Apostolic Foundations (7 of 12) — Art Katz

The Invisible Realm of Principalities and Powers

We have come to that moment I Knew that we would have to come to the subject When I didn't know that when the Lord would give it, but there was no way that we could avoid that subject and Maybe everything from now could be said to be preparation for it.

I don't know that we could have begun with it. It takes a certain Orientation and the breaking in so to speak and Dealing with some of the concepts and things that the Lord has been sharing before we can begin to approach this but if ever you sharpen your pencil and took careful notes and Went over the texts that are quoted and rooted and thought About a subject I asked that of you from tonight on and this will probably take two or three Sessions and even then we'll not exhaust it, but we'll say Enough to make substantial inroads and lay a kind of foundation.

It's a subject that our age Does not prepare us to receive. Because our age is scientific and rational and in fact the subject has been an embarrassment for theologians Since the Enlightenment of the 18th century They have tried to dismiss it as being somehow a kind of relic of Paul's Judaic Origins that he sort of broke with him into the kingdom mythological concepts when he refers to the Principalities and the powers of the air of a whole invisible spirit realm that underlies or broods over the whole of the world and its reality Permeates and profoundly affects it this has been dismissed from modern consideration.

But it would be tragic if that remained so because the church that Condemns itself to ignorance about the principalities and powers likewise condemns itself to futility. Its activity will be just a boxing at the air.

It will be a missing of the thing to which we are called eternally and in time. Because we're told again and again that we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers the rulers of this world's darkness In Ephesians 6 against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places and so I want to pray for The grace of God and assistance in bringing this forth and in our hearing and our taking hold of this.

However much it is not amenable to the temper of our own age the same German theologians who dismissed it as kind of an anachronism a kind of Hangover from Paul's earlier past Came to another opinion after the advent of Nazism.

They had a first-hand opportunity to witness the reality of the invisible spirit realm when it manifested itself politically socially and Militarily in one of the greatest nations on the earth to the point where it threatened the whole of known civilization.

We had we saw a preview of the possibilities that will come when Naive Nations and sleeping churches Open for the penetration of these spirits right through their institutions and in to their vital and actual life.

So precious God Lord, I ask gracious assistance Lord the spirit of enablement and illumination discernment understanding my God. Take the veil from our minds Lord and and Break in with the thing my God that is central to your whole atoning sacrifice at the cross the defeat that was inflicted upon these ancestral enemies that made of them an open spoil.

That you disarmed them my God and have left for the church the concluding and final work that every False usurper and presumer every deceptive spirit everything that presumes to have authority and to inflict itself and to affect the conduct of many nations that these authorities will come Under the feet of Jesus that he might be all in all over his entire creation through the church.

Lord open our understanding that we might gird our loins and be fitted for our participation in this grand and eternal Vision. And we'll thank you and praise you for our privilege my God to consider this and to be fitted for it in Jesus Holy Name.

Amen. Okay. Well, not unusual that on the occasions that I am read of the Lord to speak to this. Something is almost invariably wrong. I'm feeling especially weak or overcome or all of the sound equipment goes out and Lots of strange things happen when you begin to probe and directly confront the powers of the air.

So I'm feeling especially weak tonight. But that can be very propitious and that the Lord has greater opportunity For his strength to be made manifest. So if you see me flagging or losing my train of thought or in any way seeming to be a bit debilitated pray.

Pray we're in this together and you can believe that a subject like this is going to be resisted. Because the enemy wants to remain unknown. He wants to remain mythological and isn't it ironic? The the kinds of things that are current right now in our society in our culture at the same time that these scientific and rational temper of our age is against that which is Supernatural or invisible or spirit realm.

On the other hand our films in our culture increasingly celebrate hokey spiritist things like ET extraterrestrial beings poltergeists and weird movies and sound effects and Penetrations from outer space and things like that that the whole world seems to run after and seems to delight in.

But to suggest that this may be actually a reality That is affecting society and nations and the world men resist and will call you fanatical even to consider so we really need to be instructed and Recognize that if we see our activity is horizontal Lateral earthly we're against this or against that and do not recognize that the this or that is only the physical expression of that which has its Animation and source from a heavenly place.

We're missing the whole issue. We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against the principalities and the powers of the air the rulers of this world's darkness in heavenly places and That heavenly place does not mean the place where God himself abides but a lower Stratum remember Paul talked about being lifted up into the third heaven.

