The Church - Part 9 — Les Wheeldon

Satan’s Attack on the Heavenly Church

Well, we've looked at the church and we've looked at the ministry of the church and the truth that the church is a place of spiritual power through the fact that it is God's house of prayer. And of course, we cannot expect that Satan would leave the church to flourish and develop without our provision.

Especially when we consider that the church is the focus of God's work in the earth. This is the place of God's power and this is the focus of Satan's attack. And we've said various things. For example, we've said that the church is a heavenly body, a heavenly community of people.

We are seated in the heavenlies. If you look at the Ephesian letter, which is particularly about the warfare of the church with the powers of darkness, you can see there that the church is seated in the heavenlies.

It is to walk worthily of its heavenly calling in real practical life. And we are to stand against the powers of darkness in intercession and prayer. This is the church. If a church is passive and not engaged in spiritual warfare by its life, by its walk, then it is not attacked.

Churches are not particularly attacked if they are not a threat to the powers of darkness. But if a church is prayerful, spiritual and making advance in spiritual realms, then there is going to be serious attack.

And the aim of the attack is to bring the church out of the heavenlies into earthiness, out of prayerfulness into dullness of mind, of spirit, of life. The devil does not want us to be quickened and alive in our thinking, in our spiritual life.

He does not want you to know a place of real prayer and of powerful prayer. He doesn't mind what red herrings you get caught up in. He'll love that, because you can get caught up in all kinds of interesting sidelines.

That will please him. But if you really get on to know a place in prayer, you will be attacked. And so will churches. Now when you turn to the history of the church, we can turn to the first book of the history of the church, which is the book of Acts.

Other books have been written since, not inspired. But there are other books written about the history of the church which are not inspired, but which are as instructive in their supply of examples of the same principles at work.

If you read church history, you are looking at the outworking of the continued history of the church. And one of the best books you can read on the history of the church is this book here, The Pilgrim Church by Broadbent.

There are certain books which I would say are absolutely essential reading for Christians who have got thoughtful minds and ability to read. One of them is The History of the Reformation in England by Daubigny.

And it's two volumes, it's about 400 pages each volume. It looks awful, but it's actually one of those books you can't put down for all 800 pages. It's absolutely compelling reading. And I do recommend you read it.

That is the history of the church in this country, particularly, from the beginning right through and especially concentrating on the time of the Reformation. But it gives the history of Christianity in this country.

And it is quite compelling. It's one of those books that I have no difficulty in reading. I'm not the world's best reader. I do read a lot and I can enjoy books, but when you get a book like that you know you've found gold.

And so I recommend you read that. And the other book that is also compelling, it particularly gives you some history. Some chapters you will find duller than others, but many chapters in this book are absolutely engaging.

And you should read this book, The Pilgrim Church. And I'll quote from it tonight. But we're in the Book of Acts for the moment, and we can see there that the attacks on the church, and I may have pointed this out to you before, the church was attacked from the beginning of its existence.

And the attacks in the Book of Acts begin in the third chapter, or really the fourth chapter, when they were preaching and they were arrested for their preaching. And Satan's attack on the church is to intimidate the church so that we would lose our confidence.

You know it says in the Hebrews, cast not away your confidence. And the temptation in the Book of Acts in chapter 4, the first temptation was to lose their confidence in God and to cease to witness boldly about Jesus Christ.

There's no doubt that that attack is as real and as powerful in Britain today that we are being intimidated so that we may not speak boldly about the name of Jesus. Remember a church in London, I don't know which of the boroughs it was in, you can guess which borough it was in, but they were ordered to remove a sign from before their church which said, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life.

Why were they ordered to remove it? Because it was exclusive of other religions. All right. And such things are typical of the attack of Satan against the bold witness of Jesus. And there's no doubt that the devil is the enemy of the bold witness of the person of Jesus Christ.

And if he can make us frightened and lose our confidence, you see, why do people stop talking about Jesus? Well, they actually begin to accept some of the attacks as having grain of truth. In other words, they will begin to accept them.

Well, maybe others do have a right to their own point of view. What you are saying by that is others have a right to go to hell. Of course, if you put it in those terms, you begin to realize that we are those who hold the key for eternal life for all men.

