(John) the Cleansing of the Temple

John chapter 2 and we pick up this evening in the 12th verse and in our last study we saw that Jesus along with his disciples and his mother they had gone to a wedding feast in the city of Cana in Galilee and it was there that Jesus performed his first miracle and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him and so verse 12 says after this he went down to Capernaum he his mother his brothers and his disciples and they did not stay there many days so heading down from Cana to Capernaum which would have been on the sea of Galilee they spent just a brief amount of time there and then headed up to Jerusalem and so we read now the Passover of the Jews was at hand and Jesus went up to Jerusalem the Passover was that feast that commemorated God's deliverance of the children of Israel

from their slavery in Egypt three times every year every male Israelite was to present himself to the Lord in Jerusalem during the Passover during the Feast of Pentecost and during the Feast of Tabernacles and so at the Passover feast there would be tens of thousands perhaps hundreds of thousands of Jews that would converge upon Jerusalem from all over the world and so Jesus heads to Jerusalem for this Passover John mentions three Passovers in his gospel here's the first Passover that's mentioned and then there's another mentioning of the Passover in the sixth chapter and then of course the crucifixion of Jesus took place during the Passover and so it's really from John's record of these three Passovers that we have the idea that Jesus ministered for approximately three years as public

ministry there is some debate because there's another feast that's not mentioned by name in the fifth chapter some people think that that might have been a Passover as well and that would have given the Lord a bit more time in his public ministry but it's not specified as the Feast of Passover now as I said the Passover was to commemorate the deliverance that God brought to his people Israel and you remember there as the children of Israel were in bondage in Egypt and they were being oppressed by Pharaoh and by the Egyptians that the Lord sent Moses to deliver them and there was a process of judgment that came upon Egypt there were plagues that God sent and yet Pharaoh hardened his heart and then there was that one final plague that judgment upon every firstborn creature in Egypt and in

order to protect oneself from that judgment that death that was going to come God gave instruction to Moses to instruct the people that they were to take a lamb and they were to slay that lamb and they were to put the blood of that lamb over the doorpost of their home and when the angel of death passed through Egypt on that night when he saw the blood he would pass over that home and spare the firstborn in that home so that's what Israel did then and does to this very day commemorate when they celebrate the Passover but the Passover wasn't only a commemoration of a past event the Passover was also a prophecy of a future event and that event would be the sacrifice of the Lamb of God Jesus Christ who would take away the sin of the world it was a sad day in the church's history when it

replaced biblical festivals with pagan ones you might be interested to know that the church up until 325 a.d celebrated the death and resurrection of Christ at Passover for 325 years the believers celebrated the death and the resurrection of Christ at the Passover because of course that is the time that it did take place Paul the apostle in writing to the Corinthians he refers to the fact that Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us and here's this beautiful feast that speaks of God's deliverance that speaks of God's salvation that the Christian church celebrated and enjoyed for 325 years and then at the council of Nicaea under the leadership of Constantine the Roman emperor Christians were prohibited from celebrating the Passover at that point and they began to celebrate Ishtar

which we know as Easter today which was a pagan celebration sad unfortunate that the church moved in that direction so Jesus heads up to Jerusalem and we read now in verse 14 and he found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves and the money changers doing business so the Lord Jesus comes to the temple now of course he had come to the temple before we know for certain that he had been in the precincts of the temple when he was about 12 years old Luke tells us that that at that time he was there conversing with the doctors of the law we don't know that he was in the temple after that he probably would have been he no doubt would have gone up to Jerusalem each and every year of his life but now as he is beginning his ministry he goes to Jerusalem and he comes into the temple

and he finds as he had no doubt seen already he finds that it is a far cry from what God intended it to be in the temple during the days of Jesus you would have found the bazaars of Annas as they were called and this was in the portico of the temple this was basically a marketplace that had been set up by the high priest and his family it was a place that they would use to make money for themselves Josephus the Jewish historian said Annas was a great hoarder up of money who by open violence robbed the common priest of their official revenues the Talmud records a curse which a distinguished rabbi pronounced upon the high priestly family whose sons were the treasurers sons-in-law were the assistant treasurers and whose servants beat the common people with sticks so this temple this place

