As soon as the Christian witness has been driven from the earth the people of the world will rejoice. It will be a time for the giving of gifts, a regular Christmas season.

These two prophets had tormented those who live on the earth.

Why would the last great witness be one of torment? Because the true witness always tells of God's Person, His will, His way, and His eternal purpose in Christ. Sometimes people do not want to hear about God and His righteous ways.

As Jesus said, this Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached to every nation for a witness. Then the end of Gospel preaching will be here, that is, the second half of Daniel's seventieth week will be upon us.

The Great Commission commands God's apostles to go into all the world and make disciples from the nations, teaching them to keep God's commandments.

You probably will never hear the Great Commission quoted correctly. What you will hear is go into all the world and save souls.

Can you see the difference between the Great Commission and our tradition of "saving souls"? It is awesome!

The true witness of God torments the ungodly and brings many to a state of the conviction of their sins. These are directed to receive Christ, turn away from their sins by His grace, and begin to sternly keep the commandments of Christ and His Apostles.

But what we are doing today is going forth and attempting to "save souls" and build churches. Because we know the Bible standard of discipleship is very strict and the pleasure-loving American people will not stand for it, we compromise God's Word in an effort to entice people to be "saved." Like the unjust steward, we are telling people to take their bill and cut it in half. We are trying to make friends with people so they will join our group instead of holding up the standard of God.

We are not tormenting those who dwell on the earth. We are not bearing a true witness of God. I think it is true in the churches of America that if the pastors and evangelists began to preach the teachings of Christ and His Apostles most of the "believers" would leave. I really believe that. They have been brought in by a false concept of Christianity and they must be held in the churches by a false concept of Christianity.

A large part of this predicament is due to the error of dispensationalism which was introduced in the last century. The concept that we now are in a "dispensation of grace" has so distorted the Gospels and the Epistles that they are not recognizable. It is "another gospel." It is not the Gospel of the Kingdom.

Because the believers think they are in a dispensation of grace in which God asks only that they make a profession of faith in Christ while He overlooks their behavior, they are living below the standard set in the New Testament. They believe they are saved and on their way to Heaven. But they do not know Jesus and they are not following Him. They have been deceived.

During the second half of Daniel's seventieth week there will be a tremendous falling away. The love of the majority will grow cold because of the availability of sin. The true Christians, the holy remnant, the victorious saints, will be hidden away somewhere. The nominal Christians will remain in the large cities in the churches that are void of the Holy Spirit.

To be continued.