The Messiah’s Herald

After 40, we’ll just be looking
at a couple of verses tonight. Great singing tonight. Just a
thrill to sing the Christmas hymns and to do that by way of
worship. We did it several weeks ago by
way of proclamation. We’ll talk a little bit more
about that in a moment. And I don’t know about you, as
I am in and out of stores, and restaurants and that kind of
thing. It is fascinating, isn’t it, to watch the progression
of music over the years. I can remember even when we first
moved here and I worked up the street, remembering that there
were Christmas carols played in full. And I can remember walking
the aisles and hearing Joy to the joy to the world, the Lord
has come. And by and large, the lyrics
tend to get phased out if the songs are retained at all. All
they are is instrumentals. And, you know, you hope that
people can still maintain or sustain a memory of those lyrics. And then oftentimes they’re replaced
with very poor replacements. songs that really don’t exalt
Christ and uphold the dignity of the season. One such song
that I heard years ago and that I heard again recently was put
out by a group called First Call, and I don’t mean to criticize
them. I know that some of the other songs, you know, are just
Christmas hymns done kind of to a new acapella genre of music but this particular
song I think is theirs or at least they are the ones that
popularized it and it was called the new 12 days of Christmas
a modernized updated version of the old song which in and
of itself wasn’t a great song but When I heard it the first
time, it just bugged me. It just really bothered me that
a subject so grand and so wonderful would be reduced in this fashion.
But I think you’ll get the gist of where I’m going with this.
And when I heard it again, it’s almost like my disdain for the
song has only grown over time. Essentially, what it does for
me is capture the glory of the season, the Christ child, and
drown it out with everything that typically does this time
of year. It goes like this. On the twelfth day of Christmas,
and I’m just going to start at the twelve and work my way down.
I’m not going to sing it either. On the twelfth day of Christmas,
a vision came to me. Twelve diets slimming, eleven
stockings brimming, 10 trees for trimming, 9 cash dispersals,
8 choir rehearsals, 7 plates of dressing, 6 cards with blessing,
5 shopping malls, 4 manger scenes, 3 fruit cakes, 2 evergreens,
and a child born to set the world free. And with that, my stomach
just churns. There are lots of bad songs at
Christmas and it just seems to get worse. That is probably my
least favorite. That and Grandma got ran over
by a reindeer. But thankfully, there are good
songs, too. I came out of the closet several
years ago as a big fan of Handel’s Messiah. I know that I shocked
some of you. I know that I bewildered a number
of others. And I love Handel’s Messiah.
In fact, I shared with one saint just yesterday. For me, it isn’t
even the Christmas season until I have thoroughly listened to
Handel’s Messiah, which I did just this past week. It isn’t
for everyone. Much to my surprise and shock
and horror, I found out years after declaring that I really
enjoyed Handel’s Messiah and dragging a number of friends,
not the least of which was my wife, to a presentation of Handel’s
Messiah, I found out much later that Handel’s Messiah is considered
to be light opera. I know that’s what I said. It
is literally, though, Scripture set to music. And even if the
genre of music is not to your liking, certainly it captures
the mood of those passages. One would have to agree. Handel’s
Messiah was written, as you may know, by George Friedrich Handel
in 1741. He was a composer. He had found
himself penniless and discouraged, even depressed. He was sleepless
over the fact that he didn’t even know where his next paycheck
was going to come from until he got a series of letters. One
letter arrived in 1741 that would change everything for George
Friedrich Handel. The first was an invitation by
the Duke of Devonshire, inviting him to the Irish capital of Dublin
to produce a series of benefit concerts for the relief, really,
of prisoners in jails and a support of the local hospital. The second
letter came to him was from a friend named Jennings, who had written
lyrics for him in the past, but had compiled essentially a proclamation
of the gospel. A compilation of scripture verses
that together were an announcement of God’s work in the plan of
redemption. Handel, it is recorded, locked
himself in his study for seven days and set all of these tunes
to music. And for those of you who have
sat in it, you know what I’m talking about. For those of you
who don’t, it is just a moving experience. And I realize that
for some of you, it moves you towards the door and that’s OK. Tradition has it that and tradition
carries forth that at the singing of the hallelujah chorus, which
almost every one of you have heard, you just may not know
it as part of Handel’s Messiah, everyone stands. It is a very
moving experience. Typically, Handel’s Messiah was
done on Easter, that’s when it was first presented. And as I’ve
suggested in the past, to me, it is more fitting for Christmas. As you will see, you will obviously
see, I’ve been in somewhat of a series and I realize that it
hasn’t been sequential and it hasn’t even been every year.
