Transcription
I had quite a day with the Holy Spirit yesterday, and you only get one or two of those maybe a year, sometimes one or two of those in a decade or two, but a very powerful day. I'm at home and I'm watching, uh, YouTube on Israel news, these kinds of things, and the phrase gets mentioned regularly: "preemptive strike." And they're saying, you know, the Hamas is going to, then the other, uh, the other YouTube channel says, "No, no, it's Iran's going to." And the other says, "No, it's, it's a Netanyahu and and Israel." "No, no, it's Hezbollah." The Lord speaks clear to me and says, "I have good news. I have a preemptive strike against the enemy's plan, and I have been planning this preemptive strike from before the ages, and it will succeed."
Well, the enemy's plan. Revelation 12:1, very famous. Satan is called the accuser. And this will seem like an exaggeration, but, but accusation is actually his number one tactic. It's not even fear. It's not even murder. It's accusation. We'll get there in a few minutes. A lot of folks know he uses it, but they don't realize it's actually number one. And the Lord is saying that Satan's plan is to accuse the global Body of Christ because he wants to hinder the Body of Christ from being vessels of mercy and glory that provoke Israel to salvation. But, but if the Body of Christ gets embroiled in accusation, they will turn on each other, and then Israel will not be provoked. It's not going to work, but that's what he wants. There's a betrayal culture in society, but more dangerous is the betrayal culture within the Body of Christ. This is an urgent call, not this weekend, for this next five years, is what I mean, ten years, to engage in a preemptive strike against Satan's strategy to launch, uh, accusation to destroy the Body of Christ. The Lord wants to strike back at that strategy of Satan.
Well, that starts off my, my thought, my, uh, uh, premise is the end-time church will be a, a David generation in a very specific way. Biblically, the end-time church will be responding to God according to the model that King David set forth. David's the only man in the Bible that God called, God himself called him a man after God's own heart, several times. But Jeremiah 3, this is an end-time passage, "He is going to raise up shepherds after God's own heart." Clearly a David reference. Psalm 18, I am just absolutely gripped with Psalm 18. It is, it is one of the most significant, detailed Psalms for the end-time David generation. Psalm 18, it's 50 verses, there's so many dimensions to it. Well, it's personal to me. It was my first prophetic word experience I ever received as a pastor. It was 47 years ago. I have the date there, 1976. So this lady with a proven prophetic ministry, for some reason, I'm in a setting, and she's prophesying over me, and the fire of God is coming on me, and she gives me about five or six words. I'm only going to give you one, one of them, not because it's private, because I want to get to other points. She makes it clear to me, Psalm 18 is going to be a really important passage in my life. And then she said something that really perplexed me. She goes, "In the in the future, you're going to have many wars." And she makes conflicts like David. You'll be like David, have many wars. David had over 15 different betrayal scenarios in his life where family members betrayed him more than once, 15 different scenarios, and many of them were repetitious betrayals. There's no one in the Bible that has been be-betrayed more on record than than King David, far more than anybody. And he's a model because betrayal is going to be a key part of the end-time church. Well, he had military wars, but he also had social, relational wars. I mean, about almost 10 of these 15 were family members, people he was related to, and they were team members, they were people in his army, in his command units. It's intense. Well, you, because you're going to have many wars, you're going to have much opposition all through your ministry. I go, "I'm at many wars." What are you talking about? And then she says the oddest thing, Psalm 18:35. She goes, "But God's gentleness is what's going to make you great." Gentleness. I don't know what that means.
Well, I came to understand it that God would be gentle with me and my deficiencies, my failures, my weaknesses, my lack of follow-through on things. He would be gentle with me while he was getting my attention. But that was to produce a generosity, no, I mean, a gratitude in me that would make me be generous, to be gentle to other people. And the Lord would say, "You did it. That's where your greatness lies. If you do it." Okay. Well, I didn't realize 47 years ago that would be a critical part of the preparation of the end-time bride. It all makes sense. Well, all much more sense than it did back then.
Paragraph L. Just from our prophetic history, and some of you don't know what I mean by that, that's okay. I'm not going to go into that. Five times in 1983, the prophetic word came and said it would be confirmed by a shift in the weather pattern at this day or this time, and it happened five on the day, like it was said ahead of time. That's a little whisper from the heavenly realm. I mean, intense weather, strange weather in itself is not, there will always be a lot of that. There's going to be a lot more of that. But when it has a prophetic purpose and it's even mentioned ahead of time and released by prayer, you want to ask the question, is this one of those, those little sparks, those little embers from up there? And anyway, we can talk about that more at another time. Okay.
