Last week we reviewed the
introductory material concerning the book of Revelation. I just want to very briefly
go over that with you, get everybody on the same page. Some of
the things we said, hight points, key points: first of all, the book itself, the
book of Revelation, was written by John the Apostle; he used
apocalyptic style or a literary style of writing, in order to disguise the
meaning of a lot of the things that he was talking about, to hide it from the
Roman officials who were persecuting the church at the time. It's also addressed
to the seven churches in Asia Minor. We'll talk about them in a moment. In the
book he describes the struggle in the first century between Rome and the
church. That's really what this book is about. He encourages the church to
persevere in suffering, because ultimately his promise or the promise
that God makes is that Rome, their oppressors, their persecutors, will
eventually be defeated. He also describes the ongoing cycle of struggle between
good and evil that will end with Christ's appearance at
the end of the world. And so, we have two points of view
here, two things that the book is accomplishing at the same time. And the
material is presented in a series of visions that reveal Christ and His
relationship and dealings with the church on earth, as well as the
church in heaven. And also the destruction, the eventual destruction of
Satan. So when it says, Revelation, the revelation is of Christ and what Christ is
doing and what Christ will do. Now the theme of the book is the revelation of
Christ, as I mentioned. And the outline of the book follows that theme.
And if you don't get mired down in all of the imagery, the visions and
the imagery, the book is rather straightforward. So today in
our class we're going to examine the first two sections of the outline that I
gave you last week. The prologue is the beginning and that is where Christ
communicates, He communicates chapter one, verses one to eight. I forgot to mention, open your Bibles, Revelation chapter one. I'll be
throwing the verses up on the screen, but some of you like to kind of read out of
your own Bible. So Revelation chapter one. the first verse in the first chapter
gives insight into the time that the rest of the material is
referring to. And so, if you read Revelation chapter one, it says, "The
revelation of Jesus Christ, which God "gave Him to show to His bond servants the things which must soon take place "and he sent and communicated it by His
angel to His bond-servant, John." There's no mystery there. Where's the mystery?
He's not using any type of mysterious language, he's explaining how, or, John is
explaining how he came to get these visions and this information, and what
this information was about. It's about things that are going to happen, when? Soon.
And so, in the very first verse John warns, not warns, but advises or
educates his audience, his readers, but the things he's going to talk about,
although mysterious and a lot of visions and frightening, are things that are
going to happen soon. Now, I said last week that there are four main views on
what Revelation is referring to. And I'd like to go back to those, kind of go over
those, once again, with you. The first view is the preterits view. Preterist,
if someone wanted to know, well, what is preterist? Where does that
come from? Preterist is a term that refers to something that has happened in
the past. It's actually a term used to describe the tense of a
verb, the preterist tense. So if I go, the verb go is in the present.
I go. I go now. And if I say, I went. That's the preterist tense, past
tense. So that's why they use the term preterist for the point of view that
suggests or that teaches that the book of Revelation refers to the events that
took place during the writing of the book: the struggle between Rome and the
church. So the preterist view is that everything in the book of Revelation
has already happened in the past, okay. That's why they call it preterist
view. Then the idealist view or teaching, sometimes they also call it the
philosophical view or the spiritual view. This view says that the book contains
principles that refer to the church's ongoing struggle with the evil in this
world, and how eventually, ultimately the church will be victorious. And so the
idealist view means that the book of Revelation describes a cycle of events
that continue throughout history, up and down. The church is persecuted. Things are going bad and then all of a
sudden, oh, there's a revival and the church comes back and starts getting
strong and then it goes down again. It goes up again and down again. And if you
read the history of the church, we studied on Sunday morning, isn't that kind of the
history, up and down, and up and down. It grows, it gets smaller. It's persecuted, it's
victorious. It goes on and on. So the idealist view says that the book of
Revelation is a road map, if you wish, of the cycle of up and down that's going to
take place between the world and the church until Jesus returns and the final
victory is won. Then the historicist view, the historicist view says that the book
of Revelation is a forecast of the entire period of church history between
the first and the second coming of Jesus. So they're saying, historicists, they
say the book of Revelation describes symbolically the history, the actual
history that will take place between the time that Jesus comes the first time,
to die on the cross and the last time that He comes. And
a lot of their teaching is to try to match up events in the book of
