Two Kingdoms (Video)

You know, we are supposed to be prophetic. The church is called to be prophetic to every generation. And there's a trap on either involving ourselves with the politics and the sword, or the other side is to retreat into some sort of isolationism or into cloistering to this side. And Jesus wants us to be his kingdom, prophetically speaking and prophetically living in this world, the person of Jesus Christ. I'm going to change. This is broken. I'm going to trade to this reader because I don't like having to go like that on my bifocals. So my apologies to my wife who's embarrassed by my funny presence. Okay, yeah, I've got some worse ones that she really didn't want me. We could put a, we could put a collection together tonight to give you some ideas. No, I haven't. It just fell off. I'm just kidding. Well, praise the Lord. It's great to be here with you all. And the topic that's been on my heart a lot is just looking at our world and the different things that, how it happens. And I'd like to take a look at two kingdoms and just politics in general. If I get to it, I'd like to get down to a little bit of how we respond, how kingdom and Anabaptist people have responded in the past and, and perhaps ways that we could do that better. And so, although now that I've seen a close up, that's kind of funny looking, so I'll go back to this. But anyway, so let me share my screen. I'm also going to try something tonight where I'm trying to learn on Zoom. Clark's been having me swivel over to Google slides, which has been great. And it has this really nice speakers notes, but you can't do that and do Zoom. So I'm trying to figure out a way to do that. So I'm going to be going back and forth between this screen and this screen. But let me find my Zoom screen here. All right. Let's try to share and present that. And then, okay, where have my share button? Okay. Where's the share button? I really work with this every day, so I'm surprised I'm having such a hard time. Okay. Here we go. Share screen and there. Okay. All right. So this is my slide show here, kind of go along with this. And I have, and children watch, I even have a little cartoon for you to watch that I tried to create. All right. So can everybody see that two kingdoms there? All right. So maybe some of you heard my testimony, but I was raised in an evangelical background and embraced the teachings of Jesus, my wife and I, as we began to read the New Testament and take it seriously. And we became conscious objectors in the Persian Gulf War, which is a long story for another time. But of all that you have to do to be a conscious objector, I think one of the most impressive or the most, the scariest part, which I thought was going to be not a scary part, was my interview with a psychiatrist or psychologist, I don't know what she was, maybe a psychologist or psychiatrist. But when I went in there, thinking it was just supposed to be a kind of a token routine visit, as soon as I walked in the door, she looked at me and said, you're not going to be here very long. You don't even need to sit down. And I was like, what do you mean? She said, yeah, you conscious objectors, conscientious objectors, I've got you. And I was like, wow, this is sort of much more adversarial than I thought it would be. And I said, well, what do you mean you've got me? And then I quietly sit down. And she said, I've got all you conscious objectors. And I said, okay, what do you mean? She said, all right, I'll ask you a few questions. I said, okay, please do. She said, okay, so you say you want out of the army because you do not feel that you can support what the army stands for, what the army is doing in war, and you say you can't do that, is that correct? I said, yes, ma'am, that's correct. And she said, I have the second question for you. And I said, okay, I was, you know, really wondering what it would be. And she said, do you pay your taxes? And I said, well, yes, ma'am, I do. And she said, see, I've got you. You're inconsistent, you know, like this is nonsense. And she was going to advise that, you know, that this whole thing becoming conscious objector was inappropriate. So I said, and I was new, I was praying and everything. And I said, well, here's the thing. You've got to understand, I live by the ways of a book. And that book is the Bible. And the Bible tells me to love my enemies, but it also tells me to pay my taxes. And I don't necessarily know how to put all those pieces together, but I obey. And from that obedience, I follow Christ, something like that. And when I started saying that, it really made her mad. And she began to say, do you realize who I am? And she went on to this long list of different volunteer things and different things she does and her activities. And she finally gets to the very end and she was banging on her little desk there and saying, and besides that, I'm a card carrying Methodist. And I shouldn't have done this, but I was young and didn't know better. But then I said, could you just repeat all that again? And she got very upset and then dismissed me out of the room. But the whole story made me think over and over again, how this concept of the two kingdoms is so often misunderstood. It's misunderstood by secular people. It's misunderstood by Christians. It's even misunderstood often by Mennonites and pacifists of different kind, historic peace churches. And so today I would like us to look at some of the biblical things about being the kingdom of God, yet being within a world with different