The Believer’s Lifelong Battle for Holiness

we come now to hear from heaven through the pages of Scripture and I want you to go back to Galatians chapter 5 for you that are visiting with us we go through the books of Scripture particularly in the New Testament verse by verse and here the Word of God in its context as it has been revealed to us and we are in a book called Galatians written to Christians by the Apostle Paul who were in churches scattered around a province in the ancient Roman world called Galatia they had heard the gospel and believed the gospel and they had come to salvation in Christ they had received the Holy Spirit their lives were transformed they were walking in the spirit they were enjoying the fullness of life in Christ and then some false teachers came and false teachers came and wanted to undermine what they had believed what had been taught to them by the apostle of Jesus Christ by the name of Paul and the false teachers told them the idea that you can be saved from your sin forgiven and entered the kingdom of God through faith alone is is a lie it requires also that you adhere to the law of Moses namely the external laws of Moses circumcision rituals festivals feasts ceremonies and without without those you cannot be saved it is as if you have to step into the the formal external behaviors of ceremonial Judaism before you can be a believer even though they had believed that salvation was by faith alone they had believed the true gospel had been saved by the true gospel they began to be confused by the false gospel of the false teachers the false teachers also let them know that if they were going to live a holy life if they were going to honor the Lord with their lives they could not hope to be sanctified they could not hope to be more like Christ they could not hope to grow in in grace apart from observing those very same rituals and ceremonies and even circumcision from the mosaic economy so they brought legalism in and they said it's required for salvation and it's required for sanctification Paul refers to this if you look back at chapter 3 before we look at our verse in chapter 5 and he says to them in verse 1 o foolish Galatians who has bewitched you who has seduced you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified you know of Christ you know that his crucifixion accomplished our salvation who has bewitched you and then he asks them in verse 2 this is the only thing I want to find out from you did you receive the spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing with faith well of course faith alone brought salvation and faith alone therefore brought the Holy Spirit and then in verse 3 are you so foolish having begun by the spirit are you now being perfected by the flesh and there's the verse that speaks to the issue of sanctification you've believed you've been saved you've received the Holy Spirit you've begun in the power of the Holy Spirit and now are you to be perfected by the law are you shifting from living in the spirit walking in the spirit to walking in the law this corrupts the doctrine of salvation and this corrupts the doctrine of sanctification we are not saved by any external ceremonies and we are not sanctified by any external ceremonies but that is what the false teachers were saying these false teachers then are proclaiming a false gospel and a false pattern of sanctification they are threatening the truth of salvation and the truth of holiness as well so Paul has been writing dealing with the effect of their legalism on the doctrine of salvation that occupied the first four chapters in the first four chapters he demonstrates that salvation is by faith alone apart from any external work or for that matter any internal work and now he has shifted to talk about sanctification and this really kind of begun to capture him back in chapter 3 where he said have you begun in the spirit and are now made perfect by the law have you shifted out of the power of living in the spirit to external ceremonies if you have you are confused you are bewitched you have been seduced and over in chapter 4 verse 19 we looked at that quite in detail he says my children with whom I'm again in labor until Christ is formed in you and the only way Christ is formed in you is by the work of the Holy Spirit on the inside not by any ceremony on the outside so when we come into chapter 5 Paul starts to deal with the issue of their sanctification covering salvation by faith alone in chapters 1 through 4 he's now concerned about sanctification and we're down to verse 16 now in this chapter and Paul gives us the key to the sanctified life and by that I mean progressive holiness progressive conformity to Christ walking in the way of blessing walking in spiritual power and fullness and he says this verse 16 but I say walk by the spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh the law cannot restrain the flesh legalism cannot restrain the flesh circumcision ceremonies new moons festivals feast days whatever the observances were that once we're enjoined upon the people of Israel to isolate them from the pagan nations around them had no impact on their hearts and they will not have any impact on yours as well to be sanctified you need not to go back to the law it's not about external behavior you need to walk by the spirit that is how you will defeat the desires of the flesh now this introduces us to a wonderful section from verse sixteen to twenty five and will title all of it walking by the spirit walking by the spirit this is the message of the Apostle Paul to the legalist who says that salvation or sanctification is a result of observing certain external conduct behaviors