Kings and Harlots - Part 1

Hello, I greet you in the precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ and it's good to be with you wherever you are in the world today. It's 10 o'clock I think in the United Kingdom and obviously different times in the rest of the world. Our subject for these next three sessions is church and state. Now the first two sessions are connected, so while we're having two different sessions they are not two different subsets, they are just part of the same message and then the third message is separate. But I would encourage you to watch all three of them and the Q&A because otherwise you won't get the full picture. I can't give you an overview in 10 minutes. You will need to watch all three of the videos to get the whole message. So let's open in prayer. Father, we thank you for your word, we thank you for the privilege of being able to study your word and to preach your word. We thank you Lord for your Holy Spirit is able to open our hearts and minds that we may be able to understand. And we pray Lord that you would open our hearts Lord that we may understand. I pray Lord above all that you'd help us to deal with our prejudices. Lord, these are difficult subjects and they are things that people have very strong opinions about. But I pray Lord that you'd help us to understand and help us to see it from your perspective and from the perspective of the word of God. So Lord, I pray for your help and your blessing on those who listen. And I pray for your help particularly Lord on myself and also on the technology Lord that we may be able to get these things all to work correctly and to make all the connections so that we might be able to spread your word. And so we pray that you'd be with us Lord wherever we are, in Jesus' name, Amen. Alright so I want to begin in the scriptures and obviously we must take the word of God as our starting point. We can't begin anywhere else and in fact the point that I'm going to try and drive home today is that everything must be based on the word of God. So I'm going to read from Daniel chapter 2, Daniel chapter 2 from verse 31 and through to the end of verse 35, Daniel chapter 2, 31 through 35. Now I'm sure you know the story, Daniel is called in or Daniel offers to give the interpretation to King Nebuchadnezzar who had seen a dream and in this passage he is now giving the interpretation. So Daniel chapter 2 and verse 31. You O King were watching and behold a great image. This great image whose splendor was excellent stood before you and its form was awesome. This image's head was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron and its feet partly iron and partly of clay. You watched while a stone was cut out without hands which struck the image and its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze and the silver and the gold were crushed together and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors. The wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found and the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. This is the dream. Now we will tell you the interpretation before the king. You O King are a king of kings for the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength and glory and wherever the children of men dwell or the beasts of the field and the birds of heaven he has given them into your hand and has made you ruler over them all. You are this head of gold. But after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours, then another, a third kingdom of bronze which shall rule over all the earth and the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron as much as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything and like iron that crushes that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others. Whereas you saw the feet and toes partly of potter's clay, partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided yet the strength of the iron shall be in it just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile. As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay they will mingle with the seed of men but they will not adhere to one another just as iron does not mix with clay. And the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed and the kingdom shall not be left to other people. It shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms and it shall stand forever. And as much as you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay and the silver and the gold, the great God is made known to the king. What will come to pass after this the dream is certain and its interpretation is sure. So we're going to come back to Daniel in a few minutes. I just want to begin to lay a foundation. In fact most of these first two sessions is laying a foundation to the final session. And as I prayed we have prejudices, we have our own ideas as to how these things work and we really need the Lord to help us to get back to the Scripture. And that's the point is that we can only form our theology on the Word of God. Most theology today that has to do with the subject, the relationship between kingdoms and the kingdom of God, between church and state, most of this is based on tradition, most of it is based on our own opinions, most of it is based on environmental factors and it is not based on the Word of God. And so our emphasis is going to be today to get back to the Word of God and to examine everything in the light of the Word of God. Now you'll see in the passage that we read that there's references to the various kingdoms, the kingdoms of the earth, beginning with Babylon and going down to the, what I would call the reconstituted Roman