In this sermon, the speaker addresses the need to address various issues and teachings in the church. They emphasize the importance of preaching the gospel and encouraging individuals to be born again as the solution to societal problems such as abortion, transgenderism, and moral corruption. The speaker also discusses the topic of spiritual warfare, highlighting the misunderstandings and false assumptions surrounding it. They emphasize the need for biblical practices and caution against mystical and superstitious beliefs. Overall, the sermon emphasizes the importance of staying true to biblical teachings and addressing societal issues through individual salvation.

Greetings to all of you. Well, it's been a few years since I've been up here for the regular Bible School sessions and I consider it a privilege to be able physically and to be able to do this again here this year. So, thank you all for being here. I certainly greet you in the precious name of the Lord Jesus here. Shall we bow our heads for prayer? Our Eternal Father, we want to thank you from the depth of our heart for these young people that you have gathered here from across the United States and Canada and other parts and are grateful, dear God, that there is enough of hunger and thirst for the things of God that they would take a week of their time to be here. And I pray now that you would anoint us with the Spirit of God to be able to speak truth into their hearts and ears that they may hear the Word of the Lord and be inspired and be set on fire to do the things that are right and good. And that they may take something along home that may be able to guide them in their course of life as they look into the future. We thank you again for the privilege to do this and pray for your help from the depth of our heart. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Let us turn our Bibles to Jude, verse 11 and 12, 13. We'll give that as an introduction from the Scripture. As you know, our subject this afternoon is on the charismatic movement, the teachings, how do I have it listed there, the history and teachings of the charismatic movement. Now I hope that I will not be an offense to anyone. I have had a certain amount of involvement in some of the things that I'll be speaking about myself over the years. And I am very concerned about this. It's been a burden on my heart for over the years. I have just seen wave after wave go through the area here and other parts of the country where I have been traveling. I remember as a boy about 16 years old, just newly converted, where my neighbor, a young man just a little bit older than I, got swept up in this thing and came to see me. And of course, I think was trying to influence me to take that route. But through the years, I would say, like I said, wave after wave of the charismatic movement has come through the county here. Take many people that I have known, loved ones, relatives, friends, that today are, I don't know, some of them may have just given up completely. Some are still in the charismatic movement. And others, I don't know where they're at. So that's the burden of my heart here this afternoon. I have a lot of ground to cover. And it's very difficult to me to know what to cover and what not to cover because there are so many issues. And so many doctrines and teachings that really need to be addressed at a time like this. It's going to be a little heavy, a little bit of strong meat for some of you who perhaps are not directly involved in a movement or the teachings of it. But I think if you listen carefully, you will hear phrases and statements and concepts that you will be amazed how close they'll come home. Because, and I'll show that on my diagram on the board in a minute here. First, my introduction. There are a few topics in Christianity that are as clouded by misunderstanding, false assumptions, bad information, unbiblical practices, and mystical superstitious beliefs as the subject of spiritual warfare or what has been brought to us by the charismatic movement. Consequently, the subject creates some passionate and oftentimes heated response from the people who have invested in the certain practices, techniques, and modern conventions. I would probably say that there are some people rather disappointed, I think, that I'm here doing this today. While preaching through various scriptures here, there is so much. Let me first say this. Let me first quote some of the scriptures. My subject I'm going to call Clouds Without Water, taken from Jude chapter 11, and I'll read that scripture this time and a few others related to it. Woe unto them, for they have gone the way of Cain, and talk about those that have fallen away and backslidden in their Christian life and experience. They have gone the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the heir of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Korah. These are spots in your feasts of charity, while they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear. Clouds they are without water, carried about with winds, trees whose fruit withereth without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots, raging waves of the sea, forming out their own chain, wandering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. Very similar in 2 Peter 2. Then also, but anyway, my title this afternoon is Clouds Without Water. Clouds Without Water. And then let me turn to 1 Peter 4. The first few verses there, Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, or demons, some would say in translations, speaking lies and hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron, and it goes on down describing that. 2 Thessalonians, also I won't turn to it, but it talks about in the end times there would be a strong delusion that men should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who