You'd like to turn to 1 Corinthians
chapter 15 with me. 1 Corinthians chapter 15, and
I want to begin reading in verse 1. 1 Corinthians 15, let's begin in
verse 1. Moreover, brethren, I declare
unto you the gospel which I've already preached unto you, preached
it in word, mentioned it when I began this epistle, preached
it all the way through this epistle. And you have received this gospel,
and you stand in this gospel, by which also you are saved,
if you keep in memory what I have preached unto you, unless you
have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you, first
of all, that which I also received how that Christ died for our
sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, and that
he rose again the third day according to the scriptures, and that he
was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve. After that he was seen
of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater
part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After
that he was seen of James, then of all the apostles, and last
of all, He was seen of me also as of one born out of due time. I just want to talk to you this
evening about the Gospel. About the Gospel. Paul was a
lover of the Gospel. He lived off of the Gospel. He
began this epistle, writing to them about the Gospel. He had
gone here to this country, preached to these Corinthians. They were
converted by the Gospel. And he writes this letter back.
And he begins it by saying that God sent me not to baptize, but
to preach the Gospel. not with wisdom of words, lest
the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. The preaching
of the cross, he said, to them that perish is foolishness, but
to you who are being saved by it. You have been saved by it,
and you are being saved by it, and you shall be saved by it.
To you, he said, is the power of God. The cross of the Lord
Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God, and it's the power of God. And now he comes here, and he's
ready to close this epistle. And once again, he says, I declare
unto you the gospel. I want to make it plain to you
again, remind you of the gospel. This word in Greek, they tell
me, means good news. It's glad tidings. And one of
the dear old translators, one of the great ones, Brother Tyndale,
he said, the best Greek word there is, is gospel. God himself,
he said, could not have fitted the message better than calling
it the gospel. Because, he said, those who hear
it, those damnable sinners who hear it, it makes the heart skip,
makes the heart sing and leap for joy, the gospel. Ain't this
a sad and sorry world we live in? I tell you, I can only speak
for myself, but I'm sort of like old Jacob. Days of my pilgrimage
has been few and evil. Old Scott Richardson used to
say, a believer, a child of God, he's either coming out of trouble,
or he's in the midst of trouble, or he's going into trouble. Trouble,
trouble, trouble. That's what we found in our lives.
A man that's born of a woman is a few days and full of trouble.
A sad and sorry world. And it's so because sin has entered
into it. That's our problem, is sin has
entered this world. God knows this. Our Heavenly
Father knows this. So what does He do? He calls
these preachers like this apostle. And He calls others. And He comes
to His church and He says, O Zion that bringeth good tidings, get
up to the top of the mountains where everybody can hear you
and preach the gospel. O Jerusalem that bringeth glad
tidings, lift up your voice with strength. Lift it up. Say to
the cities of Jerusalem, behold your God. Well, I don't want
to behold God. I don't either that God upon
Mount Sinai. But that's not the God he's talking
about. He's talking about behold your God incarnate. Behold the
Lamb of God. Behold the Son of God lifted
up upon the tree. Behold Him in a tomb. Behold
Him risen and ascended. Behold your God. That's good
news. God knows that we're in a sad,
sorry world, a veil of tears. So he tells us, this one thing
that you need, hear this gospel. Always be preaching the gospel.
Always be reminding one another of the gospel. Why is that? It's
good news. I tell you, it's the only good
news you'll find in this world anywhere. Everything else will
wind up sooner or later being bad news. It will, but this is
never bad news. It's always good news. And he
tells us here the first thing about this gospel that makes
it good news. And he says here in the first
verse, he says this about it. I preached this gospel unto you.
And also he says, you received it. The gospel which you received. Why is the gospel such good news?
Well, it doesn't come unto us and tell us what we need to do.