politics and different things like this. And there's some key passages, there's some key verses that I really want us to get. And here's the thing that I really hope that we don't do with this teaching tonight. I'm hoping that it doesn't just become like some sort of a doctrine that you tuck away like, I don't know, I don't know. You know, what kind of wine do you use in communion or whatever. But that there's something organic about non-resistance, about two kingdoms, about the kingdom of God. That should bring up worship in our heart. It needs to spring from the person of Jesus Christ. And that's how this doctrine should come out and not like just some sort of academic thing. So that's my hope. So let's see here. So there's the famous coins that Caesar came. I think it's one of the most misquoted things in the Bible. You know, this is where the Pharisees were trying to trap Jesus into a trap of saying, you know, who do you give tribute to? And they showed him one of these Roman coins. And what does he say when they show it to him and thinking they were gonna trap him? He said, render unto Caesars what is Caesar's and render unto God what is God's. He said, whose image is on that? You know, Caesar, render to Caesar what is Caesar, render to God's what is God's. And many people think that they can live this sort of double life, where you can be, half of your life is secular, half of your life is spiritual. You just gotta be able to discern through those different things. That's not what Jesus was saying at all. And if you think about it, there's a lot of deeper ways that the early church would have looked at this, but Caesar's image is on this thing, this money thing. And give these types of things unto God. And so we get to the deeper, the more real things that run this world. And he shows us something beautiful. And for a first text, I want us to look to, it's sort of an odd text. It's one that we don't typically quickly go to with non-resistance. But I'm gonna take us to Judges. So let me ask you a question first. When was the first time that the people of God, in the Bible, when was the first time in the Bible that the people of God asked for a king? Anybody know? When was the first time that the people of God asked for a king? That first person that I found in the Bible, unless I'm missing something, was the story of Gideon. The story of Gideon. If you have your Bibles, look at Judges 8.22. And children, I want you to pay a lot of attention, because I've got a little cartoon that I want you to remember. And I think that this is a beautiful passage that gives us an understanding about the role of those two kingdoms. The role of the kingdom of this world, with its government and with its ways, and the way of Christ with this beautiful gift that it has for humanity. So Judges 8.22 is interesting. So it says, Then the men of Israel said unto Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou and thy son, and thy son's son also. For thou hath delivered us from the hand of Midian. You remember the story, Gideon did all these great things. He defeated all the bell worship and these types of things. So he was getting really popular with this. And then Gideon answered. And Gideon said unto them in Judges 8.23, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you. And here's the important point. The Lord shall rule over you. Now, we're so accustomed to just merely spiritualizing these kind of things and to look at this as some, well, yeah, Lord, what does that mean? He's my Lord. But the political nature of this and the reality that I think the people of God are intended to have this is so much deeper than just using it in some sort of spiritualized way. The Lord shall rule over you. Gideon, I think, understood that. And then we get this really neat parable. This is when children, I really want you to pay attention. All right. So the rebellion and everything, one of sons or half sons starts taking over and all this. And finally, Jotham wants to give a parable about crying out about what's going wrong in the kingdom by wanting to make one of these men of Israel, these men of God, a king. And so it says here, when Jotham learned that the people had crowned Abimelech as king, he climbed up to Mount Gerizim and told them this story. He told them this story. All right. Are you watching, children? Here we go. All right. And he told them, Judges 9a, turn your Bible to this. It's a great parable. The trees went out on a time to anoint a king over them. And they came unto an olive tree. This is really not working well with my double thing here. All right. Went to the olive tree. They said to the olive, I'll paraphrase. They went to the olive tree and said, olive tree, rain over us so that we can have a king. And so, yeah. So they said, hey, olive tree, rain over us. But the olive tree said, would I give up my fatness, my oils, my fatness, wherewith by me they honor God and man and be promoted over the trees? They said, no. He said, no, I'm not going to do that. So the tree said, OK, well, they didn't give up. Let's go to the fig tree. And so they came to the fig tree. And they said, fig tree, will you come and rain over us? Will you be a king over us? And that's what they did. Will you be a king? And the fig tree said, no. Would I give up my sweetness? Would I give up the sweetness of my good fruit to come and go rule over trees? No, I'm not going to do that. And so they didn't do that. Trees didn't give up. So they kept going. They came over to some vines. So they came to the vine