And if we lose our confidence in the truth of the gospel, and the power of the gospel, and the truth that there's only one name by which people can be saved, we must not lose this deep conviction. And that's the first attack.

Sin, Compromise, and Division in Acts

And the second attack is in Acts chapter 5, when there was sin in the church, and there was compromise in the church. And if Satan can make people sin and compromise in their personal life, they will lose their heavenly communion with God.

We are not to sell our birthright for a mess of pottage of Esau. We are not to sell our heavenly awareness of God for passing carnal pleasure. Of course, in that sense also, to obtain the awareness of God, to enter into it, there must be a forsaking of the flesh and of its shallow superficial pleasures in order to enter in to the real knowledge of the Holy One.

The third attack in the book of Acts is concerning the arguments that arose among the people of God because they were jealous of each other. They believed that one was being favoured of another, and so there began to be murmuring and division and so on.

And one of the great, and perhaps the greatest attack of Satan against the church, is division, and to make Christians speak ill of one another. There may be reasons why a person can be criticised, maybe legitimate reasons.

You know that it is wrong, and I would forbid anyone ever to criticise another person, publicly or privately. If someone, say we had a church meeting, and began to criticise a member of the church, or another church, publicly, I would, lovingly I hope, restrain them, and say that is not permitted.

It is not permissible to criticise any person, publicly or privately. You have not got that right. You may say, well how do I deal with somebody whose life isn't right, or I don't like their attitude.

Well the Bible has laid down clear guidelines for you and me to deal with problems in another person's life that is troubling you. And the answer is, you do not criticise them, you go and meet them, and talk to them, to see if they can be corrected.

And thereby you also see that it must be something substantial. You wouldn't go and say to somebody, I don't like the colour of your pullover. And tell them. You would have to have a real reason, and you would have to have some evidence, some actual thing to point to.

I remember once someone saying to me privately, you are horrible. And I thought, well, I'm very sorry about it. And I apologised for it, and I didn't realise what I'd done, but they said that you're horrible.

They were quite serious. You're a horrible person. And everything you do is horrible. This has been said to me before. And so I was quite taken aback by this, and apologised, and said, well look, I'll try and be nice and see what I can do.

And about six months later, I approached this person and said, do you feel the same way about me? I said, what do you mean? And I said, well you said that I was a horrible person. Did I? They'd forgotten it.

It wasn't something they were. It was they were working out their own frustrations, and I was the person that they were using as a punch bag. I hadn't even remembered it. Couldn't remember it. But you see, I remembered it.

You would, wouldn't you, if you're a chap like that, or somebody says something horrible, but you haven't remembered it. So I was very relieved that he hadn't remembered it, because it showed me it was him.

It was his problem. And so on. Things happen, don't they? But you see, you meet somebody privately, and if they won't listen to you, you take someone with them. Who do you take with you? You take somebody sympathetic to them, not somebody sympathetic to you.

Because a person sympathetic to them, if there's a real problem, they will have to agree with you, and will have to demonstrate with their friend. And if they can be brought back, their friend will help them back.

And you're not to prime everything up so that you win. You are to really let the truth be decided, and be its own strength of argument. If they will not listen to you, and persist in evil speaking, or wrongdoing, or whatever it is they're doing, then you must take it to the church and deal with it.

It's a very serious business, but it's... The church is a serious... has a serious calling in this world. And we are not allowed to speak ill of anyone. God has set about, set in position, the means by which we are to be kept one.

Marriage and Hindrances to Prayer

Now, the fourth area, which is not something particularly we see in the New Testament, or in the Book of Acts we see it in the New Testament, but the fourth area of attack on a church is in the marriages of the believers.

Satan will attack marriage relationships. He will do his best to cause misunderstanding and difficulty at home, so that there will be, as Peter says, a hindrance in prayer. He can do it through various means, and we can talk about marriage another time, perhaps, who knows.

But he attacks the believers through these various things. Now, tonight I want particularly to talk about the problems of division. How they come, and how they can be solved. I'm beginning to talk about the question of division.

Doctrinal Division and the Reformation

Now, I want to turn you to Acts again, and this time to chapter 15 of the Book of Acts, because there are two kinds of division. We've mentioned this before, two kinds of division. One is doctrinal. The other is personality.

