Now let’s quickly review our purpose again. I won’t be doing this every week all the way through, but just to make sure we have this. Act 1 is Christ Revealed. The book is about Christ, not merely from Him. Act 2, the Old Testament Explored and Expounded, which is we’ve seen a lot of the Old Testament already. And then Act 3, how do we apply it? How do we apply it? It’s not meant to be a book, just predictions that can never be applied, but how can we apply the book?

This morning, the introductory passage gives way to a focus on the seven churches, which reminds us, as we saw last week, that revelation is directed to the church and is not intended as an evangelistic tool. This revelation about Jesus is directed to seven congregations who are representative of all churches throughout all time and not, as dispensationalism suggests, of different ages in the history of the church. What the church in every age needs is a robust understanding of who Jesus is.

We have labored over the idea of not reading Revelation as a predictive book. We must also be cautious in reading it as a self-help manual for the church. The ills of any church at any time in human history can only be addressed by seeing Christ as He is revealed in this book. Many of you are not aware of what happens in the churches, and there’s always some new marketing program that’s offered and how we’re going to reach people, and there’s almost no mention of Jesus and His glory and His power. The church must see Christ.

Now, with respect especially to five of those churches, which we will explore in the future, they have an illness diagnosed, so to speak. Jesus says, here’s what’s wrong, and here’s what needs to be done about it. And each one of those letters begins with a reminder of who Christ is. Now, when we get there, we see these things are kind of a prescription, and I’m going to use that model this morning. And today, I’m really just dealing with verse 4 and verse 8, okay? We’ll have to come back to the rest. We’ve dealt with some of the others already, but this morning, I want you to see this concept using verse 1 and verse 4.

Prescription number 1, we must see Christ as sovereign over time and circumstance. We must see Christ as sovereign over time and circumstance. Now, last week, we said that the revelation of Christ and His victory, through, read the outline, Pastor, through the revelation of Christ and His victory, God’s servants are equipped to endure the persecution and tribulation they encounter as they seek to follow Christ’s example of faithful servanthood. The book is written to encourage Christians to endure the suffering that they receive as a matter of being a Christian.

The evangelical commentary in the Bible validates this by saying, The purpose of Revelation specifically is to encourage the believers in a time of intense persecution, to prepare them for what is coming, both in terms of evil and the power of God to see them through it, to comfort them with the hope of heaven, to provide guidance for their daily lives, to teach them how Christian theology relates to their most pressing needs, to assure them of God’s victory over Satan, the Antichrist, and evil, and to give them a vision of God in His reality.

Now, we noted that this may not be happening to you and I in America today in the sense of widespread, blatant persecution. But there are brothers and sisters on this planet who are suffering that kind of persecution as we speak, and the book of Revelation speaks then to all of us. We said that this faithful servanthood of Christ, Revelation 1:5, Jesus Christ is the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and we noted that the word witness is the Greek word martus from which we get the word martyr. Christ was a martyr for His faith, and He calls us to the same kind of thing.

Revelation 2:10, Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. Chapter 2, verse 13, I know you hold fast my name and did not deny my faith, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness who was killed among you.

We noted that Christ was faithful unto death, that He encourages faithfulness unto death, and that He commands or commends faithfulness unto death. The calling of God upon the Christian is faithfulness regardless of the circumstances. Many of us will not die for our faith in a physical sense, but we are called to die for our faith in many other ways, and this is something that Christ encourages us to do.

We see these things. Now, again, it’s a little bit, it’s a little difficult for the American Christian to get this, but we need to put ourselves in the place of others. What Christ is saying is, Be faithful to death. Pay any price to serve me faithfully where you are. Now, let us put ourselves in the place of a person who could possibly die for their faith. What is the first thought someone may have in pondering that challenge?

Now, for many people, it is this, and I’ve had people tell me this, and this is where I want to try to go this morning. Pastor, I’m not sure I love Christ enough to die for Him. I’m not sure I have enough faith to die for Christ. Now, this is refreshing honesty, and it is a token of humility. We don’t want to be like Peter, right, who said, I’ll never deny you, and before the night was out, he had done so. We don’t want to do that.

