It is absolutely true that we cannot save ourselves by behaving righteously. It also is absolutely true that the only dependable evidence that we have been genuinely converted is the coming forth of a new righteous creation. As the Apostle John has written, "No one who lives in Him keeps on sinning."

If and when the Christian leaders begin to teach and preach the Scriptures, and if at the same time God sends both glory and suffering, we are going to have a back-door revival.

We are in a royal mess today. But the Spirit of God is moving among us. All of these aberrations, from the pre-tribulation rapture through to the new wrinkle that because we now are in the Year of Jubilee we do not have to pay our bills, are based on our faulty definition of Divine grace. We have made God's grace an alternative to righteous behavior. This is the common denominator of the many false doctrines of the twenty-first century.

But it is not the doctrine that is the issue, it is our behavior. God will not abide where there is sin. We ought to know this, but we have been talked out of it. We absolutely must return to the Lord, humble ourselves, confess our sins, and by the grace of God in Jesus Christ turn away from our sins and start serving the Lord.

We are going to be tested. If we guard the word of Christ's patience, not fleeing from the cross God assigns to us, Christ will guard us from the hour of temptation. Sin is going to become so abundant that only those who are thoroughly consecrated will be able to denounce and renounce the lusts of the flesh. Only the power of the Lord Jesus Christ can keep us from falling.

Many pastors and ministers are falling from their place in God, in our day, because of sexual lust. Let each one of us who thinks he stands take heed lest he or she also fall.

We have been called. We have been chosen. Now, are we going to be faithful to Christ or not?

Gehazi was a good man but not utterly faithful. Judas probably was a fairly decent person, whatever his faults, but he was not utterly faithful. Ananias and Sapphira, a Jewish couple, may have had many friends who thought highly of them, but they were not utterly faithful.

God will test our faithfulness in the present hour. The Christian assemblies must be pruned of those who are holding back part of the proceeds, for they are weakening the hands of the men of war.

I do not like to see anyone leave the churches, but the Kingdom of God cannot move forward until unrighteousness is removed from our midst.

The present hour is one of splendid opportunity in the Kingdom of God. Many that are last in time will be of first rank in the Kingdom. We can build on all that has gone before us, profiting from the past mistakes.

To be continued.