Nov 5, 2026 Show with Joe Jacowitz on “True Worship in an Age of Counterfeits”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe.

It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have an view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth. We're listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this fifth day of November 2026.

And a quick word about the blue tsunami that swept over us two days ago, since this is the first live episode of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio since the elections. I just have two things to say. Number one, to all of you Republicans out there who have been encouraging your candidates to compromise on issues that are abominations to God in order to appease the leftist hordes.

Well, how is that strategy working out for you? That's my first comment, and a much more encouraging comment to all true believers in Jesus Christ. A quote from John Newton. There is one political maxim which comforts me.

The Lord reigns. Let's not forget that, folks. And just because we have Satan's minions elected to places of authority in all kinds of political offices, and they are rejoicing like witches in a coven surrounding a boiling cauldron, our God is still on his throne.

But today I have a returning guest who happens to be a dear friend for many years, and a brother who actually is significantly involved in the very airing of the show that you're hearing right now. His name is Joe Jackowitz.

He is pastor of Christ Bible Church of Pleasanton, California, and founder and chairman of the board of First Love Ministries, which is the parent ministry of First Love Radio, which is live streaming this broadcast right now, First Love Publishing, and First Love Missions.

And today we're going to be addressing the theme of one of Joe Jackowitz's latest books in print, True Worship in an Age of Counterfeits. And we're also going to be introducing you to a new website, A Table in the Wilderness.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, my friend Joe Jackowitz.

It's my pleasure, Chris, to be with you again.

Amen. Why don't you tell our listeners something about Christ Bible. Church of Pleasanton, California to start off with.

Christ Bible Church was founded in 1990, so we've been in existence for, it'll be 37 years in February of next year. And so we are a Reformed Baptist congregation in Northern California, about 30 miles east of San Francisco.

So we're in the heart of a liberal country here in California. And we are quite a mixture ethnically of believers in the Lord. We embrace the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith as our primary document that expresses our beliefs.

We're very evangelistic, sharing the gospel in various settings and ways. And so we're seeking to be faithful to the Lord until he comes again.

Well, if anybody wants more details on this fine congregation, you can go to ChristBibleChurch .org, ChristBibleChurch .org. And why don't you also, obviously, let our listeners know something about a ministry that is like one of your children, First Love Ministries.

Well, First Love Ministries began in its roots in 1994 during my first trip to Nigeria as a short-term missionary. And the actual publication or printing version of First Love Ministries began in 06 as a ministry of Christ Bible Church with a desire to spread the gospel and put sound biblical teaching into people's hands.

Today, First Love Ministries reaches people in four organizations, four ministries under an overall head called First Love Ministries. The first one is First Love Publications, which has more than 80 titles, 80 books, and we've distributed over a half a million books, booklets, and tracts free of charge over the last 20 years all around the world through mission trips and just personal evangelism.

And we have a website at FirstLoveMinistries .org. Click on First Love Publications, and you'll see a full inventory and catalog of books that you can order online, and it will be sent to you free of charge and postage paid.

The second organization is First Love Missions, which works alongside of local churches overseas as well as in the United States. Overseas, we send mission teams three or four times a year to different countries, teams of pastors where we preach at pastors' conferences for about a week and Bible conferences in places such as where we have branches of First Love in Nigeria.

We have a conference going on right now, and our president, Tom Smith of First Love, joined by many other Reformed Baptist speakers, is holding a conference right now in Lagos, Nigeria, the Lagos Bible Conference, which takes place annually in the beginning of November.

So we have a branch in Nigeria, in Kenya, Nepal, India, and in the Philippines, where we, in those branches, preach the gospel. We have local church pastors who are branch heads in those countries. We feed local pastors at pastors' conferences, holding cars and conferences.

We give away books to them, distribute literature. And then that's First Love Missions, and then First Love Radio, which you're listening to right now, broadcasts Bible teaching around the clock, 24 -7, to listeners worldwide on many, many good programs, a lot of Bible teaching, solid Bible teaching by Reformed pastors and Bible teachers.