and said, vine, would you come and rain over us? Come and rain over us. And the vine said, no. Would I give up my wine, which cheereth both God and man, to rain over you? No, I won't go be king. So they said, OK, well, what do they do? So they didn't give up. And they found this briar bunch, this bramble, as the King James says, a bunch of thorns. And they said, come, you come and rain over us. And the bramble bush said, all right, I will come and rain over you if you do this, if you put your trust in my shadow. And if you don't, let fire come out of the bramble and devour you like the cedars of Lebanon. And so the interesting thing about this really neat parable is that in each case, the fruit trees had a very special purpose. And they refused to lower their standards. This is the interesting thing to become king. They refused to lower the true nature of what they're all about and why they exist and sweetness and fatness and cheering God and man to go rain over people. Granted, maybe they need some sort of politics and some sort of way to rule men by raining over them. But that wasn't the purpose. That wasn't the purpose of why these special plans were made. And that is a really neat idea. It's a really neat idea of understanding the kingdom of God. Jesus has given us very specific and wonderful things that he wants us to be involved with. We are given our own laws to rule and guide our lives. We have our own king that demands absolute loyalty. So some scriptures that go with that. We are to refuse to obey the laws that contradict the laws of God. Blatantly, we are commanded to love, feed, warm, and care, even for our very enemies of the countries in which we live. Oops. We are charged with the impractical marching orders that commands us to go into battle defenseless, as lambs before wolves, sheep before the slaughter. Explicitly, we are told that our weapons are not to be made of earthly things. It says right in Ephesians 6.12. Furthermore, we are instructed that we do not war in the flesh. In contrast to Old Testament marching orders to destroy men's lives, we now instead have new orders to save them. And that's this beautiful fruit. Defeating even death, we are told that dying actually is gain for us and that the cross is our example. Simply put, we are told that our kingdom is not of this world. In the end, we are told that we defeat even the Antichrist, but not with bombs, not with chemical warfare. Rather, it says, this is how we defeat the Antichrist in the end, when things get really, really bad, by the blood of the Lamb, by the word of our testimony, and not loving our lives even to the death. This is a beautiful. There's something worshipful. There's something wonderful in this way that we have this way of God, this way of Christ, that comes out. This is the fruit. Let me see. Is there a way to get rid of this bar? Hide none. You can try dragging it to the bottom of the screen, if that would be better. OK. To accomplish this goal, Jesus has inaugurated a kingdom that would live out his teachings and manifest his plans for humanity. Now, here's the thing that I want us to take deeply, every one of us here, and not just to look at this in some sort of an academic pursuit or something. To be part of this new kingdom, for you to understand Jesus at all, he said that we must be born again. And he means this in a real and a very powerful way. He wants to create a new humanity, a new humanity that is born of the Spirit of God. He says in John chapter 1, verse 12. This is a really important verse. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. And here's a really important part, which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, but of the will of man, nor of the will of man, but of God. And so this idea that when we come to Christ and we receive Christ and we follow him, he puts with inside of us a power. And it becomes a new humanity. We no longer talk about our own genealogies, our own genealogy of the flesh. The early church called each other brother and sister. But it wasn't just some weird churchy title. It was because they really thought they had, and they really knew whether they had, a new humanity, a new family, a new kinship. So when we're brothers and sisters in church, when we share our lives together, when we live with each other, when we share our burdens with each other, it's because we're true family of our Heavenly Father. John 3.3 says it this way. Jesus answered and said to them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And this idea of seeing the kingdom of God is very important. So in other words, if you're here tonight and you're saying, you know, I just don't get Jesus. You know, it doesn't make sense. I don't know what to do with the Sermon on the Mount. I can't make it practical. I can't put it into, you know, something that I can wrap my head around. Maybe the reason is that you're not seeing, you're not understanding the kingdom of God is because you are not born again. Jesus wants us to have this new spirit within us and to have his spirit within us. And then we get it. We see the kingdom. We understand the kingdom. John 3.5, Jesus answered, verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. So first he said, you're not gonna even understand the kingdom of God. And without this new life, you're not gonna enter it at all. So, you know, when we come to Christ, so that's why I'm bringing these things into our preface, into looking at the two kingdoms idea, is that many times it's, we look at it in the wrong