Empire, the feet with ten toes of iron and clay mixed together. And then we have the kingdom of God, another kingdom. And we must first ask the question, what is the kingdom of God? How does it look? Is it physical? And of course the answer is it is not physical and yet this is the crux of the matter, is that most Christians tend to feel that the kingdom is physical, it has to be established in the world outside within the context of governments, whether they are democracies or kingdoms in the true sense, monarchies, that somehow this kingdom of God needs to be out there in the world. But in John chapter 18, verse 36, Jesus is before Pilate and of course the question is, are you a king? Pilate sees Jesus as a threat because in fact the whole trial of the Lord Jesus, the whole crucifixion of the Lord Jesus was sold to Pilate on the basis that Jesus is a threat to the Roman Empire. And so he asks the question, are you a king? And Jesus' answer is, my kingdom is not of this world. My kingdom is not of this world. Jesus' kingdom is a heavenly kingdom. It is not a physical kingdom. Now it will become a physical kingdom but only in the millennium, in the thousand years of peace. Until then it cannot be, it is not and never will be a physical kingdom. If my kingdom, he says, were of this world, my servants would fight so that I should not be delivered to the Jews but now my kingdom is not from here. Jesus says that if his kingdom was physical, then his servants would fight to defend him as the king and the kingdom. And that's a very important point because many Christians are fighting to defend Jesus, to defend his values, to defend the kingdom of God, to in fact establish these things in the earth. And yet Jesus says his servants do not fight to defend the kingdom or to set up the kingdom or to do anything to defend the kingdom in a physical sense. We do not take up arms, we do not play political games because here's the bottom line, Jesus is going to and is building his own kingdom. I'm going to come back to that thought in a few moments. So Jesus says my kingdom is not of this world. It is not a material literal kingdom. And this is exactly where the problem came with the Jews and this is why the crowds cried crucify him, crucify him. The week before they brought him into Jerusalem and cried Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And then the next week crucify him, why? Because he would not set up a physical kingdom, he would not be their physical king, he's their political king and chase the Romans into the sea. And in fact here's a statement which my American friends will understand and in fact you must appreciate that most of my perspective is from an American perspective, I've been living here now for almost 17 years and so while my roots are South African, my current frame of reference is America. But here's a statement that you can write down. They crucify Jesus because he would not make Israel great again. They crucify Jesus because he would not make Israel great again. They expected him to reestablish the kingdom, to set up David's throne, to reintroduce the prosperity and the dominion that Israel had. And Jesus said I'm not about a physical kingdom anymore, yes he will return to Israel, I don't believe in replacement theology, we'll touch on that at a different point later on. I don't believe the church replaces Israel, God will get back to Israel, he will fulfill his covenants and his promises to Israel, but that was not the time. You see because they could not understand the difference between a political kingdom and a spiritual kingdom, they crucified him. And I dare say that if Jesus came today, certainly in America, they would crucify him because he will not play their political games. He will not make America or Britain or South Africa or any other country in the world great because his kingdom is not of this world. And then in Luke chapter 17 verses 22 to 21, he was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come. This was the question all the time. Remember right in Acts chapter 1 at the Mount of Olives, just before he ascends, they ask him the question again, are you now going to establish the kingdom? He answered them and said the kingdom of God does not come with observation. In other words, you can't see it, it's not physical, it's not literal, it doesn't have a flag, it doesn't have a capital in the worldly sense, nor will they say see here or see there, for indeed the kingdom of God is within you. That's where the kingdom is, within the believer, within the body of Christ. It is not, cannot be seen, it doesn't have a capital, you can't say well there it is or there it is, because it is a spiritual kingdom. And folks, if you can get this, this is the crux of this whole matter. And if we can understand this, then our perspective and our understanding of this whole subject straightens out. Now we have a number of errors that flow from exactly this problem. The first is dominionism, and this is not a study on these things. Dominionism simply says that we must take dominion and we must rule and reign with Christ in fact what we must do is set up the kingdom, and once we have set up the kingdom, then we will invite him and he will come back again. Part of that idea then is the seven mountains, seven mountains of art and of culture and of politics and of whatever else, and that we need to take dominion of those things, and then once we've taken dominion, the kingdom will be set up. That is a totally false notion. Jesus said, I will build my church, and in fact in the passage that we read in Daniel, he says that verse 44, in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom. The