ceremonies and rituals this is not how salvation occurs this is not how sanctification occurs verse sixteen walk by the spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh now that is the command and we're gonna break this passage up it's gonna take us a few weeks to get through it because there's so much here but to begin with we looked at the command in verse 16 I just briefly remind you of it walk by the spirit you will not carry out the desire of the flesh one step at a time walk is a key word in the New Testament because it expresses the path of sanctification it doesn't say leap into sanctification leap into the spirit jump into the spirit catapult into the spirit run into the spirit it says walk by the spirit one step at a time a scripture says a lot about walking it tells us in the New Testament to walk in unity to walk in purity to walk in contentment to walk in faith to walk in good deeds to walk in knowledge to walk in wisdom to walk in light to walk in love to walk in truth and to walk in separation the spiritual life of a believer is a walk one step at a time by the power of the Holy Spirit who is conforming us to Christ second Corinthians 3:18 as we look at Christ's glory and we walk in obedience to him the spirit changes us into his image from one level of glory to the next that has that is how you live the Christian life we do not advocate legalism externalism that is simply a formula for hypocrisy everything that God wants to do starts on the inside now that is a straightforward command it's really not hard to understand it walk by the spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh so you as a believer could say well that's simple enough what does it mean to walk by the spirit well Paul in fusions 518 puts it this way be filled with the holy spirit in other words give the holy spirit control over your life in a parallel passage Colossians 3:16 he says let the word of Christ the revelation of Christ the scripture dwell in you richly walking in the spirit is being filled by the spirit being filled by the spirit is being saturated with the Word of God which the Spirit revealed in which the Spirit illuminates so walking by the spirit is not a mystical experience it is simply walking in line with the revelation of the Spirit which he has brought us in Scripture and which he illuminates to us as we read scripture as we hear it preached and hear it Todd that's how we are to walk in first John chapter 2 verse 6 as we pointed out to you last time it's even narrowed down more than that if you are going to walk the way that God wants you to walk first John 2:6 says walk as Christ walked walk as Christ walked I told you last time he walked in perfect obedience to his father by the power of the Holy Spirit in him that's that's the command that's how you live your Christian life you walk by the spirit filled with the spirit expressing his will through the word and through the illumination of the word as you read it and here at preach now that sounds like a pretty straightforward command and we set out to do that but it doesn't take long until we run into point two and point two is the conflict let's go to verses 17 and 18 the conflict for the flesh sets its desire against the spirit so there we immediately are recognizing that in spite of having the Holy Spirit in us there's going to be conflict because the flesh sets its desire against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh for these are in opposition to one another so that you may not do the things that you please but if you are led by the Spirit you're not under the law now I just want to talk a little bit about those two verses and what they declare to us because this is at the heart of how you view yourself you go to a doctor because you want a diagnosis of your condition right this is a diagnosis of your spiritual condition and mine this is this is how it's set up in us to have this kind of conflict we're all in the same situation the flesh is still there and the spirit is there and therein lies the conflict now look a little more closely at verse 17 the flesh that's our unredeemed human fallenness our sin nature is still present and it's desire is against the spirit and the spirits desire is against the flesh so these are in opposition to one another and then that final statement so that you may not do the things that you please now the things that you please are manifestations of your flesh okay follow this the things that you please are the manifestations of your flesh it's what you've wanted before you were a Christian it's just the natural innate longings of a fallen human heart for self-fulfillment the things that lust and pride develop in the heart and reach out to fulfill those desires are what you please but that verse is saying the Holy Spirit is given to you to oppose that so you may not do those things that should be good news to you the Holy Spirit is in every believer has the restrainer the Holy Spirit's role yes to empower you in the direction of righteousness but also to restrain you from just doing the things that you please that's how you lived your life before you were a believer you did whatever you please then you were going down a path of damnation because the things that pleased you were sinful things because they had no recognition of the glory and honor of God so the Holy Spirit is given to you to restrain those natural desires that should be good news for you to hear that this is a divine diagnosis of your problem the God understands the conflict in your life and mine God understands that there is fallen flesh and it has its desires for what it it pleases that God has given us His Holy Spirit to restrain that