It's a real blessing for me to
be here with you all this morning. I want to ask you, if you will,
to turn with me to Exodus chapter four. I love your pastor, and I can
say with all sincerity, other than my soulmate, who I'm so
glad to have with us today, your pastor is my best friend in this
world. And I love him and appreciate him and I'm thankful for this
church. And he's been such an encouragement to me. Mark, that Bible study this morning
was such a blessing. I told him, I said, that's what
I needed to hear before I preached. Union with Christ, that's the
hope of our salvation. the accomplished work of the
Lord Jesus Christ, satisfying all of God's demands for justice
and righteousness on Calvary's cross. We have an advocate with
the Father. What a blessing. The passage
that Brian read from Exodus chapter 3 prepares us for the message that
I want to try to bring from the fourth chapter of Exodus this
morning. What a glorious picture of salvation
this deliverance from Egypt is. The Lord told Moses, I will raise
up a prophet like unto you, and he will speak the words that
I give unto him. That prophecy was referring to the Lord Jesus
Christ, who would bring spiritual Israel out of the bondage of
slavery, the slavery of sin, the taskmaster of the law, the
one that required more from the children of Israel than they
could ever possibly produce. Every time they got anywhere
close to producing what the taskmasters required, they would increase
the quota. That's a picture of God's law. We can never satisfy
it. The Lord Jesus Christ himself
is the only one that did that. And he's the prophet, like unto
Moses. that came to bring the children
of Israel out from underneath that bondage and give them a
land, as we just read in Exodus chapter 3, a land flowing with
milk and honey. And that's my prayer this morning,
that the Lord would make this to be that land, and that there
would be a flowing of His grace from His Word by His Spirit into
our hearts that would cause us to find our rest, our hope, and
all our satisfaction in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
You have your Bibles open to Exodus chapter four, beginning
at verse one. And Moses answered and said,
but behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice,
for they will say the Lord hath not appeared unto thee. And the
Lord said unto him, what is that in thine hand? And he said, a
rod. And he said, Cast it on the ground.
And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent. And
Moses fled from before it. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Put forth thine hand, and take it by the tail. And he put forth
his hand, and clawed it, and it became a rod in his hand.
That they may believe that the Lord God of thy father, the God
of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob hath appeared
unto thee, And the Lord said, furthermore unto him, put now
thine hand into thy bosom. And he put his hand into his
bosom and he took it out and behold, his hand was leprous
as snow. And he said, put now thine hand
into thy bosom again. And he put his hand into his
bosom again and plucked it out of his bosom and behold, it was
turned again as his other flesh. Verse eight, and it shall come
to pass, if they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the
voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of
the latter sign. And it shall come to pass, if
they will not believe also these two signs, neither hearken unto
thy voice, that thou shalt take of the water of the river and
pour it upon dry ground. The water which thou taketh out
of the river shall become blood upon the dry ground. The Lord gave these miracles
to Moses to perform to convince the children of Israel that God
had sent him. But it wasn't the physical miracle
that they were to be convinced by, but it was the voice of that
sign. Did you notice that in verse
eight? They will hearken unto the voice of the sign. In other
words, the message of the miracle. Three miracles. The rod turned
into a serpent. The hand turned leprous and then
made clean. And thirdly, the water that was
poured out upon dry ground that became blood. I want to preach
these three miracles this morning. And my hope and prayer is that
the Lord will perform a miracle here for us today. Not a miracle that can be sensed
with the eye, but a miracle that can be seen only by the eye of
faith. a miracle that can be felt in the heart, a miracle
that would cause us to taste the sweetness of his word, to
hear the word of God, to smell the savor of his grace. The scripture
says that which is a flesh is flesh, but that which is of the
spirit is spirit. That God would give us an understanding
of what these three miracles mean, convincing us that he sent
the Lord Jesus Christ into Egypt to bring out his people for salvation. That's my hope. That's my prayer. That we'll hear the voice of
the sign. The scripture says it's a wicked
and perverse generation that seeketh after a sign. We're not
looking for a physical manifestation, some proof that that God is real
and that his promises are true. We're looking for him to perform
a miracle in our hearts. And that's my hope this morning. There's a lot of people in this
world and in our nation today that are meeting to celebrate
the miracle, the greatest miracle that ever took place, the miracle
of the resurrection. And they think that because they
believe in the event of the resurrection, that that makes them believers.