God of heaven will set up the kingdom. No man is going to set up the kingdom. The God of heaven will set up the kingdom. We also have a different thing called kingdom now theology, and a lot of the prosperity thinking comes out of this idea that we are ruling and reigning with Christ now, and again it's a misunderstanding of the very things that the disciples struggled with. They could not understand that Jesus came first to be a suffering servant and then he would come as the conquering king. They wanted him to be the conquering king. We in the same way need to be the suffering servants in a sense. We are those who are servants in the kingdom today. We are not ruling and reigning with him. We will rule if we are faithful, we will rule and reign with him in the millennium, but it is not now. Now kingdom now is probably the basis of the vast majority of charismatic church theology today. That is rooted in amillennialism. Amillennialism says, well we are basically in, and I'm really taking huge shortcuts here and generalizations, please understand that, but basically we are in the millennium now. So the kingdom is already here now. And then a little more remotely is the idea of liberation theology, which I'm not going to get into. Very popular. It used to be very popular in America. I think it's making a comeback. It certainly was very, very popular in southern Africa and other parts of Africa. And that also is connected to this whole idea that the kingdom is now, that we're in the kingdom now, and that somehow we need to take possession of that kingdom. Now, I want you to see what the, what Daniel or what the Spirit through Daniel says about the, about this process and what he says about the kingdom. Now remember that this, this image represents not just Babylon and the Medes and Persians and Greece and Rome and, and the reconstituted, and it doesn't just cover those. This is representative of all time because it's going from Daniel's time, Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian empire, right through to the last kingdoms that will exist and the reconstituted Roman empire when Jesus comes. Now in Daniel chapter two, it says that the iron, the clay, the bronze and the silver, in other words, that which represents the kingdoms and the gold were crushed together, became like chaff from the summer threshing floors, and the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. The kingdoms of this earth are totally vanquished, they are totally destroyed, they are pulverized and they're blown away and they never are seen again. Now why is that important? It is important because if we're going to try to save America or the United Kingdom or any other country in the world, if we're going to try and turn that into the kingdom of God, it's a waste of time because at the end of the day, every country, every nation, it doesn't matter how big or how great or how powerful or influential it may be today, it is going to disappear. It will not exist. The kingdom of God is not a converted British Empire or a converted China or a converted anything. It is something new that God has been doing in the hearts of His people today and that He will complete and translate into a literal, physical, political kingdom during the millennium. So no kingdoms, the kingdoms of this world are not going to be somehow transformed and become the kingdoms of the Lord and of His Christ. Now I'm leaving Israel out of this picture because Israel is a totally different story and it gets a lot more complicated and I want us to focus because really our focus really is on the nations in which most of us live and I think that the vast majority, probably 99% of those who are watching today, live in some kind of country outside of Israel. So these kingdoms are wiped away. They never exist anymore. So here's the problem. Any work, any effort that you or I put into a political system in this world, whether it's America or Britain or China or whatever, is a waste of time in the same way as it is a waste of time to build up treasures here on earth where moth and rust corrupt and thieves break in and steal. It is a waste of time to invest any money or time or effort or energy into any of these kingdoms because they will all be destroyed. And the same way as if you're going to make an investment, you need to make that investment in heaven, Jesus says, where moth does not eat and thieves don't break in and steal and rust doesn't corrupt. In the same way, if you want to make an investment in something that is going to be eternal, that is going to be of value, that will last, then make an investment in the kingdom of God. And here's my frustration. So many Christians, so many churches are spending so much time trying to build earthly kingdoms. Sometimes they are political kingdoms and sometimes it's just the kingdom of their church, but they are earthly kingdoms and it's a waste of time because it will not stand. It will not last. It's going to be destroyed at the end of time. Now I want to step away from that idea and I want to speak briefly about Satan and the kingdoms of the world because we need to see and understand that the kingdoms, and we're going to speak in the next session about Christian nations, but in Luke chapter 4, Jesus is tempted by the devil in the wilderness and one of the temptations is that the devil takes him on a high mountain and shows him all the kingdoms of the earth. And then he says to him, all these are mine. If you'll bow down and worship me, I'll give you all of these kingdoms. Now that was a shortcut for him to bypass the cross because he had come to buy the souls of men, but he was going