The missionary stated there is nothing a convert must do after having been baptized in water.

What about the several hundred commandments issued by Christ and His Apostles?

What about, "Take up your cross and follow me"? How about, "Present your body a living sacrifice"? Are these "nothing"?

What about "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling"? Is this "nothing"?

These two missionary families (may God bless them richly!) and their converts represent at once the highest point and the lowest point of the Evangelical posture in the twentieth century.

As selfless and dedicated as the missionaries are, they are by no means fulfilling the Great Commission. The Great Commission is to make disciples from the nations and to teach them to keep Christ's commandments, not to tell them there is nothing they are to do.

Let us examine the prevailing concept that the purpose of the Law of Moses and the commandments of Christ and His Apostles is primarily to make us see our need of a Savior.

The Law and the commandments make us aware we are a sinner. Since we are absolutely unable to forgive ourselves or save ourselves from the bondage of sin we come to Him, the only Name under Heaven given whereby we must be saved.

Now we have been brought to the Savior. He has forgiven us. His righteousness, gained as He kept the Law of Moses perfectly, perceiving the heart of God in the Law and responding in faith, is now freely ascribed to us.

The Law and the commandments of the Apostles have brought us to the living Jesus.

So far so good, and absolutely true and scriptural.

Is there anything after this? Is there indeed anything of substance after this?

There surely is, and thank God for that.

Most of the New Testament is written to inform us what we are to do after we receive Christ as our Savior!

Our receiving Christ is the entrance into the Kingdom, the Kingdom in which God makes all things new, beginning with His Church.

We are in pursuit of Christ that we may gain Christ, that we may win Christ. The end of our fight of faith is to be in the moral image of Christ (finally, at His coming, in His bodily image also) and dwelling in untroubled rest in the perfect will of God.

After we are born again of the Spirit of God, Christ begins to be formed in us through the working of the many parts of the Body of Christ.

In order for the program of forming Christ in us and filling us with all the fullness of God to take place we absolutely must keep the commandments of Christ and His Apostles found in the New Testament. If we do not make the required effort to follow Christ, taking up our cross each day and following Him earnestly and conscientiously, the process of spiritual growth comes to a halt. God reprimands us. If we do not respond to the reprimands of the Lord, no longer bearing the fruit of the moral nature of Christ, we stand in clear scriptural danger of being cut off from the Vine, that is, from Christ.

Would anyone like to speculate whether we can be cut off from the Vine and still be "saved"?

To be continued.