To the vast majority of them, they have no understanding of
to what the miracle of the resurrection was all about. The Lord said,
a wicked and perverse generation seeketh after a sign, but no
sign will be given unto it except for the sign of Jonah, which
was a picture of the resurrection, who spent three days and three
nights in the belly of the fish. and then was brought forth. What
does the resurrection really mean? Not that it took place. The scripture says that the children
of Israel saw the acts of God in the wilderness, but Moses
knew God's ways. Our need is not to believe in
the acts of God, but to understand what those acts mean, to hear
the voice of the sign, to understand the purpose of the miracle. What
was the purpose of the miracle of the resurrection? It's the evidence, the proof
that God gives to his people. that God Almighty is completely
satisfied with the finished work of salvation that the Lord Jesus
Christ accomplished on Calvary's cross. I will not allow my Holy
One to see corruption God Almighty was forced by the law, if you
will, to raise the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. Why? Because
He finished the work of salvation. And His resurrection is the evidence
that we have that God in heaven is completely and fully satisfied
with the finished work of salvation for all of God's people, for
all the elect. That's the purpose of the resurrection.
That's the message. That's the voice of the sign.
What is the voice of the sign here? Three miracles that Moses
was to perform. These are not miracles that were
performed for the purpose of bringing judgment against Egypt. That would be the death angel
that would come later. These were miracles that were
to be performed in order to convince the Israelites that Moses was
the deliverer that God had sent to bring them out of Egypt. The
first miracle. The miracle of turning the rod
into a serpent and then bringing the rod, the serpent back to
a rod is a picture of the authority of Christ and his conquering
of Satan. The picture of Moses putting
his hand into his bosom, bringing it out leprous and then putting
it back in is a picture of our condition outside of Christ,
our sinfulness before God. and the cleansing work of the
Lord Jesus Christ for that sin, the removing of our corruption.
In the picture of the blood, of course, you know what that
is. That's a picture of the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In other words, God Almighty alone, by the rod of His power
and authority, saves leprous sinners, making them perfectly
clean by the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's
cross. There's the three miracles. There's the proof. There's the
evidence. There's the voice of the signs. Have you heard that voice? Have you? The Lord said, my sheep
hear my voice. They have an understanding. They
believe, not that it happened, but why it happened. First Corinthians
15 says, how that Christ died and was raised again on the third
day. You see, the message of the gospel
is not a believing in some historical event that took place. It's understanding
what it is that God was telling us through those events. The
first one, go back with me to our text. In Exodus chapter 4, The Lord
said unto him, verse two, what is that in thine hand? And he said, a rod. a rod. This rod is mentioned
many times in the scriptures. Without a doubt, it is a picture
of the authority of God. Look with me over in verse 20
of that same chapter. And Moses took his wife and his
sons and set them upon an ass and they returned to the land
of Egypt. And Moses took the rod of God in his hand. This is the same rod that Moses
cast down before the magicians. You remember? And made it into
a serpent. And the magicians, through their
trickery and through their smoke and mirrors, were able to perform
something similar. But what happened at the end
of that? What did Moses' serpent do to all the other serpents?
What did Moses' rod do to all the other rods? Ate him up, didn't
he? What is that telling us? It's
giving us some understanding of the authority that Moses brought
with him when he carried the rod of God. It's helping us to
understand that the Lord Jesus Christ is the one who is able
in all power and in all authority to save his people. Did the Lord
not say to us, go into all the world make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the
Holy Spirit. Lo, I'm with you always, even unto the end of
the world. What did he say before that? All power has been given
unto me in heaven and in earth. Here's the authority of Christ.