So there is refreshing honesty and a token of humility in that admission, but it misses something I think very significant because that response, the first thing a statement like that says is I’m looking inward for the strength rather than looking to Christ for the strength. And this is the whole point of Revelation. It isn’t just a motivational manual to help us to have the strength. It is supposed to drive us to Christ and trust in His power and His grace.

The first statement, first thing such a statement says is we’re looking inward. I don’t think I have it. Great, wonderful. What will you do now? Live in despair or turn to Christ and trust Him to give us the strength we need, whether it is unto death or just in any number of other ways where we may be called upon to serve Him. If we must endure suffering, and we must, whether it is ever in the degree of the Christians in Revelation or other parts of the culture or the first century, whether it is ever in that context, we are nevertheless called to endure suffering for Christ, but we must look to for the strength, not just try to genitize from within ourselves.

I want you to see that this assurance of this strength in this regard is encapsulated in the sentiment which sandwiches these five verses. Verse 4, He who is, who was, who is, and who is to come. Verse 8, He who was, and is, and is to come. These are the passages that we call our attention to. Verse 4 and 8, John, from Him who is, and who was, and who is to come. I am the Alpha and the Omega. Verse 8, says the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.

Now while it is true, while it is true that that phrase appears in other instances of the book of Revelation, and it is a summary statement drawn from the Old Testament passage, I am who I am in Exodus. It is nevertheless speaks to God’s unchanging nature. God’s unchanging nature. Now we need to recognize this. Sometimes people will try to say God changes. But I want to ask, what is your assurance that He’s coming again if He changes? Maybe He changed His mind. Maybe the reason He hasn’t come yet is because He decided He wasn’t going to come anymore.

These are the problems that we get into when we assert that God changes or that He can change because we no longer have any assurance of what He has said to us. Listen to these passages from both the Old and New Testament. Malachi 3:6, I the Lord do not change. Hebrews 13:8, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. James 1:17, in the New Living Translation, God our Father never changes or casts a shifting shadow. This is absolutely essential to this phrase about God’s sovereignty over time and circumstance. He does not change and this reason we can be assured that He will deliver us in our day in the same way that He delivered Daniel in his day.

It is that unchanging nature of God that gives us the hope that when we arrive at that place of testing, He is there with us in His unchanging nature. Greg Beal, in his commentary on Revelation, says that the God who transcends time guides the entire course of history because He stands as sovereign over its beginning and its end. Grant Osborne, in his commentary, says, the unique title, the one who is and who was and is to come, means that God is sovereign over past, present, and future. He is Lord over history and guides the affairs of mortal humanity according to His will.

God does not change. He is the same forever in both the present, the past, and in the future. Now, this kind of idea of sovereignty is a little hard for us to get a hold of as human beings because all of our lives, let me see, I’ve got to be careful here on my paragraph ahead of myself. Two paragraphs. I’m a page and a half ahead of myself. Stay with you, outline pastor. This kind of sovereignty can be stressed by use of the English word almighty there in verse 8. I am the Alpha and the mighty who is, Alpha and Omega who was, who is to come, almighty.

This English word, almighty, comes from a Greek word that means the ruler over all. You’ve already seen that in verse 5, didn’t we? To him who loves us and the beginning of verse 5, from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, firstborn of the dead, ruler of the kings of the earth. Guard against any interpretation of revelation that makes it sound like somebody else is calling the shots. God is in control. This is the concept. This title in verse 4 where it’s speaking of the Father is then applied to Jesus in verse 8. It means that we aren’t dealing with a good moral teacher but with the incarnate God Himself who can encourage His people by declaring His control over all things that might affect them.

You can see why this was so important to the first century Christians who did not have the political protections we have in America, who did not have a constitution protecting our freedom of speech and our rights to assembly and the other kinds of things. All they had was God and they had to trust Him. Jesus speaks to them and says, I’m the one who’s in true and full control and you can rest in me even when everything else seems to be falling apart around you.