Some years I dip back into these passages from Handel’s Messiah,
but I keep working my way through the passages that handle used
here in this presentation. And I do so at
Christmastime, obviously. I have also suggested in times
past that really everyone should live it, live the Handel’s Messiah
in its presentation at least once. And once is enough for
some people. And honestly, for me, the best
way to do it, the best way to experience Handel’s Messiah is
with your Bible open in front of you. The genius of Handel’s
Messiah, as you will discover, is not even so much the music,
but it is the verses as they flow. And it’s the gospel story.
It’s God’s plan of redemption. For those of you who haven’t
been, Handel’s Messiah opens with a very solemn instrumental
which captures the human struggle with sin. And it is a very moving
experience. It continues by coursing through
those Old Testament prophecies about our Lord Jesus. And it
ends up on the very passage that that just encapsulates the gospel. The Messiah, as I said, to me
is Christmas. It is a Christmas song. But these
Christmas songs, you have to remember, were written not by
Handel, but they were written by the Holy Spirit through the
instrumentality of his prophets. The lyrics were written 700 years
before Christ was even born. And these lyrics, to me, represent
largely the greatest Christmas hymn of all time. because the
lyrics are taken directly out of the book of Isaiah in most
cases. Tonight, we will be in Isaiah
chapter 40, and I just want to look at two verses where Handel
took, interestingly enough, the very first song that would open
Handel’s Messiah, the very first song with lyrics. There are several
that precede, but this song is literally the one that opens
The Messiah itself taken from Isaiah 41 and two, and it is
taken from the English translation that was popular in the day,
the King James, which reads like this comfort. Comfort ye my people,
saith your God, speak comfortably to Jerusalem and cry unto her
that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned.
For she has received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. We don’t spend or we haven’t
thus far, we haven’t spent a lot of time in the book of Isaiah.
Several Christmases, four, I believe now, a couple of other passages
have been preached from our pulpit. But if you are relatively familiar
with the book of Isaiah, you know that it has 66 chapters.
And I don’t know how long it took somebody to think of this,
but they noticed that the Bible itself had 66 chapters. And so
immediately there began this approach to try to section off
Isaiah to mirror, if you will, the Bible. There are two main
divisions, just like there are in the Bible, and there is some
attempt to make a hard and fast delineation that that the first
main division ends at chapter 39, just like the Old Testament. One said it this way regarding
that 39 chapters that precede chapter 40. He said the former
prophecies were local and temporal in their reference. These belong
these prophecies, however, 40 and and on. These belong to the distant future
and are worldwide in their interest. The deliverance from Babylon
under Cyrus, which Isaiah here foretells by prophetic suggestion
rather, carries him on to the greater deliverance under my
Messiah, the savior of the Jews and Gentiles. And so some have
suggested that the book of Isaiah is in miniature, a miniature
of the Bible itself. Some people take this way too
far. And I’ll give you a couple of examples. In other words,
they say that Isaiah chapter one mirrors the Bible chapter
one, the book of Genesis. Corresponds with Genesis in things
like this, Isaiah 118 says, Come now, let us reason together,
saith the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be
white as snow, though they are red like crimson, they shall
be as wool. And the parallel to that is, of course, Genesis
chapter three. I will put enmity between thee
and the women. And so you see where this is going. that you
could almost grab any chapter out of the book of or any verse
out of the book of Isaiah and find some kind of parallel in
the book of Genesis. And that’s exactly how this thing
unfolds. This suggestion that there is this hard and fast parallel
between the book of Isaiah and between Scripture itself. And
so when you get to chapter 23, which corresponds with the 23rd
book of the Bible just happens to be Isaiah. You have these
myriad of parallels, but you have lots of problems that creep
up along the way and lots of parallels that really don’t strike
us as parallels right away. It’s a kind of a problematic
way to look at it and a little too creative for my blood, but
There are 66 books in the book of Isaiah and 66 chapters or
66 chapters rather in Isaiah, 66 books of Scripture. And the
Bible does have two main divisions, the Old and the New Testaments.