And we also have Grace Bible University, which provides biblical and theological training for Christians and church leaders, including about 300 student pastors, many of whom are already pastors, in Nepal.

So through these four organizations, our desire is to make the Word of God through radio, the Word of God through Bible study courses at Grace Bible University, the Word of God through the printed page at First Love Publications, and the Word of God through missionary work proclaimed around the world to strengthen Christ's church and to proclaim the gospel.

Our listeners can see an overview of those four organizations on one website at firstloveministries .org. That's one word, firstloveministries .org.

Great. Well, I'd like you to explain, before we go into our main theme today, explain your new website, A Table in the Wilderness, which is actually wilderness-table .org. Wilderness-table .org. What do listeners know about that?

The New Website and Books on Christian Life

Well, wilderness-table .org, or it's wilderness-table .org, is a brand new website, maybe a week or two weeks old, and it mainly takes my six books—it's five books now, and one is in the process of being formatted and printed—takes those six books and puts them aside on a website.

Those six books describe what, basically, I'm all about right now. In my later years, my writing ministry has accelerated, and so I have these six books. The first book is called True Worship in an Age of Counterfeits, and the next book is—which I won't go into detail, because I think we want to talk about that book in detail today, right?

Yeah. But the next book is You Think You Know Jesus, But What If You're Wrong? You know, Chris, someone can know Christian language and attend church and defend biblical doctrine without actually knowing Jesus Christ Himself personally.

And what I do is I draw on John 7 and examine the dangerous distance between religious familiarity and saving faith. And so this book was designed to address this massive amount of unconverted, lost people in the church, whether they be Arminian, Charismatic, Pentecostal, even Reformed.

And this book is—it's only 94 pages, but it challenges confidence that's built on, like, a past decision, or decisionism, or baptism, church membership, or just serving God, or family background, being born and raised in a Christian home.

And I explain why the new birth and a living relationship of Christ can't be manufactured by any of these methods. And so my warnings are not meant to condemn people, but they're meant to lead people towards the Savior, not trap people in endless doubt or lack of insurance, because many pastors struggle with how to address many people in their congregation who have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof.

But these warnings are meant to lead people to give up their false assurance based on their works and to truly trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. And that book is kind of provoking in the title, You Think You Know Jesus, But What If You're Wrong?

And I lay out a series of tests in the book to ensure people are saved. And then I have a book titled The Ministry Belongs to Christ. And I basically focus on the fact that the Christian ministry, whether you're a pastor or a believer, is not the property of the pastor, or the board of directors, or the believer, or donors.

The ministry belongs to Christ, and everyone who serves in the ministry is accountable to Jesus as a steward. And so this book applies that conviction that the ministry is Christ's ministry, not our ministry, and I apply it to money, to publishing, to counseling, to Christian education, to missions, to pastoral training.

And I distinguish in there between generous support and pastors just abusing the flock, trying to feed themselves instead of the sheep. And then I wrote a book called The Peace Christ Gives, which focuses on really getting peace with God.

Many Christians have gone years and decades without an assurance of salvation. And then my newest book, which is being formatted right now, it's done, it's called The Root of Bitterness and the Fruit of Forgiveness.

And I'll tell you, if a pastor would identify, say, in the top five issues, or maybe even the top three, of what believers struggle with, it's bitterness, resentment, holding on to things that they say they've forgiven, they say they've put it in the past.

But in 43 years of being a pastor, I'll tell you, one of the things that is exposed during counseling is that so many believers really haven't forgiven and haven't been able to put it behind them. And so in this book, I mentioned that bitterness can't be healed merely by hiding anger or trying to forget an injury.

This book uncovers the pride, envy, the unbelief, and the demand for repayment that can keep resentment alive, and then brings people under the searching light of Scripture. And so I give examples from marriage, family, church, and work to help readers examine their own responses rather than diagnose everybody else.

Let's look at ourselves rather than diagnosing everybody else. And so through confession, repentance, accountability, and dependence on the Holy Spirit, I call people to forgive and seek the good of those who have hurt them.

