We have the usual guitars, basses, drums, vocalists on the platform.

Now I think we have turned a corner. We are promoting our song leader to worship leader. We are beginning our service with the congregation coming up to the front and vigorously praising and worshiping God—lots of "Pentecostal" noise.

We do not sit down until there is a freedom of praise and worship.

This is spiritual warfare.

When the worship leader feels the yoke of Sunday-morning heaviness has been broken he may lead in some songs. Or he may not! He may, in the Spirit, point to someone and say, "You have a word from the Lord."

Or he may direct the young people to march around the church carrying the great banners.

Or he may do something new. In other words, the traditional time set aside for singing is proving too weak for what the Lord is doing now. We are not abandoning singing but we are seeing the need for additional expressions of worship, on the part of the congregation as well as on the part of the platform team.

We are entering the spiritual fulfillment of the blowing of Trumpets!

Each individual assembly will have to determine for itself what is decent and orderly. What is appropriate in our assembly may not be appropriate in yours.

But in every assembly there must be increasing, diligent rule by the experienced elders; for if we are going to have more participation by the believers we must have competent oversight.

The spiritual warfare and worship I have just mentioned are pointing to the next feast, the Day of Atonement, just as the Jewish blowing of Trumpets reminds us of the soon coming, nine days later, of the Day of Atonement.

The Day of Atonement is the period when God judges the three great areas of sin in our life. Until these three areas are dealt with successfully we are not qualified to return with the Lord and establish the Kingdom of God on the earth.

When we are first saved, the Lord ordinarily does not focus on the specific sins in our personality. He warns us to place our faith in the Passover blood so we shall not be judged along with the world. The Lord knows that when we first come to Him we are not able to stand up under the Spirit's dealing with the sin in our life.

Before we can work with the Spirit in getting rid of the sin in our personality we must have a good solid salvation experience including a clear understanding that we now are without condemnation.

Also, we must have some experience in walking in the Spirit of God.

As soon as we are an established Christian we are ready to "eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," so to speak. We are to begin to grow in the understanding of what is good and what is evil, and have the will and the strength to reject the evil and embrace the good. This is what it means to grow in Christ.

To be continued.