Dead reckoning is a method of estimating the position of an airplane or ship apart from astronomical observations. A previous position is determined and then the present position is computed by observing the course and the distance traveled from the previously determined position.

Let us say we left Lindbergh Field in San Diego and traveled due east for 500 miles. We could then look on a map for a point 500 miles due east of Lindbergh Field and we would know about where we were.

We have to establish three facts: our previously determined position; the course we traveled; and the distance we traveled.

This is a pretty good picture of the Christian discipleship. Our previously determined position is the cross of Jesus Christ. We are to reckon ourselves as having died on the cross with the Lord Jesus.

One of the biggest problems Christians have, I believe, is they were not told when they were baptized in water that they have died with Christ and have risen with Him to walk in newness of life. The world is crucified to them and they to the world.

People have a problem with holiness preaching because they have never reckoned themselves dead. Preaching righteousness and holiness to people who have never reckoned themselves dead may be compared to plucking feathers from a chicken before the chicken is dead. The result is a noisy barnyard (a noisy assembling of believers).

You can't get very far with the process of frying a chicken until the chicken is dead. God can't get very far with the process of saving an individual from sin until the believer has reckoned himself or herself dead.

After establishing the previously determined position the course must be determined. It appears the majority of believers are floundering today because Satan has gotten them off course. Instead of following the correct course, which consists of obeying the commandments of Christ and His Apostles, the believers are trusting that once they accept Jesus they have a ticket to Heaven. They have lost their way!

Christ is the Way. Jesus Christ is not a ticket to Heaven. He is the Way to eternal life in the Father. If you do not keep the commandments of Christ and His Apostles you have lost your way. You cannot tell where you are because you have not followed a straight course.

The teaching of lawless grace, salvation apart from keeping the commandments of Christ and His Apostles, has put a magnet close to the needle and we don't know where we are anymore. There is no direction we can trust.

There are professional critics who make their living evaluating the Christian churches and their practices, including the doctrines they teach. Great swelling words are directed toward the Seventh Day Adventists and also the Pentecostals.

But while these same critics are saying nothing about the horrendous heresy of lawless grace, a modern form of antinomianism, they are inveighing against sincere believers who are trying to please God by keeping Saturday as a rest day or who speak in tongues like the Apostles of old.

Are they not straining out gnats while swallowing camels?

To be continued.