loved not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. And I wonder many times whether this very thing I'm talking about here this week is perhaps at least a partial or maybe even a major fulfillment of that very scripture. Matthew 24 likewise talks about how we should take heed lest any man deceive you. Because there will be many false doctrines, false Christs, false prophets that will go out into the world in the last days to deceive many. Let me continue. Obviously this is a very heated or controversial and heated subject in some circles. Spiritual warfare is a very popular topic. A quick search on Amazon website for spiritual welfare yielded over 2,700 products. If you think that this is a lot to digest, don't bother Googling the words and trying to sort through all that the internet has to offer. Google's results for spiritual warfare yielded 6,310,000 results. If you think that this is a lot to digest, excuse me, I had quoted that, where can a person hungry to learn about the spiritual conflict in which we are involved turn to find answers? Searching for books on the title is likely to lead you into a swamp of very confusing waters. Or may I say clouds without water. You're most liable at least years ago. It's not so much anymore but yet we don't have enough of good Christian bookstores around here to really know what they're promoting since a lot of ours have closed and moved on. The more general bookstores that used to have these materials but the shelves used to be full of them. If you really want to look into it, you may pick up or you may have picked up books from many who have been very confused such as Neil Armstrong or Neil Anderson. And there are just so many like that that have been out there to try it too. Years ago the church here at Loyola was deeply influenced by Rebecca Brown on a book called He Came to Set the Captives Free and later on another one called Prepare for War. And took the church pretty strongly with influence or kind of by storm I would say only to find out in a few years to come that it was a book written with sensationalism. It wasn't true. There were some major, major flaws in the whole story and philosophy there of working with those who were trying to find their way out of Satanism and were possessed with many demons. You will find a dozen different approaches to spiritual warfare from hundreds of different authors if you scan around for it. There is an ever-present hunger for teaching on the subject. Christians young and old, new and seasoned want to know about angels and demons today. They want to know about the spiritual struggle in the heavens that scripture describes. I think Thomas Ice has a book overrun by demons. I have a copy of it. I didn't pull it this time. I read it some years ago, but pretty much describes what has happened today. And I preached the message sometime back here on doctrines of demons, which I described a lot of how the overemphasis of the demonic has flooded the churches far and wide. Books and teachings which promise deliverance from demons, victory over sin, and triumph in the spiritual battle. Now I'm going to show you here a few things that is my conclusion or my persuasion. I'm not going to ask for a raise of hands, but I would guess in a crowd this size from where all you're from, you probably have had some influence from these books, teachings, ministries over the years. Much of what is taught in Christian circles concerning spiritual warfare is not found in scripture at all. Much of it is pagan, superstitious nonsense. Much of it consists of unbiblical techniques which rely upon the scripture taken out of their context and twisted. Some of it is pure tradition, things that have been taught or heard preached, which have never been tested by scripture. Error is rampant in this realm, and I don't think it's by accident. I believe the enemy of our souls would love to get us off track and trip us up or distract us with methodologies that are unbiblical, unprofitable, and unproductive. If Satan can mislead a Christian concerning true biblical spiritual warfare, he can neutralize the Christian effectiveness and in effect keep him out of the battle entirely. There is a subject where Satan has vested interest in confusing, misleading, and deceiving God's people. I'm saying this is the subject. Consequently, this is a subject where discernment and clear biblical thinking is desperately needed, and I don't understand why there's so little discernment today. How can ten thousands of people sit in a meeting and see and hear some of the things they hear, and nobody sit down and compare what they're hearing and what they're seeing with the word of God and the examples given to us in scripture and not be alarmed? I just can't figure it out. That's why I think that it may be the strong delusion that men should believe a lie. But here's the secret. It's because they love not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. And if you follow back into those circles, you find out that there's a lot of pleasure in unrighteous things, a lot of worldliness that are grossly unrighteous, and a lot of deception that has come down through the ages or through the years, especially in the last 50, 60 years that have done so much damage. But it seems like people have lost their minds, of which they can't examine things or prove things by the scripture as to whether they're true or not. And that is my burden today. Much of it is just, like I said, superstitious nonsense. Error is rampant in the realm, and I don't think it's by accident, like I said. The approach that people take toward this subject runs the gamut from denial to delusion. From apathy, some of you sit here and perhaps you say, you don't care about it. You wonder why I may be excited or burdened about it. From apathy to