For those of you who are with us here for the first time, I would like to let you know again that I have been preaching on a series of messages concerning the person of the Antichrist. And the reason we have been talking about the Antichrist is because you may know that Christians — we Christians — are looking forward with expectation, or at least we ought to be, looking forward with expectation to the coming again of Jesus. And as certainly as he came the first time, a fact recorded in history for us, so certainly he will come again the second time and thereby make history.
But then if we are expecting the coming of Christ, why are we talking about the Antichrist? The reason for this is because the Bible, always realistic, warns us that before the spring, the warm and beautiful spring of the coming of the Lord, there will first be the long and bitter winter of the Antichrist. We have no way humanly to know this, but it is prophesied for us in Scripture. And the Bible is full of prophecies. And any of you who have studied the prophecies in the Bible will know that the prophecies of the Bible have been fulfilled and are in the process of being fulfilled in a most remarkable way.
And as I have often reminded you, you and I live in a period where biblical prophecies concerning the end time are fulfilling with a rapidity which is breathtaking. Within the last 40 years, we have seen Israel established as a state, a nation that was dead for nearly 2,000 years and written off as never being able to become a nation again simply because it is so scattered all over the world. The Jews were scattered in every place. And yet the Bible had prophesied all along that God would gather the Jews again from every nation and bring them back to their own land. And critics pooh-poohed the whole idea, ridiculed such an idea. And of course, for 2,000 years, they had the advantage against Christians of saying, look, the prophecy was never fulfilled. Nearly 2,000 years have passed. And where is your prophecy? Where is the truth that you claim to be found in the Bible, that your God does not make any mistakes?
Well, the cynics have been relatively silent since 1948 and the establishment of the Jewish state, especially on this point. And the multitude of critics have been learning a lot more respect for the Bible and for the things of God since that time. And you will recall that the Christians had nothing to do with the fulfilling of this particular prophecy. No, it was the Jews themselves who were gathered by God back to this land in Israel, a land that some of us have visited quite a few times and know at first hand. And other things have been coming to pass. But the thing that we are still waiting for, and which critics, of course, smile again, but with less confidence than before — where is the Antichrist? And here you are talking about the Antichrist. Isn't he a mythological character? A matter of Christian fiction? Purely brought into existence by fertile minds overworked? No, my friend. As I have shown you in earlier messages in this series, the Antichrist is simply man in rebellion against God, clothed with religion, by the way, as we shall see again today. Religious man in rebellion against God should be a more accurate statement, who will come. In fact, Antichrists already exist in the world, but we are speaking about the final Antichrist.
And why am I speaking about this to Christians and to the church? It is because those who are not prepared for a winter may not survive the winter. I should be able to say that, coming from Canada, as I do. If you do a Canadian winter, you will know just how dreadful a winter can be. And when I am talking about the winter before the coming of Christ, I am not talking about the winter in Hong Kong, which may be cold sometimes, but quite bearable, even though it may inflict a certain degree of suffering upon those who are not prepared for it. But suffering is not what we are talking about in a Canadian winter. We will be talking about survival.
If you have never experienced a Canadian winter, then it is something you ought to experience. It is something you ought to find out about, where you look out through the window, and most of us in the houses in which we live, we put a thermometer outside the window so we can get some idea what is the temperature outside the house. And the temperature is regularly at minus 18 or 20 for several months of the year. Do you know what cold of minus 20 is like? And if you bring in what a wind chill factor is like, that is when the wind is blowing on your face — and many people who haven't been to Canada don't know what a wind chill factor is — well, if it is minus 20 and you have a 30-mile-an-hour wind blowing at you, you may be facing a wind chill factor of minus 35 or 40 degrees. And even if you are wearing a heavy coat, you can really feel the cold at something really that is life threatening.
It happens from time to time in Canada that somebody's car breaks down on some country road, and they freeze to death. At minus 20 degrees, you dare not even leave the car to face the wind chill factor outside the car of minus 35 or 40, as I said. So you stay put in the car, but how long can you stay? Because the temperature will drop very fast. And it happens all too often that people are frozen to death. And that is why many of us who live in Canada have cars equipped with what is called CB radios, that is citizen band radios, so that you can stay in the car and call for help on the emergency channel, usually channel number 9 on your CB radio, and hope that somebody is listening. Because if nobody is listening, you will be calling for help in vain.
