Well do keep your Bibles in hand please and turn in them with me this time to page 182 in the church Bibles as we continue our studies in the book of Joshua. We come today to Joshua chapter 7. The armies of Israel march on in the early stages of their conquest of the land of Canaan, still deeper into enemy territory. They have conquered the city of Jericho and the next enemy city, Amorite city, is the city of Ai now lying before them. And while everything went well at Jericho, things are about to go horribly wrong at Ai. The history recounted in this chapter has to be among the most solemn in the Old Testament scriptures and it is designed to be a kind of cautionary tale for the people of God in every age, showing us what a serious business sin really is.
If you’ll look at the text with me, Joshua chapter 7, you’ll notice the passage divides relatively straightforwardly into three major blocks of material. In the first five verses, we learn about sin and the defeat of the people of God. Sin and the defeat of the people of God. Then in verses 6 through 9, we learn about sin and the despair of the man of God. Sin and the defeat of the people of God. Sin and the despair of the man of God. Then finally in 10 through 26, sin and the destruction of the enemies of God. Sin and the destruction of the enemies of God. That’s our outline. Before we consider it together, let’s bow our heads and pray once more and then we’ll read Joshua chapter 7. Let us pray.
O God, we come to You and we come, many of us, weary, distracted, confused, burdened, preoccupied, guilty and ashamed. We ask that we might hear the voice of the Son of Man cutting through the cacophony of competing voices to speak to our hearts and by His Word and Spirit, call us to repentance, to renewed obedience, as we rest upon His grace alone. Do this now we pray, for His glory, from this portion of Holy Scripture, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Joshua chapter 7, beginning at the first verse. This is the Word of God:
“But the people of Israel broke faith in regard to the devoted things, for Achan the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things. And the anger of the Lord burned against the people of Israel.
Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth-aven, east of Bethel, and said to them, ‘Go up and spy out the land.’ And the men went up and spied out Ai. And they returned to Joshua and said to him, ‘Do not have all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand men go up and attack Ai. Do not make the whole people toil up there, for they are few.’ So about three thousand men went up there from the people. And they fled before the men of Ai, and the men of Ai killed about thirty-six of their men and chased them before the gate as far as Shebarim and struck them at the descent. And the hearts of the people melted and became as water.
Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord until the evening, he and the elders of Israel. And they put dust on their heads. And Joshua said, ‘Alas, O Lord God, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all, to give us into the hands of the Amorites, to destroy us? Would that we had been content to dwell beyond the Jordan! O Lord, what can I say, when Israel has turned their backs before their enemies! For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it and will surround us and cut off our name from the earth. And what will you do for your great name?’
The Lord said to Joshua, ‘Get up! Why have you fallen on your face? Israel has sinned; they have transgressed my covenant that I commanded them; they have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen and lied and put them among their own belongings. Therefore the people of Israel cannot stand before their enemies. They turn their backs before their enemies, because they have become devoted for destruction. I will be with you no more, unless you destroy the devoted things from among you. Get up! Consecrate the people and say, ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow; for thus says the Lord, God of Israel, ‘There are devoted things in your midst, O Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the devoted things from among you.’ In the morning therefore you shall be brought near by your tribes. And the tribe that the Lord takes by lot shall come near by clans. And the clan that the Lord takes shall come near by households. And the household that the Lord takes shall come near man by man. And he who is taken with the devoted things shall be burned with fire, he and all that he has, because he has transgressed the covenant of the Lord, and because he has done an outrageous thing in Israel.’’
So Joshua rose early in the morning and brought Israel near tribe by tribe, and the tribe of Judah was taken. And he brought near the clans of Judah, and the clan of the Zerahites was taken. And he brought near the clan of the Zerahites man by man, and Zabdi was taken. And he brought near his household man by man, and Achan the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was taken. Then Joshua said to Achan, ‘My son, give glory to the Lord God of Israel and give praise to him. And tell me now what you have done; do not hide it from me.’ And Achan answered Joshua, ‘Truly I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and this is what I did: when I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from Shinar, and 200 shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, then I coveted them and took them. And see, they are hidden in the earth inside my tent, with the silver underneath.’
