Words from the Other Side

Well, many folks today are fascinated with seeking to contact family members who have died and gone on the other side. That's become very, very popular. For a few years, there was a popular television program. I think it ran for about four years. I never saw the program, but I've read about it called Crossing Over. Self-proplained psychic and medium John Edward would pray on people's desire to know something about their loved ones, to know how they were doing, to know what was going on, whatever. He prayed on that desire and actually would call people up from the audience and do say answers or whatever, try to contact their loved ones. After 9-11, he actually filmed a program where he supposedly was going to contact people who had died in the Twin Towers or their family members. And there was such a national outcry about him manipulating that tragedy that it never aired, thankfully. There's a great danger in seeking to go beyond the grave, to the other side, to contact a loved one. There's great danger in that the Bible condemns that as the gateway to the occult and demonic influence. If you are involved in that kind of activity, you literally are opening yourself up for demonic influence. It's a very dangerous thing that the Bible warns against. Everything we need to know about what happens beyond the grave, everything we need said to us by anyone beyond the grave comes from Christ. The one who went beyond the grave and has come back to communicate with us. Jesus came to this earth, died for our sins, was buried, rose again, and he stayed for a while to communicate with his disciples. We are in John chapter 20, and so I invite you to that passage of Scripture today. We're going to go back to the day that he rose from the grave where he comes back and says some things that actually give us an eternal perspective, a divine perspective on what lies beyond the grave. And all we need to hear from beyond the grave. What a day the day of Christ's resurrection has been. There have been multiple folks that have gone to the tomb at various times. Multiple reports have come back to the disciples about what people have seen, what they have heard, what they have experienced. By now it is evening when we come to verse 19 in John chapter 20. By now it is evening and the disciples are clustered together in the upper room. They are hiding. By now, Cleopus and his wife have come back from their journey home to Emmaus to come back to Jerusalem to tell the disciples their experience, meeting Jesus on the road to Emmaus and all that happened there. But the disciples are gathered in fear, huddled together, trying to put together pieces of information, make sense of what they've heard, make sense of what some have seen. They are in a closed room with shuttered windows and a barred door and all of a sudden Jesus himself appears and pierces their gloom and confusion. And he speaks, he talks with them. And these words, the words Jesus gives from beyond the grave are words that we still need to hear today. So this is what we need to hear. You do not need to contact anyone else to find out what's happening beyond the grave. Jesus words from beyond the grave are what we still need to hear today. So what did he say? What did he feel was so important for his disciples to know on that day coming back from the dead to speak to them? Jesus actually communicates four things to them in this first corporate meeting with the disciples in the upper room. First of all, he gives them words of comfort. Look with me, please at verse 19. On the evening of the first day of the week when the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you. After he said this, he showed them his hands inside the disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. This is an amazing greeting of peace and not at all what the disciples must have expected. I mean, think about from their perspective what has happened over the last two or three days. Think about their miserable failure of their Lord. Think about the Garden of Gethsemane and they turn and run when Jesus is arrested. Peter and John finally make it into the arena where the trials are being held, but Peter denies his Lord three times. And the rest of the disciples are hiding while Jesus is crucified. Think of what they have done to let the Lord down to fail him. Probably they are expecting a rebuke. Probably they are expecting correction. I am confident that their hearts raced. The adrenaline flow. They had goosebumps on their goose bumps. I'm I'm sure they were fighting. In fact, Luke's gospel tells us they were frightened because they were thinking they had seen a ghost. So here they are gathered, huddled together in fear in the upper room. And when Jesus shows up, they're startled and frightened, not just because they think they've seen a ghost, but when they begin to recognize who he is, what is he going to say to them? Surely he will rebuke them, correct them, chastise them, discipline them. No, he says peace. Peace be with you. I know some of you are thinking in my generation growing up in the 60s. