposedly a replica of
the ark, wherever it is, over toward Cincinnati or wherever.
It's like a ship. That wasn't the ark. And I was
looking at the boards of that thing. That's not what the ark
was. The ark was pitched within and without with pitch. In fact,
I may work on a message and I'll entitle it Pitch In. Pitch In and Pitch Out. It was
a covering because it speaks of blood redemption by the blood
of Christ Jesus. It covers us! And Noah pitched it. He pitched
it within and without. Why did he do that? Because he
believed God. And he moved with fear. He wasn't idle. He moved with fear. He had the
utmost respect for God. The natural man, there's no fear
of God before his eyes. And he prepared an ark by which
he condemned the world. He condemned the world. Everybody
who walked by him said, look at that fool. And I bet you he
took a lot of ridicule, don't you? Look at that crazy old man. You know, they tell me he's 600
years old. Look at that guy. Who does he
think he is? Building that thing? What in
the world is that? Well, it's an ark. There's no rudder. There's no
river around here. There's no lake around here.
We're miles from the sea. What are you building it for?
God told me to, because he's going to send a flood. Oh, whoosh.
Silly old man. Yeah, the rain's going to come.
The fountains of the deep are going to open up. Now, come on,
Noah. I believe you're getting Alzheimer's
or something. I believe you've got a hardening
of the arteries. No, I just believe God. Well, who's with you on
this? Just my family. Well, look at
all of us, Noah. There are billions of people
on earth. You sure are in the minority,
aren't you? Well, yeah, I guess I am. I like
what, I've even got this in my office. One writer said years
ago, one man with God is a majority. I got news for you, he don't
even need one man. He's still the majority. And
so he believed God and he prepared an ark to the setting of his
house and he condemned the world. Through his preaching, through
believing God, he condemned the world. And he became an heir
of the righteousness which is by faith. but they weren't heirs
of the righteousness which is of faith." No. They didn't believe God. And I think, and this is my two
cents worth, kind of ended up here. I think rather, after God
shut the door, and after a week or so, the fountains of the deep
opened up, People started saying, would you look at that? Where's
all that water coming from? And then it began to rain. Oh
my! Never seen the likes of this.
Granddad, you ever seen anything like this? No, I never seen anything
like this. And Noah and his wife and his
three sons and daughters, three daughters-in-law in the ark,
God shut them in. Hey Noah! Let us in. Open the door! I can't. I can't. God shut the door. God shut the door. He shut those
in and He shut those other ones out. And that was an everlasting
separation. God help us to believe Him. God help us to believe Him. Oh
God, give us the gift, that precious gift of faith. Faith to worship. Faith to walk. Faith to be a witness of the
goodness of God that leads us to repentance. and of the severity
of God upon those who refuse to bow to his truth. God's word is a savor of life
and death, isn't it? Life and the life for some and
death and the death for others. Well, may the Lord be gracious
and merciful to us for the glory of His grace and of His name.