way. And I want these kingdom teachings to flow from the very person of Jesus Christ, not building some sort of a theological construct, a theological doctrine, and then trying to stick in Jesus' teachings out of us. That's not the right way to look at it. And many times I've said here, often what I have here, right answers to the wrong questions. If we start, if we get the right answers to the wrong questions, we may feel good about it, but there's something deeper that we're missing. And I've sometimes looked, given the example of, it's kind of like looking at him, what is his binoculars the wrong way? You know, if you look at the binoculars the wrong way, you know, what should be close up is really small. And that's the way oftentimes we treat the teachings of Jesus Christ. We're looking at the Bible the entire wrong way. And so therefore the teachings of Christ do not flow. And you know, when we read something the wrong way, we end up with the wrong questions. And if we do it long enough, the problem is that with a little work, we actually get the right answers to the wrong questions. Here's the right question. The right question is, does your life look like Jesus Christ? Is Jesus Christ being manifested in you, in your community, in your church, in your life? You know, the early Anabaptists here, Conrad Grebel and the revival that was happening in the 1500s. I love these two statements that Conrad Grebel wrote in some of his letters that he had. And he said this, one of the ways he put the Bible in this term, he says, I believe the word of God without a complicated interpretation. And out of this belief, I speak. And I really think that we all need to make sure we maintain this kind of simplicity as we come to the word of God. It is simple. I remember one time I was at work and I was talking with someone about non-resistance. And they were saying, you know, I started that we would talk during, you know, work and I wasn't doing anesthesia. We'd talk in surgeries and stuff. You had lots of time in some of the long surgeries and I'd talk with the nurses and you'd get these, you know, debates going or something. And I remember one time they came and said, you know, Dean, I went back and did what you said. I read that sermon on the mountain. I don't know, it's so confusing. And I said, really, what's confusing about this? I don't know, just, I mean, how could you ever do this? And that's the problem. The simplicity of the word of God is missing. Now, Grebel also said something else. He said, the teachings of the Lord has been given for the purpose of being put into practice. Let me ask you all tonight. Do you believe that? Do you believe that the teachings of the Lord has been given for the purpose of being put into practice? Again, I remember when I was dealing with some of these Jesus teachings, my wife and I, as we were coming conscious objectors, and I was an armorer, the guys that take care of machine guns and things like that in the army. And one of my jobs was a physician and things. And one of my jobs I had to do was to, at that time when I was going through all this was to put some grenade launchers on some machine guns, some M16 machine guns. I remember just thinking, I literally saying, because of a book I was reading, what would Jesus do? I remember actually saying, it's so confusing. But you know, it's really not. It's simple. It's just that it's not always easy. Jesus gave us the concept of the kingdom. So the way to put this cure for humanity, the way to usher in these Jesus teaching, he gives us the kingdom. I love John D. Martin's quote, where he says that the idea of the church, the idea of the kingdom of God, the church on earth, is to demonstrate to the world around what the whole world would look like if we would only obey the king. So that the whole world can see this is what it's supposed to look like. And if we can get a concept of that with our own local churches, with our own communities, and realize this is supposed to be a manifestation to the earth, a testimony of what Christ's kingdom should be. I bring up sometimes it's kind of like on judgment day. They should, people who are judged and did not follow Christ, they should be able to say, oh, see, that's what those guys were talking about all along. That this is the purpose of the church, to bring this way in this way of Christ. To the earth. One of my favorite scenes is there in John 18, when Jesus is before Pilate. And it's one of the best scenes, I think, that talk about this contrast of these kingdoms. But watch it. We oftentimes spiritualize this as well. Let's look at that passage. Pilate had heard that people were calling Jesus king. And so this is John 18. And so you remember the story. He says, are you the king of the Jews? I always amazed myself at that moment when Pilate's there before Jesus, and he's saying, imagine the scene again. Are you the king of the Jews? I'm sorry about the modern image of Jesus there, but anyway, get the idea. Are you the king of the Jews? And Jesus took those words seriously and didn't just pass them off. Are you speaking for yourself about this? Or did others tell you this concerning you? In John 18, 36, he goes on, and Jesus goes on and says, my kingdom is not of this world. Understand that deeply. My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I should not be delivered to the Jews, but now my kingdom is not from here. And I just think this is a powerful thing that talks about that if this kingdom was supposed to be in this world and of this