Fervent in Biblical Marriage

Today's lesson entitled Fervent in Preserving biblical Marriage. You know, there was a time when you wouldn't need to have a lesson like this. You wouldn't need to have a lesson on biblical marriages because most marriages were Christian or biblical in nature, but not anymore, right? Not anymore.

Society accepts almost, you know, every kind of arrangement as marriage today, even trying to legalize some arrangements that, you know, 50 years ago, if you would have told somebody 50 years ago if I would have shown this picture 50 years ago in some way people would have been shocked.

I mean, we still don't like it but they would have been shocked. You know, how dare we even show such a thing? Today it's like it's on the front pages of the newspaper. We've got top politicians who are promoting the whole idea.

So I think therefore it is necessary to review what God has designed as marriage. So I want you to open your Bibles, I'll be throwing up the slides but if you'll open your Bibles to Genesis two, that's pretty much where we're going to be.

Most our, most of our time this morning. Now in my ministry, I've had many people who were not Christians who would come to me to perform their marriages, their wedding ceremonies. Here, but especially back in Montreal, people would come to me to have me do their weddings.

You know people who never go to church, who don't read the Bible, they have no convictions about Christ one way or another, but when it comes to getting married, oh, they want a church wedding. You know, somehow people think that a church wedding adds a spiritual component to their wedding day, and they want, you know, they want God's blessing on their, on their union and they're thinking well, you know, having the wedding inside of a church building somehow accomplishes this.

And I think this happens because they believe that churches and ministers can somehow provide a stamp of approval on their marriage and make the whole marriage itself acceptable in the eyes of God. You know, if we could just get married inside of a church building, it's all good.

The truth, however, is that marriages are acceptable in God's eyes if they are entered into by men and women consciously and legally. You're wondering, you know, what- You know, how low is the bar, if you wish? I mean the ceremonies may differ from country to country but this element is always present.

Man, woman, consensual agreement according to the law of that society, that's, you know, that's the bar. And if this was not the bar, then every Hindu for example, or every Muslim or every non-believer would be living in adultery in the eyes of God.

Because none of these people were married inside of a Christian church building. So being inside of, being, having your wedding inside of a Christian church building, performed by a minister or whatever, that's not the element that makes your marriage acceptable to God, not necessarily the only thing.

So if it's consensual and legal, it's acceptable in God's eyes. As Christians, however, we not only search that our marriages be consensual and legal, we also create the type of marriages that reflect the will and the purpose of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now we're talking about Christian marriage. So for this to be so we need to kind of build our marriages according to God's Word in which we find the ideal for marriage. The ideal for marriage. You see, being married inside a church building is not what makes your marriage a godly one.

Making your marriage a godly one is building your marriage according to God's plan that makes your marriage a Christian one, one in accordance to God's plan. A lot of people were not married inside of a church building but their marriage, they seek for their marriage to be according to God's plan.

And I'll tell you something, a lot of the work, you know, for a wedding, you know happens before you get married, but a lot of the work, most of the work, to make your marriage a godly one happens after you leave the church building on that wedding day.

So in the very beginning of the Bible, or in the beginning of the Bible, God gives us three basic elements in his plans for marriage in Genesis, chapter two. So I want us to review these and see if they exist, well, in our own marriage.

So what's the first element? Well, the first element is knowledge of self. Amazing, isn't it? A knowledge of self in order to have a godly marriage, knowledge of self. Let's read Genesis, chapter two, verses 18 to 20.

It says, then the Lord said, it is not good for the man to be alone, I will make him a helper suitable for him. And out of the ground, the Lord formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.

The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. I want you to notice what's happening here.

Notice that Adam was taught about his environment and about himself by God. He was an adult person in touch with his world, his emotions, and his needs. Through his experience and knowledge, Adam recognized that he was alone.

How did he figure out he was alone? Well, he was watching everything go by, he's learning about the environment, he's learning about the creatures around him and he realizes they're all going by two by two by two by two by two and all of a sudden it pops into his mind, wait a minute, I'm the only one who's alone here.

And note that God didn't create woman immediately. Would it have been more difficult for him to just say, you know, breathe life into, and then all of sudden Adam and Eve both appear at the same time? But notice he didn't do that.

