christian living

Five Necessities for Declaring the Gospel with Clarity and Power

/ Richard Bargas / Leave a comment

“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” ‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭2:1-5‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Along with Bible reading, many Christians have set for themselves a goal to share Christ with someone in 2019. For some, the prospect of sharing Christ with someone fills them with anxiety. This is true even though many of understand that we heard about Christ from another Christian ourselves and how thankful we are that someone loved us enough to step out of their comfort zone in order to explain the life-giving gospel of Jesus Christ to us.

Who will we share Christ with this year? Perhaps for you sharing Christ is a scary thing. You might believe that you would mess up the message so bad that it would harm rather than help the mission of Christ if you tried.

Some of you have been on evangelism teams in the past or you were once faithful to preach the gospel on a regular basis, but you have slowed down and maybe you rarely go out evangelizing any more. I want to encourage you and stir you up once again to get out there and share the gospel.

To help you have confidence to share your faith I would like to give you five principles, or five marks of a clear gospel message that will glorify God when you share His plan of salvation.

1. God is glorified when the gospel is shared with simplicity (v.1)

“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.” ‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭2:1‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Please notice what Paul did not say here. He did not say that he came with superiority of speech, or as the ESV says, “lofty speech.” Here Paul was thinking of highly technical language that the philosophers used. Now, if you speak on a regular basis with philosophers, then use that language because it communicates best to them. Paul was concerned that the Corinthians had continued to be enamored with the so-called scholarly rhetoric that was used by the false teachers.

If you run with mechanics, bus drivers and waiters, then when you proclaim the gospel, speak the language of the people. Avoid using religious language and “Christian-ese”. Don’t say things like, “Have you been washed in the blood of the Lamb?” If you do, I won’t come and bail you out of jail when they call the police! Most people today in America have no context to know what statements like that mean. We need to explain the gospel to people and assume they know very little of the Bible or of the gospel message. Terms like sin, redemption, atonement and even the cross all need to be explained more fully to the average person today.

Paul also said that he didn’t come to Corinth “with wisdom.” This is the world’s brand of wisdom, not God’s wisdom. You do not need to argue philosophy or know everything about everything. The gospel is powerful in and of itself. The gospel isn’t about what you know, but about who you know. Armed with the gospel you can know that you have the wisdom of God, even if the person you are speaking with is a genius about earthly things. The gospel is deep enough for a lifetime of study and yet shallow enough for a child to come to faith.

Pastor Chuck Swindoll tells of a little sign he has on his desk that reads: IDIOSYNCRATICALLY ECCENTRIC PHRASEOLOGY IS THE PROMULGATOR OF TERRIBLE OBFUSCATION. On the back was the translation: “BIG WORDS CAUSE CONFUSION.”

When the message can’t be understood and is muddled or confused, God is not glorified.

2. God is glorified when the gospel is shared with authority (v. 1)

“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.” ‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭2:1‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Notice that Paul calls his message “the testimony of God,” it is the witness of God Himself. By using the Bible you are speaking with the authority of its Divine Author.

The unbeliever knows in his heart (even if he or she denies it) that God exists and that he has suppressed this knowledge (Rom. 1:18-19, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.”) and he needs to repent (Acts 17:30-31, “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.””).

As Christian witnesses to the cross, we are to speak with the authority of God himself who has sent each of us out as his ambassadors and ministers! Second Corinthians 5:17-21 says, ““Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

We do not come in our own power or our own name. We come as children of God and witnesses of the gospel. We come seeking to see our fellow man reconciled to God by the proclamation of the message of reconciliation in Christ Jesus.

3. God is glorified when the gospel is shared with intensity (v. 2)

“For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” ‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭2:2‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Notice here that Paul says that his focus is upon Jesus Christ and the cross alone. Of course Paul spoke about all sorts of issues, but in his initial conversations with the Corinthians, when he shared the gospel with them, he was all about Jesus Christ on the cross and nothing else.

For us. We need to remember that if salvation is not the goal, then we are wasting our time. Paul could have spoken intelligently in regards to a number of subjects but his focus was on presenting the gospel. He was an evangelistic laser-beam. A laser beam is merely light, but focused with such intensity that its beam can cut through rock and steel. We need to preach with accuracy as well as intensity so that our message has power.

When we go off on bunny trails and move away from the central gospel message to look at lesser issues, God is not glorified. I know some Christians who are easily distracted into side issues when they are sharing Christ–the worship of the Virgin Mary, the factual nature of Jonah and the big fish that swallowed him, the issues surrounding creation versus evolution, cultural issues such as crime, homosexuality and more.

