The Church - Part 2 — Les Wheeldon

Christ as the Head of the Church

Well, we continue with our subject of the church and I want to read a verse from Ephesians chapter 1 and you'll know that Ephesians is one of the great books on the subject of the church and here we read in verse 20.

Let's read from verse 20. God, through the Apostle, showing that he wanted the people to know the great power of God which works in us. According to the mighty power, verse 20, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this world but also in that world which is to come and he has put all things under his feet and given him to be the head over all things to the church which is his body the fullness of him that filleth all in all.

What a description of the church and we can read also in chapter 5 of Ephesians that in verse 23 the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church. All right, Christ is the head of the church and he is the saviour of the body and this truth, this very simple truth of the headship of the body Christ is the head of the body.

Now that's our subject tonight and to be a church we have to know Christ as our head. That's obvious really isn't it? To be a living church we must know that Christ is our head and unless we know that in some measure we are not a living church.

We may be a church that has had an experience or has had a past but we are only a church by virtue of the fact that we are his body not our own. Very simple isn't it? Now as I said last week we were talking about the mixture in church history.

Tradition, Apostolic Decline, and the Authority of Christ

One of the things that you find is that people are puzzled about the church. You know that I go to North London quite often and once one of the meetings there was a man came into the meeting he sat through the meeting, heard the preaching and he was very happy but he picked me up on one thing at the end.

We had a little time for questions and answers and he picked me up on one thing. He said I noticed he said that throughout the whole evening you have prayed, you have sung, you have preached, you've done all these things but you have never made the sign of the cross over.

And he said why? Why have you never made the sign of the cross? He said in our church the priest always makes the sign of the cross over the congregation at the beginning of the meeting when he prays and he talked about this and there's another man who comes to the meetings there who always asks, well often, he's not asking me so much now because he's beginning to understand but he many times he asked me why do you why this and what you know why do they do this in the churches?

And he's referring to the Greek Orthodox Church and you know that when you look out into the churches tonight and we can see the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church and so on, I start with those two because one of the puzzling things is that these churches are the oldest churches that people know commonly and so you look at these churches that is the oldest church we know in our village, the Anglican Church and so that church carries more weight than certainly this little upstart church called the Practical Pentecostal Church which has only been here for about 70 years, 70 years?

Well what about Epsom Christian Fellowship then which has only been there 25 years? Who are they? And then more to that, look at that little house group over here just starting, that's nothing. Now let's go to the real church, this is being here, even the building alone is a thousand years old sometimes, even older and you can go around and you can see buildings that are old and then you find the traditions going back.

Well when we look at church history, one of the facts of church history is that there's a prophecy and the prophecy is that there shall be a falling away. This prophecy of the falling away was quite clear and strong in the Apostles, it comes at least twice in the New Testament.

Paul prophesied that after the Apostles there would be a falling away and this happened. Within a hundred years after the Apostles there began to arise new practices, not in the whole church but in different places there were new practices.

For example there was the baptism of infants goes back to perhaps the beginning of the second century and other practices, even the practice of communion which is blessed by the priest and he does something to it, that goes back to the second century AD.

Did I say BC a moment ago? AD, the second century AD. So these are very old practices but of course they began then but they were universally known within the church and of course in the first church, the first churches, they were totally unknown.

Now these practices began to grow up and within the second century you have people who are beginning to say that the bishops are very important and beginning to exalt the office of elders and particularly the bishops.

And then you come into the fourth century, 313, 312 I think it was, Constantine was converted. Constantine was converted without the agency of the Holy Spirit. We don't know what happened but Constantine did not become a real Christian.

He was converted, apparently the story goes he saw this sign in the sky as he was on his way to conquer his opponent to the emperor and he saw this sign of the cross and he said would this sign conquer?

It is true that politically it was very clever because there were so many Christians in the Roman Empire that because he made Christianity legal in 313 AD, he united all the Christians behind him and he became the emperor and then he began to work in close conjunction with the church.

The emperor was the first person to call the council to decide on doctrine in the church. He was the emperor. Tony Blair should say look I've had enough of this squabbling in the churches, let's have a bit of order, I'll call a meeting.