Revelation with events in human history. That's why they call it the historicist
view. And then the fourth view is the futurist view. And in the futurist view,
people say, teachers teach that the book of Revelation describes mainly
the events that will take place at the end of the world, total prophecy. Now,
there are a lot of good arguments to support each of these views. And when it
comes to the book of Revelation, I mentioned last time, it's wise not to be
too dogmatic, because there are a lot of things that we don't completely,
completely grasp. However, if I were to say what I personally believe is the
very best approach and the one traditionally followed by most teachers
in the churches of Christ and the restoration movement, I would say that we
hold a position that is a combination of the first and second views, as I
explained last time. I believe that the book of Revelation is about the first
century church and it's struggle with its Roman oppressors; and its
symbolism and message also contains basic principles that point to an ongoing
struggle between the church and the world, all the way through history until
Jesus returns. So I believe this for several reasons. First of all, the context
suggests it. The very first verse in the book says that what the book will
describe are things that will shortly take place. So it's about things that are
going to happen soon in their lives. Well, only two centuries between the writing of
the book and the fall of Rome. For the Bible, that's soon. Two
centuries, that's not very long. Again, in verse three John says that the
time is near for these things to happen. Secondly, a book that contained a look
into the future or only principles about good and evil would not be very
comforting to the people at the time who were suffering real persecution.
I mean, think for a minute. If the book of Revelation was only about
the end time, when Jesus returns for the second time, if the book
of Revelation is only about that time, well, the people who are suffering right away, there's not a lot of comfort for them. Yeah sure, He's going to
come one day. Well, what about what I'm going through now. Number three, the
historical and futurist views do not deal with the reality of the Roman
empire. In addition to this, a lot of their historical applications don't fit
the symbolism of the book. For example, in the historical and futurist views, they
try to make the second beast the Catholic Church. Remember I said,
they try to sync up all the events or all the symbols in Revelation
to actual historical events and actual historical people and institutions. And
so, they, many of them claim, well, the second beast, that's the Catholic Church,
but the Catholic Church didn't exist in the first century, as much as they'd like to
think that they did. But we know that they didn't. Historically we know it. And
I'm saying, so these two views begin with an assumption. The assumption is, oh,
the book of Revelation is only about the the end of time or it's really
about actual history. And then they try to prove their point of view
by gerrymandering all the symbols, putting the square
holes in the round pegs. And it doesn't fit.
There's always pieces left over. So I think that the combination of the
preterist view and the idealist view together explain accurately, but in a
very simple way, most of the symbols and images and purposes of the book. And when I
say most, I'm not saying all of them, but most of them. And when you are
dealing with the Bible and you're trying to interpret a passage and there are various interpretations, and that happens, the
rule of thumb is, the rule of good interpretation is, you go with the
interpretation that explains most of the things. In other words, you go with the
interpretation that answers most of the questions, and usually with the one that is
the most straightforward. If you have to kind of invent stuff to make it
happen, you're not really doing justice to the text.
And so the combination of the preterist and idealist view explains most of the
symbols in context. For example, it was written to encourage and warn the early
church about events that were soon to take place. And we know historically
those things took place. And two, it does provide every generation an
encouragement that Christ will care for His church and be victorious in the end.
So even though I read it today in the 21st century, even though I know that the
historical stuff has already happened to the early church, in its
persecution with Rome, I still can draw comfort from the idea that it promises at
the very end, even our suffering, even whatever we're going through in our
lifetime, Christ will be victorious. So it answers most of the questions. It
solves most of the riddles. And so for these reasons we're going to study the
book as a letter written by John dealing with contemporary problems in the first
century church, offering God's solution that we continue to
encourage the church all the way to the end of time when Christ
returns. So let's go back to the text. Let's read chapter one, verses one, two,
and three. It says, "The Revelation of "Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show
to His bond-servants, the things which "must soon take place; and He sent and
communicated it by His angel to His bond- "servant John, who testified to the Word
of God and to the testimony of Jesus "Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is
he who reads and those who hear the "words of the prophecy and heed the
things which are written in it; for the "time is near." Notice he says it twice.