Now I don’t mean that we shouldn’t think deeply about these issues nor that the Bible doesn’t give answers. But we need to make sure that we don’t lose sight of our goal–reconciliation and redemption! We need to be like hounds of heaven who won’t get off the trail and will seek out the soul that needs to be saved. Otherwise we will find that we will be constantly frustrated in never ending wrangling about words that will never change the heart until this first issue is dealt with. The unbeliever must come to submit to the Kingship of Christ. It will take the gospel of Jesus Christ to do that!

4. God is glorified when the gospel is shared with gravity (v. 3)

“And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling,” 1 Corinthians‬ ‭2:3‬ ‭ESV‬‬

When we talk about gravity, we mean a type of seriousness or a weightiness. We are all business. We are caught up in a mission and we didn’t come to mess around. Paul’s attitude to the work of evangelism was one of soberness. He knew that he was a tool on the hands of God.

In 1 Corinthians 3:6-7 Paul wrote, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.” Paul didn’t overestimate his importance in the process, BUT he also didn’t underestimate his part as the means by which God brought sinners to faith in Christ. Paul was no hyper-Calvinist. He understood that he needed to take his role with all seriousness and couldn’t throw it off as something that God would accomplish without the means of men preaching the gospel and calling sinners to faith.

That is a sobering truth. He knew that he was sharing a message of eternity in heaven or hell. Puritan pastor Richard Baxter famously said, “I preach as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.” Christian, you are dying, but you have hope! The person who needs Christ that you need to speak to also is dying, but they have no hope and without Christ will slide into a Christ-less eternity!

Every disciples of Jesus Christ needs to know that he or she will one day give an account for his or her talents. In Matthew 25:14-30 Jesus spoke about the parable of the talents that are not to be buried, but invested for our Master. There is no greater treasure that we have been entrusted with than the gospel of Jesus Christ. What are you doing with that treasure? When we share the message half-heartedly, or worse, don’t share it at all, then God is not glorified.

5. God is glorified when the gospel is shared with dependency (v. 4)

“and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,” 1 Corinthians‬ ‭2:4‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Clearly, Paul depended upon the Holy Spirit. He knew that without the empowering of the Holy Spirit he was weak for the task. Jesus told His disciples that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came upon them (Acts 1:8). This power isn’t for showy church services, it isn’t for putting your special spirituality on display for everyone to see, and it surely isn’t for your personal satisfaction or to make you wealthy and famous. Your empowerment by the Spirit was given for the preaching of the gospel to the world.

Someone put together a little power to ask a very serious question:

Where is God’s Power?

A city full of churches

Great preachers, lettered men

Grand music, choirs and organs;

If all these fail what then?

Good workers, eager, earnest

Who labor hour by hour;

But where oh where, my brother,

Is God’s almighty power?

When we do anything in our own power, particularly when we preach the gospel, God is not glorified.

Are you sharing the gospel? We need the message to go out. We need to begin once again hitting the streets with the saving message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. If you aren’t doing that, you need to be going about sharing the gospel message.

Additionally, God has not called us to just share the gospel, but to do so with an empowered passion that is laser-beam accurate.

The message is clear. It has power to save. What will you do with it? Go into the world and share the gospel.

When Reading Your Bible Through the Year is Wrong

/ Richard Bargas / 5 Comments

Like many Christians, I have tried to make it my practice to read the Bible on a daily basis and to read through the Bible in a year by following a reading plan. I have been blessed by this practice and would recommend that every Christian be in the Bible on a daily basis.

On this New Year’s Day, fresh reading plans will begin and new Bibles purchased will be read with great anticipation and joy. I applaud these things. What joy the Word of God brings to those who would spend time plumbing its depths! There is no better use of one’s time than reading and meditating upon Scripture.

But on this New Year day, I want to add balance to some things I have heard regarding Bible reading. We live under grace, not Law. Bible reading is important—as Jesus said, it is our daily bread for our weary souls (Matthew 4:4). But there is a hidden danger in making Bible reading into a work of the Law rather than a means of grace. Beyond the self-righteousness that can come from those who do read their “Bibles before breakfast,” and expect that all Christians should do the same or they are out of fellowship with God, there is also the danger of making the Bible another “to-do” to be checked off from our list of chores every day. Rushed reading without any thought to what the verses say or mean produces Bible illiterate people as much as not reading the Bible does.

