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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

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Let us pray.

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Heavenly Father, sanctify us in the truth.

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Your word is truth.

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Amen.

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Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, who would have thought it?

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The Lord dubs Cyrus his anointed and gives him this exalted title reserved for kings

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in the line of David, for priests who serve in the sanctuary before God.

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Who would have thought that God would refer to a foreign king like Cyrus as one whose

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right hand I have grasped to subdue nations before him and to loose the belts of kings

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and to say of him, I call you by your name though you do not know me.

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But then who would have thought that the Lord would call you by your name or me by my name?

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That He would pour out on us richly the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ our Savior so

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that having been justified by His grace we might become heirs having the hope of eternal

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life.

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Who would have thought that?

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The Lord does surprising things indeed as he comes to unworthy sinners like you and

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me and owns us as his people.

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But back to Cyrus for a moment, that parade example of the extraordinary, shocking, even

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scandalous ways of God as he sets his people right.

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For the Lord would go before Cyrus and through him he would restore his people back to the

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land, he would rebuild the temple, he would once more dwell with them in grace and mercy,

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grace and favor.

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But we would expect God to say such things about David and about his heir, David's greater

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son the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one.

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As David says in Psalm 16, I have set the Lord always before me because He is at my

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right hand, I shall not be shaken.

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Or as David says again of his greater son, the Messiah, the anointed one among the many

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promises and wonders of Psalm 110, the Lord is at your right hand, He shall shatter kings

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in his wrath.

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The Messiah, the anointed one now come in our Lord Jesus Christ who sits at the right

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hand of the Father, reigning over all things, a reign hidden, known only to faith, but a

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reign nonetheless and a reign that will be revealed in glory when He comes to judge the

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living and the dead.

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Yet in the meantime, who would have thought that God would say the things that he says

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of Cyrus, calling him my anointed and a few verses before my shepherd and commissioning

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him to do his proper work.

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Cyrus who tried to curry favor with all manner of old deities, so-called gods, by restoring

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their sanctuaries and returning their idols back to them unharmed, all so that they could

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intercede for him before Marduk, the Babylonian god.

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Pray to him for a long life and a successful reign and all of that.

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It's little wonder that the Lord says to Cyrus, not once but twice, I name you, I equip you,

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though you do not know me.

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But the Lord continues with us so that, so that people may know from the rising of the

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sun and from the west that there is none besides me.

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I am the Lord and there is no other.

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And there lies a crucial difference between you and Cyrus for you and I are those people

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to whom the Lord our God has borne witness to himself as the only God.

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We see now what wondrous mighty things God had done and was about to do to restore his

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people.

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The calamities he brought, the shalom He restored.

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As to the calamities, He had wielded Assyria like an axe and felled Israel lost in their

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idolatry.

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Isaiah says that next would come Babylon and he would wield Babylon in the same way and

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fell Judah, lost in their idolatry, blind and deaf to God's Torah and the call of His

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prophets to return.

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Wielding these nations and their kings like an axe or a scepter, itself immobile and impotent,

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unless somebody carries it, the Lord judged Israel and Judah.

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Of course those kings and those nations didn't see it that way, did they?

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They had their own purposes as Isaiah himself explains to us way back in chapter 10, to

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destroy and cut off nations not a few.

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That's what was in their heart and mind.

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Yet God used them to His purpose and he did His alien work by them.

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And now He would use Cyrus and Persia to do his proper work to restore His people and

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say to them, comfort, comfort.

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And to Cyrus, he is my shepherd who will fulfill all my purpose.

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And of Jerusalem, she shall be rebuilt.

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And of the temple, your foundation shall be laid.

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So God says of Cyrus, to Cyrus, I am the Lord, there is no other though you do not know me.

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Whatever you may think you are doing, Cyrus, whatever your reasons may be, it is my purpose

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that prevails here.

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And that for the ancient, the average ancient Near Eastern pagan Joe is the real shocking

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and scandalous thing that God says here.

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That he's the only God who brings calamity and shalom, who judges and saves, who kills

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and makes alive.

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He's it.

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And there is no other God.

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You can hear the objections.

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Are you kidding?

