The Mighty Angels of Revelation

Welcome to God First with Brian C. Thomas, a program committed to encouraging you to put God first while viewing life through the window of the Bible. Now, in honor of the one and only true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, let's join Brian C. Thomas for today's message. Well, greetings in the name of our wonderful Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

My name is Brian C. Thomas. I am so delighted that you have joined me today as I have a special guest that is going to talk on the subject of angels. And this guest is certainly special as he is actually the inspiration for me in the ministry. Many years ago, and I had the call of my life to go in ministry. And one day as I was browsing the Internet, like I often did, and I sent an article over to my wife. And within a matter of minutes, she called me and asked me the question, had I ever considered being a web minister?

To which I had not. And so I sat there for a moment and I thought, you know, that is a great idea. And so we immediately began planning a website.

And as they say, the rest is history. And so that guy that she saw on the website that gave her that idea was Nathan Jones of Lamb and Lion Ministries. And so, Nathan, he's someone that, you know, he's a trailblazer for Internet evangelism. And I'm just so delighted to have him on to reconnect with him to speak today on the book, The Mighty Angels of Revelation. So, Nathan, it's good to speak with you again. Welcome to the program. Well, with an introduction like that, yeah, it's great to speak to you again.

Wow, man, I don't know if my head's going to fit through this for now. You know, I was thinking earlier, I said, you know, when we look back on history at Internet evangelism, your name is going to be there as the forefather because you've definitely laid the foundation. And I see so many others that are following in your footsteps and you definitely inspired me. And so we're going to talk about your book, The Mighty Angels of Revelation here briefly. But if you could share with our listeners about your role, who you are and what role you play at Lamb and Lion, because, of course, as I stated, you evangelize over the Internet, but you wear a lot of hats as well.

Oh, yes. OK, well, again, my name is Nathan Jones. I am the Internet evangelist here at Lamb and Lion Ministries. We're a Bible prophecy teaching ministry whose mission it is to proclaim the soon return of Jesus Christ. And we do that in a number of different ways, primarily through our television program, which is now in its 18th season, called Christ in Prophecy. Dr. David Reagan is the lead host and I am the co-host of that television program. But I access what is reaching now 4.45 billion people accessible over the Internet right now.

And that's my podium, the Internet, just like you said. And so I primarily reach out through our website at christinprophecy.org. There you'll find a plethora of information about Jesus' soon return, because that's what our ministry is excited about.

And that's what we preach. We cover the 31 percent of the Bible that is Bible prophecy. So folks can check out our website, christinprophecy.org. We have plenty of videos and social media groups that you can join, a newsletter. We have many, many articles, long videos.

And we do lots of short videos like our inbox series and our new series called prophetic perspective. And, you know, you were way ahead of the game as far as what so many ministries and churches are being forced to do today due to covid-19. You've been doing this for a number of years. And as I stated, you've been an inspiration to me and to so many. So, again, I'm glad to have you.

And we have you today to talk about the mighty angels of Revelation. So can you tell us what was the inspiration behind writing this book? Well, it actually came about because of a tragic accident that happened in my family. A number of years ago, my parents were driving their big old caddy down the North Carolina roads. And my father noticed a woman was driving, but her head was backwards. She was looking in the back seat.

There was a child in the back seat. She drifted into their lane and crashed head on right into my parents. The force of the impact pushed the car engine into the passenger compartment and crushed my mother, burned the side of her body.

And she was really hurt. My father pretty badly banged up, but he crawled out of the window and passed out on the asphalt of the road. Now, in and out of consciousness, he heard a Harley Davidson come up. He was a big motorcycle enthusiast. This wheel comes rolling up next to his head. He was lifted off the hot tarmac and he was put in the cool grass. He heard the sound of a ripping door as his door was ripped off.

That's my mother's side. This guy that he finally saw looked like a biker in his covered in bandanas and had the jacket and said, Heaven's Angels on the back. He checked on the other car and then my father passed out. And when he woke up in the ambulance, he asked the paramedic, could you please thank that biker for rescuing us? The paramedics were like, I don't know what you mean about a biker.

The police officer there, same thing, no idea about a biker. And to this day, my father was convinced that an angel came and had rescued them. Now, I remember when my father called me from the hospital that night and told me this. I was really skeptical.