world, then we as his servants of any place that we would fight would fight there. But now it's different. Now his kingdom is not from this world, and we're not to fight. So here's what we did. Are you a king then? So this is the point that I really wanna hit. So we tend to then just sort of spiritualize Jesus's teachings. You know, I mean, that's okay, that's great. You're a king of a different world as a spiritual kingdom and all that kind of a thing, but right now we've got problems here on earth. If you haven't noticed, we've got rebellions going on, we've got coronavirus, we've got all this. So this right now we're gonna deal with practical things. You know what I mean? So you said, are you a king then? Does that really count that you say you're not a kingdom of this world? And I think that's really important concept for us to get in that we typically, we tend to spiritualize Jesus's teachings out of the practical, out of the everyday, out of the cure for humanity. Jesus answers it very well. You said rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born. That is one powerful statement. In the midst of this, are you really a king then? Does this really count? Is that really mine for this earth? He said, you say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born. And then for this cause, I have come into the world to tell people the truth, the truth of Jesus's teachings. I just think that is such a profound moment in the scriptures and what we see there that happens. Jesus's teachings, he brings this concept of the kingdom forward. And like in the Lord's prayer, he says, you know, after this manner, therefore pray, our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So the way, so here's the goal. This is the design here in the Lord's prayer that the way that the heavenly Father has constructed the heavens, we are praying daily to bring that existence to this earth. That's the way we live our life. That's the way we're facing the tragedies and the crisis that is before us with all the crazy things that are going on today. Oh God, the way it is in heaven, we have here on earth in my heart, in my family, in my community, have that way. Here's to make something, in case you're wondering where to prioritize this whole concept of the kingdom, Jesus again makes it very clear, but seek ye first the kingdom of God. The context was all the things to care about in this world. You know, the common things of life, the common needs that we have. And he wants to make sure that we understand that this is a priority to seek first the kingdom of God. We see this when it goes through the gospels and then we also see it in the book of Acts and in the book of Acts 1-3, it says, to whom also he showed himself alive after the passion, after his passion, by many infallible proofs being seen of them. 40 days, imagine it now, the resurrected Jesus Christ for 40 days, speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. I just marvel at that, for 40 days, the resurrected Jesus Christ walking on earth, speaking to them and pertaining the things of the kingdom of God. When the foundations of the world, Matthew 25-34 says, then shall the king say to them on the right hand, come ye blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom. The Lord knows, you know, to the poor and help and did those kingdom things and this cure for humanity, this whole new way of life that they as a church, as a people made a difference on this earth. And he says, you will inherit this kingdom as we're living that kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. This thing is a design of God from the very beginning. When Jesus came and he gave his teachings and he ushered those in, he said it very plainly, repent, change your whole way of thinking, change your whole way of life for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And I just think of this, here's the idea. Our concept, our way that we are to live our life here on this earth, again, is that get that image of heaven. All of you children that are here tonight, all you children that are watching, I want you to close your eyes, all of us, just for a minute, imagine what is it like in heaven? How do they sing? How do they worship? How do they share their lives? How do they share life together? And that is the existence of what we're trying as the kingdom people of God to bring into this troubled world. We should be what is to become. Be what is to become. That one day from the rising of the sun until it's going down, we know that Jesus Christ will reign. We are to be that example. In Acts, at the very end of Acts, and Paul's been being evangelist and preaching all over. In Acts 28, 23, now he's chained and waiting for his execution. And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him in his lodging to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses and out of the prophets from morning until evening. He got this all prophetically from the Holy Spirit. The apostles got this 40 days with the resurrected Jesus Christ and this emphasis. You see, the world is in trouble right now. The world has lots of things, but this is the cure. All this time, morning and evening, through the whole scriptures. And I know many of you have testified and I know I'm one of them as well, that when you start to see the Bible in this way, when you start to get a hold of this kingdom teaching, the whole Bible comes alive in a different way. The whole purpose of your life comes alive in the way. I remember when I was teaching in Greece