I'd like to ask you this morning to open your Bibles to 2 Thessalonians. We have been studying through this book for some time. Today we arrive at some of the most precious verses regarding salvation in all of Scripture. And so I preach this with great joy. One of the early leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention and served longer as their president, a man named Patrick Mell, his very last sermon He preached from this passage and preached sovereign grace of how God saves men. And so we're studying today in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. And I'd invite you to pray with me before we begin. Father God, I ask that you would open our hearts and minds to the Gospel today. Father, may we honor and bless your name. Father, help me to carefully handle your truth today. In Jesus' name, Amen. This verse 13, but we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation. I want to start with that phrase. We'll look at more in a little while. I read some questions years ago talking about salvation. And when you're trying to encourage someone and help them understand about salvation, the first question is this, did you save yourself or did God save you? Very important question. Did you save yourself Or did God save you? Now, any honest Christian will answer, well, of course, God saved me. I could not save myself. Now, there are some professing Christians that would like to claim part of the duty, that they did part of it. That's not scriptural. That's Roman Catholicism. So just be careful with that. So, did you save yourself or did God save you? Well, the Word tells us in Psalms and also in Jonah that salvation is of the Lord. That's where these questions of, well, can I lose my salvation? If it's yours, yes. If it's God's, no. If it's a salvation that you accomplished, you will most certainly lose it. But if it is a salvation that God accomplished, then you will have to undo the work of God, and I don't think you can. So, did you save yourself, or did God save you? Well, God saved me. All right then, if God saved you, was it on purpose, or was it an accident? You were wandering along and God just accidentally saved you. Well, we would look at that and say, that's ridiculous. God doesn't do anything without intention. You and I do not do anything in our lives without a purpose. If you merely get up and walk across the room, You had a purpose in doing that. You decided to do that. You took the initiative to get up and walk across the room. And anything that God does, He intended to do. He is not manipulated by you. And so that next question is, did God save you on purpose or was it an accident? Well, God saved me on purpose. He is a rational God. He plans all of eternity. Did you read what we read earlier in Isaiah? He knows the end from the beginning. Then the next question is, if He saved you on purpose, when did He plan to do so? Now that's important to understand. Our lives come at us moment by moment. I have no idea what will happen ten seconds from now. Much less ten years from now. Earlier this year I was planning another trip to Mexico, wasn't I? Did I go? No. Someone else had other plans that preempted mine. And so if God does things on purpose, He planned to do them. And it is a very important thing to understand that salvation, in one sense, occurs in your life at a moment when you are regenerated and you say, hey, on February, such and such, 1970, such and such, God did a work in my life and I was saved. That's true in your life. But in the plan of God, it was already accomplished. Does that bother you? Does God have the right to do with you what He chooses? Does He have a right to make me sick? Yes, He does. Is He required to heal me of this? Not necessarily. Someday in Heaven, of course. But no, these teachers that are out there today that are saying, we demand this, we demand that, God laughs. The arrogance of man. So Paul says, we should always give thanks to God for you brethren, beloved by the Lord. How do you know that God loves you? He planned to save you. If you have heard the Gospel and your heart has been opened, you didn't open it, God opened it. He opens your heart to hear the Gospel and you suddenly love the Savior who was nailed to a cross. How did that happen? Were you just nicer than your neighbor? Were you just more pliable? than your neighbor? Well, that would make you better than your neighbor. You don't think you're better than your neighbor, do you? I will never forget that conversation that I had when I first heard the gospel. I was this religious prig Oh, I was moral. I didn't do all the things my classmates did. I went to church every time it was available. I was there. I was in youth group. I went to Bible camp. I did everything right. I wasn't sleeping around in high school. I wasn't drinking with my buddies. I was a good person. And I was just as lost as my classmates. There was nothing about me that made me a little better than they. And God in His grace allowed me to hear the gospel. If you have come to understand the Gospel, it wasn't because there was something, some kind of good in you that God saw and worked on that. The whole point of Scripture is that God saves sinners. Sinners. Praise God, I qualify. So we look at this God, He says, we give thanks because you were beloved by the Lord. How does He know that they were beloved by the Lord? Because God has chosen you from the beginning. This is amazing. You hear the Gospel and you think it happened in time, and in a sense it does in your personal life, but in reality God had been planning for all of eternity. Nobody talks about theology anymore. Well, we do here, don't we? Do you know what the economy of the Trinity is? No, we're not talking about dollars and cents. The economy of the Trinity has to do with how the Godhead operates. Who does what? One God, three persons. Very important understanding. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, the Spirit is not either of the other two, and yet all three are one God. And is that mysterious? Yes. So, I find computers pretty mysterious as well. That doesn't mean they don't work, and that doesn't mean that I refuse to try to access my Facebook page. Having no idea how that works, I push the button and it does it. It's mysterious. It took me a long time to understand a carburetor. I finally did wrestle my mind around that one. But there are many things in our life that we are perfectly comfortable saying, I have no idea how that works. I told an archaeologist one time that I was talking to, and we were talking about nature and all that. Of course, I was trying to figure that conversation as something important. And we were talking about animals and how animals do things. And I said, you know, you mentioned instinct. And I said, you know, when a scientist tells you that an animal does something by instinct, what he is saying is, I have no idea how they do that. And this archaeologist began to laugh and he said, my science has the same thing. He said, when we find something that we don't know what it is, we say it is ceremonial. He said, go pick up your latest edition of National Geographic and look at it. Pick up a National Geographic, of course it always got something archaeology in there. And it says this ceremonial object was found next to the body. What they're saying is they have no idea what that is. So they call it ceremonial. And all of that to say, we make up words at times, and yet we don't know what they mean. And sometimes there are Christians who say, yes, I believe in the Trinity, but they don't really understand that the Trinity are three persons, one Godhead, and each member of the Godhead had their particular role to play in your salvation. Did you know that? The Father did something. We'll see it here, but I want to give it to you a little clearer in 1 Peter. It's a wonderful passage, right at the beginning of 1 Peter. And sometimes it gets skipped over because we think, oh, that's just the introduction. First Peter, chapter one. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen. Isn't that wonderful? God chose to save Bithynians and Cappadocians. and part-Swede, Scotch-Irish heathens, and folks like you see around you in this room, who are chosen. Now notice this, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. Now don't think foreknowledge thinking knowing about events ahead of time. This foreknowledge is a knowledge of persons. You wouldn't have that problem in Spanish. Spanish has two different words. And the Greeks were similar, not exactly the same, but similar. In that they had a word for intimate knowledge of someone else. And then there's a word for knowing about stuff. You and I say, I know my wife and I know algebra. It's not the same thing. I don't have the relationship with an algebra book that I do with my wife, do I? Let's hope not. And this is that kind of knowledge of persons. The foreknowledge of God of persons. Not just about you, not just about your choices, but you yourself. God knows you. and they were chosen according to His foreknowledge of the Father. Now notice the next role of the Trinity here, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one who regenerates. Remember what Jesus tells Nicodemus, you must be born of the Spirit, you must be born from above. So it must be a work that God does. You can't born yourself, can you? We understand that the verb, to be born, is a passive verb. It's something that happens to you. I have a silly tract in my heresy file. And in this silly tract, this fellow says that your physical birth was something that you and your mother accomplished together. This is written by a man, by the way. No mother here can say, oh yes, my children really helped in that birth. They were utterly passive. And so are you, under the administrations of the Holy Spirit. God, knowing from eternity, choosing to save a people for Himself. Remember that song we sang, My Lord, I Did Not Choose You? You know what scripture that's from? John 15, 16. You did not choose me. I chose you. and appointed you. Notice here it says, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who regenerates the soul. Now look, that you may obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood. It is the Son who atones for His people. Isn't this wonderful? There's a word for all of this. This is the eternal covenant or the covenant of grace. The covenant of grace was not made with men. It was made in the Godhead. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit agree in saving a people. And that's what Paul is talking about in 2 Thessalonians. He's getting into some really deep doctrine here, isn't He? You'll hear people today say, well, I just love Jesus, I don't need doctrine. Oh yes you do. Otherwise, what Jesus are you going to believe in? Do you want the Jesus of the Jehovah's Witnesses? Who think He's an angel? Not really God Himself? Or would you rather have the Jesus of the Muslims, who was merely a prophet and didn't really die on the cross? No, there are lots of Jesus out there. No, we need the real one. So let's look back at 2 Thessalonians 2. But we should always give thanks to God for you. Brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation. That means that salvation is specific. When Christ died on the cross, for whom did he die? This is very important. He said, I lay down my life for whom? The sheep. And in that same passage, he turns to the unbelieving Jews of that day and he says, you are not my sheep. that would seem to indicate that He is not laying down His life for them. His atonement was very specific. God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation. Notice how similar the words are to Peter's in 1 Peter. Through sanctification by the Spirit. How are men saved? Did God plan to save you? Yes, He did. When did He do that? Before time began. in the eternal councils of the Trinity, long before men ever fell, God had already planned for all of that to take place. Wow! That would seem to be that God is a real God and knows everything. Through sanctification by the Spirit, And then look, and faith in the truth. And it was for this He called you through our Gospel that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here you have the Trinity in these two verses. God the Father, God the Spirit, and God the Son, Jesus Christ. Don't let anybody tell you that the Trinity is something that was made up in like 400 A.D. Baloney, it's right here. Paul wrote about it. Peter wrote about it. It's everywhere in Scripture. So salvation is a work that God chooses to do. And He's specific in that. He calls a people to Himself. Is God successful? Yes. He is always successful. He accomplishes everything He puts His mind to. Really? But Pastor, aren't there some verses that say that God's not willing that any should perish? Familiar with that passage? I used to hide behind it. Let's go to 2 Peter 3 now. 2 Peter 3. Let's start with verse 3. 2 Peter 3. 3. Know this, first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the Father fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation. People ask me, is America in prophecy? Oh yeah, it's right here. Ever heard of uniformitarianism? That is the gospel of Darwinism. Everything continues as it has from the beginning. Yet they can't tell you when the beginning was. They say, for when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God, the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. Did Peter believe the first 11 chapters of Genesis? Yes, he did. and you'd better too. It's one of the things that reached my heart. I was an evolutionist, claiming to be a Christian and believing in evolution. That's a logical impossibility. I'll just share that with you. But people are illogical all the time. They'll do things that are contradictory. Will say one thing and do another. But when I ran into John 5, 46 and 47, if you believed Moses, you would believe me. And if you do not believe Moses, you don't believe me, paraphrase. And I discovered that by denying Moses' writings, I was denying Christ. Does that sound harsh? Well, Peter believed the gospel account in Genesis. Then Peter goes on, but the present heavens and earth, by his word, are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. Just exactly what we've been reading about in 2 Thessalonians 2, you know? But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. And that's a quote from the Old Testament, obviously. He is not making an equivalence here. He says, as. He is using figurative language to give us the understanding that God is not bound by time, as you and I understand it. He's not saying that one day equals a thousand years. I know there's guys that teach that. That's not what this is saying. Then He says to us, the Lord is not slow about His promise. What promise? That He would save a people. He is going to save a people. And some count slowness, but is patient toward you. Some versions say us. If I say you, am I including everybody else in Grand Junction? Of course not. I'm speaking to you. I'm speaking to that audience. And he is writing to these people in Cappadocian and all that. He's patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish. Any of whom? Any of you. He's not saying, He's not wishing that anyone, anywhere, anytime will perish. If that were true, everyone's saved. Do you understand that? Do you understand why I say that? Not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. So, of