He gave Adam time to know himself, time to know his surroundings, and most importantly, time to understand his sense of aloneness. Now I mentioned this because this basic teaching in the Bible about self knowledge in marriage is echoed by marriage counselors even to this day.

Marriage counselors tell us that the best time to get married is when we have reached a certain ideal level of social and emotional preparedness. Let me break that down for you slightly. Let's talk about social readiness.

Social readiness means you are socially ready for marriage when you have some idea of what you want in life, where you want to go in life. You're socially ready for marriage when you have formulated some of your own convictions about things.

When you've learned to function within society independently. In other words, you may love and respect your parents, but you are now taking care of yourself, by yourself. So those are some of the elements necessary to be socially ready for marriage.

Then there's emotional readiness. Not the same thing as social readiness. Emotional readiness is you are ready for marriage when you recognize your need for marriage. Not just your need for that other person, your need for marriage itself.

Not what your parents want for you, not what your beloved wants out of you, but what you want for yourself. In other words, you are emotionally ready for marriage when you are prepared to stop being alone.

I'm alone, I'm alone, I'm alone, it's okay. I'm alone, I'm enjoying it, it's okay. I'm alone, then all of a sudden I'm not alone anymore, I'm lonely, I need someone to fill, fulfill my life. When those thoughts start entering into your mind, then you, you're getting to the point where you're emotionally ready.

And this is important because some people want to marry but they continue to live and think as single people. One of the most repeated themes in my own counseling with people who are getting married or who are having trouble in their marriage.

Many times one of the partners is married, but still thinking like a single person. So you're emotionally ready when you are ready to make a full and lifetime commitment. You're ready and you want to do it.

I mean, if you have to be talked into it by your partner. If you have to be talked into it by your family. You know, things like, what are you waiting for? Go ahead do it, you know you'll make your mother very happy.

You know, uh huh, ooh, be careful. If that's how you enter into that commitment of marriage then you're really not ready emotionally. Now what often happens is that you have two people and four variables that don't match.

For example, he is ready socially but he's not ready emotionally. She is ready emotionally but she's not ready socially. Maybe she's still in school, hasn't finished college, whatever. And the match doesn't light because one or more of these variables are not in place.

Of course the ideal, we're talking about the ideal, right? You know, if we don't know what the ideal is, we don't know what to shoot for. So the ideal situation is that both partners are socially and emotionally ready to enter, and want to enter, this relationship.

So back in Genesis two, we see that Adam was ready socially because he knew his position in the creation. He knew his role in life, and he was ready emotionally because he understood that he needed and wanted a partner to complete his life.

You know, God said, it's not good for man to be alone. And I think man, Adam, at that point was saying, amen. And in His majesty and wisdom God created woman who was exquisitely made, both socially and emotionally to perfectly complement Adam.

So in God's plan for marriage, the partners know themselves and they know their position within God's creation. And they're also ready and willing to leave their single status to enter into a lifetime commitment of marriage.

So the first element of godly marriage, Christian marriage: Knowledge of self. The second element is knowledge of our partner. Let's read Genesis two, go back to the verse 21. It says, so the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place.

The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said, wow, no, excuse me. The man said- [congregation laughing] This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

You know, I'm not sure about the idea of having, you know, one partner especially created for the other one, you know this idea, this romantic idea that there's just one person out there. I'm trying to find my one soul mate.

There's six point something, you know, billion people. But my soul mate is out there. So, I'm not so sure about that. I think Adam and Eve were the only ones like this, for obvious reasons. I do know however that that only one man was designed to be with only one woman.

Not men with men, not women with women. Not three women and one man, we see that implicitly here. This being said, I know that the goal for this one man, one woman combination is that they become one, and the only way this goal, to achieve this goal, is through the knowledge of the person we intend to marry.

So in these you know biblical elements, knowledge of self. The next thing is knowledge of our partner. In every society the road from being single to being married is different. In some societies there are prearranged marriages.

We think, oh how backwards, how, but ... A large portion of our world today, many, many countries have prearranged marriages. I remember there was a member of the church in Montreal who had come from India, he was a Christian but he had come from India and he married a woman, she also was a Christian, but he married a woman that his family had picked out for him that he had never met.