So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran to the tent; and behold, it was hidden in his tent with the silver underneath. And they took them out of the tent and brought them to Joshua and to all the people of Israel. And they laid them down before the Lord. And Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver and the cloak and the bar of gold, and his sons and daughters and his oxen and donkeys and sheep and his tent and all that he had. And they brought them up to the Valley of Achor. And Joshua said, ‘Why did you bring trouble on us? The Lord brings trouble on you today.’ And all Israel stoned him with stones. They burned them with fire and stoned them with stones. And they raised over him a great heap of stones that remains to this day. Then the Lord turned from his burning anger. Therefore, to this day the name of that place is called the Valley of Achor.”
Amen, and we praise God that He has spoken to us in His holy Word.
In 1637, Nicolas Poussin painted his French baroque masterpiece sometimes called “The Arcadian Shepherds.” It portrays the shepherds as ideal human beings of classical Greco-Roman myth and they are wandering in an idyllic Arcadian landscape. And they stumble upon an ancient tomb and they are thunderstruck as they read the Latin inscription on the tomb – “Et in Arcadia ego.” “Even in Arcadia, I am there.” Even here in the bucolic paradise of Arcadia, even here, death intrudes. That’s the message.
Joshua 7:1 is meant to pack a similar punch for us as readers as Poussin imagined that inscription did for the Arcadian shepherds. After all, God has favored these people, right? We’ve watched Israel cross the Jordan on dry ground. We’ve watched them tear down the walls of Jericho with nothing more than a brass marching band and a pep rally. And then there’s the contrast that Joshua has been careful to draw for us between this generation who crosses the Jordan and their fathers’ generation who perished for their unbelief in the forty years of wilderness wandering. Unlike their fathers, this generation were faithful. Chapter 5, they renew their covenant with God and celebrate these long neglected sacraments. These are impressive people, spiritual people, obedient people, blessed people. And so the end of chapter 6, we might be forgiven had we begun to wonder if the rest of the story of Joshua isn’t going to be, frankly, a rather dreary record of uncomplicated successes. Just a long litany of unsurprising victory upon victory.
And then we read chapter 7 verse 1 and it’s a slap in the face. “The people of Israel,” these remarkable, heroic, obedient people, “the people of Israel broke faith in regard to the devoted things, for Achan the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things. And the anger of the Lord burned against the people of Israel.” So now sin can say, “Et in Israel ego.” Even here, even amongst people like this, such privileged people, people who have known such favor from God, even here among those who have a proven record of faithfulness, even costly obedience, even here sin still remains. It doesn’t matter how many years you have been walking with God. It doesn’t matter how strong your carefully cultivated habits of obedience have become. It doesn’t matter that all who know you would never have expected it from you. Of all people, no matter who you are, how devout or diligent you may be, Israel’s story here teaches us never to forget this warning. First Corinthians 10 verse 12 – “If any man thinks he stands, let him take heed lest he falls.”
Isn’t that part of the message here? Surely. Till Jesus comes, sin remains, and we cannot ever afford to think that we are past it, we are beyond it, we are above it, we’ve overcome those sins, we are stronger than that temptation. “It’s no threat to me anymore. I’ve matured beyond all of that.” No, no. “Et in Arcadia ego.” Even here, even in the imagined paradise of your nice, clean, safe, moral life, even here, people of First Presbyterian Church, sin festers in the shadows in all its destructive power. Let anyone who thinks he stands, take heed lest he falls.
Sin and the Defeat of the People of God
And so right away, Joshua 7 has us on red alert. Doesn’t it? And having got our attention in this very first verse, I want you to notice with me how in the next four verses Joshua begins to unpack for us why all of this matters so very much. Here, I want you to think with me in the first place then, about sin and the defeat of the people of God. Sin and the defeat of the people of God. Remember, the narrator has told us what has happened in verse 1. Achan has taken some of the devoted things, the silver and gold from Jericho, against the expressed command of chapter 6 verse 19 – “All silver and gold and every vessel of bronze are holy to the Lord. They shall go into the treasury of the Lord.”
