ResponsiveReiding

Revelation 17:1–5 (ESV) — 1 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, 2 with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.” 3 And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. 4 The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. 5 And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.”

In the closing chapters of John’s visions and the final decimation of this World’s systems in God’s just judgment, the following insight is offered up to us:  “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.”

It is hard to conceive of a more apt description both of the society in which we live today, and the great issue which confronts us. Here is something we need to face with extreme clarity: 1. Sexual immorality is an intoxicant. 2. It is the chief intoxicant with which both those in power, and the general populace have “become drunk.” The Bible doesn’t mince words.

The pervasive problem of our society is its utter preoccupation with sexual immorality. It may well be the defining issue of our age and culture. No one would argue that it is not to be found everywhere, and that both men and women are increasingly degrading themselves both publicly and privately in the throes of it.

“Addiction” is word with much freight due to its use in the mental health professions of the day. But it is also an apt word when understood properly and in this context. 1 Timothy 3:8 reminds us that those in Church leadership (there, Elders and Deacons) are not to be “addicted to much wine” (ESV). The word for addicted there being a word used 24 times in the New Testament to communicate the idea of being focused upon, concerned about and occupied with. It most often is translated “beware”, “pay attention to yourselves”, “watch”, “be careful.” It evokes the image of something always claiming our thoughtful attention. Something of such importance that it needs to occupy a place in our normal consciousness. And when applied here, how insightfully descriptive. We are a people preoccupied with, always on the lookout for, paying close attention to – sexual immorality – either in our own lives, or vicariously in the lives of others.

Now intoxicants all have the same basic properties – and being drunk on sexual immorality shares these same features.

1. Indulgence in it dulls the senses. It robs one of the ability to think and reason clearly. It temporarily dulls pain (which is often why it is so attractive – especially to those suffering inner turmoil and pain). But in the process, it also dull happiness – for it is a mock happiness, brought on by a mere chemical effect and not on any true change in the inward state.

2. It skews the perceptions. Reality is blurred. It prevents one from perceiving either negative or positive things properly, and prevents clear reflection upon truth in any form. It makes you prey to lies from others along with the propensity to believe the lies you tell yourself. This may seem at first to make bad things less ominous, but it also makes good things less fulfilling. It will justify unreasonable actions and opinions, while dulling the conscience as it calls to right action. Like the volume control on a radio – you cannot use it to lower the volume on just one station. When you use it, it lowers the volume on every station at the same time.

3. It casts off inhibitions. The God-given lines that we know we ought not to cross, suddenly disappear. Anything becomes possible. Nothing is truly taboo. It robs us of the ability to sense rightful shame over truly shameful things. It gives us permission to sin without blushing.

4. It allows anger to flow unfettered, and turns true love into meaningless sentimentality. Outlandish statements will spew forth. Control over the emotions will dissipate and passions will gain the ascendency – no matter what the aftermath – because emotions seldom allow us to see beyond them. They take up our whole field of vision.

All these, and many more are the results of intoxication. And we are no less intoxicated by sexual immorality than we are by any physical substance known to man.

Like with wine, the Bible does not prohibit proper enjoyment of sexuality. Within its proper bounds, its benefits are many and varied. It is a gift from God. Outside of its proper bounds, it is as destructive as poison. Sexuality is a blessed part of life. But if it is something you pay a lot of attention to, if it calls for your constant attention, if you are always on the watch for it as a stimulant – you are addicted. Married or single, if you cannot stay away, and if it clamors for your attention inwardly – so that you seek out glimpses and titillations here and there to get a “buzz,” you are addicted.  And it is serving not as a true blessing, but as an intoxicant. If you are single and think that when you get married, that will go away – because you are marrying the “brewery” – you will still be enslaved. And your marriage will suffer the results.