What does it say to us? There is no salvation apart from
bowing to the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the
same rod that Moses used when he raised it up into heaven and
brought the plague of locusts against Egypt. It's the same
rod that he used when he raised it up by the command of God to
divide the Red Sea and to provide a way for the children of Israel
to escape. It's the same rod that he used
to smite the rock. A picture of God's authority
and the law one time, smiting the rock. in order to satisfy
justice, that rock being Christ. That's this rod. It's Aaron's
rod that represented the priest's authority. You remember when
the children of Israel were murmuring over the authority of Moses and
Aaron? And God told Moses, he said,
you get a leader from each of the 12 tribes to bring his rod
and cast it on the ground. And you put Aaron's rod there
along with him. And they did that. The next morning
they came and what happened? Aaron's rod had budded and produced
fruit, didn't it? What was God saying? I have chosen
Aaron as the priest with authority over the children of Israel.
This rod is a picture of authority. The Lord, the scripture says
in Psalm 110, shall send the rod of his strength out of Zion
to rule in the midst of his enemies. It's the same rod Solomon talked
about when he said, if you spare the rod, you hate the child. In other words, children need
to understand authority. They need to be taught to submit
to authority. That's what this picture of the
rod is. It's a picture of the authority of Christ revealed
in the inerrancy of the Word of God. I know that in our scientific,
educated society, that if you say that you believe that the
Bible is the inspired, inerrant, full Word of God, that you're
looked down upon as an uneducated, redneck Neanderthal. You know,
you just haven't been You haven't been exposed to the truth yet.
We believe the Word of God is the truth. Pilate asked the Lord Jesus Christ,
are you the King of the Jews? And the Lord Jesus Christ said,
for this cause came I into the world. To do what? To manifest the truth. He said, I am the way, the truth,
and the life. You see, there is no salvation
apart from bowing to the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
the picture of the rod here. In Psalm 2, we read, Why did
the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? And they
set themselves together and they take counsel against the Lord
and against His anointed. And the Lord sits in the heavens,
unthreatened by their foolishness. and holds them in derision and
laughs at them. And in verse 9, the Scripture
says in Psalm 2, that if they don't bow and kiss the Son, that
He will smite them with the rod of His judgment and break them
to pieces like a potter's vessel. There's the rod. It's the same rod that David
spoke about in Psalm 23. When he said, though I walk through
the valley of the shadow of death, I'll fear no evil, for thy rod
and thy staff, they do comfort me. You see, the one who has
bowed to the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who
believes that He is the truth of God, revealed fully and truthfully
and completely in the Word of God, is not threatened by that
authority, they're comforted by it. They're comforted by it. I have an advocate with the Father. I have one who has the authority
before God to speak my name and to represent me before God. I
have a sin bearer. I have a substitute. I have one
who has all authority given to him in heaven and on earth. That's
what we're in need of. The Lord told Moses, take that
rod in your hand, cast it on the ground, And then what happened
to that rod? What happened to that rod? Turned
into a serpent, didn't it? Now, I live in Florida. We've got a lot of snakes in
Florida. The only snake I'm worried about is the one I can't see.
If I can see them, I'm pretty much okay with them because I
can outrun a snake. But I know this about snakes.
You don't pick up a live snake by the tail. If you're going
to pick up a snake, you better pick him up right behind the
head. That thing will come around and bite you. What God say to
Moses, look at it, pick it up by the tail. Now, when I pick
up a dead snake in my yard, that's how I pick him up. Pick him up
by the tail, carry him over, drop him off somewhere. What
is this a picture of? It's a picture of what the Lord
Jesus Christ did when He Himself, by Himself, destroyed the works
of the devil. It's a picture of what the Lord
Jesus Christ did when God said the seed of the woman would crush
the head of the serpent. It's a picture of what the Lord
Jesus Christ did when he tore down the gates of hell. You remember
that story of Samson going into the city of the Philistines and
taking those huge iron gates and carrying them off and providing
access for the children of Israel to go in and defeat the enemy?
There's Christ. There's Christ. The gates of
hell shall not be able to prevail against him. Why? Because he
is the rod of God. He is the one with authority.
He is the one to defeat the devil. He is the one to put away sin.
