Lesson 36

We left off last week looking at Jesus' miracles when He was here on earth. We've seen the reason He came. We've looked at His virgin birth. We've looked at the temptation of Christ. We know why He came. He's fulfilling the prophecies of Him. But this morning we're going to be looking at something that has to be addressed before we get to the crucifixion of Christ. Because it's something that we're confronted with day in and day out in our Christian walk. And we're going to be talking this morning about counterfeit Christianity. Counterfeit Christianity. And the first thing we're going to be looking at here in Mark chapter 7 is Christianity that adds to God's Word. Christianity that adds to God's Word. When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness by the devil, how did Jesus defeat the devil? By using Scripture. By using Scripture. He kept... He didn't... Did He say, "I have this feeling in my heart"? No. He said, "It is written, didn't He?" "It is written." He didn't say, "Well, you know, I've got this revelation from God." No. "It is written." He kept going back to the Scriptures. Now, if Jesus defeated Satan, and if Jesus was sufficiently supplied by the Scriptures, well, then all of His followers are sufficiently supplied by the Scriptures. And so when we're looking here at the Scriptures, we have to understand that it is the Word of God plus nothing and minus nothing. And we're first going to look at Christianity that adds to God's Word. Look here if you would in Mark chapter 7, verse 5. It says, "Then the Pharisees and scribes..." Now, remember who the Pharisees and scribes are. The scribes are the ones that are the ones writing and copying the... because they didn't have printing presses back then. The scribes were the printing presses. And since they were always writing God's Word and copying God's Word, then they were experts in God's Word. No one knew the Scriptures like the scribes. That was their business. The Pharisees, if you'll remember, they were the legalists. You had scribes and you had Pharisees. You had Sadducees. The Pharisees were the legalists. The Sadducees were the liberals. We still have the same categories today in Christianity. We do. I was raised up in a legalistic church. I despised them. I also despised liberal churches. "Give me the Scripture, the whole Scripture, nothing but the Scripture." Don't add to it and don't take away from it. And so we're looking here now in Mark chapter 7, verse 5. It says, "Then the Pharisees and scribes..." They teamed up together. "Asked him..." That is Jesus. "Why won't not thy disciples according to the..." What? "Tradition of the elders." What a question. Do you see what happened here? The Pharisees have elevated their rules to the level of God's Word. That is a big error in counterfeit Christianity. You know, I was listening to a video the other day. There was a particular false prophet that my wife is familiar with back from Indiana where she was raised. And he's gotten to be very popular. I can't remember his name right now, but what really fascinated me was I listened to one of the prophecies that he made a little while back. And someone asked me about that prophecy. It was very detailed. Very detailed. Said the United Nations would be patrolling the streets of America by a certain date and all that. And it was very dramatic. Someone started getting shared on Facebook for a while. And of course people then asked me, "What do you think about this?" And I said, "Well, it's quite easy. The Bible says if a person prophesies in the name of the Lord and it comes to pass and that person is sent from God, if it doesn't, they're a false prophet, take them out and stone them." And so I said, "All we have to do is just wait for that date." That date's come and gone. It's been two or three years ago now since that date has passed. But what was so interesting back then was that during that time, before the prophecy had been vetted, there were preachers who were taking this prophet's prophecy. The prophecy had been transcribed into written format. And there were preachers who were expounding that prophet's prophecy as if it was Scripture. Just as I say, turn to the Gospel of Mark, chapter 7, verse 5. They would say, "Let's now look at Brother So-and-So's prophecy, the second paragraph, whatever." And they would start teaching it. There's no different than what the Pharisees are doing here. They're elevating their traditions, the traditions of the elders. We're in God's Word. Does it talk about following the traditions of the elders? Nowhere. But what it does say is we ought to obey God rather than man, right? And so we're not looking at traditions of the elders. So it says here, "Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashing hands?" Well, now there's a good sin for you. It's not that the disciples didn't practice good hygiene, but they didn't practice the ceremonial washings that the Pharisees had made up for people to do. Verse 6, "He answered and said unto them, 'Well hath he sayest--" Now that's Isaiah--"prophesy of you." Now see what Jesus is doing? They tried to drive Jesus' attention to their traditions. Jesus