The Present Work of Satan

Well, the one he wrote about that is our enemy that we fight against. We're studying about in this study on Wednesday nights on what the Bible teaches about angels and we spent a good bit of time early in the study talking about good angels and now we are looking at the head of the evil angels Satan himself. We'll spend probably a couple of weeks finishing up his work and then we will turn our attention to the demons that are his cohorts and are under him and in his work on planet earth. We've been looking at the present character of Satan. We saw that he was a murderer, a liar, a confirmed and practicing center and an opponent of the righteous. That's his character. We looked at his present position. He does have a somewhat of a perverted dignity in that he is the ruler over fallen angels and the ruler over this world system that is opposed to God and his truth. His domain we looked at last week. He abides in the heavenly places. He has access into heaven but he also roams on the earth seeking whom he may devour and he will be detained someday in the future. He is limited now by God's power but he'll be detained someday during the millennial reign of Christ literally be detained and in the future will be cast into the lake of fire. So that's a little bit about his present character and position. Let's turn our attention to his work, the present work of Satan. We're going to look at his work in several different facets. First of all tonight his work in relation to God. What is he doing to oppose God? And then we'll look at his relation, his work in relation to the nations, in relation to the unsaved and then in relation to the save. Those are the four areas we'll look at. We're going to spend a little time on each of those because this really helps us to understand what he's about. What he's doing. So in relation to God there are a couple of things that are important to understand about our enemy. First of all he is the opponent of God's person. He is the opposite of everything that God is in his person. So let's explore that for just a moment. Just as in Satan's initial rebellion his power and his activity are directed primarily against God. Now he will oppose God's work, God's people, he will try to rule over nations and so forth. But all of that is just to accomplish his primary end of opposing God. And so he is in his character the very opposite of everything God is. Whereas God is light. Satan is full of darkness. Look at this verse to be on the screen for you Acts chapter 26 verse 18 Paul was talking about the ministry that he had been given to him by God to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God so that they may receive forgiveness of sins in a place among those who were sanctified by faith in me. That's the commission Jesus gave Paul. So notice the first part of that open their eyes turn them from darkness to light and then the corollary to that stated in another way from the power of Satan to God. So God is light Satan is darkness. His character is the exact opposite of the character of God. Whereas God's character is one of love and righteousness Satan's character is one of hatred and evil. Once you open your Bible to 1 John chapter 3 we're going to read a few verses from 1 John 3 about his character being marked by hatred and evil again in opposition to God. This is a fairly extensive passage but it really describes his character as being one of evil and hatred for John 3. Now verse 7, Dear children do not let anyone lead you astray the one who does what is right is righteous just as he is righteous. The one who does what is sinful is of the devil because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. No one who is born of God will continue to sin because God's seed or nature remains in them. They cannot go on sinning because they have been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are. Anyone who does not do what is right is not God's child nor is anyone who does not love their brother or sister. Paul's right there just to clarify. He's not saying that if you ever commit a sin you belong to the devil and you don't belong to God. I think well translated in the NIV the one who does verse 8, the one who present tense is living in this way practicing continuing in sin is the one who is of the devil and the verse 9, no one who is born of God will continue to sin. He's describing two kinds of lifestyle. A lifestyle that is marked, characterized, dominated by sin, practicing sin continually, and a lifestyle that is righteous, that desires and as a practice does follow God, although we know that we all still struggle with sin. In fact, John in the early part of his book warned us not to deceive ourselves. If we say we have no sin we should deceive ourselves. So he's not talking about sinless perfection here. He's talking about two different kinds of lifestyle. What characterizes you? What marks you? What is what is your normal standard of life and the desire of your heart, the direction of your life? If you live a righteous lifestyle it shows you belong to God. It's characteristic or evidence of that. If you live a wicked simple lifestyle it's an evidence of the fact that you belong to the devil. And then he closed in verse 10 by saying, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister. Look at now verse 11, for this is the message you heard from the beginning, we should love one another. Do not be like Cain who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brothers