that had been set apart so many centuries earlier built by Solomon the son of David of course it was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar but it was rebuilt by Zerubbabel and even at this point it had been going through a remodeling process that we'll read about in a moment but it was a place that was designated by God as a place of worship but it had been turned into a business a family business basically and we read here that they were doing business in the temple and when Jesus saw this he made a whip of cords he drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen and he poured out the changer's money and overturned their tables and said to those who sold doves take these things away do not make my father's house a house of merchandise then his disciples remembered that it was written

zeal for your house has eaten me up so Jesus was angered by this you know we don't read too often in the scripture that Jesus was angry we actually read that only in this case and in another cleansing of the temple which would take place at the end of the ministry of Jesus we read also that Jesus was angry on an occasion because of the hardness of the pharisees hearts when he was healing a man on the sabbath day but apart from that we don't really see him expressing anger but here we see him definitely expressing anger and it was anger over the fact that his father's house was being made a house of merchandise and that the people of God were being exploited that they were being taken advantage of financially you see those who came to worship needed to come with a sacrifice and it would be

quite difficult to bring your sacrifices if you had to journey any great distance some people did bring sacrifices with them but the sacrifices had to be approved by the priest so they had to inspect the sacrifice and make sure it was legitimate and then they could approve it and then it could be offered but oftentimes what they would do in ripping off the people is they would declare the sacrifices that they brought up themselves they would say oh no this this has a blemish this is not sufficient it's not able to be offered and so they would then say we have pre-approved sacrifices and you can purchase them right here and of course they would hike the price up astronomically and rip the people off through that and then there were of course the money changers people would bring their

coinage from all over the world but they had to pay the temple in shekels and so they had the money changers there giving them the temple currency and of course they were hiking up the exchange rate there as well so it was basically just a money-making deal you know that has happened over and over again in the long history of the church we've seen it over and over and over again that the house of is turned into a place of merchandising a place of doing business now for the ministry for a church there is a business element to it especially in our you know cultural situation but you know that element should be as low-key as possible and it should be run by the strictest of biblical principles but so often it's just the opposite the business element becomes the the primary focus of it i mean

how many times do you watch somebody on so-called christian television and they might preach for 10 minutes and for 20 minutes they plead for money and tell you about how desperately god needs your funds to keep this ministry going and all of that sort of thing and they bring in astronomical amounts of money and they live extravagantly off of that and it's a sad and it's a tragic thing but it's also a thing that god is very angered by and we see in jesus the attitude of god displayed toward this sort of a thing we see what his attitude is toward those who make merchandise of holy things or exploit his people his attitude is one of wrath this is an area that people really need to be careful in and take heed to because god is aware of all of this and there comes a point when he will no

longer tolerate it there comes a point when he will judge it and he did it right here he sets the example and we see it repeated over and over again throughout history god will deal with these kinds of things we have to be very careful that we do not drift into that sort of a thing peter spoke of god's attitude toward those who would take advantage of the people he spoke of those who by covetousness exploit god's people with deceptive words whose judgment he said is not idle and their destruction does not slumber you know we have an attitude today that a lot of times we don't want to speak up or be critical or you know you shouldn't say anything about that ministry or you know touch not the lord's anointed you hear that sometimes being said and you know again you find people that are

taking financial advantage of god's people and they're living extravagantly in all of this and and then if somebody speaks up about it oh touch not the lord's anointed don't judge brother that's god's blessing upon that ministry and all of that kind of stuff you know the apostle paul said that those who teach and believe and promote the idea that godliness is a means of financial gain paul said get away from people like that he said withdraw from those people because he said those are men whose minds are corrupted and they're destitute of the truth oh but we don't want to rock the boat you know so we say oh well you know let's live and we don't want to you know be speaking out against that let's just you know let's just pretend like it's not happening that's not right and there is a point

where we have to speak because of course the word of god speaks and as we're faithful to teach the word of god and to exposit it then we come across these warnings you know it's a sad thing when you see people who work hard to make their money and faithfully give their money to a ministry trusting that that money is going to be used for the furtherance of the kingdom it's a very sad thing when you see that being used for things that nobody ever intended it to be used for extravagant lifestyles excessive salaries bonuses and those kinds of things and you know sometimes what we see happening today is because the the church in america some of the modern evangelical churches have actually adapted a business model for ministry they've actually borrowed from the business world and said we want