now points them back to the Scriptures. See what's happening here? "Well hath he sayest--" or Isaiah pointing back to the book of Isaiah, "prophesy of you as it is written." Here he is again. "Just like he did to Satan, it is written." He's doing this now to the Pharisees. Now understand the Pharisees aren't some group. They're not like Buddhists. They're not like Hindus. They're not like the Church of Satan or something like that. These were the modern-day Christians. They were waiting on the Christ to come, at least in theory. So this was modern Christianity. Christianity didn't start when Jesus came in the time of his incarnation. Christianity began back in eternity past when God made a covenant with Christ and said, "I will declare the decree, 'Thou art my son this day, have I begotten thee,' and then preach the gospel to our parents." Remember in the Garden of Eden? "It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." And so this was modern Christianity. And here's Jesus having to point back the Pharisees to the Scriptures. And yet here were the Pharisees, the authorities on Christianity at that time, trying to distract Jesus from the Scriptures to the traditions, the rules they made up themselves. And so when we're looking at Christianity today, we have to understand that things are no different today than they were back then. Now we don't have Pharisees today that are called Pharisees. We don't have people walking around today in the United States, you know, the first church of the Sadducee, you know, down the road in Maybank. We don't have that. But the principles are still the same. The structure's still there. We have people who add to God's Word, they add to the gospel. We have people who take away from God's Word, and they take away from the gospel. And so what we have to do is make sure that we understand that just because someone is sincere, just because they have a church, just because they're faithful in practicing their religion, in the name of Christianity, in the name of Christ, doesn't mean they're Christians at all. And so let's go ahead and look here. And that's hard for some people to accept. Verse 6, "He answered the saith, 'And well hath he sayest, 'Propheside of you hypocrites,' as it is written, this people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. How bid in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men?'" So we never accept the doctrines or the commandments of men as Christian doctrine. You just never do. I had a lady that her husband used to pastor the church next door to us here, the Presbyterian church. And for whatever reason, I don't know why, but after he passed away, she started coming to church here. Surprising, I didn't know why she just didn't go back to that church. But she came to church here, and she was trying to get me to follow along with trying to make me like the church next door. Well, instead of doing that, just go next door, you know, be like, "Someone from California, someone from California coming here to make us like California, just go back," you know? But, you know, she had a stole she wanted me to wear. You know, how they're like a mantle, you know, and it comes down, and she wanted me to wear her husband's stole. And I said, "Well, you know, the first thing I thought was broadening the factories and the hymns and stuff." I said, "You know, I'm not comfortable doing that. It serves no purpose, no biblical purpose at all. It's not going to make the teaching any better or anything like that. All it does is just try to attract and elevate me or something." I said, "No, I'm not interested in that." But thank you. I was trying to be very polite. And then one day, and I think this was the big one, she was a little offended. She wanted to know why we weren't practicing lint. And so she came to me. I don't know about y'all. Every time I hear someone practicing lint, I keep thinking about the lint in my dryer. But it just always comes to my mind like that. But she came to me and she said, "Why aren't y'all practicing lint?" I said, "Well, here's a better question. Why would we? Why would we? Can you take the Scripture?" Now, I'm not condemning someone practicing lint, but why would we? Why? Where in the Scripture does it tell us to practice lint? We're going to give up coffee. We're going to give up whatever, something, you know, for a few days. Where in the Scripture does it say this? Well, of course, there is no place in Scripture, so she couldn't point me to the Scripture. But you see what she was doing. She was trying to distract me from the Scripture to the traditions of the elders. And I was trying to take her from the traditions of the elders and point her back to the Scripture. And so we ended up losing her. She got offended, and that's just the way things are. But you never add to God's Word. Let's go now to the book of Acts, chapter 23. Acts, chapter 23. Remark Luke John Acts. Let's turn a few books to your right. Acts, chapter 23. And the Apostle Paul here in Acts, chapter 23, he was -- and good morning to whoever -- oh, it's Amanda. Good morning, Amanda. Good to see you tune in. In Acts, chapter 23, Paul is being judged