Power of True Religion: Power Over Us — J. Glyn Owen

The Form of Godliness Without Its Power

Amen, and may the Lord in his goodness hear our prayers. It seems such a long time ago that I felt constrained on a Sunday evening, though it's only about four weeks if I remember correctly, to turn to 2 Timothy chapter 3 and to look at the statement there in verse 5 where the Apostle Paul refers to people who have a form of godliness or a form of piety or religion, that is the word, but denying the power of it.

Having a form of religion, a form of godliness, but denying the power of it. And I want to return to that tonight. This word of Paul's, first of all, tells us that religion has two sides, and this is really what we dwelt at last time.

Religion has two sides. It has form. It takes a certain pattern in our individual lives. And the sad thing is, of course, that our entire godliness, so called, or religion, whatever term you choose to use, it can be confined to the mere shell, the mere externalities, the carcass, really, of true religion.

And it is all too possible for us to have the externalities impeccably in their place without what the Apostle Paul is speaking of here as the power that should inhabit the form of the true religion. A very famous politician in England, before we came, before we left that part of the world, was a leader of the Socialist Party, and he had a remarkable tongue.

I don't want to say too much about him, but he came from one of our Welsh mining valleys, and he referred to the churches of the valleys that he had come from as sheer extinct volcanoes. I think it was one of the most graphic turn of phrase that I've heard for a long time, because it was so true.

Time was when in that very valley, and I'm referring now to something that happened, a man of God, the early part of this century, a man of God stood in an open street on a Lord's Day morning because there was a procession, a parade.

I don't need to tell you what it was about, it was something very worldly anyway. But this man of God had felt constrained in the name of the Lord to forbid them to move. There were about 5 ,000 people coming down, it was very popular, and R .B. Jones stood alone in the center of the road, and the crowd stopped, and he stood on an orange box, and with his two hands, he lifted up his hands into the sky, and he said, men and women, in the name of the Lord God Almighty, I forbid you to do what you have planned to do.

Go home. And the whole lot of them, men and women, boys and girls, turned heel and went home. There were no tricks about that, he just happened to be a man who had something more than the form of true religion.

Time was when what we speak of as non-conformity, particularly in the British Isles, had not only a voice, but authority. And what was preached in the churches on Sunday, had some influence upon what happened in the House of Commons on Monday.

It doesn't appertain anymore, but neither does it here. Has the power gone? In North America there is more evangelism than in any other part of the world. And if we rightly are judged, there are more people in North America, from week to week, who are making a profession of faith in Jesus Christ than anywhere else.

But where is the power? They will go to church on Sunday, I take it. Some of them may find their schedule a little too busy for that, unfortunately. But they will bear the name of Jesus, and they will talk about Him, and they will say that they believe in Him, and they call themselves believers, and they will be baptized, and they will be received into a church, probably.

But where is the power? Part of the challenge here is this, of course, that the Apostle Paul here says that as the age of grace is pressing towards its close, this kind of awesome phenomenon will be on the increase.

And you'll find it on all hands. Men and women who have the form of godliness, externally you can't find fault with them. They're in the right place, they're using the right words, they apparently, they ostensibly believe the right things.

But they're like extinct volcanoes. If ever, if ever, if ever, they rarely knew the mighty explosive power of God in their hearts. Now that is tragic for many reasons. It leads, for example, to a misrepresentation of God.

And I would put this before anything else tonight. The tragedy of the fact that men and women, whether here or elsewhere, have a form of godliness without the power of it. The main tragedy lies in this, that it misrepresents God.

We appear to be saying, you see, that the only thing that is necessary in true religion is to be in the right place at the right time, to say the right things, and so forth. Mouth the correct shibboleths.

But we are utterly impotent. That's not what God's after. That's not why Christ died. That's not why the Holy Spirit came. That's not why the Bible was written. The Bible wants more than that. The Spirit wants more than that.

Jesus wants more than that. And he's died and is risen again and ascended to procure infinitely more than that. To be draped in the mere trappings of religion is a mockery that sooner or later disgusts mankind around us.

And they conclude that God does nothing more to give and nothing more to say than what they see in men who have a fall of godliness and deny the power of it. And to me this is the greatest tragedy. If they judge Christianity according to what they see in us, when we have no power, our primary iniquity and what should be our primary concern is this, that we are misrepresenting the Lord God Almighty.