zeal, some people deny that Satan exists. Even others see a demon behind every bush and under every stone. I heard a preacher, well acquainted with me, that I listened to his message the other day that said, you say a demon behind every bush, I say six of them. Some folks don't give a passing thought to Satan, his activity, or his ploys. Others are so preoccupied with the demonic that they hardly have time for anything other than battling demons. Seems like they're constantly in that battle, and that's what they consider spiritual warfare. They live in constant threat, fear, and even terror of their unseen enemy. If you're here today and that's your condition, I'm hoping this week, you can be relieved of that and find that you have been deluded or have been misinformed or somehow had access to where you're afraid constantly that demons are influencing you or have influenced you or are getting an advantage of you or whatever. I believe many Christians lack a full and functioning understanding of what spiritual warfare truly is and how it is to be waged. So much nonsense being taught across the Christian landscape. It is no wonder that God's people are confused. I hope and pray that the time and energy invested in this may be used by God to call his church to scripture as a guide for waging an effective spiritual battle. We must go to the Bible and ask, what am I told to do in order to be an effective soldier in the spiritual battle? When we ask that question and allow the Bible to speak for itself, we avoid the pagan mysticism, the faithless superstition, and the terrifying preoccupation with the demonic. We avoid the unbiblical practices that have somehow wedded themselves to the church. Some people would say that, well, the demons themselves have manifested and have answered some of these questions to people. But let me assure you that they are liars. The truth is not in them. And it is never sound to take what they would say to be true. They are a poor foundation for theology. Let me illustrate a few things why I think this is so important. Historically, we have the Catholic Church that pretty much reigned, even though the apostasy from the early church was gradual from Constantine on through. So we have, we'll put the Catholic here. Then we have the Protestant Reformation that came in 1517. And of course, through Ulrich Zwingli and Martin Luther, developed into the Protestant Reformation. And then we have what we appreciate a lot is the Protestant Reformation, that there were individuals not satisfied and felt that these men did not go far enough back to the Bible, back to the beginning, back to the early church. And that gave birth to the Anabaptist movement. And some of you might be offended a bit or negative about calling yourself an Anabaptist for various reasons and just want to be a Bible Christian. But I'm wondering if I would give you this writing marker here as to where you would put the charismatic or Pentecostal charismatic movement, it would be interesting to know where you would put it. But I'll show you where I'll put it. It has influenced everybody, nearly to say. Major influence to the Catholic Church, even to the point where Pope John Paul in the 60s, I think, gave approval to get involved. Priests began to speak in tongues, got the baptism of the Holy Ghost, so to speak, which was a major doctrine for the charismatic movement. And so we have the Catholic Church getting involved. And even though they go on doing the Mass, elevating Mary as the co-redemptrix of Christ and the mother of God and so on, you have all the air of the Catholic Church going right on. But just adding the baptism of the Holy Ghost, speaking in tongues, being slain in the spirit, and so on within the Catholic Church. Also, along with that, we have out of the Protestant Reformation, which there we have a broad range of the Wesley's, and I'll give that in some of the history here, who began to teach the second work of grace, which developed into the baptism of the Holy Ghost for them. And I personally, as a very young Christian, was at a camp meeting at 16 years of age where the second work of grace, or the baptism of the Holy Ghost, was taught in a major way. And I was very confused. I was only a Christian about a year, six months or a year, and I didn't know what to do with this. People were all over the altar wanting that second blessing or that second experience. And so that had a major move into the Presbyterian, many other Protestant bodies, and the Wesleyan movement, the holiness movement, which because of John Wesley teaching entire sanctification, or the second, third work of God in your life in order to reach entire sanctification, and I'll go over some of those details in the history. And so the charismatic movement then came out of that in the Azusa Street Revival, and even before that some, when speaking in tongues, began to surface. And so we had the Wesleyan holiness movement teaming up, which the charismatic movement kind of came out of that. And I just want to say this. You may be sitting here today and be wanting a deeper experience with God in your own life. And for many of you that are at that point, it's very possible that you need that, that there is something more for you and something more that is needed. But let me tell you that there's a lot of emotional deception out there concerning this whole subject that I'm hoping I can clarify as we go through scripture. But my personal persuasion after approaching 60 years of a Christian, and like I say, having gone through wave after wave of this kind of thing, even to this day I'm having to fight this thing by friends and relatives and family members and acquaintances for years that are getting caught up with this thing and once again going down a road of deception and delusion out of it. I will say this at