The gospel doesn't come to us and make all of these demands
and put all of these rules and regulations upon it. The gospel
comes to us like food to our hungry stomachs. When you sit
down at a table and you're hungry, what do you do? You take in the
food. It satisfies the hunger of your
body. If you're thirsty, what do you
do? You go to the fountain and you open your mouth and you take
this water into your thirsty soul. That's the same way the
gospel is. It doesn't come to us and command
of us to do many things as the law does. But it tells us what's
already been done and tells us what must be received and not
what you and I must do. I said this morning, and I can't
get over this, I spent years, several years of my life trying
to commend myself to God until I finally heard that everything
was done that needed to be done. Some of you fellows here, I was
looking at some of Ron's work over there, Brother Len's and
Diane's today. I've done a little remodeling
work on my own house, but I wouldn't let a carpenter in to look at
it. I've got a lazy streak. I've got something in me that
starts things and does not finish it. I like it when we used to be
working, where I used to work, and you'd hear this horn sound.
That means time the clock out. The day is done. Go clock out. You know what I like about the
Gospel? It has this aspect about it that it's finished. That it's
done. It leaves me nothing to do. It
leaves you nothing to do. All we do is receive. Receive. The Lord Jesus Christ came into
this world and He was full of grace and He was full of truth.
And the Bible says of that fullness have all we received. That's
what the gospel is. It just comes to us in grace
and truth and mercy and forgiveness and we just receive it. Just
receive it. Have you ever seen a little bird?
The little birds when they hatch and their mother bird and the
father bird they come with a little piece of food in their mouth.
You ever seen those little birds? Boy, they just raise up and open
those mouths wide open. That's the way we are with the
gospel. We're just there with our mouths wide open and we receive
into our soul this blessed gospel. Oh, it comes to us in our awful
death and says, here's life. Here's life. What do we do? We
just receive it. It comes to us in our filth.
It says, here's a fountain, open for sin and uncleanness, and
we just wash. It comes to us in our nakedness,
and it says, here's the garments of salvation. Just put them on. It comes to us in our tormented
conscience, and it says, peace, I give unto you. The Gospel. Everything's been done. Come
and dine. That's what the Master said.
Everything's ready, just come to the marriage. Nothing to do,
nothing to do. It's done. That's what makes
the gospel good news. This is why the world can't stand
it. This is why the world don't understand it. They don't understand
all you do is just stoop down and drink and live. They want
to do something. But here the gospel is and Paul
says, when I preached it, all you did was receive it. You just
receive it. You receive Christ, you receive
grace, you just receive everything. And notice what else he says
about this, and this makes it good news too, not only that
you received it, but he said you stand in it. Wherein you
stand. Brother Lindsey, I thought this
morning, he was talking about John the Baptist's dad, Zacharias. I remember when Gabriel came
to him, And he said, I stand in the presence of God. Remember
that? I'm Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God.
I want to stand there, don't you? We will stand there. That's where we want to stand.
There in the presence of God. But how in the world can you
and I stand in the presence of God? We must, but how can we? Well, here God's given us the
way. He's gave us this gospel. And he said, you stand in it.
I tell you, when you come down to die, and when you come down
to cross that river, remember when Hopeful and Christian was
going across the river of death? And they said, is there another
way around this river? We've got to get up to the celestial
city, but we don't want to cross this river. He said, no, everybody's
got to cross this river. He said, is it deep? Is it deep? And as soon as Christian stepped
out in it, he went over his head. And he couldn't find the bottom.
Took him a long time to find the bottom. How's it going to
be when you and I come to the river of death? There's but one
place to stand and that's this gospel. We can face death and
stand. And when we go up that hill to
the celestial city and we go into the gate and stand before
the eternal God, we can stand if we stand in this gospel. Who
are you that judges another man's servant, Paul said. To his own
master he stands or falls. Yea, God. is able to make him
stand. He won't fall. God is able to
make him stand. This gospel, we stand in it.
We stand in it. I saw the dead, small and great,
stand before God. We shall all stand before the
judgment seat of Christ. And how can we stand there without
trembling? How can we stand there without
being condemned in this gospel, in the gospel? I may have told
you this story. I've told so many people about
it. Pastor friend years ago told me about this wagon train going
west and they got out on the plains and they seen smoke coming
their way and they knew that there was a fire out in that
tall grass. And they burn out a huge circle,
a huge circle. And they put all the wagons in
that circle where they'd burn out. And they watched the fire
as it got close. And one little boy standing there
with his daddy tugged on Richie's leg and he said, Daddy, is that
fire going to burn us up? And he said, No, son, no, it
won't. And he stood there a while longer
and he tugged on his sleeve again and he said, Daddy, I smell that
smoke. You sure that fire's not going
to burn us up? He said, No, son, it won't touch us. But he said,
Daddy, I feel the heat from that. You're sure? He said, No, son,
it won't hurt us. He said, Daddy, how do you know?