Not the Archbishop of Canterbury, not pastors, but Tony Blair. Constantine called his first council, the Nicene Council to decide on these great questions was held, called by Constantine and so you have this beginning of the state power being fed into the church and then of course you know that Constantine moved his capital over to Constantinople, that's why we get to call it Constantinople.

Constantine had his center in the east of the empire and various things happened but then what happened was the power of the bishop of Rome grew and grew and eventually the emperors moved out completely, they were lost, the empire was destroyed in about 450 AD.

Then slowly the power of the bishop of Rome became greater and greater. That is one instance of the power of a bishop. His power became greater and greater and greater. But still what we have there is the power of men to rule the church without knowing Christ is their head.

So when we trace back traditions, when you look around you, you can trace back traditions to two beginnings. The first one is believers who go back and trace their spiritual heritage to God through the Holy Spirit and every person who receives the power of the Holy Spirit traces their spiritual heritage back direct to God and has the same experience and lineage and authority and communion and fellowship as the apostles on the day of Pentecost.

But there is another lineage that can be traced back which is only through men and it begins in time in places like, well, Rome. But not only Rome. One of the tragedies of churches is that churches are, you can find churches governed by Christ through the Holy Spirit and then you find churches governed by men.

And that's the confusing thing. When you look back in history, when people ask you a question like what about these things, what you're pointing to is the fact that the majority of the church traditions you see in the older churches started after the apostolic era.

Very few church traditions that you see actually started with the apostles. Very, very few. And what you have now is that every, in every generation people have to discover that first living connection to Christ, our head.

Now we may now pour scorn on these things like the Catholics, you know, you know one of the things you must be aware of is the depth of prejudice between Protestants and Catholics. It's a startling and powerful thing.

And I, one of the interesting things is that I am not a Protestant and I'm not a Catholic. I'm a Christian. And this is a small thing, but you go to a community like Northern Ireland, it's a very powerful thing.

And you may say, well Northern Ireland? Yes, equally the south of Ireland. Not just the north, it's the south. You become a Christian in the south of Ireland and leave the Catholic church you will be instantly branded a Protestant.

What's going on door to door and I knocked on this door and a lady said, in the conversation I said, are you a Christian? The lady said, no I am not a Christian, I'm a Catholic. Well there you go, these things happen.

But the thing is, although we can, we can hear, the thing is what you must be aware of is don't get drawn in to the whole line of prejudice. You are not to be prejudiced against Catholics or Protestants.

You may have thought you were a Protestant. You are a Christian. These are small things I suppose in one way, but now you see you can jump through church history from Constantine to the Reformation. The interesting thing about the Reformation is that the Reformation in its establishment of churches was not always accompanied with an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

But some of the great reformers were not actually tracing their lineage back to Pentecost. They were just changing their centre from one man-made tradition to another more biblical but still not governed by Christ through the Holy Ghost.

Calvinism, Church-State Power, and the Reformation

Now that may shock you but when you come into the, look at the work of the reformers, you can look at things like Calvinism. Now I am not a Calvinist for many reasons and I don't believe I should ever be a Calvinist.

Now you may say, wait a moment, don't you believe in the sovereignty of God? And I think well yes but that wasn't, Calvin didn't invent the notion of the sovereignty of God. That came from, well it comes from the fact that God is sovereign and everybody in the scripture knew that.

Every writer of the scripture knew that God was so great, of course it's coming through the scripture, but Calvin stressed it and emphasised it. But that doesn't mean that everything that Calvin did was right because he knew one thing.

And one of the things you find for example with Calvin is that he believed this idea that the church really should govern society and he became completely mixed up in this idea of the government of society by the church.

Therefore it was completely logical because of the way he governed Geneva that anybody who did not believe the truth of God according to the scripture, he interpreted it as well, was a heretic of course but more than that a criminal against the state because the state and the church would become one.

Geneva was a strange mix just like the papacy and so it was logical that when a man came along who did not, who was a heretic, it was the logic of Calvin's theories that servitus be burned at the stake and Calvin sanctioned the burning of a heretic in Calvinist Geneva.