this point, that even though there is a new birth experience, it is very definite when you make a decision for Christ, it's very obvious that many times we don't have all that we need. You know, even though we should have the only way conversion ever takes place is if we get the Holy Spirit, and from there it is my own persuasion that you should be able to grow in grace and wisdom and knowledge of God and continue to increase your relationship with God, His Word, holiness, godliness and so on and move forward in your Christian life. But they experience that you kind of have an up and down experience and all at once in seeking after God you get a second blessing or a baptism of the Holy Ghost and of course some would say that then you don't sin anymore, you have entire sanctification, you have the baptism of the Holy Ghost, you have equipage or power for ministry and that's the way it is often taught. And some have actually made that a third and fourth work which I'll explain when I go through the history. But I just want to say, if there is a need, if you are in failure in your moral life or your thought life or your behavior or whatever and you realize that you do need a deeper experience in relationship with God, I am not here to discourage that at all. That is right and good and the scripture will definitely guide you into a greater and deeper sanctification if you continue on that path. The question is how to get it and the right way to get it so as not to be deceived. The deception behind this second work is great. I mean I've sat with people who have claimed to have it and they don't want to acknowledge in humility their mistakes or failures anymore because after all they have the second work of grace, they don't sin anymore and they couldn't acknowledge it and therefore there was a spiritual pride about them, they weren't honest with the reality of where they were at and so there is a certain class personally I believe of deception that goes with this second work teaching or the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Furthermore I would say I don't believe the Bible teaches that you get a water baptism or a baptism of truth when you are born again and that later on you actually need a second baptism of the Holy Ghost. I don't believe the scripture teaches that. What I would rather suggest to you today and hopefully this week you can accomplish in your life. If you are born again, that's a blessing. If not, then I'm hoping you can get born again here at Bible School, it wouldn't be the first time. Many times in Bible School we have had actual first time conversions. Young people who have come here who were never clear with the Lord, who never had assurance, who never had victory over sin, who were confused and they were trying to find their way and because of the preaching and teaching of the gospel they reached out in faith, belief and were born again. What should happen as I understand and like to teach is that there should be a growing in grace with God for the rest of your life. There are some ups and downs and some failures in your early Christian life. That's why I made the line the way I did a little bit. But if you're sincere concerning your faith in God, there should be an ever onward confessing of wrongdoing and sins and confessing your faults one to another. And we hope you'll have the liberty to do that in your cell groups here this week or just with one another or perhaps a counselor in an evening service or whatever where you just want to pour your life out, you want to acknowledge your failures, your sins and get right with God and make some real progress here. But that is not the end. That is not entire sanctification. That is not the second work of grace. It may be a second work but you may need a third and fourth and fifth throughout life. Never stop growing in wisdom and knowledge of God. Never stop in understanding. Never reach a utopia or a spiritual pride that you think, now I've got it, I've got it and therefore. I mean in some of these tent meetings or big meetings and this was out at Roxbury, Pennsylvania where I was at a Brethren in Christ annual meeting there and that's what was happening there. If they were at the altar for the second work and for some reason travailing on the floor, begging and pleading with God for the second work, some of them until their elbows were sore because they were seeking that second blessing. And there were times that people would jump up in emotionalism and say, I've got it, I've got it, I've got it. But if you would have followed their lives, you would see there were other failures that happened in them in true reality. Nobody can say, I've got it to the point where there is no more temptation and no more flesh to deal with and no more opportunity to sin. I think that is a delusion and a deception and I would say, don't go down that road. Don't go down that road. Rather, if you need another experience or even a third one or whatever you want to say, kind of a breakthrough where you need to give something up in your life and you need to crucify the flesh afresh, maybe with areas where you have compromised again with temptations of the world, that is thankworthy to God if you have that need. But then come before God and take those issues that God reveals to you like that and give them to God and overcome and move forward and move on. The other thing I believe is it is right to seek God's grace and work in your life for ministry. Perhaps God does have a call in your life, male or female, for the work of God. And you labor before the Lord that God would touch you in a way that you have the ability to witness in a greater way or do a missionary work or service work somewhere where it demands a real sacrifice. That is good. But I personally, I like the idea much better, much safer, to go