So the omniscient narrator sees everything that is going on and he tells us about it as the reader, but poor Joshua has no idea what has happened. Fresh from the victory at Jericho, naturally he follows his usual procedure and we are meant to notice the similarity between Joshua’s tactics at Ai and those he followed at Jericho. So he sends two spies on ahead to check out the enemy city and they report back just as they did at Jericho and Joshua formulates his strategy. It’s all very familiar and so it sort of zips past us until we realize something vital is missing entirely from these opening five verses. You see, at Jericho, the strategy, the timing, the initiative, everything came not from Joshua but from the Lord. But this time, the whole approach to Ai seems to proceed without even a thought toward God. The assistance of God here seems rather more to have been assumed than actively pursued.
And that’s an impression that is only underscored by the cocky attitude of the two returning spies in verse 3. Do you see what they say in verse 3? “Do not have all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand men go up and attack Ai. Do not make the whole people toil up there, for they are few.” Now a little aside. The word translated here for “thousand” – two or three thousand – is really a technical term from a standard military unit in the Israelite army. It does not necessarily intend to convey precisely how many individuals went up to Ai. In fact, one scholar describes it as “a military force smaller than the tribe but larger than the father’s house, about the size of an extended family,” which if that is correct, means it is entirely possible that the phrase translated in our versions, “two or three thousand,” really means something more like two or three military units, containing perhaps as few as fifty warriors in each. Which is why, by the way, when the Amorites at Ai killed thirty-six men in verse 5 it is such a devastating loss. Thirty-six out of two or three thousand seems like a small number, which leaves you wondering why twenty-six hundred remaining soldiers flee for their lives in such terrible panic. But thirty-six out of say one hundred fifty is a much more telling loss.
And if those numbers are right, then the sense of Israel’s presumption – do you see this now – the sense of their presumption in the text now really begins to stand out, doesn’t it? “Look, Joshua, Ai is not a problem. It’s D’Lo, Mississippi! It’s just not going to be hard to conquer. So let’s not sweat the small stuff. We don’t need the whole army. A couple of units will do. And anyway, Joshua, God is on our team, remember?” They’ve forgotten the words of the commander of the Lord’s army at the end of chapter 5, haven’t they? Joshua asked him – do you remember – “Are you for us or for our enemies?” and he said, “No, I am the commander of the Lord’s army. Now I have come. I’m not on your team and I’m not on their team, Joshua. I am not the tribal deity of the Israelites, blinded by your partisan agenda.” He is the Holy One, and He opposes all who oppose Him, whether pagan Amorites behind their city walls or presumptuous Israelites on the plain. And that is the lesson Joshua and his people are about to learn the hard way.
In verse 5, notice the siege of the city fails. The units sent against Ai are routed, thirty-six men are slain, and notice this carefully at the end of verse 5. The comment is, “and the hearts of the people melted and became as water.” Now where have you heard that before? Rahab said it to the Israelite spies inside the city of Jericho describing how the Amorites felt as they heard about the mighty deeds of God. Their hearts melted. And the kings of the Amorites beyond the Jordan said it in chapter 5 when they heard how the Israelites had crossed the Jordan on dry land. This is how pagans react to the news of the coming judgment of God, do you see? But here, that vocabulary is being used of the people of God themselves. Israel, the narrator is telling us, has very quickly come to resemble the Canaanites.
There is a chilling reality at work here we must not fail to grapple with. I hope you can see it. It’s actually a simple principle, no less dangerous for all its simplicity. Here’s the principle. Sin spreads. Sin spreads. It is infectious. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. The disobedience of Achan, do you see, takes place in the context of congregational malaise and presumption. They assume God is on their team. They presume upon His blessing. But they do not seek His face. You remember last week one of our missionaries – this was pointed out from the pulpit – one of our missionaries asked Martin Wofford what sin is and Martin said, “Sin is a virus.” Do you remember that? It was a great answer because that’s exactly what we are being taught here. It’s infectious. It spreads. Private sins never stay with the sinner. They create habits and patterns and dispositions and they spill over into the lives of others. Accommodations get made. Blind eyes are turned. Lines in the sand are blurred. And soon, a little leaven leavens the whole lump. What a rebuke to us about our casual attitude to worldliness this ought to be. We shrug and ignore and indulge socially acceptable sins, don’t we, not realizing the leavening power they have to bring defeat to the whole church. Could it be that one reason we see so few conversions at First Presbyterian Church is because of overlooked, unaddressed, unrepented rebellion against God? Secret sin too long allowed to fester, leavening the inner life of the congregation and thwarting our design to advance the kingdom of God. Sin and the defeat of the people of God. Do you see it?