How many times does he have to repeat something? And so John establishes the
fact that what is to follow is a revelation given to him by God and it
concerns events that will take place in the not-too-distant future, okay. Let's
keep reading, "John, to the seven churches "that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace
from Him who is and who was and who is "to come, and from the seven spirits who
are before his throne and from Jesus "Christ, the faithful witness, the
firstborn of the dead and the ruler of "the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us
and released us from our sins by His "blood, and He has made us to be a kingdom
priests to His God and Father. To Him be "the glory and dominion for ever and ever.
Behold, He is coming with the clouds and "every eye will see Him, even those who
pierced Him. And all the tribes of the "earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen. 'I am the Alpha and the Omega,' says "the Lord God, 'who is and who was and who is
to come, the Almighty." And so in verses four to eight John specifies to
whom this message is addressed. It's addressed to the churches
that formed a kind of a network of churches in Asia Minor, which is
modern-day Turkey. Seven congregations of the church. And he also mentions from
whom. So he says this letter is going to these people, the seven churches. And he
also mentions from whom the letter comes, but he says it again in a different
way. The letter comes, first of all, from the Father, because he says the
letter comes from the One who was, who is, and who is to come. And so, that's the
Father - past, present, future. That's the Father. Then he talks about the seven
spirits, that's the Holy Spirit. How many spirits? Not six spirits, seven spirits.
The perfect spirit, the Holy Spirit. And then, of course, Jesus Christ. He refers to
Him as the Son, the Savior, and the Lord. So there's no doubt that this is the
God that they worship, as He is fully revealed here in His triune nature. All
those people say, the Trinity, that's not a Bible doctrine. No
such thing. Take a look at the Revelation and you'll see that John
refers to the Godhead in three different, very specific persons. In verses seven and eight
he mentions Jesus coming in judgment. Now this doesn't refer to the
second coming, but rather the coming of Jesus to fulfill the things that are
written in the book. I'm writing you things that are going to happen and
Jesus is coming to fulfill those things, the things that are written in the book.
And there's usually a lot of confusion and debate here. The coming of the Lord
is a phrase that is associated with temporal judgment, not just the second
coming. In Matthew 24:27, Matthew refers to the coming of the Son
of Man, but it's in reference to the destruction of Jerusalem 70 AD, because
in Matthew 24 he's talking about when the Son of Man will come to
render judgment. Well, that's not the end of the world, that's
on Jerusalem, because Jerusalem was judged in 70 AD. You see, when God is said to be coming in the Bible, it either means He's coming to
judge a nation for some reason or other, like He came to judge Sodom and Gomorrah,
He came to judge the Amalekites, He came to judge Egypt's first born, right? Or the
same phrase, the coming of the Lord, can mean the final second coming of
Jesus Christ. Well, how do we know the difference, someone says. The context. The
context. In Revelation 1:7, the coming of Jesus refers to the things that John has
said will shortly take place. So he said God gave to Christ, who gave to the angel,
who gave to me, information about things that are going to happen soon. And the
Lord is going to come to make these things happen. Well, is that
the end of the world or is that the soon part? Well, it's the soon.