the route of progressive sanctification, always going onward, upward, stretching forth, as long as you live. I love the truth. And I, at my age, still love the idea of learning something new and perhaps focusing in a greater measure on some specific area of my life where God puts His finger on. We should never, never be at a place where we don't think that is necessary anymore. But now, getting back to the influence, if I, and I'm going to be doing this some, if I would just give you some of the quotes and statements and concepts that have come from the charismatic movement and have influenced the entire world, you would say this influence can be found, even though it started in a small way, in America and a few places like that, it has just, has its fingers everywhere. And the concepts are of spiritual warfare, being over-conscious of evil spirits and demons, superstitious things, you know, there's so many things. If I would talk to, give you a list, and I don't have it with me today, give you a list of some of the major points that have happened in the charismatic movement. Speaking in tongues, uncontrollable laughter, slain in the spirit, and so on. I could name, there's probably seven or eight of them. And I would list them on the board, I would say, now what does that sound like to you? And most of you would say, well that sounds like the charismatic movement, but you know it's identical to the Hindu religion? They have it all. They speak in tongues, they get slain in the spirit, they have very mystical, esoteric experiences, and so on. It's just amazing to me that nearly all the things that the charismatic movement has adopted as norm is also in the Hindu religion. But anyway, now we're going to go in this influence. Just take the issues of music. And I'm not here to speak a lot about music, I just have to mention it. But how, who, in Lancaster County or the entire United States, has gotten rid of the hymn singing and brought in contemporary music and even, that reminds you more of a rock concert than it does a hymn sing. And that has happened in Mennonite churches all over the county here and across the U.S. It has happened in many, many places. And who's the fault of the whole thing? Where did the influence come from? To put the hymn books away, put the screen up front, sing choruses that are extremely repetitive? Charismatic movement. That has brought it into all these churches and has gotten rid of the sober, traditional worship service. Now for a while here in the county, the Mennonite churches, and that was a little more of the conference type or liberal churches, they had two services. The older people just couldn't handle the new service of emotionalism and swaying and raising of hands and singing choruses and what have you, so they'd have a service earlier where they would sing the hymns and then they'd have a service later that was a contemporary service influenced by the charismatics. And finally, the early service was put away for the old people. And now you can go into services just miles from here, a couple of miles from here. They'll give you earplugs when you come in the door because you realize you might need them. Where did that come from? The charismatic movement. And it's not of God. I do not believe that God is in it. So there are a lot of things that we get to, but for myself, I have to admit that when some of these things hit us in the early years at charity, there was some powerful influence. Men came in among us and advocated some of these things. And the next thing you know, people were anointing doorposts and cars so they'd start, perhaps, when they wouldn't want to start, or with oil and just all kinds of various things like that that I remember that actually took place. And I begin to question and wonder, what's going on here? Where does this influence come from? And just many other things. I would like to say at this juncture, we must build our understanding on spiritual warfare on the Bible and the Bible alone. When I began to see these things all around me, and in many places that I traveled I would pick up the dust of this stuff, I began to say, well, there's nothing like that in the Bible. The apostles never did that. There was no slaying in the spirit. There was no endless babbling, just speaking in tongues that no one could interpret, and no one understood, even though the Bible clearly said that it can't be done in the public service unless it is interpreted, yet it seemed like in just a short order people were speaking in tongues in the service and nobody bothered to interpret. And that's going on today. Likewise in churches we love and have appreciated in the past. And they just overlook it. And so it's not going by the Bible, not going by the pattern of truth. Search the Scriptures, the Bible says. Be noble Bereans and examine whether these things are so or not. Two books that I would like to mention here, well, here's some things that I'm wondering how many of you have heard. Preying a hedge of thorns around something. And I think some of you at least know where that comes from. Naming demons. Renouncing past generational curses. Binding and rebuking Satan. Two books of Christian fiction were setting the Christian world on fire, This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness by Frank Peretti. I remember so clearly when a young Amish couple got converted in our midst and it's just a matter of short order they got a hold of these books. And just like that their mind was just bent on what they had learned from Frank Peretti rather than from the Scripture or from a sound biblical teaching. Books by converted occultists were passed around all over the place, which like I said was Rebecca Brown's books. He came to set the captives free and prepare for war. People read them and when I read that I just, I