That's the picture here. They will believe that you've
been sent of God when they hear the voice of this sign. Have you heard that voice? Do
you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ did everything necessary
to lead captivity captive? Those who were captive to sin,
those who were unable to believe, those who had their eyes blinded
by the God of this world, was that you? Did the Lord Jesus
Christ, as the rod of God, destroy the works of the devil and bring
forth out of the very pit of hell his people? Did he accomplish
our salvation? That's the voice of the sign.
And there's no salvation apart from believing that. There's
no salvation apart from bowing to the authority of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He quenches the fires of hell. Just like the three Hebrew children
that were thrown into that fiery furnace. And what did the king
say? Did we not throw three into the
fire? Bound? They were bound when they
were put into the fire. What did he say? I see four walking
among the fire. And the fourth is like what?
The Son of God. There's the Lord Jesus Christ,
loosing the binds of unbelief, the bondage of sin. And when
they came out of that fire, what's the scripture say? Not a hair
of their head was singed. The smell of smoke could not
even be found upon their garments. Why? Because that fourth man
was the God-man. It was the Lord Jesus Christ
who walked with him and he has authority to quench the very
fires of hell and bring his children out of destruction. Moses, what is that in your hand?
It's a rod. Throw it down. That's what the
Lord Jesus Christ came down. He came off of his throne. born of a woman, born under the
law to redeem those who were cursed by the law. What did he do? He killed that
serpent. He delivered his people. And when they hear the voice
of that son, they'll believe that I've sent you and they'll
follow you out of Egypt. See, the truth is that the Word of God is a revelation
of the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what it is. The Lord said to the Pharisees,
you search the scriptures. Oh, you think you're so smart.
You think you're so intellectual. You think that your knowledge
of the scripture somehow provides for you eternal life, but you
miss the message of the scripture, for these are they which testify
of me. You see, it's hearing the voice
of the sign. It's seeing how these miracles
point us to the Lord Jesus Christ and believing Him. Paul said,
not, I know what I have believed, but he said, I know whom I have
believed. And I am persuaded that He is
able to keep that which I've committed unto Him. I'm trusting
him for my salvation. He's the rod of God. He's the
one who came down from heaven, who though he thought it not
robbery to be equal with God, made of himself of no reputation
and became a servant. To do what? To crush the head
of the serpent, to destroy the works of the devil. The Lord
Jesus Christ himself is the authority of God. What's the second sign? What's the voice of the second
sign? What is it that we're to understand from this miracle
of Moses putting his hand into his breast, into his bosom and
then taking it out and it being leprous and putting it back and
it being made whole again? Well, the first thing I want,
there's three things in this miracle. There's the breast,
the bosom, there's the hand and there's leprosy. What is the
breast a picture of? It's a picture of the heart.
Moses puts his hand in, he pulls his hand out, and it's leprous. And in Deuteronomy chapter 13,
one of the reasons your pastor is so special to me, the first
time I ever heard the gospel, first time I ever heard the gospel,
he preached a message from the cleansing of the leper in Deuteronomy
chapter 13. And the Lord opened the eyes
of my understanding, the ears of my understanding, and enabled
me to see. And what a blessing. If you go to that passage in
Deuteronomy 13 and read it, you'll find that white leprosy was the
worst kind of leprosy. What is this a picture of? It's
a picture of our natural condition outside of Christ. It's a picture
of how it is that we come into this world leprous with sin. We're dead in our trespasses
and in our sins. And the breast is a picture of
the bosom is a picture of the heart. Oh, Jeremiah put it like
this. The heart is deceitful above
all things, desperately wicked who can know it. You hear men
say, well, he's got a good heart. That's not what God says. It's
not what God says. As a matter of fact, in Genesis
chapter six, the scripture says that God looked down from heaven
and peered into the very heart of man and saw that every imagination
of his heart was evil continually. That's God's assessment of the
bosom of the sons and daughters of Adam. You see, we're in need not of
the Lord fixing our hearts, We're not interested in the Lord putting
a new patch on an old garment. We're not interested in Him putting
a new wine in an old wineskin. We're in need of a new heart.
We're in need of regeneration. We're in need of the Lord God
to do a miracle in us, taking out that dead, cold, stony, lifeless
heart and putting in a warm, beating, believing heart of flesh. That's what he promised to do.