to you know we've got a product it's the gospel we want to market that product we've got the consumer out there we've got to get our product out to the consumer and so they start to run the whole operation of the ministry like people run their corporations in this country and then because they have this marketing mentality and this business model then they start to say things well you know the chief executive officer of any multi-million dollar company has a large salary and an expense account and all of those things and therefore the pastor ought to have those kinds of things as well after all he's running a multi-million dollar organization just like some of these other things and so they justify it by making that comparison but that was my point earlier that although there is a

business element to the church we should downplay that element we should keep that as low-key as possible we definitely do not want to do something as foolish as look to the world the business world for a model for ministry it's looking in the complete wrong direction and it's resulting in men who are supposed to be pastoring shepherding leading and being examples to god's people living high above god's people and having no point of reference or contact at all because you're living on two entirely different planes and there's no ability any longer to even relate the lord is not pleased with those kinds of things and as we see jesus here dealing with it that is what he will do he will deal with it you know the reformation that took place back in the 16th century there were many things that

contributed to this reformation coming about many doctrinal things but it was actually a practice of fleecing the people of god that enraged the reformers and got them to ultimately revolt against the church what they were doing in those days is they were wanting to build saint peter's basilica they were wanting to build this massive monument in the city of rome and they had to raise money to do it and so what they did is they began to sell indulgences and what an indulgence was it was basically you could buy a person's soul out of purgatory you see the catholic church had been teaching that everybody pretty much ended up in purgatory for a period of time now if you have a loved one who died the thought of them being in purgatory for centuries was a painful thought and so they came up

with this scheme we will go out and we will sell indulgences and that's basically the opportunity for a person to free their relative from the flames of purgatory and they went all over europe selling these indulgences and that was sort of the straw that broke the camel's back that's what enraged the reformers and that's what got them finally to stand up and to really speak out it was that sort of a practice and my point is this god brings a judgment upon those things the reformation was really in many ways a judgment on that roman church because it lost a large part of its power and its hold upon people when the reformation took place you see that's what god does he will come in and he will break that monopoly he will break those things up just as jesus went in and broke these things up

and drove these men out of the temple now when this occurred we read in verse 18 that the jews and this is a reference to the leaders they answered and said to him what sign do you show us since you do these things now notice this they didn't say hey you don't have any business doing this why because deep in their hearts they knew that what they were doing was wrong so it wasn't so much you don't have any business doing this it was hey who gave you the authority to do this what what sign are you going to show to justify your actions here you know this in and of itself is really a manifestation of the power of god that this young man 30 years old approximately could walk into the temple and do what he did without being arrested without being apprehended you know the the place was filled

with the temple police and the high priest as i said he had this was his business he had power all of this you you couldn't just walk in and do this sort of thing without being arrested without being thrown in jail but this is in itself a manifestation of the the power of jesus christ as he walks in and does this and there's not a soul that lays a hand on him all they can do is say what sign do you show us that you do these things the fact that he did it was a sign in and of itself but what sign do you show us since you do these things jesus answered and said to them destroy this temple and in three days i will raise it up now jesus speaks cryptically to them here they didn't quite understand what he was talking about then the jews said it has taken 46 years to build this temple and you

will raise it up in three days now in 20 bc herod had begun to remodel the temple he did it for two reasons he did it mainly because he was he was a builder herod was an incredible builder you can go to the land of israel today and you can still find the ruins of the palaces that he built standing today 2 000 years later he was an amazing builder but he also was very hated by the jews he was a wicked oppressive ruler and he was hoping to in some way endear himself to the people so he embarked upon a remodeling project for the temple when the temple was rebuilt by zerubbabel after the time of the babylonian captivity maybe you remember reading back there in the prophecies of haggai and zachariah what zerubbabel built did not at all compare in glory to what solomon had built it paled in

comparison so much so that as they were finishing it up and there was a celebration many of the people were weeping instead of rejoicing they were weeping because they had seen the temple in its former glory and they're looking at this thing that zerubbabel built and they're thinking boy this is nothing compared to what solomon had built so herod he wants to endear himself to the jews because he was hated by them and legitimately hated by them so he embarks upon this project 20 bc it is not completed until 64 ad but now it's been in progress for 46 years and that's what they're talking about 46 years they've been working on this thing you say you're going to destroy it and raise it up again in three days but he was speaking of the temple of his body you see they didn't understand what he

