In Scott Brown's sermon, 'Seven Principles of Christian Voting,' he explores the biblical and theological basis for Christian participation in elections, emphasizing God's sovereignty over rulers and nations. The sermon is rooted in Romans 9:17, highlighting the sovereignty of God in raising and deposing leaders, exemplified by Pharaoh in the Bible. Brown outlines seven principles: Sovereignty, Warfare, Representation, Gospel, Holiness, Flawed People, and Progressive Sanctification. He argues that while God is sovereign, Christians have responsibilities, including voting and prayer, as part of a larger spiritual warfare. Through prayer and participation, Christians can influence their nation while acknowledging the imperfections of earthly rulers. The sermon encourages believers to exercise their voting rights as representatives of God's kingdom and to engage in the progressive sanctification of their nation, aiming to steer it in a direction aligned with biblical values. Brown stresses that while the election is ultimately in God's hands, Christians must not remain passive but actively participate in shaping the civil sphere.

Please open your Bibles to Romans 9 and find verse 17. Romans 9 verse 17. Verse 17. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, sweeter than honey word of God. For the scripture says to the Pharaoh, for this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show my power in you, and that my name may be declared in all the earth.

Therefore, he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Let's pray. Father, thank you for giving us wisdom from heaven. Thank you for guiding us by your hand.

I pray that you would now take these things that are here before us, equip the saints for the work of the ministry, comfort the broken-hearted, direct any who are confused. Lord, that you would come and save any who are lost here today to see how wise you are. Amen. Please be seated. So this morning our text is one of the premier texts on the sovereignty of God particularly over kings and over nations and In view of God's sovereignty, you know, what biblical principles are there to guide us Particularly in our thinking and our talking and our actions Regarding this election that stands in front of us here.

How can we think biblically? About voting particularly in an election like this one, where many believers are wondering if they should vote at all because of the conflicted personalities that are presented for us. This is gonna be kind of a political sermon here. You know, I have four books of political sermons in my library from the colonial era. One of them I was just reading recently, The Patriot preachers of the American Revolution.

One of the authors, John Hurt, preached a sermon called The Love of Our Country and I was so taken by it. He says a nation is a common bank that affects every individual and he says if I neglect the part appointed me, I am highly unjust because I take a share of the benefits of society and yet I leave the burden to be borne by others. And then he calls the reader, when they think about their responsibilities in the nation, he says, be an instrument of doing good. That's just one Puritan sermon on this matter of being involved in elections and in a secular state. Now, we have a problem that's so obvious in this election.

On the one hand, we have the modern Democratic Party. No one is confused. There have been many people I've heard say that this is a satanic death cult. I completely agree. That's a problem.

Then on the other hand you have the Republican candidate for president fails many tests of character. So you have a difficult kind of thing that's going on and I'd like us to look at the book of Romans. Now as we have been in Romans for many, many weeks, you know as the apostle Paul finishes chapter eight, moving into Romans nine, Paul turns to what is probably one of the most elaborate cases for the sovereignty of God, particularly beginning an election. But then he begins to speak of it in broader terms. And what the apostle is doing is he's defending the integrity of God.

It's called a theodicy, a vindication of the doctrine of God, really, and he's vindicating God's sovereignty in election, demonstrating that nothing can subvert God's plan to save sinners and to bring them to glory. And he brings men and women to salvation in such a way that it does not depend upon themselves, not upon the wisdom of man or their lineage, but on God, Not the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. And in the context, the Apostle is answering the question, has the word of God failed? Because if the promises of the idea is if the promises of God were true for Israel, why didn't Israel turn to the Lord? Well, only some from Israel returned to the Lord.

The Apostle Paul was one of them. And he's answering the question, has the word of God failed? And Paul is responding to this charge that the Word of God is not true because Israel didn't turn to God. And so that's what he's dealing with here. And of course, one of the most important things for a local church to understand is God, the doctrine of God.