I was surprised at my own skepticism. I mean, you hear about angels in the Old Testament, you hear about angels in the New Testament, but you kind of think, well, we have the Holy Spirit today. We don't need angels helping out. And so I talked to a good buddy of mine, Vic Batista, whom you know, and he and I do a weekly podcast called The Truth Will Set You Free. And I said, Vic, I want to learn more about angels. And he says, well, why don't we teach through the Book of Revelation?

There are seventy two angels or groups of angels found in the Book of Revelation. Sure enough, we talked through it for a year and then I blogged through it for another year. And our founder here, Dr. Egan, said to the two of us, why don't you guys put a book together on that very subject?

And that's what we did. It's called The Mighty Angels of Revelation. And it's the one thing I learned is that, yes, angels are indeed active in the world today.

Well, that's a fascinating story. And, you know, when we think about angels, it's a subject that a lot of people are fascinated by. And every time I hear stories like what you shared, it just it sends chills over me because angels are definitely alive and well.

And it's quite interesting when you think to yourself, how often may you be coming across or entertaining an angel unaware? And so you touched on the group of angels. And one thing I did not know until you wrote this book is that you stated there are seventy two different groups or classes of angels in Revelation. Is that correct?

Correct. There are one hundred and eight references to angels in the Hebrew. It's Malik or Greek Angelos, where we get the word angels.

So that means messengers. And there's one hundred and seventy six references in the New Testament. So in the Bible, there are two hundred and eighty four references to angels, almost three hundred.

And you'll find most of them in the Book of Revelation, where apocalypses or revelation means an unveiling. And here the Lord unveiled the spirit world around us so we can see the spiritual work are going on behind the scenes. And when he pulls off that veil, then you can see that angels are indeed hard at work in this day. Yeah, that is quite interesting.

Very, very interesting. Now, what about the angels to the seven churches? I'm actually right now doing a study in which I'm doing the series on the letters to the seven churches. And I've I've read and heard opposing views out there when the scripture makes the reference to to the angels of the church. So can you speak to that as far as what that is referring to?

Well, absolutely. Let's go back to Revelation Chapter one, for instance. And in the beginning of that, John the Apostle John, he's an old man. He's 97 years old. He's been sent to the Isle of Patmos to be an exile.

He's given up hope. And the angel, the Lord Jesus Christ himself comes down to him and he's going to say, all right, I'm going to want you to record what you see now, what will be in the future, the church age, and then what is the far future? So we get kind of a timeline and outline there in Revelation one. And what John is given is a revealing angel, an angel that kind of travels with him and pops up here and there throughout the Revelation story to tell him what's going to come of the future. And primarily this revelation is given to John and he's to write it down and send it to seven different churches. And these churches were in Asia Minor at the time, which is also today the western Turkey. And each of these messages, the Lord has a message about this church, what they're doing right, what they're doing wrong, how to fix it and how to be overcomers.

And it's interesting that as we've gone through each of the churches throughout Asia Minor, that we can look at the now and back at church history and see that the main features of each of these churches represent time periods within the church. And the Lord said to John to send these to the stars or to the angels over these seven churches. Now, some have interpreted stars to mean pastors and some have interpreted stars to mean angels. Stars is actually a kind of a symbol of angels that you see throughout the Bible. So I believe that what the Lord is doing is he addressing these seven angels, these guardian angels who are over these seven churches and over these time periods as well. Yeah.

And I agree with you as well. So that's quite interesting. Now, Nathan, what about how do angels look? You know, if I were to say, Nathan, let's go out one day and let's walk around town. And I want you to point out an angel to me. Could you tell me where an angel is or who an angel is? How do we identify them or how do they look? Well, they look just like biker dudes, right?

Oh, man, I grew up with these books from probably the 1950s, very Americana. They look like giant Swedes, you know, tall white guys with blond hair. And you have this metal ring that somehow floats over the head, big feathery wings.

They wear togas and carry giant swords. And that's that kind of Americana 50s view of what angels look like, almost like they're clone troopers. They all look alike and act alike and think alike. But when you get into the book of Revelation, you realize that there are such a variety of angels. Clearly, they come looking like men. For instance, when Abraham was greeted by the angel of the Lord and two other angels, they look just like men. Other encounters with angels in the Bible, they look just like men.

