The Book of Romans XVII, God and Israel

You can be seated. I wanted to remind you of the names of the people that are on the worship team tonight, because some of you may not have ever really met them. These were some of the first singers that we've had. Tonight is going to be an oldies night. We're going to be taking some of our favorite most loved choruses, and these people were the ones that first sang them. Either names have changed in some cases, like Charlotte used to be Rowe is now Charlotte Varner. Dave Lackey. I don't applaud. That's okay. Dave Lackey hasn't changed his name, but some other things. He has a baby now, two babies, right? Pi, Pieste, you were a Pieste when you got here, right? Can you think of the odds, by the way, in case you've ever wondered, Pi's real name is Pi, P-Y-E. Her maiden name was Clark, right? She married a fellow by the name of Pieste. What are the odds of that? Now, people think, oh, yeah, she just changed her first name to Pi because she liked Pieste, but that's not the case. I mean, Pi, Pieste. But anyway, I thought about that this morning, this morning was early. It was a slow morning, yes, okay. The next gentleman is David McMunn, and David not only sang with us here, but I've known David since 1974. Long time. One of the fellows that was in our youth group years ago and has followed the Lord for all these years. But Susie's been here since... I've got great pictures of all these people, by the way. Like they have of me when everything was different. And Greg McAtee was here with us and married this gal, whose name was Robin Rosander, is now Robin McAtee. So that's our old worship team. Now we can give them all a hand. Okay, thank you. All right, let's turn our Bibles. It is true, we're going to have our teaching right now. And get out your yellow outlines, please. Now, it's going to be a little bit difficult for you to kind of hone in early here, I know that. But I really was convinced that the best way to invest praise tonight was to respond to the Word in praise. And last week, a number of folks said, gee, we didn't have enough time in the Word, and tonight will not be very long either. Next week, though, we'll have a rather thorough finishing message on this whole section, Romans 9, 10, and 11. But tonight, I want to look at Romans 11 and begin to address the topic of God and Israel. And this is a challenging subject. If you read this, how many of you read in advance, know what I'm going to be dealing with? All right, wonderful. And I want to encourage you, use your Bible studies. They'll fill in the gaps. And Matt McAtee works real hard to put these together for us. Take the time to use them and study them, and you'll know the Scripture better if you do so. Let's pray. Lord, I would ask you to enable us as we examine your Word today to glean from it just a few things that would become for us a seed of praise and worship. And then, Lord, would explode in our understanding and in our spirit to bring about renewed obedience and a willing heart to follow after you in the days ahead. Thank you, Lord, that your Word never returns void. May that be true of us tonight in Jesus' name. Let me bring you up to speed in case you missed last week. We talked last week about Paul's lament about his own kinsmen, the Jews, and the fact that they seemed to be shutting off to the gospel that he was summoned by God to declare. They were zealous. Look at chapter 10 with me. They were zealous for God, chapter 10, verse 2, but their zeal was not based on knowledge. In other words, folks, it is not good enough just to be sincere. Please understand that. You talk to sincere people all the time who are misinformed. They're in trouble. And then these same Jews, since they didn't really know what the truth was, verse 3, established their own righteousness. And we talked last week about the fact that that's what's happening in America today. People are establishing their own righteousness, saying that this that we believe is okay for us and what you believe is okay for you. God said, in verse 3, they did not submit to his righteousness, but established their own. That was a very fatal mistake. Remember we said last week that some of them thought they were 9.7s and 9.8s because they did all these things right. But what's God's standard of righteousness? Who remembers? What is it? It's 10. And no one will enter heaven unless they're a perfect 10. So God sent the solution, and we talked about that, which is Christ. It's interesting. Establishing your own righteousness is in vogue. I've referred to this. I found the literal quote of Ted Turner at a recent national newspaper association meeting in Atlanta. Ted Turner, outspoken chairman of Turner Broadcasting System and creator of CNN, declared the Ten Commandments outmoded and not relevant to current global problems such as overpopulation and the arms race. Quote, I bet nobody here even pays much attention to them because they're too old, Turner said. Commandments are out. Turner offered his own 10 voluntary initiatives, including to help the downtrodden, to love and respect planet Earth, and to limit families to two children. You see, that's a good illustration of establishing your own righteousness. You know, you decide what's right. Throw out the absolutes. Paul says in Romans 10, that doesn't hack it. It doesn't work. And then he elaborates in verses 5 through 13 of chapter 