See there's a whole framework of understanding that has been lost to us that has been lost to modern consideration in which Paul was so familiar and so conversant that when he just made but a mere allusion to these things his audience immediately understood.

They were much more imbued much more taken up with the reality of the invisible spirit realm. So in a certain sense, I've disarmed myself tonight by not bringing copious outlines and things to quote but one little book.

And so I'm just trusting the Lord to assemble and give you a sense of what needs to be understood. First of all, what are these? Principalities and powers of the air. What is the source of their origin if they are evil if they are malevolent if their purposes are against God?

How did they have their existence to begin with and The answer is that they were created by God as supportive structures as a governmental hierarchy to assist in establishing in the earth Order and to providing a certain structure for human existence by which men could be found of God or be found of him.

Government is such a structure economics culture the elements themselves weather the seasons and that's why as men drifted away from God and toward idolatry and a Fascinations with a fascination with this lesser order.

They began worshiping it directly as God and they became the gods of this world and became ruined so to speak in that exaltation of Thinking themselves to be greater than God and not sufficient to occupy the place that was prescribed for them as supportive they usurped and went beyond and sought not just to win the attention of men or the feel or the Acknowledgement, but their loyalty their allegiance and ultimately their worship these false gods these fallen angels yet have their habitation in the heavenlies and Though they were disarmed at the cross by Jesus Christ in his atonement when he was the butt of their entire vehemence and Power for destruction because they have a certain value standard.

There's a clash of cosmic systems the true value systems in contention that of God's the wisdom of God and the wisdom of this world and to see a reference in Ephesians the third chapter to the wisdom of God and We'll come back to this at another time, but just to wet your appetite and begin to put something in your spirit.

Paul talks in that third chapter About the eighth verse of the grace that was given to him to preach to the Gentiles The unsearchable riches of Christ and to make all men see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God?

Who created all things that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places this was a According to the eternal purpose which he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Now I'm gasping for air even as I'm just simply reading the scripture. It's an enormous exertion just to talk tonight and even to read the scripture. It's as if every hellish thing is pulling against this to nullify and to Reduce the effectiveness of this presentation.

We'll come back to this another time, but only to say this That in these few terse Statements of Paul which has somehow slipped by the consciousness of the church he makes clear that the Issue of the principalities and the powers of the air are so important to God That is beyond the things that pertain to us that in the wisdom of God.

It was so important that he created all things in order That through the church the manifold wisdom of God might be Demonstrated to the principalities and the powers of the air as an eternal testimony and a triumph of another kind of wisdom.

There are two kinds of wisdom in contention and the one kind which has principally jerked and manipulated mankind since the advent of this fall and these fallen angels and these usurpers is That as a wisdom predicated on lust ambition power intimidation threat bluff Fear that the whole world has been in bondage for that to the fear of death.

Until one came who met death at the hands of the powers and triumph over it in Resurrection and made therefore by that one act and open spoil of the enemy and disarmed him that is to say Jesus took the principal weapon away from the devil and from his horde of Angelic demon beings by X by receiving experiencing to himself everything that they could ventilate against him in their viciousness and Vileness and celebration of violence and demonstration of power that makes men ordinal ordinarily power and cry out and compromise and surrender.

Jesus suffered it all in the wisdom of God in patience and forgiveness of his enemies in Uncomplaining resignations with the necessity to suffer unto death and Triumphed over death by his glorious resurrection.

The Church’s Eternal Purpose in Cosmic Conflict

Now we're going to come back to that because that is a preview of things to come if God is going as if God has created all things in order that through the church a Certain eternal demonstration is to be made to the powers.

What is that demonstration? What is the manifold wisdom of God is to wisdom or the values? Which the Lord himself demonstrated in his own suffering and death at the cross. Meekness patience self-sacrifice forgiveness humility.

What were the powers what was the wisdom of the powers that came against them. Hellish force? Brutality violence. Destruction that ordinarily makes men to cower and to fear in intimidation and threat for their very life.

Little wonder that the overcoming church is one that loves not its life unto death. So that what I want you to understand what God wants us to understand is that the church is set in the context of an enormous cosmic Struggle that has had its inception at the beginning of days and will have its conclusion in the perusia or the coming of the Lord Jesus.

Now this is mind-boggling. Because we need to consider the eternal purpose of God and We there our culture is so Pragmatic we see only the narrow and the immediate thing before our faces we're concerned for tomorrow, but few of us have a vision an Apostolic sense of the whole context in which God has set the church and its drama and its struggle.