They can mask themselves to look like humans. But other times when, again, that veil is torn away, they see them in all their glory. And there's quite a variety. I would say that when you read about the myriads, which means it's pretty much the billions of angels out there, they're just as unique and different as the animal kingdom. For instance, you've got the seraphim, the four living creatures that stand before the throne of God. They each have a different face, one of an ox, one of an eagle, one of a man and one of a lion. They have six wings and their bodies are covered in eyes. And they sing glory, glory, glory.

Holy, holy, holy is to the Lord God Almighty. You have the cherubim, not chubby little babies with bows and arrows. But they actually carry the throne of God through the universe. And these guys have four faces each and four wings. We read about other angels that are elemental. They control the winds or the waters that are consumed by fire. We also have ones that are giants that can step across oceans.

We have Satan, who's described as a seven headed dragon, who is a very much of a description of Satan is always reptilian. So there is all sorts of different types and styles and colors and designs. Animals, human looking, chimera type mixtures, forces of nature. Brother, I think it would blow our minds one day when we actually get to see what the angelic world looks like. Yeah.

Yeah, I believe so as well. And because, you know, as I study, I read the Book of Revelation and I see the description of the angels like what you just described. And I think to myself, that's nothing like what I see depicted oftentimes in society. Like you say, little chubby babies on clouds and things like that.

And so where do people get these ideas? But what it brings me back to is the fact that there are a lot of people today, especially Christians, even Christians, I should say, and pastors, they just simply ignore the Book of Revelation. So if they ignore the book and don't read it, all those descriptions of angels in there, they're never going to hear about it. Oh, absolutely.

And you know what? It's a real tragedy that pastors ignore the Book of Revelation because Revelation one three gives you a blessing. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written it for the time is near. So you're guaranteed a blessing if you read the Book of Revelation. So when pastors, and I don't blame them, it can be a scary book, but if you follow the golden rule of interpretation, if the plain sense makes sense, look for no other sense, lest you end up with nonsense. And unfortunately, a lot of people interpret the Bible that way and they end up with nonsense that scares people away from reading it. Of course, Revelation covers the seven year tribulation time period where God will pour out twenty one judgments upon the world.

And that can be scary reading as well. But as you and I both know, Brian, that that's not the main story. The main story is Jesus victorious.

That's right. Jesus returning to defeat evil, to set up his thousand year kingdom and then on into the eternal state. That's what the Book of Revelation is about. That's what it's all about. Amen.

Yeah. And I know God put a special burden or passion on my heart from from the time when I was a child for the Book of Revelation. And so I have just dedicated in ministry to put an emphasis on it. No matter what message I'm teaching or preaching on, I try to get something in there about Bible prophecy, about revelation, because as you stated, it is about the return of our Messiah, that he's coming back to rule and reign on the earth.

And as believers in Christ, as followers of Christ, we should all be excited about that and looking forward to it. And so when it comes to the angels now, angels, of course, we think of them as beings that are supreme to us as humans. But first Corinthians, Chapter six, verse three states, Do you not know that we shall judge angels? What can you say to that verse?

Well, it's interesting. Before the cross, angels were called the sons of God. They were ranked higher than humanity. But when Jesus Christ died on the cross and provided salvation for the those creatures which were made in his image humanity, then you see that term flip. Then all of a sudden, humans become the sons of God.

We become higher ranked than the angels. We are servants with the Lord during this church age. But one day, the Bible says that the those who are saved will rule and reign with Jesus Christ, not only over the nations of the world, but also over the angelic realm as well. And so it's fascinating that when it comes time for the Great White Throne judgment and Satan is finally cast to hell and the demons are judged, then they will be judged not only by the Son of God, but by those who are saved as well. So, yes, at some point in time, all this horrors that have been unleashed by Satan and his demons upon the earth. And Satan's a real entity.

He's not an idea about what evil is or a symbol or representation. Jesus addresses him with personal pronouns that we know then that someday Satan and the demons will finally meet their demise. And we will participate somehow in their judgment.

So, yes, it's a totally reversal of power and authority. And Satan knows this. Satan knows that we will have a power authority over him.

And that's why he works so hard to rule over this world and force people to worship him, because in turn, we should all be worshiping God. Yes. Yes. Amen. Amen. Well said.