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking peace, brothers. You know, that kind of countercultural, anti-establishment, familiar greeting of the day with some anti-war groups and other groups of that day. And that's not at all what this scene looks like. Jesus is not greeting them with a hippie kind of peace. Jesus is greeting them with a Hebrew kind of peace. It is Jewish greeting that is going on here. And when Jesus says peace be with you, he is greeting them with a standard typical Jewish Hebrew greeting, which means something far more expansive and deep than our shallow peace, brother. It is to be in right relationship with God. It is for all to be well with you. What Jesus is saying to them is, I wish you well-being in the fullest sense of the word. I wish you all the blessing of God in your life. I wish for you that life would be at its best that you would enjoy all of the blessing of God. I trust all as well with you, as all as well with me. That's what he's saying. That's an incredible greeting in the light of what they had done. Peace be with you. He's not here to correct them. He's not here to rebuke them. He is here to put their hearts and minds at ease. He is here to give them comfort. And that speaks volumes to me about what we should expect and also about the character of our Lord. Because it says to me, how Jesus comforts us. You see, maybe you're here today and you have failed the Lord. Don't we all? We all have times of weakness. We all have times when we turn our backs on the Lord and we fail him and we sin. Maybe you're here today and you're just down. You're hurting. I want to tell you that Jesus is not here today. Jesus does not come to your heart and soul to blast away at you or to dress you down for your failures. Jesus comes to speak tender words of peace to you. If he would do that for the disciples in the upper room, after all they've done to fail him in the last couple of days, surely he's speaking that to you as well. I love how the scriptures describe Jesus in the Gospels, Matthew chapter 12, verses 19 and 20, fulfilling Old Testament prophecy. Say this about Jesus. He will not quarrel or cry out the ideas crying out for attention. No one will hear his voice in the streets. I know you want to finish that verse, but think for just a moment. What it's saying here is Jesus is not the kind of personality that rushes into the room and clamors for attention. It's got to be the center of attention and the is crying out for people to notice him. Now there's something far greater that draws us to Jesus. Here's his approach, a bruised read, he will not break. And a smoldering wick, he will not snuff out till he has brought justice through to victory. Until God accomplishes what he wants to do in your life, he will never. He will never. When you are a bruised read, when you are bruised and hurting and your strength is almost gone to the point that you feel the flame is just about to flicker out. And you will become just a smoldering wick. He will not further bruise that read. He will not snuff out that smoldering wick. He will not beat you up. He will not treat you harshly. When you're hurting, he comes to you with a tender, compassionate, loving, gentle, gracious voice. That's what he did with the disciples and I'm convinced he does that with us. We sometimes get the view of Jesus that I kind of like to call it the cowboy Jesus. Brash, brusque in your face. The only time Jesus ever expressed anger was its self-righteous religious hypocrites, never toward hurting sinful people. Oh, they tried to get him to do that. Those very self-righteous religious hypocrites brought a woman that they had caught in adultery. That's an interesting story. How do you catch someone in adultery unless you've planted that whole situation? But that's the point. They bring this woman to Jesus. They're going to stone her and they want to know what he says. They're digging at him. They're trying to prompt him to be angry and mean and he refuses. By the way, friends, we must be careful in our cultural climate today, not to become angry and mean. There's plenty to be upset about. There's plenty to be righteously anger over. I understand that. We've all experienced those feelings as we've listened to the Supreme Court rulings as we've seen the unmasking of Planned Parenthood. As we see all that's going on in our culture, there's plenty to be upset about. Plenty to be righteously angry about. But we need to be careful not to turn our anger and wrath against sinful people. We've got to be careful. We have to reach out in love and not become mean-spirited and pointing our fingers at lost people who need Jesus. We've got to be very careful today. To stand firmly, yes, against sin, but to reach out in love to sinful people because we are sinful people too. And we have received mercy and grace from Christ, we too, rather than being mean-spirited and pointing our finger and going after folks, we need to express the love and grace of Christ. There are lots of folks around us who don't understand because they don't know Jesus. And what they need most is not a moral change. They need Jesus. And we need to make sure we don't drive them away with a mean-spirited Christianity. So while we make clear our stand, while we are willing to die for that stand, if need be, let us never become mean-spirited toward those who need Jesus. Words of comfort for weak and failing disciples. But those are not the only words Jesus spoke. Jesus also spoke words of commission. He gave them something to do. He commissioned them to do something. And He does us as well. Notice verse 21. Again, Jesus said, peace be with you. This is the second of three occasions. Jesus will say this in meetings with His disciples in this text. So again, peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. So these are our orders. We are being