Joel Beakey says it like this, Christ is Lord and Master of history, never its slave or its pawn. Whatever powers oppose Him, Christ will prevail. This claim is central to Revelation. Though the power of Christ is contested, He masters all the powers of creation, puts His enemies to flight, conquers the world, establishes His kingdom, condemns the wicked and brings His loved ones safely home to God. He is sovereign over time and circumstance.

Some time ago I mentioned to you that there is conflict between Christ and His enemies, but there is no contest. There is no question of who will win because He is the sovereign God. No one can defeat Him. Now we can be encouraged in this. And I’m trying to keep it all connected here so forgive me if I slip. He’s sovereign over time and circumstance but I’m not sure I have the faith or the love to die for Christ. We can be encouraged. Looking ahead in other words, I’m looking ahead and God forbid but I’m looking ahead that this would happen in America.

You do know that perhaps God might raise up from within this congregation someday a missionary to go to a field on this planet where they would die for their faith and they need to know. Well, I’m not sure I could ever do that but the question is, can I trust Christ and what is it that I’m trusting about Christ? He is sovereign over my future not just my present. This is the point I’m trying to make.

We can be encouraged that God who is to come who was who is who is to come already occupies the future moment that causes me fear. When I get there I’m not alone. He will be there waiting for me when I arrive in that kind of manner of speaking. He already occupies because He is the God who is to come. He already occupies that future moment and we arrive to find God waiting.

Now this is hard for you and me to grasp because human life is a constant series of goodbyes. We are constantly leaving things behind. Whether it be friends, loved ones, careers, homes, health, financial security, everything we say goodbye to it. We leave it behind. Unfortunately, the things that we are forced by life to leave behind are the things we have looked to for joy and strength.

Now I am not saying we cannot have things that give us joy or strength but where will your strength be found if you are deprived all of those things which would be what happens in true, genuine, severe persecution. The Jews when they were packed up and sent to concentration camps were allowed to take some clothes and when they got to the concentration camp even the clothes was taken away from them. Their jewelry, their glasses, everything. And they did not have what we did. They’re always saying goodbye.

God gives us all things richly to enjoy but because we are fallen people in the decaying world we will lose all the things we have trusted in as we move forward in life. This is so very important but here’s the good news. God cannot be left behind because He is ever present with us. No matter what goes when each day I get older I get weaker I get, well maybe not wiser I get, you know, I keep going away from things but God is always with me day by day because He does not age He does not change He does not decline in years. Nothing.

And this is the point. Whatever self-assessment I do today about my ability to deny Christ or not to deny Him says nothing about what God will do to sustain us when we reach that hour of peril. He cannot, we cannot come to that hour without His permission and His presence. The person who says rightly so as we all should in our humility, I don’t know if I have enough faith to deny Christ or not to deny Christ if that comes from me. I don’t know if I have enough love to die for Christ if that moment comes to me. But the answer is not to look inwardly but to trust that when I arrive in that moment He is there to give me the strength to be firm and faithful come what may.

You see this in the life of Jesus Himself. The life of Jesus Himself. John 19. Pilate said to Him on trial, You will not speak to Me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you? And Jesus answered him, You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above. When John the Baptist’s disciples come to Him, Jesus is getting all these followers and John is losing the followers and they come to Him and say, This guy’s got more followers than you have. And what does John say? A man can receive nothing unless it is given him from above. The answer is in the sovereignty of God. Not in me, not in the church, not in the religious experiences we claim, but in the one who is meant to be the pinnacle of all those religious experiences, a relationship with Christ Himself.

John 13:1 says, Now before the feast of the Passover, Jesus knew that His hour had come to depart out of the world. He had that understanding as God that every moment of His life was in the hands of God and nothing that anyone could do, man or demon, could interfere with God’s plan. And this is the concept as we see this phrase, who is, who was, and who is to come at the beginning and at the end of this five-verse section. Because Jesus Christ is sovereign over time and circumstance, I need not fear any suffering, for none can come to me except by His permission.

Now let’s be honest. How often is it we find ourselves in a place of difficulty, heartache, and our first question is, what did I do wrong? What did I do wrong? And I’m not suggesting for a moment that we haven’t been foolish and made bad decisions and so forth, but sometimes things happen and it’s not a matter of a bad decision. Something bad happened. And our first response is beginning, well, I must have done something. It must be something I did and this was the argument of Job’s accusers. Job, be honest. What have you done? God would not have done this to you unless you had done something. And we learn if we accept a testimony of the book of Job, God is in control of all things, even when it isn’t very comfortable.