And not the God of our own meditations, not the God of our own inventions, but on the true God. And so the apostle has given two illustrations to demonstrate the sovereignty of God in salvation. And first he gives an illustration from childhood and lineage, and he gives three generations, Abraham and Rebecca, Isaac and Ishmael and Jacob and Esau, concluding, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and compassion on who I'll have compassion. And Then the apostle here in the verse that we're in today, Paul shifts from these three generations to demonstrate the sovereignty of God in election to a much bigger issue, and he's turning to God's Mastery over all the rulers of the earth and he's giving an example from the political realm and that is Pharaoh Himself and he's demonstrating that God has sovereignty over the rulers of the earth. That's the illustration He gives us illustration from statecraft then in in the next section he brings an illustration of craftsmanship and industry and he takes us into the potter and the clay.

We'll deal with that next week. But today, I wanted to use this text to be a takeoff point to talk about the election beginning with the sovereignty of God in this matter in the political realm. And so you have this illustration of Pharaoh. God raises up Pharaoh to show his power and to destroy him and to become the deliverer of God's people. And I think what we can say in a moment like ours when there's so much to be conflicted about in an election, be calm.

God is sovereign. Now Pharaoh, Pharaoh is not his name. Pharaoh is a title. There are many pharaohs. So when the apostle talks about Pharaoh, he was talking about one specific pharaoh, but he was also, I think, giving a generic explanation of God's sovereignty.

And what we learn are several things. First, God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Second, Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Third, Pharaoh sinned because he wanted to sin. And fourth, God was not responsible for Pharaoh's sin as God retains the right and the authority to hold men accountable to judge sin.

And all of this happened among the people of God, the rising up of this wicked ruler was to demonstrate that God's in control. So that's what the apostle is doing here. And I wanna take off on this matter and I wanna give us seven principles to consider as we are voting. And you have a list of them there. I'll walk through them one by one.

I hope they're steadying, helpful, to think through some of these difficult matters. The first principle is sovereignty. It is God who raises up and takes down all authorities and we can rest in God's wisdom. And this is the indisputable teaching of the Bible. David said that the heart of the king is like a water course in the hand of the Lord, and there's so many places that we could go.

I'm so tempted to go to Daniel chapter four and Nebuchadnezzar's statement, final statement about God. It's so thrilling. And this means that God's will will be accomplished in this election. You can count on it. There's no need to worry.

The election is in God's hands. And the prognosticators will be set straight in this election. But does this mean that the church should sit on her hands and just watch? Does the doctrine of the sovereignty of God teach us that we don't have to do anything? And of course the answer to that is no.

You know, it was very interesting, you know, somebody asked Charles Spurgeon to answer, finally answer the question over the sovereignty of God and the will of man. And he says, I cannot reconcile the two, they are friends. In other words, man works and God works. This is the way that Christians operate. We actually have something to do.

We don't just sit back on our hands. Even though all of this is in God's hands we also have hands that he's given to us and so the first principle is God's sovereignty the second is warfare we are involved in warfare the church is always in a war zone. That's why in 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 25, Paul said to suffer hardship as a good soldier. Soldiers are in warfare and That is what we are involved in. And it's why the apostle Paul, at the end of his life in 2 Timothy 4, 7, he says, I fought the good fight.

That's because God has inducted all of his children in a war. And it's just so clear. And this warfare is engaged on different fronts. One of those fronts, one of the pivotal fronts, is the front of prayer. And that's why, it's why actually we gather for prayer every Wednesday night.

It's really under the command of first Timothy 2 1 through 6 Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications prayers intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men for kings and all who are in authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence And this tells us what we should do, not sitting on our hands, but lifting up holy hands to pray for kings and rulers who are in authority. We ought to be praying for our leaders. And you know, when you bring your children to this weekly prayer meeting you're making a statement that God has called the church into warfare and to pray for the state. When we gather to prayer we're trying to teach our church how to be involved in the civil government and one of those ways is to be involved in prayer. And it happens when we pray, we pray against the wicked often.

We pray what David prayed in Psalm 119 verse 53. Indignation is taken hold of me because of the wicked who forsake your law. Take away the wicked from before the king and his throne will be established in righteousness says the writer of Proverbs Proverbs 28 to because of the transgression of the land many are its princes but by a man of understanding and knowledge right will be prolonged righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a reproach to people. We pray that way when we gather together to pray. It's really important that we get together and pray for rulers and authorities.