10 about what righteousness in Christ is all about. And we studied that last week. You have to say with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, and then you'll be saved. And then he says some very amazing things here. He exhorts in verses 14 and 15, how beautiful are the feet of them who bring good news. And we talked last week that, folks, it isn't enough just to have this for ourselves, but God says it's a commandment that we're to share it. You know, require yourself for just a moment. I'm not even on the outline, so spare yourself trying to connect. Please don't miss this tonight. I bear a burden that sometimes we here in our church are just excited that we have something that's fun for us and we enjoy being part of. How many of you have a yearning in your heart to lead someone to Christ in 1990? You want to see the explosion of joy and peace and revelation that comes in the heart of a person who comes to know Christ. You want to see that. Can I just say to you, there are so many opportunities, and I want to commend those of you who are risking rejection, and I know there is that to contend with, those of you who are risking being misunderstood. But you're saying, you know, I don't have all the answers, but can I share with you what I've found? Or would you come with me and discover some things together? And I want to ask you, I want to plead with you on Sundays and Saturday nights. Be sensitive to the people around you, would you? You know, some of you, I would love for you, those of you who are fervent, to populate yourself in some of the back places back there. I don't know, if you were here at 11 o'clock on Sunday, we had people standing at all three walls. That's how crowded it was. People were waiting to get a seat. The only way that many of them will ever make a transition to knowing Christ is if you befriend them. I can't imagine a more clear opportunity provided by God for some of you to have, you know, almost a personal little witnessing pool. You can sit in some of the far reaches of this sanctuary and literally meet people who are just coming to check this place out. And I just, I need to appeal to you. Risk it a little bit, you know. You say, well, I'll ask them if this is their first time, and they've been here two years, and they think I'm a nut. Well, it's okay, you know. Just say, well, I'm sorry, I've never seen you before. How many of you know that you haven't seen everybody anyhow? So let's all give one another room, you know. And then invest. Invest 15 minutes to walk back to the video with them or, you know, have a cup of coffee or something. You'll have no idea the difference you make in impacting it. And folks, now is the time. God's answering our prayers. And I say hallelujah. He's bringing people. And this Sunday, particularly, by the way, I'm going to be drawing the net. Someone asked me this weekend, well, why haven't I given an invitation in the last three weeks? And the reason is I've been laying the net out. And this weekend, I'm going to draw the net close. And if you know anyone whose marriage has been in trouble, you bring them on Sunday. And there's going to be a really strong word of reconciliation followed by communion. And I believe in God for a powerful time. And then you need to, if you see someone raise their hand or lift their eyes or however I do it, if someone says, I don't like to peek, you get mad at them. Just don't look at me, okay? I mean, you can... That's okay. If you see someone that's acknowledging the Lord, or you see some tears or something, and you know there's something happening, risk it, okay? Just say to them, did you pray with the pastor? You know, you can qualify. I don't want to be offensive, but would you like to talk for another minute about what's happening right now? I shared with you, when someone did that to me 20 some years ago, six years ago, it changed my life. One person took a moment and said, gave me that little extra nudge. Please do that. There's just no way. People say, well, why don't you have them all come up to the front? Because they won't. But they just may talk to you. I'm trusting you to hear this beautiful feet passage and say, you can be that person and share in the joy of it. You say, well, I don't want to get involved with someone and get into a lot of problems. Folks, hey, we're already there, all right? They'll just displace somebody else and we'll keep going with it. And God will give us grace. Think of all the workers He's sending us, all the potential experts and problems that we have. Then we went on in chapter 10, verses 16 through 21, and Paul said, he said these rather stirring and striking words. Look at verse 17. Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message and the message is heard through the word of Christ. Or faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God is the way that King James says it. That is one of the pillars of the faith movement message right there. It's a powerful verse. But what he's saying is, some people are listening but not hearing. What phrase did Jesus say over and over and over and over again warning people that they were going to miss the message? What did He say? He who has ears to hear. Would you ask the Lord to be sure that you have ears to hear? You know, I don't say a whole lot of profound things up here. And it's easy over a long time. You know, you just start checking out. You can anticipate your, oh, I know what I'm going to say or whatever. And you can miss something God might want to say through me or one of the worship leaders or in a testimony time or a visiting speaker, whatever. Or just in conversation. I can't tell you how many times my life's been impacted because I listen with ears to hear. And Paul's saying, don't have ears on that aren't hearing in the heart. Because faith comes by hearing the word of Christ. David Wilkerson wrote a little article. Some of you get his monthly mailing. You know, several of you give me copies and underline it and stuff like that, making sure I see it all. That's all right. I appreciate that. And one of the recent ones was sermon-proof Christians. Sermon-proof Christians. Nobody could get up and get a sermon that would get through your heart because you already heard it all. Boy, that was challenging stuff. It's kind of neat, by the way. One of our young ladies, Lisa Marino, came to North Way about a year ago and stuck with us. She was growing in Christ and got a job up there. Now she's going to that church. Now I'm getting tapes, too. And so I'm getting the whole nine years. All right. Then he goes on, and he says that these Jews rejected him. They rejected this Messiah in chapter 10. And he gives several verses of that. Look at verse 21 of chapter 10. All day long I've held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people. And by the way, folks, look at verse beginning 19 and all the way through 20 and 21. It's as though God says, I've tried everything I can to win these people, and they keep saying no to me. They keep rejecting me. And so it's almost a question that's asked naturally in verse 1 of chapter 11. Are you all there? I asked then, did God reject His people? In other words, did God get to the point where He said, no more of this stuff? Because you and I would get there, wouldn't we, dads? You know, if our kids reject our offer of grace and reject our love and reject our care over and over, eventually, we dads, we run out of it. Paul said, did God reject Israel? Look at those next words. Just let them get an imprint in your mind. By no means, or certainly not, one translation says, God did not ultimately reject His people. Why? Because He made a covenant. And how many of you know, God does not break His covenants? He keeps them to the end. Paul says then in verse 1, He said, I'm an Israelite myself. I'm one of these Jews. And God didn't forget me. He didn't reject me. In fact, I was worthy to be forsaken. I was persecuting the very people that God had called to Himself. I was a Christian hater. I persecuted. And God rescued me. And if God rescued me, then certainly He hasn't shut down His compassion and mercy and love for His people. Then he goes on to further illustrate the principle. Look, in verse 2, don't you know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah? How he appealed to God against Israel? You see, he says, it seems like back then, Elijah felt the same way. He said, they've killed your prophets and torn down your altars. Am I the only one left? And they're trying to kill me? And you see, Elijah's saying, God, all your people have rejected you. Aren't you going to reject them? And what did God do? He told Elijah. He said, no, wait a minute. There's 7,000 who have not bowed to me. Remember that story? There's still a remnant in there. What's God's answer? Verse 4, I have reserved for myself 7,000 who have not bowed to me. And so too, at the present time, there is a remnant chosen by grace. Everyone say the word remnant. The word remnant is not a very common word in our language, except when it comes to what? Carpets, right. But that even in itself gives you a little hint of what the word really does mean. It talks about just little scatterings that are left after the big majority has been used. Dear ones, you know the word remnant is an incredibly powerful and important word to us as believers. The remnant people, remnant number one, the principle of the remnant goes all the way back to Noah. Many scriptures talk about this principle of the remnant. It talks about it with Lot. It talks about it with Elijah. It talks about it in Deuteronomy 4, chapter 4, in verse 27, where it says that God will send His people all around the earth, but a remnant will be drawn back. It talks about it here where Paul says, of the Jews of His day, just a small little remnant would respond to the gospel. And still, how many of you know today, there is still just a small little remnant of Jews that are responding to the gospel? I don't know about you. It's an awesome thing when you talk to a Jewish person. I'm sure we have a few Jewish folks here tonight, Jewish heritage. And it's as though in most cases you could be as profound as, you know, C.S. Lewis or someone like that, and you just can't get through it. It's as though there's this intricate veil that's woven over their eyes. And so there's just been a very few, a tiny number of Jews that have been saved. People who travel to Israel tell me that there is such an indifference and a coldness and, in fact, even a bias against Christians and Christianity and Israel right now. It's like impenetrable. But God's calling out a remnant. Now catch this. I believe that the word remnant is very important for Christians. I have discovered as a pastor that there seems to be a principle of remnant even in