One is to do with the truth. Luther separated from the Roman Catholic Church because of the truth, not because of personality. He was persuaded of the truth, and so he caused, perhaps some would say, the greatest division, but actually it wasn't really division in the church.

It was something that happened there that it was bigger than just a church division. It was something far bigger. It would take too long to go into it. But Luther was standing not for himself, but for the truth.

The proof of it was that he was willing to die for it. You may remember that Luther went to Worms in Germany to a council whereby he was interrogated concerning his beliefs. And he stood there in front of the council and he said, Here I stand, I can do no other.

For the doctrine of salvation through faith in Christ alone, not through the sale of indulgences or the sale of forgiveness through money and so on. He stood against the whole system and by standing he split the Catholic Church.

Well, again, it would take too long to go into it. You remember I've told you the story of Jan Hus VII. I've told you that story. You remember it. Jan Hus was martyred. He was a believer a hundred years before Luther.

Remember I told you this? Some of you remember now. Jan Hus was a believer a hundred years before Luther. And he believed and discovered the truth of Scripture and taught it. And he was in Bohemia and the king of Bohemia enjoyed his ministry and various things.

But the Catholic Church sought to destroy this man Hus. And his name means goose. Alright? His name means goose. And anyway, he was invited to a council like Luther and he was to go down to a place called Constance.

You've heard of Lake Constance. And he went down to Constance beside Lake Constance in Germany and he answered before the Catholic tribunal for his faith and what he was preaching. And he was granted, the king of Bohemia obtained promises for Jan Hus that he would be given safe passage to this investigation and back to Bohemia.

He stood before the tribunal and gave his defense from Scripture and various things. And Jan Hus was rejected and condemned to be burnt at the stake. And when the king of Bohemia said but you can't do this, you promised to this man safe passage, the Catholic cardinals and bishops said a promise made to a heretic is null and void.

This is what they said. And then they burnt him and he died for his faith. And Jan Hus before he died gave a prophecy. God gave him a vision of the future and he said you will cook this goose but in a hundred years time a swan shall arise and he shall not be defeated.

And a hundred years later Luther arose. He was the swan of the Reformation. And he preached and he was not defeated. It's wonderful to follow the line of prophecy not only in the Bible but also by God's prophetic utterances by men of God.

Tremendous prophecy wasn't it? And it was fulfilled. A hundred years from now God shall send a swan and he shall not be defeated. And it was true. And Luther preached and divided the whole of Switzerland and the whole world was in turmoil because of the truth of God.

Tremendous isn't it? And there are other prophecies you can hear of. Some of them very, very wonderful. Have I told you anything like this before? These prophecies? I'll tell you another prophecy now and this is going to go on tape.

Prophecy, Hudson Taylor, and the World Wars

I don't particularly mind telling you. If you're listening on the tape you must... I'll explain why I'm hesitating. The only reason I hesitate for this prophecy is because I have never found a confirmation of this story.

I like confirmation. And I've never found it. But here's the story. And I've written to various people and sought to find out where this story originates from. But it's a beautiful story and so I'll tell you it.

And you take it as it stands. I've seen this in print and I say I've never found another second confirmation of it or where the source of it was when I saw it in print. I wrote to the people who printed it.

They were unable to provide me with any more details. But this is the story. Hudson Taylor was on furlough from China. And he was preaching in a church in England. While he was preaching he suddenly stopped and was silent for a few moments.

And then he began to speak and he said, I had just seen a vision from the Lord of a great and terrible war coming on the face of the earth. And he said, this war is not one war, it is two wars. And these two wars are not two, they are one.

And if anybody here knows the history of the First and Second World War, you know that they're actually one war. The First World War ended, some people say, in 1989. The end of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism and so on.

The process, all we know is that the processes set in motion in 1914 caused such turmoil. Partly they led to the communist revolution. I'm not saying it's the only reason for the communist revolution in Russia.

The whole turmoil in Europe continued from the First World War and the Versailles Treaty left the conflict unresolved and led to the Second World War. And then that left Europe divided, which ended in 1989, whatever.

He then said, I see after this a great awakening in Russia, a tremendous awakening in Russia. And I see believers going out from Russia into all the world with the Gospel. And then he said, then I see another great awakening over the whole earth, immediately preceding the return of Christ.