Sin and the Despair of the Man of God
Then look at the next major section of the passage; chapter 7 verses 6 through 9. First, sin and the defeat of the people of God. Now, sin and the despair of the man of God. The overconfidence that seems to have marked them all, including, tragically including Joshua himself, after their victory at Jericho, now collapses entirely. Doesn’t it? Do you know what the Dover test is? The Dover test – it’s a phrase used by journalists and politicians to describe the effect on US foreign policy when the first images are shown in the print and digital media of the coffins of slain US service personnel arriving at Dover Airforce Base. And the public can be all in favor of military action until those first images are shown on our screens at Dover. And the shock of that sight is sometimes all it takes to change the direction of policy. That’s the Dover test. Will this military action that the government has instituted survive the response of public opinion when the death tally begins to climb?
And the Israelite action at Ai fails the Dover test, doesn’t it? The shock of their defeat, the thirty-six casualties, it produces a dramatic change of attitude. Look at how their leaders respond. In verse 6, Joshua and the elders tear their clothes; they put dust on their heads. They fall on their faces before the great symbol of the presence of God, the ark of the covenant. All of these are actions designed to express lament and mourning and grief. They stay there all day until the evening. Gone now is their sinful presumption, but instead we’re not yet seeing repentance. Instead, we’re seeing desperation and despair.
Notice how confused and misdirected Joshua’s prayer is. Verse 7. “Alas, O Lord God, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all, to give us into the hands of the Amorites, to destroy us? Would that we had been content to dwell beyond the Jordan! O Lord, what can I say, when Israel has turned their backs before their enemies! For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it and will surround us and cut off our name from the earth. And what will you do for your great name?” Now remember, Joshua still does not know about Achan’s sin. He doesn’t know why this is happening. But in the absence of better intelligence, do you see his assumption? Where he looks for the explanation for what has happened? Not to his own heart or to the hearts of his fellows. He assumes it must be God’s failure; it must be God’s fault. God is to blame. “God brought us here, after all. God led us across the Jordan and now He has left us to be defeated at the hands of our enemies. They will be emboldened by this. They will surround us. They’ll cut off our names. It’s over, and it’s all Your fault, Lord!”
I wonder if you caught the irony in all of that. Joshua did not seem to care to seek God before the battle at Ai. He merely presumed that, “God will fight for us, obviously!” And now that the battle is lost, he is amazed that the Lord could be so very indifferent to their plight. The word that comes to my mind as I read through this prayer here is “entitlement.” And it’s shocking to see it in Joshua of all people, or at least it would be if we did not all have to admit to finding it lurking in our own hearts also. How often we presume upon God. He’s on our side. No need really to seek His favor, to wait on His guidance, to follow His lead. He will back our play. He will endorse our plan. And then when the Lord refuses to serve our agendas we are heartbroken and astonished at what we too quickly assume must be His indifference and His lack of love toward us. Like us, Joshua and the elders are all too quick to find fault with God, missing completely that the fault lies with them and not with Him. Verse 1, remember – “Israel broke faith in regard to the devoted things and the anger of the Lord burned against the people of Israel.” That’s the reason for all the hard providences now facing them.