So people are equipped. They know the winter is coming, and they are equipped. We prepare ourselves for the winter in Canada. We change the tires on our cars to snow tires, tires specially equipped to deal with snow. We put in special antifreeze so that the car engine will not become a block of ice and crack apart when your water freezes. You need all kinds of special preparations, including the radio, which is probably the most important thing that any Canadian driver should have. And so with the coming of Christ, and we wait for the spring and the summer of his coming, but we have a winter yet to face. And the reason for these messages is I fear that many will not survive the winter, because they are not prepared for the winter. And when the winter suddenly comes, they are caught unawares, and disaster strikes. Absolute disaster.
You know, when we first went to Canada about 12 years ago, when I took up the ministry of the church in Montreal, we left England and arrived in Montreal in February, in winter. And I had little idea, looking at the snow outside, just how cold it was. And then after a little while, the church put at my disposal a car, a huge American car, the likes of which I hadn't seen — it was like sitting in a boat rather than a car, because in England we were used to sitting in small cars, and here was this gigantic thing, and I wasn't quite sure, because I wasn't used to driving buses. I had occasionally driven our church bus in Liverpool, which was used for the Sunday school, but I certainly hadn't driven anything quite as big as this.
But has any of you ever tried to drive a car in snow and ice? Most of us, coming from elsewhere in the world, were simply not prepared to start life in Canada in the middle of winter, trying to drive a car on snow and ice. I think only once before in England I had driven in the snow, and it was a terrible experience. It was absolutely terrifying. The car was very hard to control, although the amount of snow was quite minimal. But in Canada, you have piles, not to say walls of snow. And I was trying to drive in this kind of condition, and although I am a relatively experienced driver, both on motorcycles and on cars, it was quite frightening to take the car out into the ice and snow of a February day in Montreal, I can tell you.
And so what I had to do was take the car out onto a deserted road and try to see what the car would do in snow and ice. I had to prepare myself. I had to train myself. And so I would speed down this deserted road and suddenly slam on the brakes and try to throw the car into a spin. You say, what are you trying to do? Well, that's the only way I could find out for myself what a car would do, or what that particular car would do, since every car would do different things on snow and ice. I had to find out what this particular car would do in snow and ice. And I deliberately threw the car into a spin to see how much it would spin, how it would handle, how it would behave.
And as Helen and Grace sometimes found out, even when they were sitting with me in the car, after the first snow of every year, I would often speed down a deserted road, slam on the brakes hard, and throw the car into a deliberate spin to see what it will do. It is part of the training, so that you know how the car handles before you dare to take the car out onto the highway, on other roads. Because by then I know what the car will do and know what to expect. Now that is the point — what to expect. In order to survive in difficult circumstances, we've got to know what to expect. And so through this series of messages on the Antichrist, I hope by the end of this you know what to expect. And we need to know what to expect so as to know how to survive. This world is a spiritually hostile environment for anyone who cares about spiritual things, as any of us will know. And therefore, we have to learn how to function spiritually in a hostile environment.
Now in the past messages — and often because I preach only once a month, I have to refresh your memory about past messages as well as the purpose of these messages — I've been pointing out to you what to many of you is a surprising, in fact, a bitter fact, difficult to accept. And that is, the Antichrist is not just some world dictator, as some Christian teachers tell us, some Bible teachers tell us, but more painful and astonishing than that, as in the last message I have warned you, the Antichrist will himself be a church leader. Not just a political figure — he may also be a political figure. But the surprising fact of the matter is, and which is likely to catch the majority of Christians off their guard — and it is bad to be caught off your guard, as anybody who does a little bit of martial arts shall know. You just don't want to be caught off your guard, because one punch will count you out for good. And what will catch most Christians off their guard is the astonishing fact that the Antichrist will himself be a church leader.
In fact, in the last message, we saw he will be an outstanding church leader. Outstandingly trained, of outstanding ability. And that is what will make him so dangerous to most of us. Because most Christians will not be able to handle this situation.
Let me ask you this question. What really do you think is more dangerous? Some dictator who persecutes the church and may draw blood from the church, may result in quite a number of martyrdoms? Is that more dangerous to you and to me? Or will it be more dangerous to have a Christian leader who will mislead us, who will give us false teaching that we are not able to discern as false teaching because of his skill to cover up the falsity of his teaching, and so mislead you into falsehood? Which is more dangerous? The first kind can cost us some of our lives. Some of us may go to jail. And some of us may die. Our loss is purely physical. Is that dangerous? Yes, it is dangerous. It is frightening, to some extent. But not as dangerous as the false teacher who will cheat you out of your eternal life. Out of your eternal inheritance. To lose one's physical life is a frightening thing. But it is a small thing compared to losing eternal life. Is it not? It is quite clear. It is quite evident.