were righteous. Do not be surprised my brothers and sisters. If the world hates you, we know that we have passed from death to life because we love each other and you want who does not love remains in death and you want who hates a brother or sister is a murderer and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him. So the point here is a sharp contrast between those who practice a lifestyle of evil and a lifestyle of hatred as opposed to those who practice a lifestyle of righteousness and love for their brothers and sisters and in Christ. And the distinction there is between two different kingdoms. One who belongs to the evil one and then one who belongs to the Lord. So Satan is characterized by darkness and opposition to God's light. He's characterized by hatred and evil in clear opposition to God's love and righteousness. And then thirdly he's characterized in opposition to God by death where Christ, where God is light, Satan is characterized by death. He brews 214 on the screen. Since the children have flesh and blood, he too, Christ shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death. That is the devil. The devil deals in death. The devil brought death into the human experience through his temptation of Adam and Eve in the garden and so he was the one who introduced sin and death, penalty of sin, into the human experience. That's what he deals in. He destroys. He kills. He deals in death and God deals in giving life because he is life. So Satan in relationship to God opposes him. He's an opponent of God's character of God's person. Very opposite of who God is and his person. Comments or questions there before we look at a second way that he is in working in relationship to God. Okay. He's the opponent of God's person, but he's also the opponent of God's program. He's the opponent not only of who God is, but what God is doing. God's program in a couple of different ways and it's important to see both of these. First of all, Satan is working against God's program in this sense by counterfeiting God's system of truth. He counterfeits God's system of truth. Now remember that Satan in his original state was a good angel who in his pride and arrogance desired to be like God, desired to take over God's very position in heaven. He failed at that was cast away from that position of being around the throne of God and now he promotes what the Bible calls the lie. It's an interesting, interesting concept. Satan promotes in opposition to God's truth what's called the lie. Look at these verses in second Thessalonians 2. Again they're on the screen talking about Satan using the Antichrist to promote his program. Then when the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroyed by the splendor of his coming, the coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie. Okay, hang on to that concept and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and be saved for this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie. Now there's a lot in these verses obviously but my focus for our study right now is to show that Satan will use all kinds of deceiving signs, wonders, false miracles, false teachings in order to promote a program of his, a system of belief that is his which is called the lie. It's called twice in this passage the lie. Now there are a couple of ways in which that is seen. The lie is seen. One of the ways that Satan promotes the lie is he substitutes for the truth. He substitutes a lie to explain the world. In other words the way God explains the world in his word, Satan substitutes, counterfits the lie a system of deception and mistruths or untruths to show the way the world works. For instance the Bible makes it clear that God created the world. Well Satan has the lie which is evolution that's part of the lie. It's another way of explaining the world opposite of what God's truth says but there's a lot more to this world system the lie than just evolution. Also the concept of human progress that humans are getting better and better and better which denies the very essence of our depravity. The fact that we are sinful to the core of our being we have a sinful nature. Alright so Satan want, then wants to believe that. Satan wants you to believe that everybody really is good at heart. You just have to encourage that and that is taught all over the place that people are naturally good at heart. It may be their environment that turns them wrong but they're naturally good at heart. That is a lie. It's part of the lie because Satan is trying to distort our minds from God's truth. So evolution human progress, humanism is a part of the lie. Humanism is a way of looking at life and explaining the world which focuses on man's ability, man's rational powers, man's ability to chart his own destiny. Man can solve all his own problems. Boy don't we hear that a lot. It's part of the lie and then there's there are other parts of the lie. Relativism meaning basically there's no absolute truth or no absolute right or wrong. That is that is a part of what our culture holds dearly today. That there are no absolute. You can't tell me what's right or wrong. I've decided that for myself. And whatever I want to do, whatever I decide right or what that is a part of what our culture teaches us today and it is a part of the lie. It is Satan's lie because the Bible makes it very clear there is absolute truth. There is absolute error. There is absolute right and wrong sin and righteousness, darkness and light, evil