"He who endures to the end shall be saved." If I am correct we are facing both great trouble and great revival in America. If this proves to be true (I have been stating this for twenty-five years) we are going to have to learn how to endure.

A friend of mine was preaching in another country. After preaching all day long he was so unwise as to drink the water. The next morning he awoke with dysentery.

He thought, "I cannot go out and preach today. I am too sick!"

The Lord said to him, "You American baby!"

In that particular country, when young people want to become Christians they are asked, "Are you ready to die for Jesus?"

In America we gush all over people, making the demands on them so minimal that they can continue their worldly life and still be "saved."

We have lost sight of God, and our doctrine comes far short of the Scriptures. If we are to survive the horrors facing us we had better get back in training. The race may become grueling in the days ahead.

"Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air." Paul had a clear goal. His goal was to attain the resurrection from the dead. We of today do not even realize there is such a goal or that the first resurrection, the resurrection unto eternal life, must be attained.

We have made going to Heaven after we die our goal. On what Scripture is our goal based? There is no passage of the Bible that points to Heaven as our goal.

When Paul, in the third chapter of the Book of Philippians, spoke of his goal, his mark, he said nothing about Heaven. He wrote about his supreme effort to gain Christ, requiring that he lay everything aside and count all his achievements as garbage.

Why? So he could attain the resurrection. We of America do not even understand we determine the kind of resurrection we shall have by the manner in which we serve the Lord today.

We have been thoroughly deceived by the unscriptural philosophy of Dispensationalism. We are emphasizing a flight from danger by means of a "rapture." Yet nowhere in the Bible does it say God will catch us up to Heaven that we may escape danger. We are way off the track, and so the believers are remaining spiritual babies.

How can we run with all our might when we have no clear goal? How can we fight intelligently and effectively when we do not understand the warfare? And so we drift along with our Evangelical traditions, having no idea why it is so utterly important to keep the commandments of Christ and His apostles.

In spite of the clear passages of the Scriptures, we are not even aware we have to run and fight throughout our discipleship in order to gain Christ! In fact, we do not even understand that all Christians are disciples and must bring their lives under the daily discipline of Christ! We are worshiping in a man-made religion, mistaking this for the Christian salvation.

To be continued.