Isn't that wonderful? Now, here's something for you. We've seen the fulfillment of the First and the Second World War, two wars for the one war. Now in Russia, there is a tremendous awakening going on now.

While I was in France in the summer, I was in one of these little hotels and there was a television there in France. Because I speak French, I could put it on. Quite a bit of French television. I was struck by this program.

They were showing this great vast auditorium in Moscow and people singing hymns. Hundreds of people going forward for baptism by immersion. A vast number that turn into Christ in Russia. Tremendous, isn't it?

Well, maybe this is the beginning of maybe a believable God from Russia into all the world. Well, the prophecy being true. It is true. We hear these things and we... You know, in the New Testament, God gives his prophecies.

For example, Agabus prophesied there would be a famine. And it was so. Someone told me that Bernasol was in Dublin and he prophesied the collapse of major insurance companies in Ireland the following year.

It happened. It's tremendous, isn't it? God speaks through his prophets. And I praise God, his prophets are still active. And, you know, when you read something like Hudson Taylor's prophecy, the thing that gives it real weight is because if you know something about Hudson Taylor, you think, wow, that was a great man.

And you just want it to be true, don't you? And that's so encouraging. But, you see, these are the wonderful things that you can find in here. Beautiful, aren't they? Well, anyway, that's done us a lot of good, hasn't it, already?

Our meeting's going. Let's move on. But anyway, it doesn't matter if we... We're not wasting time, are we? Now, the thing is, you see, that when we come to Acts chapter 15, we're looking now at a doctrinal division in the Church.

Acts chapter 15 is about a doctrinal division in the Church. By the way, when you hear true prophets, the Bible says there shall be false prophets among you. The Bible says that very plainly. But you also notice, because there are false prophets, it doesn't mean that we thereby forget there are true prophets.

Sometimes we become so obsessed with the negative, we forget the positive. There are true prophets of God, and we praise God when He speaks prophetically, not just generally, but specifically. Now, in Acts chapter 15, they had a doctrinal division, and it began in verse 1, with this, verse 1 of chapter 15, certain men who came down from Judea and they tortured the brethren, and said, except you be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved.

They'd come down from Judea and tortured the brethren in Antioch. You cannot be saved unless you're circumcised. This particular doctrine continues to this day. I have a friend who is a missionary. I've not seen him for some years.

He was a missionary for many, many years in Japan, 30 years in Japan. He speaks Japanese. He came back, got involved in the Israel thing, carried away with Israel. Everything's Israel, all of a sudden.

And next thing I hear, he's been circumcised. I can't work it out. A man of 70. I can't work it out. It just happened. Strange, isn't it? What people say and do. But here it says that you have to be circumcised.

You can't be saved. These things people say. And then the result of this in verse 2 was Paul and Barnabas had no small argument with them. You can imagine this, because Paul was quite a fiery character.

And you can imagine Paul went to any... What did you say, brother? You can imagine it. He wouldn't have taken long. And I believe that the Eastern Mediterranean is particularly of this kind of character.

I don't know much about it. What did you say, brother? I don't think... You know, I've met people like that in all kinds of places. There are people who will jump up and interrupt you while you're preaching.

What did you say, brother? Can you explain that? And it happens to you sometimes. Sometimes you like it, sometimes you don't. But not often you like it. But anyway. So they had a big argument. And so this was going to rock the whole city.

People coming down from Judea. These were not people coming down from some little... You know, they weren't from Little Rock, Arkansas. These were... These were people from the headquarters. They come from Judea.

And they were holding the Bible in one hand. And they were saying, this is what God said in the Old Testament. This is what's still true today. And you've got to be circumcised. Shook the believers. So there was a big argument and they agreed that everybody would go up to Jerusalem and have a big talk about it.

The apostles and the elders, the big ones. Oh, when you get together with the big guns. Have you ever been in a meeting with the big guns? Have you ever been in a meeting with the big guns? Oh yes, there are some big guns.

There are some big guns. You can hear them, boom! Mind you, they do tend to be a bit small. Some of them go up with a bit of a fist. And nothing to them afterwards. But anyway. And so off they went. This because the Paul and Barnabas are brought on their way by the church.