Well said. Now, you stated in your book that angels escort people that are saved when they die. Meaning those who are born again believers in Jesus Christ upon death, that angels escort those individuals to heaven.

Can you speak to that? That's one of the many features that angels have. One of their jobs, you know, obviously being Angelos or messengers, they are messengers, but they also serve other capacities. They're guardians, as we saw with the seven angels of the seven churches. They are rescuers. They're sent to rescue people.

They're warriors. They fight amongst against Satan and his demons. They worship the Lord.

We see so many times, like, say, for instance, the shepherds saw the angels worshiping God. They can even be evangelists, like the gospel angel, which will go around the whole world and share the gospel during the tribulation time period. They're enforcers. They enforce God's will and God's law upon the earth. They serve the Lord and they serve his servants. And they also act as, believe it or not, executioners.

They will be the ones to throw Satan into a pit and then eventually those who are condemned into the lake of fire. But I love what you said, too. They also happen to be escorts. One of the stories I included in my book, page 21, is that Pastor Morgan was sharing stories from his church. And there was a woman who was on her death bed, 95 years old. Her name was Agnes Frazier. And she was quickly dying. And as she was coming in and out of consciousness, she asked the pastor, she said, Who are these men at the foot of my bed? And he looked around.

He didn't see anybody. And he was kind of hesitant. He thought for a moment. And he asked her, Well, can you describe them? And she says, Well, there are two men dressed in white from head to foot. And well, he didn't know what to say.

So he said, Well, tell them that you belong to Jesus. You know, she was real satisfied with that answer. She had a big smile on her face. She passed away. And he believed that those two angels were there.

He couldn't see him, but she could. And they escorted her up into heaven. And there's references in the Bible that say that the angels escort us to heaven. So that's the first thing we'll see and we'll die.

That bright light that people talk about. That's the angelic world coming to take you to Jesus's feet. Wow.

That is truly amazing. And it reminds me of my grandmother. She passed away in November. She was 98 years old.

Matter of fact, she just would have had her 99th birthday on Mother's Day. And in the weeks preceding her death, she would tell us about stories of where she went to a place and she smelled these flowers that had the most beautiful fragrance that she'd ever smelled. And she was telling us about things that gave us an indication that she was already seeing something in the spirit world. And it's just the thought of thinking that when she did pass away and she passed away peacefully, right in the presence of the family, that angels came and escorted her into heaven. You know, it just gives me so much comfort. Yeah. Yeah.

It's truly, truly amazing. The author who wrote the foreword to the book, Terry James, he's a prolific Bible prophecy teacher. He's with Rapture Ready. And I asked him if he would mind writing the foreword because he himself had a near-death experience. Matter of fact, he had three of them. He had a terrible heart attack and he was coming in and out. And every time he closed his eyes and see this light, he would see all these people. And I asked him, how old were they?

Well, they look like they're in their 20s, maybe early 30s. And there was like a big family and they were welcoming him and they were engaged with him. And then he'd come back out and resuscitate him and then he'd die again. And he keeps repeating the story of how he would see these angelic looking faces all welcoming and bringing him to heaven. And, you know, some obviously back to death stories you got to wonder.

But Terry is a solid doctrinally and he's not easily fooled. And that's his story. And I believe it. And so you hear about stories about these people where they as they're passing, the Lord sends angels to collect us and bring us up. And that's a fantastic story about your grandmother.

That's so comforting. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Absolutely. So you've mentioned already in your opening story that you're told about the occurrence with your parents in the accident. So we do know that angels are active in our personal lives. We think about the good angels. But as you've already touched on, also, there are the fallen angels, the demons of the scriptures, the ones who chose to follow Satan. So though they are also active.

Right. I mean, when we have in our daily lives, we have that battle that is going on and we don't see it, but there's a spiritual battle that is taking place. And it also influences us as far as trying to get us to tempt us into doing something wrong on the bad angel side, the demon, the demonics, and then on the good side, they're trying to encourage us to do right. So what can you speak to as far as the activity of angels in our personal lives today? Well, to address your first question, this biker angel that my father saw, I have a closing story.