Paragraph O. Now, when we study the life of David, which is 1 and 2 Samuel, the two most obvious characteristics of David and the way he responded to people, there's two of them that stick out far above all the others. Number one, because these play into Psalm 18, I, I mean, they're into the storyline and they inform us as to where we're going. I'm talking about the global Body of Christ in the, uh, decade or two or three to come, who knows how much time we have. Number one thing that David sticks out over and over and over is how David trusted God to vindicate and deliver him. And the passage I love, I quote the most, it's 1st Samuel 24:12. I've used it many, many, many, many times. David says, like he's standing here before King Saul, and he had King Saul, most of you, you know, for seven years approximately, King Saul was chasing him. David. So David, through this situation, has Saul at the end of a sword. God set it up. David's in his 20s, Saul's in his 60s. David's got it. And Saul, like, "Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, you could kill me." And David said, "I won't touch you. I will let the Lord judge." Other translations: "Let the Lord decide." So what David did is he invoked the Lord's activity. "Let the Lord avenge me on you. I'm not touching you with my mouth or with my hand. I won't do it. God's watching me." And when you know that God's watching you and you know he cares, you don't have to vindicate yourself. You have to vindicate yourself if you're not sure he's watching or you're not sure he cares. Well, this is a passage I've used for many years, just, I mean, in my thinking. I haven't, like, used it against a person opposing me. Several times the Lord's, I feel like, has blessed me to use it, and each of the times, so some years later, it turned out different without me putting my hand or my mouth. I never said a word. The Lord said, "Don't talk. I will defend you." And that's, that's one of the hardest things to do is not talk. For 40 years, he told me that 40 years ago, three or four times, supernaturally, "Don't talk. I will defend you. I want to establish a testimony with you." And I want you to, this is real. He didn't say all this, but in 50 years from now, this is going to be necessary in the Body of Christ. I didn't hear any of that. But now, 47 or what, 40 years later, because we moved to KC, 40 years ago, and that's when this happened. Two times in 1983, '82 and '83, the Lord spoke supernaturally, "Don't answer anybody who comes, any, uh, adversaries' accusations. I will defend you. Don't touch it. Don't get them back. Don't whisper again. Don't tell the truth about them. Nothing like that. Never ever." So I've watched it happen over the years. But now I know 40 years later, oh, this is going to be a critical part of the end-time church.
The second thing David did is he didn't seek opportunities for himself. He didn't seize opportunities for for promotion. He had this remarkable, no manipulation about his promotions. I mean, over and over again. You know, I love this about David, and I, this sounds kind of weird for me to say this, but this feels so right to live and to do it this way. It was three years ago because I've been asked about it a few times. I stood right up here and mentioned that I was resigning from the IHOP leadership team, the board. I resigned from everything three years ago. The Lord, I resigned the board, the staff, everything. And when I said that, uh, at one of these meetings, people go, "Oh my gosh." I go, "No, I'm just going to be around. I don't need a position to do this." And I haven't been on IHOP staff for three years. Like, who cares? And I don't care. I go, "I do. I, I do that prayer room in this community because I love it and because God loves it. I don't need a role. I don't get money. I don't get anything. I'm not on any board. I'm on no papers, no nothing." I started my own personal ministry, Friends of the Bridegroom. I'm not even on that board. I own my laptop, my cell phone, and my 2007, is it Toyota or Honda? Toyota? No, you're the Honda. Yeah, Toyota. Yes. But, and, and my point is, I make it another point that says, "Oh, that's amazing." No, that's not my point. Maybe you think, "Oh, that's really stupid." No, but people have asked me, "Was that hard to do?" That I go, "Zero hard. Not never even thought about it." After the Lord said to it, it was so easy. Do you ever have a regret? Not a thought. Because the Lord wanted me to get ready to get messaging ready to prepare the 20-year-old to really lock in to get so I got my Mike Bickle world over there, FOTB, outside of the organization here, to get young people around the nations prepared with this message, Bridegroom, King, and Judge. And that's really all I do. And I go to prayer meetings and I tell stories. And I told Stuart, I said, "I'll come to the EL as an advisor if you want me. I'll do it for free. I'll preach on Friday nights for free. I don't want anything." But anyway, I carried on too much on that. But my point being, these are the two things I look, I go, "I want to do these two things all my days." And why I'm really telling you, it's kind of a fun story for me to tell you, but really what I'm telling you is for you to do them. And many of you are, you would be in these chairs. So I'm really talking to you about you. And I'm just using my story to say this is the way of the David generation because many of you will have positions you could squeeze into. The Lord goes, "No, don't do it that way. Let me do it for you."