What then is the answer? There is but one. Something higher must take the place of our preoccupation. Something more wonderful. Something of greater beauty, higher benefit, sweeter joy, more complete satisfaction and more lasting fulfillment. Not something merely to dull the “pain” of our fallenness, but what contains the hope of our eternal future. Training the heart and the mind to find our deepest happiness and satisfaction in Jesus Christ. To give ourselves over to searching Him out as out highest pleasure, until He displaces every other joy as a mere triffle. When tempted to “take a drink” – to seek Him in prayer that moment by the Spirit, to be the answer to what our inner man is yearning for. And to continue that course in faith believing that He will answer that pursuit with an ever increasing revelation of His good ness to our soul. To find our all – in Him.

Hebrews 6:11–12 (ESV) — And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, 12 so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

The assurance of our salvation, is a topic most believers wrestle with at one time or another during their lifetimes. For some, the wrestling comes to a crisis point and is settled once for all in their hearts and minds. In others, there are seasons of greater assurance and lesser assurance. And when such assurance wanes, it can be excruciating. Hopelessness can set in. And a certain paralysis of soul. The writer to the Hebrews denominates it as being spiritually “sluggish” (Heb. 6:12).

I like that word sluggish in this context, because of its descriptiveness – both in what it says, and in what it doesn’t say. It doesn’t say the one lacking assurance is lost because of it, but merely hindered from making faster spiritual progress. Like being mired in mud.  The word can mean lazy in some contexts – perhaps most. But it can also mean hard of hearing. It seems to me that is more likely the idea here. First, there is an injunction to be earnest in pursuing our assurance, and then the warning that in not doing so, it can result in this sluggishness. And lastly, an encouragement that by faith and patience, we will inherit the promises of God in full.

If you are exercised about your own assurance of salvation – I’ve got good news. This is something Christians wrestle with. The lost don’t usually care unless the Spirit is drawing them to Christ. It is a good sign. And, your striving to settle that issue is also good. It is not a sign something is wrong – but rather, that something is right. Here, the Writer says “we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end.” He is commending those who pursue it. He is saying “good for you – keep at it!” This is a worthy pursuit.

What this text also does, is give us two tools in accomplishing that goal. 1. Faith. 2. Patience.

Faith. Faith is – believing that what God has said is true, and then ordering my life accordingly. And when it comes to one’s salvation this is THE absolute essential.

Now our faith can’t be in just anything, it has to be in what God has said. This is why using our feelings to give us assurance of salvation, or examining our actions, or taking someone else’s word for it is never sufficient. One of these may seem to give us assurance for a time, but it soon fades. Feelings change. We sin, and people can be wrong. The only sure thing I can trust is God Himself. So we turn to a passage such as 1 Corinthians 15:1–4 “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” or, John 20:30–31 “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

We see there that believing in Jesus’ name, that He is the Son of God, that He died as our substitute sin-bearer and rose again that those who put there trust in Him might have eternal life. And we say: “that’s it! My trust is in Him. He died, so that those who trust Him, have salvation.” And I go no further. I rest my faith is in His person and work. Trusting Him. No one an nothing else. Him. He died. He paid for my sin. He took my punishment. He rose for my justification. He sent His Spirit to sanctify me. He is coming back to receive to Himself all those who look for His appearing. He is my righteousness. I look to the cross and nowhere else. Jesus is the Savior – and I have His salvation by trusting that He saves those who come to Him for forgiveness and reconciliation to the Father through the blood of His cross. And I make my mind stand there and stay there. To use a somewhat vulgar phrase – we bet everything on Him, and hedge our bet with nothing else. End of story. I make it my work – to keep my eyes fixed only on Him. This is how I earnestly pursue my assurance.

But, then, there is patience. Patience with myself, knowing my remaining sinfulness and recognizing I won’t have everything in full reality until He comes. And patience in the intervening years until He does come. This is the endurance that goes along with faith. It is sticking to the one and only hope, and refusing to let my eyes look anywhere else, my ears hear anything else in this regard, or my heart hope in anything else. As Psalm 39:7 says “And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you.” It is not in my performance, my church, my friend’s opinions, the preacher’s persuasiveness, my feelings, my baptism – nothing else but – YOU!

