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[0:00] Well, we look this morning at the biblical basis then behind the next section of the church's confession of faith, and that is chapter 25, which is entitled Of the Church.

[0:15] And we'll take as our text with us this morning, verses 22 and 23, the last two verses of Ephesians 1, from which we read, he hath put all things under his feet, that is under Jesus' feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.

[0:37] The body of Christ being the church of Jesus Christ, that is what this section is about. And this is a holy, a solemn thing that perhaps we may lose sight of to some extent, either if we think of the church simply as a big institution, or if we simply individualize it and say that, well, as long as I'm all right between me and God, I can do my own wee small thing, me in my small corner, you and yours, and so on, and we don't have to really worry about the body together too much.

[1:10] You know, if you chop off a fingernail or whatever and leave it on the table, then it's not going to be organic for much longer, it's not going to be connected to the body for much longer, it's rubbish to be chucked away.

[1:21] And if we become disassociated from the larger body of Christ, then it only becomes to our detriment. Somebody once illustrated this, my story is told of a minister who went to see a parishioner who had been falling away, shall we say, in his attendance.

[1:41] And they sat by the fire, and there was the fire, and the coals were going nicely, and the minister reached in with the tonks, and he took out a red hot coal that was flaming away, and he put it on the side where initially it was burning away, and then it got really orange, and it cooled down a wee bit, and then gradually the orange turned to grey, and it was still smoking, and eventually it stopped smoking, and no words were exchanged between them.

[2:08] And afterwards the man said, well, thank you minister for your fiery sermon, I'll be in church next week. And the point being illustrated is, it should be obvious, that if we take any part of the body out of the body, it ceases to be fed, it ceases to be part of the burning flame, it cools down, it becomes dead, it becomes like charcoal.

[2:30] That is what we are, if we become chopped off, severed from the body of Christ. We cease to breathe, to live, to burn with that love of Christ.

[2:41] Now, the church of Jesus Christ, of course, in the Old Testament, it was one nation, one people, the people of Israel, there were occasional individuals who were brought in from other nations, other lands we have, from Jericho, and Ruth the Moabites, and other exceptions, that happened, but by and large, it was the people of Israel, the descendants of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob.

[3:07] And then there comes a point, of course, when after our Lord comes, and his earthly ministry, when those who follow the Lord are, in a special way, his people.

[3:19] But still, the Old Testament churches still in place, the temple, the sacrifices, and so on, they're all there. And then after his resurrection, there is a sense in which, and remember, at this stage, all of the believing Christians, they're all Jewish people, so there's not a separation between Jews and Gentiles at this stage.

[3:39] But within the people of Israel, there are those amongst the Jews who recognize Christ as the Messiah. And we can say, well, are they purely the church now?

[3:50] Has the church ceased to be the wider people of Israel? Are they not the people of God anymore? And I think a key section, a key stage in New Testament history is where you've got the church increasingly becoming separate and distinct from the wider people of Israel.

[4:08] They're meeting in the temple. They're meeting in Solomon's porch. You've got Peter and the apostles gathering and so on. And then you've got that incident with Ananias and Sapphira.

[4:20] And remember when in Acts chapter 5, they pretended that they'd sold all of their land and brought the money to the apostles, but in fact, they kept back part of it for themselves. They were perfectly entitled to do that.

[4:32] It's just that they lied about it. And that's when Peter says, you know, you haven't lied to men, but you've lied to God. How is it that you have agreed together to tempt the spirit of the Lord?

[4:44] Because he said to them, you know, while it remained the land, was it not in thine own? And after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.

[4:56] Ananias drops dead. Sapphira, his wife, later on, carries on the lie. She drops dead. And what do we read then? We read, great fear came upon all the church and upon as many as her of these things.

[5:11] Now, it's highly unlikely that great fear came upon all the people of Israel or all Jerusalem or all the Jews of that year. So clearly all the church now is being identified at that stage in Acts chapter 5, verse 11, as being those now exclusively who recognize Jesus as the Messiah.

[5:33] Prior to that stage, there's this kind of blurring of the Israelites who are still the people of God, those who accept the Messiah, but they're all Jews still. And which ones are part of the church and which ones aren't?

[5:46] Well, here in Acts 5, there at verse 11, there's a stick about all the church, which means the followers of Jesus alone. And they are now becoming distinct. There's not a light switch moment.