Top of Page Three starts off. I'm confused at first when I first read this, when I first start teaching the life of David, and I'm, you're really surprised. He says here in verse 20, "God rewarded me according to my righteousness. I was blameless." Well, those of you that know the David story, though, he's been harassed by Saul for seven years. He's in Ziklag. And I'm not going to go into Ziklag right now, but some of you know the city of Ziklag is a place where he had, he had spiritual compromises for 16 months. This is the day after Ziklag. And I don't want to break that down. I've talked on Ziklag many times over the years. But he had his core integrity was in place, but he had a number of compromises. And this, he writes Psalm 18. It says it in the, uh, title, "The day he's delivered from Saul," which is the day of the Ziklag rescue and miracle. It's the day his spiritual compromise is now over. "That day God delivered me according to my righteousness." Like David, you need to read the life of David. And then when I get to see him in heaven, he'll say, "Oh, Mike, you need to read, read the life of David." Because look at the next verse. Another time when Saul, David had Saul at the end of his room, he had him a couple times like that at the end of his, uh, spear, so to speak. I mean, it was a different setting, but he killed him. He had all the authority to kill him. And all of his team is say, "Kill Saul. This is again your next opportunity." David goes, "I won't do it." And he says to Saul, he's got Saul right in front of him. He says, "So may the Lord repay every man for his righteousness." And here's how he defined it: "For the Lord delivered you into my hand. I wouldn't touch you. That's the righteousness I'm talking about. Yes, I was struggling in this and that, but my core, my core integrity was in place. And because I did not take matters in my own hands, God called it righteousness." So maybe David does know the life of David. So I go, "Oh, because I didn't read that for a while, I never got the righteousness that, that's how God defined it." Anyway, we're moving on past that one. But I want you to see, see that point. That's important to know that. Because he talks about purity, he's not talking about purity here meaning, "Hey, if you struggle with pornography, stop. Or if you struggle with drunkenness, stop." That's a good thing to struggle, but that's not the purity he's talking about. He's talking about purity in relationships, meaning treating people in a way that you're seeking their benefit, even if you don't like them and they don't like you. That's the purity it's actually talking about. It's a whole higher level. No, no, that other level is a very important part of purity, but it's really rough to be pure in relationships. You don't treat me right, you don't like me in the natural, I don't like you, but I'm seeking your best in the will of God without you knowing it. That's the purity he's talking about. Like, "Oh boy." With the merciful, David said, "Let me tell you, I learned something. God will be merciful if you are merciful to people. You are positioning yourself for God to multiply mercy back on your life beyond what he would have." That's one of David's greatest revelations. That's what he exhibits throughout his entire life. He believed, paragraph C, God would give him more mercy to the measure he gave mercy to others, particularly the people that were seeking to harm him. I don't harming meaning by undermining him or or or or damaging his honor and his positions and his, those kinds of things. And I have here, we have to do a lot of spiritual push-ups in this. And what I mean by that, I mentioned this the other day. Okay, this guy, I'm just making up a guy, he's speaking against me, he's hurting me, he's trying to do something bad. And the Lord says, "I've had a handful of these." The Lord says, "You know, I love that man, and I want you to love him." Well, he doesn't, he treats me wrong. Well, "Give you mercy anyway." Yeah, yeah. But I go, "Oh, yeah, you're giving me mercy that way. That's a push-up. That's a conversation." Okay. I line back up to that. The, I think one of the most absolutely critical verses for the end-time church, church through history, of course, is Matthew 5:44. "Bless those who curse you with their mouth." Because in the betrayal culture that's about to explode, that's growing right now, there's in the family of God, people cursing you. Lord says, "I want you to bless them." David excelled in this. I'll give you an example. This is, let me see, day 30. Yeah, this is 35 years after Saul is dead. David's now about 66, 67. He dies at age 70. It's about two or three years before he dies. So he's about my age, I'm 68. So he's 66, 67, 68. And there's this man, Shimei. And Shimei says, he comes out cursing at David, throwing stones at him, cursing at him. And Abishai, one of David's main guys, soldiers, said, "Why should we let this dead dog curse you?" And David, look at his answer, verse 12. He goes, "It may be, Abishai, the Lord will look on my affliction and he will repay me with good because I'm acting godly in the presence of this cursing." The end-time church is going to be transformed in the context of betrayal. I have written here, multitudes in the end-time church, they're moving in two, two different directions. One group, millions, are moving towards this deeper love. This isn't easy, but I'm going to do these push-ups. I'm going to be a blesser, and I'm, my lips will only speak blessing and honor to people. I don't care how much I don't like them. I'm not going that direction. The other group, believers, bittered, hurt, and just their mouth is running fast, and they're talking and talking and talking. Millions are moving in those two directions.
