Psalm 33

Here is the outline of a sermon I shall, DVWP, be preaching on 7th January at Bethany Evangelical Church in Swinton. I shall be taking more detailed notes into the pulpit with me. Comments welcome!

Introduction

Story of some Christian leader’s death exemplifying joy and trust
Far away from that experience? Exploration of what 2006 was like
If grasp Psalm – sing in hearts to God afresh with renewed trust

1. God’s sure word (vv. 1-9)

Summons to praise
Object of praise- God the Holy Trinity
Addressed to the righteous – those in the right with him by faith

Reason – God’s sure word
2 aspects

(i) God’s word is faithful – he does what he says (vv. 4, 5)
Rooted in his character – keeps promises, delights to do what is right, doesn’t go back on word

Illustration of steadfast love: story of being caught out in the rain
Storms always stop: God faithful to promise to Noah

(ii) God’s word is powerful – he can do what he says (vv. 6, 7)

Demonstrated in creation and recreation (v. 7 and Exodus 15, 8; Joshua 3, 16)
Ultimate recreation God’s work in sinful people like us

Illustration of being in debt
Not enough to be sincere – have to have the means to carry out what promise
God does

Fear also the right response to God’s word, not just praise
= revere, stand in awe, trust (cf v. 18)
Exclusive
God’s sure word the reason – demonstrated in creation and sustaining of world
Testified by continued existence of world around us

Thanksgiving and heartfelt joy fitting
Collectively and individually (but doesn’t mean being happy all the time)
Will we remember God’s sure word in discouraging times (examples) and praise him?
Will we trust him?

2. God’s saving work (vv. 10-22)

Plans of nations brought to nothing
= plotting against God and his people – cf Psalm 2, 1-2; Psalm 83. 2-6

God’s plans stand forever – so v. 12 also true

Language of covenant
Will be saved from plans and purposes of unbelieving nations to harm and destroy because bound in covenant to the one whose plans and purposes stand forever

Illustration of a lighthouse on a rock

Original reference to Israel – their undeserved election
Idea of the nation transformed and fulfilled since Christ’s coming
Now all who trust in Christ
All of grace

Safe in the present
Looks forward to Christ’s return

Unpacked in following vv.

vv. 13-17: the nations of the world

God’s sovereignty
Their trust in human strength
All fail – defeated, grow old and weak and die
False hopes, can’t deliver from death, can’t give victory against God

Contemporary equivalents – money and technology

vv. 18-19: God’s people
Hope in his steadfast love
Deliverance from death
Hope of resurrection – takes us to the cross

vv. 20-22

The people’s response of trust
Christian believer – longing ultimately for Christ’s return
Response of praise

Exhortation to make the Lord hope for protection and deliverance
Exhortation to still rejoice in him
In difficult times and when things go well and temptation comes to be confident in self

Appeal to unbeliever – come into God’s nation, dare not remain amongst unbelieving nations

Conclusion

The Reformers and Worship

Despite being (admirably) willing to die for the gospel truth that Christ’s sacrifice was once for all on the cross, the Reformers still understood that what happened when Christians gather was sacrificial worship:

“O Lord and heavenly Father we thy humble servants entirely desire thy fatherly goodness mercifully to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving… And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy and lively sacrifice unto thee… And although we be unworthy, through our manifold sins, to offer unto thee any sacrifice, yet we beseech thee to accept this our bounden duty and service.”

From the Prayer of Oblation (1662), emphasis mine.

Christian leaders of a later century also appeared to think this. The great Augustus M. Toplady could write:

“A debtor to mercy alone,
Of covenant mercy I sing,
Nor fear with thy righteousness on
My person and offering to bring.”

The Problem with Worship

Our word “worship” comes from the Anglo-Saxon meaning “to ascribe worth to something or someone”. If this is what we mean when we describe what happens when believers gather, this is unhelpfully Pelagian.

In all I have written, I want to reiterate that I understand worship to be something that originates from God, in which he draws us to himself and we receive from him, before, enabled by his Spirit within us, we give back to him. It’s all of grace.

So when Christians gather on the Lord’s Day to worship, we come to receive from God – the assurance of forgiveness, his word as it is preached to us and as we speak and sing it to one another, for example – and it is in response to him and enabled by his Spirit and in union with the Son, the one true worshipper, whom the Father sent, that we offer our sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving.

In this sense, “service” is a much better word to describe what happens at a Lord’s Day gathering.