so that our lives are changed it doesn't mean that we never sinned what it does mean is we don't always sin and as you grow spiritually and become more and more like Christ sinned decreases and righteousness increases the Spirit of God trains you with the Word of God so that you sin less and you obey more and that's spiritual growth that is the basic diagnosis of the heart and soul of a Christian there is a war going on there between your fallen sinful flesh that wants what it wants and the restraining power of the Holy Spirit stopping you from going in that direction now look at verse 18 but if you are led by the spirit and if you're a believer you are you're not under the law here's this point you will not having been led by the spirit you will not come to increasing Christlikeness you will not come to holiness you will not come to sanctification by the law don't go back and let anybody make rules on your life that tell you you're going to be holy if you keep these external behaviors that's not going to do it you don't want to be under the law now when Paul says you're not under the law he's saying a lot to be under the law is not a good place to be back in chapter 3 verse 10 he says if you're under the law you're under a curse you're under a curse a divine curse in verse 22 he says if you're under a law under the law you're under sin you're under the dominance of sin in verse 23 he says if you're under the law you're literally a prisoner you're kept in custody in verse 25 he says if you're under the law you're under a tutor in verse 2 of chapter 4 you're under a guardian and a manager of chapter 4 verse 2 verse 3 you're held in bondage to the elemental things of the world verse 5 when you're under the law you need to be redeemed you need to be bought out of slavery and so yes in verse 21 of chapter 4 tell me you who want to be under the law do you not listen to the lawn you want to be under the law and you know all that the law plays no role in sanctifying you any more than it plays a role in saving you it is being led by the Spirit and when Paul's talk about the law is obviously not talking about God's moral law which is merely a radiance of his nature he's talking about external behaviors and ceremonies so this is how it is in the Christian life there is a battle going on in all of us between our unredeemed flesh not yet changed and won't be until we leave this world and the indwelling Holy Spirit living and moving through our new nature so we live in this conflict the Lord understands it he saved us He loves us he gave us his Holy Spirit but he understands this is a very real battle now I want to digress a little bit because I think it's so important that you understand yourself that you have a true sense of your own identity and what is the solution to winning the conflict is it a is that an epic spiritual experience in a moment in some kind of esoteric flash from heaven when you leap up several heights of glory and you come to a point of sanctification no it is a steady step by step by step walk let me help you to understand this with an illustration Lazarus had been dead for four days and when the Lord arrived at his grave his sisters were very disappointed because they wanted the Lord to come when he was just ill because they knew the Lord could heal him when he was ill they weren't so sure that he could heal him when he was dead and especially four days dead the Jews did not embalm and a corpse lying for four days would have gone into some serious decay Jesus purposely delayed coming because he wanted him good and dead because he wanted to put his power on display he knew he could heal a dead man from death as easily as he could heal a living man from any disease he wanted to put his full power on display so I went to Lazarus grave and he said take the stone away Martha incredulous at that moment knows that a stench is going to come out because that would have been the case in four days she blurts out in perfect King James English no doubt Lord by this time he stinketh for he's been dead for days John 11 39 Jesus ignored her concern and cried out with a loud voice Lazarus come out and it's a good thing he said Lazarus or every grave would have emptied he had to qualify it and he had that much power as John 5 says he'll raise everybody from the dead who ever lived at the end of history where they see when Lazarus came out of the grave they saw a man bound hand and foot with wrappings and his face wrapped with a cloth they must have seen a mummy hopping and Jesus said loose him and let him go as long as the stinking grave clothes filled with decay and the stench of death clung to him he did stink and he was hindered in expressing his new life now Lazarus offers a graphic illustration of our predicament as regenerate Christians we have been raised to walk in newness of life we're still wrapped in the remnants of our fallenness even though we are alive from the dead the grave clothes are still stuck to us bound in our own grave clothes raised new life but with a stench this is the reality of your spiritual condition however there is a deeper and more profound issue for us than there was with Lazarus Lazarus rags came off they unwrapped him ours don't his just a material shroud once it was removed and disposed of the stench was gone the corruption of death no longer clung to him our predicament cannot be so quickly altered why because it's not a material cloth that clings to us it is false as a full-fledged dead carcass Romans 7:24 we have connected to us the body of this death in ancient times to punish a murderer they would sometimes strap the corpse of the one he killed to his body until its decay eventually ate