and good. There are polar opposites in the Bible. Relativism is part of a lie. Another part of the lie that Satan uses to explain how the world works is pluralism which means that every idea, the plurality of ideas out there all are unequal footing. And so you can just choose what you want to believe or accept and you can't tell me my belief system is any better or worse than yours. That's pluralism. Every belief system, every idea deserves an equal footing. So all of that and note out much more goes together to make up a package that this world system operates by and believes and lives for which is called the lie. It is a whole package of truths or of untruths of ways of looking at things that Satan promotes called the lie. Now there's not only Satan distorting God's truth in that sense of a world system, the philosophy of thinking in a way of life, but also he promotes a counterfeit religion. Satan promotes in direct opposition to God's truth a counterfeit religion. Any religious expression that departs from the foundation of the word of God is a part of Satan's lie. It's not just a world system where we have thinking in the world. It's also where we are thinking in religion. The Bible talks a lot about this. Let's look at second Corinthians. We've looked at these verses before but they bear repeating in this context. Second Corinthians chapter 11. Second Corinthians 11 verses 13 to 15. Paul is defending his ministry against those who are combating him in Corinth and trying to persuade the Corinthians that he's not not all he should be or in fact they're trying to persuade him trying to persuade the Corinthians that he's not at all sent by God. He's defending himself against that and all the way through this chapter won't take the time to read that but he speaks about these people in verse 13. He says for such people are false apostles, deceitful workers masquerading as apostles of Christ. You know there are people who claim to be apostles of Christ who are nowhere near that. No where near ones who've been sent out by Christ. He says in verse 14 and no wonder for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising then if his servants notice they're called Satan's servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve. So people who are engineering and teaching and leading this false religion, this counterfeit religion are called basically counterfeit apostles, Satan's servants. They are masquerading as servants of righteousness putting on the mask trying to look like good religious kindhearted people but they're actually serving Satan. Now what does this religious system look like? What does it teach? Well first of all it teaches false doctrine. These verses will be on the screen. First Timothy 4 verses 1 through 3. The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith. The faith is that core body of biblical teaching about basic truths who Christ is, who the Bible is, who God is, what Christ did for our salvation, those basic core truths. Some will abandon the faith and follow, notice where this false teaching comes from, followed deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. In other words their lifestyle is full of sin and they don't, it doesn't seem to bother them because their conscience has been seared. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. Now Paul is talking about certain principles that were taught by these false teachers in his day, forbidding people to marry, ordering them to abstain from certain foods. That was a form of false teaching in that day that was called asceticism. It basically taught that you remove yourself from every source of bodily pleasure at all, even to eat or to get married or anything like that so as to cleanse yourself from the evils of this world and it was a very strong kind of legalism, works related kind of salvation, but the Bible calls it false doctrine, doctrines of demons. So this religious system, this counterfeit religious system teaches false doctrines, okay, but not only is it teach false doctrines, it has false leaders. This religious system has false leaders as well. First on two actually calls them anti-Christ's. Dear children, this is the last hour and as you have heard that the anti-Christ is coming, even now many anti-Christ have come. So, okay, the anti-Christ, the personal embodiment of evil, the man who's going to rule during the tribulation time on earth, he's going to come, yes, but John saying, hey, there are already some anti-Christs among us. These are leaders of religious movements who oppose Christ. This is how we know it is the last hour he goes on to say, who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the anti-Christ, denying the Father and the Son. Now, what John says, one of the ways you can tell a false teacher is by what they believe about Christ. I love what one of our pastors told me a week or so ago, they said, Jehovah's Witness came to their home and it's pastor James. And James said, I started engaging him in conversation and he said before they could say anything to me, he said, I have one question for you. Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who came from heaven, fully God, fully man to die for our sins and it just stopped them in their tracks because that's the one thing they deny. There are other things they deny too, but they will not admit that Jesus Christ is God in human flesh. John says, I'm looking back there, you're looking up here, John says that person is an anti-Christ. They are working against Christ, that's what anti-Christ means. I didn't say that, I'm not being judgmental, the Bible says that, okay? So we need to be clear about some religious systems in our day which are actually teaching the doctrines of demons and are opposing the very Christ who came to be our savior. So these are false apostles teaching false doctrine under false leadership and notice he goes on to say in chapter four in verse three of first John, but every spirit that does not acknowledge that Jesus does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. In other words, the person and work of Christ is the ultimate litmus test of whether or not you're teaching false doctrine, person and work of Christ. This is the spirit of the anti-Christ which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. So you've got false apostles or false ministers teaching false doctrines under false leaders who deny the doctrine of Christ and they also have false followers, I'm going to call them, they're true followers in the sense that they truly follow that false teaching, but like everything else they are counterfeits. Satan has a lot of counterfeit believers, okay? Notice if you will, let me read these verses in Matthew 13 verses 38 and 39 and we read these verses, I believe last week, one of the parables of the parables of the kingdom in Matthew 13. The one who sowed the good seed is the son of man, the field is the world and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom, the weeds or the tears are the people of the evil one and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. Now if you go, if you read the whole parable, he's talking about the fact that when the seed is sown and there's good fruit, sons of the kingdom that come forth from good soil, the devil goes right behind and sows tears, they look like wheat but it's not the real thing. So there are, that's why I call them false believers, false followers, people in churches, people in religious movements who seem very sincere and may even be very kind, morally good people, but because they are following false teachings from false teachers, particularly about the doctrine of Christ and who he is and what he did for us, they are false followers, they are counterfeit believers, they look like believers but they're not, they're not real believers. So listen, this is Satan's program today, this is part of what Satan does in relationship with God, he counterfeits God's system of truth and it's very deceptive. There are lots of churches who preach kind of a, get along with your neighbor and love everybody and do good in your world and God will smile on you and let you into heaven. That is a false gospel, that is straight from demons and it's dressed up to sound so nice and so warm and loving and it's false, it's a counterfeit and so it's very deceptive, we have to be very careful about this but all of that comes from Satan, he is in opposition to God's program, he is counterfeiting God's system of truth and it's all over the world, all over the world. Okay, any comments or questions about that before we talk about something else he's doing in opposition to God's program, Tommy? It can happen, yes, even in good Bible believing churches, Satan can, Satan can sew a few tares and people who really do not know the Lord who will create all kinds of havoc in the work of God and you're right about colleges and seminaries that began as good Bible believing, Bible teaching schools but then departed from that when they began to teach false doctrine and you look at them now, most of the Ivy League schools were started as training schools for pastors, Harvard was, well there's no likeness to that there now, it's been long, long, long ago overridden by theological liberalism and now it basically teaches everything I talked about earlier, evolution, human progress, humanism, relativism, pluralism, it swallowed Satan's ball of acts the whole thing and as have most major universities, colleges, thankfully there are some who are still holding to the truth but Satan sows a lot of tares, a lot of tares. Okay, other questions or comments? Okay, Satan is not only opposing God's program in the sense that he's counterfeiting God's system of truth whether it be a worldview or a counterfeit religion, he is also an opponent of God's program in that he counteracts God's sovereign rule. He is counteracting God's sovereign rule, this is a major part of what Satan has been doing since day one of human history. He rebelled against God's sovereign rule in heaven and that's been his method ever since then. You can trace it through the Bible, whatever God is doing in his sovereignty to rule this planet in this universe, Satan opposes. It started in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. He starts opposing God's work with them and it continued right on, you can trace it through the Bible. God raises up a people, the people of Israel and at every turn Satan fights against that nation from the very beginning. When there were only 70 strong, he seeks to put them out of existence through a famine in the land but God had already placed his agent, sleeper agent in Egypt, Joseph. And God used Joseph to bring his people to Egypt and protect them so that they would be in an environment where they could grow and flourish but Satan would still try and you could just read it all through the history. Pharaoh would not let them go. Pharaoh tries to go destroy them and God delivers them through the Red