to buy it at the cross, but the devil says, look, I'll give you the souls and I'll give you the kingdoms if you just bow down and worship me. And we know Jesus' answer. But I want you to understand that Jesus does not contend with him on that statement. Jesus does not say to him, the kingdoms are not yours to give to me. Jesus accepts it as a fact that the kingdoms are in the control of the evil one and that he has the power. Now how he gets that, I'm not going to get into that, but that's the status at the time of the cross or before the cross. And I know that there are scriptures that speak about the fact that he conquered principalities and powers, and yes, those things are true. But here's where the wrong theology comes in as well. Because what we do is we say, well, you know, after the cross Jesus conquered these principalities and powers, he made an open show of them, he has put everything under his feet, and so now the kingdoms of this world are the kingdoms of the Lord. But there are two scriptures that contradict that. The first one is 2 Corinthians 4, where it speaks of the devil as the god of this world or the god of this age, the god of this world. And obviously that god is not God, it's the devil who is the god of this world. But Paul specifically says that the devil is the god of this world. And then John is even more specific in 1 John 5, verse 19, where he speaks about the fact that the whole world, in other words, the systems of the world, the kingdoms, the economic systems, the political systems, that all that makes up this world lies under the sway of the wicked one. The King James says, lies in the lap of the wicked one. He has control over them. Now I want you to look at that verse, write it down and go back to it again, 1 John 5, 19. The whole world lies under the sway of the evil one. That includes every government, every financial institution, everything that this world represents, every political party, lies under the sway of the evil one. There is nothing within this world that is Christian. You see, here's the thing, there are two entities here. There is the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the devil, call it that, the kingdom of the antichrist, the world, the church and the world. There is no middle ground, there is nothing between these two ideas. It's either the church or it's the world. In the world, the devil is in control. In the church, Christ is in control. You cannot overlap these two things and that's exactly what goes wrong when we try to marry church and state. When we try to influence the affairs of state, when we try to reform society, it's because what we're dealing with is the world and we're trying to make the world like the church. But these two things are different. And that's where the problem is, is that so much of the church is trying to make the world into the church and it can never be the church, it can only become the church. When I say it, I mean individuals in the world can only become members of the church when they are born again. There is no other way. You know what happens in the process? In the process, the church becomes like the world. So the church is so involved in the world that the world takes over the church. No wonder preachers and Christians and churches are so worldly today. Not just, and I'm not just talking about immorality or in dress, but I'm talking about the philosophy behind our thinking, behind what we say and do, behind our theology is worldly. It is human. It is earthly, sensual, and devilish because it is not the wisdom from above. It's trying to apply human principles to the kingdom of God. It's trying to change the world using human ideas instead of using God's idea. And I think you understand that God's idea is the gospel and we'll come back to that hopefully before the end. Now where does the Christian fit in to this whole thing? And again, I know that some of these things are simple and I know that you probably know this but the problem is that the reality does not seem to have dawned on the average Christian. Where is our citizenship? You see, if you're fighting to make Britain great, if you're fighting to revive whatever country, you're confessing that that's where your investment is and that's where your citizenship is. But in Revelation chapter 5 and verse 9, he says that he, the Lord Jesus, of course, redeemed us. There's that very precious and important concept. He redeemed us. In other words, he shed his blood. He did not redeem us with corruptible things of silver and gold but he redeemed us with his own precious blood. He died for us and brought us back to himself. And now you think that he's going to share himself or us with the world? He is a jealous God. He wants us for himself but he redeemed us out of every tribe, tongue or language, people and nation. He redeemed us out of those things. We say, well, he redeemed us from sin. Yes, he redeemed us from sin. He redeemed us from bondage. Yes, he did. But here he's making a political statement and I want you to see that. He has redeemed us out of our tribes, our languages, our people, our nations. He has redeemed us to himself. In other words, we are no longer citizens of our earthly kingdoms. Whether it's South Africa or whether it's Britain or whether it's wherever. He's redeemed us out of those things and brought us into a relationship with himself. In Colossians chapter 3 verse 11, a verse which is often quoted and often misquoted, I guess. But Paul is very, very specific and he says there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free. In Christ we have lost our national identity. We have lost our national identity. You