the community of faith. There seems to be just a portion of believers who really have come to understand the fullness of God. It seems that there are just a few that respond in wholeheartedness to the things of God. Have you discovered that? Think of all the nominal Christians that you know. It seems like within the whole group that we would call Christian, there's just a remnant. A remnant that's still hungry. A remnant that's still searching. A remnant that wants all that God has for them. And I want to ask you a question tonight. Are you part of that remnant? I mean, if you pull it all away, does your heart say, I want to go on as far as I possibly can? I want everything that God has for me. And there isn't any magical formula about it. I can't give you five characteristics of a remnant person. I can tell you this, though. In the days ahead, it will be increasingly easy to just sort of let all this slide and call yourself a Christian and not have it matter one iota. Justified behavior and actions and attitudes that you know God wouldn't be pleased with, but hey. You know, sociologists call it the 20-80 rule. 20% of the people do 80% of the work. I call it the remnant rule. There's a remnant. There's a remnant in this church that prays and gives and sacrifices and serves and cares. But you know, the majority haven't discovered it yet. Do you know what I'm saying? The majority. And our goal is to keep moving on and on and on to bring that remnant to invert it. Could you imagine if 80% owned it? If 80% were on fire, what would the 20% do? They'd either catch on fire or run and hide, wouldn't they? There's a remnant that God wants to raise up. And by the way, I believe as the end times get darker, you will see that remnant become more beautiful and more obvious as it shines in the darkness around. This is an important concept and I don't want us to miss it tonight. Paul goes on and says, those who refuse God's grace, verse 7 and 8, well, God just let their hearts get hardened. And I'm just about to end here, so stay with me. He let their hearts get hardened. Remember I said a few weeks ago that the sunlight of God's love either melts the ice or hardens the clay. The gaze of His glory. And when these Jews rejected Him, it hardened their hearts. And the result of this hardening, Roman numeral 2, well, dear ones, without going into it, I'll complete this next week. Roman numeral 2, the result of this hardening is a miracle. Chapter 11 tells us, just look at it in the Scripture with me, that because they were hardened, verse 11, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Salvation has come to... Who are the Gentiles? You and I. We're the Gentiles. Do you understand the miracle of all this, you see? It wasn't until the Jews rejected the Messiah that God opened wide the door that you and I could come in. It wasn't until they said, we don't want anything to do with Him. We reject Him. We spit on Him. It wasn't until Paul sought to take the message to Him and they rejected Him that God said, now I've opened wide the door. Dear ones, I remember the parable in Luke 14 where Jesus talked about spreading a wedding feast. And He had a chosen list of guests to bring to the wedding feast. And they were guests of great dignity and great acclaim. And so the servants went out and invited the guests and what did they say? Well, I've got a lot going on. I can't make it to the wedding. I just got married. I'm too busy to come. Well, on down the list. And the servants went back and told the Master. And what did the Master say? Well then, go out in the highways and the byways and invite everyone that you can see, the oppressed and the poor and the downtrodden, and bring them to the table. Give them the seats of the rich and the wealthy and the elect. For all that will be left for them is weeping and gnashing of teeth. And they'll be cut out. And I want you to know, your seat at the wedding supper of the Lamb is only yours because God allowed the heart of a Jew to be hardened. Now next week I'm going to talk to you about what does this mean to the Jews. And if you'll permit me, next week I want to share with you the marvel of God's plan as it comes back around to address the salvation of the Jews. It led me in with this doxology. Look at verse 33. Oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments and His paths beyond tracing out! Or who has known the mind of the Lord, who has been His counselor? Who has ever given to God that God should repay Him? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. And to Him be the glory forever and ever. What a wonderful God we worship tonight. Could I ask you, as we move into our time of praise and worship, to let this be an expression of thanks for your seat at the wedding supper of the Lamb? I want to ask you to just, you know, shed off all the old stuff. Well, I know what we do. We sing choruses. Just say, wait a minute. Lord, I want to say thanks tonight. I don't care who's sitting beside me if he's just sitting there like a bump in the wall. I'm going to give you praise tonight. I want to give you worship tonight. I want to declare how much I love you and appreciate you. Now, if you're new to the church, let me tell you something, if I may. Don't be intimidated if you feel like you don't understand. You're welcome. If you're new to these things or don't even agree with them, you're welcome here. We are