John 4 and Worship

Meyers draws our attention to John 4.21-24 (The Lord’s Service, pp. 306-313)

“Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain or in Jerusalem will you worship the Father…But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

“Worship” here is the word proskuneo or “bowing down” which refers to the corporate act of ritually bowing before God in order to honour him and express devotion to him. It is a summary of all that God’s people do corporately.

Jesus is not referring to the importance of inner heart-experience over and against the material and external. Nor is Jesus saying that one must be sincere, true and important though that is. Jesus is not even saying that whereas to worship God in the Old Testament, one had to go to a particular place, but in the New, one can worship anywhere. In the Old Testament one could “bow down” individually or pray or mentally worship God wherever they wanted.

The issue here is about where corporate worship should take place – on Mount Gerizim or on Mount Zion. The answer at the time was Jerusalem. That was where God had placed his name. The Samaritans had got it wrong. They were bowing down as a people in the wrong place. There was no guarantee of God’s special presence on Mt. Gerizim.

Following Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension, God’s people are to worship/bow down “in the Spirit” (a better rendering). Jesus is speaking of the community of believers gathered at a specific place for specific worship. Now that corporate gathering is decentralized. It is no longer focused on Jerusalem. It occurs throughout the world, where the church is gathered. For at Pentecost, the Spirit came upon the church. The church as a body is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3, 16). The church is a “spiritual house” (the adjective should be understood to mean “of the Spirit” not spiritual as opposed to physical) made up of living stones (1 Peter 2, 5). God’s name is now placed upon his gathered people in the church, not at a building in Jerusalem. And where Christ’s people are gathered in his name, there he is present (Matthew 18, 20 and 1 Corinthians 5, 4) in a special way other than his general omnipresence. And what goes on amongst the gathered people of God is worship, corporate “bowing down”.

Jeff Meyers writes:

“Just as God limited and bound Himself to specified places and times and people in the Old Testament, so also in the New. This has not changed in the New Testament. We have not become disembodied spirit beings. We have no independent, immaterial access to God in the New Covenant. What we have is a different set of physical means appropriate to the change made in the resurrection and ascension of the Jesus.

In the Old Covenant, it was one place and people – the tabernacle, the temple, the ark of the covenant, the altar and the physical rituals of sacrifice that were performed at these centralized sites. We Christians, however, unlike the believers in the Old Testament, are no longer bound to one geographical location, to one physical temple at the centre of the world. We no longer go to one nation that has been given the ministry of priestly intercession and ministry. The Spirit no longer binds Himself to one location or one people…

What Jerusalem and the Jews were to the Old Testament – the place and ministers by which God met with men and women – Christ and His Body, the Church, are today. Jesus’ humanity is the place to which God summons us. Christ alone is the new sanctuary, the mercy seat, and the high priest through whom we must draw near to God. And Christ has given the Spirit to fill His Body, the Church, on earth so that she might be the place where humanity finds God. She is the New Jerusalem. If we wish to worship God in Spirit and truth, we will seek God among his people, where the Word is audibly read and preached, where the physical sacraments are given and received.”

The Lord’s Service pp. 312-313

Going to the Temple to Offer Sacrifices

Apologies for the dearth of posts over recent days. My excuses are two-fold: general busyness (work, the small matter of exams etc.) and sporadic access to the interweb at home. I imagine we have all had far more pressing matters to which to attend over the past few days.

My thoughts having been provoked by reading Jeffrey J. Meyers’s book, The Lord’s Service (ISBN 1591280087), this article continues the irregular series thinking about what Christians do when they meet together. It has been suggested that Christians do not go to church to worship, although, because worship encompasses the whole of life, Christians do worship at church, although not in any qualitatively different sense to, say, standing in the queue at Tesco’s. To the contrary, I wish to suggest that when Christians gather together on the Lord’s Day morning, they are doing so in order to worship God. I am aware that this goes against the received wisdom among contemporary conservative Evangelicals (particularly of the Anglican variety, I have noticed). Nevertheless, I hope it is something that we can discussed.