sent out just like the Father sent Jesus into the world. You see, the Father sent Jesus out of his place of great comfort out of all of the glories of heaven. Sent him to this world so that he might bring God's love and grace and forgiveness to this lost and dying world. Jesus came to tell us of God's love. He came to demonstrate God's grace. He came to die to pay the penalty for God's wrath against us. That's why He was sent into this world. And He is sending us out into this world. We are not to be isolated within our churches. We are not to be isolated within our little groups. We are sent out into the world. And we must hear that commission. Those are our orders. To go out into the world. Jesus prayed that would be so in His high priestly prayer before He went to the cross in John 17. He prayed that the Father would not take us out of the world, but that He would send us into the world like Jesus was sent. That's God's desire for us. I am grateful for every ministry of this church which seeks to do that. We have a lot of outreach ministries. I don't know. 8 or 10 of those kind of outreach ministries like celebrate recovery and 3D archery and other target groups like mobs and divorce care and grief shared. Doorscare for kids. All kinds of groups that seek to either get folks here who are hurting to introduce them to the love of Christ. We seek to get out into the community to take the gospel to them. But what's missing? What's missing? Is you and me individually taking these orders seriously? We do not need another ministry. I don't think I'm certainly open to that. However, we can most effectively reach our community. But what we need more than another outreach or another ministry is for you and me to take these orders seriously. This is a command for me. This is a command for you. And we've got to take it seriously to go out into our community. You work in places. You have neighbors that I will never even meet and will never find their way to this church. God has strategically placed each of us in our corner of his vineyard work, his work and the world so that we can be salt and light and be out there. Did you know that if every one of us reached one more person with the gospel and got them to Christ and to this church we'd have to build a new auditorium or have four services. We could not hold 1100 people in two services in this church. If each of us reached one other person, what's missing is not another neat little packaged program. What's missing is us taking these orders seriously. I am responsible to go into the world to reach out to people with the gospel to be salt and light in my neighborhood and my community and my circle of influence wherever God puts me. If it's in the hospital, if it's in a nursing home, if it's in someone else's home, if it's visiting my neighbor helping with some yard work, whatever. That's my world. Jesus sent us into the world not to be coistered from it, but to invade it with the gospel and the very presence of Christ. Those are our orders. But he's also given us our power. The power to be able to do this. Look at verse 22 and with that he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit. Now you can debate the theology of this all day long and I love to do that. There are at least four different views as to what this means. Receive you the Holy Spirit. Was this some kind of pre-pennacost in dwelling of the Spirit before the day of Pennacost or was this just looking forward to the day of Pennacost or was this just kind of saying you need some power right now for what you're facing? Okay, I'm not going to try to solve that problem right here and that's not germane to us here this morning. My point this morning is this. Whatever this actually looks like as far as what was happening to the disciples right there. Jesus is communicating to us that in order to carry out our orders we need his power. We need the power of the Spirit of God. So are you afraid to be light in your community or in your neighborhood or in your workplace? Are you afraid to be salt? Try to halt the spread of corruption and sin and evil. Are you afraid to do that? You're not depending on the spirits of power. He's given the Holy Spirit to you. He's there. He's indwelling you. You have the power to move out into your world. We have our orders. We have our power. Now we just need a message. That's what he gives us next. Here's our message in verse 23. If you forgive anyone his sins they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them they are not forgiven. There's been a mountain of ink spilled over that verse as to what that means. There are those who think that what God was telling what Jesus was telling the disciples was you actually have the authority to forgive people sins and make them right with God. You actually save people. And so those who believe that have taught that those who have proceeded from the apostles and their churches who actually teach this those who have proceeded down from the apostles and contrase your lineage back to them spiritual leaders still have the power today to forgive sins if you just confess your sins to them. That's not what Jesus is saying. I admit it. It looks like it. It sounds like it. But it's simply the awkwardness of our dear old English language. And since that's the only one we speak we've got to live with it. But there's some awkwardness here as to how to translate this. You can't take a complex concept and put it into just two or three words and