Sunday School | Doctrine of Salvation - Preservation of the Saints (Perseverance of the Saints)

Alright, you guys. So a couple of my friends are passing out our final sheet in our Tulip study, which is not to say this is our final week in Tulip. You need to hang on to this one for maybe a couple weeks. I know that I emailed the whole packet to everybody, but I don't think I included the final one when I sent it out. So I'll email this one out as well if you like having digital files.

Caleb, do you mind finding that Q and A slide, if you don't mind? So I'm thinking we're going to be talking about the P today. We'll do it next week for sure. Maybe a third week before we get to Q and A. So we'll see. But the sheets are going to be passed out right now.

And here's where we're at. We're studying Tulip—T, U, L, I, P. Broad picture here: we're under the doctrine of soteriology, which is the doctrine of salvation. We're asking the question, how does it work? How does salvation play out? And there is framing that has been given for hundreds of years based on an acrostic called TULIP: Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace. And today, we get to the P—perseverance of the saints.

I will say this: if you've missed any of these studies and you want to hear them or read them or query them, if you just go to chsroanoke.com, go to Teaching, you could find our sermon catalog. It has every sermon and every Sunday school, all the transcripts, everything you need is up there. There's even an AI interaction if you ask questions. So that would be available to you if you want it.

I'm not going to review all of the T, U, L, I. But what's strange about the P—which is typically called the perseverance of the saints, but that some, including myself, prefer to describe differently as the preservation of the saints—is a strange point in the doctrines of Calvinism.

Here's why: If you are a Calvinist, if you accept this whole framing, then you're going to be down with total depravity. You're going to agree with unconditional election. You may or may not agree with limited atonement. But you're going to walk through all these things in a way that probably other people don't.

The doctrine of total depravity is often denied. The doctrine of unconditional election is often denied. The doctrine of irresistible grace is often denied. I believe the people that deny them are mistaken, but nevertheless, people deny them. The P—preservation of the saints—is the one point out of Tulip that many people who reject the first four, nevertheless embrace.

So this doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, or the preservation of the saints, is very often affirmed in isolation of the other four. They don't usually call it perseverance of the saints or preservation of the saints. In fact, how have you ever heard this doctrine described? This idea that once you're a Christian, you will always be a Christian. What are we? How have you heard that coined?

Once saved, always saved. Very good. Any other kind of shorthand titles for this?

Once Saved, Always Saved. Sometimes it's called Eternal Security. I don't know if you've ever heard those things. Once Saved, Always Saved is a little bit more common in a Baptist community. What I think is interesting and strange, and we can maybe get into this as we walk through this, is the only possible reason that I could ever believe in the P is because I believe everything that came before it. And even believing everything that came before it, I'm deeply sympathetic to those that reject it.

Because every one of us knows people who used to look like a Christian, but don't look like a Christian anymore. So I find it surprising and a little bit puzzling that the doctrine of once saved, always saved has survived among communities that reject God's sovereignty. God is not sovereign until the very end, according to once saved, always saved. Once you're saved, it's locked up. And I think that's just so odd that it would swoop in at that moment and say, now it's all secure, when all the preceding things have rejected it, especially in light of the abundance of evidence that we see in the world around us—that people can look like a Christian and then not look like a Christian anymore. So it's just puzzling to me.

Preservation vs. Perseverance

What I want to try to offer to you is not a defense of once saved, always saved, as much as a defense of the preservation of the saints. What the Bible, I do think, teaches is that when he saves us, he is committed to keeping us with him all the way to the very end, despite the fact that our hearts are prone to wander, prone to leave the God we love. The things that are broken in us, he fixes and he redeems, but it's a process.

If he is not sustaining me in faith, then I'm a goner. But the good news is that the scriptures really do promise that he will sustain me in faith. So I'm going to argue here, we're going to walk through the scriptures, I'm going to make the case for why I believe in the preservation of the saints, and we're going to try to move quickly, probably unsuccessfully.