and I was teaching with the refugees and you had this, these are Muslims that are coming to Christ and I remember just having this feeling like, wow, here's a people finally that have never been polluted by any other thing and having the opportunity just to show them the word of God. And it was such a privilege to show them. I remember one time I was in a class, it was a people from Afghanistan and from Iran. It was a large class of people that were converted and speaking in Persian, I had a Persian translator. And I began to give the, I went through the Sermon on the Mount. They had many questions about divorce, remarriage, about radical views of economics, about loving your enemies and all these things. And it was interesting and I gave that teaching and my translator, Salman, he looked over to me and I'll never forget this. He said, you know, that sounds like heaven on earth. And I just, you know, it just made me feel great. I said, that's exactly right. That's exactly what it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be this heaven on earth. So I don't know, I ponder now, I actually have a whole nother section, but I realize I'm taking, it's already 8.10. So I think this would be a good spot for me just to say this. You know, as I ponder the things that are going on in this world and I ponder all the different disputes, the politics, the protest and these things, we are called as a people to respond and we have a special way of responding. But let's remember our Gideon passage there that we have this beautiful fruit. We have this fruit, we have this nectar, we have this way that gives grace into this earth and makes it a different and better place. We're not to do in the way they do. Now, maybe if I get a chance, the next time I speak here on a Wednesday, I can go further with this and talk about some of the pitfalls of how we can fall into different things and how we as a people have sometimes, you know, into the different wrong ways to do this. But here's the bottom line for us to get for tonight. I want us to really get a hold of. It's Jesus Christ. Remember he said, unless you're born again, you won't see the kingdom. And so if you're trying to somehow fix the world's problems, if you're trying somehow to understand Jesus Christ and there's sin in your life, if there's an unrepentance that is blocking this, if there's something that you wanna hold on to and trying to have your world and the world of Christ, I encourage you tonight something that's very beautiful. Surrender that. Surrender that sin and repent because the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It is at hand, let me stop sharing that. And so as we offer the cure for this world, as we offer this Jesus to the world, let us come out of our genuine worship. And then his teachings aren't just some strange way to add on to it, it's presenting Jesus Christ. So when we think about this, let's think Jesus is Jesus manifested. We think about a political agenda or way. And if I get to speak on this again, I'll talk about how we are supposed to be prophetic. The church is called to be prophetic to every generation. And there's a trap on either involving ourselves with the politics and the sword, or the other side is to retreat into some sort of isolationism or to into cloistering to this side. And Jesus wants us to be his kingdom, prophetically speaking, and prophetically living in this world, the person of Jesus Christ. So we worship a wonderful and mighty God. I love Jesus with all my heart, and I love to worship him, and I love to be with brothers and sisters who do that. So thank you very much. And I'll hand it back over to Brother Clark. Would you mind closing us in prayer there? Let's do that. I'll tell you what, everyone pray with me. I'm gonna pray. And then I want everyone to pray with me the Lord's prayer. And when you pray that, I want you to ponder that idea that this is what God wants here on earth, in us, the people of God on earth. Let's pray and then we'll close with the Lord's prayer. And dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for these extraordinary times that we live in. And I know through all different generations, through different times, that there's been challenges. Well, today is our challenge. Now is our challenge as the people of God. And I ask you, Lord, please inspire us, O God. And Lord, you said that when you send your Holy Spirit, you would convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. And dear God, as we watch this here tonight, if there's something that's inside of our heart that's taking away, O Lord, the ability for us to have a joy and to see your kingdom, I pray, God, that you said that your Holy Spirit would convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. And I pray that you would put your finger on that. You would touch those things and give us the grace and the ability to repent of that and to follow you and let your way be done in our lives. So God, I pray in our churches, I pray, O Lord, that you would inspire us, you would encourage us, and Lord, that you would make us bold, that in this generation that we have a prophetic word to speak and to live actively and to boldly to proclaim your kingdom. O God, we have, by your gift, the cure for humanity. So Lord, I pray that you give us the boldness to do this. Now, Lord, I pray, God, let's all pray. Our Father, which art in heaven, holy is your name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us of our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.