They had corresponded on, you know, through the internet. I mean, he didn't find her on the internet, but it was a way that they could talk to each other. And they spoke to about a year on the internet.

And then finally the big day came and, you know, he got on a plane and he went over to India and he married her. He told me there were 700 people at his wedding ceremony. And they were married and they had a baby and she had a second one on the way and so on and so forth.

So a prearranged marriages, that's one way that it happens. Some have long courtships and engagements. Another member of our congregation in Montreal was from Africa and there one of the fellas was having trouble, you know, marrying his beloved because his family and her family had not yet agreed on what the dowry was supposed to be and they were still negotiating.

And these two young people were like waiting, waiting. Well, any word yet? No, they're having another meeting. It's so, so foreign to us and yet he said this is just normal. You know, they lived in Canada, they had a car, they had laptops, he was a programmer, you know very modern.

But as far as their marriage custom, they were still holding to the custom from the country from which they came. And you know, like today, a pen pal's, well, that's kind of old, that's old school. But today, you know, internet.

A lot of people in the church met their partners, again, I go back to Montreal, such an interesting congregation. One of our brethren there who was from Romania and had, you know, come to Canada. A single guy in his early 30s.

He met his wife online on a Christian, you know, dating service in Russia. And you know, they exchanged for six months. He went to Russia to meet her. You know, compare the picture and the person. You know, I think that's due diligence.

Met her family, went to church with her, find out she is who she is, and she found out he is who he is. And then he came back and they corresponded some more. Then he went back and he married her. And then he came back to Canada, and then another year went by until she got her visa.

They were married for like five days, then he had to leave for a year, wait for her, you know? Not everybody marries their high school sweetheart. Many, many different ways to get from being single to being married, but in the end, the thing we want to do is to get to know the other person so we can get close to them.

This is an important part of the marriage sequence because it's through this process that we establish not only a material contract, you know, like dowries and you know, marriage license and stuff like that, but also, also, an emotional contract.

It's during this period of getting to know each other that we make those promises. We don't make the promise here in the church building. We formalize it. No, it's all those long conversations and it's all those expressions of love and it's all those, you know, you're the one, you'll always be the one, I want to spend my life- That's an emotional contract being written and you only can write that contract if you know the other person.

Now, twp people who know their environment and who know themselves need to spend time learning to know each other. And it's during this effort to know each that the couple lays down the ground work for their unity, for their oneness.

Now, here's the problem. The greatest problem here in this getting to know you business that confronts people, well, in our society anyways, is that we are bombarded with the notion that having sex is the only and the best way to know someone.

The truth however is that engaging in sex before the commitment part to marry usually hampers us in the effort to really know the other person. You see, sex was designed by God to do a lot of things. Let me give you a sample of the things that God designed sex to do.

Sex was created to confirm our commitment to the other person, to our oneness. We are one and is there a better way, isn't there a better way to express that oneness than through sexual intimacy? There is no other that you can do it better than that way.

So God designed sexual intimacy for that purpose. Also to express loyalty. How better to say to our partner, I am yours and you are mine, through sexual intimacy. It was designed to surrender self. Not only am I yours, I am all yours.

You know, in the Bible it says they were naked and they were not ashamed. When two people in a marriage are sexually intimate, there aren't any barriers there. It's a way of saying without words I am yours, I am all yours.

It's a way, of course, to establish family. It's a way to comfort each other emotionally. You know, there are some times sexual intimacy says things that we don't say through words. It says, I love you.

It says, I'm still yours. It sometimes says, I'm sorry. It sometime says, I forgive you. All without words. Sexual intimacy also designed to provide for physical pleasure and for intimate enjoyment. You know, we don't like to think that.

You know, we cannot think that God would have designed this activity so that we could have fun. [laughing] So that we could laugh, so that we could enjoy ourself. So we could say, oh that feels good. And we're going, oh my, is he actually saying that in the church building? [choking cough] [audience laughing] If that feels good, God designed that to feel good.

So we're not usually ready- Now, here's my point in all of this. We are not usually ready to do all of these things, confirm, express loyalty, surrender self, establish family, comfort emotionally, blah, blah, blah.