However hard and well we sing, the Lord is King. Again of course the same phenomenon stays the hand of divine blessing. You read the book of Isaiah and and he is a particular exponent of this doctrine from the very first chapter right on to the end of the 50s there.

The Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, nor is his ear heavy that he cannot hear. Well then why doesn't he hear? We're praying aren't we? We're talking to him aren't we? We're asking for things aren't we?

And we're very religious, we're bringing our offerings, we're coming to church, we're remembering the Sabbaths and the full moons and the festivals, we're keeping them all. You read chapter 1. But says the Lord, the multitude of your sacrifices what are they to me?

I have more than enough of burnt offerings and of rams and of the fat of fatted animals. I've no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to meet with me who has asked this of you?

You're trampling my very courts. Stop bringing meaningless offerings. I don't need to go on. What he's saying is this, it's all in vain. I'm not listening to you. I'm turning my face the other way. I'm not interested in it says the Lord.

It dishonors God before men. It results in the withholding of the mighty hand of God in blessing. We are living at a time in church history then, when the forces of evil are so blatant that we simply cannot afford to be living on the shell or on the crust of the truth, of true religion.

The Power of True Religion in a Time of Evil

Brothers and sisters, you and I need the power. You and I need the dynamis. You know I was coming down here on Friday night for a meeting. I was coming down one of these side streets here to come up St. George's and I couldn't come out.

There was such a crowd coming up on the road I didn't know what they were. The road was black with people. So I turned back. I'm afraid I broke the law. Don't tell anyone will you? But I turned round and made a u-turn and I thought I'd be in front of them and I came down Bloor and then I came down Spadina here.

And lo and behold by the time I got to the lights in Spadina they were there. And I discovered afterwards that they were about a mile long. And they were from one side of the road to the other. So I had to leave my car.

I found a spot to park it there and I walked down and I looked at their faces. And I sensed the mighty power of hell on the march. What's the answer to it? Marching against them? Not on your life. Petitioning the Parliament?

God only knows whether that'll do any good. But I'll tell you what the answer really is. It's right here. It is right here. It is for God's men and women to discover the power of true religion and be so possessed by it that they become vehicles of it.

And there is nothing else that will turn the tide. I personally am convinced of that. I see some staunch Wesleyans here tonight and they remind me of the fact that Wesley's revival in England, Wesley's ministry in England saved England from the awesome things that were going on in the continent at that very time.

A man of God clothed with the power of God, allied to men and women of God who knew how to pray and how to speak and how to live. That's the answer. It's God's answer. You are the salt of the earth. Now then, what have we got here?

Well it's a truism is it not that Christianity is a religion of power. If it's not that then historic, historically the faith is nothing. It is a religion of power. Our Lord Jesus Christ stood face to face with the Pharisees of old and the Sadducees and he criticized them.

Why did he criticize them? On two counts. One he says you are in error because you do not know the scriptures. That's one thing. They thought they had a spattering of the Old Testament, a smattering of the Old Testament, but they were never right or very rarely right.

Scholars though they were, they misrepresented the Old Testament as they did in the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount reflects their misunderstanding of the truth. But Jesus didn't end there.

He said you are in error he says because you do not know the scriptures nor the power of God. You're so meticulous, you're so dogmatic, you're so sure of yourself, but listen he says you're all wrong.

And it's because you don't know the scriptures of God and you don't know the power of God. If you only knew God you'd have power in your lives. Paul claimed that the good news of our Christian faith is essentially God's power expressed and experienced.

It is the power of God unto salvation to every man that believes to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. It's the power of God unto salvation, working out salvation, involved in saving men and women, power at work.

Not power in a cage, not power in a cartridge, but power let loose. Brothers and sisters that's what the gospel is. It's the power of God let loose, moving up and down the pews, touching our hearts, our minds, our consciences, our very bodies.

It's the power of God on the go. It's the go in the name of God. That's what power is. You can't confine the power of God. It's an explosive thing. It's on the moon. The message of the cross says Paul is foolishness to those who are perishing maybe, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

And so what I want to say tonight is this. It's an indispensable ingredient of true religion. Now it's not something for extra, for those who are prepared to go that way. It's indispensable. My friend, don't be satisfied with a shell.