really give all the meaning of it. That's why the language this was originally written in is so amazing. It was so precise. The perfect sense of the verb is used here in the original language. Basically it communicates this. It communicates something that has happened in the past but has ongoing consequences. And therefore you stand settled in those consequences. Now how do you translate that? Well the way the English translators chose to translate it was you just are forgiven. You stand forgive. You're in that standing of forgiveness before God. But what Jesus was actually saying is if you communicate the message of forgiveness to people and they trust Jesus as their savior and and get saved then what God has already done in heaven to forgive their sins you're announcing that they will be forgiven and they will continue to say. You will continue to stand before God in the consequences of that forgiveness. Now I can understand why they just simply translate it you're forgiven. They're forgiven. They just stand forgiven. But that's what's behind all of this. That's what Jesus was saying. I know that's the way the disciples understood it because that's the way Peter practices it in his preaching in the book of Acts. Just pick out one example. Acts 10 when he's been Cornelius's household verse 43 it's on the screen for you. Here's the way Peter practices what Jesus told him to do. All the prophets testify about him, that Christ, that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. Okay, Peter didn't go out saying, okay, I pronounce you forgiven. I just saved you. I just made you right with God. Peter didn't do that. Peter said what I'm doing is I'm announcing the message of the prophets. All the prophets testify this. I'm giving you their message, the message of the Word of God. Here's the message. If you believe in Christ as your Savior, you receive forgiveness of sins not through me, but through his name through Christ. And so our message is this, the Word of God teaches that if you believe that Jesus Christ came to die for your sins and you place your faith in him and him alone to save you from your sins, make you right with God and give you a home in heaven, then your sins will be forgiven. That's the message we announce. And we announce it on the basis of God's Word and what it says about the forgiveness of sins. I don't have the authority to forgive anybody's sins. Jesus is not talking about here about forgiving my neighbor when he says something about me or does something, you know, or needing that kind of forgiveness because I've done that to someone else. He's not talking about personal relationships here. He's talking about your forgiveness and your righteous standing before God and only God can do that. But I have the unique privilege and all of us can of announcing that message to other people. And when they trust Jesus, they stand in forgiveness. Their sins have been forgiven and they live in the consequences of that perfect standing before God. That's wonderful. That's our message. So we've been given a commission and our message is the message of forgiveness through Christ. You ever wanted to just kind of erase a part of your life, wish you could go back, rewind the tape a little bit, go back and start from that point and redo it. You ever wanted to do that? Well, you have such a pious looks on your faces. I know you have all of us have one young man by the name of Michael Beckman actually tried to do it. 31 years old, but he's blessed with a baby face and a young looking countenance. So he decided to go back to his high school as a high school senior and actually graduate and wanted to go to college and now make something of his life because his life hadn't done very well up to this point. Actually, he was running from the law. He had been charged with grand theft and forgery and he had not been caught. So he decided he would try to disguise himself. Just go back to high school, kind of start over and do it right this time. Well, that kind of worked okay until one day in fourth period choir class, a law enforcement official came in called him out of class said, I need a little help identifying someone pulled out a high school annual from grand high school from 14 years ago and said, who is this? And the gig was up. It was him. It was in that school 14 years ago. But you know what, there is a sense in which you can erase everything you've ever done that was bad. It was wrong. Can you erase it? It can be taken off of God's record books in heaven. If you will accept Christ as your savior, the Bible teaches that your record book in heaven is completely washed clean of all sin past, present, future. That's do with your standing before God, your eternal destiny, your salvation, the record is clean. You get a fresh start and you get an eternity in heaven. And now the situation is as a believer, if you sin, which we all do, we all still let our Lord down and fail him at times. If we fail him, then we are to confess our sins as a family disruption and he will confess or he will cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Forgive us. And that family strain will be put back together. That's our commission and our message of forgiveness. But Jesus spoke not only words of comfort and words of commission, He all spoke words of conviction, words of conviction. Look at them with me, words of conviction to Thomas. First is 24 to 26. We hear Thomas dealing with doubt. And he's known as doubting Thomas. When I