In this last hour, the bride is making herself ready.  We’re preparing ourselves to be aware of this spirit of antichrist that’s going to begin to manifest itself in this accumulation of false religion.  The apostate religious system.  The biblical term “the great whore” that is found riding upon the beast or the Antichrist.  The whore will help bring the Antichrist to prominence.  The whore will then ride upon the glory and the power of the Antichrist.  Then usurping glory and honor and position that isn’t in agreement with the ultimate plan, which at the three‑and‑a‑half‑year period will be manifested, this man of sin will declare himself very-god in the temple of Jerusalem.  We see that these are the things that are to come.  So, we know that the Lord is coming like a thief in the night.  No man knows the day or the hour.  But we’re admonished not to let that day catch us unawares; amen?  So, watch and pray.  You don’t want that day to overtake you?  Watch and pray.

We were sharing many of the things that have stolen from us the sobriety of living lives set apart to watch and pray.  It’s that very spirit that we’re trying to resist.  Because the Bible said this will be part of the manifestation in that last day, that men will be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.  People will have a form of godliness but deny the power to be transformed.  They have a form of godliness.  They have religion.  They have rules, creeds that they try to follow, but no real power to know what it’s like to be set free from sin’s power.  Hallelujah!  Aren’t you glad that we, as the children of God, the true church, know what it means to experience the power of the gospel?  We are a new creation in Jesus Christ; amen?  Old things have passed away.  We know the power of the gospel.  “Sin no longer has dominion over us,” Romans 6:14 says.  This great gospel, universal, that’s been declared to all men and made available to all men.  It has been provided for all but comes upon all them that believe; hallelujah!  That belief was a gift of God.  “By grace we are saved through faith,” the Scripture tells us.  It’s nothing of ourselves lest any man could boast.  Our heart is illuminated by the glorious gospel, the power of God to salvation.  Then we, through God’s mercy, having realized that we have been justified freely by His grace and faith, through the redemption that’s in Christ Jesus who’s been made the propitiation for our sins through our confidence in that shed blood, for the glory of God and the finished work of Jesus Christ; amen?  Hallelujah!

In the last days we’ve seen that’s there going to be a church that will be preaching another gospel, the Scripture says.  They will not endure sound doctrine so they will heap to themselves teachers.  It’s very interesting today.  I don’t want to get sidetracked on this, but one of the greatest demonstrations of this is the Reform movement in our day.  They heap to themselves teachers.  They just teach what the other guy’s saying, not bothering to get in the presence of God.  Not bothering to go back to the Scriptures but reading all of these scholarly books and just generation after generation spewing out man’s doctrine instead of God’s doctrine.  And the people love to have it so.  What a tragedy that is in this hour!