And the first division of the Bible is known as the Old Testament. It contains 39 books that we
know. And the second division contains
27. We know that, too. And the book of Isaiah does tend
to transition here in chapter 40 from prophecies of judgment
and heavy prophecies to prophecies of promise and hope. I want to take you now to the
first two verses of Isaiah chapter 40, which one pastor said, give
the keynote of the second part of the prophecy of Isaiah. The
great theme of this section, that is, chapters 40 through
the end, are none other than our Lord Jesus and His suffering
and the glory that shall follow. Look, if you would, at Isaiah
chapter 40, verses 1 and 2, handles Messiah, the very first song. Comfort, O comfort, my people,
says your God, speak kindly to Jerusalem and call out to her
that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity has been removed,
that she has received of the Lord’s hand double for her sins. If you notice, first of all,
one of the most poignant things that very few commentators even
acknowledged is that the first thing that jumps off the page
at me is, my people and your God. That God’s people belong
to Him and that there is that intimate relationship that both
of those little phrases indicate. My people. Can you think of a more glorious
thing to be called here on the most wonderful of days is to
be known as one of God’s children. To be in that group that He calls
My people. Certainly, the whole world belongs
to God. That much is true. But there is a special and intimate
relationship with those who have come to know His Son, Jesus Christ. For those who have come to faith
in Jesus Christ, we are said to be the very children of God. But it’s curious here as we begin
to open up into this passage, and I’m just going to very briefly
lay out three particulars of what I would call the heralds
of the Messiah, the proclaimers. And that’s why I was particularly
thankful to sing at the end there, Hark the Herald. Angels sing,
but there are more than just the heralds that are to proclaim
Christ. I want to look at three particulars
of the heralds of the Messiah. When Isaiah says, Comfort, O
comfort my people, he is speaking to someone. And God, it is said,
is the one declaring these things. God is the one issuing this command. But to who? To Isaiah? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely, this command was
issued to Isaiah. And yet it is an open ended command. It is a clear command to be fulfilled
by others. It is an ongoing command to other
prophets. Yes, absolutely. To the prophet
Haggai. It is recorded in Haggai 1.13,
Then spoke Haggai, the Lord’s messenger, in the Lord’s message
to the people, saying, I am with you, thus saith the Lord. Haggai 2.9, The glory of this
latter house shall be greater than that of the former, said
the Lord of hosts. And in this place, I will give
peace. It wasn’t just Isaiah that came
with a message of comfort and peace. It was Haggai as well. Zechariah. Zechariah 1.13, the
Lord answered the angel that talked with me with good words
and comfortable words. Zechariah 9, rejoice greatly,
O daughter of Zion. Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem.
Behold, thy King is coming to you. He is just, having salvation
lowly and riding on a colt. It wasn’t just these prophets,
but all of the prophets were tasked with the message of bringing
not just messages of rebuke, but ultimately messages of comfort,
messages of peace. The apostles as well were tasked
with this great mission of taking the gospel, the gospel of peace,
the gospel of Christ, the gospel of comfort. Pastors, elders,
Evangelists absolutely were given this mission. As one said, Matthew
Henry put it this way. We have here the commission and
the instructions given not to this prophet only. But with him
to all the Lord’s prophets, nay, to all of Christ’s ministers
to proclaim comfort to God’s people. And in fact, if you take
it from there, it does go to all of Christ’s people, all the
faithful, all of those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, all
who have come to know the Messiah are tasked with bringing the
world the message of comfort, peace. One said it this way,
this is a consolation for the church. assuring them that they
will never be destitute of prophets by which He exhorts the true
ministers of God and those who would come after Him to comfort
the poor, afflicted, and to assure them of their deliverance, both
of body and soul. When we proclaim Christ, we proclaim
a message of comfort to the lost, as we’ll see in a moment. But
you say, how do I do that? You do that every time you gather
in a service like this. You proclaim to a watching world. You proclaim that you maintain
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You do so, Scripture says, every
time you gather at the Lord’s table. You proclaim your faith. in the Lord Jesus Christ. You
proclaim Him and you proclaim a message of comfort every time
you open your mouth and your heart and you share those comforting
words of the Gospel with those who do not know Him. With your
family, with your friends and others. Who are the messengers? Who are those tasked with bringing
the message of comfort? It isn’t just Isaiah. It’s Isaiah
and the prophets and the apostles and the pastors. And it’s you.