Because I also want to make sure we do give some time to actually interact with the scripture and the life experience that suggests that preservation of the saints is wrong. This is a doctrinal point around which I think there is an answer, namely, that if we are saved, we are safe, that he will finish what he started. But it is a position that I hold in the face of an awful lot of both textual and experiential questions. And we're going to try to get to all of it.

Walking Through Scripture

Let's start at the top. Jeremiah 32:40.

I will make an everlasting covenant with them. I will never stop doing good to them. And I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me. — Jeremiah 32:40

Here's what I want you to notice: this grounds this doctrine in the sovereignty of God, in the mercy of God, in the kindness of God, in God's own perseverance. Why do I believe that I will persevere in faith? Because I believe that God will persevere in sustaining me. It is not because, "Hey, look at how righteous I am now. I would never do anything stupid anymore." That is not why. That's why I don't like perseverance. That's why I like preservation. All of my hope, not only to become safe, but to remain safe—it's because he is determined to do so.

Here's how Jesus describes it in John 6:

All that the Father gives me will come to me. And whoever comes to me, I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me: that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. — John 6:37-39

What Jesus is saying here is he's giving us the timeline of this. The ones that God has given—that happened a long time ago. There's this present moment where we come to him and he does not reject us. But he says, all of them that come to me—what's going to ultimately happen to them? At the end of that verse: raise them up at the last day. It's not like, "I don't know. We'll see. We'll wait and see." What he's saying is that if you have trusted in me, I have claimed you. I've taken you, and therefore, I'm going to see to it that at the end of all things, when Jesus returns to redeem the earth and raise the dead, he will take you to be with him. He will finish what he began in you.

Here he says in John 10:

My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. No one can snatch them out of my hand. My father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one can snatch them out of my father's hand. — John 10:27-29

Do you hear the double security of that? It's like you're in Jesus' hand and you can't squeeze out of that, and you're in the Father's hand, so you're doubly locked up. And once again, the confidence is not that you are now so righteous. The confidence is that he will retain you. He will keep you. You will probably do something stupid. Nevertheless, he will intervene to maintain you, to keep you. He will preserve you. That's what Jesus is saying in John 6 and 10.

Or how about this in John 17:

I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name that you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. — John 17:11

This is his high priestly prayer right before he's crucified. How is John 17 different from John 6 and 10? In 6 and 10, it declares it's going to happen. What's going on in 17 is how it's going to happen and how we have to be together, not just one person—we rely on each other.

What I want you to see is that he says, "Father, protect them." He's not saying it's a fait accompli. He's not saying it's over and it's done. He's saying, "Lord, do it." Now, what the Lord is going to do is in some sense a fait accompli. But the reason that it will happen is that the Father will do what the Son has asked him to do, which is to protect us because we need to be protected. Do you feel the distinction there? We will win. We will be retained.

We will be secure because the Father is actively pursuing that end. Because the Son has asked him to. That's what's going on in John 17.

Gil, I have a tough question. One of my friends from high school—when I knew her at high school, she said she was a believer, said all the right things, did all the right things. We fell out of contact over the last three years. And as I've been talking with her now, she said, "Gil, I've lost my faith a long time ago."

So Gil is just sharing an example. He knows somebody who seemed like they're Christian, then they don't seem like they're a Christian now. How do we make sense of that? We're getting there, but not yet. And probably not today.

But absolutely, everyone in this room, Gil, has that same experience. Which is why I say it's so puzzling that this doctrine, framed often as "once saved, always saved"—how it can survive in the reality that we all know people for whom it seems to obviously be not true, when you strip away God's sovereign hand over all things, is very puzzling to me. It's a difficult doctrine. I do believe that it is true, but I don't know how people can sustain that belief absent a broader understanding that we're trying to offer. So we'll get to that eventually.

Scripture and God's Faithfulness

Alright, so here's Romans 8:30:

Those he predestined, he also called. Those he called, he also justified. Those he justified, he also glorified. — Romans 8:30

We looked at this last week. What's the shape of that paragraph, friends? It is a rectangle. There is no windowing. It's all the way down—we all stay with him.

