The Lord Jesus will not permit a true saint to govern the world today, that is, to govern in the Kingdom of God sense. There is nothing wrong with a government leader being a Christian. But he is not to rule as a "Christian." Rather, he is to govern as a citizen of his state, as an experienced, disciplined individual having integrity and uprightness of character (which is not true of numerous believers). He is not to rule in a mystical sense as a "Christian." The hour of the rule of the saints over the earth is in the future. Our kingdom is not of this world.

The task of the believers in the present hour is to bear witness to all nations of the soon coming of the Kingdom of God and to teach the nations the moral laws of God. It is the responsibility of all national governments to embrace the moral principles of God's Word and to realize they are holding their positions of leadership as a sacred trust until He comes whose right it is to govern the nations.

It is the responsibility of national governments to legislate and enforce morality so their citizens are not allowed to murder, to rob, to lie, to commit acts of sexual perversion, to spend their days in drunkenness and laziness, but rather are commanded to fear God, to honor the government, and to work diligently at their tasks. There never can be any such abomination as a separation between God and the state without the state crumbling into chaos.

We have made the preceding comments about the nature of government in order to reveal that Christian people already are deceived concerning the entrance of Antichrist into the world. The believers are expecting some kind of monster to appear and threaten them, at which point the Lord Jesus will carry them off to a glorified Sunday school picnic in Heaven.

The current danger is the infiltration of humanistic (man-centered) concepts into Christian thinking, the spread of the idea that people ought to be governing the world, and the attempt to gain power through the use of Jesus' name, apart from cross-carrying obedience to the Lord.

The pleasure-loving, man-centered preaching of our day has made the believers careless in prayer, in consecration, in service. The Charismatic people are ready to believe that all miracles seeming to be associated with Jesus' name are from Heaven. They do not insist on testing the spirits and they are being deceived as a result.

The lords of darkness have had thousands of years to perfect their plans and devices. Only the most consecrated, the most devout of the Lord's people, will be able to resist the wiles of Antichrist during the dark spiritual days ahead.

The end of the present age will come as soon as Antichrist, through his cunning, has succeeded in shattering and scattering the power of the saints (Daniel 12:7). We notice in Revelation, Chapter 11 that as soon as the witnesses have been conquered, Antichrist will extend his power over the earth. The end of the present age will follow soon thereafter (Revelation 11:15-18).

To be continued.