And so through these books, I seek to reach out on a corporate level, on an individual level, and we'll go into detail in the other book to try to deliver people from bondage. I have a couple of other books in the planning stage, which I think is going to upset a lot of people.

One of them is titled The Celebrity Pastor, and I deal with this massive problem of a paradigm shift in the nature of the pastoral ministry and the nature of the church itself. That's in the planning stage.

And in the writing stage, it's called The Celebrity Pastor. And I know I'm not going to be popular when people get their hands on that book. And so that's in the planning stage right now.

Great. And I've got to somehow find, if it's still available, at my former church where I was a member for many years on Long Island, back in the 1980s, we had as a guest speaker Jim Eliff, and Jim preached a message, The Root of Bitterness and the Power of Forgiveness.

And it was just a profound message about his own father. And I'm not revealing anything that Jim himself hasn't made public. Jim's father was a counselor at a very large Southern Baptist church, and he was making the serious error of counseling women alone in his office.

And sure enough, one of those women was having marital problems. She developed a romantic crush, attraction, attachment to Jim's father as the counselor. And the feeling was mutual. They had an affair.

He left the church in disgrace, was excommunicated from that church. And he left his wife and got remarried and married this woman that he had the affair with. And the core of the message was about his mother, who refused to hold on to bitterness for the decades that followed this.

And she would sternly rebuke her children for saying very nasty things about their father. And when their father came to visit their mother on her deathbed, he wept and begged for forgiveness, and she granted that to him.

But just a really powerful sermon. I mean, hopefully the sermon recording room at Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick still has that somewhere. But anyway.

Well, I think that a lot of people are going to want to get their hands on this book, On the Root of Bitterness and the Fruit of Forgiveness, because it goes into the real core issues. We don't dance around on the superficial issues.

Great. Well, we are to shift gears back to our main theme today, True Worship in an Age of Counterfeits. Joe, as you know, there have been many other books in varying degrees of faithfulness to the Scriptures and varying degrees of thoroughness and size and so on by many brethren in Christ, not only contemporary voices, but those that date back centuries who have written on the book of True Worship.

Why were you compelled to write this book specifically?

Why Jacowitz Wrote About True Worship and Its Counterfeits

Well, the book is comprehensive. It's 464 pages, and it deals with a lot of issues, many of them contemporary issues related to true worship. And you're right, there are many books written on true worship.

But I wrote True Worship because I'm concerned about what's happening to people in the church as a pastor. If you're a true pastor, you cannot help but be concerned about what's going on in your own church and in the church at large.

And many have been taught to look for another prophecy or another miracle or another powerful experience before they can be sure God is near. And some have followed leaders who speak with great confidence but can't support their claims from Scripture.

Other pastors have or other believers have been hurt by promises of healing that never came, pressure to give money or worship that leaves them excited for an evening but poorly taught in the Word of God.

And I want to help those people come back to solid ground. Many of them are still in church. They left the church bitter, and they think that the pastors are just a bunch of hypocrites. But God has spoken in Scripture, and His Word gives us what we need to know, what Christ has given to us, and to follow Him.

And this book called True Worship explains why the apostles and prophets had a special foundational place in the church, why God's written revelation is complete, the canon of Scripture is complete, and why claims of new revelation must be examined carefully.

But I also want to recognize and welcome the Holy Spirit's real work. One of the problems with many Reformed ministries is it's one thing to condemn those who are abusing the work of the Holy Spirit, but are we teaching truths related to the third member of the Trinity that encourages believers to put on the real work of the Holy Spirit?

The Holy Spirit gives a new life. He opens our understanding of Scripture. He convicts us of sin. He strengthens us to obey. He makes us more like Christ. And the church needs to hear more and more about the true teaching of the power of the Holy Spirit.

And I go into that in my book. And from there, the book turns to worship. What is true worship? It turns then to pastoral authority, and it goes into ministry money. It talks about money. And so the purpose is to help us worship as God directs us, to help us care for His people faithfully and give the gospel freely.