Now this brings us to prescription number two. Prescription number two, I need to recognize how prescription number one conveys assurance of our salvation in the face of suffering. I’m sorry to divulge off into humor here if you think it’s inappropriate, but when I put that together, recognize prescription number two recognizes how prescription number one, I’m reminded of that Andy Griffin episode where Barney has these prisoners and he says, here at the Rock we have two rules. Rule number one, obey all the rules. Rule number two, don’t write on the bathroom wall. I couldn’ t help but think of that when I put prescription number one tells us what to do with, prescription two tells us to do with.

Now, I talk to you. I’m drawing a premise. We touched on it before. We dealt with it some on Wednesday nights, but if you weren’t, so if you’re here, it’s a bit repetitious, but if you weren’t, it comes in a different way. Recognize how prescription number one, Christ is sovereign over time and circumstance, conveys assurance of our salvation in the face of suffering. Okay? Very important. Now, I’m drawing this from verse five, which says, from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, the ruler of kings on earth to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood. The King James Version says, washed us in his blood, washed us from our sins in his blood.

Now, Wednesday night, I mentioned this. I couldn’t find the reference. I’m sorry. I went back through the books. You know, usually I can tell what book it is, was in and what side of the page it was on. I couldn’t find this, so I just tell you that I discovered in my studying this week for Wednesday night, the early church believed that the place that you should baptize someone was in a river because the water would carry your sins away. Now, you can be baptized in a pool or a pond or whatever. We’re not saying that it was illegitimate, but the early church wanted to emphasize the richness of what Christ has done. He has washed away our sins. They have been carried away from us by the cleansing stream of Christ. Okay? Get that understanding.

The ideal place, we, that is, you and I today are not standing in an eddy of swirling backwater. If you’ve ever been to the river, you know there are these little eddies and they just swirl around and they collect all kinds of junk. That’s not the way it is. Our sins are not circling us. And God does not see them circling because they have been washed away from us. Now, I want you to recall the premise. I’m not sure I have enough faith or love to die for Christ. Now, why would that be a concern? Why would that be a concern? And I think the answer is, or at least the one I’m dealing with is I’m afraid I would lose my salvation. I would be lost because I did not have enough strength and courage to be faithful to the point of death.

And that brings us to the question, can I lose my salvation? And in this way, especially, can I lose my salvation in this way? Now, someone’s going to think of it for sure. A pastor, Jesus said, if you deny me, I’ll deny you. Thank you for that update. But I want you to see another side of that question. Though some people disagree, and there are those watching by Facebook who probably would turn it off at this point because they have been told, you’ve got, you can lose what God gave you. And so I would say two things. First, if someone wishes to live under the crushing weight of the demand for absolute perfection in every microscopic second of your life, then so be it. I cannot live under that crushing weight because I know I’m not going to be sinless every second of every day.

If it depends on me, I will be lost because I am not completely pure and holy at this point in my journey. And the scripture suggests we cannot be completely pure and holy in this point of the journey. If I could, so we need to understand that. And I can’t do it if somebody else thinks they can be perfectly holy in every moment, so be it. But the second thing I want you to see because sometimes people turn us off here and you say, well, you know, the Calvinists and the Armenians, the Baptists and the Methodists disagree over this subject. And it’s been disagreed on, it’s been debated for centuries, so why we bother? Because I want to tell you, I don’t think it’s a theological secondary issue.

If there are brothers and sisters today facing death for Christ, that’s a real, very real question for them. How do I hold on to Christ in that moment when I already feel like I don’t have enough, and by the way, if I could throw this out, well, why would it be a concern that I’m afraid I wouldn’t have enough faith or love to die for Christ? The only answer I can think of is that I would be lost if I didn’t remain faithful. So we have to ask the question, can we lose our salvation in that way or any other?