There's an eternal purpose and The heck of it is if I can use that language If we lose or do not obtain the sense of the eternal purpose Which God has called the church by the same very same measure. We are rendering rendering ourselves null and void.

Equally for the immediate purpose because you cannot separate the things that are immediate and eternal in God. Paul was a man who always saw the things that were eternal. And it didn't render him incompetent or obsolete or irrelevant.

But because he saw the things that were eternal and invisible He was all the more a man for all seasons because he saw the connection with the thing which is immediate and at hand in terms of the Ultimate and the eternal purpose of God and so also must we see it.

Or we shall not be able to fulfill the role that God has destined for the church. Are you with me so far? Okay, I'm not trying to be fancy. I've already been exhorted tonight before I began to watch the four-syllable words.

So I'm being as simple and as clear and as concise as I can. Because this is nuts and bolts. This is utter Practicality these are foundational truths, which has been lost to the church and is now being revealed.

And Paul thanked God for the grace That had come to him to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ and to make known The things that are hidden and now being revealed and it raises the question if it takes a grace To preach and to reveal and to make something known of this magnitude.

What shall it take to fulfill it in fact through the church? And this is the eternal purpose of God. You say that well if this is an invisible realm of angelic demon beings a fallen stratum of spirit spirits that are occupying a governmental place because God's gifts and callings are without repentance and instead of acting in the way that would Correspond to God's purposes.

They're acting against God and trying to alienate men from God and to Permeate institutions and to draw the loyalty of men to it and their first priority to it. So that men think that their sustenance comes from the state or from the corporation or from the business rather than recognize Recognizing that their sustenance comes from God through the structures that God has provided in the earth.

And I can give you illustrations of how the Lord has begun to reveal to me the enormous power That goes beyond the intention of God in these structures. Medicine. For example that I share with you how when I had that busted kneecap in a hospital here in Golden Valley is it?

How I refused to take medication. And how miraculously while this Jewish orthopedic surgeon had his hand on my knee. And I was telling him Something about myself and he said well this needs to be wired up.

He said this isn't just fractured. It's smashed. I said, okay. Well, when can you do it? He said Thursday. It was like Tuesday night. I said no, I said Thursday I've got to be up in northern, Minnesota.

The Lord is giving us a property. He said the who? And right in that condition with my big swollen football knee With his hand on it. I was telling him as a Jewish man with credentials that he could recognize Berkeley graduate that I had a rendezvous with the Lord who gives.

And as his hand was on my knee all of a sudden his eyes grew larger saucers and he blinked at it. He said something's happening. He said the pieces are falling into place. I can feel it. I Said praise God.

We get to know each other well enough by the end of these 12 weeks. I'll tell you what I was doing with a busted Kneecap, I was baptizing Lutherans in a swimming pool to YMCA. Don't tell me the enemy wasn't mad.

And on my way to the locker my feet shot out from under me on a wet patch of tile floor and in a frozen Moment of time I found myself up in the air with my Bible in my hand looking down and thinking to myself cats What are you doing?

You don't have accidents and on that next thing. I know how I Came down on my knee and went two days before I saw about the man God's man of faith and power. Until finally was so swollen That this man said you must have come down with such Exact precision to have done that kind of damage.

Well, there was coming to a place that we can put in a cast now. You'll not need an operation and that's what he did. I had to spend the night in the hospital and here's the point. After they got me in bed in came a nurse or two nurses.

With a hypodermic. I said, well, what's that for? Oh, she said that's for your pain. I said I don't have any. She said but you must have. I said no. I said of course, there's some slight discomfort that nothing for which I need to be anesthetized.

And I just refused to take it and she she actually discolored in her face. No, it was like a the bluish indignation. And she came back with another nurse and they tried they pleaded with me and I refused so they came back with the pills.

I refused to take that then they came back with a doctor then two doctors and I never get the sight Looking in the doorway. They all talking to himself it always and Stroking their hair didn't know what to do with themselves.

And Mike why all of this consternation? Why why are they freaking out over the simple refusal to take their medication? And then I realized what it was. I was striking at an unspoken supposition of their profession that has to do with an axiom about The avoidance of pain and the pursuit of pleasure that is the unspoken Tenor of our whole civilization and to find a man who is not Intimidated by pain and it does not power for discomfort and need somehow to be dulled or numbed by drugs.