Paragraph B. Luke 21. This is one of the most painful verses. Betrayed by, this is the end-time passage, betrayed by parents, brothers, relatives, aunts, uncles, friends. Satan's most effective weapon is accusation. Now, at first, you think, "No, no, not really." And I have down here, you'll see it, you can see on the notes, Revelation 9:21, murder, four major weapons: murder, sorcery, immorality, and theft. Those are his four primary weapons. But accusation actually trumps all of those as the primary tool of Satan. He will do those other four, but accusation is at the front of the line. Satan is thinking, "If I can get the Body of Christ into accusation, I can take hundreds out on each side of the accusation, and they'll be consumed by it, and they won't be in the battle for Jerusalem." If I kill them, well, I'm done with them. But if I just accuse them, they'll take a hundred on their side with them. Accusation really is number one. The end-time church is going to overcome these accusations, but the accusations are real, real. Because Revelation 12 is an end-time passage, he accuses all through history, but it explodes in the final years leading up to the Lord's return, a whole another level. That's where the betrayal culture comes out of. "They overcome by the blood of the Lamb." We understand that. "They overcome by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even unto death." The word of your testimony isn't, you know, like, "In 1971 on June 9th, I prayed the sinner's prayer and gave myself to Christ." That's true. That's not the word of my testimony. That's a little statement. That's cool. The word of my testimony is what my narrative is before God. That's my testimony. What I think God says and sees when he looks at my life. And that's the area that so many are not established in. They've got to get the divine narrative. But it's not enough for me to see who I am and to say what God says about me and nothing more and nothing less. I've got to say what God says about you, nothing more, nothing less. About my enemies, the word of my testimony is, "The Lord says, what do you think I see and what I say about that person accusing you?" Don't say anything about them or about yourself that God's not saying. What is he seeing and saying? That's the word of your testimony. That is critical. That's a big subject. This is, you know, big, long one. You have sacred space. I've had people, good, bad, and ugly, whatever, over the years. I am not letting that man's words into my conversation with God. But he says you're, and they said you're, but God doesn't say it. I love God. God loves me. Let's go forward. That's what I say. This is critical. Paul mentioned that. He goes, verse 37 in Romans 8, "We are more than conquerors because we are persuaded." Beloved, guard the sacred space of your conversation with God. Don't let another person's opinion get inside of that sacred space. I have found that over the years, I have had this pleasure. I've been, we've been in Kansas City 40 years, and I have felt the Lord's pleasure day after day for 40 years. I don't mean I'm overcome with his presence, but I've had a clear testimony of his pleasure. The most powerful thing in my life, in your life, is to feel that. I go to bed every night with a clear conscience, literally every night. That is the greatest gift a human can have in their heart. I know saying you didn't do something wrong, but you didn't agree that it was okay. You renounced it, you repented of it, and you're finished with it. We've all have to go to bed with a clear conscience, literally every night. And we have to stick into the divine narrative. You do that, you can overcome everything because a hundred other issues will fall into place if you do those two or three things. And they're all doable. Those are, none of those are hard. This is the future, and it's doable for all of us.