And therefore, the Bible teachers who tell us that the Antichrist will be some kind of great dictator who will torture some of us and kill some of us is really not that frightening. The church has been through this kind of thing quite a number of times before. It is not a new experience for the church. In fact, the church has been through both kinds of experience. And the second kind has been far more devastating for the church than the first kind.
The early church, within the first 300 or so years of its existence, was put through several intense persecutions by the Roman emperors. One of the most terrible was that by the emperor Decius. And many Christians were fed to the lions, as we are already familiar with. Many were burned at the stake. Many were slowly tortured to death. And many more deserted the faith and apostatized in the face of persecution, because they couldn't face the physical suffering involved. The church has been through that many times. But in the end, the church came through bloodied but unbowed. Purified by its suffering. Strengthened by the terrible experiences. And it was probably Tertullian, one of the early church theologians and apologists, who said that the blood of the martyrs proved to be the seed of the church. Because the more they killed of the Christians, the more Christians there were. In other words, persecution of an external kind has never been fatal to the church. Indeed, it has been the opposite. The church kept growing as a result of persecution.
When the communists in China today came into China and established the People's Republic in 1949, it is estimated that there were about three million Christians in China. That includes everybody, even the Catholics counted in. Everybody counted in, there were about three million Christians. Today, it is estimated that Protestants alone, after 40 years of communism and 40 years of persecution, it is estimated today that there are over 30 million Protestants alone. Thanks to the communists and their persecution, the church has multiplied 1,000 percent. It has multiplied tenfold. Persecution has never been able to destroy the church. And the famous saying that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church is still true today.
But those who have studied the history of the church will know that what the persecutions could not accomplish, what the executions could not accomplish, the burning and the beheading and the torturing — all that could not accomplish — was more than once nearly accomplished by false teachers, who very nearly, more than once, destroyed the church. Anyone who has read a bit of church history will have heard of the names of people like Marcion, who with his false teaching split the church and nearly destroyed it. Threatened the life of the church.
And not very much later, there was Arius, who came in with a doctrine of Arianism, who wanted to tell us that Jesus was just some ordinary man, which any non-Christian could have told him. But that Christians should have accepted this kind of teaching in all seriousness — that this Arianism, in fact, defeated orthodox teaching in the church, not just nearly, but actually defeated it. And one day the world discovered that the church had become Arian, at least for a short period of time. And that the false teachers had gained control of the church. They had become the pastors and overseers of the church. And that the number of true teachers, even in the early church, were reduced to a handful, who were fighting for their lives. Literally fighting for their lives, because they were sent into exile.
And if it were not thanks to one person such as Athanasius, who thought that he was the only non-Arian left, who, like Elijah, thought that the whole world had turned its back upon Jesus as Lord — Athanasius and a small handful of church leaders who remained true to Christ and to his lordship were sent into exile. And that is why Arianism, this false teaching, in fact, for a certain length of time, a few decades in fact, utterly dominated the church and nearly wiped the church out. So what the emperors could not achieve, the false teachers within the church actually did achieve — the destruction of Christianity as taught in the New Testament. That was achieved for a period of time. And but for a few faithful teachers of the word of God, we wouldn't be here anymore. There wouldn't be a church left to talk about as we know it in the New Testament.
Therefore, you can see why I have warned constantly that those Bible teachers who tell us that the Antichrist will be some kind of a new dictator like Hitler have not yet studied their Bibles thoroughly enough, nor have they studied the history of the church. Dictators have never been a real threat to the church. They have caused suffering, they have caused loss. But they have never been able to destroy the church. But false teachers can achieve what no dictator ever will achieve. But if you add to that the strange combination that may occur, that a false teacher may also be a dictator, then we are in a very strange position.