I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor demons, the present, the future, any powers, any height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. — Romans 8

There's a thousand things that conspire to separate us from him. Paul is saying, ultimately, they will all fail.

Catherine?

One thing he doesn't mention is sin. That used to trip me up in that passage.

Well, I think that's fair. So Catherine's observation is he doesn't mention sin separating us from God. I think that's an astute observation, Catherine. He is not necessarily addressing that question here—which is not to say that sin can separate us from God, or that sin will not interfere. How do I want to handle this right now? Let me just say, you're right that he doesn't mention it. But in other places, Paul does, and that is going to have to be part of our story that we're going to have to understand.

By the time we're all done, I want you to believe in the perseverance of the saints, or the preservation of the saints. But I want you to be able to believe it in light of the total reality of the story. And there's things we haven't said yet, but we just can't say them all first. We're going to talk about where sin fits into this.

Paul says this in 1 Corinthians:

He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. — 1 Corinthians

Why will you be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ? Because he has kept you strong to the end. To the extent that your confidence that you will always be saved and safe in him is because you're such a good little boy—stop it. He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, is faithful. — 1 Corinthians

Who is faithful? He is faithful. Our confidence is not based on our righteousness, but on his willingness to retain us, to keep us, to protect us, to squeeze his hand around us, to make a covenant with us, to cause us to never turn over. He is the actor. We are the acted upon.

And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal. The promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession, to the praise of his glory. — Ephesians 1

You've been given to him. The Holy Spirit has locked you up. We are a church of the Holy Spirit. What we believe is that the reason that we will continue to obey, the reason that we will continue to believe, is because the Spirit of God is alive in us, enabling us to do what we otherwise would not be able to do. Confidence is in him.

Or how about this—Ephesians 4:30.

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

This is an idea of a down payment, a deposit, a guarantee. This whole thing is designed not to kick off a possibility, but to guarantee an ending. The gospel is not about creating a possibility, it is about guaranteeing an ending.

Which is why Paul says in Philippians:

I'm confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

And so, for the fiftieth time in the last twenty minutes, who begins it? Who carries it on to completion? This entire thing is about him. It's always been about him. We are not born again by our own will but by the will of him and we are sustained. Again, don't understand how you can believe "once saved always saved" if you reject God's sovereign power. Not only his sovereign power, but his willingness to exercise his sovereign power. I just don't understand it.

May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.

How many times in that short little paragraph can Paul make plain that it's not about you? You're not gonna keep blameless. What does he say? Be kept blameless. Be kept. Again, you're the object of the verb. You're never the subject of the verb. You're always the object of the verb. Your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless by who? Not by you. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.

The Lord is faithful and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one. — 2 Thessalonians 3

This is why I'm suffering as I am, yet I'm not ashamed because I know whom I have believed and am convinced. He is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day. — 2 Timothy 1

The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. — 2 Timothy 4

Now, Paul says finally, what we haven't really said out loud so far. Why? Why is it endlessly over and over and over that he is the doer and we are the done to? That he is the saver and we are the saved? That he is the sustainer and we are sustained? That he is the preserver and we are preserved? To what end has God ordained the world to function in this way? To glory. That everything might be done to the praise of his glory, to the praise of his glorious grace.

The Purpose of Preservation

This whole apparatus from the T to the P, the whole point of this is to reveal the reality of our humiliated and debased state. We wouldn't worship him, we wouldn't come to him, we wouldn't adore him and treasure him, not because he's not adorable and a lovely treasure, but because we're snarling selfish little brats. And he comes and he fixes us, and he calls us, he overrides our rebellion, he gives us infinitely more than we deserve, and then just when we finally think, "Now, at least I get credit for this," he says, "Actually, that was also me."