Okay, Roman numeral five. I'm just going to tell ever so brief stories here. Two prophetic encounters in August 1984. I have a heavenly encounter. I've had one in 50 years. It was August 8th, 1984, where I stood before the presence of the Lord, literally in heaven. I'm standing there, and the Lord tells me, he sternly tells me, "Young man," he's right here. I'd never look. He said, "Be patient. You will cause great harm and much turmoil to many peoples." And then he, I'm going to skip a bunch, but he tells me to get in a chariot, and this chariot spoke of end-time ministry. And he pointed at a chariot, and an angel was there. He said, "Get in the chariot." And I fell down and I cried out, "No, no, no. It would be injustice for a man like me to be in a chariot like that." No. And he said, "It's been ordained for you. Get in the chariot." So I got in the chariot, and then we went straight up in this vast sapphire blue expanse. And then some other things happened. But that's that fantastic, the most dramatic experience of my life. That's August '84. I'm telling you this for a reason. The very next month, September '84, it's another encounter, completely opposite of this, and it's related to the chariot mandate. And it's the black horse. And the black horse, which is the dragon of Revelation 12. In Revelation 12, it's a dragon. And this one is a literal 8-foot chest, 15-foot wings. I mean, this Pegasus or whatever you call it, this mighty beast dragon comes flying down to me, and he strikes me with rage. But here's what happened. Michael the Archangel comes, and he speaks a sentence. If Michael the, he spoke actually two sentences, but if Michael the Archangel shows up in an earthly context and says a sentence, that's powerful. And he comes and he says, "When you go to the east, the rage, the idea is the rage of Satan of this black horse will kick you when you go to the east." What does that mean? In May of this year, we were involved in all of you know, mobilizing 5 million Gentiles to pray an hour a day for Israel. In May. And a lot of people were involved, and not I was real involved, and a whole lot of others were too. But in April, before that happens in May, we have a million that are doing it by May. It was 5 million. And I asked, as you know, the leaders in Israel, and I asked them other, uh, demographic, you know, world prayer movement statistician type people, "Has there ever been a time when 10,000 Gentiles prayed for Israel for 10 days?" Gentiles. They go, "Never in history." So, is it, give me a sense of what 5 million praying for 21 days. He said, "It's the most dramatic shift of the Body of Christ in history doing this for for Israel." Well, anyway, in April, we got a million. By May, it's 5 million. And I got our team together. I said, "40 years ago, 39 years ago, Michael Cain," and you know that when Michael shows up, I got a few verses there which I skipped. Michael shows up when it pertains to Israel. I don't know that back in 1984, he says, "When you go to the east, you'll be struck by the rage of Satan." I said, "April, I got our team together, a bunch. I go, guess what guys? We're going east." Oh my goodness. This is real. The rage of Sat. He's an accuser. He will strike. He will strike Israel. He will strike the prayer movement that's a part of this. But this was a personal thing too, because Michael stood right before me and said these things. I don't want to explain the whole thing right now. Okay. And Isaac, Isaac Bennett, he gave me a word. He said, "The way these are connected, I really appreciate this. He goes, you won't get in, you'll get in your chariot, whatever that means, that's symbolic, I don't even know what that means, but you'll never get into that sapphire sea of blue of the knowledge of God without the black horse attacking you." He said, "Any more than Joseph would never get into prison in Egypt and save Israel without his family betraying him." Okay.
Paragraph D. Coming down to the wire here. In 2021, I have two powerful dreams. I share with a few people, and in these two dreams, Psalm 55 is highlighted. Psalm 55, you some of you know it, verse 12, it's David saying, "I'm betrayed, not by an enemy, but a familiar friend. We have sweet fellowship inside of the inner circle." And the Lord says, "This is going to happen." But not, I'm not thinking of me, I'm thinking of the global Body of Christ. This is going to start happening because it happened to David, and it happened to Jesus. And I'm thinking the global, I mean, I'm part of it, so yeah, me too. But I'm thinking global Body of Christ. Okay, because I got this betrayal culture, I know that's coming. But this could be 10 years ago, I mean, ahead. Because when you get a prophetic dream, many times it's 10 years later you don't really know. But I had had a few people. I go, "Just pray about it for insight." Well, when we went to, so I was concerned and wondering about it. Hm.