Completely consistent because of his misunderstanding of the whole role of the church within society. And you can look at this and one of the things you must realise is that when you look at churches, wherever they come, face their origin back to their beginning and you have to ask did it begin with an outpouring of the Holy Spirit?

If not you will find the sticky hand of man on it and you have to watch that. The sticky hand of man is dangerous. We can get on our high horse and look at these things now in our luxury of looking back on history but what I'm coming to is the fact that our churches must be governed by Christ through the agency of the Holy Ghost.

If not, whatever happens, we are not representing Biblical Christianity. We must be in living relationship with Christ through the Holy Ghost and remember that Christ has a plan for this church if the church will discover it.

Now we walk in that plan and I trust you're walking in it but each generation, when I talk about generation I'm not just talking about the years of 40, I'm talking also about every time that we come to the end of something we seem to sense we need something new.

We have to ask ourselves what is the next step? One of the things we have to ask ourselves is what is the will of Christ? Can he communicate it to us? How will he communicate it to us? And it is these basic simple truths that make us a living church.

You are only connected to the line of truth because, not because of traditions you have, because of people in your past did something, but because you yourselves know the headship of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Baptism in the Holy Spirit and Membership in Christ's Body

Wonderful. Now let me show you another scripture and this is in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and here we read that verse 13, for by one spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we are Jews or Gentiles, whether we are slaves or free and have been all made to drink into one spirit.

Now here membership of the body is directly linked with the baptism with the Holy Spirit. And this should already show you something very clearly about the truth that the body of Christ is not a group of believers, the church is not a group of believers holding fast great truths and preaching them.

That is not the church. You say, what does that mean? That sounds, no. It is a body of people, it is that, but it is not that without the Holy Ghost. The defense of truth with human power, well it doesn't make it anything.

What makes it commendable, it's wonderful, it's what the reformers fought for, but what makes this the church is the Holy Spirit communicating the headship of Jesus Christ through to us. This is one of the mistakes made that people say our church, our country used to be more Christian and that we refer to the the oath of the queen on her throne.

The oath of the queen on her throne is irrelevant because it does not make this Christian more or less Christian. It cannot, because the thing that makes us Christian, his church, his people, is not an interest of state, it's the work of God, the Holy Ghost in the hearts of people.

And one of the dangers is you see when Constantine said this is now a Christian empire, that's what he said of Rome, it was the end of the church. It broke the power of the church. How? Because suddenly it became popular to be in the church.

This is one of the things you find. Wasn't our country more Christian some years ago? It was certainly more popular some years ago for a young man in a rich family to be a member of the clergy. You've seen this, what they call sense and sensibility and these wonderful Jane Austen's, very popular things.

One of the things one of the themes going through them is the, it was a popular thing for a young man to be a member of the clergy, whether he was a Christian or not. And this is the tragedy of it, that one of the things is that state religion and state powers imposing on the nation Christian ideals, it's wonderful in one sense for the morality of the nation, but it does not build the church.

And who can say whether a generation is more Christian or less Christian? Some of the places of the greatest growth of Christianity in this world are places where Christianity has been most persecuted.

These are vital things in the end, because we can get caught up on bandwagon saying we want to, this is one of the things that movements begin to go back and look at things of the powers, or we're going to take the kingdom, we're going to take the kingdom.

We are not going to take Britain and make it a Christian country. This is an era that comes in, this is a kind of triumphalism. We are going to take the land. What is going to happen is that God is going to pour out his spirit and build his church.

Even in the teeth of fiercest opposition he will build his church. Even in the face of the most awful decline of standards he will build his church. In the fiercest opposition when men are put in prison and are burnt and executed he will build his church, but he will not do it because we occupy places of political power.

Sometimes those things are the greatest hindrance, and this is why some of the psalms have come in over recent times. They are actually harking back to a truth that is not found in the New Testament. Christ rules over all already.

You cannot increase his lordship. He decides who is prime minister. He decides the heartbeat of Tony Blair and Bill Clinton and all the rest of them. Jesus Christ is lord over all. He is sovereign. Now you're thinking I'm a Calvinist.