Get involved in the civil government and come and pray. It's really critical that we do it. Matthew Henry comments on this statement, our righteousness exalts a nation. He says it like this, it is therefore the interest and duty of princes to use their power for the suppression of vice and the support of virtue. So we, as a church, we're involved in warfare and the church marches into battle.

And we march into that battle on various fronts. First of all, in our own souls, then in our families, and then in our church, and then in the nation in which we live. We're always being marching into battle in this world. We're here to tear down strongholds. We're here to refuse to remove the ancient landmarks.

We're here to walk in the old paths, the good paths that Jeremiah talked about. We're here to strengthen our souls, to strengthen our families, to strengthen our churches and to defend the gospel. God has called us into warfare and there are many ways that we do it. And one of the battle stations that we have is as citizens of a nation. And where do you wage the war?

You wage it where you are in the place that God has placed you with all that he has put around. And frankly, how do you teach a congregation to vote? How do you teach a congregation to be involved as a citizen in a sovereign nation? Well, when we gather together to worship, we really are making a political statement. We're saying that Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

We're saying that God is true. We're saying that his ways are pleasant ways We're saying that his morality is the only profitable morality. I mean, we're really here to turn to Jesus Christ the only hope and When we sing we're singing the doctrine that should that teaches us actually how to think about everything else in the civil sphere. The preaching of the Word. All these years that many of you have been here, the preaching of the Word has been preparing you to vote this week.

And this is how God has designed it. But believers, they care about the departures from holiness in the civil realm, and we ought to care greatly. I know we do, But we're here to wage war. We are in warfare. We pray, Lord, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

So yes, the election is in God's hands, but that doesn't mean that we sit on our own hands. The third principle is the principle of representation. We are, we have been divinely appointed as representatives in a nation. We have a role in the nation that God has put us in. And here's a proposition.

I'm sure you all agree. We live in a nation that God established and he in his sovereign wisdom put us here apart from our own will. The Bible teaches that God establishes nations. He establishes borders and boundaries and it's actually a very good thing. God establishes sovereign nations for his own glory and and he has he has put us into this nation according to his sovereign plan.

And and frankly from my travels around the world there's not another nation like the United States of America. And by the way, the United States of America today exists as the only bastion of freedom in the world. Do you understand that? It's critical that we understand what a blessing it is to be born by God's sovereign hand, by his providence in this place. God chose us to live here, And as a result of God choosing us to live in this place He has given us a voice in this nation like no other people have in their nations.

And one of those ways that we have to exercise our voice for the glory of God is through voting. We live in a nation where people have a very distinctive responsibility, and we are representatives in a representative government. By the way, the United States of America is not a straight democracy. It's a representative republic or you could call it a constitutional representative republic. And what that means is that the citizens have something to say.

We live in a nation where a measure of authority rests in every single citizen of voting age in the United States of America. And you have two kinds of representation. There's a popular vote, which gives individuals a representative voice, and this is balanced by an electoral college vote which gives states representative power so there's sort of a double representation in this here's what I want to say God has made you his representative in the midst of a representative government and it's a good thing that you as a Christian have that representative power. God gave that to you. I don't want you to take that lightly.

In nearly every other society tyrants rule. In America we have a voice. It's such a remarkable gift in all of history. Americans who are Christians have a responsibility to make their will known in a representative republic. And we live as salt and light.

Our votes are for the preservation of things that are true and things that are good. What that means is that in being given the right to vote, it means that every citizen can do a part to steer their nation in a direction. All nations are wayward in one way or another, but in America the citizens can steer the nation and it's such a gift. Don't take lightly that gift to live in this nation. And I just want to say that a vote that is cast by an honest Christian who loves the truth of God as a treasure in that nation.

That's the point of representation. And even though the election is in God's hands, We do not sit on our hands because we have been given a gift of representation. The fourth principle is the gospel. This nation will not be turned around by politicians. It will be turned around by Jesus Christ and his gospel.

We understand that you can have a nation of conservative, godless forms of Christianity, But the only thing that will really change this nation is if there's a real revival. Because that's when hearts are changed and people are completely changed. You can't change people by conservatism, but Jesus Christ can change. And so we have such a treasure in this nation to preach the gospel and to bear witness to the truth. And so we preach the gospel.