Let me say this, and I can’t, you know, again, this is multiple streams here. I think that attitude, you can lose your salvation, steals the good from good news. How is it good news if I can turn around tomorrow and lose it all? God saved me, but tomorrow I’m going to lose it all. What’s good about that? Especially when I’ve already admitted I’m not good enough. In other words, I’ve come to salvation recognizing my brokenness, recognizing my sin depending on Christ and I’ve received this good news. I’m forgiven, I’m saved, I’m going to heaven when I die. But tomorrow you can walk away, you can reject Him, or you can fail in such a way as to lose your salvation.

The second thing I would say to you is what is salvation? What is it? That’s one of those religious terms, but I would suggest that salvation is forgiveness of sin. Listen to Luke 1:77, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins. Salvation is equated with forgiveness of sins. Peter, Acts chapter 2, Peter said to them, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. The people who were being saved are the people who are being forgiven for their sins. Salvation is forgiveness of sins.

Therefore, to lose salvation would be to forfeit God’s forgiveness. Now what could you possibly do that would be so heinous that all the sins He’s forgiven you would wipe out that forgiveness? I was thinking today as I went through this, and please do not misunderstand me. I know everybody in the room didn’t have a dark life, and I’m not suggesting you’re not equally saved, and that your sins weren’t as heinous as other people’s sins. But by the time I was 22, I had already dropped out of high school, been on probation, kicked out of the Marine Corps, was divorced, had a criminal record, nothing severe.

But Easter Sunday, 1978, I spent in the Rockingham County drunk tank in a torn silk shirt. And those of you who’ve never been in the drunk tank, at least 45, 46, 47 years ago, they don’t have mattresses and blankets, you know. Your alcohol is supposed to keep you warm. And I was in the drunk tank. There was an ice storm that year. The power was off. We didn’t get any food. It was cold. And how did I end up in the drunk tank? Because on Saturday, me and a friend of mine started drinking about 9 o’clock in the morning. We drank all day long. And then later that day, we went and picked up a girl that had been my girlfriend and now was his girlfriend. And I drug her out of the car, drug her up into the woods, and beat her up. And then when she got and was gone, I went down to that person’s house and got in a fight with two other people and busted them up. And that’s how dark my life was.

All of those sins, we were kicking around the other Sunday at the house, and I was telling the kids how I raised my own marijuana when I was a, before I came to Christ, you know. And Sarah said, kids, take that, you know, don’t, don’t, this is before Papa was a Christian, you know, make sure. It was a dark life. Nobody explained this to me. When I came to Christ, all my sins were washed away. Not to be remembered by God. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant, I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more. Isaiah 38, behold, in love you have delivered my life from the pit of destruction. You have cast all my sins behind your back. Please note the language. Not behind me, where I could turn around and see them, behind my back, where I can never see them because whenever I turn, it’s behind my back. This is what God promises to do. He has forgiven us of our sins.

What, if, if salvation, if losing, if salvation is the forgiveness of sins, losing my salvation means losing God’s forgiveness, what sin could I possibly commit that would be so heinous as to undo the forgiveness He’s already given me? Well, pastor could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, but there are no other straws. They have been forgiven. They’re gone. They’re forgotten by God so that there is nothing for Him to condemn me with.

Now, listen, somebody would say, well, pastor, two possibilities here. And that’s, by the way, the reason I, let me slow you down. Baptism in a stream symbolizes our sins being washed away, far as east from west. They’re gone. You say, well, what about in the Old Testament, pastor? They, they had these sacrifices. The new covenant, in the Old Covenant, the sins were never gone. They were just covered. They were just covered over till the next time you did the sacrifice. They were never washed away. That’s why God says in the New Covenant, I will remember them no more because now they’ve been removed from us. It’s so very important.

So people would say, well, pastor, what could I do to possibly negate the forgiveness of God? to forfeit that forgiveness. And one answer is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. I didn’t make a slide for that. And forgive me, it should have done. The Christian cannot commit the sin. That passage has been so misused through the years to warn Christians. You could commit the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, especially true in Pentecostal charismatic circles. You could blaspheme the Holy Spirit. But if you go to the Scripture and you look at what it says, when Jesus makes that statement, He’s talking to the scribes and Pharisees who are rejecting Him and opposing Him. He’s not talking to believers. He’s not saying to the believer, you could commit this unpardonable sin. He’s warning these people, they could commit the unpardonable sin.