Imagine a couple here. I heard of a couple falling in love this week. These are great weeks you know. You never know what a pastor hears. But imagine this man buying a ring for his or assuming to be purchasing a ring for his beloved and he goes to her with nothing but a case.

Just a case. Crazy. Brothers and sisters, you know it's so true of us so often we've got nothing but the case. But the casing. We just don't have the ring. We just don't have the jewel. We just don't have the power.

And we've got so accustomed to it we think it's all right just as we are. And it's all wrong. Now this is the theme. This is the thing that gripped me when I read this verse about four weeks ago. And I want to talk about the power of true religion.

I want to start tonight and I'm going to continue for another two Sunday evenings. It seems to me that I'm looking generally at the New Testament now. We're usually confined to a particular text or passage.

I want to look more generally tonight. It seems to me that the power of true religion, the power of the gospel, it manifests itself in three ways. First of all it's the power of God over us. It's the authority of God over us so that he is Lord, my Lord, and my God.

Secondly, it is the power of God in us, right inside. Dealing with a man that lives in this carcass, dealing with a person that lives in this body, dealing with a person inside. And it's the power of God doing something on the move inside men and women.

And thirdly, it is the power of God through men and women. Now really you can't divide these three because they're like the three coils of a rope. They belong to one another. They've been entwined around one another and they make one.

You can't really split them up. Nevertheless, I think we're going to try to do that just for the sake of being clear concerning the biblical teaching tonight. But let's remember that in experience we simply cannot divide them.

As sure as the power of God is over you, and his authority is acknowledged by you, then he will be working in you. And as sure as he will be working in you, he will work through you. And so they come together.

God’s Authority Must Come Before His Power Works Through Us

But for the sake of our analysis, for the sake of our seeing things clearly, we are going to try to see them separately tonight. Looking only of course at the first, the power of God over us. In vain do we look for the powerful ministry of God in us or through us, unless he first of all has power over us.

Now let me ask you, right at this stage in our service, will you do this quietly with yourself? Try to think how much power does the Lord exercise over you? No one else can answer that. What authority has he got over your life and mine?

How far does it go? In the teaching of the New Testament, Jesus Christ is first of all said to be Lord of the church. Lord of the church. The head of the church. The Lord. The master. But because he is head of the church, Colossians chapter 1 and verse 18, we read in Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 22, now listen to this, it's so beautiful, that he is head over all things for the church's sake.

I don't want anyone to miss that. But I want you to notice which comes first. What does it mean when it says that he is head over all things for the church's sake? He's head of their enemies. He's master of their friends.

He's the boss. He's the Lord of everything. Is there anything the church needs? He can give it. Anything? Anything. He is Lord of all things to the church. The church can need nothing but that he is Lord over it and can provide it.

Ah, but wait a moment. Before he is Lord over anything to the church, he must be Lord of the church. And you see, there is a great dichotomy in experience. The experience of many of us between these two things.

We want the Lord to be Lord over all things for us and to us. But the shoe pinches when he says, first of all, I have to have authority over you. There can be no salvation for the sinner that does not involve the exercise of power over that sinner.

Authority over that sinner. Now you look at all the biblical metaphors or images. Start in the Old Testament if you like. If the sheep is to be saved by the shepherd, then the shepherd must be the master.

He must have authority over the sheep. The sheep can't be saved. The sheep can't enjoy pasture. A sheep is never safe unless the sheep obeys and is under the control of a shepherd. That's a truism. Think of the potter and the clay.

There is no way that the vessel unto honor can emerge unless the clay is soft and malleable and yielding to the potter's deft hands. The potter must have power, authority over the clay. Move into the New Testament.

We have the image of the rabbi's authority over his disciples. A disciple never becomes what the rabbi is capable of making him, unless the disciple receives and imbibes and obeys the teaching. Or come again, the physician and the patient.

The same is true. No patient will be healed just because he's on the list of a physician or she's on the list of a physician. You've got to go to the physician or he's got to come to you and he'll tell you what to do and what to take and then you've got to take it.

I'm tempted to go straight and I will tell you this. You know the first time this came home to me was in Belfast. Belfast people are a very special breed. But I remember going to see a lady in the heart of the Falls Road where the trouble started.