was really referring to it wasn't that temple because by that time that temple no longer housed the presence of god there was a time when the the very presence of the lord inhabited the temple but that day had long passed because of the sins of the people god was grieved and his his presence departed from the temple but jesus of course he is the temple and it's interesting he uses a word here the greek word that he uses when he says destroy this temple he uses the word that would speak of the holy of holies the innermost sanctuary in the temple and of course it was in the holy of holies that the presence of god resided jesus refers to his his body as the holy of holies so destroy this temple and in three days i will raise it again but he was speaking of the temple of his body therefore

when he had risen from the dead his disciples remembered that he had said this to them and they believe the scripture and the word which jesus had said so at the time that all of this occurred the disciples themselves didn't really understand what was going on but they did remember something as jesus was turning over those tables and throwing out the money changers one of them remembered from the 69th psalm that it had declared zeal for your house has consumed me and it dawned on them at that moment that that's what they were witnessing that's what they were observing but what they didn't understand was that jesus would die that his temple would be destroyed and that he would resurrect it third three days later of course they didn't understand that for a very long time they didn't even

really understand it until after the event of the resurrection occurred and john tells us that when he had risen from the dead his disciples remembered that he had said this to them and they believed the scripture they believed that message in the old testament about the resurrection of the messiah and they believed that specific word that jesus had said they then understood it but this question what sign do you show you know it's a question that people are in some ways still asking today we hear people today say things like why should i listen to jesus christ about how i should live why him why not somebody else why should i listen to what jesus has to say about how god is to be worshipped or why should i listen to what jesus has to say about what i should believe or why should i believe

what jesus has to say over and above the religious ideas of somebody else and and people are are asking those questions today people are putting forth that same sort of challenge today what sign do you do what are you going to show us to to prove that you have the right to tell us how we ought to live and how we ought to worship and what we ought to believe and so forth and of course that sign is the resurrection why should we listen to what jesus has to say about how we're to live because jesus rose from the dead nobody else did why should we listen to him about how to worship god because he rose from the dead nobody else did why should we listen to him over and above the voices of other religious leaders because all of those men are dead they died and they stayed dead jesus died but he

rose again and you see the resurrection all through the new testament the resurrection is pointed at as being the affirmation that what jesus christ claimed about himself is the truth it's a fact the resurrection is the proof that all of his claims are true paul in writing to the romans said that jesus christ is declared to be the son of god with power by the resurrection from the dead it's the resurrection that sets jesus in a category all by himself no one else has come back from the dead and you know so it's a fairly simple issue when you boil it down to that people want to talk about this person and that person and you know this religious leader and that religious leader but why should we listen to them what did they do the the prophet of islam comes along 600 years after the life

death resurrection ascension of christ and he and his followers basically say jesus didn't die didn't rise again and we're god's new revelation and so on and so forth and then muhammad dies and forever vanishes from the scene why should i listen to him or believe what he said what what authority does he have to speak what did he bring that would convince me that his word is superior to the word of jesus i can't find a single thing and i've often asked muslims that very question how is it that as far as we can tell muhammad really did nothing prophetic all he really did was conquer people but he didn't do anything prophetic to speak of he performed no miracle the the quran admits that he wasn't a sinless person the quran admits that he had faults and problems the quran admits all of that

why would i then believe his word over the words of jesus he died and stayed dead jesus died and rose from the dead and of course the same is true about anybody else for that matter if you want to take it to the realm of buddhism or you want to take it into any other religious realm or philosophical realm what proof do any of these men or any of these religious leaders or philosophers what do they have to back up their claim they really have nothing to back it up but jesus has he has centuries of predictions about his coming into the world he has an extraordinary entrance into the world he lives an extraordinary life a sinless life a life filled with power a miraculous life and then he dies but before he dies he says i'm going to die and three days later i'm going to rise and he does the

very thing he said he's going to do i don't know why anybody would want to believe anybody else it's not the height of wisdom to do so to say the least jesus is the one with the credentials what sign do you show that you do these things destroy this temple and in three days i'll raise it up and that is exactly what has happened now what is the practical lesson of this event there is a practical lesson that i want to spend the rest of our time together considering and the practical lesson is that the lord will not tolerate sin in his temple sooner or later he's going to deal with it you know incidentally this event is a fulfillment of malachi's prophecy in the third chapter if you want to just flip back to malachi for a moment malachi is right before matthew the last book of the old