To avoid pain flew in the face of the whole unspoken supposition of their Institution which the powers of the air have played upon to establish exactly That that mankind could be in bondage to the fear of pain and subscribed to drugs rather than to God.

We need to see beyond the seeming appearance of things That seem innocuous and harmless in their first and physical and visible configuration. But behind them and through them something is pulsating. Some power is working not just to avail ourselves of a service like education or medicine or business or economics or culture but something that is wanting to compel us and to have us to relate to it in a way that is inordinate and displaces and usurps God and the whole world is in bondage to such systems.

Because there's only one agency that God has intended and given the power and the ability to discern What is happening in the earth? To see by the spirit what underlies reality and history and the rise of Nazism and the rock culture and drugs and sex and ideologies and student rebellions and Violence.

And not only to discern it but to act against it in that knowledge and in the structure of the church in its corporateness and in its power to take authority and to further disarm and to nullify the principality and the power right over the locality where that praying and interceding church is.

And for the warmth of that discernment and For the warmth of that intercession we are batting at the air. Men are still in bondage. They're not even a position to hear the gospel message or to respond.

They are still enslaved to these elementary powers and we have not taken authority sufficient to release them and to move the orbit of these powers over us so that men might be freed for the consideration of the things that pertain to eternity.

We wrestle not against flesh and blood. But my god, we are called to wrestle we. Not individual virtuosos not the single great man of faith and power. How can I say this respectfully? The most respectful thing I can say about individual ministries of faith and power is that they are a secondary second class Interim provision by the grace of God while he's waiting for the church to go up and to assume its proper role.

That's the best I can say. You get me in another mood. I can say things that are not quite as nice and in fact when I see these ministries continuing in such a way as to keep the attention of God's people toward themselves and Therefore God's people in passivity and immaturity.

I'm almost persuaded that the principalities and the powers of the air are not just acting through secular institutions of Medicine and culture and government but religion itself as a matter of fact. It was that very combination of the powers of the air acting through the religious establishment and through the political Establishment that eventuated in the crucifixion of Jesus His death just to read you in 1st Corinthians.

Christ’s Cross and the Wisdom of God

How effectual these? Powers are we're not just talking about some slight and What shall I say influence? That somehow they mediate a certain vibration into society they are powerful to jerk and to manipulate both men and nations and Even to have brought about the destruction.

They thought of the Son of God in 1st Corinthians 2nd chapter Verse 6. Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom. Although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age who are doomed to pass away.

Interesting observation. In fact now that your eye is being opened I hope you'll be alert to every such reference in Colossians in Ephesians in Corinthians in places where in Jude where Allusions are made to the spirit realm right away your antenna will be up to pick it up and to recognize.

What was the apostolic mentality of the first church that clearly recognized where the issues lay and these? Rulers of this age are doomed to pass away not of old age. Not of themselves. The last thing they want to do is to relinquish power and influence.

Because they are petty usurping gods with a small G. Who want to continue and increasingly to obtain the loyalty and the devotion and the worship of men? How Hitler? You can't listen to one of those Tapes of the Nazi time or see an ancient Nazi propaganda film and see hundreds of thousands shooting their arms out in one moment with such a cry and Say that that can be explained sociologically or politically.

It's a spirit phenomenon That had captivated an entire nation. Celebrated for its intellectuality and for the depth of its culture and for its philosophical Mindedness the land of Luther and the land of theology.

What hope then for us Johnny come lately Americans? Whose civilization is only skin deep when these powers get set to rip and roar and tear and take sway? To entire Institutions not just to influence them, but to dominate them.

So as to have the whole allegiance of men to themselves. There's a war on. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but we have better wrestle and it's got to be we. This is going to take a church of a very certain kind.

Namely an apostolic kind a Church whose eye is open to recognize the struggles and to have that has such an intimacy with God and such a sense of discernment by the spirit in the purity of their own life and walk in relationship with each other that they can discern the character of the powers that prevail even over their own neighborhoods and Can come against it as I'm going to show you in the weeks to come the very presence Of such a church just the presence of the authenticity of such a church is Sufficient to dislodge and to move away and to make back off the powers that have prevailed over those communities Jesus I know and Paul I know and East Emmanuel too.

Because whatever these powers see the authenticity of Christ. They're required to shrink and to recoil away. They cannot stand authenticity in worship in prayer in the preached word and the demonstration of the cross.