It reminds me of a saying my wife and I had in our bedroom which read, “Always Kiss Me Goodnight.” Can you imagine waking up to your spouse and saying to yourself, “If I don’t kiss her, I can’t eat breakfast, so I better get it over with and give her a kiss.” Surely this falls short of true love and the intention of this sentiment. Reading your Bible before breakfast is good in placing your relationship with the Lord above our fleshly appetites, but this can also easily slide into legalism. And legalism is powerless over the flesh. Rules eventually fail where only the Spirit of God can bring about change.

The Word of God is written for our benefit. We might not always want to read it, but this is not so much a matter of obedience as it is a matter of the heart and how it has grown cold. If we begin with this realization, we can go before our heavenly Father in confession, asking him to warm our heart and to remind us of his love for us. We can be honest, knowing that he already knows our hearts have grown cold, and we can ask him to help us in our weakness to draw close to him.

Then, with a humble heart of faith, we can draw near, knowing that as we drink from the well of the Word, our Lord will begin to give us a thirst for him. We become like the father in the New Testament who wanted to believe that Christ could heal his son, but yet he knew how weak his faith was, so he cried out, “I believe, help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). We might know we need to read our Bibles, but we need to be honest when we also realize that we don’t want to, and that this is a spiritual problem that we must confess to God for his help.

Today, many Christians will begin their new Bible reading strong and with the best of intentions…but in the flesh and not in dependence upon God. This year, try something new—read your Bible in dependence upon the Spirit. Not just to begin reading it, but to continue reading through to the end. The goal is not finishing the Bible, nor is it reading it every day without fail. The goal is growing close to your Savior and God. From that relationship will flow rivers of living water.  

Humble Submission to Christ the Lord

/ Richard Bargas / Leave a comment

“And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.”

Luke 1:38, ESV

This morning I read from the book of Jonah. I have been pondering the incarnation for the last several days and the wonder of Christ’s birth, and then I read Jonah. To put it lightly, Jonah had problems. Massive spiritual problems. I’ll come back to him in a bit.

All too often in Protestant churches, Mary, the mother of Jesus, has scorn heaped upon her because there are some who have taken this woman of God and have worshipped her. But that isn’t Mary’s fault! From my reading of the New Testament, Mary was a gracious and beautiful example of incredible faith that we should emulate–such as the passage I cite in Luke 1:38 above. Yes, Mary was a sinner, and she too needed a Savior. But look beyond this and see her humble submission as well.

I’ll let the scholars handle the age of Mary, but I think most agree that this woman was still very young. But her words, particularly in what has been called the Magnificat (Lk 1:46-55), show a spiritually mature child of God. She is not a scholar, nor of the priestly line. She is a simple, humble woman from a back-woods town who is preparing to marry a humble carpenter. That is why her words should stop us in our tracks: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

She is saying through the angel to the Lord God, “I am yours. Do with me whatever you see is right. I am nothing, you are everything. Whatever you want, I will submit to you wholly.” O, how we need more people of God with this heart! But she isn’t alone in the Bible.

In the Old Testament, we find Abram willing to leave everything he has ever known–land, family, language, comfort, safety, the familiar, the safe. He leaves it all because he is following his God (Gen 12:1-4). Again, the spirit of Father Abraham is that the Lord is Sovereign. He commands, and we joyfully follow; even into the unknown darkness. Later, when he has received his son Isaac after many years of waiting, Abraham is asked to sacrifice this beloved gift (Gen 22:1-19). There is no argument, or pleading with God to reconsider what he is asking. Genesis 22:3 simply says that Abraham rose early in the morning and set out to obey his Master.

I saw this same commitment to humble submission when I recently re-read the book of Hosea. In Hosea 1:2-3 it says:

“When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.” 

(Hosea 1:2–3, ESV)

We can understand the purpose of God in doing this because the Bible is clear about the reason for this request–to be a shockingly visible illustration of the way that Israel was toward the Lord God. But that didn’t make Hosea’s obedience and heartbreak any easier. The shame he endured as God’s man must have been unbearable at times as his unfaithful wife continued to bear children fathered by other men. Yet, Hosea continued to faithfully and humbly submit to all that the Lord asked of his servant.

That brings us back to Jonah.

Mary endured shame, scorn and great pain in order to bring the Savior into the world. Abram left everything and was willing to sacrifice his most beloved son. Hosea walked his entire life in the darkness of a broken relationship for the cause of illustrating the enduring love of God in the face of rebellious and idolatrous Israel.