The fifth principle characterized by these words, holy nation, we are called to live holy in Christ Jesus. We don't sit on our hands. We pursue holiness in our hearts. We create families that are holy families, the foundation of society. And then we create holy churches where we turn toward the Lord and we lay everything before him and we remove every unclean thing from our midst and We preach holiness and we live as holy in Christ Jesus We set no unclean thing before our eyes and we seek the truth and we repent of our sins and we love one another.

We do this as a holy nation. David said in Psalm 16, as for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight. God teaches us how to live in this nation as a holy nation. We do live in the nation of the United States of America but there's another nation that runs underground, that's us here. And that holy nation is designed to build the secular state to progressively seek the Lord.

The next principle I've characterized by the terms flawed people, flawed people. We always have a dilemma in an election. I've had the opportunity to vote in many elections since I turned 18. But in every election, you have the same old thing. You have typically the bad and you have the exceedingly bad.

We have, you never have perfect choices before you in any election. And in fact, and you see this kind of thing even demonstrated among the kings of Israel, where you have a king who is called a good king, And yet he also had egregious flaws at the same time. Several of the kings of Israel were just noted for being good and righteous in the eyes of the Lord. But they didn't remove the high places. For example, Asa, who was the king of Judah, he's described as doing what was right in the eyes of the Lord but he did not remove many manifestations of idolatry particularly the high places in 1st Kings 15, 11 through 14 and 2 Chronicles 14 through 16.

Another example would be Jehoshaphat who was also king of Judah. He's praised for his righteousness but he also failed to remove the high places. Hasn't that always confused you? How could that be? How could his heart be toward the Lord, but there's this glaring blind spot in his life and you and you can read about it in 1st Kings 22, 43.

Amaziah who was also the king of Judah, he, it was said of him that he did right in the sight of the Lord. But then it says, but not with this whole heart. Second Kings 14, three through four. Anyway, there are many, there are many like this and there are kings and rulers that God gives his people. They do many things right, but they don't do everything right.

We should not wait for the king to do everything right. I don't think. I haven't seen it yet in my short life. And God, God actually, because of this, God raises up prophets and voices to speak to the kings of the earth and we have many many manifestations of this. I mean did you realize that thirty Old Testament prophets spoke directly to kings?

Abraham spoke to the king of Sodom in Genesis 14. Joseph spoke to Pharaoh in Genesis 41. Moses spoke to Pharaoh. Nathan the prophet spoke to David in 2 Samuel 7. Ahijah spoke to Jeroboam in 1 Kings 11.

Elijah spoke to Baisha in 1 Kings 16. I could go on, like I said, there are at least 30 Old Testament prophets that spoke the truth of God to kings that God had put in authority and yet they were under the instruction of the prophet. And you know, this is the common pattern of God's people. I don't know if you've read very many of John Calvin's individual commentaries. I've got several of them.

But John Calvin dedicated almost all of his commentaries to particular kings. And he wrote extensive letters to them at the beginning of, like for example, in his commentary, in his Old Testament commentary set, He addresses it to the most illustrious Prince Henry Duke of Vendome and But then he goes and writes him a very long personal letter About the things of God in his Isaiah commentary he writes to quote his Serene Highness Edward the sixth king of England and then writes him a long letter same with Jeremiah same with Timothee with first and second Timothy same with Matthew and John and Acts and Romans and first Corinthians and Galatians and Ephesians, he wrote long letters to the to the civil ruler of his day. This is what why? Because they needed instruction. They were kings that had been appointed by God, but they needed spokesmen and God gave them various spokesmen.

Here's what I'm trying to say. You will only ever vote for flawed people. And I know there's this idea that I can't vote for a flawed person, but this just doesn't seem to comport with the way that we look at biblical history and the realities of our own civil situation. Now I understand why people would say, I cannot vote in this election. I did that in one election.

Now, I want to respect the conscience of the person who say I cannot vote. Because on the one hand, I do believe that Americans particularly not just have a privilege but they have a duty to vote. I really do think we have a duty to vote because of the civil environment we've been put in. But I don't believe it's an absolute duty. There may be only wicked candidates, so profoundly wicked you cannot cast a vote for them.