all young learners in this matter of worship. But we're committed to growing according to the Bible's patterns. And I urge you just to participate to the level you're able and ask questions afterwards. And God, I'm sure, will honor that in your faith tonight. Let's stand, shall we? And let's have a word of prayer together. Lord, as we now direct ourselves to Your mighty throne, Lord, we say with one heart, O the depths of the riches of the glory of God. And we delight in worshiping You tonight, Lord, in giving You our praise, and acknowledging before all the world that You are our God. And we are proud to serve the living Jesus. Lord, we are honored beyond measure to be seated, having a reserve seat, at the wedding supper of the Lamb. May our hearts give expression to that tonight, Lord, unencumbered by fear, unencumbered by watching others or anything else, Lord, just free to worship and praise Your holy name. In Jesus' name, amen. Praise is one of the greatest weapons that God has ever given us. When you learn the secret of praise, when you learn the secret of worship, you will understand that there will be myriads and myriads of angels released at the praising of His people. As you begin to praise God, even as Peter did, when he was in prison and the doors were opened, as Paul, when he was in prison, as he began to worship the Lord, the angel appeared. And their shackles were torn loose. Their bondages were removed from them. And you see, this is an incense, a sweet incense going up under the Lord and its perfume. And as you worship, then the ministering angels are able to go and minister to the heirs of salvation because you literally take their place before the throne of God in worship. Because there must be worship around the throne of God. Day and night and night and day the angels worship the Lord. And so we are greater than the angels. And we can sing the song of salvation. And we can say, worthy is the Lamb. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain from the throne of God. We have to remember that praise is our ultimate weapon before God. As we continue in worship, if you want to come up here to the steps of the platform and just say, Lord, I give my worship, my praise as an instrument to You to break a stronghold in my life, to break through a resistance in my life, I want You to do that as we sing these last several choruses now. And, you know, folks, you determine your level of ascendancy. You know that? You determine how high you're going to go. The Holy Spirit in you wants to go all the way up. How many of you know that? He does. But you can be like the Israelites of old who when Moses went up in the mountain, they stayed down below and built golden calves and murmured. And the Lord said, when Moses came down, they'll not go up to the mountain. And then the Lord said, Bring up Nadab and Abihu and Aaron and Moses and the 70 elders. And they came and went up a certain way. But the Lord said, You'll worship at a distance. And then the Lord said, Joshua, you and Moses come. And they ascended up into the cloud. But it wasn't until the Lord spoke directly to Moses and said, Come on in. And only Moses went all the way. Dear ones, the Lord by His Spirit is calling many of us, all of us in fact, to come all the way with Jesus. Be part of that land. Be part of that land. You can come and give expressions to that if you will. I saw Daniel in the lion's den and he was doing just that. He was worshiping the Lord. And I felt as though the Lord was saying, There are people here who have been sentenced to the pit. And it looks like it's really an impossible situation. And by all normal circumstances, it is. But that as you praise the Lord, that He will cause the mouths of the lion to even be closed. And that He will cause even those that have been set as your enemies to be at peace with you. And I know that's a word for me. But I felt even as I was seeing that that there was a need to respond to that. And when you said to come forward, I would just encourage you that if that is the situation that you are in, to respond to the Lord. See, and the key is to get your eyes off of that situation. Get them on to Jesus. God help us in our focus. Alright, one more and then we're going to go on in worship. We were singing the song As the deer panteth for the water, So my soul longs after Thee. I've been at times in my life, and maybe you can relate to, Lord, I don't want You that bad. I'm not that thirsty. It takes You some running and running to get you tired and get you thirsty. And at times in your life, you don't want to come and praise. You don't want that living water. But He just fashioned in my heart a picture of when a deer gets wounded or an animal is wounded, they go down low to the spots where the waters flow to bathe in it and to be cleansed and to be healed. And maybe your heart does not want to praise necessarily right now, but there's something that's really grieving you inside. And that's maybe what it will take to get you to the living waters. Because God's rivers are still flowing. Not just for spirit, but for soul and body as well. And if you'll come, He'll refresh you and He'll cleanse you and cause you to hunger and thirst for Him. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Let's stand, shall we, as we sing. Most high, most high, O Lord, most high, I need Your holy place. Most high, most high, O Lord, most high, I yearn to see Your face. Before Your throne, I bow most high. I hear Your word, be still and pray. Be near to me, Your praise most high. I speak to You, Your will be done. Most high, most high, to You, most high, be strong, be true, Your son, Your will be done. Beside Your throne, I cry to You, to You, most high. Most high, most high, O Lord, most high, I yearn to see You, most high. Most high, most high, O Lord, most high, I pray to You, Your will be done. Most high, most high, to You, most high. Most high, most high, to You, most high. Most high, most high, to You, most high. Most high, most high, Most high. Most high, most high, to You, most high. Most high. There's no justice for you, there's no justice for you. Your beautiful face is all I see. But when your eyes are on this child, your grace abounds to me. Your beautiful face is all I see. But when your eyes are on this child, your grace abounds to me. Yes, your grace abounds to me. Your grace abounds to me. I worship you, almighty God. There is none like you. I worship you, O Prince of Peace. That is what I want to do. I give you praise. Lord, you are my righteousness. I worship you, almighty God. There is none like you. I worship you, almighty God. There is none like you. I worship you, O Prince of Peace. That is what I want to do. I give you praise. Lord, you are my righteousness. I worship you, almighty God. There is none like you. I worship you, almighty God. There is none like you. I worship you, O Prince of Peace. That is what I want to do. I give you praise. Lord, you are my righteousness. I worship you, almighty God. There is none like you. There is none like you. There is none like you, O Lord. There is none like you. There is none like you, O Lord. Every time that I look through to me There's a blessing from heaven Every time that I look through to me There's a blessing from heaven Every time that I look through to me There's a blessing from heaven Every time that I look through to me There's a blessing from heaven Every time that I look through to me Yes, let's go ahead and give the Lord a great applause There's none like you We worship you We worship you Lord There is none like our God Holy is the Lord Worthy is the Lamb of God Great and mighty is our God We exalt your name Hallelujah! We're invited to be at the wedding supper of the Lamb. There is none like God. Holy is our God. Holy is our King. Worthy of everything. There is none like you, Lord. We worship your name. Hallelujah. There is none like God. Yes, Lord. We worship our God. Hallelujah to God. We love you, Lord. We love you so very much. Hallelujah. Blessed be your mighty name, O Lord. Thank you, Lord. Worship the King. Worship the Lamb of God. Thank you, my friends. Hallelujah to God. Hallelujah to God. There is none like you. There is none like you. Everyone said amen. Amen. Please be seated, everyone. You know, the Lord is teaching us all how to go on. I want to encourage some of you in something. We were probably there maybe 45 minutes altogether. Sure was fast, wasn't it? And if it was slow for you, you're still learning a lot. And I understand, really. I mean, I remember when I used to be a three hymn and a service guy, you know. First, middle, and last, like a lot of you. And that was a lot, you know. A lot of singing. And so I understand where you're coming from. But can I tell you that we need to press through. Press through. Some of you up in the front, you gave up too soon. Press through. And when you're before the Lord, God's not in a big hurry, you know. He doesn't have his timer going here. And when He's just ready is when the suddenlies come, you see. When He's ready, boom, suddenly. You're going to get that touch. So don't give up. Well, I hope you've been lifted tonight. I sense we all have and rejoice in that. But I want you to go ahead tonight. We're going to prepare. We have a few minutes to give our offerings. And wait a second. Before you do that, let me tell you where we're going to give our offerings tonight. We received a request this week to participate in the distribution of 100,000 New Testaments in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. And I just found out that 100,000 New Testaments are being printed here in the area and being shipped and distributed in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. And you all know what's happening there. Listen, please, please be praying. Because, folks, I want you to know that the whole thing is so tenuous. I mean, as fast as it opens, boom. And we need to be wise right now. And you've heard me say that I've felt the burden this year to be over there. Even as I speak to you, we're in the process of preparing to take a team over to Riga to encourage the church in the early summer. And so this is going to be something we're going to do. But tonight, every dollar that you give tonight is going to go to those Bibles. Two dollars buys a New Testament and ships it over there. So whatever you want to give. If you give $10, that'll be five New Testaments. If you give $100, that'll be 50. Every dollar you give tonight will go directly to that wonderful opportunity. And it'll be a blessing to see how the Word of God bears fruit over there. All right, you're preparing your offerings tonight. Make it out to North Way, but we'll see that every dollar given tonight will go to that process. How many visitors came tonight? You know, we