By faith Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees, not knowing where he was going.

By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau.

By faith Joseph gave instructions about his bones.

By faith Moses' parents hid him for three months.

And so on and on and on.

When the Spirit of God defines "the just shall live by faith" He uses people from the Old Testament (an interesting fact by itself) and tells what they did based on what they believed. If we are certain of things hoped for we are going to act. Otherwise what we have is not Bible faith at all but the deadness of mental belief. There is no salvation in mental belief, in any sovereign, abstract "state of grace" that exists apart from our behavior, apart from our moral transformation.

Such a state of grace may exist in the philosophy of Gnosticism but it is not found in the Old Testament or the New Testament.

We are in terrible deception today, a delusion spread throughout the ranks of Evangelicals wherever the Gospel is preached in the world. We need to wake up and quit our sinning, as Paul says. And, as Paul stated, many people of the world are ignorant of God because of the behavior of the Christians. Many people in America are cynical concerning the Christian Gospel because of the behavior of the Christians.

We may think God overlooks our behavior because we are in an impervious state of grace and is about to whisk us out of here and leave the world to Antichrist. This is not true. The fact is, judgment has begun in the house of God and none of us is exempt! And none of us is going to fly away in any mythological "rapture."

The Lord is judging His people today. Has He come by your house yet? He will. You can count on it. When He does, ask Him to give you a report card. Find out what He wants changed in you, and then ask His help so you can get rid of your worldliness, lust, and self-will.

Don't wait until God has to destroy you in order to save you. Do you want to enter the Kingdom of God as a naked spirit, shorn of all inheritance? This may happen if you do not get down to business with God.

If I am hearing correctly from the Lord, He is saying He is displeased because we in America are not keeping His commandments. Maybe I'm missing something but the Lord is not speaking to me of any "state of grace."

We are not keeping God's commandments in this country because we have had unscriptural teaching. God is not going to excuse us because we have had bad teaching. He requires of us that we have enough sense to know Christ is not the Divine excuse for our worldliness, lust, and self-will. Our conscience ought to tell us better than this!

Where is our common sense that we would believe all we have to do is take the four steps of salvation and then we are saved forever and ever? Can't we read the New Testament?

Today it is back to the Bible, especially the New Testament. There we have numerous commandments, with the promise that if we, with the Lord's help, obey these commandments, Christ will be formed in us. When Christ, the New Covenant, is formed in us, we will not sin but will please God by our new nature. It is just as simple as this.

To be continued.