Now look, the Bible is clear that we are not usually able to trace a direct, causal connection between some specific sin of ours and some providential hardship or sorrow or pain in our lives. We can’t know for sure that this is caused by that. But – and this is important; this is what Joshua misses – Hebrews 12:7 does provide us with a tool to use whenever hardship and difficulty and suffering and sorrow and trials come. We don’t know if God is disciplining us, but Hebrews 12:7 says, “Endure hardship as discipline.” In other words, your starting assumption ought not to be, “God, You’re not being fair!” Instead, the starting assumption ought to be, “O God, You are teaching me and training me and disciplining me. Help me to improve my trials, to benefit from my sufferings, that I might search my heart and repent of my sin and flee to You rather than from You and cling to You and trust You and seek Your face, to forsake all remnants of worldliness still lurking in my life and to bow before Your reign anew as a citizen of the world to come.”
Sin and the defeat of the people of God. Sin and the despair of the man of God. Joshua misses what God is really doing through these trials. He is seeking to call them back to repentance. And it may be in your trials also that God is calling to you through the megaphone of your suffering to come back to Him at last.
Sin and the Destruction of the Enemies of God
Then thirdly, notice the last section of the chapter. Sin and the destruction of the enemies of God. In verse 10, Joshua and the elders are still on their faces before the ark of the covenant, still in the middle of their prayer meeting, when God interrupts them. If I can put it in human terms, with all reverence, we might say God is fed up with their prayers. Look at verse 10. “Get up,” He says. “What are you doing down there on your faces?” You see, right now, Joshua’s role is not to be Israel’s intercessor. It is to be Israel’s judge. And the scene that follows really is a sort of mini Judgment Day. And while it hardly makes for easy reading, we do need to see it as an anticipation, a foreshadowing of the final tribunal when Joshua II, the Lord Jesus Christ, will come again to judge the quick and the dead.
So look at the text. God says to Joshua, “Get up! Why have you fallen on your face? Israel has sinned; they have transgressed my covenant that I commanded them; they have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen and lied and put them among their own belongings. Therefore the people of Israel cannot stand before their enemies. They turn their backs before their enemies, because they have become devoted for destruction. I will be with you no more, unless you destroy the devoted things from among you.” The bombshell lands at last. Now Joshua finally understands what’s really been going on. Israel stands condemned, just like their Canaanite enemies. The Lord says, “Israel, like Jericho, like Ai, Israel itself has become one of the devoted things, designated for destruction because of the sin of Achan.”
And in verses 14 and 15, God outlines for him the process for identifying the culprit. Each tribe will come forward; lots will be cast to determine which clan within the tribe, then which family within the clan, then which man within the family is the responsible agent. And so when the time comes, Judah is taken. Then the clan of the Zerahites is taken. Then the family of Zabdi is taken, until each man individually steps forward. And Achan, at last, at the end of this process, Achan is taken. And what I find so striking about that is that this whole time Achan says nothing. The noose is gradually tightening and at no point does he step forward and volunteer.
I think that’s very telling. As a pastor, I have seen it so many times. An all too common mark of an unrepentant heart is that it is not self-accusing. It doesn’t volunteer. It doesn’t confess early and forthrightly. It only comes clean when it’s caught in the hopes of mitigating consequences. And that’s what’s happening here, isn’t it? Achan is caught and finally confronted by Joshua. At last he admits what he’s done. Look at verse 20 and listen out as you read for the echo of the temptation of Satan in the Garden of Eden back in Genesis chapter 3. “Achan answered Joshua, ‘Truly I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and this is what I did: when I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from Shinar, and 200 shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, then I coveted them and took them. And see, they are hidden in the earth inside my tent, with the silver underneath.’” He saw, he desired, he coveted, and he took. That’s almost exactly the path of temptation leading to sin down which Satan led Eve. Do you remember? She looked at the forbidden fruit, she saw that it was beautiful, good to eat and useful for making one wise, and she took it and she ate.