He said, Son, we're standing where the fire has already been. That's the gospel, ain't it?
We're standing where sin has already been punished. We're
standing where God says to stand in the gospel. And if you stand
there, you won't fall. Not when you face death. Not
when you face the judgment. Not when you face eternity, not
when you face life, not when you face living. When you face
this valley that's deep of humiliation, when you're going up that hill
of difficulty, you'll have some joy. And sometimes your heart
is skipped because you've not forgotten this gospel. You stand
in this gospel. And notice what else he says
here in verse 2 about this gospel, by which also Ye are saved by
which ye are saved. I was reading Adam Clarke. I
mean, Ron was talking about him today. If you don't have Adam
Clarke's commentaries, don't get them. Don't waste your money.
I was reading him on this verse, and he says here, by which ye
are saved, he quotes this like this, by which ye are now in
a savable state. You are now in a savable state.
Can you imagine that jailer coming up to the Apostle Paul and say,
what must I do to be put in a savable state? I wonder what the Apostle
Paul would have answered. I'll tell you what he would have
answered. I have no idea. I can't help you. Now, if you
want to be saved, if you're talking about eternal salvation, believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. But the gospel
don't put us in a savable state. It saves us. Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and you're saved. Saved forever. Never be lost. Never be condemned. By which
you are saved. That's why the gospel is good
news. It comes to us damnable sinners. And somebody said, you shouldn't
use that word. Well, that's a good word. That's a good word. Damnable. ready to perish. And it comes
to people like us, dead in sin, without God and without hope,
without Jesus Christ in this world. And it comes to us, and
what does it do for us? Put us in a savable state? No,
it saves us. And it fills our hearts with
love for Him who saved us. Oh, the gospel, there's nothing
like it. It is indeed good news. Paul was writing to this same
church, and he was reminding them of what they were before
the gospel come to them. And he said, you were fornicators,
you were idolaters, you were adulterers, effeminate, drunks,
liars, sorry, low-down, hell-deserving sinners. Then he said, suddenly,
what happened? This gospel came. This came out
of nowhere, as it were. And what did it do? It washed
you. It justified you. It saved you. That's what the
gospel does. Paul said, it's the gospel that
saves us. It saves us. So it's the good
news. We receive it. We stand in it
and we're saved by it. And look in verse three, what
a supernatural thing the gospel is. It's a miraculous thing the
gospel is. If men don't believe in the miraculous,
then they'll never believe the gospel. If people have trouble
saying, well, I just don't believe God's fake and the world was
created, then you'll probably never believe the gospel. If
you don't believe Moses stretched out his rod and that Red Sea
parted and the children of Israel went across on dry land, you
probably won't believe the gospel. If you don't believe they threw
those three Hebrew children in the fire and it had no effect
upon them, you probably won't believe the gospel. Because this
gospel is a miraculous thing. And here Paul tells us something
about it. Look in verse 3. I delivered unto you first of
all that which I also received. And look at this. How that Christ
died. Now what a mystery. What a mystery
that is. Christ died. Brothers and sisters
don't ever forget who Jesus Christ was. When He came into this world,
He became something He was not before, but He never ceased to
be what He was. And John was writing to us in
his little epistle, and he said, when the Lord Jesus came into
the world, we looked upon Him, and we handled Him. Who was He,
John? You know what he said about Him?
The Word of Life. And He was manifested to us,
manifested in the flesh. And we seen Him, and we handled
Him. and declaring to you that eternal life which was with the
Father and was manifested to us. Eternal life? That was Jesus
Christ. When He was in His mother's womb,
He never ceased to be life. When they got Him out of her
womb and washed Him up and hung Him on her breast, He was life. Eternal life hanging upon His
mother's breast. And He was life when He hung on that cross. He
never ceased to be what he was. And there he hangs in agony and
pain, eternal life. And what does he do? Paul says
he dies. He dies. How can that be? Can you explain that? No, you
can't explain that. That's miraculous. How can he
die? The only way he could is just
give it up. Give it up. No man takes my life from me.