She was not a Presbyterian. She was not a Baptist. She was not an Anglican. She was a kind of Catholic that she was looking for something that she'd not got. I won't tell you all the story but this is the relevant part of it.

I don't even remember her name just now but she came back to me very forcibly this afternoon. There was something wrong with her. I don't know what it was. But there she was lying on her couch as I was visiting her on this particular day and she was so proud of the fact that there was nothing seriously wrong because she was in the doctor's care.

She said I visited him so many times and he's visited me so many times so everything's all right. Well I said did he give you anything to take? Oh yes. She said each time he comes he brings me some tablets or he gives me a bottle she said.

And whenever I go to him he gives me tablets or he gives me a bottle. I said do you take them? Oh no she said. Oh no. And she opened the cupboard and there was a whole canister. All bottles of whatever I don't know.

But you see she was in touch with the doctor and she was expecting to get well but she hadn't taken it. Well I mustn't say she hadn't taken a tablet I don't know but certainly most of them were untouched.

Now you may say that's very queer and far-fetched but it's true. My friend if the physician is to heal he must be master. You must obey. Assuming that he is a true physician. He's master and he cannot heal you even if he has the power to do so otherwise unless you obey.

Take what he gives you. Or the image of the father's authority over the children. Over his children. Or the image of the king's rule over over over his subjects. It's all the same. You know you can't go anywhere in the New Testament without this image this metaphor.

Standing out and saying look here in your relationship to God he he must have control over you. Power. Authority. Neither is this claim to power and authority over men exclusively a biblical phenomenon of course.

Every in every religion it is claimed. The meaning of the word Islam comes from the Aramaic and it means surrender. And the follower of Islam will tell you that there is no salvation unless you surrender to the will of Allah.

You have a similar kind of thing in Buddhism. Or when you turn to the cults you meet the same thing. Think of the Mormons. The authority. The authority over them. Think of these young men offering two years in the prime of life.

Two years to be a missionary and not to go where they want to go. Where the climate's good but where they're told to go and go they do. Never mind about your career. Never mind about anything else. You go and go by the thousands they do.

Authority. Who has not been faced with the Jehovah's Witness at the door? You can't stop them. They come and they go and they come and they go and they come back again and they come back again and they're full of zeal hawking a lie.

Which is an insult to Jesus Christ the Son of God. But they come back again. They're under authority you see. You're not trying to escape it. Now there are two sides or two aspects to the power that biblical religion claims over the people of God.

God’s Moral Right to Rule His Redeemed People

First the Bible claims that God is a moral right to rule us and this is established. I'm not going to dwell upon it. Just want to refer to it. This is basic and it is established on many counts. God has the right of the Creator over his creature.

God is the right of the preserver over his preserved. Your next breath is God's. He has the right over your life. Not only because he made you but because he preserves you. You can't breathe your next breath my friend unless God gives you breath.

But not only that of course in the experience of his redeemed he has redeemed us with the blood of his Son. And as the Apostle Paul haunted the rebellious Corinthians of old he would tell us you have been redeemed.

You have been bought with a price you don't belong to yourselves. God has the right to rule you and to rule me as his creature but especially as his redeemed. Now beyond that the Bible affirms that where genuine piety obtains that divine right is acknowledged.

This is what makes a true believer. A man comes under the authority of God and submits himself. Now time was you know in the history of the church in certain parts of the world where this was the language of evangelism.

Surrender. I used to think in my young Christian days that that wasn't a good word. Surrender. I'm just trying to analyze my own psychology now I'm not quite sure whether I'm doing justice to myself or not but I won't tell you the conclusion.

However as I read my Bible I find that there was a very significant truth to that whether it was the whole truth or not. There cannot be faith in a Christ to whom I don't yield. Surrender. This divine power is exercised over us on many fronts.

The gospel comes to us as the power of divinely revealed and inspired truth over our minds and God asks us to submit our minds to his truth. The gospel comes to us as the power of the divinely ordained standard of right and wrong and he asks us to submit our consciences to his standard.

The Bible comes to us and the gospel and it claims to be the power of God's will telling us what we must do. We must submit our wills to him. You see all this is God coming into our lives to claim authority over us and to tell us you don't belong to yourselves.