Sea and there are lots of tears so among the Israelites, the mixed multitude, and then bail them the prophet. He can't prophesy against them. God won't let them but he shows bail act, the king of Moab had to get against them and that is through tempting them to sexual immorality so that God's judgment would come on them. So all through the Old Testament, God is working to build his people, Satan is working to oppose them and exterminate them. Story after story like that, the story of Haiman in the book of Esther, another good example of that because right on through the Old Testament, then the Messiah comes and Satan opposes that work of God too. God's sovereign rule to bring his Messiah into the world as opposed by Satan through Herod. Satan puts it in the heart of Herod to try to kill Jesus as a baby and then the other attempts throughout his life, the temptation, the Garden of Gethsemane, all those attempts are Satan's attempt to counteract God's sovereign rule and then throughout history, he has fought God's people, people of Israel. He has sought to exterminate that nation and still does today. Now we have to be careful here, God's Israel in the land today is not God's restored people and the sense that they will be in the millennium. They are there in unbelief but they are still there in God's sovereign rule because there has to be a national entity of Israel in that land for the events of the tribulation to happen. So any attempt to exterminate the nation of Israel even now is an attempt to go against God's sovereign plan. I read the other day, maybe you saw the picture, I think maybe I saw it in the newspaper or a news magazine where Iran had fired a test missile and written on that missile. I don't have the words exactly, maybe perfectly right, but it was something to the effect, Israel must be exterminated. Written on the rocket. Okay, and that's the regime that we do business with, right? In our country, sad, sad, sad. We've chosen the wrong friends, this is our problem. Anybody that opposes Israel is opposing God's sovereign rule on planet earth and is falling lock step in line with Satan's program. Just lock step in in line with Satan's program. And it will continue through the tribulation time with the Antichrist. Look at 2nd Thessalonians, chapter 2, verses 3 and 4, again it's on the screen for you. So you don't have to worry about your fingers. Don't let anyone deceive you in any way. For that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness. Notice these terms, fighting, rebelling lawlessness against God's program, his sovereign rule. The man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction as the Antichrist. He will oppose and exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped so that he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God. The culmination of Satan's attack against God's sovereign rule is the Antichrist who proclaims himself God and demands to be worshiped and rules the entire earth. That's the epitome of Satan's rebellion against God. And that's why you see all these terms, lawlessness, rebellion, opposing, exalting himself, all those terms that have to do with counteracting God's sovereign rule. Well it continues right on through the tribulation with the Antichrist being, I believe, personally indwelt by Satan in the middle of the tribulation, Revelation 12, where Satan or where the Antichrist then goes after God's people and seeks to exterminate Israel and all Christians. You talk about opposing the sovereign rule of God. And so what happens when Jesus comes back at the second coming? What happens to Satan? He's bound, right? Revelation 20, he's bound for a thousand years in the pit, the abyss, so that he cannot deceive the nations anymore. But then after that thousand year rule of Christ, what happens to him? He's released and what does he do? Deceives the nations and leads what? One final rebellion against God and his sovereign rule against Christ and his kingdom. One last gas, the fight against God. I mean he's been doing it ever since the Garden of Eden. And he will not give up. And so one last rebellion against God. And he of course will be squashed and cast into the lake of fire by Christ himself. So Satan is seeking to oppose the work of God through counterfeit religion and through opposing his sovereign rule as well in the whole scheme of what God is doing in this world, particularly through Christ and his people Israel. Okay, that's, we're just scratching the surface about Satan's work. This is just his work in relation to God. What he's doing to oppose God. We haven't even gotten started about the nations and unsafe people and believers yet will get to that. But this is just what he's doing in opposition to God. Okay, comments or questions before we move on? Yeah, go ahead. Well, that's a huge question. Where do I start? Do these people, John is saying, do these people really know what they're doing? Who they're serving? I don't think if you ask them, do you know who you're serving? They would say, oh yeah, Satan willing. Yeah, they wouldn't say that. There is a huge amount of deception here. And again, that's what Paul was talking about about counterfeits. Kind of fits are very, they look like the real thing. I mean, they're very deceptive. And so there's a whole realm of deception here. And most people who are following this don't realize they're following something's bad. To them, it sounds great. I mean, religion that promotes world peace and loving your