by the established Christian religion at the time. And he's being judged by the high priest and the Sanhedrin council for preaching the gospel. So here's Christianity, quote, unquote, condemning the preaching of the gospel, condemning Christianity. No different today. For all who remember and know my story, you know that I was kicked out of a Baptist church for believing that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in what Christ has done alone. Here I'm pastoring a Baptist church now. But that church was a legalistic church. They were phariseical. They added to the scripture. And what we would call a lordship salvation church. And so it's -- no, they didn't get into all that. But the thing is, here was Christianity, persecuting Christianity. Now, you realize that not too long ago, the Roman Catholics were killing people that believed like me. Established religion killing people for one reason, because they wanted to translate the Bible into the language that people spoke and read so they could know the scriptures. Could you imagine? Well, you should be able to imagine because we're going to see them killing their own Messiah here pretty soon, in a week or so to come. So we have to understand, just because it's a well-accepted Christian denomination doesn't make it Christian. Okay? We've got counterfeit Christianity. Look now at Acts 23, verse 6. "But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees" -- in other words, when Paul realized that the crowd judging him, part of them were the liberals and the other part were the legalists -- "he cried out in the council, 'Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee.'" Now, he wasn't a Pharisee in their doctrine, but he was raised a Pharisee. He was trained as a Pharisee. "The son of a Pharisee, of the hope and resurrection of the dead, I am called in question." Now, what's Paul doing? He's gaining the sympathy of the Pharisees because although we do not believe the same on Jesus being the Christ, we do believe the same on us believing in the resurrection from the dead. The Sadducees denied the resurrection of the dead. The Bible teaches the resurrection of the dead, but they denied it. They denied angels. They denied spirits. They denied all of those things. They were liberals. And so now what we have is -- and this is going to be very fascinating -- Paul now is strategically gaining sympathy from the Pharisees so he can cause an argument between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and he's going to stand back and get out of the middle of it. Now the five is no longer going to be against them, against him, but them against each other. So watch what happens here. Verse 7, "And when he had so said, there arose a dissension between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the multitude was divided. For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit, but the Pharisees confess both." Now what happened here? Paul confesses there's angels. Paul confesses there's a resurrection. So do the Pharisees. And so now he's gained sympathy from the Pharisees on those doctrines only. Although they still denied that Jesus was the Christ and were justified by his death, burial, and resurrection. And so here's what we don't want to do. You don't team up with someone. You don't team up with another denomination or someone else claiming to be Christian just because you are united on a non-essential point, okay? Or just because you're united on part of an essential point, alright? You only team up with people who are united on the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is what has to unite us. The gospel is why Paul was being judged by these people. And so they find this common ground on some points here, yet at the same time, the Pharisees were not Christians. They denied that Jesus was the Christ. And so what happens a lot of times is we have churches that try to find things they can have common ground on. Then they overlook the things that are essential so they can fellowship with one another. Man apart from the truth that Jesus is God who came in the flesh, who lived the perfect life we couldn't live, who then after fulfilling the law on our behalf, then went to the cross and hung before God, guilty as us, so we could stand before God, righteous as him, by our faith in what he's accomplished in his death, burial, and resurrection, there is no fellowship. Because what will happen is even though we may agree with some things today, there's a lady I know, and a man I know, that are from a church that adds to God's word concerning the gospel. Oh yes, it's about what Jesus did, but you've got to do your part too. And you've got to say these words when you're baptized. It can only be these words, and if you don't say it just right, you're still not going to heaven. If you don't speak in tongues, you're not going to heaven. If you don't do this, you're not going to heaven. You've got to keep up a good lifestyle. Well now it's no longer about Jesus, it's about us. And so if I were to say Jesus is Lord, they would say, "Amen, Jesus is Lord." But we're miles apart on what it takes to stand right in the sight of God. And