Churching can go on for... Sort it out first. We want this sorted out. Why do we want this sorted out? Because it's troubling people. It's beginning to trouble people. It's distracting us. We're not talking about the right things anymore.

We're talking about this. And we should be talking about that. It's terrible when people are caught up on negatives. You know that if you're caught up on negatives, you're not believing. You know that the cross is the entire hold your gaze.

If you fix your eyes on anything but the cross, that which you fix your eyes on will be eternal for you. If you fix your eyes on the cross, the power of God will go over all. And you'll never lose hope.

You fix your eyes on problems, you'll lose hope. And the problems will become stronger and bigger to you. It's a blessed thing to cast your worries on the Lord and go on happily. Great gift. So what did they go on?

They were brought on their way by the church and they passed through Phoenix and Samaria declaring, Brothers, we've got problems! Is that what they did? No, they declared the conversion of the Gentiles.

They told stories about this one was saved and that one was saved. And they caused great joy unto all the brethren. Tremendous ministry to be a minister of joy to the brethren. A few jokes, either. I'm not very fond of jokes.

I'm fond of real joy in the Holy Ghost. When people tell you something that makes your heart glad. I've noticed that people who make jokes often depress us. It just shows you how skin deep their gladness is.

Tony Hancock made people laugh and committed suicide. Isn't there something there? The way of happiness doesn't work unless you follow it, the way of God. Better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the feast with fools, isn't it?

We're a nation of fools. We laugh at stupid things. I sometimes put a comedy program on on the radio. I think, oh, that's a little bit of a light. And I'm laughing. Oh, what? That's not funny. I'm not going to tell you what people laugh at.

You know what they laugh at. It's so unclean. We're a nation of fools laughing at things that are not funny. I can't understand the British sense of humour when I listen to it. There's a nice sense of humour.

It's good. Wholesome. Many things that defile your own mind. But this is to cause joy to all the people. And they came to Jerusalem. They were received at the church and the apostles and elders and they declared all things that God had done were tremendous.

But then, in verse 5, but these people got their bones. This dog had got his bones. They rose up, certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed. This is a real sect. Believers, but Pharisees. And they said, it's needful to circumcise them.

You can see them standing there now. You've got to circumcise these people and they've got to keep the law of Moses. You can see them sort of drawing high. We've got tradition on our side. So they had.

The apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter. The apostles and elders. Two groups. Tremendous when the apostles and elders come together. I think if only the elders get together there's a bit of a gap.

What do I mean? Well, the word apostle can be too low as I suppose for some people it's a bit heavy. But what they meant was people of real experience of God. Men of true calling and true anointing. True men of God who knew revelation.

I find if you're just together with elders to consider matters. You want something a bit more. A bit of fire fed in. A bit of life from above. You know what I mean? But it's a real thing. The church is governed by elders.

You know that there is an apostolic commission. The church is not run by the elders commission. It's run by the apostolic commission. There's a difference. The apostolic commission is we will give ourselves to the ministry of the word and prayer.

What's the elders commission? Well, whatever it is. That apostolic commission is what makes the church grow. And must never be lost. Let's not confuse administration with vision. And I don't mean vision about oh, let's have some new thing.

I'm talking about real understanding of what the ministry is about. It's prayer and the word of God. That's what the church is built on. Anyway, the apostles were there and the elders. A good mix. I wouldn't like apostles without elders by the way.

I'll just put it the other way around. The apostles need elders. They'd be too strong otherwise. And some apostles have gone a little bit wrong because the elders have been too meek. Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full sir.

You know those naughty dogs in the back of the car. Yes sir, yes sir, yes sir. And the elders, they say, brother, that's not right. Hold back a bit on this. Sometimes the apostles are too strong. Everybody's frightened.

We can't play any game. And everything goes wrong then. Churches can go wrong. Emphasis can go wrong. We've got to get the, we've got to understand the apostles and the elders. They came together. And when there had been much disputing, oh dear, this is a terrible church meeting, isn't it?

You know, I hope you never go to a church meeting where there's much disputing. I don't think I've been to a true church meeting where there's been much disputing. I have been to church meetings where there's been almost war breakouts.

But I wouldn't call it church. Yeah, almost violence. I remember one church in Africa I went to and they were, they started arguing publicly because people think the Vatican erupts. I don't know, but it wasn't a true church.