It’s a familiar cascade of consequences. Everyone in this room knows it all too well. A series of steps, one leading to the next, and pretty soon we’ve crossed the line. And the thing about it is, in retrospect, now that the truth has come out, it all looks so very sordid and pathetic and insignificant. Achan, at the time, was captured by it, overwhelmed by it. “How enticing! How beautiful! I’ve got to have it!” But now as the spies run to his tent and uncover what’s buried beneath it, it really is exposed as an ugly, small thing in the bitter light of day. And so Joshua finally passes sentence on Achan and his household in verse 24 with a play on his name. He says to Achan, “Why did you bring trouble on us? The Lord brings trouble on you today.” And the people of Israel stoned them to death and burned them with fire and they built a cairn to mark their graves and named the valley where it takes place, the Valley of Achor – a play on Achan’s name. “Achor” means “trouble.”
Sin is Serious
And as we take in that dreadful scene, two final things I want you to make sure you do not miss before we conclude. First, I hope you get the message loud and clear that sin is serious. It’s serious. All sin. There are no little sins. There are no inconsequential sins. Because God is holy, sin, all sin, is damnable. And make no mistake, this episode here in Joshua 7, it’s not some harsh Old Testament pattern that no longer obtains in the new covenant church. Remember Ananias and Sapphira in Acts chapter 5 who lied to the Holy Spirit and kept some of the proceeds of the sale of their land for themselves while they were pretending to give it all. And like Achan, God struck them down. Sin is deadly. It is deadly. And we must become deadly serious in dealing with it. We’re not to toy with it. We’re not to hide it. We’re not to dabble in it or play with it. We are to forsake it and kill it. Do not touch any of the devoted things. “As obedient children,” 1 Peter 3:14, “do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. Since it is written, ‘You shall be holy for I am holy.’ And if you call on Him as Father, who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.” That’s the lesson that we need to learn here, surely. Tremble before the Judge of all the earth. Fear the Lord. Forsake sin. Remember the words of John Owen – “Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.” One day judgment will come. Be sure, your sins will find you out. There’s no hiding your guilt before God.
A Door of Hope
And then the last thing that we must not miss. Right there at the end of verse 26. Do you see it? “Then the Lord turned from His burning anger.” What turned the anger of God away? It was Achan’s death, wasn’t it? Achan’s death meant Israel was spared. By it, the judgment of God was satisfied. In Hosea chapter 2, verses 14 and 15, in the context of an oracle of judgment upon the sinful, wayward people of God, the Valley of Achor is mentioned again. And we expect it to be similarly bad news. Bad things have happened in the Valley of Achor. The judgment of God fell at the Valley of Achor. Is that what’s going to happen now to the wayward people of God? Instead, actually, the Lord says, “There I will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.” A door of hope. How can this place be a door of hope for a sinner who deserves the judgment of God? The Valley of Achor is a door of hope because here, one man dies for the people. And the wonder of the Christian Gospel is that in the fullness of time, in the Lord Jesus Christ, God the just Judge Himself became that one man and bore the judgment for us. We are the guilty ones, yet we are spared and He was taken.
So let me ask you, “What’s hidden under your tent? Is there secret sin in your life?” You’ve excused it, perhaps, minimized it. You’ve justified it. “I’m not as bad as the other guy. What’s the big deal. I’m not hurting anybody. I’ve got this under control. I can stop any time.” Doesn’t the story of Achan make it clear you can’t hide it forever and that judgment is coming? Time to get serious about your sin. And as you do, know there is a door of hope opened for you. There’s a door of hope you can take through which you may flee. One has died that the burning anger of God might be turned away. Look, either you will be condemned like Achan, or you will take Christ, trust Christ, flee to Christ who was condemned for sinners in our place. Those are your only choices as you see the reality of your sin and the just judgment of God. Which will it be? I want to plead with you today not to hide your sin any more. Confess. Repent. And pass through the door of hope that God has opened in the cross of His dear Son.
Let’s pray together.
O God, how we pray for Your mercy. There is not one of us here who is not an Achan, in whom there is not some sin festering in our hearts in the hidden place. And so we confess and we repent and we plead with You for forgiveness and pardon, pointing to justice done and judgment satisfied for the worst of us and the least of us, for any and all of us at Calvary. Because of the cross, O God, wash us and cleanse us and forgive us and renew us. Teach us not to play with our sin anymore, but to live by grace for Your glory anew, not to presume upon You but to cling to You, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.