We're not usually ready to do all of these things with somebody we don't know. Certainly somebody we don't now well. And so when we engage in sex before marriage, it usually is not much more than physical gratification that eventually becomes emotionally and spiritually confusing, painful.

You know, young people say, man, is God, you know, is God, you know, doesn't want us to have fun, doesn't want us to enjoy ourselves. No, that's why God says, sex is only in marriage. No, God doesn't want you to hurt yourself.

God doesn't want you to be in pain. God doesn't want you to, you know, do something that will have negative consequences down the line, that's why he says that sex should only be within marriage. And you know what? There are much, much, much better and less risky ways to get to know someone else.

So Adam was ready socially and emotionally, and God fashioned for him a perfectly matched partner. And so in the pre-sin world of the garden, Adam immediately recognized the stability of God's final act of creation, and that was Eve.

In other words, Adam knew her completely. And she knew him in the same way. These two were ready for the commitment because they knew each in perfect wisdom and understanding as only ones who were without sin could know.

Our problem, it takes us time to get to know because we're sinners, we're trying to get to know a sinner. But there was no sin with Adam and Eve. So we should take special care in getting to know our prospective mates, because unlike Adam and Eve, as I said, we're marrying weak and sinful people.

Knowing the strengths and weaknesses enables us to go into a marriage commitment with our eyes wide open, and that's what God wants. Alright, one more element in God's plan for marriage. And that is unity.

Let's go back to Genesis two, it says Genesis three there but that's just a typo, it's Genesis two. It says, for this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

And the man and his wife were both naked and not ashamed. Okay, so, we know ourselves, we know the other person. Now we need to now what we're getting into when we get married. Marriage is a uniting of two people into a lifetime relationship that only death can legitimately end.

And I put the word in, legitimately. You can end a marriage through divorce, but you can't end it legitimately through divorce. See what I'm saying? Now, we know that marriage involves a ceremony, it involves a legal contract, a personal promise or commitment, but these are the things that accompany or legitimize, sanction a marriage in society and God's eyes.

That wedding ceremony, the signing of the contract, the public vows, that's what legitimizes what we are doing. But in the end, when you say, I do, what you're saying is I do promise to live with you as your spouse until I die.

And in our society, we legitimize that commitment [clapping] with a legal contract. So this is a high and noble thing, but it's a very difficult thing for a weak and sinful person to accomplish. So what does the Lord do? He gives us three small rules to follow in order to help cement the union for a lifetime.

Do you see, have you seen the three little rules? Let's go over them one at a time. Rule number one, you have to separate in order to unite. You need to leave your parents if you are to cleave to your spouse.

Cleave, not a word we use very often, means being stuck to, glued to. The commitment in marriage is to be glued to your partner, not your parents, not your buddies, not your workmates, not your career.

A big problem that I find, again, just speaking from experience, counseling experience. A young couple comes in, they've been married seven years, find out she is committed to the marriage, he is committed to his career.

[clears throat] Marriages have a hard time succeeding unless both people are equally committed to the marriage. It doesn't mean we don't have careers. But the marriage career takes priority. When you decide to marry, the decision is to make your partner the priority over family, over friends, over hobbies, over work, over whatever.

I used to tell our children when they were, well, teenagers, anyways, and they're, mom, can you get- Well, how come you're going out, we need, we need mom to drive us to the thing, and blah, blah, blah.

And I would say to them, hey guys, I was there before you, and I'm going to be there after you. So you're going to have to get along without mom. Why? She's my priority, our marriage is my priority. So you cannot have unity without priority of the spouse.

Second little rule. Permanence is just that, permanent. You become one flesh, there's no room for any other flesh. In the one flesh, the couple doesn't necessarily think and act alike, that's not what one flesh means.

One flesh means that both partners are absolutely committed to the union that they are both part of, that's what that means. You don't give up identity but you do give up independence. Not the same thing.

My wife has her identity, her character, her own dreams, the things she likes and so on, so forth, and I have mine, and they're not exactly the same. But the thing that is the same, we are equally committed to our marriage, first and foremost.

Life, you know, has many stages and marriage is designed to bring people together through each of life's marker points, both happy and sad. I could not imagine, when I was 30, that in 35 years in the future I would love my wife more than I loved her when I married her, I couldn't imagine loving her any more than on that day.