into the killer and took his life Paul says we have a body of death attached to us and we groan Romans 8 he says in verse 23 we groan waiting for the redemption of this body we are not yet what we're going to be right it doesn't yet appear what we shall be but we'll be like him when we see him as he is so here we are and we have a new life a new nature new long these new loves new desires we have the Holy Spirit empowering us and restraining the flesh that is in us but the flesh is still clinging to us sin is present but it is no longer dominant it is present but it is no longer dominant to understand that go back to Romans 6 for just a moment and we'll look at Romans 6 and then a little later briefly Romans 7 but in Romans 6 Paul shows us that sin is present but not dominant back in verse 5 talks about the fact that we have been united with Christ in the likeness of his death we have also been united with him in the likeness of his resurrection so we've had a resurrection we're all Lazarus is in that sense we've all been raised from the dead verse six our old self was crucified with him in order that our body of sin might be done away with and we would no longer be slaves to sin okay we're no longer slaves to sin sin is no longer master sin no longer rules and dominates over us for he who has died is freed from sin verse 8 if we have died with Christ we believe that we shall also live with him knowing that Christ having been raised from the dead is never to die again death is no longer master over him for the death that he died he died to sin once for all the life he lives he lives to God even consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus yes but notice verse 12 do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you may obey its lusts it assumes it's still there do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God for sin shall not be master over you you are not under law but under grace what then shall we sin because we're not under law but under grace may it never be do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience you are slaves of the one whom you obey there of sin resulting in death or obedience resulting in righteousness but thanks be to God though you were slaves of sin you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed having been freed from sin you became slaves of righteousness then in verse 19 he says present your members into the verse and slaves to righteousness resulting in sanctification so therein lies the issue we have died with Christ we have risen with Christ we're like Lazarus but we have a dead body still tied to us and we can't shake it in this life we don't get rid of it until the redemption of our body when we leave this world and enter the Lord's presence now please is Paul saying we are sinless is he saying we are with doubts in not at all what he is saying is that we have this body of death strapped to us and we must we must exercise obedience to the Word of God in us yielding our members as instruments of righteousness there are however people who think that the Bible teaches that we can become sin less that might surprise you but it's a long-standing very popular very widespread theology they think it is possible for a believer to be sanctified to such a level that he literally is free from original sin and depravity brought into a state of entire devotion to God and holy obedience and holy love made perfect that is a direct quote from a statement in the Church of the Nazarene articles of faith say it again we believe that entire sanctification is that act of God subsequent to regeneration by which believers are made free from original sin and depravity brought into a state of entire devotion to God and holy obedience and love made perfect and you can get to that point in this life they say it is wrought by the baptism with the Holy Spirit which is something that happens subsequent to your salvation that elevates you out of your fallenness into a level of what they call Christian perfection and holiness it is wrought instantaneously by faith and preceded by entire consecration so if you can get to the point where you can entirely consecrate yourself to God as a Christian by your own will if you'll just do that in your own strength and your own power consecrate yourself totally to God you will in that moment as an act of faith be elevated elevated instantaneously into Christian perfection now some of you may have grown up in this kind of environment where vestiges of this were being taught for example you would go to church and the pastor would speak and then he would say how many of you want to consecrate your life to Christ your believers you want to rededicate reconsecrate and that's that that's essentially this theology that's saying if you'll just do that God by your act of doing that will take you up to Christian perfection and oh by the way in this theology you can lose that Christian perfection which is a little hard to explain how does somebody who's been made perfect become imperfect it's a temporary thing and in their theology if you do sin you're not supposed to be able to sin you're supposed to be above depravity and above sin but but if you do sin you're back down again you can have another experience and another elevation to sanctification but it's consistent with their theology because that theology which is our minion ism Wesley and theology believes you can lose your salvation so just as you can lose your salvation because it's an act of your own free will you can take yourself in and take yourself out you can also lose your sanctification you can take yourself in and take yourself out God is sort of responding to your desires and