I'm asking the reader to examine every claim, including mine, with an open Bible and a teachable heart. And my hope is that wary believers will find peace in Christ and confidence in what Christ has actually said.

There's this shifting sand of mysticism in chapter 1, for example, where people say, oh, God told me this and God told me that. I deal with this issue of God speaking directly to us in personal revelation in modern mysticism.

Chapter 2, I talk about sola scriptura, the bedrock of the faith. Scripture or sola scriptura means that Scripture alone is the church's final infallible authority for faith and practice. In chapter 3, I go into the foundation of the apostles and prophets.

The church rests on that foundation, but it was a once-for-all laid foundation. Christ has built that. And then chapter 4, I go into the sufficiency of the closed canon. A closed canon means that God-inspired written revelation is complete and supplies the authoritative truth His people need for salvation and faith.

And then in chapter 5, I talk about discerning the true work of the Holy Spirit. Chapter 6, prophecy, revelation, is it for today? Now, a lot of our leaders who struggle with this issue of ongoing revelation, speaking in tongues, slaying in the Spirit, chapter 6 deals with prophecy, revelation, and a closed foundation, and they're going to want to read chapter 6 and 7.

Chapter 7 goes into the counterfeit and the genuine regarding tongues, and I go into an explanation of verses 8 through 12 of 1 Corinthians 13, that of the nine modern books written on cessationism, seven of them refuse to go into the interpretation that I believe very clearly teaches that tongues have ceased, where it talks about tongues have ceased, prophecies have faded away.

Seven of the nine books, including MacArthur and a few others, will not agree. They interpret the, when that which is perfect is come, as the second coming of Christ. I go into detailed explanation of that.

That is not correct. They'll find that in chapter 7 of my book. There's this big movement, Chris, you've probably heard of it, the New Apostolic Reformation, which claims that governing apostles and prophets have been restored to the church today to take direct control.

I go into that movement, and I have four more chapters, plus I have four appendices, 464 pages, that address a variety and a comprehensive amount of issues that relate to true worship. What is true worship?

Because worship matters to God, how we worship Him, and what are the grounds of our worship.

Can you please define for us what worship is? Because there is, as you know, a great misunderstanding, even in the body of Christ, about what exactly worship means. They, sometimes, many people, regulate the concept of worship only to the musical aspect of the service.

My friend, and your friend as well, Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, has said publicly on occasion how disturbed he gets when on occasion he is announced from the podium or the pulpit of a church where he is speaking, and they will say on occasion something like, and now that the worship portion of our service has concluded, let's hear a word from Dr. James R. White as if what he is about to do is not a part of the worship.

But tell us about what worship is.

Worship in Spirit and in Truth

Well, true worship, God says, the kingdom of God is within you. And so, John 4, Jesus defined what true worship is in its twofold essence in His conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. In John 4, 23 and 24, He says, God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.

And so, the essence of true worship is found in, first of all, the truth of God. God has established truth as the primary means as applied by the Holy Spirit to the spirit of a redeemed person to encourage, to stir up, and to provide the ability to worship God on His level in the spirit.

The Holy Spirit must enable our spirit to worship God on a level that He is pleased with and that He requires. And music is not that essence. Music is an aid to worship, but it is not the essence of worship.

The essence of worship is contained in two aspects. First, the spirit of God, because naturally, natively, we don't know how to pray as we ought. We don't know how to worship as we ought. We are not equipped internally, inherently, to worship God.

But He has to provide the equipment through the resurrection power of the Holy Spirit, who comes alongside of our spirit and infuses grace and strength to rise above the natural man to enable us to worship God in spirit and in truth.

And He will use the Scriptures to do that. The knowledge of God is communicated and taught and preached through the Scriptures to inform us who the true God is, the God of the Bible, so that we can worship God in truth, intelligently, and accurately as applied by the Holy Spirit.

Okay, we have to go to our first commercial break. If anybody would like to join us with a question of your own for Joe Jakowicz, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. Please only remain anonymous if your question is about a personal and private matter. For instance, if you are in a church where what they describe as worship is something that is becoming troubling to you for some reason.