see, you become a citizen of a country, either by birth or adoption. And as far as the world is concerned, I have dual citizenship. I was born a South African and therefore I have South African citizenship because of my birth. But I also have American citizenship because I have been adopted by America, if you will. I am an American citizen by naturalization. That's the only way you become a citizen of a country. We have been born again. We have been born again out of this world and that whole process of being born again speaks of the fact that we have died and been raised again. And so when I died, I died to my South African citizenship. I died to my American citizenship and I was born again and I was raised to walk in newness of life, no longer an American or a South African, but a citizen of heaven. And folk, what am I wasting time fighting for these citizenships when in fact I really, as far as God is concerned, as far as the church is, as far as the kingdom is concerned, those things don't exist anymore. When we come into the church, we are equal. There's different ministries and we understand those things. But there is no difference between South African and American and Mexican, black and white, slave or free. We are the same. We are one in Christ. We are one in Christ. We are the same because our citizenship ceases to exist. Here in America, these things run very, very deep. When I first came to this church, 16 years, 17 years ago, I had a small split, had many splits over the years, but I had a small split at that time, a number of families left. The reason they left is because they discovered that there were people who vote Democrat taking the Lord's Supper with them. This church was a Republican church. Before I came here, the pastor was Republican. He preached the Republican message just like most churches in America do, most evangelical, Pentecostal, charismatic churches do. We are not a Republican church, folk. We are not an American church. In fact, my church is one of the few churches in America that you will not find an American flag on the platform because we're not American. We are citizens of heaven. I don't care whether you're Republican or Democrat or liberal or communist. I don't care what you are. If you are born again, you are a member of the body of Christ and you are equal and fully entitled to share the body and the blood of the Lord at the Lord's table. We need to get over this racial thing. Remember, Paul sends the slave Onesimus back to his master Philemon and he says to him, Receive him as a brother. Yes, as far as the world is concerned, you are the slave owner, the master, and he is the slave. But as far as the church is concerned, you are the same. You are equal. And one of the problems they had in the New Testament church was that there were times when slaves had been gifted by God and became elders and held some kind of ministry in the body of Christ when their own masters did not. And as a Christian, that must have been, as a human, that must have been difficult. But as a Christian, it's quite possible to come into the church and to submit yourself to the eldership of your slave. Because whatever you were stays at the door, stays outside in the world. That is as far as the world is concerned. Yes, I carry passports and when I travel I have to show those passports. When I complete the census form, they want to know. I answer those questions from a worldly point of view. But when we come together as the body of Christ, we cease to be black or white. We cease to be whatever else it is. We become or we are Christians and we are only identified as Christians. Now the problem is our situation or our relationship in the world. And Peter speaks about in 1 Peter chapter 1, I think second verse, he speaks about the fact that we are strangers and pilgrims. And he writes to those of the dispersion. Strangers and pilgrims in the dispersion. In fact, I should have written the verse down, but let me look it up for you quickly. Because this is very important. 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse 1. To the pilgrims of the dispersion in Pontia, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, elect according to the full knowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, and obedience and strengthening of the body of Christ. To the pilgrims, the strangers, the sojourners of the dispersion. Now when I began to study the book of Peter and I have been teaching through the book of Peter for a while in our church here. I read the commentaries and if I swung the camera around I would show you the commentaries. And the commentaries argue about what dispersion is he talking about here. Is he talking about the dispersion of the Jews? And we know the Jewish diaspora in AD 70. Or is he speaking about the dispersion of the church? When persecution arose at the hands of amongst others Paul, the church was dispersed. And I wrestled with that question. And then when I looked at the book and I came to this conclusion. That he is not writing to Jews. And I know that is the popular interpretation of the book of Peter. That he is writing to Jewish Christians. No, he is not writing to Jewish Christians. I believe that he is writing to Christians. He is writing to us today. Where we are in the world. And he says we are pilgrims. We are strangers. I know some of my friends from Zimbabwe are watching right now. And in Zimbabwe they have this word the diaspora. The dispersion. Many of the Zimbabwean people are all over the world because they can't survive in their own country. And because of the persecution and so on. And just as those people live in foreign