So that, for all of eternity, in a billion years, when you are enjoying some bliss that you cannot presently imagine, in that moment you'd be like, my goodness. How massive is the gap between what I deserved and what I received? So that in a trillion years, you will still be marveling that you, of all people, are a partaker of these glories, these joys. And you will again and again and again be driven to a posture of humility, gratitude, adoration and praise because he is simply so brilliant and so condescending and so persevering and so gracious and good that you will, in a hundred trillion years, erupt in praise because it was him soup to nuts. It was always him. That is what Paul is saying.

To him be the glory. Forever and ever.

There will never come a time when it's not his grace and his goodness that sustains you.

Therefore, he is able to save completely those who come to God through him because he always lives to intercede for them. — Hebrews 7

You guys, we sometimes think about this. When were you saved? When were you rescued? When were you made safe? How would you guys answer that? Gil?

"Before I was even made in my mother's womb."

Okay, this is a good answer.

Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.

There is a degree to which you were saved in eternity past. That's not a bad answer. How about another answer? When were you saved?

"When I accepted him."

You could say in this moment, right? And these are both true things, right? Because Ephesians 2, Paul speaking of himself says:

Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.

But God, because of his great love for us, made us alive in Christ. So there was some moment—1987 or something—that you became a Christian. You were saved in eternity past when he determined it. I remember the exact moment that I believed. Yes, I can go back to the very moment I was changed from that point.

Some of you are like Catherine—you know exactly. I was like, Tuesday afternoon. I remember where I was. Others of you, I'm more in this category. It's harder to pinpoint it. But wherever your experience is, there's this: you're saved in eternity past when he determined to, because what he determines he brings to pass. You were saved in the moment it was applied into your heart. You might say it was on the cross—that Jesus took upon himself your sin. That was obviously a central event, but I like these two answers better than the one I'm proffering. But what I want you to notice is that there is a fourth one.

Jesus's Ongoing Intercession

He always lives to intercede for them. — Hebrews 7

In a sense, guys, you're being saved right now. Right now. What do you think it means when Jesus says he always lives to intercede for them? What is he doing?

He's at the right hand of God right now saying, "Don't blame them, blame me. Take their blame, put it on me." At the moment of your last sin—like a week ago, the last wicked thing you did—the Father was hearing from the Son. He's interceding on your behalf right now, ensuring that the purchase that he made is never forgotten, never not applied. That thing you just thought of right there, we got that covered. It's constantly covered.

Not only that, but I suspect that he's not only saying, "I have paid for the penalty of sin," but remember, I made a big scene in the sermon that he didn't just free us from the penalty of sin, but he also freed us from the power of sin. His intercession is not merely, "Don't blame him, don't blame her, don't blame him." But it is also, "Empower him. Empower her." He's telling the Father, "Don't blame them." He's telling the Spirit, "Help him out. She needs your power. If she's doing this on her own, it's going to be exactly what it looks like. So go live in her. Go move her to follow my decrees and laws. Go show her. Go speak to her what she needs to do. Go enable him to do that which he knows he's supposed to do but he's not capable of doing."

He is interceding for you. He is intervening both at the level of the penalty of sin and at the power of sin to keep you walking with him. All day, every day. You have been saved, you will be saved, and you are today being saved. And it's all of him.

Three Tenses of Salvation

First Peter one says this:

Who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. — 1 Peter 1

This is the future tense version of this. Peter knows you've been saved. Peter knows you're being saved. But what he's focusing on here is that you will be rescued. There is a salvation in the future that's coming. And in the meantime, it's dangerous. You live in a dangerous world beset by many temptations, many failures, many things that assault you. So we're shielded by God's power.

But look at this: lest I communicate that you're passive in this, you're not passive in this. Through faith, you are shielded by God's power. The doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, the preservation of the saints—I have focused on God's purpose and work to do this. But we cooperate with him. The Spirit empowers us and we yield to the Spirit. We are offered a salvation that is coming, and by faith we trust in it. Our expectation that God is telling the truth is what keeps us there. We are not passive. He is the actor, we are the acted upon, but we are yielding to him, receiving from him, accepting what he's given and believing it.