And Jonah…he sulked and ran and was enraged because he wanted to be the master of his life. Jonah wouldn’t rejoice at the repentance of the lost. He wouldn’t rejoice at his salvation from the fish’s belly and a new opportunity to be used by God. He wouldn’t even enjoy life, but would rather be struck dead because he was such an angry little man.

John Paton

I recently read the biography of the great missionary to the Pacific, John Paton. In Paton’s day, the church had taken on the attitude of Jonah. They loved their comfort and ease. They didn’t like it when men and women of God wanted to take the gospel to the world because they didn’t want their comfort to be unsettled. Some were bribed with money to stay. Some were belittled and treated with contempt–being told that God would’t use them because they were ungifted. Some said that the primitive people would never be able to appreciate the fine education they had earned, so why waste it? Others were so fearful of the dangers of cannibalism and disease that they forbid anyone from going to these people. Serve Jesus in England, where it is safe. You can serve Jesus here. WE need him too!

But Paton, and a few others accepted the call and braved the hardship and ridicule heaped on them back home and face the dangers in the Pacific. They humbly submitted their lives to the Sovereign they loved more than life itself. Most died, but the Lord raised up many more servants until the Pacific was won for Christ.

But the Jonah spirit is alive and well in many hearts and churches today. I take comfort in the fact that there are also still in Christ’s church Mary’s and Abraham’s and Hosea’s among us. Those who will submit to the Lord their God with joy and humility. If that is you, don’t allow the Jonah spirit in the church to dissuade you. See the joy in the hardship. Know that the Lord is greater than any hardship you may endure. As Luther wrote,”Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also; the body they may kill, God’s truth abideth still. His kingdom is forever!” 

And if you see too much of Jonah in your own heart, then Jonah’s message to Ninevah is God’s message to you too. Repent. This life isn’t for you. It isn’t about you. It’s about Jesus. Humble yourself before the mighty hand of God, and he will lift you up (1Pet 5:6).

The Unnamed Faithful

/ Richard Bargas / Leave a comment

gbc.jpg

I’ve been stuck at home for a little over a week recovering from minor surgery. This week our church (Grace Baptist Church) is doing what many churches all over America are doing–ministering to the local children with Vacation Bible School. I can’t be there with them, but our little church keeps plugging along faithfully as it has done for over 80 years.

Saints whose names are found written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, but unknown to almost everyone else, are working hard all day at their regular jobs and then wolfing down dinner or skipping it altogether to go and serve the Lord for a couple more hours every night. They have been preparing, planning, decorating,  setting up, giving countless hours and dollars, and most of it will never be seen on this side of eternity.

As I think about my brothers and sisters tonight, I am grateful for their hard work and I am proud to be their pastor. They do it for Jesus. Even when I can’t be there, they love the kids in our neighborhood so much that they keep charging ahead. The darkness keeps pushing back, but they are undeterred. They love our community, and the best way to show their love is to introduce the little one’s and their parents to the Savior.

I am thankful that He sees it all. I love you, GBC.

Pastor Like Paul, part 6

/ Richard Bargas / Leave a comment

Paul in prison.jpg

“You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,” (2 Timothy 3:10–12, ESV)

In this “Pastor Like Paul”series we looked so far at 6 ways we need to follow (or strive to be) a godly Christian leader:

  1. Follow the Same Doctrine
  2. Follow the Same Conduct
  3. Follow the Same Purpose
  4. Follow the Same Faithfulness
  5. Follow the Same Patience
  6. Follow with the Same Love

At verse 11, Paul builds upon this list with a capstone of leadership–being willing to follow Jesus in our suffering. From his prison, Paul reminds Timothy that he has followed Christ, and that Timothy and all those who would follow Jesus should also be willing to suffer as well.

But doesn’t that make Christians “lemmings?” Lemmings are small rodents that have been said to follow one another off a cliff to their deaths in some sort of weird instinct when their populations get too large. It has become a figure of speech to call people “lemmings” who thoughtlessly follow the crowd.

Interestingly, the idea of the lemmings jumping off cliffs as they follow one another is based upon a fraud. Encyclopedia Britannica reports, “For the 1958 Disney nature film White Wilderness, filmmakers eager for dramatic footage staged a lemming death plunge, pushing dozens of lemmings off a cliff while cameras were rolling. The images—shocking at the time for what they seemed to show about the cruelty of nature and shocking now for what they actually show about the cruelty of humans—convinced several generations of moviegoers that these little rodents do, in fact, possess a bizarre instinct to destroy themselves.”[1]

Why do I bring up lemmings? Because we are still talking about following the leader, and 2 Timothy 3:11-12 speak about following our leaders, both Jesus and the Apostle Paul into the very real possibility of persecution and suffering.