To be saved you must be in my hand, in my control. But now let me try to put this in another way. I shall do so as briefly as I can. Another way of presenting the same important truth is to stress the role of each person of the Blessed Trinity in the exercise of power over men who have the spirit of true religion.

And have you noticed how the Bible does this? How the New Testament does this? I don't need to go back into the old. The New Testament speaks or refers to the power of God the Father over his people. Of the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God the Savior of men over his people and of the power and authority of the Spirit.

The whole triune God you see comes to save us first of all by exercising authority over us. Power over us. Let me just dwell with this for a little while. First of all there is the distinctive role of the Father which is expressed in a number of passages.

The Father’s Chastening and Training of His Children

Now let me give us an illustration tonight. The passage, very well-known passage, very familiar passage in Hebrews 12 it starts with verse 5. As the Holy Father God is concerned for the real and eternal well-being of his children.

And that is expressed in this passage in Hebrews 12 in terms of what is called there according to the King James chastening. Whom the Father loves he chastens and he scourges every son every child that he receives.

In the New International Version it is training the word training and literally the Greek word underlying it really means that. It's the training of a child. I quote from one of the best Greek English lexicons the Aunt Gingrich and it refers to the word and says it means the upbringing the training instruction of a child.

Chiefly as it is obtained by discipline and correction and inspiration as that of a fatherly God. What is this that we're referring to? God the Father taking each child whom he receives into his family and exercising such authority over each child that he never receives a child into his family, never adopts a child into his family, but that he corrects him, he chastises him, he disciplines him, he trains him.

And in the midst of all that that is said there there is the word gumnadzo from which we have our English gymnastics. God puts us through our paces says the writer to the Hebrews. He puts us in the gymnasium and he puts us through our exercises because he wants us to grow up into the fullness of the stature of Christ.

He wants to make men and women of God out of us. But you see to do that he exercises power, authority. My friend do you dance to God's tune? To whose band do you march? Oh do you march through life? Do you keep time with God?

True religion means the acknowledgment and the glad acceptance of the fact that God the Father rules over his people and trains them by his grace and by his providence. You have illustrations of the same thing going back into the Old Testament and into the New.

From beginning to end of Scripture in the Old Testament there are classical illustrations such as Joseph. Imagine Joseph for example after being sold by his brothers to those Ishmaelites or Egyptians as they thought of them.

Remember after everything that had happened to him he says when he met his brothers later on he says ah he said it's not as you think. It was God who sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.

So then he says it was not you who sent me here. You see they were getting very sorry for themselves not not perhaps penitent but they were sorry for themselves and a little bit afraid of consequences and he disabuses them he says all right it's all right now he says I'm not going to take vengeance on you.

It was God I see the hand of God in it. God sent me ahead of you. You see God was training me. He put me in the pit. He took me into the caravan. He allowed me to be faced with the temptation in Potiphar's house.

He took me into prison and when that man forgot me the chief butler when he went out and asked no favor as he had said he would. God was in it he says and in all of this God was making me. What was he making you Joseph?

He made me. He was making me a father to Pharaoh. Lord of his entire household and ruler over all Egypt. God was making me you see. He was disciplining me. He was training me. I was in the gymnasium says Joseph.

Oh blessed is that man that sees behind the hands of men the hand of God. Blessed is that man who can see the sovereign hand of God behind the kind or cruel hands of men and who can say to every circumstance what Jesus said to Pontius Pilate in John 19 11.

What did Jesus say to Pontius Pilate? You would have no power over me if it were not given you from above. You got it? Says Jesus to Pontius Pilate yes you've got authority over me for the moment but you didn't get it.

It's not yours. It's not the Roman power. It's not the Jewish power and it's not yours personally. He says it's been given you from above and because of that I submit to it. I yield to it. I give him.

I acknowledge the authority of God over me even to the point of my being accounted a sinner and a worm and no man and I die beneath it. Yes and thrice blessed is he who has grace calmly and confidently to yield to that sovereign and wise rule of God over him.

I remember referring to this once before. If you remember it forgive me. Probably you don't anyway. I remember referring to a man who meant a lot to me. Johannes Towler of Strasbourg. He met a tramp one day when he whom he addressed in this way.