whom is He speaking? This you. Well, let's look back in this chapter, verse 1. What determines what words mean and what the gospel means? Context. Look at 3.1. This is now Beloved, the second letter I am writing to you. Okay, so he's saying he's patient toward you and he's calling them Beloved and he's saying this is the second letter. Okay? So who was that first letter addressed to? We just read it. Those who are chosen. When I saw that in Scripture, and I am bound by the context of Scripture, I had to admit that God chose to save people, certain people, Oh, that's offensive to the ear of man. Aren't I just as good as the next? What if there's someone that wants to be saved, and God says, no, you're not lucky, you can't be. There is no such person. That's a myth. It's a myth. There's no person that says, oh, I want to be saved, and God says, I won't. He says, come unto me. all that are weary and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest." You have to know that you're weary and heavy laden first, don't you? Look with me at that passage. Lest we take another verse ripped out of context, like pastors do today, look at Matthew chapter 11. I'm amazed how many times I've had people say, but it says this. Yes, it does. Verse 28, 11-28, and Matthew says, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. He says that. Read the verses ahead of it. Verse 25 says, at that time, Jesus answered and said, I praise Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou didst hide these things from the wise and intelligent and didst reveal them to babes. God actually hid things from some people and revealed it to others? Apparently, that's what Jesus just said. Yes, Father, for thus it was well-pleasing in Thy sight. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden." Why do they come? Because Christ, the Holy Spirit, has revealed Christ to them, and they come. Anyone who comes is saved. Everyone who calls on the name of Christ is saved. Why do they call is the question. It's a work of God alone. John tells us, no man can come unless what? The Father draws him. And don't let somebody lie to you and tell you that that word means gentle wooing. That word does not mean that. Any honest Greek scholar knows that it means to drag. As in, draw a bucket up out of the well, or drag someone to the authorities, like you see the same word used in Acts. It literally means physically drug. Does that bother you? But, but, but, but, but, I heard that the door doesn't have a knob on the outside, and he's a gentleman, and he'll never enter unless I let him. Well, A, that verse in Revelation is not even talking about salvation. It's about a church. And the other thing is, how can a dead man open the door? Have you ever gone to a house where somebody has died? They don't answer the door. Do they? That whole nonsense was fabricated by people who think that men have power and God does not. Let me tell you something. When God saved me, He kicked the door in. He used a no-knock warrant. He interrupted my life. I was very happily planning to go to the mission field. I have no idea what kind of gospel I would have taught. He kicked the door in and revealed that He is God. That's what Paul is talking about here in 2 Thessalonians. Let's go back there now. I love this subject, you can probably tell. It was for this He called you through our Gospel that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. How did God save these people? In time. How did He convert them? He called them through the Gospel. Why is it so important that we constantly talk about the Gospel? That's the only way men are saved. We have no other message. Why do I constantly talk about the Gospel? There isn't anything else to talk about. We are constantly looking at Christ and seeing greater and greater facets of His glory. He called you through our gospel that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Do you understand that God is bringing a people to himself? Think about this. Look at the first Adam. What did God do? God makes the first Adam and He puts him in charge of everything. And then He provides for him a wife. How did He do that? He took a rib out of his side and fashioned a woman. Have you ever thought about how God created the elect? He provides the second Adam by a miraculous birth. And then, think about the wound in Christ's side by which He purchased His bride. Blood and water flow out, and He sanctifies her, and He purifies her, and she is His for eternity. You see why I detest the blasphemy of the teaching of loss of salvation. It's blasphemy to claim that God is not able to save his bride or his son. It's amazing. He called you through the Gospel that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. We gain everything in Him. We have nothing without Him. Picture this. Think about inheritances. Quite often our salvation is presented like an inheritance. My wife's family, by the time her parents died with penniless, she inherited a table and a china cabinet. That was her inheritance. There was nothing left. Right now, I have already inherited part of my estate. I don't have control of it yet, until my father passes