You know, it's an interesting thing, if you are following the news at the moment, that out of several presidential candidates running for nomination for president of the United States at the moment, there are not less than two who are pastors. Did you realize that? And in fact, these two pastors are among the top runners for presidential candidate at the moment. One of them, of course, as you know, is Pat Robertson, and the other is Jesse Jackson. Both of them are called Reverend Robertson and Reverend Jackson. Both of them are well-known pastors in the United States, as well as being civil rights movement leaders, and radio and television personalities. But they are, first and foremost, pastors. And they are running for president of the United States. We shall also not go into the revelations that the newspapers have made about their private lives.
Now, let me stress this point again, because I must get this point across to you. It is essential. I beg of you to understand this: that our greatest threat will not be from outside the church, but from within the church. As the Bible has warned us, if only we have ears to hear. The man of sin of 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, the man of lawlessness mentioned in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, verses 7 and 8, will be none other than some powerful, well-known Christian teacher, who may also be a political figure. But that concerns us less than the fact that he is a church leader.
Now, the second thing that frightens me — the first is the fact, as I'll stress again, that the Antichrist will be a church leader, very capable, and we have many capable and learned church leaders. But if they are not right with God — and I think I myself, as a church leader, have the right to say so — that we have some church leaders who are not right with God. Who are in the grip of sin. In the grip of covetousness. In the grip of greed for material things, for money, for example. You're already familiar with the fact that has been broadcast through countless papers and Time Magazine and Newsweek and so on, that the Reverend Baker was receiving 1.1 million dollars in salary through the year of 1985. What kind of a pastor should be getting 1.1 million US dollars in salary? To say that we are not greedy for money, that we stand loose in regard to the things of this world, when we collect 1.1 million dollars in salary, and I'm talking about US dollars, is not going to be believed by anybody, is it?
And if you don't believe that such a pastor does not love money, I don't blame you. I don't believe it either. And it doesn't give me any pleasure to be talking against fellow pastors. But it is our business to denounce sin where there is sin. To denounce evil where there is evil, and to call a spade a spade. To tell it like it is. And when this kind of pastor has control of television channels and radio stations, as the Reverend Baker did in fact control, and can speak to millions of people, that will give you an idea what kind of influence a religious teacher such as the Antichrist could have. And if you combine that with political power as well, the thought is just mind-boggling and terrifying.
But the second thing that frightens me is this: that most Christians are so gullible, so easy to fool, so ill-equipped to handle falsehood. So poorly trained that they cannot see through a lie when it is a lie. When people purport to be teaching scripture, and in fact teaching it falsely, they couldn't tell the difference between truth and falsehood. They couldn't tell whether this is really scriptural teaching or not. It is enough to make one weak. It frightens the wits out of me, I can tell you this. How easily Christians can be misled. And even intelligent Christians, well-educated Christians, Christians who have been Christians for most of their lives. Christians who have gone through various kinds of training, even in Bible school. It is so easy to mislead them. So that the Antichrist will have such an easy task.
How will you defend yourself against the cunning, the cleverness, the erudition, the learning of the Antichrist? How will you defend yourself? You will be like sheep for the slaughter, unable to defend yourself. If you are not convinced of this point, I can anytime hold a meeting with you, and I will publicly defend in your presence a doctrine which you and I both know to be false. And I will challenge you to break my arguments. And I am quite certain you wouldn't be able to do it. Because I have demonstrated this with the training teams sometimes, just to let them see. I have defended what they know to be a false doctrine, I know to be a false doctrine. I challenge them to break my defense. And I will defend my point from scripture alone. And they themselves know that time and again they couldn't break my defense. Even one against the whole team, they couldn't break my defense.
Recently, they did better on a particular doctrine. And the only reason they managed to break my defense was because they used my own teaching against me. They were so well trained, they had studied so carefully the teaching on this subject, and obviously done some further thinking of their own on the matter, so that they were better equipped to handle this particular point. And yet on other points, as some of the teammates know, they just couldn't break my defense. And I was defending the point entirely from scripture, but misleading them in how I was using scripture. But they couldn't tell where I had misused the scripture. That is the point. And that is the point that frightens me, brothers and sisters.
If you wonder why this church goes from one training program to the other, you are beginning to understand — we are trying to help you to survive. It is for your eternal welfare that we are giving you all this training. And some people are still not able to make use of the training. They don't know how to use it. I could give you many illustrations, even from recent conversations with brothers and sisters, how they have misused scripture, but I didn't correct them at that point in time. But when the Antichrist comes, skilled as he will be in the scriptures, what will be your defense? I fear you will be defenseless. You wouldn't be able to handle it.