You think it is not representative of what the Scriptures define as worship, or something like that, and you obviously don't want to identify yourself, and therefore, in doing so, identify your church.

So, we understand things like that would compel you to remain anonymous, but if it's just a general question about what the Bible has to say about worship, worship from a historical perspective, etc., please give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

We're going to be right back after these messages. Don't go away.

I'm Simon O'Mahony, pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Originally from Cork, Ireland, the Lord in his sovereign providence has called me to shepherd this new and growing congregation here in Cumberland County.

At TRBC, we joyfully uphold the Second London Baptist Confession. We embrace congregational church government, and we are committed to preaching the full counsel of God's Word for the edification of believers, the salvation of the lost, and the glory of our triune God.

We are also devoted to living out the one another commands of Scripture, loving, encouraging, and serving each other as the body of Christ. In our worship, we sing psalms and the great hymns of the faith, and we gather around the Lord's table every Sunday.

We would love for you to visit and worship with us. You can find our details at trbccarlisle .org. That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, we'll see you soon. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries and the Dividing Line webcast here.

Although God has brought me all over the globe for many years to teach, preach, and debate at numerous venues, some of my very fondest memories are from those precious times of fellowship with Pastor Rich Jensen and the brethren at Hope Reform Baptist Church, now located at their new, beautiful facilities in Corham, Long Island, New York.

I've had the privilege of opening God's Word from their pulpit on many occasions, have led youth retreats for them, and have always been thrilled to see their members filling many seats at my New York debates.

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Hello, this is Brian Nye, president of Hearts for the Lost Ministry. Our sole mission is to serve the local church and work directly with and alongside pastors and elders with their efforts to equip, excite, and educate their flock in biblical evangelism.

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Contact us today at heartsforthelost .com. That's heartsforthelost .com. Now, have a heart and go share your faith. Welcome back.

If you've just tuned us in, my guest today is Joe Jakiewicz, who is the founder and chairman of the board of First Love Ministries, and we are today discussing Joe's book on true worship. And the exact title of that book is True Worship in an Age of Counterfeits.

If you have a question for Joe, you may submit it to chrisarnson at gmail .com. And give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. Joe, I know that before we move on with more of the details that you have provided for us in your book, you wanted to discuss briefly and introduce to our listeners the bondage project, if you could let us know what that's all about.

The Bondage Project and Sexual Sin

Well, the bondage project has been a growing burden of mine for many years. As a pastor, I have been really struck with the struggle that many men have with pornography and sexual sin. But there's this underlying kind of secret that people don't talk about, pastors don't talk about, believers don't talk about, and that is, well, in my view at least, sexual sin is the biggest problem in the church.

It is a massive problem, but it's unprecedented. Very, very few people and pastors are talking about it comparatively because of the sensitive nature of it. I know that some pastors are talking about it.

A few are even addressing it from the pulpit or privately, but it is the number one problem. If you look at some of the surveys out there that Barna Research Group and Pew Research and others have taken, some of these are pretty accurate surveys, we see that sexual sin and pornography is the number one problem that believers professing Christians are struggling with.

Large percentages of congregations, certain congregations, 50%, 60 or more view pornography on a regular basis. Pastors, pastors, you would be surprised, Chris, how many pastors are struggling with pornography.

And we wonder why our churches have no life or little life. And so I said, you know, I'm 71 years old and I'm not going to die without addressing it. So we started a ministry called The Bondage Project, and we're reaching out to men.

It's basically a new ministry. It's part of First Love, but it hasn't even been officially incorporated into First Love Ministries yet. But every once or twice a month, I have a message I bring on a YouTube message, on a Zoom message.

If our listeners want to find out great details about The Bondage Project, all they have to do is go to the website. It's bondageproject .org, bondageproject .org. And Chris, let me just say this. A man may sit in church and know his Bible and appear dependable to everyone around him while privately surrendering to pornography and sexual sin.