Beloved, assurance can come from but one place – believing God. Every day. Over and over. Running back to His promise to save all those that come to Him and that He turns none away who do come. And as we renew our trust in Him every time it wavers, over time, our assurance grows. Patiently believe. He is the Savior – you do not save yourself. You take Him at His word. And rejoice.

Treat your brain to a 6 course meal.

Of the two pastoral fellowships which have sprung up from ECF, the NCT group (New Covenant Theology) holds a unique place in my heart. One of the things this group does, is invest time in reading a wide range of theological writers and topics to enrich and enlarge our own thinking. It is a place of rapid, often animated discussion, and a safe place to float theories and ponderings. I love it.

In an act of indulgence toward me, the group undertook to read the 6 “Stone Lectures” given by Abraham Kuyper at Princeton in 1898. I had re-read these lectures (after several decades) during my sabbatical. A statesman, politician and theologian, Kuyper came to Princeton at the invitation of the giant B. B. Warfield, and gave these lectures in understanding “Calvinism” as a world-view, not a theological system. In other words, starting from an understanding of God as Creator and continuing ruler of the cosmos, how do we understand all of life through this lens?

Kuyper was a profound thinker and theologian. He was also a pastor, a newspaper man, seminary professor, a Parliamentarian and eventually became the Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 1901-1905. I was introduced to him by reading his magisterial book on the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit whilst still a lad. My Dad had an almost original copy of that work on the bookshelves which happened to also be in my bedroom growing up. I am forever grateful for that exposure.

Before Francis Schaeffer, Malcom Muggeridge, C. S. Lewis, Ravi Zacharias, Carl F. H. Henry or others who follow in that mold, Kuyper spoke and taught in terms of world-view (a comprehensive understanding of existence) and sought to help people consider the “big picture” of life from a thoroughgoing Biblical perspective. In this, he excelled.

So let me recommend to you these lectures for your own consideration. In them, and in this order he investigates the following areas:

1. Calvinism as a Life System. (DO NOT read Calvinism here as T.U.L.I.P., or you will entirely miss his aim in all six lecture. It is Calvinism as a worldview simply having as its starting point, God’s active sovereignty in His created cosmos)

2. Calvinism and Religion.

3. Calvinism and Politics.

4. Calvinism and Science.

5. Calvinism and Art.

6. Calvinism and the Future.

Kuyper’s extraordinarily well developed understanding of common grace (I’ll let the readers get the full understanding of that from him) and how the Holy Spirit works even in the lost is paradigm shifting to say the least.

Warning: he is not easy reading. You will have to apply yourself. But do it. He will challenge your thinking every step of the way. He will make you examine why you hold the opinions you hold on the topics he addresses directly, and the implications of those conclusions in a host of other areas. Agree or disagree with him in any particular point, you will be forced to consider your own views and why you hold them. And this is invaluable.

For me, Kuyper is about the most intellectually satisfying author I’ve read. Every return to these pages is a treat for my mind as well as my soul.

As we’ve been discussing one lecture per meeting, and we meet only once a month, we have already invested 8 months into this book (yes, the math requires you know some lectures we’ve split up because there is so much to be examined – and even then we’ve fallen woefully short), we have yet to leave without being provoked (in the best sense of the word) in our own thoughts and formulations. I very highly recommend these lectures to you as a powerful tool in developing your spiritual thought process.

Now, to give you a taste of something to tease your brain – consider this quote from his lecture on Calvinism and Art, and think about it for a while.

“‎The world after the fall is no lost planet, only destined now to afford the church a place in which to continue her combats; and humanity is no aimless mass of people which only serves the purpose of giving birth to the elect. On the contrary the world now, as well as in the beginning, is the theatre for the mighty works of God, and humanity remains a creation of His hand, which, apart from salvation, completes under this present dispensation, here on earth, a mighty process, and in its historical development is to glorify the name of Almighty God.”