And what were they doing? They were accusing Jesus of doing what He did by the power of Satan. No true Bible-believing, biblically-informed Christian is ever going to say that Jesus saved me by the power of the devil, or He healed me by the power of the devil, or He’s answering my prayer by the power of the devil. We Christians know there is a difference between God and His enemy, Satan. And we would never accuse Jesus of doing something like that. But that’s what you’d have to do to blaspheme the Holy Spirit and commit the unpardonable sin. And if it is the unpardonable sin, then there’s no other sin that the Christian could commit that God could not forgive. Amen?

Now then, we come back, and I’ll have to skip the next slide because I did make this one, and I don’t want to miss the point I’m trying to make next. So what do we do? I’m not sure I have enough faith or love to die for Christ. What am I going to do? I’m going to trust in His sovereignty. And how does His sovereignty relate to dying for Christ? And the answer is, frankly, that you would never come to that point unless He had ordained your life to come to that point, which means He would have provided you with the strength that you today, today you think, I don’t have that strength. But in that moment, if He had ordained that. See, the problem is, we arrive at that point and say, back to, what did I do wrong to get here, instead of, maybe this is exactly where God has wanted you to be, so that He can glorify His name by giving you a chance to suffer in the ultimate sense for His kingdom.

Listen to this passage again from Revelation. Do not fear what you’re about to suffer. This is an incredibly instructive passage. Do not fear what you’re about to suffer. Now, why would you say that to somebody? Because I’m with you. You don’t have to be afraid of the suffering. I’m with you. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested, and you will have ten, and for ten days, you will have tribulation. Please note that. The devil is about to throw some of you into prison. Okay, well, what are you going to do about God? We always want God to fix the things. We don’t want the devil to do this. We don’t want the devil to do that. Have you ever considered that God may be allowing the devil to do that? That’s what it says there. That’s why I’m not a big fan of spiritual warfare. People say, the devil’s fighting you. You don’t know that. This might be a moment when God is testing me. Oh, the devil’s behind it, but it is not his will. It is God’s will that has brought this situation to pass in my life.

He says, I’m going to stand by and watch what the devil is doing to you. Now, that’s the Shifflett paraphrase. You can explain a different way. I’ll be glad to listen. The devil is going to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested. And this testing will last 10 days, which is a symbolic number for an unspecified amount of time. And in that time, you will be required to be faithful unto death. But don’t worry. Don’t be afraid. I’m with you, and I will give you the strength to endure. You were only in that moment because God, who is sovereign over time and circumstance, has ordained you to be there.

Now, you want to see a contrast? Chapter 3, verse 10. Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that has come among the whole world to try those who dwell on the earth. Now, later on, we’ll come back to this. It’ll be down the road, obviously, because of the Christmas… Easter break. But when we come back to it, we’ll deal with the question of whether this has application to the rapture and the tribulation and keeping the church out of the tribulation. But please notice that to one church, He says, be faithful to death, and I will give you a crown of life. And to another church, He says, I will keep you from facing that trial. Do you see the contrast? Why is he… Why does he say to this church… By the way, both of those churches are being commended for their faith. But one of them, He says, you’re going to suffer and die for me. And to the other church, He says, I’m going to rescue you before you get to that point.

And what is the only possible explanation that His plan for this Christian as it pertains to suffering is different or His plan for this Christian? And the fundamental point is that when you or I, whether in this day in America or some of us we know and brothers and sisters overseas right now suffering for their faith, the message has to be drawn from He who is, He who was, He who is to come. He is sovereign over my future and your future. That means if I come to that place of testing, He’s there to strengthen me so that I do not surrender, I do not yield, I do not deny His name and therefore, I cannot be lost because He will not let me fall to that point and deny Him. Amen?

Children, this is the God we serve. This is the God we serve and this is the God this book of Revelation is trying to tell us about and not just a bunch of crazy, entire predictions. Amen? Father, thank You for allowing us to be together today.