I can see that happening. And maybe that's how you may feel that way in this election. And I think that if a person feels like they cannot vote, then I respect their conscience on that matter. And I would just to ask that person to consider, you know, to abstain from voting will prosper the worst person on the ticket because there's really no neutrality in your voting. I can understand a conscience issue, but the truth is one vote not cast strengthens another And it's just something to consider.

And my view is vote for the best choice among the choices that you can. You're never gonna have a perfect choice. Or how about this? Vote in such a way that might assist the removal of the one who has the least respect for the Word of God. Or How about vote in such a way for the removal of the one who has the least respect of biblical ethics?

Or how about the Constitution? Or how about vote in such a way that would weaken the one in order to remove as many of the snakes in Washington DC as you can remove. Or maybe vote in such a way to promote some policies that are actually far better and actually very beneficial to this country. So that's my view. You know I was having lunch with one of the brothers in the church this week and we were just talking about how pivotal it is to cry out to God for the civil government.

And he reminded me of William Tyndale's last words. He was praying while he was being strangled and burned at the stake and he said, oh Lord open the eyes of the King of England. Well, that's what we should do. We live here. We have a positive presence in this country.

And then seventh, the seventh principle is I'm just going to call it progressive sanctification. We're very familiar with this in our own lives that God saves us out of the gutter and then he just keeps working with us progressively. We're never all that we want to be. We never were. We want to be better than we are and we cry out to God to change us, to help us to repent of our sins and to turn away from anything that's not good.

We're familiar with that and I think that you can apply this to this matter of voting and existing in a secular state and that is that the Christian has a distinctive responsibility not only to be urgently involved in his own progressive sanctification, but also the progressive sanctification of his nation. And that means that you, while you can't change everything in Washington, you can at least do something to steer in a direction to maybe shift a trajectory even a little bit and that can happen in various various ways as we're involved particularly in matters of election and You know we should ask what what would be the greater blessing to this nation? What would be the greater blessing to this nation? What would be the greater blessing to the families of this nation? What would be a greater blessing to the church of Jesus Christ in this nation?

What would be a greater blessing to the morality of this nation because we're always involved in a progressive movement, we're always moving in a trajectory. Everything is a trajectory. Everything you do is a trajectory or it can be, if it's good it ought to be. And so the church and the families in the church in the midst of a secular state have a responsibility to exercise this matter of progressive sanctification. You know, you might think that your nation is going down the rat hole.

Do everything you can to keep it out from going down the rat hole. But you do that in the simplest ways. You do it on your own turf, you start on your own turf and then widen it out to the areas that God has given you some level of jurisdiction. And Voting is actually a jurisdiction that God has given you. You know, vote for the person or the party that will give a greater sense of law and order or a greater sense of the sanctity of human life or the right to free speech and to bear arms, God-given rights.

At least vote for that crowd. I'm sure that's who you are going to vote for. But you, we can't ensure the perfection of our civil leaders. But we are on a trajectory. And that's why this idea of progressive sanctification is here.

And when it comes to our own lives, it's one step at a time, isn't it? It doesn't happen overnight. And don't expect to elect a person who fulfills every single tick on the check marks of a holy man. Because you won't find, well, we haven't seen one yet. And I would just argue that no nation has ever seen a man who lined up perfectly.

But take a step in the right direction if you can. Now, my view of this election is that the personalities and the platforms of both of the options are flawed. But at the same time, I'm just going to give you my view. This doesn't have to be your view, but I at least want to share with you what my perspective on the pickle that we're in. What we have, while we might be put off by various personalities and things like that, I think what we have before us are two regimes and what one regime is a Marxist death cult.

It's a regime and it is so vastly worse than the other one. I don't know if I have seen such a great divide in my lifetime. And, You know, I was just, it was about a month ago I was reading Francis Schaeffer's book, Death in the City, which he wrote in 1960. I read it probably in the 1970s. And He talks about, he quotes Malcolm Muggeridge who wrote an article called the Death Wish of the Liberal.

That's what we have before us. We have a competing party that's on a death wish and it's so tragic. And I know people are highly conflicted about the choices that are before us and neither candidate perfectly fulfills the biblical ideas. And I also, I acknowledge that we don't have a pro-life candidate in this race either. And to me, that's so tragic that it's true.

