Because of our history we Americans are utterly repulsed by the idea of being anyone's slave. The truth is, however, the only free person is the one who is the slave of Jesus Christ.

Whoever sins is the slave of sin.

So the question is not whether you and I are going to be a slave, the question is whose slave we are going to be.

The only way we can escape being the slave of sin is to be the slave of Jesus Christ.

The citizens of the so-called "free" nations of our day are, in many instances, horribly bound with moral sin. They are not free at all. They are the slaves of Satan. Nowhere is this more true than in the United States of America.

I appreciate our political freedom (which may be eroding in the present hour). I am free at the present time to write what I think.

But even if I were in a prison cell I would still be free, because I am the slave of Jesus Christ.

Oppression will increase in the coming days. Spiritual oppression is present now and is increasing as our nation opens its doors to every imaginable perversion. Spiritual oppression always will be followed by political oppression because Satan-filled humans and governments will not be content while there are those in their midst who are leading godly lives.

Our present spiritual experience of being forgiven and filled with God's Spirit is not powerful enough to enable us to stand in the moral and political nightmare that is facing us. We must have the spiritual fulfillments of the last three feasts of the Lord, the Blowing of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the feast of Tabernacles if we are to remain victorious in Jesus Christ in the midst of the spirit and works of Hell.

Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. (John 14:19—NIV)

We must be willing to live by the Life of Christ. This means our first personality must continually diminish, being crucified with Christ. When such massive spiritual forces are confronting each other in deadly combat, a human being is as so much helpless dust. To not become part of Christ is to succumb to the deceits of Satan. There is no middle ground!

On that day you will realize I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. (John 14:20—NIV)

We do not understand the Godhead because we have approached the Godhead with human reasoning. The only way in which we can understand the Godhead, that Christ is in His Father, and that we are in Christ and He is in us, is by experience. That experience comes to us only as we keep His commandments. As we keep His commandments we learn to live by His Life—we cannot possibly keep His commandments except as we live by His Life!

"That day" is the Day of the Lord, the day when every idol in our life has been brought down and the Lord alone is exalted.

To be continued.