so there's no need in us fellowshiping here on a few things, because for all eternity God's going to separate us, because we differ on what the meaning of the cross is. Okay? Now let's look here if you would. Verse 9, "And there arose a great crime, the scribes that were of the Pharisees part arose in stroves, saying, 'We find no evil in this man, but if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him, let us not fight against God.'" Now let's move to Matthew chapter 23. We've looked at Christianity that adds to God's Word. We looked at Christianity that takes away from God's Word. The Sadducees didn't believe in the resurrection. Now if there is no resurrection, we have no hope at all. The best that we have in this world is to have a good time and then go let the worms get us in the dirt, right? So let's go ahead and look now at Christianity that looks good in public. Christianity that looks good in public. Matthew chapter 23. Let's look here down verse 1. "Then spake Jesus to the multitude and to his disciples, saying, 'The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat, all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do, but do not ye after their works, for they say and do not.'" Now when he says, "Do what the Pharisees say to do," he says it because they sit in Moses' seat. In other words, it would be like saying, "Hey, we may not agree with a judge's ruling, but they're the judge." And the lawmakers, we have to abide by what the lawmakers say here on this earth. Well, the scribes and the Pharisees, they sat in Moses' seat. In other words, they were enforcing God's law. So do what Moses says. Do what the law says. And if they make a judgment and they tell you to do it, then go ahead and do it because they're the established government for my people at this time. But understand, they're not the kind of people you want to pattern your lives after. Legally, yes. Morally and religiously, no. Verse 4, "For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers." So here's one of the things about someone that adds to God's Word. They have a tendency to bind burdens on men's shoulders. Now if you'll remember Jesus, Jesus said, "Come unto me, all ye who are weary and are heavy-laid, and I'll give you rest." And so a religion that encumbers the believer thereof, if religion puts a weight on my shoulders and stoops me down, then that is not the religion of Christianity. The religion of Christianity puts the weight of God's law on Jesus' shoulders. He then fulfills that law on our behalf. The moment that I put the burden of my salvation on my back, I'm lost. That's why Jesus said, "I will give you rest." That's why we have the Sabbath Day commandment in the Old Testament. It was a picture of after all we've done to work and to do, there's a rest that comes at the end, and that rest is Christ. Now let's go ahead and look here now in verse 5, "But all their works they do for it to be seen of men." In other words, there's a religion out there. They love to be seen of men. They love to be accepted by men. They love to be in the newspapers. They love to be at the city meetings and things like that, in the social meetings. And he says, "They do their works to be seen of men. They make broad their phylacteries." Now a phylactery was a carnal way of trying to fulfill a spiritual message in the Old Testament, spiritual law in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, the Bible said to bind the Scriptures on your hands and on your foreheads. Well, it doesn't mean to really take Scriptures in time on your forehead and on your hands. What it meant was, "How do you think, let it be guided by the Scriptures?" Whatever you do, let it be guided by the Scriptures. Well, they took Scriptures and actually stuck them on their hands and their foreheads. And some of them still do today, and you'll see their phylacteries on some of the Jews. You'll see them wrapped around their arms, and there'll be a little Scripture wadded up in there. And so he says, "They make broad their phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their garments." And I can't help but think about a lot of these liberal churches. It seems like, I mean, you'll never find an LGBTQYXYZ+ pastor that doesn't have some kind of broad stuff and maybe the rainbow hanging over them. But it's like the further away they get from God's Word, they try to make up for their lack of Biblical content with extra bling, spiritual bling. Got a big cross on you. You know, you got these broad robes and broad... Man, we don't need all that stuff. But Jesus says, "That's one of the earmarks of some of these people." Verse 6, "And love the uppermost rooms at feast in the chief seats in the synagogues." They have a poult-mobile. They like to be seen at the elevated places. They want to be called by their titles. Verse 8, "Be not ye called rabbi, for one is your master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren." Which is why, by the way, I don't have to be called Brother Richard. But the reason that people refer to the pastors in our churches as Brother, it's not because Brother is a special title. It's in contrast to calling me