You know that Satan was quoting the Bible to Jesus in the temptation. Read the temptation account sometimes. He keeps quoting the Bible to Jesus, of all people. If you think you know your Bible, let me tell you something. The devil knows the Bible far better than you could ever know it. And he knows how to quote the scriptures in a way that you wouldn't even know how to answer it. And don't be too confident that you have been to a Bible school. Unfortunately, those who have gone to Bible school are some of the easiest to deceive. You know why? Some other time I will demonstrate this point to you. Because you have already learned to follow certain patterns and traditions, which if I follow along your pattern and your tradition, I can use it against you to such effect that you wouldn't even know what hit you. But sometimes I just like to talk to those who have been to Bible schools, and I will demonstrate this point to you. You will not be able to break my defense from scripture. I know it.
I'm saying this so that you place no confidence in yourself or in your training. In the end, our confidence has to be in one thing: our right relationship with God. So that the Holy Spirit himself, God, through his Spirit, will be able to lead us into the truth. In the end, everything depends upon knowing God in a living way. That's all that's going to matter in the end. So that he will preserve you. And he will help you to bring scripture to your mind, which you normally would not even have discerned as to its real meaning.
But let me hurry on. There is so much I need to share with you. And the time is quickly running out. But the third thing I want to warn you about is this: if your life is not in a living relationship with God, your life will go more and more into a religious legalism. That is to say, either you really know God, or like all non-Christians, you really don't know him. And unfortunately, there are a lot of Christians who really don't know God. These are the stumbling blocks to non-Christians, who say, look, these Christians are no different from me. And they are right, they are not different from you. Because they are every bit in the bondage to sin as you are. And if you are not in a living relationship to God, the stumbling blocks,
# Prepare to Face the Antichrist (Part 2)
of sin. There are no two ways about it. There is no neutral ground. And if you are a Christian, I'm asking you to check your life as to whether you are living moment by moment under the lordship of God or else you will see for yourself that you are living under the lordship of sin. What does the lordship of sin mean? It means the same things as it means for the non-Christian. It means that you don't really know what is the purpose of your life spiritually. You are living with the same motives as the non-Christian lives. Selfishness, self-centeredness, pride. Pride in subtle ways, not necessarily obvious. Greed, greed again in subtle ways, not necessarily obvious. A love of money, not necessarily obvious either. Sin that is hidden.
In 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, verses 7 and 8, it speaks of the mystery of lawlessness. Why does he say mystery of lawlessness? Why doesn't he just say lawlessness? The man of sin will be the expression of the mystery of lawlessness. Why mystery? Because this lawlessness will not be obvious. It will be hidden. It will be concealed. We speak of that which is mystery or mysterious because it is hidden. It is not obvious. Don't think that the man of sin, the Antichrist, will flaunt his lawlessness for everyone to see. Not in the least. He will appear as the model of lawfulness. He will be speaking about law and order. He will be forever talking about the law. That is why it will be the mystery of lawlessness. It is a concealed lawlessness. Its deadliness is precisely in the fact that it is concealed. What is obvious to the eye is much less dangerous to you since you can evade what you can see. You cannot evade what you don't see.
And so I am saying to you, there are only two possibilities. The man of sin lives under the dominion of sin. That is lawlessness. The Bible says sin is lawlessness. Lawlessness is sin. I beg of you to ask yourself this question. Look at your life as it is right now. Are you living in bondage to sin? Everyday life will tell you what your true condition is. Just look at your thoughts. Are your thoughts lustful thoughts that can never be satisfied without looking at pornographic material? Are your thoughts forever about the stocks and shares and the market that crashed recently and lost how many billions of dollars overnight for the stock market? Oh, your thoughts are worried. What will happen to my shares and my stocks and my investment? What's going to happen? My unit trusts that are linked to all these stocks and shares. All the money I'm going to lose is just dreadful.
I came to church today hoping that Almighty God will save my shares. I mean, my salvation is dependent upon the salvation of my shares. My portfolios. My investment portfolios. May God be merciful to the likes of me. I will give him more money next week if my shares go up. But if my shares go down, Lord, I'm sorry. I'm going to deduct from my offerings to the church. In fact, I may not even give anything to the church considering my losses. You see what I mean about Christianity? What kind of Christianity are you involved with? We may laugh at those people who burn incense at their doors to the gods of prosperity. But maybe your God, after all, is nothing other than a God of prosperity. A little more decent than the one who lives over the biscuit tin that collects all the ashes from the incense in front of the neighbor's door. Different only in degree, not in kind.