He is absolutely sovereign. Nobody can breathe a breath without Jesus Christ saying so. All right, now you think I'm contradicting myself. I'm like a real Calvinist now. Well, I believe in the sovereignty of God, but you see what you have got to discover is the direct living link.

In other words, spiritually you've got to put your fingers in the plug. You've got to put your fingers into the plug. Spiritually, not literally. If there was no children here I'd really be in trouble if there were children here.

Do you understand? So don't give that tape to a child. There's an age limit on it now. But the thing is, this is the thing that the church must be connected to the power, otherwise it ceases to be the church.

And remember that at all costs this is the very central life of the church that you are connected to Christ. Now take this foundational truth that Christ must be your head. How is he the head of the church?

Elders, the Holy Spirit, and the Mind of Christ

Oh, he governs the church through the elders. No, he doesn't. They rule the church. That's what the Bible says. The Bible is not afraid to use the word rule. Those that have rule over you are the elders.

You may mention eldership at some point, but they don't lord it over God's flock, do they? And when we want to know God's will for the church, we don't say the elders tell us what the will of God is for the flock.

We ask God. We want God to tell the church. Now the elders have the final say because they are appointed of the Holy Spirit, not even of the church. The Bible speaks of the elders being appointed by the Holy Ghost.

Acts chapter 20, the Holy Spirit has made you overseers over God's church. Wonderful truth. The church confirms it, all these things. So they are appointed to rule, but remember this, they may have the last say in a lot of things, but their say is confirmatory.

They are confirming the mind of Christ. They're not inventing it for him. You know there's one of those hymns which I used to think, what did Wesley mean when he said, that I may think, feel, and feel for thee?

And I think, well Christ doesn't want me to think for him. He can think all right himself. I couldn't work it out what he was saying. Let me tell you John what he means. All my thoughts may be in the service of Christ.

Not that I may think for him. Some of the people may have sung it wrongly, but you don't think for Christ. He is your, you are yielding all your thoughts to him, so that your thoughts are not in your own employ and service, but they're in the service and employ of Christ.

Now this is the most, this is one of the foundational truths of the church, that Christ must be the head. How does he rule then in his church? How is he the head? It's not a hierarchy, that's how the state is governed.

I've never met Tony Blair, but he's our ruler. He rules over us. And the way he touches my life is always indirectly. Tony Blair touches me indirectly. When I get a tax bill, Tony Blair has never signed the request.

He's never visited me at my door saying, I need your money now. Not even Gordon Brown. It's always come through somebody at Tolworth. Tolworth Tower tax office, that's where my tax papers are held. And I get a tax return.

It's some official, something in their name. I've forgotten what it is, I'm sorry to say. But you know, there you go, it's all these things. And they all represent, you know, get everything on his, on her majesty's, not secret service, on her majesty's service.

And you know, you get a little wimple deal, that comes out of it, and you get your tax bill. So there you go. But it comes through. But the lordship of Christ does not come to you by that method. If the mind of Christ is only made known to you through elders and counsellors, then you've been so short.

Christ as the Personal Head of Every Believer

How is Christ our head? Now this is the vital central truth, that he must be the personal head of every member of the church, male and female. Now you'll say, well what does it say there? It says that the head of the woman is the man, and the head of the man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God.

That's true. That's the ordering of God for families. But it does not mean that I rule over the spiritual life of my wife. In all matters of authority that need to be decided, I may have occasion to overrule the decisions.

And no, that is, I cannot accept that. We can't do that. That may, but I cannot have dominion over the thoughts of my wife. I am not powerful enough, because I'm not God. I am not her head in all things.

Christ is her head. In the order of family, I am her head. But in spiritual life, Christ is directly her head. He is the head of the church, male and female. Every one of us is brought into direct contact, and that's also true of children.

When children are filled with the Holy Ghost, Christ becomes their head. You may say, well they're still under their parents. Of course they are, and all kinds of things ensue from that. But the truth is that they are brought into direct living contact with their head.

Now, Christ is the head of the church, but he is not the head of Britain. What do you mean? Christ is head of the church, but he's not king of the church. What do you mean? Well, you think of the times when it is said that Christ is king of the church.