I want to begin by affirming that all of life is worship (e.g. Romans 12.1). I also want to affirm that there is no longer any need for propitiatory sacrifice since Christ’s death on the cross for his people. However, sacrifices were not just about penal substitutionary atonement, the animal dying in the place of the sinner with whom it was identified. Once slain, the animals were then cut up and burned on the altar, where they were turned into smoke. The animal was united with God as the smoke from its burning mingled with the glory-cloud in the Tabernacle and later the Temple. This is representative of the union that the OT worshipper has with God. Sacrificial worship is also about approach to and fellowship with God. This aspect of the OT sacrifices has also been fulfilled since the coming of Christ. Jeff Meyers writes:

“Jesus was not only our substitute, but also the forerunner (Heb. 6:20)” The Lord’s Service, p. 59

He goes on to say:

“The sacrifice of Christ has indeed put an end to the entire system of animal sacrifice, but not to sacrifice per se. United to the sacrifice of Christ, we are enabled to be living sacrifices, a notion that was symbolized in the Old Covenant fleshy rituals.” The Lord’s Service, p. 64

Sacrificial worship language is used to describe what happens when believers gather together, as well in the Old Testament as in the New:

“Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving…The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me.” (Psalm 50, 14 and 23 cf, for example, Colossians 3, 16-17)

“Through him [Jesus] then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.” (Hebrews 13.15)

The prayers of God’s people are described using the sacrificial image of smoke ascending Revelation 8, 4).

The Lord’s Supper itself is described in terms that have to do with what happens when sacrifices are offered. “Do this as my memorial” (Luke 22, 19; 1 Corinthians 11, 24-25). The sacrifice of Christ took place once in the past, and now at the Lord’s Supper, his people eat the memorial portion, just as there was a memorial portion of OT sacrifices.

Moreover, we must remember that the church as God’s temple (1 Corinthians 3, 16; 1 Peter 2, 5, Ephesians 2, 21-22) would have been understood in terms of what was said about the temple/tabernacle, where God’s people gathered to worship together in the Old Testament. There is something almost semi-Marcionite about ignoring completely what the Old Testament has to say about temple worship and solely restricting our understanding of what goes on when the church is gathered to the New Testament. Surely, understanding that the fulfilment of the temple is in the church, we should be applying what the OT says about what should go on in the temple to what should go on in the church. With the background of the OT, no New Testament believer could have comprehended the idea of a church gathering where worship was not the purpose, where the people did not offer sacrifices.

The "Nicene" Creed

(strictly, the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381)

For those of us who haven’t seen it in a while…

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.

Who, for us men for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.

And I believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Credenda

In Evangelical congregations following less traditional orders of service, the corporate recitation of the creeds has become somewhat infrequent, if present at all (particularly, sadly, amongst non-Conformists, among whom I number myself). Compare this to the twice-daily recitation of the Apostles’ Creed in The Orders for Morning and Evening Prayer and the (ideally) weekly recitation of the Nicene Creed in The Order of the Administration of the Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion.

In discussion, it has been suggested that, just as the creeds addressed particular doctrinal disputes of their day, so the creeds should be changed to reflect the controversies of our own current time, for example, that homosexual practice is wrong. It has also been remarked to me that the creeds are weak on penal substitution.

This, I think, is to misunderstand what the creeds are. Ultimately, they are expressions of faith in our Triune God. The phrase “I believe” corresponds to the word “pisteuo” in the Greek translations. This is the language of faith, not intellectual assent, as found in Scriptures such as John 3, 16. A creed is not a comprehensive doctrinal basis. I’m not saying that a comprehensive doctrinal basis is wrong: it is helpful for the church to unpack what it believes the Bible says. I would commend the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) to my readers.

(Why some Evangelicals rave about the Church of England, I don’t know. The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion (1571), it is said, are a Reformed confession of faith. The Church of England is at its heart Reformed and Evangelical. Even if it is on paper – it certainly isn’t in practice – I wonder if sometimes we are in danger of forgetting that the Reformation didn’t just come to a stop towards the end of the sixteenth century. Queen Elizabeth, a godly Protestant Queen though she may have been, stubbornly enshrined a doctrinal position that approximated the situation towards the end of her late brother’s reign, and refused to move. The Westminster Assembly of the 1640s, comprised predominantly of ordained Anglican ministers, met to revise, complete and sharpen the English Articles, and that they did. What happened in 1662, with the re-imposition of the Book of Common Prayer was very much a step backwards. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. – 1 Corinthians 13, 11)

The creeds are professions of Christian faith. They express trust in our Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. No they don’t articulate Christian sexual ethics or unpack how the cross works (although the phrase “for us men and our salvation” in the Nicene Creed surely proclaims its crucicentricity) or mention justification by faith. But that’s fine isn’t it? We’re not saved by giving intellectual assent to particular doctrines. We’re saved by faith in the God of the Bible, God the Holy Trinity. Dare I say it, we do not have to understand and be able to articulate penal substitution (though that is at the very heart of what happened at the cross) in order to be saved. We are saved by trusting in Christ (who died in our place on the cross). The important thing is the Object of our faith, the one in whom we trust, not the strength and character of our faith. They don’t articulate justification by faith. They are the profession of the faith of the justified.