But God has taught me differently. Why? Because no matter what happened between us, her and I, we were always both committed to the same thing. I was telling someone the other day about one of our strategies.

One of our strategies is when we have a decision to make. You know, it's not a moral decision, it's just a decision, go right, go left, buy a car, don't buy a car, move here, don't move there. You know, one of those type of decision? We talk it over and we, you know, there's some plus and negatives that each of us bring to the table.

And then eventually, you know, we come to a decision. But we have a deal, and the deal is this. If our decision just blows up, you know what I mean? It turns out to be a lemon, you know, it just falls apart.

There's no back talk. There's no, well, you know when we were talking about it I had a little reservation in the back of my mind that maybe this might happen. No, no, no, no, no. When we're making a decision, we look at each other and we say, shake? Shake.

That means okay, no matter what happens, good or bad, we're in it together. And I think a lot of you do the same thing. Third little rule. Intimacy must be without fear. One other problem that I find in my marriage counseling is that there are more people who are members of the church, faithful members of the church, have much more problems about the issue of sexuality than people outside the church.

[chuffs] And it makes no sense. If there are people who deserve to be happy, fulfilled, satisfied sexually, it's us. And yet, somehow, for whatever reason, perhaps we've been just taught the wrong things, this doesn't happen.

Notice the final verse says, they were naked but not ashamed. The word naked here doesn't simply mean without clothes, it means they were laid bare before each other. Adam and Eve were totally honest, expressed openly their feelings, had no reservations about their sexuality because they were without sin and totally transparent with each other.

So God created sexual intimacy and placed it, notice, last, not first on the foundation of knowledge of self, knowledge of the other person, commitment to unity, and then, at the very end, the crowning glory, sexual intimacy.

And when these elements are placed in this order, then the marriage reflects the shape and form that God intended for marriage to be. And it has a great opportunity to be happy and fulfilling. Now, in this, not a lot of time left, in this lesson, you know, we've looked at ways to turn an ordinary marriage into a Christian marriage.

And so far what I've done is to give you the three basic elements in God's plan for marriage. Knowledge of self, knowledge of the other person, making a lifetime commitment to unity. And so if we follow this plan, it doesn't make ones marriage uniquely Christian because many people of all religions, or no religion, have followed this same plan and they've succeeded in having happy, fulfilled marriage.

I know a lot of people who don't believe in God at all but they have happy marriages. And if you look at their marriage, they're kind of following, you know, the things that I've talked about this morning.

And in this we see God's goodness and mercy. You know the rain and the sun falls on the just and the unjust, God's plan for a happy, satisfying marriage, if followed, works for someone who does believe or who doesn't believe.

But there is another element here. The fourth element. When we talk about a Christian marriage is that the fourth element that we add to our relationships is that our marriages are Christ centered. Two Christians building a marriage based on the biblical model, this is a Christian marriage.

And so, we know that these elements form the basis for a Christian marriage because Jesus confirms that his disciples should follow these same instructions, Matthew 19, three to six. So the element that transforms a marriage based on the original model in Genesis to one that is Christian in nature is the commitment that both partners have to making Jesus Christ the Lord of their marriage.

In other words, when two Christians base their marriage on biblical model, then this is a Christian marriage. It's not just about getting married in the church building. That's not what makes your marriage a Christian- It makes it legal, because you signed the papers, and so on and so forth, but what makes it Christian is that you've made Christ the Lord of that marriage.

So as I finish up, we've got three or four minutes left, I'm going to ask the same questions as before, but now I'm going to put the two people who want to create a Christian marriage, you know, on the block, so that they can answer that marriage.

So let's ask the same questions. To the question or to the issue of knowledge of self, the question I need to ask is, am I a Christian? I know a lot of things about myself, but is that part of who I am? You'll never know who you are meant to be or meant to do until this is resolved.

Being a disciple or not being a disciple will affect every other decision in your life, especially within your marriage. Second question, you know, the knowledge of partner? Okay, well, am I marrying a Christian? Before beginning the process of uniting with one another, a person has to ask a key question.

Is that person, I know the color of her hair, and I know she likes to, she likes football, that should be all there is to it, right? But I should also ask in getting to know her, is she a Christian? Am I marrying a Christian? You know, people foolishly relegate their religious issues to the back burner thinking that love will conquer everything.