[5:58] It's not a say, right, from this point on, guillotine it down, chop. And those are the Old Testament people, the Israelites, and these are the New Testament people, the church of Jesus Christ. When Jesus uses illustrations about his kingdom and about the kingdom of his father, he always uses things that are organic, like a seed growing and sprouting and gradually blossoming.

[6:20] And it's kind of like that with the church of Jesus Christ within the Old Testament church, the people of Israel. The church, as we know it nowadays, of course, is divided into that which we might call the invisible church.

[6:35] We talked about that briefly with the children. That is those who we don't necessarily know who they are. We don't know where they are. Some of them are already in glory. In fact, maybe the majority, perhaps, of all those who will belong to Christ may already be in glory.

[6:50] We can't see them. And we can't see amongst all the peoples on the earth which ones belong to him and which don't. We don't know that. Because the church of Jesus Christ, the ultimate invisible church of Christ, consists of all the elect in every age, in every country and nation and tribe and tongue of the world who are his.

[7:12] Some of them won't have been born yet. Some of them will already have been in glory for thousands of years. Some of them, they may still be as yet outside of Christ, but they're going to be saved.

[7:24] And they are part of that invisible church for whom he died. The true church of Jesus Christ, the ultimate one which will be with him in glory for all eternity, is a church which is invisible as yet to us.

[7:39] We can see little sort of signs of it, just like somebody, if they're an experienced seaman on a boat, they can tell as they're coming into land whether a little ripple in the waves, that means there's a rock under the waves there.

[7:50] Or I can tell with this edgy or this current, he knows what's happening with that bit of the sea because he can tell the little signs. He can tell if the clouds are a certain way, what the weather's going to be like because of experience and knowledge.

[8:02] And so likewise, we can tell the little symptoms. Some people, whether or not they are highly likely to be believers in Christ, whether they show the signs, the symptoms, whether they make profession, whether they show forth the life that a Christian ought to have.

[8:20] And that's where we all look at our shoes and think, oh, well, that doesn't really apply to me. I may be able to talk the talk, but I can't really walk the walk. But Christ knows those who are who's. If we are to be with him for all eternity in glory, we're not going to be there because of what a good job we made of it down here.

[8:39] We're going to be there because we are covered by his blood. We are saved by his once and for all sacrifice upon the cross. And we struggle, yes, we strive, we do our best, but our best would never be good enough on its own.

[8:53] Such is the visible church. The church that we can see little bits of, the true church amongst it, but the visible church on earth, that is what we might call the institution.

[9:10] As the invisible church, the true, the elect from all the ages, those who will be with Christ for all eternity, ultimately those are known only to him. But the visible church, as we might call the institution, or all its denominations and all its organization, that consists of the gathered body of the Lord's people, those who profess their faith in Christ and their children, and those who may gather with them perhaps and seek to know more of Christ.

[9:39] This is the visible church, which has an outward face. It may or may not gather in particular buildings. It may or may not have a particular label or denomination or badges.

[9:50] There's lots of different denominations, lots of different badges. But then there's just one body, and if you remember what Paul says about the body of Christ, in 1 Corinthians 12, verse 26, you know, he says that those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, and upon those we bestow more abundant honor.

[10:12] Our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness. There should be no schism in the body. The eye cannot see to their hand, I have no need of thee. Now again, the head to the feet, I have no need of you.

[10:24] And a finger looks very different from an ear. A toe looks very different from a stomach. But it's all part of the body. And the church in one country may look very different from the church in another country.

[10:36] But if Christ is in the heart, and the Trinity is acknowledged, then the church will be there to a greater or lesser extent.

[10:46] Because the Lord has promised, he has promised his people, he promised his disciples, that he would always be with them, and that if two of you say, shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them, of my Father which is in heaven.

[11:03] And he talks about the church. In Matthew 18 there, he talks about establishing it, he talks about being in the midst of it, he talks about giving them the authority. Because as well as the invisible church, known only to Jesus Christ, and the visible church, which is the institution that we can see, in the midst of all that, the Lord has given us, in a sense, all that we need to follow him.

[11:30] All that we need to do the tasks he has given us. He is not like a Pharaoh who gives us bricks to make without stop. He gives us everything that we need.

[11:41] He has given into the hand of the church, he's given them the word, he's given them the ordinances, his teachings, he's given them the sacraments, the Lord's Supper, and the sacrament of baptism.

[11:55] He's given them the way that churches are to worship, and the instructions he's given them for worship, and how he is to be in the midst of them all. Everything that we need, we have been given.