was a kid, I used to think that was his first name. The last name was Thomas. First name doubting. We always heard that. Doubting Thomas. I never heard him just Thomas. Doubting Thomas. And he is a doubter, but so are most of the rest of us. Let's see how he deals with doubt. Verse 24. Now Thomas called Didamus, which means twin. One of the twelve was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So that first night when Jesus appeared to the disciples in the upper room, he wasn't there. Verse 25. So the other disciples told him, we have seen the Lord, but he said to them, unless I see the nail marks and his hands and put my finger where the nails were and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it. Verse 26. A week later, his disciples were in the house again and Thomas was with them. Here's how Thomas deals with doubt. He has to have evidence. He has to have proof. Now I don't know why Thomas wasn't there that first night. He's certainly not a coward. In John chapter 11, when Jesus was going to go back up to Jerusalem to raise Lazarus from the dead and all the disciples were saying, no, no, no, you can't do that. The Jews are trying to kill you. The religious leaders will kill you if you set foot near Jerusalem. And Thomas in verse 16 says, let us go with him and die also. I mean, the guy is not a coward. So he wasn't absent because of that. I don't know why it wasn't there. You know, all of us deal with grief in different ways. And maybe he was the kind of guy that when he got the news and had experienced what happened in the garden. Maybe he's the kind of guy that just needs to be off in a corner by himself somewhere. I don't know. We don't know why it wasn't there, but I'll give him credit for these two things. Number one, he was honest. At least he was honest with these doubts. He didn't try to put on a sign of bravado. Oh, that's wonderful. That's great. Now he was honest. He said, I'm sorry. I'm not going to believe it unless I see it. So I get him credit for that and also get him credit that he was actually there a week later. He hadn't given up on the disciples. What happens to a lot of us when we begin to have doubts or failures, low times in our lives spiritually. We leave. We're gone from the body of believers that we need the most. I give him credit for the fact that at least he was there a week later, even though he still has the doubts, he was there. And Jesus shows up. So now let's look at how Jesus deals with doubt. Middle of verse 26, though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you again. This greeting, a third time. Verse 27, then he said to Thomas, now just imagine this, if you will, Jesus appears and they're not seeing him every day. And so this is still quite a shock. So he speaks to all the disciples and then he zeros in on Thomas. Can you can you put yourself in Thomas's sandals and just look at that gaze of Christ right at you and think, oh boy, here it comes. Notice how Jesus dealt with him. Put your finger here. See my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe. Now Jesus does something very interesting here. He invites Thomas to look, to touch. You want proof? Okay, here it is. I'll give it to you. And he offers him every bit of evidence that Thomas said he needed. He gave it to him. It's there. The proof is there. I think his words were gentle, but I also think they were very direct and I think they were very convicting. You see, when Jesus comes to us in our doubts, he's willing to give proof and evidence when we demand it. He's willing to do that sometimes. But he really wants us to stop doubting and start believing. There's plenty of proof. There's plenty of evidence out there. But his real message to us is the penetrating conviction into our hearts. Stop doubting and start believing. You need proof? Okay, I'll give you proof. There's plenty of proof. Now stop doubting and believe. Ultimately, everything we hold in the Christian life and in the Christian faith is by faith. It is not based on evidence. Evidences are great. They're wonderful. They're confirming. They're exciting. But if you base what you believe on them, you stand rebuke before Jesus. Because Jesus says, okay, you need evidence? Okay, I'll lure myself in grace to where you are. But you need to stop doubting and start believing. When Thomas hears that, he simply, powerfully exclaims his faith. First, 28, Thomas said to him, my Lord and my God. There's no evidence that he ever took Jesus up. No evidence that he ever touched the nail prints in his hands or put his hand in his side where the spirit appears. No evidence that he actually said, okay, I'm going to make sure. No. Once he saw the Lord Jesus and heard those penetrating, convicting words, stop doubting and believe. He not before Jesus as his Lord and his God. That's where we need to be. That's where we need to be. Words of conviction. But then Jesus issues one more statement from beyond the grave. These are words of commendation. Notice them in verse 29. Then Jesus told him, because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Guess what? His words are for us. He's talking about us in this passage. He says to Thomas, because you've seen me, you believed. You needed evidence. You needed proof. I gave it to you. You saw the evidence. You believed. Well, and good. That's fine. But I reserve special blessing for those who do not see. Cannot see. But still believe. There are only a few folks in the first century, less than