I provide a seventy third angel. He's not in the book of Revelation, but another woman who had the same story about breaking down on the Sacramento highway. This biker came up, she got real scared. He went to the front of her car and he fixed her water pump, which he shouldn't be able to do by just tweaking a few things. Started up, said, hey, don't judge a book by its cover.

Kind of pointed up to this guy and drove off. And ever since I released this book a few months ago, I've had many people write into the ministry and say, hey, you know, a biker stopped and helped me here and a biker stopped and helped this person there. And either we've got very, very friendly, very competent mechanic bikers out there.

I'm sure we do. But this biker angel seems to be showing up in a lot of people's lives. And so the Lord definitely has his angelic servants helping.

But at the same time, we also have a demonic world. And going back to Isaiah and other chapters in the Bible, we learn that that Satan was the greatest of the creative angels, more powerful even than Michael, it would seem, the archangel. And he was reptilian in form.

It would appear maybe like the seraphim. And he was in charge of leading the worship in heaven. And he was God's guardian angel, so to speak, over the throne. And he started envying Jesus, excuse me, the Trinity, Jesus, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and wanting the worship for himself. Well, that's where we see sin enter, pride and envy. Satan leads a third of the angels, corrupts them, and has them try to overthrow God. Now, in comparison between God and Satan, there's no comparison.

Easy enough to be easily defeated. And that's what happened. Michael and the archangels warred against Satan and his demons and cast them to the earth. And when he cast them to the earth, he disembodied them so that they became wandering spirits.

And then he also divided another group and kept them in what's called the bottomless pit. It's a place called Hades where the dead who are not without Christ go. And this pit separates two divisions, we read in Luke 21, excuse me, Luke 12, about the angels and the demons. The demons are cast there and they wait until the tribulation time period when they will be released to inflict upon the world. So the angelic realm, the demonic realm is divided into two.

And on this earth, then Satan prowls around like a roaring lion. He's got his demonic realm kind of organized in a hierarchy structure, very similar to military, just like the angels are. And they are behind many of the principalities and powers and authorities, human governments that are today. A lot of the battles we're seeing, say with in government or with Planned Parenthood or other evil organizations, you could be sure that there's demons of various levels working in the background. And so, yeah, that was my skepticism at first. But as I studied the Bible more, I realized that how much God uses angels to get his work done. Likewise, Satan, the demons who want worship for man spend all their time working towards Satan's goal of creating a global government, a global system, a global religion that has him at the center.

Yeah. And as you were speaking, a couple of things came to mind. And one is for anyone, if you have any doubts about angels and the demonic world and spiritual warfare taking place, I think about the story in the Book of Daniel when Daniel was praying for the nation of Israel. And when the angel Gabriel arrived, he told Daniel, I've been trying to reach you.

And I think he said I was held up for about 30 days. And he said, because the prince of Persia withstood me. So he was in a battle and you picture like a wrestling match, a hand to hand combat going on in the spiritual world. And he said that, well, he did not overcome until he called in reinforcement of another angel. And so we see it taking place.

I mean, the Bible makes it very clear that it's happening and we just don't see it in our human nature. And then another thing on the other side, as far as when I think about good angels, and I'd heard many stories in my life of people telling of about angels that entertain children. And I recall when my son, who's now 11, when he was about six months old, one day I was sitting in our bedroom, master bedroom, just sitting in the lounge chair and we were watching television. He was sitting on my lap and I noticed just after a while he was sitting there peacefully. I noticed he was looking off into the distance, sort of like towards the corner of the room next to the dresser, sort of down towards the floor. And so I looked to see what he was looking at and I didn't see anything. And so I look back at him and he sort of chuckled. And so I look back again to see what was there.

And there was nothing there. And then I look back at him and he chuckled some more. And so he went through several minutes in where he kind of chuckled for a while, then he would stop. And I knew he saw something. And the thought came to me. He sees an angel. An angel is entertaining him. And so I do believe that happens with little children, with babies. And again, even with adults that we have interaction with angels. And it's definitely something that is real.

Well, the Bible references a lot of times about guardian angels or angels over children. One of the stories I included in my book was about two young girls who were walking down a road. And all of a sudden, one of the girls froze.

It's like a hand that grabbed her back of her shirt and held her tight. And she said she couldn't move. But her other friend kept walking and walked out into the street, got hit by a truck and died.