As we do, we have over time more and more reason to be like, "It's working, it's working." Over time, our faith should get stronger because we recognize, "Yeah, I blew it here and I blew it there and I blew it here, but I've seen him stick with me. This gives me hope that everything he said is true and he's gonna stick with me all the way to the very end."

Last one here before we hit interaction time: Jude only has one chapter.

So this is not chapters 24 to 25, it's chapter one verses 24 to 25. Listen to this benediction.

To him who is able to keep you from falling. He is able to keep you from falling. To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy. — Jude 1:24-25

Yes. The day is coming that you will be presented before him. You will be presented before him. It'll be glorious because he is glorious, but you will be two things: without fault and in great joy. That's exceptionally good news. Why? Because he has kept you from falling and because in light of all that, we end where we talked about a minute ago.

To the only God our savior be glory, majesty, power and authority through Jesus Christ our Lord before all ages, now and forevermore. Amen. — Jude 1:25

This is it, you guys. Right there. Why do I believe in the perseverance of the saints? Because I really believe in the preservation of the saints. Because God is able to keep you from falling. God is able to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy. That is why we will praise him, glorify him, give thanks to him, honor him, marvel at our good fortune for all of eternity.

Q&A: Addiction and Falling

Alright. Now, we got eight minutes. Gil, you can start.

If you are dealing with someone who has an addiction and you give them this verse that says he's able to keep you from falling and they look at you and go, well, I'm in an addiction and I continue to fall. What—like, obviously I believe there's no contradiction in the Bible. I'm not going to be banging that horse at all. But it's like, I'm continually falling. So I see that. I'm like, okay, what am I missing in that regard?

Okay. So Gil's question is: Let's say we're talking to somebody who has an addiction—drugs, alcohol, whatever it is. They find themselves relapsing and relapsing and relapsing, and they're a Christian. Is this true or is this not true? Does Jude 24 to 25 say that Christian addicts will not relapse? Is that what he means? What does it mean?

Falling out of his graces.

Okay. We won't fall out of his grace, Stephanie. This is great. Charlie, did you want to add to that?

I keep thinking of Paul and the thorn in the flesh, and God asked him to remove it. And he said no, because through your sin my power is complete.

So I just think he covers it.

Yes. This is excellent. Your two answers, I think, are fantastic responses to this. So if we define that it says he's able to keep you from falling to mean you won't sin anymore, then every one of us in this room should be like, well, whether it's an addiction or not, we can't—our experience overwhelmingly says it can't possibly mean that because I can do stupid things multiple times a day. And the same stupid thing right after I resolved to never do that stupid thing. This is just the human experience. So it doesn't mean that.

What it does mean, though, is that he—we will not fall, Stephanie, how did you phrase it? We will not fall from his grace. We will not lose him. Right? He is able to intervene. Now, sometimes that intervention is going to take the form of a slide tackle. There is a time where we get out over our skis and we're doing something, God's like, you know what? I'm going to let this run a little bit. You've experienced this where you're like, okay, Charlie, let's go see where this ends and he'll let you go. And there are times when he's like, Charlie, and he will bench you.

Now, the wisdom of God is far beyond—I don't know why he does what he does when he does it, why he does it this way, why he does it that way. But whenever I am suffering, if I'm sick, if I'm failing at something that's important to me, it always makes me want to be like, okay, okay, okay, hang on. Maybe I'm just sick. Maybe there's no sin involved. But when I find myself acutely aware of how desperate and weak I am, I want to be like, Lord, am I interfering? And I might be, I might not be, and you want to be very careful assuming that somebody else is sick—like, oh, I wonder what you did to deserve that. Right? Jesus actually speaks against that. He says, when the tower fell on those people in Siloam, don't you think you're better than them? Bad things happen and just live with it. But if bad things happen to me, then I want to say like, okay Lord, you have my attention. Maybe there's something you want. Maybe there's some hidden sin, maybe it's not so hidden, and I need to repent. Maybe it's not. I don't know. It's not an answer, it's a question. Right? Cathy, you want to speak to this?