[12:08] But, you know how sometimes, some are better at it than others. Inevitably. I remember painfully at school, being given mass questions or whatever, and everybody would be given their little exercise books, and they'd all be given their wee questions and their clues, and there's always enough information in the question for you to be able to answer it.

[12:27] And other people would start wearing their pencils and so on, writing things down and scribbling away, and I'm looking at it thinking, I haven't a clue what to do with this. And eventually, you have to put your hand up, and the teacher comes, and she explains it to you, and I still don't get it.

[12:41] And then finally, a penny drops, thinking, oh, right, okay, yes, I see it now. And now you begin to write away, but everybody else, they're really finished. Some people are an awful lot better at everything than others are.

[12:54] Some people are better with practical work, woodwork, metalwork, joy, other people are good at the maths, the physics, the science, other people are better with language and words, and so on. And so it is in the church.

[13:05] Some churches, some branches of the church do some things really, really well. And other things, maybe they don't do so well. And other branches, they do those other things brilliantly, but they're not so good in the other things.

[13:21] Maybe some are really good at hospitality, and welcoming, and being friendly, and people feeling loved, but when it comes to actual doctrine and what they believe, well, they're a wee bit off the wall. And others may be completely strict and rigid in their doctrine, and they've got everything absolutely right and nailed down, but, oh boy, it's a cold place when you go into it, and there's not, maybe, an awful lot of love being felt.

[13:44] And some may be brilliant with the worship or the singing, and others, it may be brilliant in terms of the doctrine that they're preaching or whatever, I don't know. We can see this if we look in the book of Revelation.

[13:56] We see that Jesus writes, the risen Christ writes to the different churches in Asia, seven of them. There's no particular reason why he doesn't like a ten or eleven of them, but seven, of course, remember, is the number of perfection, the divine number.

[14:11] He takes seven churches and he writes to them. And if you read through those in chapter two and chapter three in the book of Revelation, you'll see that, yes, there are two churches that he's got nothing bad to say about, but that's a reality.

[14:24] Usually, amongst all the others, there's something good he finds to say. He says, look, you're doing this really well. You're really good at this bit. You're really, really faithful and diligent and I see it and I know it and I recognize it and you're doing great.

[14:40] But there are these things which are wrong. There are these things that you need to look at. These things that you've got to address or they will bring you down.

[14:51] Remember where you've fallen from. Remember the first work. You've left your first love or you need to repent and guard the things that are left. There may not be much left. Some churches amongst the seven, they're almost gone.

[15:05] But Jesus says, you know, I recognize there's a few people there, even in your own city, whatever it may happen to be. You read through the seven churches and you see there's different churches described in different ways and some are very good at some things and not so good at others.

[15:21] And others are very faithful in persecution but maybe they've got a bit complacent. Say, oh yeah, we are the faithful martyr, anti-pastor, whatever. You know, we are faithful, we are diligent.

[15:31] Maybe he was but maybe they're not. And others, maybe they're very loving and very good but maybe a wee bit soft in recognizing false teachers. And others, they're good at recognizing the false teachers but they've left their first love.

[15:47] And others, well, maybe they'll just look one through that. You read through chapter two and chapter three in Revelation, maybe this afternoon in your own time, you'll see all the different kinds of churches, all the different kinds of congregations that are described.

[16:03] And they've all, almost all, got something wrong with them. Yes, some, they only have good about only two, in Smyrna and Philadelphia but all the rest there's something wrong with them and there's usually something good in them.

[16:18] But always there is hope for them. Even those about whom the Lord has nothing good to say, he says, you know, behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him and will sub with him and he with me.

[16:33] To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne even as I also came and set down with my father his throne. He that hath an ear and in hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

[16:47] Lots of different kinds of churches but all part of the one body of Christ. And this is what Paul writes about to the Corinthians. What he writes about to the Romans as well, chapter 12, verses 4 and 5.

[17:00] as we have many members in one body and all members have not the same office so we being many are one body in Christ and every one members one of another.

[17:11] He has given us all that we need. There is a purpose and a reason why every church has office bearers. Why it may have teaching elders that we sometimes call ministers.

[17:24] Why it may have those who organise the temper affairs, the financial affairs, the deacons as we would call them. Other people might call them something different. All of these things we've got scriptural evidence and requirements for.