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Of course there's lots of gods, lots of powers in this world.

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And you'd better get on the right side of them.

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You'd better grease the right palms.

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You better not offend the wrong powers or things just won't go well for you.

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Of course we know better, don't we?

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This is first commandment stuff after all.

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The first thing that meets us in the catechism.

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We know there's no room for deference to other powers, other gods.

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He alone is God and so we should fear, love and trust in Him alone before above all things.

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So the Lord's frequent reminders that He alone is God and there is no other.

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It's just for Cyrus, isn't it?

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And the likes of him?

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Well no, for God insists again and again throughout these chapters directed to the ears of his

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own people.

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I am the Lord and there is no other.

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Besides me, there is no God.

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Who is like me?

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None.

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Take comfort.

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It is I. Yes, we know this and we confess it all the time, but so we must because we

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need to hear it all the time and so do others.

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God knows that we need to hear this again and again and again as we live in this world

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where nation rises against nation and wars multiply and cultural forces and powers are

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often against us and often vehemently so.

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This world in which many people all around us assume that there's no truth with a capital

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T, no God and creator to vouch for it, just power politics, just people trying to assert

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their own truths, gaining the upper hand, ruling the roost and that's it.

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This world where it often can seem to us Christians even as though the almighty dollar were the

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master of our destinies.

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This world where many are materialist actually does believe that mammon and might rule and

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only they rule.

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So God speaks these words.

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I am the Lord and there is no other.

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Besides me, there is no God to His own people.

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To you, to me, because he knows that we need to hear them.

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Because the so-called gods of our age, everything that would command your fear, love and trust

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besides the one true God, they just don't let up.

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They are in your face all the time.

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And because old pagan Adam in us also would have us fearful and anxious that such powers

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are beyond God's control.

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They've got out a hand that we are at their whim and not in truth in the hands of Him

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who is committed to restoring his people, of Him who creates, redeems and sanctifies

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you.

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For therein lies another crucial difference between you and Cyrus.

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You know this almighty unrivaled God and God of all the earth in the man Christ Jesus crucified

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for you.

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The crucial truth.

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For his sake, Isaiah proclaims, comfort, comfort my people.

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Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that her warfare is ended.

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Her iniquity is pardoned.

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And she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.

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Double comfort.

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A double portion instead of the shame we deserved as Isaiah goes on to speak about in chapter

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61.

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For what Cyrus didn't do and couldn't do, the suffering servant Jesus did do.

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He bore our griefs.

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He carried our sorrows.

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He was pierced for our transgressions.

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He was crushed for our iniquities.

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Bore the chastisement that would make us whole.

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Endured wounds that would heal us.

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And he makes intercession for us transgressors now at the right hand of the Father.

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Of this suffering Messiah, this Christ, this anointed one of God, come to do all these

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things for us, Isaiah says.

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Who has believed what he has heard from us?

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And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

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Indeed, who would have thought that?

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Who would have thought that there of all places on the cross we would find the one true God

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who says, I am the Lord and there is no other.

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Besides me, the crucified one, there is no God.

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There in this bleeding, dying man whose arms were outstretched on a cross, God's right

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arm was outstretched reconciling the world to himself.

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Who would have thought it?

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The Lord thought it.

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He besides whom there is no other, He who says I form light and create darkness, I make

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shalom and create calamity, I am the Lord who does all these things.

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He planned it and then He did it.

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He came in the flesh and exerted his mighty power.

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Christ crucified, risen and ascended for you.

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Through the darkness and calamity, the wrath of the cross, God restored your and my shalom

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and He extends the right hand of his power to you, whom he has washed clean and made

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holy from all your idols and misplaced fear, love and trust.

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In your baptism, he owns you as His own.

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He has united you with Christ, with himself.

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He extends the right hand of his power to you by the absolution that you hear and by

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the body and blood of Christ extended to you, forgiving you all your sins.

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Who would have thought this?

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Well now you and I think it.

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More than that, we confess it.

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We live it.

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We receive it and now we rejoice and give thanks to the only God and Father of our Lord

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Jesus Christ for it.

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Amen.

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And the peace of God which passes all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds

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in Christ Jesus now and forever.

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Amen.