testament but in the third chapter we have the prophecy of john the baptist as being the one to herald the messiah and we have there also the prophecy of jesus coming and we have the prophecy of malachi coming malachi chapter 3 verse 1 behold i send my messenger john the baptist and he will prepare the way before me and listen and the lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple the lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple and there it is jesus he suddenly appears in the temple listen to what it says even the messenger of the covenant in whom you say you delight behold he is coming says the lord of hosts but who can endure the day of his coming and who shall stand when he appears for he is like a refiner's fire and like a launderer soap and he will sit as a refiner and a

purifier of silver and he will purify the sons of levi and purge them as gold and silver that they may offer to the lord an offering in righteousness of course there are two comings for the messiah and when he comes again he will once again come to his temple and he will once again purge it and cleanse it after the filth of the abomination of desolation and after this false system is set up he will come and he will purge it and i i think personally that during the tribulation period the the temple that will be rebuilt will be pretty much demolished once again for zachariah tells us that the messiah will rebuild the temple so jesus will come back and he will actually rebuild the temple but he will purify the priesthood at that time but that's exactly what happened in a lesser sense when he

came the first time notice how malachi refers to him as the lord whom you seek you see malachi is rebuking the people for their hypocrisy oh you say you're seeking the lord you say you're worshiping the lord but he's suddenly going to come to the temple and that's what jesus did they were ostensibly worshiping the lord oh here we are with the sacrifices and all of this but he comes suddenly to the temple who can endure in the day of his coming and he purges them he refines them but that is the very thing that he continues to do remember the church is now the temple of the holy spirit paul in writing to the corinthians reminds us of that that we collectively as the church are the temple of the holy spirit but then he also tells us that we individually he says do you not know that your

bodies are the temple of the holy spirit so we the church collectively we are the temple of the holy spirit but we individually are the temple of the holy spirit and what does the lord do in his temple both collectively and individually he cleanses his temple and there are times as i've mentioned when he will come into the church and he will do a cleansing work he will refine it he will purge it that happens you know we pray for revival we long for revival we need a revival but you know a true revival is really a purging it's a refiner's fire that comes the number one mark of a revival if you ever want to know if one's happening this is the primary way to identify it the number one mark of a revival is conviction of sin people can no longer live in sin the spirit of god comes in such a

powerful way that the people of god begin to be convicted and the sin that's been in the church and tolerated in the church and allowed is suddenly exposed and god begins to drive it out you remember peter said that judgment begins first in the house of god but this is what the lord will do he will come into his church and he will purge it he will begin to turn over tables and drive out the money changers and it's it's not a pleasant scene when it happens but when it really is the lord doing it there's no question about what's going on god is doing a work just as it was obvious that that was happening when jesus came into the temple on that day but even like then so now there will be those who will stand up in opposition to it it's interesting as you study the history of revival you find

that there were those who would stand against it all this enthusiasm that's what they used to refer to it as these people have gone over the top and they've all become enthusiastic and they would write against it and preach against it and discourage people from going around those meetings but of course they would also miss out on the blessing of god but this is what god does he purges his church you see we often wonder why why did the early church seem to have such a greater impact on their world than we're having today why is it that this small band of people who were at a complete disadvantage in so many ways was able to so radically affect their culture well one of the things you notice when you look back at that early church is that there was a purity and the lord made sure it stayed

pure he dealt with things you remember ananias and sapphira they lied to the lord what happened to them they were struck dead and you had those kinds of instances where god was working to keep the church pure and not only in supernatural ways but there was a strong commitment on the part of church leaders to deal with the sin in the camp and paul in writing his epistles peter in writing his epistles they would often point out the necessity of dealing with sin and and purging and removing people from the fellowship and things like that oh boy today you know very few people think in those terms and there's all kinds of sin that's tolerated in the church and then if you do exhort somebody or if you seek to discipline them they threaten to sue you you know then they just move off to the

church down the street and it's it's a sad thing but again the point is in the early church there was that there was that purity and that purity resulted in power and if we wonder at a lack of the absence of power in the church today i think we'll discover that it's a result of impurity it's a result of allowing sin into the church and not addressing it not dealing with it but the lord will deal with it and there are those times as i said when he moves in suddenly he comes to his temple and suddenly he begins to move and he begins to work and that conviction comes upon people and they can no longer do the things they're doing they can no longer be involved and they they have that sudden sense of something's not right i need to get right with god we need to pray for that in our midst but