It might be objected that the creeds are man-made and that the Biblical faith should be our only creed. Isn’t this a false dichotomy? No one (no Evangelical, anyway) is denying the supremacy of the authority of Scripture over our faith and practice. But when the minister ascends into the pulpit (or gets up on stage, as the case may be), we don’t ignore him because his words are merely the words of a human being. He is expounding Scripture. He has prayed for the Spirit’s help, he has worked hard at the text, he has prayed, and he does have authority, albeit derivative, insofar as what he is teaching is from Scripture. How much more with the creeds! They are rooted in Scripture in terms of their language and their doctrine. They are the fruit of the reflections of godly Christian men. Centuries of Christian ministers have evaluated them and not found them wanting.

Hopefully, it can be seen how it is right and appropriate for the corporate recitation of the creed in our weekly meetings. It expresses our faith in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It keeps the central central. It reminds us that we are part of the catholic church, the church throughout the world and down the ages, who have confessed this faith. So when we meet together on Sunday, the Sabbath, let us always heartily declare our faith in our God.

2 Kings 11

I’ve been reading through 2 Kings recently and over the past couple of days have been looking at king J(eh)oash. There’s an interesting pattern in his life:

• There’s someone who wants the throne of the nation and murders to remove any threat to their rule (v. 1)
• As a child, he has to go into hiding to save his life (vv. 2-3)
• A number of years later, he is proclaimed king and his enemies are defeated and false worship is destroyed, bringing peace to the land (vv. 4-20)

This of course echoes the pattern of Moses’ life – Pharoah, concerned that the multiplying Israelites would prove a threat ordered that all the baby boys be killed (Exodus 1, 9-10; 22), but as a baby, Moses’ life is preserved (Exodus 2, 2) and he later emerges as the ruler of God’s people, leading them in triumph over Pharaoh and his hosts (Exodus 3-14)

Ultimately, this adumbrates the life of the Lord Jesus. Herod hears that one is born who will be king of the Jews (Matthew 2, 2) and he orders the slaughter of all the baby boys in the region of Bethlehem (Matthew 2, 16). Jesus and his family seek refuge in Egypt (Matthew 2, 14). He defeats his enemies through his death on the cross (Colossians 2, 15), a victory that will finally be consummated when he returns, and when all false worship is destroyed.

This is the shape of our experience as those who are in Christ. We may be attacked and threatened by the ruler of this world, the devil, through human agents just as he worked through Athaliah and Herod. Or it may be through circumstances. God’s kingdom may appear to be under threat, about to be destroyed. But God’s people are protected – note how Joash was hidden in the house of YHWH. God preserves his kingdom against all that would oppose it. Christ will return and bring final victory. We must recognize what our experience as Christian belivers will be like, yet nevertheless keep trusting and looking forward.

But there is further application for the present. Christ is king now. And the people of Judah in 2 Kings 11 are, I think, held forth as a good example. There is glorious iconoclasm. Baal worship is destroyed. The people rejoice and there is peace. Even if there is no explicit comment from the narrator, the tone is positive, this is all in the context of a reign that pleases YHWH (2 Kings 12, 2) and the Mosaic law tells us that the worship of false gods is wrong. We’re meant to approve of what happens in vv. 17-20. And with Christ as Lord of the Church, we are directed to put aside all that is not worship (in the widest sense of the word!) of the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and all its associated apparatus.

What Worship Isn’t

Apologies for the lack of recent posting – last month hit an all-time low of seven posts. I’m not altogether sure where the time has gone; I think I’ve been working.

A short while ago I began to read The Lord’s Service: The Grace of Covenant Renewal Worship by Jeffrey J. Meyers (ISBN 1-59128-008-7). The author is writing from a Reformed, Evangelical and Presbyterian perspective and there is much in his book with which I heartily agree (as well as elements of which I still need persuading, such as the idea that our Lord’s Day gathering should be a service of covenant renewal, but with another 300 pages still to go, there is yet time!).

This is the first post of a non-consecutive series of indefinite length reflecting the thoughts that have been stimulated by this book.

Please note, I am using “worship” in a technical sense to describe what goes on in our Lord’s Day gatherings. A later post will, DVWP, address the suitability of this word as a descriptor for the content of our assemblies.