There are Christians who worship a God of prosperity, which was what our Reverend Baker was preaching over all his television channels in Florida and North Carolina. We are under bondage to greed, and therefore, with it comes the bondage to sin. Because we are concerned with self, not with God, in the end. And therefore, we have a lot in common with the Antichrist. That is why it will be so easy for him to deceive us. We function on the same wavelength. We understand his language, and his language attracts us. Just as when the Reverend Baker was dropping his greenbacks on his television show, and saying, come and believe in God, because this is the God who can give you prosperity. He is the God who can let you drive in a Lincoln Continental. Or if you prefer a Mercedes, that's okay with him too.
What kind of a gospel is it that we believe in? What kind of a God do we believe in? This kind of thinking in which we exploit God for our own prosperity and for our own good health, and protect us so that our car doesn't get dented, much less get into an accident. We pray every day to this wonderful God who will keep us out of accidents. This kind of a God that we want to exploit. That is the God of the Antichrist, my friend. Let me tell you plainly. That is the God that the Antichrist will preach. That's not the God I am about to preach. It's not the God that the New Testament preaches. But if that's the God you are looking for, and you got to the wrong place, you've got to wait for the Antichrist to come. Or some other existing Antichrist who is already in the world. You will be deceived because you are not free from sin. Do you lose your temper all the time? Do you say bad things about other people behind their backs? What kind of a life do you live? If you are in bondage to sin, then you will be the target. You will be a follower. Even right now you are a follower of the Antichrist. We don't have to wait for him to come.
But let me hurry on as our time is almost gone. What I am trying to warn you of is that this kind of religion, this kind of lawlessness, this kind of living under bondage to sin, will always find expression, strangely enough, in law, in legalism. Strangely enough. There is a strange affinity of lawlessness for law. Because it must make use of law in order to legitimize its lawlessness. That is the strange paradox about the whole thing.
Have you ever seen a mafia boss going around declaring himself lawless? Oh no. Do you know how the mafia works? Or the triads or whatever? They couldn't function. They couldn't survive. They would be wiped out unless they had legal cover all the time. They are the ones who afford the best defense lawyers. You can't even get them to court. They are the ones who pay off the police so that the police will not testify against them. They are the ones that criminal lawyers find the most difficult to deal with. Why? Because they know how to use the law. Oh, they are experts in using the law. The mafia run legally registered establishments in every place. They use the law and they use it to the greatest effect in order to carry out their lawlessness. And the same thing with the Antichrist and the same thing with every sinner.
And when you see your religion degenerating into legalism, as it always will do if you are not right with God, then you know you are in great danger. When you go to church because it's the habitual thing to do, you don't feel good if you haven't been to church today. You are doing it out of legalism. You don't go to church because you love God or you love his people. You go there because it's become a habit of mind. You do it because you will feel guilty, uncomfortable, somehow convicted that you haven't been to church today. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but that's not a good enough reason to be in church.
You see, all religion that is out of touch with God finally becomes a legalistic and ritualistic system. It all boils down to the thing that you cannot do. You cannot drink, you cannot smoke, you cannot go to cinemas, you cannot go to the theater, you cannot go to concerts if you are a decent Christian, with some exceptions. You cannot do this and you cannot do that and you cannot do the other thing. And I'm always being asked by people who want to become Christians, when I become a Christian, can I do this? Can I do that? Can I go here? Can I go there? They are afraid that they are going to be slaves. They are going to be living under law. And I have to tell them, my friend, I think you got the wrong end of the stick as far as Christianity is concerned. Becoming a Christian is to become a free person, free from bondage to sin, walking in a living relationship with God. If God is not real, forget about it. Who needs religion? We don't need laws, ritualistic performances. I'm a Christian because God is real to me. I've walked with him and I've testified about this many times, and it's also on tape. But I wonder what's your reason for being a Christian? Is it that you got to like laws? That you rather enjoy not smoking and not drinking and not wearing too much makeup and too much jewelry and not getting your hair permed too often and all this kind of stuff? Well, what are the positive things for Christianity? Have we nothing positive to say besides this? Has Christianity degenerated into this?