[17:38] We need to recognise the centrality of the Word of God which hopefully we do. We need to remember the Lord's death until He comes which of course we do. We need to baptise those who are brought by those who will profess their desire to bring them up in the love and fear of the Lord.

[17:56] We need to baptise those who are new Christians or believers. We need to practise what the Lord teaches us to do if we're to be part of His body.

[18:07] Throughout all the different branches of the church there are levels of purity and there are also levels of unfaithfulness and that is true throughout the world and it will doubtless also be true in our own branch of the church as well.

[18:26] Levels of faithfulness, levels of purity, levels of unfaithfulness. Perhaps we could even look further in and say that even within our own souls, even within the individual there are levels of purity and levels of unfaithfulness.

[18:41] We're not all good at the same things, we're not all equally faithful about the same things. There is but one body. Although the different parts of it will look very different, although the different aspects of it may serve different purposes and functions, there is one body in Christ and as we read the Lord has put all things under His feet.

[19:07] He rules over us and gave Him to be the head over all things to the church which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all and all.

[19:19] So we cannot, if we are to be faithful to Christ, we cannot simply be an individual alone with the Lord. We have to belong somewhere.

[19:31] Although I often disagreed with my old minister in many things when I was growing up in the parish I had grown up. I probably again told this illustration before he gave this illustration I've never forgotten.

[19:44] Harry said, you can play a tune on all the black keys on a piano keyboard. It won't be the minor keys, it might be a bit more of a tune but you can play a tune on all the black keys.

[19:54] You can play a tune on all the white keys. That might be a bit more of a cheery tune because it tends to be the more major notes as well. And the best kind of tunes you can make when you play on the black keys and the white keys together. You can't play any music at all in the cracks in between.

[20:08] You've got to come down somewhere. You can't just say oh me myself alone. Don't come near me because I'm holier than thou. It's just me and the Lord and I'm so pure the Lord doesn't want me to mix with anybody and paint myself.

[20:22] We all have to belong somewhere. We all have to come down somewhere on the keyboard. If you're going to make the music of faith that will please the Lord, we have to do it with others.

[20:34] We must come somewhere. We must belong somewhere. There are many parts to the body but there is only one head. Now this is of course is part of what the Confession of Faith teaches and it's one of the things this particular chapter that is most notorious for we might say.

[20:53] There's 33 chapters in the Westminster Confession of Faith. There's somewhere I don't know, is it 195 paragraphs or something like that all together? I didn't count them all up specifically but it is one paragraph which of course everybody focuses in and says oh look this nasty bigoted Confession of Faith describes the Pope as the Antichrist.

[21:16] How nasty, how vicious, how could that possibly be? Well it is in the context of saying that there is only one head of the church.

[21:27] There can't be more than one. We looked at that even with the children. You can't have two heads. You can't have more than one head and you can't even really say that oh there's one head in heaven. Yeah that's where Jesus is right now but he's going to have a head on earth and that's where the Bishop of Rome comes in.

[21:44] Well that would be fine if the Bishop of Rome was simply claiming to be the Bishop of Rome as Bishop of Dunkel or the Bishop of Edinburgh or the Bishop of Aberdeen or whatever for his own particular part of that branch of the church.

[22:01] But of course that isn't what is claimed at all. When you begin to dig into the doctrine and I'm not talking about the nice people that may or may not belong to the Roman Catholic community I'm talking about the doctrine the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church then it is undoubtedly the case that some of the claims that are made for the Bishop of Rome are claims things which can likely be ascribed only to Christ.

[22:32] You cannot claim these things for a man. You cannot claim these things for even an office bearer in the church that he is somehow an alternative bridge to God that he himself is somehow the only way the Pontifex Maximus the great bridge between God and man.

[22:52] You cannot claim that somebody else stands in the place of Christ to forgive sins or to withhold sins to dispense it or not. There is a sense in which of course in church discipline the offices of the church do yes decide that somebody is showing repentance or not for a particular scandal or particular sin or whatever and if they do then they are received back into the body but if they don't well then they are not received back into the body.

[23:21] Jesus does say whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. He recognizes the authority of his church office bearers to exercise discipline but that is a different thing from having the power to forgive sin as such or claiming the power to do so and these are part of the things which are claimed by these bishops and that is simply a statement of fact.