1. Worship isn’t Evangelism

Worship has God as its object (e.g 1 Chr. 16, 29; Ps. 100, 2; Mt 4, 10) whereas evangelism qua evangelism has man as its object. The Lord’s Day meeting is a family gathering, for those in Christ. Unbelievers, who may well be present at the meeting, cannot worship. They are not in Christ and so do not have access to the Father. Moreover, prayer is to be addressed to God, not men (Matt. 6, 1-13 – surely this is a valid secondary application of Jesus’ primary thrust here?)

That is not to say that Christian meetings should not be gospel-centred, and of course, the Bible does envisage the possibility of unbelievers coming to Christian meetings (1 Cor. 14, 23-25). What goes on in the Christian meeting mustn’t make them think that Christians are out of their minds, but the meetings aren’t primarily for their benefit. The Christian meeting should be comprehensible to the outsider, but what goes on in the church meeting is for the edification of the body (1 Cor. 14, 3-5, 12, 17, 19). Yet it is this, specifically, the expounding of Scripture (since prophecy has now ceased) (and of course, the word ministry in all its other corporate forms) which will convict and call to account the unbeliever, and bring him or her to worship God (1 Cor. 14, 24-25).

This liberates us from measuring our success as a church by results (i.e. numbers saved) and it also frees us from feeling we have to allow the world to set our agenda and ape the world’s style. We are not about making unbelievers feel comfortable. From the verses cited above, unbelievers should feel uncomfortable – as the word of God convicts them of their sin and as they realize that they are observing a community fundamentally different from society around them (or at least it should be) – one that recognizes Christ as Lord and which is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Let me stress that uncomfortable is not equivalent to unwelcome.

2. Worship isn’t Education

The primary purpose of the Sunday gathering is not simply to communicate truth. To hear the Bible read and explained is not the purpose and goal of a worship service. See for example the Venite (Psalm 95). While there is the important element of not hardening one’s heart to the voice of God, that is in the context of making a joyful noise to Yahweh and bowing down before him. The exposition of Scripture is of course vital, but it is not an end in itself.

3. Worship isn’t Personal Experience

Again, the conveyance of emotional experiences as the purpose for worship has man at its centre, not God. It completely defies the point of gathering together corporately at all, save that the rest of the congregation make one feel good. There is little Scriptural warrant for claiming the purpose of the Sunday meeting is to produce some spiritual high in people. God’s people things together, not merely feel things individually – confess, bow down, offer, sing. This is of course not to say that a church meeting should not have some affectional impact, just that it is not the reason why we gather.

4. Worship isn’t Praise

Again, while Christian worship does include the praising of God, ascribing unto him the glory due to his name etc., it is dangerous to think that the Sunday service should have this as its sole purpose. It sounds terribly humble and self-abasing to say that we do not come to take anything from God, but simply give him the praise that is his due. But we are creatures, dependent on the Creator God for everything, and we are fallen creatures at that. We are dependent on God, not least for forgiveness and spiritual life through Christ. We have to come empty-handed, finding all we need in God – it’s the way we enter the kingdom (Mark 10.15) and it’s the way we must carry on. Otherwise, we’re being Pelagian. It’s only in response to what God does for us that we are then able and should we then render him the praise that is his due. And surely during worship we do receive from God. For example, he speaks to us and feeds us through his word as it is sung, read and explained, and through the sacraments which are visible words, he strengthens and grows our faith in him. The term “service” is delightfully ambiguous. Are we serving God or his he graciously serving us? Yes. (More to follow, hopefully!)

All of the above are of course essential to our corporate gatherings as Christian believers, but I don’t think we can say that any of them are the exclusive or even dominant purpose for our gatherings. Having cleared the ground, as we discuss the subject of “worship” further, I hope to clarify, at least in my own mind, what the purpose is of the Lord’s Day gathering, why I go to church on a Sunday.

Advent

For all those Anglicans reading this ‘blog who are celebrating Advent (you know who you are!) here is my favourite carol (all of which I think we sang, with a repeat of the first verse, at the OICCU Carol Service last night) for your edification:

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Wisdom from on high,
Who orderest all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And teach us in her ways to go.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory over the grave.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, great Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times once gave the law
In cloud and majesty and awe.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Root of Jesse’s tree,
An ensign of Thy people be;
Before Thee rulers silent fall;
All peoples on Thy mercy call.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease,
And be Thyself our King of Peace.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.