remember that. I couldn't believe that this is, I just had a check in my spirit whether it was real. Actual acquaintance of mine that I knew for many years was so taken up by it that he moved to California to try to help her with her deliverance ministry and found out there was a complete farce in the whole thing. And he had her moved back home, it wasn't real. There was just a lot of sensationalism. Made her a millionaire in selling a million books or what have you. And deceiving a lot of people and putting them on a path of being so conscious of demon possession and demons and all these kind of things. Generational sins was a big one. Binding Satan in prayer and pleading the blood of Jesus over people, places and things. This one testimony I have here says that it came when I finally realized that what I was learning from scripture in my classes did not match what I was learning from these books. And he began to question and to think about these things in a major way. Well, here's another one. The idea is that because we have opened the door by certain sins that we have committed, we have given ground to Satan. Sounds real good. And so whole seminars start up in taking back the ground that Satan took from you. Well, there's probably a sense of truth to it. I realize that we can get involved in things where, occultic things especially, and others where we open the door to Satan in a wrong way and have some bad repercussions from it. But the idea is given that there are so many areas in your life that Satan has influenced you and has affected you either by your parents or grandparents or great-grandparents and you have direct effect from that. Or whether you have opened the door yourself and you need to deal with that specifically by going back and researching what your grandparents or parents or whatever family line were involved in and specifically deal with that in order to get free from it. And I don't believe that. I don't think that's right and I'll probably talk about that later. So, that was a major thing. Another one was territorial spirits. A teaching within the charismatic movement had a major influence that certain demons are over a certain territory. And so a whole bunch of Christians, for instance in Miami, Florida, gathered together and bound hands together and walked around the big area of the city over days or weeks or whatever trying to wrestle and deal with a demon over Miami. And the idea was given that there's a demon over that territory who is responsible for all the wicked things going on in Miami. And the only way we could ever deal with that is we have to wrestle that demon down in the name of Jesus by territorial prayers and prayer walks. You ever hear about them? Prayer walks and other things like that where we unanimously get together and deal with that demon. And supposedly the result of that is that a major revival breaks out in the city of Miami and people by the thousands or hundreds or thousands get converted. Well, they did it and I never heard of any results whatsoever. Other people were going on the border of Canada, down through the Rio Grande River in Texas and Arizona, New Mexico, pounding states in at the border and claiming the territory of the United States for God and wrestling in prayer against the demon that may have control over this area and may be influencing people for the wickedness that was ever increasing. Men spent thousands, I would guess tens of thousands of dollars to travel to those areas and go into a motel at the border, close to the border they could. They'd get up in the morning and pound a stake into the flowerbed at the motel and claim the area for God down along the Rio Grande River and down just wherever around the border of the United States hoping to make this nation a godly or a Christian nation and being able to wage warfare against the devil and against the demons who had territorial rights over that. So much more could be said about that. Strong delusion. It meant nothing. The sin just kept going. And you all know what happened. Abortion went through the roof. Now the transgenderism, the homosexuality, the corruption, the moral corruption everywhere just went right on unchecked. Let me tell you, that is not the way to deal with it. The way to deal with the problem in Miami is to take to the streets and preach the gospel and encourage people to get born again and to forsake their sin one at a time. That's the way to do it. If you have a burden for the way America is going our only hope is in getting people born again individually. Well, my time is running out in my introduction. And so I would just leave you with that. It has been an eye-opener for me. And God has helped me a lot to try to sift through these things and try to stay as biblical as possible. And that's what I encourage every one of you to do. If you have had influence in those areas that I mentioned I beg you to take another look at it and deal with it and get on the sanctification road by the scripture to live in holiness and righteousness. I like what Titus 2 says there how that in this present world can somebody quote it for me? 2.11 Godly and righteously in this present world. Yeah, that's right. And that's what needs to happen. And the formula is very clearly in the book. And we simply become students of the scripture. We look at what was taught us by the early church and the epistles especially of Paul and Peter and John and we are able to follow them in the examples that they gave for this. So may God help us as we hopefully tomorrow morning go into some of the history of where all this came from and how it has found its way down to our very churches. So thank you and God bless you. Thank you for listening to this message. We trust that it has been a blessing to you. 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