away. But when my father passes away, I will inherit a share in that inheritance. Pretty nice inheritance. It's not available to me right now, but the day is coming. But here's the beauty of it. My wife inherited nothing from her family. But in me, she inherits the whole thing. very much like what you and I have in Christ. He is the air. He is the sun. It is all His. And for all of eternity, God the Father glorifies the Son and the Son glorifies the Father. And it's all about the Father and the Son and the Spirit for all of eternity. And in them, in Christ Himself, you and I inherit heaven. We didn't do anything to earn it. We're the bride. Isn't that wonderful? I love that picture. We share in the glory of Christ. Does that make you want to know Him? Does that make you want to love Him? You see, you can't unless God opens your heart to do so. Isn't that great? It doesn't depend on you. It depends on Him. And if He opens your heart to receive it, just like Lydia, it says God opened her heart to receive the things spoken by Paul. Lydia didn't open her heart. This whole business of you asking somebody into your heart is patently ridiculous. It is God who does that. And He opens your heart and He opens your eyes to the Gospel. And you hear of a Savior who poured out His lifeblood for His people, and suddenly the Spirit lays it on your heart, I want to be one of those! How does that happen? It's a miracle. We've seen it happen here, haven't we? There's folks here in this room that God opened their heart to receive the Gospel. Oh, how wonderful it is. He has called you through our Gospel that you may gain the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then He goes on to say, So then, brethren, Stand firm and hold to the traditions, the doctrines which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us. It's very important if we're going to walk with Christ, one of the ways that we can know that we truly are a child of God is that we love God's Word. We love it. After the Lord saved me, I knew this Bible really well. I grew up in a church that taught, you know, memory verses, and I still know many memory verses. All in King James. And they're still in there. But there was no meaning to them until God saved me. And when He saved me, It was so strange. I picked up my Bible, and I believed it. I just believed it. Everything in there was true. It was a miracle. Before, I had doubts about this verse, and that verse, and that one over there, and, you know, we don't know if that's translated right, or all that junk. And all of a sudden, I believed it. I just believed it. How did that happen? Well, the work of God. So he says, stand firm and hold to that same doctrine that you were taught. Don't let some knucklehead come along and say, well, I've got a message from God for you. I've got one for them. Do you ever notice that the people that say, I've got a message from God for you, never is for themselves? Isn't that weird? Think about that. Well, I've got a message from God for you. What about for you personally? Let me reassure you. The Bible in your hands is sufficient. You hold in your hands every word that God has ever spoken to mankind. They are all here. And some knucklehead that comes along and says, I've got more, you can call him a liar. Don't you love this book? Don't you just love this book? It's sufficient. It's complete. And so Paul is telling them, don't be led astray. Don't let somebody come along and lead you off into this, that, or the other. There's new books coming out all the time. You know what I say, if they ain't dead, don't read them. And I say that with tongue-in-cheek, of course there are good books written, but we need to be very careful, and especially when somebody is claiming to have some new message. That's how cults begin. So look at verse 16. I love Paul because he intersperses his writings with these doxologies. Because every once in a while it appears that he just breaks into song. He is just praising God in prayer. And you can always spot him because in English they start with, now. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace, comfort and strengthen your hearts in every good work and word." Isn't that wonderful? Paul's love for these people in these churches. I understand that. I have great love for you guys. But I also have great love for churches where I've been privileged to speak. Friends all over, especially in Latin America. And I think of them too. May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who has loved us. How did He love us? He sent us a Savior. He rescued us from the pit of hell. He resurrected our dead souls, called us to faith in Christ, granted us repentance, gave us the faith to believe it. If you are saved, it's something God did from first to last. Everything about it is of God. God does it all. Oh, how wonderful that is. He has loved us and given us, look at this, eternal comfort. Remember what I was saying about these folks that think they can lose their salvation? What kind of comfort is that? I knew a young lady, even knew of a young lady years ago, was invited to work in the offices of a church that's extremely Arminian. And