You are tasked with carrying forth the message of comfort. What is the mission? What is
the mission for the heralds of the gospel? We know who the messengers
are. It’s everybody from Isaiah on down to you and I, if we know
Christ. But what is our mission? Look again at the passage. Comfort. Oh, comfort. My people. Says your God. This isn’t my
urging. This isn’t my appeal to you as
saints. This is God talking to you. This is God giving this commissioning. It is the mission of the messengers. And the mission of the messengers
is a mission of comfort. comfort. We are to take peace
to those. And I mean a real lasting comfort,
not just some band aid, not just some pretend temporary comfort. What we bring to them is literally
spiritual resuscitation. I remember growing up It took
me some time to figure out exactly what that was. I thought it was
a scary thing when I first heard that word resuscitation, because
my dad, who was a fireman, showed me the mask that they used, a
big, heavy, black, foreboding looking thing. And he said, this
is what we use when we resuscitate someone. Well, I thought it had
the opposite effect. It certainly looked like it would.
to a small child seeing this big mass come at me? To me, resuscitation
meant you were about to put them in the ground.” Why do I bring up resuscitation? Because the word here, literally
this command to the prophets, comfort, is literally to cause
to breathe again. We are to breathe life into people. And in breathing life, it is
the life of Christ that we breathe into them. It is the life of
the Gospel. Nakamu. Nakamu ami. Comfort. Comfort my people. They’re not our people. It’s not for us to decide who
we share with and who we don’t. You know, the fascinating thing
about this is when the Septuagint was translated, remember, from
the Hebrew to the Greek, because everybody had begun to speak
Greek and they had to translate the Hebrew Scriptures into the
Greek. Do you know what word they used here? Paraclete. To console or comfort or exhort. This is exactly where we get
the word paraclete, the comforter, the comforter, the Holy Spirit.
He’s not saying that we become the Holy Spirit to them. He’s
saying that when we go to them, we take with us the message of
peace, the message of Christ, which is a message of comfort.
The command is an active one. As we’ve already established,
God’s people, all of them are to be ever ready to declare the
good news of comfort, the comfort of the Messiah. As one said it, the divine command
has not been issued once only or merely to one prophet as if
to Isaiah. And Isaiah alone, he was issued
this command to go comfort the people. It is as active to you
and I this night to go take the message of comfort as it was
to Isaiah when it was first given. There was nothing so poignant
to me when we did our caroling, as looking out and trying to
find the eyes of those who did not want to look at the carolers. They didn’t want to see. They
didn’t want to hear. And for me, as I was singing
those words, I would look for eyes to lock onto. As I sang these kinds of words,
born to set thy people free from our fears and sins, release us. Let us find our rest in thee.