The Trump administration or Donald Trump supports a 15-week ban on abortion. Let's just call it a 15 week allowance to kill a baby. And by the way, 95% of abortions happen within 15 weeks. So it's not much of a ban actually on abortion. But with the Harris administration, you have no restrictions, none.

I realized the difficulty that every baby is sacred, made in the image of God. But one platform is so vastly more wicked in that sense. And we no longer have an option between a pro-abortion and a pro-choice candidate. But this Democratic Party is the most radical pro-death administration we've ever seen. And my view is that anything that a Christian can do to weaken them is a good thing.

And I think that casting your vote against it to the other party weakens them. It's my, this is my perspective. Because killing babies is actually the chief value proposition of the Democratic Party today. It's almost the only thing they talk about. You know, someone asked Kamala Harris what her platform is and she's going to talk about killing babies.

You know, this is an administration that's on the way to abolishing the First Amendment. Kamala Harris wants to turn the Department of Justice on prosecuting misinformation and hate speech. Which probably this whole sermon would be classified under that. You know, this is an administration that wants to make you pay for sex change operations. This competing administration is so tragically evil, it's hard to describe.

You know, this is a drag queen culture administration. Kamala Harris started out her campaign on the RuPaul Drag Queen Show. That's how she started and announced and launched her campaign. You have to understand what's going on here. I mean, this is an administration that will lock your church down, it will legislate the disappearance of Christian culture, and it is a culture under wrath.

And This competing administration envisions a society characterized by the hatred of everything that God represents. And I keep thinking, what happened to the country I grew up in? What happened? And all I want to say to our congregation is let's do everything we can to steer, to make a trajectory in a better direction. It's not a perfect direction, but at least do what you can to move it in a direction Rather than to perhaps to sit it out Now let's let's say the Harris campaign is successful Well, we can expect greater challenges for sure, but here's what I know.

We'll know what to do. God is sovereign. God will have appointed such a thing. And we are a church and we're a family and we're a little kingdom and we'll know what to do. And frankly it will be a blessing to all of us, one way or another.

Because in this world, the church cannot lose, because God is sovereign. You know, our nation was founded to be, like a city set on the hill. That phrase came from John Winthrop, and a sermon that he delivered in 1630, that he titled, A Model of Christian Charity. And what he meant is that the design was for America to be a community of holiness, a place where the church on a divine mission would bring in the glory of God and to be like a city set on the hill. Well, I think we should continue that vision here in the United States.

You know, I read the other day that there are around 90 million evangelicals eligible to vote and 40 million don't vote. And those that do vote, fewer than 15 percent vote for the mayors and the council members and the other local offices. And that these elections can be very, very close. I don't know if you remember in 2000 when George Bush was running against Al Gore, it all came down to just a few votes in Florida. It came down to 537 votes called the election for George Bush.

If Al Gore had 600 more people show up in Florida, we would have had a different president. Hey, all this to say, I don't think your vote is a throwaway. It's not only a wonderful responsibility, it actually can make a difference. So the election is in God's hands, but that doesn't mean that we should sit on our hands. You know, I've been spending time in Jeremiah lately, and particularly Jeremiah 29, because I'm going to do a conference on it next year, But there's a phrase there that I couldn't get out of my mind for this sermon.

Where Jeremiah tells the captives there to build houses and dwell in them, find spouses for their children, get married, dwell in the land. And then he tells them, don't rebel, don't rise up against the king, don't rise up against Nebuchadnezzar. And he says this to them, and I say this to all of us Seek the peace of the city Seek the peace of the city What a wonderful Appointment we have as the people of God Would you pray with me? Father we thank you that you have given us such marvelous direction in your word. We pray that you would teach us to apply it in a way that is consistent with your loving kindness and your truth.

I pray that you would raise up this congregation as a congregation of the truth who has taken responsibility for who for what they have been appointed to here in this nation that we here we would we would be like a city set on the hill in this local church but they we would also assist our nation to do the same Lord I praise you for this nation I thank you for putting me here. I thank you for putting us all here. What a privilege. What a blessing. Help us, Lord, to exercise the greatest authority that we can to be a blessing in this nation.

Amen.