[23:49] Also some of the titles which are ascribed to the bishop of Rome such as Deus alter in terra another god in earth. Sometimes in Latin eyes well how are lord god the pope how can these things be you know in a right relationship to god how can a man or even an office hero in the church claim an authority level with that of christ or in the place of christ it is not so it cannot be so and still be loyal and faithful to christ it needs must be an alternative claimant for the throne of christ and that is what the term antichrist means an alternative christ an alternative means of salvation that it is not ultimately through faith in christ alone and sacrifice of his blood upon the cross and so on it is rather fortified by the sacraments of holy church it is that if a lawfully ordained priest gives you these sacraments and they receive in faith and so on that gets you through these outward mechanical things will suffice they will say well of course there has to be faith of course it has to be rightly received oh yes but the idea that mechanical outward performance can somehow take the place of faith in christ and what he has done this cannot be in the face of christ it cannot stand alongside what christ has done it is a alternative christ an alternative route to glory and there is no alternative route to glory over the history of the medieval church and the roman catholic church subsequently there have been 39 individuals which are described now by the church by the roman catholic church as anti-popes an anti-pope is not somebody who is a rabid protestant it is not somebody who is against the papacy as such an anti-pope is somebody who at various stages in history in the number 39 of them down the years claimed to be the bishop of rome claimed to be the pope of the church whilst others in the church disagreed there was a rival claimant there was the ordinary pope and there was a rival claimant for the papal chair and this subsequently with hindsight was described by the church as an anti-pope and there were 39 of them down the course of the history of the church now an anti-pope does not hate the papacy he loves the papacy he wants to be the papacy he does not dispute the claims of the roman church he rather thinks yes these are good things in fact they're such good things that the powers that they have are so good

[26:53] I want to have them and I want to exercise them and I claim the rights to exercise them so you have if we can use the term the genuine pope and you have the anti-pope and at various stages in the history there were various popes and anti-popes rival claimants for the papal chair they don't hate papacy they want to be the papacy they are the alternative pope that's what an anti-pope is was in history it is in this context in this sense that I believe we should understand the term antichrist it is not that oh we hate jesus oh we want nothing to do with jesus it is rather these powers of jesus has got they're brilliant these are really good powers I really approve of them we want those powers I want those powers reserve those powers to me or to the holder of my office and cause the church to be aggrandized but how can the church be great apart from her head apart from christ who did not make himself wonderful and great and powerful he made himself of no reputation he emptied himself and took upon himself the form of a servant this is this is the sense in which one should understand what the confession of faith teaches that there is only one king and head of the church and that is the lord jesus christ scripture is quite clear on that everything is quite clear on that but where at least one part of the claim to be church on earth differs as it claims there is an earthly head through whom everything else must go and outside of whose communion there can't be salvation now of course of course if you take the church of jesus christ as a whole then it's highly unlikely anybody's going to be saved unless they belong to that church somewhere because if they profess faith in christ they belong to christ they want to belong to his people but again this is the thing about an antichrist and an alternative salvation it's that it's almost the truth but not quite and this as i would stress is not to rubbish nice people who may belong to this communion it's not to say oh these people are bad people the whole essence of what's to all intents and purposes is false teaching and false christianity is that it's almost the truth it looks like the truth it sounds as if it could be the truth and it sounds as if it's to do with jesus and the church and the lord and so on but look at what it actually teaches look at what it actually says look at the actual fruits of it is this of christ or is it some kind of alternative presentation some alternative church alternative salvation this is what is on offer in this alternative salvation it is an alternative christ a different way to be saved than what is revealed in scripture and all of these things they are taken so subtly because they are always the truth you see if if if if muhammad comes along and says all you christians you should believe what i'm me and my followers and if you don't well we'll kill you that's why we can see well this is this is church and this is christianity and this is islam over there they're completely different nobody is going to be fooled by thinking this is actually the real church of jesus christ they're not going to think that or a devil worshiper's come along and say hey let's all have a big gathering around the standing stones and let's worship the devil and let's let's put on our pentangles and light our fires and sacrifice a child or an animal or something like that nobody's going to say yeah yeah that looks like the church of jesus christ no it doesn't it's completely different nobody's going to be fooled the devil is not interested in making this clear black and white choice he's far happier with a shade of grey that looks almost like the truth and this is something against which we must always be in our god because the falsehoods which do adorn the doctrine of some branches of the church are something to which everyone is susceptible there is even those who would suggest a kind of protestant version of purgatory which for those of you who don't know purgatory is the place which some branches of the church including roman catholic and sometimes eastern orthodox too would suggest that souls go who are not quite ready for heaven but aren't quite bad enough for hell and in purgatory you work through the guilt of perhaps your own sins and what's left and yes christ has died on the cross that's what stops you going to hell but there's still a bit to be paid for there's still a bit to be worked through there's a sort of second chance like in a halfway house and this appeals of course to follow mankind because he thinks in terms of well if death isn't actually ended there's still still a second chance