Father, you see. Because he says, "All ye are brethren." Even the teachers are brethren. I mean, the Apostle Paul said, "We don't preach ourselves. We preach Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for his sake." I'm a servant. I'm nothing, okay? But I preach something. And I preach somebody. I'm nobody, but I preach somebody. And so that's why we say, "Well, Brother Fulton," instead of Father Fulton, or Rabbi Fulton, or something like that. And although we appreciate respect, our job is to be like John the Baptist. We have to decrease, and Jesus must increase. Now, I've got to draw everyone's attention to the Word of God, which draws everyone's attention to the Son of God. Let's look here now. Verse 9, how about this? "And call no man your father upon the earth, for one is your father, which is in heaven." Doesn't mean you don't call your dad, dad. What he's talking about is in a spiritual sense. I don't know how the Catholics get around this, other than they probably don't bring up during Mass, you know? They probably don't mention it. That's why they didn't want the Bible translated into English, right? So don't call anyone your father. "For one is your father in heaven." Verse 10, "Neither be ye called masters; for one is your master, even Christ. But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant, and whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased, and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted. But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees," and this is where I want you to get at. "Woe unto you, not blessed hypocrites," he calls them hypocrites, "for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men." In other words, you're closing the doors to the kingdom of heaven. When people come here who don't know the gospel, or when people write into my website for help, they're trying to enter the kingdom of heaven. They're trying to say, "Look, I know I was born and sent. I'm trying to figure out the truth. How can I know that I stand right in the side of God and be accepted into His kingdom?" And here's the Pharisees and the scribes, and Jesus says, "You're doing the opposite of what you're supposed to be doing. You're supposed to be showing people the gate and the door that leads into heaven, the door, by the way, is Jesus, right? You're supposed to be showing them the door to enter into heaven and what you're doing by practicing your religion, you're actually closing the door to heaven. You're closing the door to the kingdom of God." Look what he says here. He says, verse 13, "But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer or allow, nor see them that are entering to go in." Now, that's very plain. Do you realize that Jesus is telling them, "You're not going to heaven"? Just put it in plain terms, "You're not going to heaven," and anyone who follows your religion, they're not either. Now, if I were to make a statement like that today about a particular denomination or belief system or something like that, people would say, "Oh, how judgmental you are," right? It's not my judgment. It's the judgment of God. And then we agree with that judgment, which by the way, to agree with what God says is called faith. So we're believing God's Word and preaching it to others. But again, when I or Brother Shepherd or someone at this church, when we teach that a particular belief system is wrong and is damnable, it's not because we're trying to say, "Well, we don't want anyone to go anywhere else but here." No, no, no, no. See, we've had some "A-mans" from these brothers here. I don't know where they go to church. But you know what? If they believe in Christ as their Savior and they put their complete faith and trust in Him alone for what He's done for them on the cross, their brother is just like me, okay? So it's not that we're trying to say "us" and "nobody else," but we're trying to be like Jesus and say, "It's God's Word, God's way, and any other way that adds to or takes away is no way at all." Okay? And so that's what we have to be, because the devil is going to do his best to counterfeit Christianity, to get you to eat from the wrong tree, however you want to put it. There were two trees in the garden. There wasn't a tree and, you know, a rock. They both looked similar. They both had fruit. Now let's look here at verse 14. We've got to hurry. "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayer. Therefore you shall receive the greater damnation. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you can pass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves." Again, plain speech. When he says you cross land and sea, do you know what Jesus is describing here? What we call missionaries. So you've got a religion that is so sincere, so zealous about their religion, that they're willing to send out missionaries overseas to another continent to teach their belief system. And Jesus says after all that effort, instead of making them children of the kingdom, you're making them twofold the child of hell. In other words, you've taken them from one false religion, practicing worshiping the native spirits in their tribe, to now practicing another false religion, something that calls itself Christianity, which is nothing but a perversion thereof. Twofold the child of hell. You went from bad to worse. So we have to understand that just because someone's sincere and they're practicing and they're doing this and that doesn't mean they're people of God. Now let's look at Christianity that worships money. We're going to try to wrap this up real quick. Christianity that worships money. Mark chapter 10, another false religion. How many of y'all ever heard of Jesse DePlantis? We've got a few folks. Man, he's hilarious, isn't he? That guy's, he's a kook. Man, he's got shoes. I saw him the other day, he had some shoes. He had special made with genuine gold on his shoes. He's so proud of those shoes, and he's bragging about how much they cost, bragging about his mansion, bragging about his jet airplane, private jet airplane, and how God wants him to be rich. And in Mark chapter 10 verse 25, Jesus says it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. Now that's pretty plain, isn't it, Brother Chris? That's pretty plain. Matthew chapter 6 verse 24, we don't have time to turn there, but let me give you another quote. Jesus said, "No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon, and mammon means wealth. You can't serve God and wealth. It doesn't mean that a godly person can't be wealthy, but no godly person is going to seek to be wealthy, he's going to seek to please God. And these people clearly seek to be wealthy. Creflo Dollar. What's that guy in Fort Worth? Kenneth Copeland. A bunch of these guys, they're always preaching this Christianity of money, of send us money, God will send you money. They never say, "Send Richard Fulton in his church, and may make money on God's will." He comes to us first. Right? So, or give your neighbor money and God will give you money. No, it's always going to come to me first. But Jesus says, "Man, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a noodle than a rich man to go into heaven." It doesn't mean rich men can't. Thank God they can. But we don't seek earthly riches, because when we die, they're going to go away. We have to be rich toward God. Lay up treasures for ourselves in heaven. Now, a Christianity that persecutes Christianity, and we just touched on that a minute ago, but we'll close there with the Gospel of John, chapter 11. The Gospel of John, chapter 11. And this will prepare us to get into the crucifixion of Christ. The Gospel of John, chapter 11. So a lot of people, they look, as you're turning to John 11, a lot of people look at these other religions that call themselves Christians. They think, "Man, I don't want anything to do with Christianity." But that's not Christianity. The Bible talks about a wolf that's in sheep's clothing. If you looked at a wolf in sheep's clothing, you thought that all sheep were like that wolf. You think, "I don't want anything to do with sheep." If you had a counterfeit dollar, and every time you went somewhere and you realized that the counterfeit dollar, the counterfeit hundred dollar bill kept getting rejected, you'd think, "I don't want anything to do with money." But true money will cash. It will get you your product. True Christianity will be accepted by God. True cash will be accepted by the cashier. Look here at Christianity that persecutes Christianity, John, chapter 11, verse 47. "Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees of counsel, and said, 'What do we--' in other words, 'What are we going to do? For this man doeth many miracles.'" God, Jesus. Man, everyone started following Jesus. He's doing miracles. He's feeding people. He's teaching like no man has ever taught before, and the next thing you know, they're starting to lose the following. "All the greetings in the marketplaces, all the fanfarers, now going to Jesus instead of them." Man, we can't have that. Right? And so they said, "What are we going to do? For this man doeth many miracles." Verse 48. "We will leave him thus alone." In other words, if we let Jesus keep doing what he's doing, all men will believe on him. That's not what they wanted. And the Romans shall come and take away both our place and our nation. In other words, we'll lose our jobs, we'll lose our benefits, and we'll lose our nation, because they will crown him king, and then the Romans will be upset at us, and we'll lose our place. They were ready to kill Jesus so they could keep their status quo, so they could keep their religion, so they could continue being a nation ruled by Caesar. Man, I don't want a nation ruled by Caesar or Biden. I don't want a nation ruled by Trump. I want a nation ruled by God. I want Jesus to come back and be king of kings and Lord of lords on the earth. But they were willing, they said, "We can't. What are we going to do?" And if you skip down a few verses, the Bible says from that point forward, they started to plot how they could kill him. And so next week, as we get back into God's Word, we'll look at the betrayal. We'll look at the Passover and the betrayal and the arrest of Christ. God willing, we'll see you then, and for those online, we'll see you next door in our service.