God give you a good day my friend he said to the tramp. Do you speak to tramps? You might find great profit in speaking to some of them. There are great angels dressed in rags. I found that. I thank God said the beggar.

I never had a bad day thank you. What? Towler somewhat taken aback changed his mode of salutation. God give you a happy life my friend. I thank God said the beggar. I'm never unhappy. Never unhappy said Towler.

What do you mean? Well rejoined the beggar. When it is fine I thanks my God. When it rains I thank my God. When I have plenty I thank God. When I am hungry I thank God. And since God's will is my will and whatsoever pleases my God pleases me, why should I say I am unhappy when I am not unhappy?

Oh there's music in that. There's grace in that. You see he saw himself in the hands of God for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, alone or in company. In all circumstances in the hand of God the Father who he saw disciplining him, making something of him, a child who would honor his father in the household of heaven.

Christ’s Lordship and the Authority of the Holy Spirit

Scripture sometimes speaks of the authority of the Son of God over us. It speaks of Jesus as Lord. I'm not going to dwell on this. This is a more familiar theme. Can I only just refer to it? It is important.

Jesus manifested in his human life what it means to be obedient to the Father because he was the perfect Son. And three times over God the Father said of him as Jesus the man, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.

If you want to see then, if you want to see what kind of submission honors the Father and pleases him, look at the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the pattern but he exhibited all of this in his life, in his death.

And not only that, he by his sacrifice upon the cross established forever the crown rights of God the Redeemer over every man and every woman who trusts him. God has creative rights from all eternity but he has sovereign rights, the rights of Calvary, redemptive rights over his own.

The Thessalonians knew that, you know, when they listened to Paul bringing the good news to Thessalonica, they got a little bit angry after a while. And do you remember how they represented Paul and his message and his friends who were with him?

This is how they said, Acts 17 7, they are all defying Caesar's decrees, they said, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus. You got that? They've been listening to Paul preaching and this is how they summarize it.

This man and the fellows with him are talking about another king. It's a threat to Caesar. Who is this other king? Jesus is king, you see. The whole of the ministry of the Apostle Paul asked you to be subject to King Jesus.

Are you subject to him? How far does he have authority over us? And then, of course, the New Testament speaks of the authority of the Holy Spirit, the power of the Holy Spirit. I only want to say two things about it.

It's not that it isn't important, it's absolutely important. I don't want to take too long. Two things I want to say are these. What is meant by the fullness of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament is essentially, in the first place, there are other things, but in the first place when the New Testament speaks of the fullness of the Holy Spirit, it means the control of the Spirit.

Whom the Holy Spirit fills, He controls. You know it is possible to have an element indwelling you that doesn't control you. When the Holy Spirit fills, He takes over all control. And in this age, this is how God's authority is expressed.

It is by the Spirit and the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. The other thing I want to say is this. You notice how the language of the book of the Acts of the Apostles, how this authority over the Spirit of the people is expressed.

It comes out in odd little snippets that you, you don't, you're not looking for it, but it's there all the time. I read, for example, I could read more evident scriptures, scriptures in which it's far more evident than this, but there are incidents like this.

We miss them if we don't read prayerfully. In Acts chapter 15 and verse 28 we read, it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us. Now can you see that? There's been a council in Jerusalem, and they had to come to some conclusions in that council.

And one of the leaders says, how did we come to the conclusion? Well, he said, it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us. And we sensed the lordship of the Spirit and the movings of the Spirit and the thoughts of the Spirit and the will of the Spirit, and he influenced us likewise, and and and we we came to think the same thoughts.

Earthquake! Just there. We have earthquakes in the book of the Acts sometimes, of course, and the houses tremble, but not always. God does not always manifest His power in earthquakes, my friend. Have you seen the snow moving these last two days?

Did you hear it go? Did you hear it move? Well, I know the lorries came into some of our streets, but I'm not talking about the lorries. I'm talking about the warm breeze that came up our streets, and silently overnight, and a little bit of rain, just just a little sprinkling.

Sorry you Baptists, but it was only a little bit of sprinkling, and it did the trick. And God the Almighty, the Omnipotent God can exert His power without making any noise. Don't judge God's presence by the noise necessarily.