That's what that's a picture of. God changing the heart and
cleansing the leprosy. Why a hand? Well, the hand is
a picture of works. That's what it's a picture of.
You're going to do works. You're going to do it with your hand. Man's
hand is a picture of all that he thinks that he can do. Not
having my own righteousness, Paul said, which is of the law.
but that righteousness which is by the faith of the Lord Jesus
Christ. We are dependent upon the strong
right hand of God to do the work of salvation for us. Not by works
of righteousness which we've done. It's not by the works of
our hand. It's by the work that He performed
that we have hope of our salvation. And He did it all. He did every
bit of it. I have a good friend and a brother
in Christ who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. And that's about,
I think about eight hour drive from Orlando. He was down visiting
us one time a couple of years ago. And he is a premier stone
and tile mason. born and raised in Russia and
brought his skills over here, fifth-generation tile worker. Some of you know Eugene. I see
you shaking your head. And I had started on a tile job
in my house, tiling a shower in one of my bathrooms. And I'd
done some other tile work in my house and Eugene was there.
I said, Eugene, help me finish this tile job. Well, Eugene had
already seen the other tile work that I had done in my house.
And Eugene said to me, he said, he said, Brother Greg, he said,
I'll do that tile work for you under one condition. I said,
what is that? He said, that you don't do any
of it. I said, well, at least I can
be here to help. He said, oh, no, no. He said, the only way I'm
going to do it is that if I do it all or I won't do it at all.
I said, well, you know, that's what you want. So I said, well,
let me go get my tools. He said, no, I can't use your
tools. Eugene got in his car, drove
eight hours to Charlotte, North Carolina, got his tools, came
back to Orlando, and you've never seen a tile job like that tile
job. He said, I'm going to do it all
or I won't do it at all. The Lord Jesus Christ gets all
the glory in salvation. And your tools aren't even good
enough. You can't make any contribution.
You can't add anything, take anything away. He's going to
do it all. Our hand is corrupt. It's corrupt
with leprosy. It needs to be cleansed. His
hand. Who is it that can stand before
God? He who has a pure heart and clean hands. Clean hands
and a pure heart. Who is that? That's only the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only acceptable righteousness
before God. We are accepted before God Almighty
only in the Beloved. He's going to do it all or he
won't do it at all. He's not going to use our will.
He's not going to use our works. It is not of him that willeth
nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. And
when he does it, it's going to be done right. If we try to add anything to
it or take anything away from it, well, we're just proving
that we're still leprous. What a picture of sin leprosy
is. What a picture of our condition. Leprosy, as I understand it,
is an inherited disease. Many children are born into this
world with a genetic disease of leprosy, which often is not
manifest until later. There's our condition. It's a
disease of the blood. Life is in the blood and there's
our corruption before God. It's contagious. Oh, isn't that
the way sin is? How contagious sin is. It's just
everything about leprosy. It rots the flesh, it kills the
nervous system, causes us to become numb, sears the heart. Isn't that what sin is? That's
our condition. That's our condition before God.
Moses, take your hand, put it into your breast, next to your
heart, that stony heart, pull it out. You see what it looks
like? Now put it back in after I change
your heart. Take it out again. It'll be pure, it'll be clean,
it'll be perfect in Christ. Have you heard the voice of that
sign? Daniel, you see, this doesn't
come until we see the accomplished work and glorious person of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Daniel, I love the description
that he gives of Christ when the Lord reveals himself to him.
And Daniel said, when I saw him, my comeliness, that which I thought
was acceptable before God, that which I thought was beautiful,
that which I thought was good, lovely, was turned into, what? Corruption. turned into corruption. Isaiah said, I saw the Lord high
and lifted up. John chapter 12 makes it clear
that the one that Isaiah saw sitting upon that throne high
and lifted up was none other than the Lord Jesus Christ and
all of his splendor and glory. What's the first thing out of
Isaiah's mouth? Woe is me. I am undone. I'm the problem. Same thing the Apostle Paul talked
about when he said, that which I thought was gain, that which
I thought was profitable, that which I thought was earning me
favor with God, that which I thought was giving me some merit of salvation,
was the very thing that was keeping me from Christ, trusting in Him. And now I count all things but
loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my
Lord, and do consider them to be, what? Dung. dung. That's my righteousness. Our
righteousnesses are as filthy rags before God. Leprous, that's
what we are. Apart from the cleansing work
of the Lord Jesus Christ and His righteousness, we have no
hope of salvation. Have you heard the voice of the
signs? The Lord told Moses, you go down
there and you perform these miracles before the children of Israel.