Where have you read it? Why does Scripture make these distinctions? Why doesn't it say king or head, whichever word you like to use? It doesn't say that. The reason is because kings rule through delegated authority, but a head doesn't.

You understand? The head has to be connected to the body. Otherwise it's not. A king can rule. You know me, I've never, I've seen the Queen. I went up to the Epsom Derby. Don't worry, I live in Epsom, so I didn't go to bed.

But I went up just to sort of kill them and see the horses running and just look around. I saw the Queen. I saw this lady in a blue dress. I wasn't sure whether it was the Queen or the Queen Mother. But later on in the Epsom newspapers, they had photos.

Oh yes, it was the Queen. So about a week later, I found out who I'd seen. So I'd seen the Queen. But you know that once I heard somebody describing a vision they'd had of Jesus during their conversion.

They'd seen his splendour and all kinds of things. And they were describing something that I had not seen in a visionary way. But when they described Jesus, I was just, I was tremendous. I was talking about Jesus and his glory and his face shining and all this.

And I thought, that's wonderful. But I thought, you know, it's funny. I know him better than you. I don't know him through a vision. But I know him in my heart. What thrills me is that I know you're talking about the one I know.

But I know him better than you've just met him for the first time. You've seen his glory. You've seen his dazzling brightness. But I know his gentleness, his love, his persistence, his continuance, his forgiveness, his mercy.

I know him. And that's what thrilled me because I could confirm, yes, that's Jesus you are talking about. My Lord, my Saviour, my Head. And it's strange that people get caught up on these great things, visions and things like this.

And they may be true, but the greatest thing you can ever know is that Christ becomes your personal Head. Your Head over you. Isn't that amazing? That Christ can be your Head, not just your, you know, that he's the hundreds in a line of connections going back to Christ.

What an awful thought it would be. You know, we have our elders meetings in Birmingham once a year. Wouldn't it be terrible if we had to wait a year before we got our instructions? And even then they wouldn't be that clear, I don't think, would they?

We wouldn't always come back with a great degree of clarity. But the truth is that you can find the knowledge of God in your own life. And this is it here. This is a tremendous, wonderful, powerful truth, that by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body.

And so he brings out this truth that you become a member of that body through the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Now this tells you what happened in the baptism in the Holy Spirit. And the weakness of a church may be the fact that people have given up looking for this.

You know, some people seek the baptism in the Holy Spirit and they go, it's too hard. It isn't hard to receive the Holy Spirit. Incredibly easy. It cost Jesus everything. It was very, very costly for him to make it easy.

It is still the truth that there is a door closed to you to receive the Holy Spirit. You cannot receive the Holy Spirit. It's impossible to, unless on these terms, that which makes you a member of his body.

And if you won't receive the Holy Ghost on those terms, you won't receive him. Now you may say, well it hasn't been preached to me like that. Well it doesn't have to be preached to you like that. But it's still the truth that the headship of Christ goes deeper than the ruling of the powers that touch your life in this nation.

You know that you are ruled by Tony Blair. I've told you this. And you can be one of the best citizens of this nation, keeping all the rules, and paying all your taxes, and doing everything that you're required to do, and still not know or love Tony Blair.

It's perfectly right. And there are people who believe they can be perfect members of the church, reading their bible regularly, praying for people, reading the missionary newsletters, and doing all that, going to all the meetings.

And that's what makes them good members of the church. And it is not so. Because the only thing that makes you a member of the church is not church going, it's not bible reading, it's the fact that you know and love Jesus Christ, and you are in fellowship with him by the power of the Holy Spirit.

And this is the great mix that occurs. The churches start growing and being built on a membership that is not of the Holy Ghost. By one spirit are we all made members of one body. We're all baptized into one body.

And there is no other way. There is no other way. Infant baptism makes people members of churches, but not members of Jesus Christ. What makes you a member of this church? Your membership role is meaningless.

Not saying whether you should or should not have one, that's your decision. But it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything, it can't mean anything. It may be useful for various purposes, and if you regard that as being right for both purposes, fine.

Use the membership role. But don't build on it. I'm a member now. Who says you are? Well the church elders have accepted me as a member, and I've gone through the acceptance procedure, and I've gone through this, and I've gone through that, and I've gone through that.