Repeated compromise troubles his conscience and weakens his assurance and could damage his marriage, relationships, and especially his usefulness in serving Christ. And shame may keep him silent while secrecy allows the sin to continue.

And so The Bondage Project exists to bring this struggle into the light of God's Word and provide men with serious biblical teaching and prayer and fellowship as they seek freedom through Christ. And so the need is spiritual as well as practical.

Pornography and sexual immorality must be confronted as sins against God. We can't sweep it under the rug. We can't excuse it as harmless private habits. At the same time, a man who's weary of failure needs more than condemnation or another promise to try harder.

He needs to understand the gospel, the mercy available in Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit to put sinful desires to death. And the ministry, therefore, calls men to honest self-examination, genuine repentance, and faith in Christ and daily obedience.

The Bondage Project warns against false assurance while encouraging those who are sincerely fighting sin to keep on going and to also seek help. And the purpose reaches beyond just stopping outward behavior.

The Bondage Project seeks to help men grow in holiness and enjoy a clear conscience before God. And so that they can get a lot more information if they go to bondageproject .org, bondageproject .org. I was talking with Conrad Mbewe, and I would encourage our listeners to pray for him as he's going to be going through surgery for prostate cancer.

And he and I are discussing the possibility of the first Bondage Project conference in Zambia, because there are many, many thousands of men in churches in Zambia who are struggling with pornography and sexual sin.

And we're talking about it now. It's not definite. And through First Love, we are also considering a conference as well.

Great. Well, back to our topic of true worship, we do have a questioner already. Let's see here. I've got to find that question from Joey in New Rochelle, New York. Bear with me. I'm sorry. I'm looking for that.

And here it is. Hi, Joe. Appreciated your comments on John chapter 4, verse 23. I'm wondering how you address those who interpret spirit in a way that implies charismatic type worship and manifestations.

The Holy Spirit, Spiritual Gifts, and Worship

Well, there's a difference between the way the Holy Spirit works in the fruit of the Spirit and the way he works through the exercise of spiritual gifts and the Holy Spirit's role in conditioning our heart in worshiping God vertically.

There's the horizontal manifestations of the Spirit in exercising spiritual gifts, both on the extraordinary temporary level, as in tongues and miracles and healing and apostolic miraculous gifts, which are ceased and replaced by the biblical canon of Scripture.

That's a horizontal exercise of temporary gifts. Then there are the present-day gifts of the Spirit, like the gift of helps, the gift of exhortation, the gift of teaching, the gift of giving, the gift of faith.

Those are horizontal gifts. And then there's the fruit of the Spirit, which is the evidence and the fruit of our vertical relationship with God. When we walk with God in his Word and through prayer and through keeping short accounts with God in our hearts, with clean hands and a pure heart and a clear conscience, God refills us with his Spirit in power.

And the fruit of the Spirit is in love, peace, joy, long-suffering, gentleness, self-control, and so forth that Galatians 5 describes. And that fruit, again, is just what it says. It's fruit. But the essence of worship in the Spirit is this vertical connection and relationship of God that the Holy Spirit conditions us to enjoy through that oneness with Christ we maintain through the faithful use of the means of grace—the Word of God, prayer, and fellowship, church attendance, and so forth.

And let's tell Joe from New Rochelle how he can get a free copy of this book.

Yes, not only Joe—and I like his name, by the way—not only Joe, but anyone who will write to me, actually go to our website and just fill out a very short form. Give us your mailing address, your name and your mailing address.

We won't put your name on any mailing list or anything unless you want us to. Go to wilderness-table .org, wilderness-table .org, and fill out the form requesting a hard copy of my new book titled, True Worship in an Age of Counterfeits, Comprehensive Dealing with the Ministry of the Spirit, and so forth.

And we'll send you a free copy. To our listeners, any listener of Iron Sharpens Iron.

Great. And we do have another listener, Seth in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania. When it comes to the use of musical instruments in worship, there are some congregations that sing a cappella without the use of accompaniment of any musical instruments whatsoever.