But where the religion is feigned where the faith is feigned where the affection is only carnal and shallow and skin-deep and Only a kind of casual how you're doing brother. They are not in any way intimidated or threatened or required in any way to be dislodged.

We're in a race with time to get it together. Before these powers captivate the very earth because they have a fury knowing that their time is short. So that they're doomed to pass away in exact proportion as the church comes in to its intended Apostolic configuration and that's why they resist such a church.

That's why we're going to experience persecution and the very absence of persecution was already a statement of the degree to which we were outside the faith and The remarkable thing is as I hope to show you in weeks to come that the very Persecution which the quality of our life and faith invokes in them Gives opportunity for a response from us, which is the very demonstration of the wisdom of God for which reason he has a created all things.

We don't gripe. We don't moan. We don't bite our fingers. We don't say why us? We don't say we don't be into that. How come? We rejoice in our sufferings. We praise God that we were found worthy to share in his sufferings.

And when when the policy of people who can rejoice in their sufferings and give praise in their afflictions. They're finished. They're better blow them blows them out altogether. They're gone. They can't stand that kind of demonstration.

So to move from charismatic praise that is to say the precious choruses to sing that we sing when we've had a good meal. We're comfortable well-fed and in the company of the Saints to the quality of praise that will come at midnight in the midst of affliction or persecution that and suffering that is the consequence of our testimony and the authenticity of true church in our presence.

When that praise goes forth We will have concluded where Jesus has begun at the cross. What he disarmed we shall permanently render null and void. So that his kingdom shall come and all authority shall be under his feet.

So the rulers are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom in verse 7 of God which God decreed before the ages for our glorification. Which none of the rulers of this age understood for if they had they would not have crucified The Lord of Glory.

Here's one of my famous dump it on thumbs. They would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. He's speaking about the rulers of this age. He's not talking about Pontius Pilate or the Sanhedrin. Or the the hierarchy of the priesthood.

These were the human agents willing agents. But the inspiration the power the vehemence the violence. Came from that stratum above the earth in the heavenly place the rulers of this world Darkness who sought to destroy the Son of God and the only wisdom they know threat fear intimidation power violence death.

But if they knew what that was going to work, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory, but they didn't know. They're arrogant and contentious and they usurpers, but they're dumb. Because they just cannot recognize the wisdom of humility.

They cannot recognize forgiveness. They cannot recognize the virtue of Meek Submission to the sovereignty of God the Father even when it requires Unexplicable Suffering that that they can't understand that wisdom.

They don't understand and because they didn't understand that they missed it and suffered the profound defeat which disarmed them. But did not remove them. So here's another turn to them. That means they're still active.

They're without teeth, but the world doesn't know that. And no one has called their bluff because they can they can shriek and make noises and Inculcate fear and play upon mankind. Even as they work through the Jewish religious Element and through the Roman political element to work the destruction of Jesus at the cross so too are they working through agencies today?

For example like the mafia. So when the Lord gave me the privilege of coming to that city in Sicily Catania which is the headquarters of the mafia where I had been 40 years before as a Jewish high school dropout and merchant seaman looking for adventure.

I'll tell you about that sometime. Bunking with two guys from the South whose fathers were Ku Klux Klanists who had never seen a Jew. Talk about going from a high school in Brooklyn to the real world.

And to be caught up with the pimps the racketeers and the prostitutes as a kid just turned 17 and Come back 40 years later at the age of 57 and Preach in that same city for 10 days for the most marvelous Fellowship one of the greats on the face of the earth unsung unheld at unknown.

And to meet not only a preach every night. But to meet for three or four successive mornings with young men and women being groomed for leadership six o 'clock in the morning and speak to them on one subject the principalities and the polish of the year.

Ten days in one city ten consecutive days. We've you guys have a week to recover from Wednesday to Wednesday and I Couldn't remember when I've ever been in one place that long and the pastor said I said one more day I said that I've given you everything.

I'd have another message. He said out one more day meet with the elders. I Said okay, and about I don't know what time early the morning of that day the Lord wake me. I Instantly reached for a piece of paper in my pen and the Lord gave me a list of about seven Express and explicit points of application of the messages which they've been hearing in those days.

Confronting the Mafia and the Powers Behind Society

And so I met with the elders that night. Jovial Sicilian Italian spiritual believers. Mama Mia the cream of the crop. And I watched their swarthy complexion turn pale when I read to them point number one what God wants you to do.