not only does the lord come and cleanse the church collectively but of course he comes and deals with us individually and the church obviously is made up of individuals but jesus he's come into our lives not to you know simply move in amidst the clutter and the rubbish and try to find a place to settle in now he comes in and he says this is a mess and i gotta clean it up before i can abide here paul in writing to the ephesians he prayed that christ might dwell in your hearts through faith and the word dwell implies settling down and making his home in your heart but you see here's the here's the key he's not going to settle down and make his home in a heart that's full of filth in a heart that's given over to sin he's going to come and he's going to turn the tables over he's going to

drive out those influences he's going to come and deal with those things in our lives now here's the thing that he offers to us he actually gives us an option and it's simply this paul said it in first corinthians 11 31 he said if we would judge ourselves we would not be judged by the lord so the lord really gives us that option he doesn't want to come in aggressively and turn over the tables and do the kind of thing that we see him doing here that's that's not his first approach to things this is the way the lord is forced to deal with the situation if we refuse to deal with it ourselves that's what it comes down and that's true collectively and that's true individually you know in in the congregational setting in the in the larger picture of the church the lord will you know give

opportunity for people to realize hey this isn't right we need to change direction this is wrong we need to get rid of that stuff we need to sort it out and he will wait patiently for that to happen but there comes a point where he says okay time is up here i come and you know the same is true in your life personally he doesn't want to come in and throw things around like this he prefers to just simply say you know let's get rid of that right there no no that's that's not part of this throw that out and that we would simply say yes lord it's like david described it as god was speaking to him the lord said do not be like the horse or the mule who has to have a bit placed in their mouth and they won't go anywhere unless they're drugged in that direction by the pain of that bit he said don't

be like the horse or the mule the lord said but let me lead you by my eye or by a nod of the head that the lord would simply be able to say i don't want that let's deal with that let's take care of that let's move that out let's turn away from that let's stop that and we just say yes lord anything you say lord you bet lord take it it's yours let's get out of here it's only when we resist that it's only when we refuse that and we hold on to those things that we force jesus to come and to deal with us in a more severe fashion but he doesn't want to do that he will do it though and paul tells us that in that passage there in first corinthians 11 he says for if we would judge ourselves we would not be judged but when we are judged we are chastened by the lord that we may not be condemned with

the world so paul says you know god loves you so much in the end if you don't deal with it he's going to deal with it for you because he doesn't want you to be judged with the world but we don't have to let it go that far we can respond to that conviction of the spirit we can respond to that voice of the lord that's saying i want to deal with that and that is my prayer for myself that is my prayer for us that we would respond to that working of the spirit and that the lord might do that cleansing in our lives so that he might bring the blessing that he so longs to bring you see jesus came to jerusalem with the intention of blessing he wanted to bless them remember later he will say to them how often i wanted to gather you together he's weeping over them at that point how often i want to

do this but you would not you see it wasn't that he didn't want to bless but they would not cooperate and so the lord he is a consuming fire and he is a purifier and a refiner and that's the lesson of this part of john's gospel and may we allow him to do that refining work in our lives because it's only for the greater purpose of blessing that he does it he wants to bless but he will not bless that which is an offense to him so we have that responsibility to get those things sorted out and as we wrap things up tonight we want to have an extended time of worship tonight as we are having now occasionally every other week we're doing that we want to do that tonight and just give an opportunity as we wait before him in worship an opportunity for him to deal with things in our lives that we

can confess these things and get them out of our lives so we can move ahead into that blessing that he has for us and so tonight may that happen here among us let's pray lord we thank you for your faithfulness to come and to cleanse our lives from the things that are unpleasing to you and the things that are a hindrance to the blessing that you want to bring to us and lord tonight we want everything laid open before you and lord we pray that your spirit would move upon us and anything that needs to be thrown out of our lives anything that needs to be dealt with holy spirit we pray that you would do that work among us this evening lord we pray for those that might have gathered with us that have not yet surrendered their life to you we pray that they would understand that you are the

ultimate authority on spiritual matters and that what you've said is absolutely true and you prove that by rising from the dead help them lord to embrace you tonight so moved by your spirit during this time we pray in jesus name amen