Wow. And it was like that that story kind of blew my mind because here the Lord wanted one particular child to survive and the other one was ready to be called home to be with him. And we can't understand the mind of God or what his plan is or why he would let one die and one live. But there are so many stories like that out there of angels there yet being guardian.

Now, as parents, we know that it's amazing our kids don't all die pretty young. Right. Yeah, they do a lot of stupid things and we rescue them all the time. And we need angels to help us out because. Yeah.

Yeah, they do a lot of and then they get older and then they wreck your car like they survive. And so, yes, the angels are there. Who knows how many times angels have been there to protect us or guide us in times that we wouldn't even know it. And I think someday when we're in heaven, hopefully they'll come and introduce themselves. I remember you did that.

We're going to die. Yeah, I helped you out there. Now, what about when it so when it comes to the angels, how much power do they have? I mean, can angels actually control or affect the weather?

Oh, absolutely. We read in Revelation about the wind angel. There's four of them and they control the winds around the earth. So when we hear about all this global warming or global cooling or whatever the fad is of that month, then, yeah, that we don't need to be worried about the weather because the Lord controls the weather through his angels. It's a they're kind of like God's EPA.

They control the way we talk. Read about water angels, how angels control the waters of this world. There's the sun angel refer later. He comes out of the sun like fire. And so, again, that blows my mind about what an angel looks like. My illustrator, Shalice Stevens, who I hired to draw 12 of the angels, as the book of Revelation describes, did a fantastic job drawing the sun angel as the sun angel calls the carrion birds of the earth to come and prepare the feast at the Battle of Armageddon. And so, yeah, there's so many different varieties of angels that are ministering not only to humanity and the animal kind, but they also control the earth like almost like the earth is a big factory and the angels are the workers in the factories. They keep it going. Very interesting. You know, this is a topic that I could go on talking with you for hours about.

But we're going to wrap it up here with this question and then you can share with our listeners how they can find your book. Does God have an angel that is the protector or overseer of the nation of Israel? Absolutely. We read about Michael, the archangel himself is the protector over Israel. And you just talk to any Israeli who's fought in the battle and watch missiles turn weird or that they were shot at multiple times and missed. Or the death toll was always one Israeli to ten whomever Arab nation was attacking him at the time. Miraculous, miraculous, miraculous protection of Israel. Even in fact, in 1948, when all the Arab nations came against Israel, which were a bunch of kibbutz workers at the time, and they held off all those armies. We read about Ezekiel 38 and 39, how God himself will step in and stop Russia and Islamic armies from totally annihilating Israel, which is a future prophecy, but I don't think too far off. And so again and again, we know that the Lord uses the top angel, Michael, the archangel himself is the defender of Israel. Yeah, I've seen documentaries about the wars of Israel and we're not talking about things that were back in the Bible days. And I don't say that to dismiss it, but sometimes, you know, people have the mindset of, well, yeah, that stuff happened way back then. But there are documentaries of, like you said, in 1948 wars in the war of 1967, where the soldiers speak of miraculous things happening.

And the only explanation is, you know, that God is behind it and that he has his angels there protecting the nation of Israel. Absolutely. So, Nathan, again, this is just a fascinating topic. And I know in this short time that you've spoken with us, we've just scratched the surface. And so people are going to want to know more about this. So share with our listeners, if you will, about how they can find this book so they can find out more about The Mighty Angels of Revelation.

Oh, certainly. You can find The Mighty Angels of Revelation. It's on our website at christinprophecy.org. Just click store. It's right in there. Folks can also go to Amazon.

You can get the Kindle version or the Barnes & Noble has the Nook version as well, if you prefer to read it on your tablet. All right. Amen. Well, Nathan, again, it's always good to speak with you. Thank you so much for sharing this word with our listeners today. And I know that so many will be blessed by it. And to our listeners, please come back and join us again next week, where we encourage you to put God first while viewing life through the window of the Bible. Until then, remember to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Bless God's great nation of Israel. And to the only wise God be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen. You've been listening to the Bible teacher Brian C. Thomas, founder and president of God First. Brian and God first reserve all copyright protection under applicable law. Our copyright policy is available at our Web site, God first dot org.

Until next time, remember to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, bless God's great nation of Israel and seek first the kingdom of God. And. And. And. And. And.