But so strong does legalism become that it even affects the dogmas, the teachings of the church. We are told strangely by the same people who tell us that we are delivered from Old Testament law and Old Testament legalism that we are saved by law. Strange. You say, no, no, I don't believe that. Of course you do. Of course you do. Every evangelical Christian believes that he is saved by a legal act of God called justification. You base your faith in a legal act of God called justification. And for most Christians that is all there is to Christianity, that they have been acquitted by a legal act of God through the death of Christ. That kind of Christianity is all there is that most Christians have. They reject salvation by a law of works, but they accept salvation by law as a gift. Free justification is an act of the law. And they do not accept that there is anything more to it than that, that we are saved on the basis of a de jure act of God. Strange. As somebody who studies theology and has studied it for a long time, I find this quite mystifying in many ways. The same people who tell us that we are not saved by the law finally tell us that we are after all saved by a legal act of God which is law.
So in closing I want to give you ten points very quickly and very briefly as a guideline. And I want to tell you again once more why we must reject any teaching that limits salvation to one form of law or another. I have given the illustration before. For example, a person is a drug addict and he is caught by the police in possession of drugs. In Malaysia, if you carry more than a few grams of drugs on you, you are sentenced to death. It is a mandatory death sentence for which there is even no appeal. And that applies even to foreigners who are not Malaysian citizens but caught in Malaysia carrying drugs, they are sentenced to death. Recently as you know an Australian woman was sentenced to death in Malaysia for carrying drugs, very small quantity of drugs but above what is permitted, above the amount which could have spared her from a death sentence.
And I have given this illustration before. If you are a drug addict and you are caught in possession of drugs and you are sentenced to death, and somebody says, I will take the death sentence instead of you — even if the judge accepts that and the other person is sentenced to death, you are free. You are acquitted because of somebody else dying in your place. And so we are told the same thing. We have committed sin worthy of death before God and Christ has died in our place and we thank him for it. And this is a valuable part of the gospel. I would not minimize it in any way. But I will say to you that if that is the entire gospel, then so help us God, because we are finished. Because the drug addict, even if he is acquitted from the death penalty, is still a drug addict. And what will he do? He will go out again and be taking drugs again and he will be sentenced to death again and who is going to die for him the next time? Or will somebody keep dying for him? Or will the death of Christ avail for any number of sins after conversion? And I am talking about mortal sins of this kind. No, that is the one alternative. So we are always saved by law. So we hope. So we think. But is that what the Bible teaches?
We need a salvation that not just acquits us from sin. We need a salvation that gives us grace to overcome sin. To set us free from our drug addiction to sin. Is it not? What kind of a God is it who would play such a cruel joke upon us, who will set us free from the guilt of sin but not set us free from the power of sin? And what will be his excuse if he has the power to set us free from sin, from the power of sin, to set us free from our drug addiction, and yet will not do it? What kind of a game is this that he wants to play on us? Anyone who thinks like this must not have been reading Romans chapter 8 and much of the rest of the Bible. The glory of the gospel is not just that we have been acquitted legally but that we have been freed from the power of sin.
Let me give you another illustration quickly. There was a recent case which I have here before me from the newspaper and I pondered this case. This case, some of you may have read about, concerning a rather good-looking model, a fashion model, and some man wanted to date her but she turned him down. And he was so upset about this, at being turned down by this good-looking model, you know what he did? He hired two thugs not just to beat her up but to literally carve up her face. And so these two thugs, one held down this girl and the other one carved her face up with a knife, and you know that they had to put in more than 150 stitches in her face to stitch up the wounds. She was so utterly disfigured, this beautiful girl.
And these two thugs were apprehended and three of them, the one who hired the other two and the three of them, were taken before a court in Manhattan, New York. That's why somebody said, if you want to go to school in Manhattan, New York, go to school in New York. I said New York is just not the place to go. I mean, the crime rate is unbelievable. But anyway, all this happened in New York, and the court sentencing these three criminals — what else can you call them — who in their despicable conduct of selfishness and greed and with no regard for anybody else, because he could not have this girl, he decided that nobody is going to have her and so he just carved her up. That's how much love amounts to selfishness as it is.
