The only persons who will survive the dark days that are ahead are those who are abiding in Christ. In order to abide in Christ and Christ in us we have to keep His commandments.

Perhaps many Christians would agree with the fact that we must abide in Christ and we must keep His commandments. However, the spirit of Antichrist, the spirit of the Lawless One, has perverted Christian doctrine until numerous Christians no longer believe it is necessary we keep Christ's commandments. "We are saved by grace," we proclaim, and while we ought to try to keep Christ's commandments we are saved by grace operating through our faith. We are fundamentally inconsistent.

Either we have to keep Christ's commandments in order to abide in Him or else we do not have to keep Christ's commandments in order to abide in Him. One position is correct and the other is incorrect.

The Christians are expecting to be "raptured" before Antichrist appears. The truth is, Antichrist, the Lawless One, has been with us from the first century. He already has brought his lawlessness into the Christian churches. We have become lawless because of false doctrine.

It is God's will that all of His creatures, angels and humans alike, keep His commandments accurately, completely, joyously.

Modern Christian teaching insists we do not have to keep God's commandments because we are saved by "grace." We think this teaching has destroyed the moral stature of the believers in Christ!

Secular governments, who without realizing it look to the churches for moral guidance, have no light to guide them, no good works to cause them to glorify God, when Christians do not keep God's commandments.

We have been deceived because we are looking for an easy, comfortable way to serve God. We have been deceived because we are not taking up our cross and following the Lord Jesus. We do not understand the grace of God, supposing it to be an alternative to godly behavior. The grace of God in Christ is an alternative to the Law of Moses, not to godly behavior.

It is God's will that we abide in Christ, and He abide in us, for eternity. In order to abide in Christ, and He in us, we absolutely must keep His commandments—all of them.

Sometimes it is said, "It is impossible for us to keep the commandments of Christ and His Apostles and this is why God gave us Divine grace."

We are correct if we mean by this we are unable to keep God's commandments in our strength and need His wisdom and strength. We are incorrect when we mean that God has given us a continuing grace of forgiveness such that it is not necessary for us to keep His commandments and do His will.

It is not only possible for us, through God's grace, to keep the commandments found in the New Testament but absolutely essential if we are to abide in Christ. If we do not keep His commandments we do not love Him.

It is not the purpose of Divine grace to serve as an alternative to keeping God's commandments. The purpose of Divine grace is to enable us to keep all of God's commandments, and in the meantime to keep us without condemnation while we are pressing along in the light of God's will.

To be continued.