she was just looking for a job as a secretary, but they wanted to be careful that they had the right sort of people in this place. And so they knew where she had grown up and where she'd gone to school. And so they questioned her very closely. They said, do you believe in eternal security? And she said, well, I believe in eternal life. No, no, we want to know, do you believe in eternal security? She said, well, my Bible tells me that I have eternal life. And she says, either it's eternal or it isn't. They hired her. They couldn't question that. How long are you saved for? You're safe for eternity. If God has set His love upon you, if He has poured out the blood of His own Son to pay the price of your sin, He is able to keep you till the very end. Oh, don't you love that? Don't you just love that? I love it when we rejoice in God our Savior. Eternal comfort and good hope by grace. Do we have good hope? We sure do. How can I continue to preach like this? Because I have hope. I have hope. Not just wishful thinking. Every day and every moment of my life is in His hand, and I'm immortal until He calls me home. Isn't that great? Someone asked Stonewall Jackson, who was a committed believer in Christ, one time, he would stand in battle as the bullets were flying about, and he would stand there I wonder why they called him Stonewall Jackson. And someone asked him, how can you do that? He said, I am perfectly safe. I serve the living God and I will serve him until he calls me home. And he said, until then, I'm immortal. He said, I stand there because I am doing my duty. He believed that he was obeying as he ought. Now, you can question which side was he on and why, and that's a whole different question. But he believed that he was doing his duty, he was serving his God, and he stood there. And eventually he was killed by friendly fire. He was called home. And he obeyed God as long as God had him there, and he did what he was ordered to do. Dear hearts, you have good hope by grace. Your salvation, well, pertains to the grace of God. You're saved by grace, and grace alone. How was Noah saved? We're saved by grace. We have always been living in an age of grace. How is Abraham saved? Here he is, an idol-worshipping heathen, and God calls him and makes of him a people, and spiritually, every one of us. How is David saved? Well, he's saved by grace. How is Peter saved? He's saved by grace. How about Paul? He was saved by grace as well. Only by the grace of God. Isn't that wonderful? He can take a murderer, Like David, or Paul. He can take a traitor, like Peter. He can take an idol worshipper, like Abraham. He can take who knows what condition Noah was in. He can save whoever he wants to save. That's pretty cool. He can take a self-righteous farm boy and save him. And he can save you. Just cry out to it. Just ask Him to. If He's opening your heart to hear the Gospel, just ask Him to. Father, save me. That's what He calls you. Oh, that you would today. He says, comfort and strengthen your hearts in every good work and word. Oh, isn't that wonderful? After he spent the beginning of this chapter talking about the man of sin and false signs and wonders and wickedness and a deluding influence that people would believe a lie, and then he comes to the end of this passage and he says, Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God our Father who has loved us, and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace, comfort and strength in your hearts in every good word and word. Yes, the world is falling apart around us and yet God in His grace has given us the gospel and He saves us and He calls us. Is that a reality in your life? I can preach all day long about sovereign grace and how God saves men, but it does no good at all if you don't believe it. And you can claim to believe it and not practice it. There's plenty of folks that, oh yeah, I believe that, I believe that. They've got their doctrine all up one side, down the other. We had a couple here years ago. None of you know them, so I can talk about this. Man, they knew doctrine. And those two were as lost, well, as two balls of tall grass. They were lost. They did not know Christ, but they knew all about Him. You may know all about Him. Has that moment ever come in your life when you have been confronted with your own sinful condition? And you realize that you must have a Savior, and there's only one available. Has he opened your heart to realize that there is an atoning sacrifice made for all of God's people? And suddenly, the Holy Spirit lays it on your heart that, oh, that's what I need. Come to Him. He has promised that all who come, He will not cast out. There's no one that comes and says, Lord, save me. No, no, don't want to. There's no such person. Come to Him. Let's pray. Father, please, save Your people. Call Your people by Your grace. Lord, draw them in. Lord, You are the one that must open our hearts to receive it. Perhaps, Lord, today, open the heart of someone here. Father, how we praise You for the grace and power of our Lord Jesus Christ. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen. Thank you, everyone, for listening today.