When we do not take pleasure in godly behavior, continually excusing ourselves for one reason or another, God Himself sends delusion on us.

"We ought to try to do good in order to please Jesus." This marshmallow kind of determination is unable to resist the lusts of demons, and many people are going to fall away from the faith in the days ahead. This I think the Lord has told me clearly. Perhaps it is because they have not been taught the fear of God.

The terror of the Lord is missing from many Christian churches and so we have become fools. Every religion in the world, every person with an operating conscience, understands what righteousness is—everyone except the Christian people.

How long will it be before the Christian leaders of our nation recognize that the New Testament is filled with commandments to righteous, holy living that must be obeyed if we are to enter the Kingdom of God? We must obey them with the help of God's Spirit. It isn't going to happen that as we lay back Christ in us is going to obey His own commandments through us with no effort on our part. This concept is a popular delusion.

It is as though an iron curtain has dropped over the New Testament such that intelligent, devout Christian scholars cannot comprehend what the text states. We are blind! It is a spiritual phenomenon, it cannot be accounted for by the ordinary processes of perception.

This spiritual blindness dates back to the Protestant Reformation.

It is difficult for us Protestants of today to really understand the viewpoint of Martin Luther. Here was a man wrestling with his own unworthiness, trying to make an atonement for his sins. Many of us Gentiles had to be told we were sinners in order to make us see our need of Christ's atonement.

There have been numerous people of history, both Jewish and Gentile and perhaps of other races and religions, who have been distraught because of their sinful nature. Even today in the Philippines, for example, during the Easter celebration the believers perform painful acts they hope will grant them favor in the eyes of God.

The light flashed in Martin Luther's mind and heart: "The just shall live by faith." This verse, appearing for the first time in Habakkuk and repeated three times in the New Testament, tells us how the righteous of all ages have lived. We notice that the eleventh chapter of the Book of Hebrews, which is a commentary on the just shall live by faith, employs outstanding people from the beginning, such as Abel, to explain what it means to live by faith. The early Christians studied and received guidance and comfort from the Old Testament. We ought to do the same.

Therefore the concept the just shall live by faith is not peculiar to the new covenant, it always has been true. The advent of the Law of Moses did not change the fact that God cannot be pleased except by faith, whether it is faith under the Law of Moses or faith under the Gospel of the Kingdom.

To be continued.