And there were dozens and dozens of people that would pass by
and they would hear the words, but they would not be comforted. Poignant moments like this. Singing
these words. with an obviously drunken man
standing near us, desiring something from us, but not knowing what. And singing these words in his
hearing, and ye beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are
bending low, who toil along the climbing way with painful steps
and slow, Look now, for glad and golden hours come swiftly
on the wing. Oh, rest beside the weary road
and hear the angels sing. Peace on earth. Mercy mild. God and sinners reconciled. We
took the Gospel to people in proclaiming these words. We took
comfort. We took hope. How silently, how silently the
wondrous gift is given. So God imparts to human hearts
the blessings of his heaven. No ear can hear his coming. But
in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive him still,
the dear Christ still enters in. Joy to the Lord. Joy to the world, brother. The
Lord is come. Let earth receive her King. Later
on in that same hymn, no more let sins and sorrows grow, nor
thorns infest the ground. He comes to make His blessings
flow as far as the curse is found. When we open our mouths, whether
we’re singing a Christmas hymn, or whether we slip somebody a
track, or whether we invite them to church, whether we tell them
that we’re going to church, we proclaim Christ. Jesus wanted
to comfort. That’s what He wanted to do most
was to come and to comfort. My yoke is easy and my burden
is light. I came to ease your burden. We come. As we come to those who do not
know Christ, we come to those who are hurting. We come to those
who are bewildered, we come to those who are lost and sinful,
those who are guilty and lonely and downtrodden and broken. We come to those who are discouraged
and frustrated and angry and disturbed and hopeless. They’re
bitter. They are estranged. They are
sad. They are aimless. They are proud,
self-sufficient, deceitful, hedonistic, misguided. And on it goes. And we come always. No matter
what their frame of mind, no matter what their state of their
heart, we come always with the same message, a message of comfort
that it doesn’t have to be this way anymore. The Messiah has come. Comfort
has come. Redemption has come. Salvation
has come. Comfort. I said there were three
particulars that I wanted to look at tonight with regards
to the heralds of the Messiah. They are messengers. They have
a mission. The messengers include all of
us. The mission includes none other than comforting God’s called. And we comfort them with a very
particular message. The third particular, the message
of God’s people, it’s right here. speak kindly to Jerusalem and
call out to her that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity
has been removed, that she has received of the Lord’s hand double
for all her sins.” It’s an interesting passage and
an interesting use of the word. Dabaru, speak kindly. Say kind things to Jerusalem. But the word translated kindly
there isn’t entirely a one for one proposition here. It literally
means I’ll live to the heart, speak to the heart. When you
go with this message of comfort, you go to speak to the heart.
And when the Septuagint translated this, the Septuagint grabbed
this particular and they said, speak to the heart of Jerusalem. Speak to the heart of the people.
When you go to them, minister to the heart, not just to the
mind. As one said, speak to the heart
of Jerusalem. Speak that which will revive
her heart. Be a cordial to her and all that
belong to her and wish her well. Do not whisper to it. Cry unto
her. Cry aloud to show saints their
comforts as well as to show sinners their transgressions. Make her
hear it. Speak kindly. Speak to the heart
of Jerusalem and call out to her, not literally to the heart,
not merely to the mind and the intellect. When you go, minister
to the hurts, minister to the inward man. What we share, what
we share with this lost world that is so hurting and so broken
and so lost and bitter and all the rest, isn’t mere facts. When we go, we don’t share with
mere facts that merely appeal to the mind and salve some kind
of supposed need for knowledge. When we go, we go to minister
to broken hearts and hearts that are dead. We go and we speak
life. It is truth that must ultimately
resonate with the inner man. But Isaiah here doesn’t just
say, speak. He says cry. Publicly, emphatically
cry out just like a herald would, right? Just like a herald is
supposed to do, he is supposed to cry out and to urge people
and to plead with people. Speak, as one said, to the heart
of Jerusalem. Speak that which will revive
her heart. And what do we speak? This is
the message. Number one, that her warfare
is ended. It’s over. There are a series of little
indicators here that show that there are three elements to this
message. The first is that the warfare
is ended. Literally, the days of her trouble
are over and finished. Job 7.1 says that our entire
life is a warfare of a kind. The Christian life, much more
so. But the struggle, the struggle of life and the struggle against
sin, the struggle against the flesh and the devil who has,
as it were, a grip on our soul is nothing compared to our battle
against God. Right? We are born at enmity
with Him. We continue a life of enmity,
literally war with God. And our message, our message
of comfort is, you know what? The war can be over. Christ came
to put an end to the war. The war with God, the war with
the devil in that sense, the war with your flesh, it doesn’t
need to continue. The war is over. There’s no more need to strive
with God. The God of peace has enacted
a treaty of peace through His Son, who is the Prince of Peace. And the war, the warring madness
of the sinful life is over. It can be by the grace of God. When we go to people, we don’t
go to people who are at peace with God, who are nice people.