He's coming soon. So history shows - Oh, one thing I want to mention, a little
parenthetical statement here, the people in the first century who read this, they
may have thought that the coming of the Lord was the actual second coming or the
end of the world, because they had no way of knowing that. So they may have
thought it was the end of the world, because it was the coming of it and when
John says things that are going to happen soon, they may have thought the
things that are going to happen soon are the end of the world. And we know
that some Christians thought that because Paul writes to the Thessalonians,
and that was one of their problems, they thought Jesus was coming right away, so they stopped working and figured, well, let's just wait for Him to come. But we, of
course, with the advantage of history, we know that the Lord is coming,
this coming, that wasn't the second coming. That was the Lord coming in judgment, on
who? Well, on Rome, for what they had done. So history shows that within a
relatively short time this persecution stopped and Rome crumbled and
the Christian religion survived and it flourished. The Christian religion was
freed from the shackles of Judaism when Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD. And
then it was freed from the persecution of Rome when Rome was destroyed. And then
it really flourished, it took off after that. So historians will
credit the breakdown of government and the emerging
strength of surrounding nations as the reason for Rome's fall, but through the
eyes of faith we see God working to destroy this enemy using other nations as
His servants. And I mean, we've seen that in the past, haven't we? God
used Nebuchadnezzar, He even called Nebuchadnezzar His servant, He used
Nebuchadnezzar to punish the Israelites. He used the Philistines to punish the
Israelites. So it's nothing new. God uses various nations to carry out His will. So
the premise of the book is established in the very first eight verses. God
reveals His plan to John, John addresses the church with God's plan, Christ is
preparing to come to save them from their present suffering, and His coming and
salvation will be soon. And one other thing, His coming will also render
judgment on the ones who are oppressing them. So in the
next section, the message concerning Christ coming changes as John has his
first vision. In the first vision Christ begins by warning the churches about
their spiritual condition, listen now, before He comes to visit judgment on
their enemies. So the letters to the seven churches, they're warnings to
seven churches that, hey, you guys better straighten up, because the judgment is
coming, not necessarily on them, but the Lord is going to judge their
enemy. The Lord is going to do something great, so they need to pay attention. So
the very first vision, that's the a vision of Christ and His church here on
earth, chapter one, verse nine all the way to chapter 3:22. We're not going to read all
of that. I told you this was kind of a survey. So in these next couple of
chapters John begins describing his first vision, one in which Christ appears
to him and gives him a message for the churches. Now there are more than seven
churches that existed in those times. There weren't just seven churches, but
these congregations formed a kind of a network of churches around the church
where John did his work. John did his work in Ephesus. After Jerusalem was
destroyed in 70 AD, I mean, there was a strong Christian church in Jerusalem,
obviously, that was where the church started, but when Jerusalem was destroyed
in 70 AD, the center of church work and church teaching moved from Jerusalem to Ephesus. And so, Ephesus became the point where
missionaries were sent out. It became a very strong center for Christian teaching. There was a strong church there, established by Paul. And so, in his later years, John was a member of the church at Ephesus. And so, more
than seven churches, but these seven churches were targeted. Also remember
the number seven was significant in referring to what is perfect. And so,
seven churches symbolizing the entire church. I'm writing to these seven, but
these seven symbolize the entire church. So we go to chapter one, beginning in verse nine.
And in this passage John has a vision of Jesus and Jesus in His glorious state.
So let's read that, "I, John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation
and kingdom and perseverance, which are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos,
because of the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus." So he's talking about
his exile in Patmos. Why he was sent there. He was a preacher. Christianity was being persecuted. The Romans sent him there. And
let's continue, it says, "I was in the "Spirit on the Lord's Day," he even tells you the day that he had this vision. " I heard behind me a loud voice like the
sound of a trumpet saying, 'write in a "book what you see and send it to the
seven churches, to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, "and to Pergamum, and to Thyatira, and to
Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea." So he's given the command to
write a book while he was in exile in Patmos, and the book is to be addressed
to the seven churches and their names are even given. So we keep reading, verse 12, he says, "Then I turned to see the "voice that was speaking with me and
having turned I saw seven golden "lampstands and in the middle of the
lampstands I saw one like a "son of man." And so, the lampstands are
later explained as churches, the lampstands are churches among which the
Lord is present. So the image that he sees is the Lord present
among the churches. All right, verse 13, "clothed in a robe reaching to
the feet, and girded across His chest "with a golden sash. His head and His hair
were white like white wool, like snow.; and "His eyes were like a flame of fire. His
feet were like burnished bronze when it "has been made to glow in a furnace. And
His voice was like the sound of many "waters. In His right hand He held seven
stars and out of His mouth came a sharp "two-edged sword, and His face was like
the sun shining in its strength." And so, what do we have here? Look at this image,
all symbolism. First of all, the Son of man. Son of man is an Old Testament title
for the Messiah. So the Jews understood son of man. When somebody says the Son of
Man is coming, they meant the Messiah. That's why they were so insulted when
Jesus referred to himself as the Son of Man, because he was saying I'm the
Messiah. All right, a long robe, a long robe suggests royalty. Ordinary people
didn't wear long robes. Royal attire, the golden girdle, the sash, if you wish, a
symbol of the priesthood and purity. The hair white as wool, nobody has
hair as white as wool, is the concept of the supernatural. This is, we're not
looking at just an ordinary man here. So this is supernatural. The eyes of
flame refer to knowledge. Eyes of flame that see everything, that burn away
all lies and untruth. Feet like like bronze refers to power.
