If You Love Me . . .16

"The time is coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah." (Jeremiah 31:31)

The new covenant can never be made with a Gentile. There is no covenant for Gentiles, only for the royal priesthood, the house of Israel. It is only as we become part of the one true Seed of Abraham, Christ, that we can enter the new covenant.

A "pre-tribulation rapture" that will prevent the suffering of Gentile Christians. The teaching of the pre-tribulation rapture is unscriptural. It proceeds from the spirit of humanism. The idea is that Christians must not suffer. Given the past and present record of Christian suffering, how can any Christian believe or teach that Christians are not to suffer?

An age of moral horrors is on the horizon. The Man of Lawlessness will make his appearance. The issue will be truth and righteous behavior. Antichrist is making sure that Christians do not prepare themselves to stand in the evil day that is coming by telling them there will be no evil day.

Any teaching that does not stress righteous, holy, obedient behavior is not of God. Dispensational teaching does not stress righteous, holy, obedient behavior. It presents a lawless grace that points toward a Gnostic paradise in the spirit realm.

We now are in a dispensation of grace, meaning we are saved (brought to the spirit Paradise) by an abstract unconditional amnesty unrelated to our conduct, apart from any transformation of our personality from unrighteous behavior to righteous behavior. The Scriptures do not present a dispensation of grace. The Scriptures present an old covenant and a new covenant. Both covenants are directed toward God's Israel. Both covenants require righteous behavior although they produce righteous behavior by different means.

How Antichrist must laugh! The Christians are looking for a world leader or a super computer that causes them to take a mark on their right hand or their forehead. We believe there will be a prominent Christian leader who will become the biblical Antichrist, the Lawless One. But the truth is, the doctrine of the Lawless One is being preached from Christian pulpits.

We do err when we underestimate the abilities of Satan.

Perhaps we should take a closer look at what the Scriptures have to say about Antichrist, the Lawless One.

The Lawless One

The Books of Second Thessalonians, Daniel, and Revelation may be our principal sources for our understanding of the Lawless One who is to come. The Book of First John tells us that Antichrist comes from the Christian churches and has been with us from the first century.

Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. (I John 2:18,19)

(John may have been reacting to the teachings of the Gnostics.)

To be continued. If You Love Me . . .17