Oh, we'll talk about religion after we get married. Oh, oh, oh dear, there's a train wreck waiting to happen. Again, in Montreal, man, I don't even have these in my notes, they're just popping up. Young woman, a member of the church, in love.

He was a Muslim. Oh, but she said, he's a nonpracticing Muslim. [chuckles] Oh really? Okay. Oh no, yes, oh, a nonpracticing Muslim, yeah, so he's a, I'll convert him. You know, and I, I was saying, no, no, no, no, no, you know.

You can't, you know, 28 year old woman who has a career and a good education. You know, you're not going to tell them what to do. But she asked my advice, I gave it to her. I wouldn't do this if I were you, or I'd wait, get to know him a little better.

No, you know, you're in love, you're in a hurry, and they got, I didn't marry them. They went and got married anyways. And then of course I left Montreal, came here, you know, and then the last time I went back, she was in church with a beautiful baby and a divorce.

What happened? Oh, he wanted to go back to Iraq. And live there. And he wanted the child to go, you know, to school, to learn about Islam. Whatever happened to we'll discuss it after the marriage? Well, that's what happened.

It's very difficult to solve religious issues after the wedding. Very quickly, I'll give you the other one. Unity, once we are married, and we're tracing the course of our lives together, the third question that needs to be asked is, are we devoting our marriage and all that it produces to Christ? Christ isn't just part of our marriage, like He has one hour on Sunday morning, He has to be the Lord of that marriage.

Again, I go back to Lise and I when we'd make decisions about moves, and this and that, and so on and so forth, one of the questions we would ask ourselves is, is this thing we're doing, is it seeking the Kingdom in a more perfect way? And if we answered yes to that question, both of us, then you know, it was a go.

You know, marriages without Christ can succeed in this world, in that they satisfy the partners. But only Christian marriages succeed in satisfying God. And marriages without Christ can last an entire lifetime in this world, but only Christian marriages succeed in transporting the partners out of this world into the next world.

You know, Billy VanCuren was telling me this morning about a dear friend of his who had a massive stroke. And, a man in his 50s, not expected to live, and we spoke about that, how terrible that was for his wife, and he doesn't have young children but you know, young adult children.

And how sad all of that was, you know, and close to retirement, we're going to travel now, we're going to do stuff that we've been putting off. I've worked hard all my life. And the only thing that was hopeful, in our conversation anyways, was he told me, but this man, aside from being my friend, was an elder in the church, and the only hope, the only light in all of this sadness is that he's gone on to his reward.

It's the one thing that his wife can hang onto to give her strength to get through this terrible sudden tragedy that's taken place in their lives. After all of this, some people are surely thinking, so what if my experience with marriage hasn't lived up to this ideal, because I look out in the audience and there are people who have been divorced, more than once, people who are alone, people who have done it backwards, you know, you know who you are.

[chuckles] A lot of people have failed in marriage because of divorce or they've just lived together or they had children without being married or before they were married. They say, well, what about us? And I say to you, welcome to the club.

There was a sign out front in Montreal that said, you know, Ville-Emard Church of Christ, sinners are welcome. I've said that before, haven't I? Sinners are welcome in the Church of Christ. Why? Because that's all we got, we don't have anything else.

We have sinners here and many, not all, but many, their sin, their failure, has been in the area of marriage. Well the good news is that you can begin to create a Christian marriage out of what you have, whatever that is.

Begin by your own conversion or recommitment to Christ through baptism or being restored. Encourage your partner to do the same. Whether alone or with your partner, do what is necessary to bring your union into line with God's plan for marriage.

Rededicate your marriage, all of it, to Christ, through prayer. And if you're a single, or if you're an unmarried as we say, dedicate your life as an unmarried person to Christ and whatever else comes in the future, dedicate that to Him as well.

So being fervent to preserve biblical marriage is not always easy, but God provides the plan. And Christ provides the grace that enables us to get it right, or to do it over and get it right. And your brethren here in the church can provide the help and the encouragement you need to succeed in building a Christian marriage and building a Christian home.

Well I think that was the second bell, our class is over. I thank you for your attention.