It wasn't the Lord's people. I remember someone telling me about a story where they, they, first of all, the color of the, of the curtains or the color of the walls and they, they disagreed about it. And in the end there was such a vicious argument that two brothers said, two elders said, I think it was two elders they said, they said, right, we're going to thwart this other night, outside, come on.

And they went down and thwarted it. Oh, there you go, this is, would you believe it? Is this the Lord's people? God forbid, I mean, I don't know anything. But this isn't the God's way, is it? Whatever it is, I believe that people can be ignorant of God's ways, but, so I've never seen anything quite like that in among the true, spirit-filled people of God.

But you can have much disputing, you know. You can go to places where there's voices raised and, why does he say that? And then you can hear voices, voices, voices, and you're thinking, oh my dear, how are we ever going to get through this?

Let's see how we got through it. There was much disputing. Now, I mean, different words, remember the Bible was a very short book, so there was much disputing. There must have been an hour or two. To and fro, and this one says this.

Now, I bet Paul was trying to say a few things, you know, in the midst of it. When there'd been much disputing, Peter rose up. Now, this is a beautiful word, he arose. It's a good thing to rise. You know that in the New Testament, it tells us that Jesus was in the boat and there was a storm and he was asleep.

And it tells us that the apostles came to him in the storm and they woke him up and they said, don't you care that we die? And it tells us that Jesus arose. Now, you may not have noticed that, but that was a miracle.

You go and stand in a rowing boat and stand up. In normal conditions. I'm like that when I get into a boat. The first thing I grab is the side of the boat. You won't see me walk across. There are people who can do it, but the first thing I grab is the side of the boat and ease myself into a seat, get as low as I can and I'm in.

And you won't get me out again. I'm not very fond of boats. But the thing is, Jesus arose in the storm. Stood there. Arose in the storm. I think they're always like, sit down Jesus. But now I think they realize this was God arriving.

He arose. And I love this moment here when Peter arose in the midst. He stood up. And he said, men and brethren, and I think people began to listen, you know how that a good while ago God made choice among us that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel and believe.

Here's Peter speaking with apostolic authority. Talking of his calling. God called me. I was called of God. And he could have told the story a hundred times. But they all knew he was called of God. God who knows the hearts, bore them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost even as he did to us.

He said, God's confirmed my ministry. Look what he's done. I was the first one to preach to the Gentiles, he said. God poured out the Spirit while I was preaching. And then he said, verse 9, he put no difference between us and the Gentiles purifying their hearts by faith.

Now therefore, why do you tempt God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved even as they.

And then in verse 12 he says this, all the multitude kept silence. There was silence. Wonderful when somebody speaks in their silence. You know, one of the most wonderful moments is when everybody is quiet.

Nobody's got anything to say. That was pretty powerful, wasn't it? Well that settles it, doesn't it? And when a church is in dispute over doctrinal matters, there must be a moment at which God's word is declared and then silence.

Now you will notice this, that not everybody will keep silent. Some will speak on top of God. When that happens you can't stop a division. If someone won't listen to God you're going to have a division.

Salvation by Faith, the Spirit, and Grace

Now notice what he said just for a moment before we go any further. In these few words, notice what he said. Listen. He says we are saved the same way, Jew and Gentile. Did you notice it? We're saved the same way.

How are we saved? This is foundational New Testament apostolic declaration. In a matter of a few words he's telling everybody the foundation of the churches. Here it is. Pure hearts. By what means? Faith.

Outpouring of the Holy Ghost. Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Simple, isn't it? The miracle of a new heart through the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. There it is. In those few words he gives the essentials.

Now they were saying oh there's another essential. Circumcision. He says no. Keep that out. You can't be saved unless you cover your head. Keep that out. Don't make it a foundation. Don't you ever imply to anybody they can't be saved for not covering their head.

I believe in head covering. My wife practices it and so on. I have no doubts in my heart whatsoever about it. But I do not impose it legalistically upon the churches. When I go and preach somewhere I go to all kinds of churches.

I don't say believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. His grace is sufficient for you. Uncover your heads. You have to know what is foundational. Otherwise you'll mix things in and confuse people. Amen. I've got you thinking now, haven't I?