a thousand, that saw Jesus in His resurrected body. But they've given us their eyewitness testimony. And we are required to take that by faith. So what Jesus really is talking about is our life of faith. We are the ones He is saying can be blessed if we simply believe the eyewitness testimony recorded in the Scriptures by those who did see. We have their testimony. And Jesus is talking about our life of faith. We must trust Jesus for salvation. Salvation is by faith. Here's the record. Here's the gospel. Here's the testimony. The eyewitnesses. We have to trust that it's true. We have to believe it by faith. We accept Jesus's savior. We can't say okay now Lord, I will trust you if you'll appear to me and prove to me. No, no. Jesus says, blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. And the whole Christian life is that way. We don't need proof as much as we need faith in God's Word. You can give all the proofs and evidences in the world. If you do not come to the point where you trust this is the Word of God, you will always have doubts. Your doubts will never end. You have got at some point to come to the place where you understand this is God's Word. I believe that I would stake my life on it. And when you come to that point, you start living by faith. You start living by faith in God's Word. And that's what Paul told us is life is all about. It's a life of faith. Romans 10, 17. Paul said consequently faith comes from hearing his message, hearing the message. And the message is heard through the Word about Christ. The Word of the eyewitness testimony is recorded in this book is the message about Christ. And that's where faith comes from. That's what generates faith. And that's where our faith returns to is the Word of God. I love the writings of C.S. Lewis. In one of his books, very ingenious book, the Screwtap Letters. He portrays the Christian life through the eyes of two demons. It's a really unique perspective. There's old Uncle Screwtap who is the elder experienced demon who kind of knows the ways of Christians and those have got deals with him. And then there's young warm wood who's going off to his first experience in the world of trying to tempt and destroy believers. So he needs some advice from Uncle Screwtap. And Screwtap's letters are advice to his young demon. And by the way, I don't think and I don't think Lewis believed that demons are born and grow up in age. But just to make the point, here's an inexperienced demon and one who knows how God's people function and how God deals with them. And he's advising Screwtap is young warm wood about the enemy who's God, their enemy. And about how the enemy deals with his children. Listen to what he says. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away his hand. And if only the will to walk is really there, he is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived warm wood. Now listen to what he says here. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human no longer desiring but still intending to do our enemy's will. Looks round upon a universe from which every trace of our enemy seems to have vanished and asks why he has been forsaken and still obeys. Wow. That's what Jesus is talking about. Blessed are those who can't see, who don't see and still believe. Because all of us will go through times in our lives when God seems to be distant, seems to be absent, seems to be uncarrying about what's happening in our lives. And where is he? Why am I forsaken like this? Why is this happening to me? And what God is doing is removing his hand so that we learn to walk by faith. If we could see him all the time, we would not need to trust. And it is true that we do Satan's kingdom the most harm when in those moments that we cannot see, feel, touch. Our Lord's presence, we obey anyway simply because we believe his word and we believe him. That's the essence of walking by faith. And Jesus said, blessed are those who live that way. Thomas, you needed to see, you needed all kinds of proofs and evidences, you needed to fit your logical framework. Blessed are those who don't see and yet believe the Christian life, salvation, everything is a life of faith. Faith. We must trust him. Well, these words from beyond the grave give us an eternal perspective on what's really important. Everything you really need to know comes from Jesus about what he expects and what he wants us to do. You don't need to talk to anyone else. You don't need to find out about anyone else. Jesus simply gives you his words of comfort. He wants you to know his peace. He gives you his words of commission. He wants you to be engaged fully in his work in this world, wherever you are. He gives you words of conviction. Stop doubting and believe. May those words of conviction pierce our hearts and then words of commendation. Ah, blessed are you when you believe even when you can't see. Well, that's enough for me to chew on. I don't think I need to talk to anybody else beyond the grave to see what I need. That seems like enough to work on for me. Doesn't it you? Yeah, let's pray. Father, thank you for Jesus coming back from the grave not only to prove that the resurrection, the crucifixion was real and true and was sufficient payment for our sins, but also to give us what we need to know. What we need to hear. Thank you, Father, for these words from the other side. Help us to take them seriously to live them out in our daily lives. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.