Have fun!

Matthew 22:34-40 / “But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

6. All sin is ultimately a defect in love – either toward God, or my neighbor. And one always includes the other. I cannot sin against God without it being bad for my neighbor, and I cannot sin against my neighbor without it also being a sin against God. Gal. 5:14-26. But it all begins with a defect in my perception of God’s love!

The human as the image bearer of God, is not a source, but only a responder.

God is love, but we are not.

Our love must and can only spring from His.

We cannot generate it on our own.

When we try, the perverse product is defective in every way.

We must and only can love as we know His love for us.

Had Adam and Eve suspected no defect in God’s love for them, they would have remained invincible against temptation and sin.

It was in their suspicion that His love kept back from them something good, some necessary or accordant blessing of love, that they then failed to love Him and one another in return.

We cannot fix our love in a vacuum or independently, for we cannot produce love – we can only reflect it.

In that we perceive anything at all defective in His love, that defect will be magnified in us as reflectors, and eclipse the whole of His love, seeing only the defect, and fearing the loss – we will angrily lash out in sin to obtain what we believe we are being deprived of.

We must study to know the love of God for us in Christ above all things.

Only by deep, rich, full, Spirit revealed beams of God’s love penetrating our hearts and minds, illumining our souls, can we ever come to love Him back, and those who too are made in His image.

Left to ourselves, love will be a tormenting fire, but never a liberating light.

Holy Spirit, make me to know Divine love.

I can pray nothing higher for myself, my wife, my daughter, my son-in-law, my grandchildren, my church or my enemies than this.

Do not leave me to myself, for my love is but a sullied and defective reflection, currently distorted by my sin.

Please send your Spirit to strengthen me/us in the inner man to – so that Christ has His manifest dwelling there.

So that we are enabled to know your love in purity and fullness.

That we might be filled with the fullness of God – for it is only found in knowing your love.

Fill me.

The faith that the just must live in – is the faith to believe God as He has revealed Himself in Christ Jesus, making an all sufficient sacrifice for sin, calling all to come and be reconciled, and overcoming in vast numbers the unwillingness that resides in us all.

Oh grand, divine, in fathomable mystery of God’s great love!

Who can know it?

Who can understand it?

Who dares to so revel and rely upon it as to live in its perpetual and limitless joy?

May I!

Without taking the time to re-establish the basis of series here (please go back to #1 if you need a full explanation) let me move on to the 5^th Principle I have found it necessary to load into my own mental RAM as a means of thinking Biblically about life.

Principle #5 – Providence limits our options.

Have you ever spent much time fretting over things you wish were different, but you have no power to actually change? I have. And I am here to tell you it is an exercise in futility. More, it is a waste of time, energy and emotion. IT is a trap which is horribly hard to extricate ourselves from. And it is a place which drives me back to reconsider this principle every time. In truth, no matter how we wish some things were different, the providential arrangement of much of our lives leaves us to cope only with what is, and does not give us all of the options we wish we had at our disposal.

No doubt, we rage against this reality at times. True, we CAN change some things. Others, we can plead with the Heavenly Father for, and He has power to change what we cannot. And then, there are those things which barring miraculous intervention cannot be changed at all. And we are forced to live within those boundaries. (See: Acts 17:26-28)

Birth defects may be tempered with science to some degree, but the victim of cerebral palsy will have limitations to his or her physical exploits. One with Down Syndrome will have different options in life than one without. One born blind may never see, and dreams of certain careers or other choices will simply be unavailable. How some wish we could reclaim that parent who was distant, or absent, or even abusive, and recreate the relationship we legitimately long for. But no amount of longing, pining, sighing, grieving or manipulating can change any of these.