And when they hear the voice of the sign, they'll know that
I've sent you. And finally, Moses, I want you
to go and take some water out of the river Nile and pour it
out on dry ground. And that water is going to become
blood. When they see that sign, what
was the Nile a picture of? It was a picture of life, as
is water. Water is a picture of life. Without water, there
can be no life. And yet, when that Roman soldier
thrust this sword into the side of the Lord Jesus Christ, hanging
on Calvary's cross, what came out? Water, picture of cleansing,
and blood. picture of judgment. You see,
the truth is that Egypt needed to experience the judgment of
God when God turned the whole river into blood. That was the
river that the Egyptians had murdered the Israelites' children
in. They cast them into the river.
And God was going to show his authority over Egypt when he
turned their river of life into a river of blood. But now he's
showing to the children of Israel That that judgment that goes
against Egypt for their sin is the judgment that God was going
to exercise and execute against the Lord Jesus Christ. That was
the sword of God's justice that was plunged into the side of
the Lord Jesus Christ. It pleased God to bruise His
Son and to make His soul an offering for sin. The Lord Jesus Christ
is that bloody sacrifice on Calvary's cross. And apart from the shedding
of blood, there's no remission of sin. And what the Lord Jesus
Christ did on Calvary's cross, when he poured out his blood
before God, he satisfied. all the demands of God's justice
for all the ones that God had chosen in the Lamb's Book of
Life. You see, before the foundations
of the world, God had dipped his finger in the very blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ and etched in stone the Lamb's Book
of Life with the ink of blood the names of those for whom the
Lord Jesus Christ would live and die. And the judgment of
God would fall on Christ, the sinner's substitute. And when God saw it, He said,
I'm satisfied. I'm satisfied. Divine justice
has been met. Sin's put away. You see, our salvation was accomplished
When the Lord Jesus Christ bowed his mighty head on Calvary's
cross and cried out, it is finished. Father into thy hands, I commend
my spirit. He was offered up for our offenses
and raised again because of our justification. We were justified
before God. When Christ died on Calvary's
cross, we were justified. All God's people were justified. Moses, take that water of life, pour it out on dry ground, and
it's going to become blood. And when I see the blood, not
when I see your sacrifice, not when I see your commitment, not
when I see how devoted you are, But when I see the blood, it's
the same blood that came from that spotless lamb, just a little
while later, when God instructed Moses to take a lamb, one lamb
for a household, take that lamb and slay it, and take the blood
of that lamb and put it on the doorpost in the middle of the
door, and when the deaf angel comes by, he'll pass by. Oh,
what a glorious Passover that was. And what was to happen to
the lamb? The lamb was to be completely
consumed, every bit of it. Why? To demonstrate the fiery
wrath of God's judgment coming upon the lamb of God, which taketh
away the sins of the world. And God said, when I see the
blood, when I see the blood, when I see what Christ has done
for you, I'll be satisfied. I'll be satisfied. Have you heard the voice of the
Son? God Almighty alone, by the authority
of the rod of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, has the ability and has
accomplished the cleansing of the lepers by
giving them a new heart. through the shed blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And when they see, when they
see these signs, they'll believe. And they'll follow you. And I'll
bring them out. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, In need of that salvation, we're
in need of your voice to speak effectually to our hearts, to
cause us to bow before the rod of God, the Lord Jesus Christ
who crushed the head of the serpent. We're in need, Lord, of you to
cleanse the leprosy of our sin, make us whole, give us a new
heart, a new nature. And we thank you for the shedding
of that precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's
cross, which accomplished that work for us. We ask, Lord, that
you would open our ears, give us hearts to believe, cause us
to find all our rest and all our hope in Christ, who we ask
it in his name. Amen.