I lay it down of myself. How in the world can you lay
down eternal life? But he did. Ain't that a mystery?
Ain't that miraculous? Brothers and sisters, you take
the mystery out of the gospel and we have no mystery. This
is a mysterious person. God in humanity. And there he
hangs on the cross. And what does he do? Paul says
he dies. He dies. I can't explain that. But I just proclaim it. And you
know what you do? You just believe it. and receive
it into your heart and you're amazed by it. You're astounded
by it. This is one of the things that
makes your heart skip and leap and shout and sing. This gospel. Christ died. Christ died. And notice the next word. Not
only did Christ die, but Christ died for our sins. This is one of those little words
that we read over it and over it and over it and think we know
what it means because it means one thing in one place. Then
you look at it in another place. But when you get home, if you
have a strong concordance, look up this little word for, F-O-R. I had no idea, as I was reading
this the other day, what this word meant in this particular
place. And strong says this, it means in the place of, instead
of, for the sake of, as a substitute. And that's what this, half of
this word means. He suffered for our sins. His soul was made an offering
for our sins. He was a substitute. He suffered,
he died for our sins. But amazing thing about this
little word, it means more than that. Strong's also says that
it means superior to, exceeding above, beyond, over and above,
in regard to, or on behalf of. And what he's saying there is
when the Lord Jesus Christ paid for our sins. The payment exceeded
what God required. That's what he's saying. God
required our life, but Christ gave His life. And how much more
exceeding, full of merit, is His life than our life? It's
almost like you're owing a million dollars and you go pay ten million
dollars. That's what he's saying. It exceeds where grace, where
sin abounded. Grace did much more about it.
The death that God required of us, your death and my death,
the death that Christ died was exceeding more great than what
you and I could have died. If you put all of us together
and all of us died and suffered eternity, that wouldn't put away
one sin, not one sin. But the death of Jesus Christ
put away a number of sins that nobody can number. Can you imagine
the sins that you've sinned in your lifetime? Add up all God's
elect of all ages, men and women and children and infants. All
the sin that all His elect have sinned, they were all put upon
the Lord Jesus Christ. And His death was so full of
merit, He put them all away. And there was infinite payment
to spare. over and above. This is why you
and I, though we see our sin to be so great, we know there's
more merit in the death of Jesus Christ to save us than there
is sin in us to damn us. And that's what makes the gospel
good news. Sure, I'm a sinner. Sure, you're a sinner. But God
won't have us to despair. It's not God's will that we despair. He's given us this word. When
we feel our sins, and we see sins mixed with everything that
we do, instead of despairing, remember this word, Christ died
for our sins. There the joy will return to
you. The heart will skip. Lay hold of this by faith. When
you see your awful sins, don't despair. Next week when you fail
and it gets you down and you're discouraged, And you start doubting,
oh, how in the world could a person like me be saved? Run to the
gospel. Take hold of this promise. Yes,
I'm a sinner. Yes, I feel my sin. Yes, I have
the knowledge of my sin, but Christ died for my sin. He rendered to the Father in
heaven a payment, a full, free, sufficient, exceeding payment
for my sins. And when you can lay hold of
that by faith and live upon that, Oh, your heart will skip and
you'll sing and you'll shout the gospel, the blessed gospel. And he says something else about
it here. Look at this. In verse four, and that he was
buried. Christ died for our sins and
that he was buried. This is a vital aspect of the
gospel. Paul says it is. And why even
mention this? That Christ was buried. Well,
it further proves his death. As the son of man, as Jonah,
rather, was three days and three nights in the whale's belly,
the son of man has to be three days and three nights in the
heart of the earth. He had to be buried. He died. His burial gives us another proof
of his death. Why would they bury a man? Because
he's dead. He died. The soldiers came to
those first two thieves that was crucified with our master.
and they were going to kill him. What they did was put him in
shock. If you've never read about the history of how they crucified
people, they had these huge clubs. And when it was necessary, they'd
go there, the cross just stood a foot or two off of the ground.