But just like lemmings don’t do this, neither do Christians unthinkingly thrust themselves to their deaths. We love life! But we know that this life is temporary, and that if we must risk this life to remain faithful to Christ, then the exchange is worth it.

For this post and the next in this series, we will see the need to faithfully follow Christ as Paul followed Christ, even to death if necessary. We will see this first, through the specific examples of Paul, and then through the universal principles of Scripture for all of us.

  1. The Specific Examples of Paul (v. 11)

“my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me.” (2 Timothy 3:11, ESV)

My persecutions which you saw…

It is interesting that the Apostle Paul didn’t give an exhaustive list of all the places where he had suffered persecution, nor had he given the most recent places. Instead, it appears that Paul mentioned Antioch, Iconium and Lystra because these would have been the places where Timothy first encountered the severe persecution that Paul suffered for the faith as a young boy just setting out with Paul. Timothy may have been an eyewitness to the dramatic account described in Lystra, the city he was from. He may have heard stories told of how Paul had preached to boldly and survived a brutal stoning, walking back into Lystra after being left for dead (Acts 14:20). These early accounts would have been vivid reminders that persecution was not a rare thing that happened only to a few, but that it is normal for most Christians, and that Timothy should expect it.

My persecutions which I endured…

The word for “endure” means to bear up under a burden. Paul’s body was undoubtedly covered in scars and deformities from the many hardships and persecutions he had endured for the sake of Christ.

But there was no way that the Lord would ever give Paul more of a burden than he would give him the ability to endure it. Paul’s body was a record book of his faithfulness to proclaim the gospel everywhere he went. He bore up under the burden gladly because he understood the message of the cross is life to those who would believe.

“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;” (2 Corinthians 4:8–9, ESV)

My persecutions which the Lord rescued me from…

Paul’s survival was attributed to the Lord alone. He didn’t give glory to God for delivering him sometimes, or even mostof the time, but “from them allthe Lord rescued me.”

This word “from” at the end of v. 11 in the ESV, is translated “out of” in the NASB and KJV. But there can be confusion when we use the words “out of” or “from” because we can understand this idea in two ways. We might mean that God rescues his children from ever having to be involved in persecution or suffering.

But we might also mean that God rescues his children when they are in the midst of persecutions and suffering. In other words, they are experiencing it, and yet God will continue to be with them and they shall be saved, but not yet.

When we look at Paul’s life, we recognize that he had both experiences, where he was delivered unharmed by his persecutors, and those where he barely made it out alive after surviving painfully through an ordeal.

Paul is imprisoned, and he does not expect that he will be released. In fact, in 2Timothy 4:6-8, Paul wrote, “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.” (2 Timothy 4:6–8, ESV)

In verse 6, Paul clearly believes that he is going to be put to death, which he was. But v. 7 shows that he still has confidence in the Lord, that the Lord will carry him across the finish line of the race of faith. And then in v. 8 he envisions the awards ceremony where the crowns are given to the competitors, and Paul full expects that he and all those who trust in Christ will receive the reward of eternal life.

In those three verses we can understand what Paul was teaching Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:11, that whether it is out of the persecution or even through the persecution, the Lord will deliver him from the suffering he has faced.

Now we might read this and come to the conclusion that these things were true for the Apostle Paul, but that they may not be true for you and me. But there was a reason that Paul was telling Timothy these things. There was divine purpose in this letter.

Gordon Fee “insists that it was the Apostle’s intention to underscore that Timothy had known from his earliest days that persecution was a part of faith in Christ and that he should therefore not lose heart in his current sufferings.”[2]

Remember that Paul has mentioned the pattern from v. 10 that Timothy had followed, and Paul was commending him for this, and encouraging him to keep on going in this same direction. It is no different when we come to the matter of persecution and suffering. Timothy was to follow Paul’s example as well.

To aid him in doing this, Paul laid out three universal truths that state work together with Paul’s personal examples to show that Paul was not the exception. We will see that in tomorrow’s post.

[1]https://www.britannica.com/story/do-lemmings-really-commit-mass-suicide

[2]Kitchen, John, The Pastoral Epistles for Pastors, 408.