Meaningless unless you are baptized with the Holy Spirit. You are not a member of his body, unless he is your head. And you see as I say, the thing is that people believe that this is all to do with submission to Jesus, that he'd be my king, and it's not that.

He is the king of all things, and he's the king, and you can know his various things. But we're not talking about kingship, we're talking about headship. And when you bow so deeply in your being that your thoughts are renewed, your mind is renewed, your will, your affections, everything about you is changed, that is the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

And this is the wonder that the baptism in the Spirit renews and refreshes my thoughts, my mind, and this is why he says we have the mind of Christ. He didn't say we're to try and have the mind of Christ, he says we have the mind of Christ, because he's our head.

We have to walk in that and let it be our work, but it is the truth that we cannot, we cannot seek unity even. Because if we are baptized in the Spirit we are one. You cannot make unity. You are one by the Holy Spirit, or you are not at all.

This is one of the things about churches together and all these things. You know that when you meet a person from whatever church they come, if they are filled with the Holy Spirit, you are fellowship, you're one.

But you can sit in committees for years and years and your unity will rise sometimes and break out of it. The truth is that unity is not something that we can create into church like that, except by the dynamic of the Holy Spirit, by the dynamic of the Holy Spirit.

And so what we've got to ask first of all, who is your head? Who is directing your personal thoughts and life and feelings and affections? What happens, what we're talking about, is a change of authority in your life.

It's a change of what place you live in. And the baptism in the Holy Spirit, it brings you under that headship. It doesn't bring you into a distant rule, it brings you under the headship. And that's why when you are to be baptized in the Spirit, one of the greatest dimensions of it is submission, absolute surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ, of yourself, in all your being to Jesus.

And that's what makes the church. The church is a company of people entirely surrendered to the headship of Christ. It's not a bureaucratic submission to our rulers, it's an entire subjection of my whole being to Him.

And when I do that, something takes place, a change, the inflooding of the Holy Spirit, my life changes, the authority of my life changes, my thoughts all have a new power, I have come into a totally new dimension of life, I'm His body, He indwells me.

And that's what makes the church, that's the wonder of the church. So when you trace your origins back, you must know that your personal origins go back to a personal Pentecost, that you discovered it, that you knew it, that you knew this entire surrender of your whole being, and you've yielded everything to Him.

Surrender, Stewardship, and the Church's Finances

You see this is the thing that when you look at how churches, or I know churches, where they're always pleading for money, a constant theme, money, we need money for this, and one of the things about the church of Christ is that because He's the head, a monetary appeal is completely out of place.

I'm not saying that information's out of place, information may be necessary to communicate things, but the thing is appeals and, oh dear we're not doing very well financially, this church is, oh dear we're having a bit of difficulty meeting our, this is, the truth is that when you are His people, this is as much your concern as your own weekly bills.

You know one of the things that, travelling in Cameroon, Blasius and I were travelling in Cameroon, Blasius suddenly said, did you notice that? We drove past these houses in Cameroon, and there was this beautiful house, and another beautiful house, a row of them, big bungalows and big walls around them, and beautifully tended and kept with lawns and flowers and shrubs, and so we were down, down, down, and then nestled in between them, we suddenly saw a church, broken down, not painted, untended, you just looked at that and said, oh dear that's the house of a poor man, and then after it, more big houses, just think of it, oh all the things that men need for their houses, straight away, there's money there, now bring in the needs of the church, we need this, and immediately, oh dear, sad isn't it, that should be the case, it just shows that something's radically wrong in the very centre of things, this is not the church building, but all that goes on through the activities of the body of Christ, they are met innocently, totally, that's one of the ways you can tell whether the Holy Ghost is ruling in the company of people, money isn't an issue, one of the indications that the church is going down from its glory, is money starts to be an issue, money problems, we can't get enough money, you know, raise it, who's going to pay 20 pounds towards the next tea bag, we've got to buy tea bags, who's going to pay it, you think, well you've got, you've got 20 pounds in your pocket making this, why are you asking everybody, why don't you ask somebody's treasurer for that, give it, if you've got it, and all kinds of things, you go to churches, I've been to churches in Africa, where you can just see the riches of generosity, liberation, money being poured into tracts, not buildings, not vehicles, but money being poured into reaching out to the soul.