Now that you understand, what is the issue of the struggle? Confront the Mafia. This Mafia that has produced an entire great nation. They've been asked the Renaissance masterpiece of the world. Italy is now a second place nation good for pizzas and for flashy sports cars and a Gina Lola Brigida or something like that.

Why? Because despite its population its geography and its resources it has been compromised by the Mafia. It has no ethic it has no Integrity it could be jerked and pulled by strings out of fear and no organ of government is able to meet that threat.

Because it rules by threat and has even compromised government itself. No one can stand against it because everyone in the last analysis is afraid to die. It waits for people who can stand before the Mafia and say we're calling your blood.

God did not establish this earth this is the Lord's and He's not going to allow men to be intimidated and threatened and whole nations compromised because of a bluff of the fear of death and violence that you're exerting and You couldn't even pull the trigger against us except that we're giving you from above.

Is that what Jesus said to? Pontius Pilate you could do nothing against me except it were given from above. How about a church who could talk like that? How about a church that can believe like that? And to go from the pew to the place of Confrontation at the direction of the Spirit of God and be absolutely fear less without whimpering without the lip quivering and Say you could do nothing.

We're coming against you. We're revealing your bluff. You're animated by powers of the air whether you know it or not. We're coming against them in the name of Jesus. We're going to put this nation on alert that they're defeated powers and that you guys are not going to further rule over this locality.

Just as we're going to pray tonight, please remind me for those television programs and those seminars we're going to come against it in the name of Jesus corporately and together with authority and Disembowel that filthy thing before it gets off the ground we're going to begin to walk in the understanding of God has given us an exercise our corporate authority and not just be hapless victims of Whatever that the enemy wants to work in our culture and life.

And the same thing for our punk rock culture and every other kind of degrading thing that is bringing the whole moral of quality of civilization into the dust and defaming and and destroying the image of God and man and Supposing they pull the trigger and God allows them.

And yet to rejoice. What's his name Gandhi without even the knowledge of these things obtained independence from the colonial rule of Great Britain. Britain? By opposing force with passive resignation.

Without realizing that he touched a principle of the cross. He confounded the wisdom of the rulers of this world. And where they finally do they had to give up their powers broken. They could not rule a nation that was not terrified and could not be straightjacketed by their threat or intimidation and left.

The Church as the Ground and Pillar of Truth

The church has a role one of the last messages if I can remain Biographical that I gave in East Germany again. Talking to elders on a final night upstairs in my room with a flow pen on the back of an envelope.

Looking to God and writing down things that he was impressing in my heart because my spirit had been grieved in those weeks in East Germany every time I came to another city a train station a factory those filthy vile propaganda science.

45 years of Soviet German friendship. I thought what a filthy lie. Well, I've seen those Russian soldiers walking through these East German towns. The Germans won't even give them the time of day. They still remember the raping and the looting in 1945.

What friendship. That's a lie. But it's a communist lie. It's an ideological lie. It's a necessary lie for the establishment and the reinforcement of their system. And then in the home where I'm staying the brother who works in a Portal factory says I already said if you knew he said we are a schizophrenic nation.

Because half of us are alcoholics. I thought to myself sure. It's a nation that can't live with a lie. God has not made men to live with lies. Something breaks. I mean we get ulcers are very close veins.

We freak out our Chemistry our physiology was made to live in truth and righteousness and peace. And when we're continually faced with a lie that we swallow it down. It's got to take its invincible toll and we got to drown out the erosion of our integrity.

The image of God is the modern man. I Came down to those elders that night with this envelope and I watched men go pale and said to them by the authority of God. I said you guys have a responsibility to go to the local Communists or faris in your city and to tell them that though they may not realize it.

They are destroying their nation. They may succeed in their political and economic five-year plans and goals but they're destroying the integrity of this people because men cannot live continually with a lie and Only the church can recognize that only the church can stand for truth because the church is the ground in the pillar of truth.

And I don't care I said I'm not saying that you should tell them that so you'll have an opportunity to witness. Whether you do have you don't have a secondary and I don't even care if they heed what you say.

The likelihood is that they will not but you cannot remain the Church of Jesus Christ In this city and in this nation in this hour and be silent in the face of the official lie. You have got to stand for what is made in the image of God.

Now, I don't think that they ever went. Of course if they had what would be the likelihood they might end up in jail. They might throw the keys away. They might never be seen again but That's for the fear of those things the church and certainly nations have been paralyzed till now.