And they'd take these huge clubs, a soldier would, and they would
break the legs, hit them right across the legs, anywhere from
the ankle up to the hip, and they'd break their legs. And
they broke the legs of the first thief and the second thief. And
what that does, it puts all the weight on the hands. And as they
sank down, it cuts the air off the lungs, the oxygen, the diaphragm
comes up and they smothered to death. They did the first two
thieves that way. They came to the Lord Jesus Christ
to break his legs and they examined him and they said, he's dead
already. He's dead. Some people says they just pitied
him and that's why they didn't break his legs. No, he was dead.
They had no pity for him. If they'd had pity for him, why
did he take that spear and stick it in his side? And they went
to Pilate and he said, he's dead already. So they wrapped him
up and they put him in the grave because he was dead. The Son
of God was dead and the scripture says here that he was buried. But here's the miracle in his
burial. He lay three days and three nights. and his body never began to decay.
There was no discoloration. The pores on his outward portion
of skin never began to rot, never began to decay. Death had no
effect upon him. Three days and three nights he
lay in that tomb and never began to decay. Now ain't that amazing?
And you know why that happened? That don't happen to you and
I. I've seen people just a few short hours after they die, their
skin begins to turn. You can see it in their eyes.
But it had no effect upon the Lord Jesus Christ whatsoever.
And here's the reason why. As soon as he said it's finished
and yielded up the ghost, sin was finished. Sin was purged. That was the end of sin. And
when he lifted up his breath and says, it's finished, that
was the end of death. Death was swallowed up in victory. It had no effect upon him whatsoever. That's why he didn't begin to
rot. The scripture says, thou will not leave thy holy one in
the grave. And you won't suffer him to see
corruption. He saw no corruption because
he was the holy one. Even though He took our sins,
He was so full of merit, as I said, He put that sin away. And because
He was eternal life, He swallowed up death in victory. Death had
no effect upon Him. That's why He never began to
decay. And that's why you and I don't
have to fear death. He took the sting out of it.
He took the corruption out of it. There's no fear in death,
dear brothers and sisters. Not at all. Not at all. You go
ahead and plan your funeral if you want to, dear child of God.
Get the man to preach it. Assign him what text you want
him to preach, if he will. Get you some songs. Get it all
planned out. You don't have to fear death.
Why? Jesus Christ abolished it. It is no more. Oh, you will decay. You will decay. But ain't it
comforting to know that he didn't? He didn't. He got the victory
over death. and over the grave. His body
was holy. It was holy. And it could not
begin to decay or rot. Those dear ladies were standing
there at the tomb. And they said, those angels spoke
to them and said, come down here and see the place where he lay. Those blessed, timid women. No,
you don't want to go in there. Why not? Yeah, come on in here,
they said. He's not here. Come see the place
where he lay. Old Charles Spurgeon said he
hoped, he said, he said, people's going to misunderstand me, he
said, when I say this. But he said, I hope the Lord don't come
until I die. He said, I want to experience
death. Because he said, my Lord's done abolished it. And I want
to get weak and finally die and experience death. That's a good
thought, ain't it? Won't that make your heart skip
for joy? Everybody's scared to death of dying. But as soon as
a believer dies, he just begins to live. Why? Because of this gospel. There's
nothing like it. There's no other hope. But oh,
it's a good hope. It's a good hope. He was buried.
He was buried. And something else about his
burial, he identifies with us. He identifies with us. He knew
you and I were going to be buried. He could have died upon that
cross and they could have took him down and wrapped him up and
he could have ascended right back up to heaven. He said, no, my
people's going to experience that and I'm going to experience
it too. I'm going to know what it is
to go to the grave and die and lay there in that tomb just like
my people. That's why we don't have to be
afraid. And look what else he says in verse four. All of these
are so miraculous things. Christ died, he was buried, didn't
decay, finished death, abolished it, put away sin. brought in
everlasting righteousness, and He rose again the third day. Now, this teaches us in the resurrection,
among other things, this proves to us that God the Father accepted
the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Now, this is an amazing thing
that He took this load of sin and died with it there on the
cross. And you can bet this, knowing the justice of God, that
if Jesus Christ by His own merit had not atoned for that sin and
put it away, He would have to this day been in that tomb. The
reason God raised Him up from the dead is because He put away
sin. There was no sin left. And God
raised Him from the dead and said, Son, sit here at my right
hand because you've accomplished everything that I asked you to
do. Everything. It's finished. The
work is done. That's why it's good news. We
keep coming back to this, don't we? The work is done. The work
is done. And the Lord Jesus there, they
said of Him in Hebrews chapter 1, that He had made the world
and then He came in the flesh and He was in the very image
of God. And it said He by Himself purged
our sins. And what's the next word say?