your willpower now this is this is very old stuff martin luther way back in his day called it the false philosophy of Aristotle adopted by medieval scholastics Luther said this they teach that sin is entirely destroyed by baptism or repentance and so regarded as absurd that the Apostle should confess sin dwells in me that's the Apostle Paul in Romans seven as a converted or spiritual man they say he could no longer have any sin in therefore they argue he here speaks of himself as an unconverted man and then Luther said but sin remains in the converted man BB Warfield the great reformed theologian in his marvelous book called perfectionism traced the modern influence back to John Wesley it was John Wesley who infected the Protestant world with the idea of entire sanctification there was no element says Warfield of Wesley's teaching which afforded him greater satisfaction and there is no element of his teaching which is more lauded by his followers what defines Wesleyan ISM is this perfectionism and wave after wave of this perfectionism the holiness movement has washed up on the shore of the church through the centuries and as confused people profoundly now in order to make this thing work in order to believe that you're actually entirely sanctified and you've been lifted out of your depravity in order to make that work you have to redefine two things you have to redefine sin and you have to redefine sanctification you have to diminish sin and diminish sanctification you have to pull them all down to a level where you can pull it off and that's essentially what they do I'll give you an illustration of it Charles Finney was one of the great purveyors of this Wesleyan theology and Charles Finney preached basically that salvation is an act of the human will totally an act of the human will you you will be saved when you buy your own human will come to God and receive and take the gift of salvation sanctification he also said is an act of the human will requiring consecration reconsecrate and dedication rededication that's where all that comes from and to show you how bizarre this was sin has to be downgraded if you're if you're gonna believe that you're perfect you've got to change your definitions of sin here's a good illustration of it out of Vinnie's ministry Finney ministered in New York State 18-49 to 1879 s called the burned over area a lot of cults came out of that because of his aberrant theology there were about 50 little utopian communes that developed in New York under Finney's influence one of them developed in a little town called Oneida and some of you look in your kitchen drawer and you'll see flatware with Oneida stamped on it that was originally made by this little commune of 300 followers of Finney ISM in New York actually that little utopian community Henry Noah's in Hawaii s who bought into this this theology they started the flatware company as a way to sort of survive their little commune would therefore they thought have enough money to exist what few knew about this little community didn't come out till Finney died in 1879 when it dissolved the the flatware lasted a lot longer than the community lasted by the way what was found out when it began to dissolve was that this little commune of listen perfected Christians this little commune of people who had ascended to entire sanctification practice communal marriage so every woman was available to every man in the entire community serious redefinition of sin but that's an illustration of what was going on and it went all the way down to involving young girls so Noah's had basically adopted moral standards of his own preference and could live in a perpetual orgy and claimed to be entirely sanctified now admittedly that is a very extreme view but it is an accurate one it is a true illustration but in any case and in every case if you're going to think in this life you're entirely sanctified you're going to have to change two definitions sin and sanctification you can't possibly have God's view of sin and God's view of holiness and believe that so what happens to people who get in this system this downgrading of sin and holiness is that they're living in a fantasy and they say sin is only what is premeditated conscious and intentional anything that's sort of a slip up unconscious unintentional a bad act is a mistake but not a sin all of this is that the expense of a confused and tortured conscience people who don't really understand sin don't really understand holiness and think they're responsible for whether or not they're sanctified or not and then when they're told they're sanctified their conscience is still accusing them because that's what conscience does and they live with the torture of their conscience if you think you're holy your conscience is telling you you're a liar now there been some modifications of this kind of thing but it's been around a long time what we're learning here in Galatians is the true diagnosis of you is you're not sinless you're not holy and that is the necessary confession to move forward in your sanctification not to think you're sinless and holy JC rile in his book on holiness also came out around that same time as Finney 1879 said sudden instantaneous leaps from conversion to consecration I fail to see in the Bible they weren't there he knew it all accurate Bible students know the justification and sanctification are inseparable they all happen at the same time just sanctification not some subsequent leap that happens repeated repeated repeated times sanctification starts at justification and progresses through your life as you become increasingly like Christ as the Spirit of God who is in you leads you in the path of