A voice like many waters, a universal voice. All men hear this
voice. Seven stars in His hand, authority. The sword from his mouth, of
course, the Word of God and the word of judgment, two-edged sword, right? And the
face shining like the Sun, well, the vision itself is awe-inspiring. So the
vision of God with each element describing different facets of God's
character and being. So that's his vision. That's the Son of Man, that's
the Son of God, that's Jesus. And He's standing among the churches. So
that's why we call this part Jesus and His churches. All right, 17 and 18, let's
read, "When I saw Him I fell at His feet "like a dead man and He
placed His right hand on me, "saying, 'Do not be afraid; I am the first
and the last, and the living One; and I "was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death "and of Hades." Well, who else could that
be? There's no mystery there, right? John is afraid, and Jesus reassures John
that it is He, the Lord. Think now. John, a righteous man, called as an apostle, has
done miracles, has written inspired text, the one that Jesus loved.
Anybody here can lay claim to any one of those qualifications? No. And
yet, when he sees Jesus, this righteous man, when he sees Jesus, what happens to
him? He falls on his face in fear. Can you imagine facing Jesus without the
cover of His blood? I mean, it's like it would be like being
incinerated in a heartbeat, spiritually, and of course physically.
That is what happens, isn't it. And so, John is afraid and Jesus reassures him,
don't be afraid, it's Me, He says, verse 19, "Therefore, write the things which you
have seen, and the things which are, and "the things which will take place after
these things. As for the mystery of the "seven stars, which you saw in My right
hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the "seven stars are the angels of the seven
churches, and the seven lamp stands are "the seven churches." So he's told to
record his vision and explained the meaning of the seven stars. He's told
that the seven stars are angels who belong or serve the churches, represented
by the lampstands. In essence, Jesus is saying that He is close at hand. He is
close to the churches. He is ready to judge and intervene in the things that
are taking place, but first He has a specific message for the churches. Now, the
next two chapters, which I encourage you to read, read ahead. Like I
said, we won't read all of the passages. We don't have time. So I'm encouraging you
to be a couple of chapters ahead of me, so when I talk about things
you'll know what I'm talking about. So anyways, he lists seven churches and a
message for each one, and each church has specific problems and needs which are
addressed, but the entire message contains some basic principles which are
repeated from church to church. In other words, he says the same thing from church
to church in different ways. And so, there's a commonality about the
things that he says to these churches. So what I want to give you are
the seven principles of the seven letters. All right, here we go, seven
principles of the seven letters. Principle number one, Christ knows every
Christian, He knows every disciple, every single disciple in this room. He knows
you. He knows you intimately. The Lord knows in intimate detail the work or the
absence of work of each member of every congregation. I mean, this
should be a source of comfort or maybe a source of motivation. Comfort if
you're a servant of the Lord and maybe not getting a lot of feedback,
maybe not getting a lot of attaboys. Maybe nobody's noticing your
service, your hard work. And you're not trying to be noticed, but everybody likes their
work to be - He's assuring you, He knows and He
sees. And if you're faking it, well then He knows that, He
knows that too. This should be, as I say, an encouragement or a motivation. Second principle, Christ wants pure doctrine. Christ wants the church to guard His
teachings. This is more a warning to the leaders of the church, the shepherds, because that's their main task: to guard the doctrine. The church needs to be
careful in what it hears, and what it believes, and what it teaches. The
doctrines that you hold and teach will make a difference. People say, doctrine is
not important. And I say, how can you say doctrine is not important? The knowledge
of the doctrine of salvation is what makes you saved. If you don't know how to
be saved, you're not. Nobody gets to heaven by accident. It's a deliberate thing. You find out about it. You want to go there. You
obey the gospel. So imagine if you're not teaching the
proper gospel. Imagine if you're teaching things that are not biblical. So one of
the principles in the seven letters is that Christ wants pure doctrine. He wants
us to be careful. Number three, Christ wants dedicated disciples. The Lord
mentions service five times out of the seven letters. In Thyatira, He says, the
last works are greater than the first works. In Philadelphia, He says, there's a
great opportunity for service. In Ephesus He says, you've left your first
love, repent. In Laodecia, He calls them lukewarm and He tells them He's going to