Well, I want to ask about Hebrews 6:4-6, which says it's impossible to bring certain people back to repentance if they've fallen away after sharing in the Holy Spirit. And then Hebrews 10:26, where it said if we sin willfully after receiving the truth, no sacrifice remains for sin.

For sure. So let's look at Hebrews. We're gonna talk at length about Hebrews, but it'll probably be next week. Because Hebrews is probably ground zero for most of us on the "yeah, but what about?" In fact, I've got Hebrews 6 printed at length here on this sheet, and we're gonna get to that. But let me organize that slightly differently from the live question right now.

What I want you to hear is this: In the midst of our sin, right, you're a redeemed Christian, but you're struggling with some addiction to something. In that moment, a moment of relapse does not mean that you've fallen from grace. It does not mean that you're not his. It means that you need to cling to him more deeply. It means that you need to abandon not only your self-righteousness, but your unrighteousness. And your willpower, as if you're gonna just fix this. Anybody who's ever walked through a 12-step program knows the point isn't "try harder." Everybody thinks that's what life is. Try harder. What is it? It's I realize that I'm powerless. I'm powerless. If I can't do this, right, to the extent that whatever thing you're trying to get a grip on is like, just dig deeper. Try harder. You could do that until you finally get to the point where you're like, alright, here's the deal: I'm powerless. God lets you hit the bottom.

That's it. Sometimes that's grace. I mean, that is it. The kindest thing I think is gonna happen in our lives is if our bottom is here and not here, and really not here. I wish people had lower pain tolerances. Like, why don't you surrender now? How about if you give up sooner? Because the Christian life is saying, "I cannot do this. I'm gonna have to have help."

God's Call to Dependence

So if I think what Jude is saying—and Jude wrote that, not Paul—what Jude is saying is not that we're never gonna sin, but that eventually, by whatever means, God is gonna get our attention and get our eyes off of our self-will and back to a posture of dependence on him. Because that is literally the only thing that works.

I just want to point this out. This is Galatians 3:

I would like to learn just one thing from you. Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? — Galatians 3

I used to go round and round in high school on this issue of "once saved, always saved" with my Young Life leader, questioning whether we could lose it. And he would always say, "Kelly, you didn't earn it to begin with. How can you lose something by your actions if you never even gained it by your actions in the first place? It's a gift."

That's what it's all about. Tom Nelson would say: if you can lose your salvation, you will and you already have. Right? Matt Stillman, who's Kelly's Young Life leader, he's exactly right. The basis of our confidence at the end of the game is that God is sovereignly in control. And he was sovereignly in control at the front of the game too.

I don't know how you can sustain a belief in "once saved, always saved" if you reject God's sovereignty. I just don't think it's possible. If you do, we can talk about that. I'd love to hear you explain to me how that works, and maybe there's something there that you see that I have not yet been able to figure out.

The biblical case that we looked at right there is strong, but it's not comprehensive. Not only do we all have the experience to see people and be like, "Well, doesn't this make sense?" But there's a ton of Scripture that we can point to that's gonna seem to contradict what I've already said. We're gonna look at that too, but we're gonna save that for next week.

I do believe he is sovereign over this. I believe he can finish the game. I believe that he will. I believe that is our only hope. But I also know that the Bible has an awful lot to say about those who are hidden in him acting like it.

It has an awful lot to say that at the end of the age, he's gonna separate the weeds from the wheat, the good fish from the bad fish. That any large house—i.e., a church—there are genuine followers of Christ and there are phonies. And we're gonna have to kind of sift that out. So that'll be next week.

You can keep your document and take a look at this. This is where we're gonna go. We're gonna take a fair bit of time because if we don't have a robust understanding of this—not only these passages of scripture like Hebrews six, but also the actual universe that you inhabit—it's gonna really make this hard to understand, hard to believe. So we're gonna address that next week. Maybe we'll finish and start Q and A thereafter.

Good enough? Alright. That's it.