Then in paragraph E, a couple months later, because these two dreams were in 2021, a couple months later, some, I shared this publicly. I had the vision of the open, the open vision of the snake in my office. I've had three open visions in 50 years, meaning where I'm awake, I see it right there. It's like a movie screen on the wall. I've had three of them in 50 years. And this was this snake, which is the serpent, which is the, the accuser. I'm just, just look up, praying in my office like this. The lights are dim, but not off. All of a sudden, a snake is in mid-air. I'm going, and then Romans 3, the snake, the poison of asps, it's accusation. And he's that kind of thing. I'm going, and, and I'm just kind of stuck. I can't even get words out. And not, I'm not super afraid, but I, I'm so perplexed. I don't know. Then I say, "In the name of Jesus, stop." And he stops right about 10 feet away. And then he comes about 3 inches closer. "In the name," I raise my voice, "In the name of Jesus, stop." He backs up an inch or two or something like that. Comes a little bit closer. I said, "In the name of Jesus, I was pointing, stop." And it backed up real slow. What's going back up that way? Right into the corner, coiled up, and disappeared. And I had this sense of victory. And I said, "Oh, so there will be accusations, but there's ways they won't prevail." So I was so encouraged because of open vision, because I believe that great trouble is coming to Israel. And the first line of defense for Israel is the praying church. But it's the praying church that's prepared in mercy, which means the praying church that's been refined to the fires of betrayal and persecution, and that they are filled with love, and they're overflowing, and they're even fighting for the people that betray them. They're fighting for their good, I mean, contending for it. And then the Lord makes it clear to me. He said, "The betrayal is all about getting you guys, all the global Body of Christ, out of sync, so you're not in place to be salvation for Israel, a vessel of salvation, I mean, God's salvation, but bringing them in." Like betrayal. Well, I'm not afraid of it at all. It's like, this is a seminary of the glory of God, just like the Antichrist being raised up. And there's going to be a victorious church in John 17, unity, filled with love. And we don't need to be afraid, and we need to fight for everybody, to love them, and to reveal the love of God to them in a supernatural context where it's only supernatural that you would love them that way.
Okay, so the, what are the three preemptive actions? Preemptive action number one, we want to call on the name of the Lord. We, we're going to begin to ask the Lord to those tokens of his glory that we're not familiar with as the Body of Christ. We want to get this into our conversation for the next 10 years in a big, big way and start asking the Lord to release dimensions of his glory in the midst of conflict that will bring his will into fullness. Second thing we want to do, we want to contend against the enemy's activity. We want to resist him. James says, "Resist the devil, he'll flee." But we got to resist the devil like Michael did. He didn't rail at the devil. He just said, "The Lord rebuke you." That's all he ever said. "The Lord rebuke you." And it's not necessarily the devil himself, but demons are coming. And here's, here's my point. There's a passage I don't have the, the notes here in Zechariah 1:15. It's a strange passage. Zechariah 1:15, where the enemy nations came with Babylon to discipline Israel. They went into Babylon in captivity for 70 years. He told them through the prophet, "You nations, you," he goes, "I'm angry because you exceeded the boundaries of what I wanted you to do. I wanted you to bring this punishment to them. You took it to the next step." And he goes, "Now I'm angry at you." Zechariah 1:15. My point is, in God's sovereignty, he'll allow the enemy to go beyond what he sovereignly, I mean, what he or what he had planned. He sovereignly gives them the room and wants the Body of Christ to stand in the gap and say, "No." I'm thinking of the satanic activity that hit your children. I don't mean that. I'm not talking about so much a like a physical, uh, problem. I'm talking about strife and accusation breaking families and ministries and nations and cities. And thirdly, we want to invoke God's activity, and we want to bless the people who curse us. So before God, we call for the storm, the heavenly storm tokens. Before Satan, we say, "In the name of Jesus, the Lord rebuke you." We cancel. We don't know if you've gone past the boundaries, Zechariah 1:15. We don't know that, but we take a stand. And to the person that's accusing you, you don't say, "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus." You don't say, "I hope a storm hits you." You don't do that. You look at just say, "Let the Lord decide." Nothing more and nothing less. Except for them, bless and do good for them. Let the Lord decide. That's the three-pronged approach as we go forward this next 10 years. And my 20 years, whatever I'm, that's a main up number. But my point, it's not for the next month. I believe these three things need to get into the conversation of the Body of Christ.