righteousness and restrains you from sin the good news folks his look the Lord knows you have a conflict right he knows that he understands that Thomas Watson said this saving faith lives in a broken heart so important saving faith lives in a broken heart it always grows in a heart humbled by sin in a weeping eye and a tearful conscience that's the mark of a truly godly person not the idea that he sinned less that he's reached perfection that's a proud deception and is a slaughter against your own conscience in this life the conflict will rage Hebrews 12:1 says the sin which so easily entangles proverbs 20 verse 9 who can say I have cleansed my heart I am pure from sin no one first John 1:8 2:10 if we say we have no sin we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us we make God a liar and his word is not in us that's the verse that ought to bring all of that to an end James 3:2 we all stumble in many ways and then back to our text back to Galatians 5:17 the flesh sets its desire against the spirit the spirit against the flesh they are not positioned to one another so that you may not do the things you desire you wish or things that please you we have to understand the true diagnosis of our condition I can't imagine the horrendous horrific guilt and disappointment that would live in the heart of someone who believed that Christian perfection sinless perfection even eradication is a term they used the eradication of the sin nature was a possibility and they hadn't achieved it I can't also imagine that the work of a conscience in a person who believed he or she had achieved it thought they had eradicated their sin nature and then tried to live with the hypocrisy of reality turn to Romans 7 and we can wrap it up there Paul the Apostle is going to describe his own understanding of himself this is how Paul sees himself as a believer verse 14 the law is spiritual I am a flesh my flesh is still there it's still bound to sin why do I say that for what I am doing I don't understand I'm not practicing what I would like to do I'm doing the thing I hate but I do the very thing I do not want to do I agree with the law confessing the law is good I I desire the law of God I love the law of God he says that earlier back in verse 12 but there's something going on in me so verse 17 so now no longer am I the one doing it but sin which dwells in me there's the pathology of the Christian I love God I the eye has been changed that I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I live but it's a new I but this new I has to deal with sin which dwells in me and then in verse 18 he says I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh he puts he locks it into the flesh and I know that because the Willing is present but the doing of the good is not the good that I want to do I don't do I practice the evil I do not want but if I am doing the very thing I do not want I am no longer the one doing it but sin which dwells in me he distances himself is new his new eye is new person in Christ from the sin that is still in him I find then verse 21 a principle that evil is present in me the one who wants to do good I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man but I see a different law or different principle or different power and the members of my body waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members wretched man that I am there is the testimony of a godly man he's not gonna say holy man that I am sin has been eradicated I'm living in Christian perfection just the absolute opposite who will set me free from the body of this death who will detach me from the corpse thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord yes one day that will come chapter 8 verse 23 will have that redemption of the body but until then look at the end of verse 25 so then on the one hand I myself with my mind I'm serving the law of God on the other with my flesh the law of sin does it come for you to know that God understands the struggle it doesn't expect perfection but has provided the Holy Spirit to move you in the right direction now why is sanctification important I'm skipping all the good stuff here why is sanctification important number one worship worship Psalm 15 don't come into my presence unless you come with clean hands and a pure heart it's important you could say well I don't know no worry about sanctification I'm going to heaven anyway sanctification is critical first of all because you love the Lord but for worship secondly for witness let your light so shine that they may see your what your good works and glorify your father who's in heaven it's important for your work second Timothy two there are vessels unto honor and someone to dishonor if you cleanse yourselves you'll be a vessel unto honor it's essential for prayer some 66:18 of five regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me it's essential for edification from Scripture first Peter Peter says in chapter two laying aside all evil as babes desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby why is thank you vacation important because you can't worship witness work pray or be built up in the faith unless you are in the path of sanctification walking by the spirit becoming more like Christ sin is not killed when it is only covered up when it is exchanged for a different sin walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh

Channel: Grace to You

Views: 350,978

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Keywords: John MacArthur, Bible, Preaching, Christianity, Expository, Exposition, Sermon, Jesus, Christ, Sanctification, Holy Spirit

Id: TDQGmV_K1No

Length: 45min 56sec (2756 seconds)

Published: Wed May 02 2018