In these few examples and countless more, we are forced to live within the boundaries of the providential circumstances of our lives. And the question is, will we submit to them, or will we try to move Heaven and earth in ways that are unhealthy and even dangerous? Will we dwell there? Or will we take the options we truly have?

Now let me be clear – I am not speaking of a failing resignation here. I am not advocating just giving up and languishing in our limitations. What I am advocating rather, is a faithful looking to the God and Father who loves us, and who in His infinite love and wisdom directs us for our eternal  good, by closing off certain avenues. And while the concept is simple, it is seldom easy to walk this way. This requires an unusual trust in the loving hand of our unseen Father.

Trust in God this way does not negate the reality either of evil done to us, nor of legitimate disappointment. But it is a call to refuse to frame our lives by these things – and rather to frame them in the hope of our Heavenly Father’s sovereign hand. Even when we cannot understand it.

Especially when we cannot understand it.

Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr summarized his thoughts in understanding these issues in a prayer he wrote in 1943. No, it was not invented by Alcoholics Anonymous. Niebuhr wasn’t my kind of theologian. But he got this right. He closed a sermon of his with these words:

God, give us grace to accept with serenity

the things that cannot be changed,

Courage to change the things

which should be changed,

and the Wisdom to distinguish

the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,

Enjoying one moment at a time,

Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,

Taking, as Jesus did,

This sinful world as it is,

Not as I would have it,

Trusting that You will make all things right,

If I surrender to Your will,

So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,

And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

What options HAS God placed before you? Seek those in His grace. And do not waste a second more on what He hasn’t . The day will come – when in His presence, you will see His wisdom in it. And you will worship.

Some things we learn end up being major slices of the lens through which we see all of life. For me, there are certain truths which emerge from Scripture that do that same in terms of understanding the whole of the Bible and Scriptural Christianity. Some of these I’ve assembled over time and for lack of a better title, have called them “The Principles”. The list is not exhaustive, and continues to grow. But I am sharing what I have so far in hopes of them being and encouragement and as a means of perhaps bringing clarity to some things that might be a bit fuzzy.

Today’s Principle is #4 on my list, and it is: The Lord’s prayer is essential for tuning the heart in all things. It is God’s paradigm.

Every instrument needs tuned regularly. From pianos to tympani, violins to bass guitars, trumpets, tubas oboes and piccolos. Every musician tunes his or her instrument before they attempt to play anything on it. And if they do not, it isn’t long before they cannot play any melody consistently, recognizably or especially in concert with any other instrument. The tuning process is absolutely imperative. It is no less so with the human soul.

Christians are instruments. We were created to be joyfully and skillfully breathed through by the Spirit of God in producing praises of the highest order. Transcendent music of the heavenlies. Sometimes He strums us, and other times He uses the bow of circumstance to cause our heart string to resonate with the beauty of His touch. He will blow more softly or more forcefully as both the instrument and the particular passage in the piece being played requires. He will sometimes pluck strings, and other times elongate the slide, press the sustain pedal or use sticks on the snare.

Whether we are to be used as instruments of praise in a solo passage, or with the rest of the orchestra in concert – we need to be tuned. We need to have the same foundational starting note and be able to work within the same chord structure. And the 7 pronged tuning fork put before us for us to tune to – I would advance, is the Lord’s Prayer. Nothing so completely and sweetly orders the whole frame of heart and mind as to tune first and foremost to:

1. Our Father, is the God of Heaven. We are His dear children, and He has begotten us out of the depths of His eternal Triune love. He who rules and reigns over us, brought us forth to know Him who is the fountain of every blessing.
2. That He has made us to bear His image, and uniquely equipped us above every other creature in the universe to comprehend and stand in awed admiration at His revealed beauty in Christ Jesus. To hallow His name.
3. To live under His beneficent Lordship, wallowing in the lush oceans of His holiness, immensity, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient glory in mercy and grace untold. To bring the whole of our being under His loving hand, and to desire that Kingship to be extended everywhere.
4. To remain ever aware that nothing could be of higher blessing to Him and to us than for His will to be unopposed in even the slightest way in any place or by anything.
5. To look to Him in absolute confidence that our souls are to be fully sated on the Bread of Life He has sent down in the person of His Son. To feast afresh and anew on Him every day.
6. To walk in the most tender, intimate and wondrous fellowship – jealously guarding lest anything hinder or defile that closeness in any way – always keeping short accounts with Him in seeking forgiveness which is never denied for any offense.
7. And to recall that our own hearts are desperately wicked, and easily lured by the siren song of the Tempter. To look to Him then to lead us away from where our own erring feet may go, and deliver us from the snares the Wicked One has set for us.

To live always in this frame – is to be an instrument ready for the Master’s service, to delight Him and to be fitted for the song we were created to fill the universe with. And it is joy.

Continuing in our short series on The Principles, we take a moment here to consider #3 on my list. It is one which I have tried to articulate often the congregation here at ECF, and to keep at the forefront of my own thinking at all times – not always successfully.

Principle #3 The Christian life cannot be lived any other way than by conscious, constant, deliberate dependence upon the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Beloved, if you never learn anything from listening to or reading anything I have ever communicated, I pray this will drop down into the innermost recesses of your soul and find solid lodging there. So important was the giving of the Holy Spirit to us by Christ Jesus, that He raised it to the level of being a greater blessing than His incarnate presence with us before the cross.

Listen to the nature of Christ’s love for us, and the Father’s lavish giving Him to us with the Son in sending the 3^rd person of the Trinity to indwell us: John 16:7–8 “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. “Aren’t those words staggering? That it is MORE advantageous that the incarnate Christ leave and the Spirit be poured out upon us, than if He remained? It is mind boggling. Certainly we remember that in His going, He will die on the cross in our place and be raised again for our justification – but even those glories are not independent of His going SO THAT He might send the Spirit to. Salvation is not complete without The Spirit. And this He bids us to consider of such infinite value as to be looked for in His place with us. Amazing.

Now it is just because this is true, that the Apostle Paul can tell us that therein lay the secret to the Christian walk: “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” Galatians 5:16. Herein is power to overcome sin; The reality of fresh, vital, real communion with our God and Savior; gifts to bless the Church; illumination of God’s Word; power in prayer and ministering the Gospel – and countless other glories.

But note how we have put in in our principle. We must be CONSCIOUSLY looking to the Spirit as God’s indwelling presence. We must be cognizant on relying upon Him. And such reliance must be CONSTANT, not simply the fallback when things get rough. We must be DELIBERATE in our dependence – truly leaning upon Him, resting our weight upon Him, and not simply giving lip service to it. Running to Him 10, 100, 1000, 10,000 times a day. And it must be DEPENDENCE upon Him. He is not spiritual power steering, just giving us a boost to so that we can still do the job – but looking to Him to work righteousness in our hearts, to change desires and goals and ambitions and mindsets, opinions, attitudes and forging in us new likes and dislikes, loves and hatreds  in accord with His own holy nature.

Consciously, constantly, deliberately depending upon Him to impart to us and work in us God’s own love. Love that manifests itself in joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, uprightness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Recognizing these are not human characteristics to be psychologically developed, but the very character of Christ to be lived.

Apart from this way of living, we will walk in constant defeat at the mercy (mercilessness) of our lusts. We will be exhausted in “trying” to be holy. We will be frustrated at every turn, living either in perpetual self-delusion that we are fine as is, or in perpetual guilt and dismay at our brokenness.

This world is toxic. Like a scuba diver who puts on his equipment so that he can operate in an environment  that would otherwise kill him in minutes – we take up the “air” supply of the Breath of God, and cling to it and try to breathe no other way so that we might live, and thrive where no life can apart from it. And then, we can even enjoy the swim.