We go to people who are actively engaged in battle, though they
are dead. We tell them that the war, the
warfare has ended. There need not be a war with
God any longer. Secondly, we go to her and we
say that her iniquity has been removed. Ki nipsa avona. It’s a beautiful, beautiful statement. The iniquity, the sin, the sinfulness
of sin, all of that ugliness is removed in Christ. It’s removed. There is no more guilt. One pastor
said it this way, that cause of her terrible trouble is removed. And when that is taken away,
the effects cease. No more death. Tell her that
her iniquity is pardoned, that God is reconciled to her and
that she shall be no longer treated as one who is guilty before Him.
Nothing can be spoken more comfortably than this. Son, be of good cheer. Thy sins are forgiven thee. Troubles are then removed in
love when sin is pardoned.” It’s a beautiful word, as I said.
The word here, nirtsa, to accept or to be pleased with something as with an atonement. When a
sacrifice was made before God and God deemed it acceptable,
well, the most acceptable atonement ever made. Nothing even comes
close and nothing will ever have to replace it. It is the atonement
that Christ made on the cross for sinners like you and I. That word. speaks not just of
exemption from punishment. There are a lot of those who
seem to be exempt from punishment. But the fact that the punishment
for sin has been accepted by God. It is the language of Leviticus
26, 41. All of our sinfulness traded
in for all of Christ’s righteousness. That’s the message we take. That
look, Christ has satisfied the penalty for sin. You don’t need
to bear it anymore. The war can be over today. There’s
a third element to that message that we take. A message of comfort. Not only that her warfare has
ended and that her iniquity has been removed, but there’s a third
portion and we would have to inform dear Mr. Handel of this. Because in that
opening song, inconceivably, at least to me, Handles lyrics,
make a glaring omission. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem,
speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem and cry unto her, that her warfare,
her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned,
that her iniquity is pardoned. and thus ends the song. But that’s
not the end of the lyrics. Not the way God wrote them. The
part that Handel left out is that she has received of the
Lord’s hand double for all her sins. Note for just a moment the language
of this text. For all her sins Not just sin
in some general fashion, but all the sins that one could even
conceive. Not just sin in a general concept,
but all sins, the horrible, deadly sinfulness of sin has been not
only met, but super exceeded by God’s provision. He has done
it. That’s what this says, it is of the Lord’s hand, it came
from the Lord’s hand because it was the Lord Jesus who came
on God’s mission. And as such, we have received
a double measure of grace and favor where sin abounded, as
Paul said, grace did super abound. Christ’s sacrifice is more than
enough. For the sin of the entire world.
There isn’t anybody beyond the reach of God’s grace. You and
I weren’t beyond the reach of God’s grace. Comfort. Oh, comfort my people,
saith your God. Speak kindly to Jerusalem and
call out to her that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity
has been removed, that she has received of the Lord’s hand double
for all her sins. Would you join me in prayer of
gratitude? Our merciful God, when we pause
and consider it that way, remembering that we, too, once were at war
with you. Lord God, and we know how violent,
sinful we were, and that has been removed. Indeed, we received far more
grace than the tally and the exceeding weight of our sinfulness. Lord, Christ’s sacrifice was
more than adequate to save us, and it is more than adequate
to save a dying world. Grant us the grace to cry out
comfort, comfort to these people. Lord, we thank you for our Lord
Jesus Christ who is to us that comfort. I’m just going to hear a thing
now. Silent night, holy night. All is calm, all is bright. Round yon virgin, mother and
child. Holy infant so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace. Silent night, holy night, Son
of God, love’s pure light. Radiant beams from Thy holy face,
with the dawn of redeeming grace, Christ the Lord at Thy birth. Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth. Silent night, holy night. All is calm, all is bright. Redemption’s door has shut. Holy infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace Sleep in heavenly peace Your Father, we just thank You
for this time we’ve had to come to hear Your Word preached and
to sing and to just remember just that glorious coming of
Your Son. Father, cause us to remember the reason that your
son came, Lord. This was the beginning of the
end for him. It was the beginning of our redemption,
Lord. He was coming to die, to set us free, to pay the price
for sin that we couldn’t pay, Father. Father, I’m glad that
we could come tonight. Lord, I pray that you will just
be with us tomorrow. It will glorify you in all that
we say and do. In your name we pray. Amen. Buddy, did you get her? Yeah.
What? The basket. No, not yet. Today’s
the day. Okay. Are we tossing them, Ellen,
or saving them? Well, we won’t use them again.