reject them. In Sardis, He said, they're not living up to their reputation. All of
these things refer to the service that the church was rendering one to another or
to those around them. So Christ cares about what we do and how we serve. Fourth
principle, he wants Christians to live in purity. There's to be no compromise. When He
talks about the problem with Jezebel and the Nicolations, some of that is
sexual impurity. Our standards are not to be set by the world around us. We have
higher standards than the world around us. And, as I say, one of the principles in
the seven letters is that Christ Himself cares about our sexual purity. And so
we need to be careful about that. Number five, Christ wants the church to
persevere. Now the Roman persecution had been going on for several years and it
would continue for some time. The Roman persecution embodied the spirit of all
those who would oppose Christ until the end of time. So we don't - well, I was
going to say we don't have a government that kind of blocks us to practice our
faith, but more and more we do. I don't think they block us from
practicing our faith, but we're being more and more repressed in expressing our
faith outside the church house. More and more our government is saying, you can believe what you want, but keep it to yourselves. We don't want it in the public square. We don't want it in our
schools. We don't want it in the government. We don't want it anywhere
else except in the building. Well, that's not our commission. Our commission is not to keep it in the building. Our
commission is to get it out of the building. So in a way there is some
repression and Jesus Christ wants us to persevere and not be discouraged. Number
six, Christ wants all to be saved, all of them to be saved. He
said - because it's possible to be lost, He says the
Ephesus that he'll removed their candlesticks. He says to Laodicea
that He'll spew them out of His mouth. I don't know about you, but that kind of
says to me that you're out, you're gone. If he takes your candlestick or
spits you out of His mouth, isn't that kind of saying to you, you're lost, you
cannot serve God and man. If you serve the world you lose your salvation. If you refuse to serve Christ, you lose your salvation. And Jesus is saying, it's
not that I want you to be lost. I want everybody to be saved, but it's possible to
lose your salvation, so be careful. And then finally, the seventh principle,
Christ wants to reward all. He wants to reward Christians who overcome. The final
word to each of the seven churches is that if they overcome, well, overcome what?
Well, the temptation to deny Christ, or overcome the temptation to return to the
world, or overcome the persecution and suffering on account of their faith, if
they overcome these temptations, they will be not just rewarded, they will be
richly rewarded. And some of the things that are mentioned in the letters, the
rewards that are mentioned: you'll eat of the Tree of Life; you will not be hurt by
the second death; you will have a new name on a white stone; receive the
Morningstar; white garments; named in the book of life; a pillar in the New
Jerusalem; you will sit and you will reign with Christ in heaven. All of these
things are symbolic ways of saying that those who remain faithful will resurrect
from the dead. And here, on a Wednesday night, it's - how many times
have I said that to you? And we're going yeah, yeah, that's right.
We're going to raise from the dead, but the
other day I did a funeral for a man who is only 50 odd years old, in perfect
health. He just died of just a tragic accident, a fluke accident and he drowned.
And he's laying there in the coffin with his children and his grandchildren
around, dumbfounded. One minute they had grandpa, the next minute grandpa
was dead. He wasn't even sick. And when I talked about the resurrection to those
people, I guarantee you the idea of the resurrection sure resonated with them. Those kids, they sure wanted grandpa to
resurrect, and they sure wanted to be themselves resurrected so they could be
with Grandpa. So that's a marvelous, fantastic gift that God will give us.
That we will have eternal life with God in heaven and reign with Him in power
over all the spirit world, I mean, I don't even know what's in the spirit world,
spirits I guess. But if you're the right hand of God, that means that you're at the
the position of power. What a promise given to us, who are we? Made a little
lower than the angels. So this is the encouragement to the churches in the
area of Asia Minor, but who represented the entire church, and by extension the
same message for the church today whenever it meets. So the message to the
seven churches continues to call forth to all the churches throughout history, to
us today, and it will be relevant even into the future. Okay, next time we get
together we're going to talk about the second vision. I encourage you to read
ahead, because as I say, I don't read all the passages. Four, five, and six. So if you're a
regular Bible reader, this week your task is to kind of cover three or four more
chapters of the book of Revelation. All right, thank you very
much for your attention.