I knew a church which had an annual budget of about, oh dear, how much was it, about 100 ,000 pounds just for tracts, greater than most budgets I've seen in the UK, in local churches, not surprising, it's a pretty grown church, we haven't touched money now, but money in the church is a wonderful subject as well, but of course, in a way, it's already covered by this very fact, that if he's your head, your money is his, my money is not Tony Blair's, I'll give him as little as possible, I'll fight him all the way, that's why I pay an accountant a hundred pounds a year, I give him a hundred pounds, I give him all my, I say please give him as little as possible, legally, always legally, I'm willing to pay all that I have to, because I want to know every means by which to reduce it, but some people are like that with the church, some people are like that with Christ, but he's not your head, and he won't be until you yield to him on these matters, he may have been, I don't know, but the thing is that this is the truth, that the wonder of the entire surrender to him, that's when the baptism in the Holy Spirit comes, the baptism in the Holy Spirit comes with entire surrender of your moral life, your mental life, your money, your home, everything, if the police came to my door on behalf of Tony Blair, I would refuse them entry, unless they had a warrant, don't worry, I'm not a criminal, I'm not a criminal, they have no right to enter, the state has no right to enter my home, not without a warrant, don't worry, I'm not, I'm not, I wouldn't have any reason to, I'd let them in, they can search my house, but when somebody comes to your door from Christ, they don't need a warrant, they're family, hospitality is not a, well, I don't know how I feel about it, your home is not your home, absolute surrender, the church grows with the dynamic of lives laid down, what do you find in the early church, when they, they all said, none of them said the things they possessed were their own, that's not mine, it belongs to God, it's his, and this is one of the things that disappears through the baptism of the Holy Spirit, this grip of ownership, it's mine, not anymore, it's his, it's his, and he can do with it what he likes, oh dear Lord, what are you going to do with it, can I control it, can I have a say in it, no, no, it's mine, I will do with it as I please, and you'll bless you with the use of it, so this is a vital thing, this is what the, this is what was lost by that, when these, when these churches started right, when Constantine was converted, he, all the trouble, and he said, we'll have a big meeting to decide about this, he didn't belong to God, many of the reformers, they took the people back to Scripture, but not to the baptism of the Spirit, and that's where they failed, not all, I'm not saying all the reformers failed, you know, we have a great debt to the reformation, but you know we have a great debt to God, for all that he's done, but you know that when you look at what Calvin did to Servetus, you know what was said by believers, who were not part of his church, they were true believers, they said, how can this be the Spirit of Christ, people lamented these awful things that took place, they said, this is not the body of Christ, one of them said, is it Christ who burns a heritage, what a rebuke to Calvin, that rebuke was not made three generations later when things had developed, that was made by his contemporaries, this is not the Spirit of Christ, but often these great big institutions, Calvin and Luther and all these greats, they become so big, take on a power of their own, and overshadow the real believers, I'm not saying Calvin wasn't a real believer, don't misunderstand me, I leave him to the Lord, you can judge him, you can discern if that's the right word yourself, but I'm pointing out to you the place where he departed from New Testament truth, and where Christians in his day, you'll find this throughout every age, you'll find this happening again and again, that church has become prominent, you know that was a great move wasn't it, but it wasn't, unless it was infused and filled and motivated through the power of the Holy Spirit, that's what makes a great move, we haven't really begun to look at the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, but what makes a church a church is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, on one person is enough really to make a church, then you have an outpouring, whether it's a great revival or not is not always the key, but that it happens, lives are changed, you know that I sometimes think this, that when I come to a meeting, I know that nobody wants to hear me speak, they may think they do, but they don't, because I know I don't want to hear men speak in a church, I want to hear God speak in a church, and I know that no preacher's name will last a second beyond, not among the people of God, not a second beyond the point where he speaks for himself, you start speaking for yourself, people won't listen to you, not in the church of Jesus Christ, this is why when we come together the greatness is not who is speaking among men, it's this, that the voice is heard of the Spirit, in the church.