fellow man, doesn't that sound great? Sounds wonderful. But if that's what's going to get you into heaven, that's Satan's lie. So what happens is people are deceived. And they, a lot of these, these people who are involved in these religious systems go to schools, seminaries, and there are lots of good seminaries left. I don't mean to give the impression that all of them have gone bad. There's still lots of good ones left. But there are many training institutions where it all has been taken over by another counterfeit system called liberalism. And there's a whole history there that goes back to Germany in the 1880s. And it started to, in fact, the universities in Germany. And then it spread to the United States in the teens and 20s and 1900s. And basically, what it did is it took the Darwin's theory of evolution and Karl Marx's theory of the masses and religion being an opiate of the masses. And other philosophies which taught rationalism and the ability of man's mind to figure things out. And they took all of that, that false philosophy and started applying it to the Bible. And they said, you know, the Bible is not really God's truth, come down from him to us. It was written by men, you know, and we can prove that. It was just, like other books of the time they said. And so it was just written by men. It's, so it has errors in it, it has human, you know, frailties and so forth. And they began to believe that when you strip away, the divine element of the Bible and say, this is not God's word, there you go. The whole, the whole Bolognics goes with it. And when that happened, people started reading the same book that we read, but through different lens. And that lens, that those glasses were glasses conveniently provided by Satan. He was deceiving them into thinking. They knew more than God does. And so those of us who still believe that this is a book inspired by God, well, you're antiquated people from before the Enlightenment. You know, we're enlightened now. We are rational thinkers and we're better than that. We don't have to go back to those old mysteries of the dark ages. You see, that's how we're painted. It's a very complex system of, of deception. And it is all brilliantly engineered by Satan. But I tell you, it is very deceptive. There are people who stand up in pulpits all across America and who are very swab and persuasive and eloquent. And you listen to them talk and you want to love everybody and you want everybody to be kind and peaceful with one another and you want all of that. But there's no gospel. There's nothing in there about your center in need of a savior and Christ, God's son came to this world to save you. There's none of that. It's all humanism. You can do good and you can be a better person. Very slick, deceptive, live the devil. And it is all over the place. And I could go on and on and on. There's so many ramifications of it. But I think Bob, you had a question back there, didn't you? Reform replacement theology. Let me make a distinction here. I'm talking about liberalism, which is a denial of the basic truths of the Bible. It may be very deceptive and coy and clever. But I would not put that in the same category as reformed theologians. Within Bible believing Christianity, there are different views on areas of doctrine held by people who all of whom believe in the inspiration of the Bible, the deity of Christ, Christ is our savior. Faith in Him alone is our way of salvation. Literal resurrection, literal second come. All the cardinal doctrines, reformed theologians would believe all of those things. There are brothers. We're in the same, we're on the same page on those things. We may differ on a few areas, but I would not categorize them as in the same category as liberals. And that's a good distinction to make. So I appreciate you raising that question. It's also a misnomer to talk about churches that may have a little bit of a different philosophy of ministry and say, well, you're liberal. Just in recent days, I've received a letter that calls our church a liberal church. We're liberal because we have this contemporary music and we don't use the King James version. Okay, so we're liberal. I'm waiting until I can cool off just a little bit and then I'm going to schedule a meeting with this person and hopefully do a little bit of a history lesson on what liberalism is. Liberalism has nothing to do with your style of worship or the translation it has to do with denying the basic truths of the Bible and we don't do that. So get your terms right. We're not liberal. That's part of what I'm going to tell him. Okay, sorry, that was a rabbit trail, but it serves to illustrate a little bit what we use. Sometimes we use the word liberal a little too broadly and Bob has raised a good distinction between what we're talking about and genuine differences of doctrinal views on other things. There are good brothers and sisters who differ with us in those areas. Okay, it's five after our time has gone and so we better we better close shop tonight. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the time together and the time to discuss our enemy. Help us never to become cozy with him. Help us never to become tolerant of his deceptions. Help us to understand clearly what his deceptions are and as we study his tactics more thoroughly, help us to be better informed, better warned and more careful. We pray, Father, that you will keep us close to you and ground it in your word. We ask in Jesus' prayer Installation svp