countries. Never fully assimilated. Never belonging. Because they are part of another nation. Peter is saying the same about us. He is saying we don't fit in anymore. We don't belong in this world. We are foreigners. We are strangers. We are pilgrims. We cannot be assimilated in the world. And that is the purpose of the book. He is now writing and he is saying how do I live in this world. When I don't belong anymore. Now here is the problem. So many Christians are so comfortable in this world. They fit into this world. They belong in this world. They are happy in this world. And that is why they want to fix and change this world. But when we are truly the followers of the Lord Jesus. We are pilgrims. We are strangers. We are sojourners. And we don't belong out there anymore. We belong in the kingdom of God. Yes we live out there in the world. And in John chapter 17 we know the passage very well. How that Jesus says that they are in the world. But they are not of the world. Now here is the thing. I know this is not a problem in other countries. But I am deeply concerned about American churches that fly the American flag. Because what they are saying is this is who we are. In the front of my church you will find. It is not really my church but the church I serve here. You will find a cross. That is who we are. That is what we identify with. That is our symbol. It is not the stars and stripes. So many churches are trying to make America great again. Others are trying to revive the great British empire. Trying to restore the days gone by. But it is not our business. It is not our world. We don't fit in there. We don't belong there. It has nothing to do with us. That is the world. We are born again. Citizens of heaven. We have a different king. We live by different rules. It doesn't mean we don't obey the rules of this world. And let me say very, very quickly in case somebody grabs hold of this message. And says well I say that you can be a bad citizen of your country. Because you are a heavenly citizen. I know that a preacher here in America went to prison. Because he refused to pay his taxes. Because he said that he wasn't a citizen of this world. No Paul is very clear about this in Romans chapter 13. And Peter also that we need to respect the authority of the government under which we are. We need to pay our taxes just as Jesus paid his taxes. We need to do our civil duty. We need to fulfill all of our responsibilities and duties as citizens. And in fact we need to go over and beyond just the basics. In order that we may not cause the name of Christ to be blasphemed. Because we are civilly disobedient. Or because we don't pay our taxes. Or because we are bad citizens and don't keep the laws. We must keep the laws. We must obey the government as long as what the government says is not contrary to the word of God. And in fact that has been a very real thing of recent with the COVID-19 crisis. Many Christians felt that they had the right to disobey the government. Many churches felt that they had the right to disobey the government. Because the government had told churches to close down. Now I'm not going to get into that whole argument. But nothing of what the government said in America and other countries as far as I know was aimed at shutting down churches. When they close down the bars and the gyms and the movie theatres or cinemas and churches along with those. For logical good sound reasons we are obliged to obey the government. If the government was to open and maybe this is a good illustration. If the government was to open movie theatres and gyms and hair salons and whatever else. Everything else open and the government says no churches cannot open. That's another story. Then we will defend our right to disobey the government and to obey God. So we are not of this world. We don't belong in this world. Any time you spend fighting to establish the kingdoms of this world. Whether it's whatever country is a waste of time. But not only is it a waste of time. Those Christians and I trust that there are none watching this morning or today whatever the time is where you are. But that no Christian who is watching is wasting time building an earthly kingdom. Because if you are you're making a statement that you belong in this world and not in heaven. So we are born into a new citizenship. We are strangers and pilgrims. How we conduct ourselves in this world needs to reflect that reality. The world needs to see these people are different. Remember God gives the 10 commands to the people of Israel. And part of the reason for those 10 commands was to make a statement and say you are different. You are not like the other nations. And yet they wanted to be like all the other nations. And the same happens in the church. We want to be like everybody else. We want to identify with our national identity. Because we are ashamed of our heavenly identity. May God help us. Father I pray that you would help us to understand. Help us Lord to re-evaluate our commitment and our involvement in the kingdom of God. And our involvement in the kingdoms of this world. And Lord we have said many things this morning and Lord maybe most of them are simple. And yet Lord the reality doesn't seem to translate into the way that churches function and operate anywhere in the world. Except in those places maybe where there is persecution. And so Lord I pray that you would help us to understand. Help us Lord to put it into practice. I pray this in Jesus name. And Lord I pray that you would go help us as we answer the questions. Help us Lord to ask good questions and give good answers. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. Music