Well, the court sentenced these criminals and awarded this model damages amounting to 78 million US dollars. 78 million US dollars in damages was awarded to her for suffering, for loss of past income, loss of future income, loss of her good looks, as well as the medical fees that she had to pay and has to pay. 78 million US dollars works out at over 600 million Hong Kong dollars. 600 million Hong Kong dollars in damages. But you know what's the tragedy about this story? This poor girl in fact does not get a cent. Not one cent. Legally, yes. Legally she owns 608 million Hong Kong dollars. Legally, de jure as it's called, or some Americans say de jure — she owns, she's worth hundreds of millions of dollars. De facto, in fact, she doesn't get a cent. Why? Well, because the three thugs don't have any money. As simple as that. They don't have any money, nor will they ever have any money, why? Because this law will be in effect only for 20 years and these thugs will be in jail for up to 15 years. Now that's the marvelous working of the law, isn't it? You wonder whether this is a joke or whether this is serious. You award somebody 600 million Hong Kong dollars, but the fact is the person doesn't get a cent, and these criminals can't earn a cent because they'll be sitting in jail for the next 15 years. The latest sentence of five years, the others up to 15 years.
Now that's what I'm trying to bring home to you. What use is it to you to be awarded the whole world in damages, if you like, when in the end you will get absolutely nothing because you yourself fall back into sin and live under bondage to sin for the rest of your life? What kind of a gospel is this? I don't want to preach a gospel like this. It turns the gospel into a joke, into a farce, just like this legal enactment — looks beautiful on paper, no practical value whatsoever. None whatsoever. Can you see my point?
Becoming a Christian has to do with a living relationship with God in which he not just legally sets you free from sin and punishes the culprit, let's say Satan in this case — what's the use if Satan goes to hell for a million years or forever? It's no good to me that he goes to hell. It's no use to this girl who has her face carved up, who's gone through plastic surgery, but the plastic surgeon says that some of the scars will be there for life, cannot be permanently removed. What use is it to her to have the culprit sentenced when the real problem is not dealt with? The real problem is sin and it can't be dealt with in this kind of way, not by some act of law. We must grasp this point.
I preach a gospel, and the New Testament preaches a gospel, that tells you not just that you are forgiven of your sins but you are going to live in bondage to sin for the rest of your life and that's too bad, but that God has given us the power through the Holy Spirit to live victoriously and let the world see it. Have you seen Christians who live miserable lives, defeated lives? Of course you have. And that's why you don't want to be a Christian. That's why I didn't want to be a Christian for so many years. It's when I saw Christians who were free from the bondage of sin — not that they never committed anything wrong, but they were free from the power of sin, they were able to overcome it — when I saw that kind of Christians, that turned my life around. Because I saw the power of God in action, not just in some legal statement that doesn't affect anybody, but in action that just doesn't only say, I am acquitted. It enables me to live a life that is full of meaning, full of joy, victorious. A God that I am able to know, to fellowship with, and who makes himself real to me through my walking with him.
I must close, but let me quickly give you a ten-point guideline which will only take me two or three minutes, because this guideline will be very important for you as a means of detecting false teaching, detecting whether a teaching is of Antichrist or not. First point: God, not self, is the center of the true Christian's life. Second point: Jesus is Lord, not just Savior, of our lives. Thirdly: Christ delivered us not just from the guilt of sin but from the power of sin. Fourthly: grace is God's enabling gift to us in the form of power to live victoriously. It is not just a free gift of forgiveness or a free gift that we can use as we please. Grace is God's enabling power, and God is real to us because we experience his power in our lives. How else can God be real to you? He cannot become real to you through an enactment of the law that you have never experienced for yourself. Fifthly: justification is not just a declaring to be righteous de jure but a making righteous and enabling to be righteous de facto. Sixthly: faith is a total commitment of our hearts to God and not just an intellectual assent to certain Christian doctrines. Seventhly: faith or commitment is a continuous thing and not just a once-and-for-all thing. Eighthly: we are called to a new quality of life in the present time and not just a salvation in the future. Ninthly: the New Testament affirms, indeed the whole Bible affirms, that holiness is obligatory, not optional. Tenthly, and finally: salvation in the Bible is communal, that is, in the body of Christ. It is not just personal. It is not just personal salvation that we can talk about. Salvation does not exist personally if it means that it is outside the body of Christ. Salvation is always communal. It always takes place within the living body of Christ, the church. And that means that our commitment to God must always, without exception, be reflected in our commitment to the brothers and sisters in the church. There is no commitment to God that does not involve my commitment also to you, to my brothers and sisters here in this church and in any church where Christ is Lord. These are the ten points which, if we fully understand, we shall not be deceived by the Antichrist.
Let us pray.