[32:21] I can still sort of work through things in purgatory and people can do good deeds here and that can count to my benefits that of course is precisely part of what the reformation was about all these abuses they all pay for indulgence so do so many masses gets these souls out of purgatory that's still the teaching that is in Roman Catholic Church it's still the teaching which the Pope the Bishop of Rome would be head of the idea that there is a halfway house a third way scripture does not acknowledge any destination for departed souls other than heaven or hell Jesus does not teach of anywhere other than heaven or hell but it is appealing to fallen human nature and you see this is the danger that the evil one will always try and present religion if he can't get rid of religion he'll try and make it appealing to fallen man he'll try and make it appealing to our senses to our fallenness to our desire to still somehow get away with it rather than to be faced with the ultimate choice

[33:29] Christ or nothing Christ or lostness heaven or hell Jesus or complete lostness for all eternity and if it is Christ and Christ alone then that will mean that all else must take second place you can't have Jesus and the world as well in your pocket you have to hold on to salvation with both hands means you're going to let go of everything else and everything else will have its due place yes the Lord still knows we need to work we need to eat we need to pay our bills we need to have a certain amount of rest and recreation but all of these things take second place Christ must be first last and always and there can be no rival clinic there cannot be two heads of the one body the body is diverse just as our own human bodies are diverse the different branches of the church the different countries of the world where Christ is worshipped they are all part of the one body Jesus says that he feels it whatever is done to his people anywhere whether for good or ill Matthew 25 verse 40 the king shall answer and say unto them verily I say unto you inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me and again at verse 45 inasmuch as he did it not to one of the least of these he did it not to me we will never be saved on the basis of what we haven't done Matthew 25 about the separation of the sheep and the goats those who end up in misery are ending up in misery on the basis of what they haven't done we can never be saved in the strength of thinking we'll be a good person God will be merciful to us God has given mercy and that is in the person of his son Jesus

[35:23] Christ his death upon the cross he hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the church which is his body the fullness of him that filleth all in all there is the invisible church that which is his throughout all eternity has been his from day one some of them haven't been born yet some of them in other countries some of them may yet have to come to faith they are known unto God that's what we read you know in it the Acts of the Apostles chapter 15 verse 18 known unto God are all his work in the beginning of the world there is the visible church the earth the institution which is mixed it has some people who are believing saints and some people who are maybe you know they just take the church as a good thing but they're maybe not converted it's mixed there's always going to be mixture on earth there's the tools that the church needs to do its work it's got the sacraments it's got the word it's got the the order it's got the the laws it's got the the functioning requirements of the spheros and so on to keep the machine going to keep the body going on earth just as an ordinary body needs food and drink and exercise so the church needs its tools to do its work and the Lord has given them that and likewise there are levels of purity and there are levels of impurity throughout the church and throughout the individual

[36:50] Christian but although the confession of faith gets much maligned usually by people who haven't read it for this particular section in this particular chapter which seems oh it's sectarian oh it's bigoted oh it's terribly evil what does it actually mean when you get down to what it says it means there is only one head of the church it means that any rival who would claim Christ's honor Christ's position cannot be doing so on his authority cannot be doing so to honor him and therefore the ultimate source of all such rivalry all such alternative headship can only be from one source and it is not from Christ now that is a solemn and frightening thought but it is the truth nonetheless that if there can be only one head of the church there cannot be any others they must be thoughts there will be faithful souls who have been deceived there will be faithful souls who will be loving the Lord as much as they are able despite the teaching of their branch of the church you could look at other denominations and say well their teaching is actually good it's just they don't believe in it they don't adhere to it you could say that about about our national church from which I have come but you know the actual teaching of the church has got on the Bible the confession of faith it's all good it's just they don't believe it just they don't practice it and you could have a doctrines that may be bad and wrong but people who love the Lord may not adhere to us he knows who are his let everyone that name of the name of

[38:41]  Christ depart from iniquity depart from false headships depart from rival climates it is let it be like on the mountain top as the disciples had when the cloud cleared Elijah was gone Moses was gone all the visions were gone they saw no man save Jesus only and the voice that said to them this is my beloved son hear him that's true you you you you