You remember that? When He had by Himself purged
our sins, then He sat down on the right hand of the majesty
on high. And He sat down there because
He purged our sins. They're gone. They're gone. Stop
trying to do something to purge your own sins away. It's been
done. How do we know? Because Jesus
Christ raised from the dead. And He's on the right hand of
our Father in Heaven. And He offers two proofs of it.
Look at this. He is raised the third day according
to the Scriptures according to the Scripture. You find it all
through the Old Testament. You find it over there in Titus.
You remember those two little birds? When the leper was cleansed,
he came to the priest and for his cleansing, he had two birds.
And one bird, he killed it over running water. And that was the
sacrifice. Remember what he did to the other
bird? He turned it loose. And there he goes, flying out
into the air. There we have the death of Christ
and the resurrection and the ascension of Christ. We have
it in a beautiful picture, Jonah laying down there in the bottom
of the ocean in that whale's belly, and it rises back to the
top and spits him out on dry land. There's the resurrection
of Jesus Christ. And he said, the Lord Jesus said,
you destroyed this temple. And in three days, I'll raise
it up again. They said it took us 40 years to build this temple.
You're going to raise it up in three days? But he was talking
about the temple of his body. And he told his disciples, they
never understood him. He said, I'm going up to Jerusalem
and the chief priests are going to
abuse me. They're going to spit in my face.
And they did that. Called him all sorts of vulgar
names, blasphemed him. And he said, they're going to
betray me into the hands of the Gentiles. And they did that. And they're going to abuse me.
And they're going to mock me and whip me. And afterwards, they're going
to crucify me. They're going to put me to death.
And they did that. But he didn't stop there. He
said, the third day, I'm going to raise again. And he did that
too, didn't he? He did that too. Scripture everywhere
declares to us the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
then we got all of these witnesses. He kept appearing to everybody,
kept saying, peace be unto you, peace be unto you. People who
were so sad, they thought we've lost him forever. We thought
it was him that came to redeem us. No, they were so sad. This is the kind of people the
gospel is for. It's for sad people because it
makes you happy, makes you glad, makes your heart skip for joy. He kept appearing to all these
fellows. And Paul tells us here one time he appeared here to
over 500 brethren at one time. And most of them, he said, are
still alive to this day. And I heard Brother Henry Mahan
said an amazing thing one time. He said, you know, if you try
to plot something up and they accuse these disciples of coming
and stealing away. And Henry said, if you get more
than two guys and they're going to enter into some kind of a
scheme, a plot, one of them is going to tell it if you ain't
careful. He's going to reveal the plot.
How much more when you take 500 men that was witness to His resurrection,
and as far as we know, not a one of them recanted it. Until their
death, they said, no, I saw Him. I saw the resurrected Christ. And Bob, if He rose, you and
I will rise. If He's in heaven now at the
right hand of the Father, that's our ticket there. Because that's
why He died for us. He was buried for us. He raised
for us. And He ascended for us. And He's
there in our Father's house for us. The Lord Jesus Christ is
not a private person. He done nothing for Himself.
Never did. Everything He did and everything
He's doing now, He does for others. He does for others. Well, when I'm finished, I'm
finished. You're such a good people to preach to. Lord bless
your hearts. Lord bless your hearts. You'll have your pastor
back in a few days. And I know you're thankful for
that. And I'm thankful for him too. Bless his heart. He's the
kind of fellow we just, we rev him. Up home we talk awful about
him. But there's not a soul there
that don't love him to death. He is a faithful, faithful man.
And you know it better than I do. But I've been out with him. I've
been out Mexico with him. I've been up north with him.
And he's somebody to have by your side, buddy, when you're
in trouble. I've seen him give his last dime to help somebody. And how in the world he goes
and does what he does, I have no idea. I can't stay with him.
It's a good thing he's not as slim as I am. He would be something,
wouldn't he? Lord bless your hearts. Thank
you, Brother Lindsey. Thank you again for that good
lesson this morning. Lord bless you.