One of the great realities of the First Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh was His fulfilling of the Law and becoming its end. This fulfilling of the Law—its significance and how it affects us as Christians—has often been misunderstood. It is our desire in this issue of Straightway to view this most important truth in the light of the greatest of the commandments given to us by our Saviour while He was on earth. …

Deuteronomy 6:4, 5 declares, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” This command is an important message for our lives. This call is very personal; it is not a generic call to our families or churches, although we all need to take heed to this statement. The command is for me to love the Lord my God. Such a personal command has not been seen before in Scripture. This last book of the Pentateuch, a transitional book of Moses for the second generation, reveals something that had not been seen before. The parents of the previous generation failed because they did not love God; thus they were disobedient and were not a people with faith and belief. The first generation thought constantly of returning to Egypt; their heart was back there (Acts 7:39b). There was no love for God; there was no love to do His will or to obey His word and ways. The first generation never came to a true love for God. …

Thank God for the Model Prayer found in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6 and its similar presentation in Luke 11. The Lord in the previous verses of Matthew 6:5–9 gives these important words: “And when thou prayest,” “but thou, when thou prayest,” “but when ye pray,” and “after this manner therefore pray ye.” Prayer is going to become more and more a vital part of the Christian life as we head further into the dark global powers of the apostasy leading to Antichrist. 
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As our days on this planet are pressing us to inevitable End-time prophecies concerning the coming of Antichrist and his kingdom, the remnant must take hope in the promise of the coming of God’s Kingdom. First, this planet must pass through a “Great Tribulation.” We view the Great Tribulation different from Daniel’s Last Week, though they both will lead to the same end—Christ’s coming to earth to set up His Kingdom. The Great Tribulation is a judgment against the Gentile world and its global governments; Daniel’s Last Week is a judgment against the Jewish nation. The Great Tribulation period seems to last longer than Daniel’s Last Week. …

It seems we are now realizing the words of Christ to Judas late Thursday night of Passion Week, “That thou doest, do quickly.” Changes are happening so quickly; no conservative voice can stop these changes because God is permitting them for His own purpose. In this purpose of God, there will be a final kingdom of man to complete man’s attempt at controlling God’s creation. It will be the greatest collaboration of man and Satan in history, yet it will be the worst of the kingdoms. …

One of the great, subtle powers rising at an alarming and influential rate is the philosophy of Pluralism. Our own American society has fallen into the throes of this deceptive philosophy, following in the footsteps of its European mentors. The philosophy of pluralism now infiltrates world cultures and religions. …

In the last article we alluded to the fact that State governments of the world are pressing for religious Pluralism, seeking to destroy any religion of absoluteness. They believe that all religions are basically the same and lead to the same goal. Thus there is the pressure for all religions to come together with a common unity of purpose through Interfaithism and to relinquish their individual distinctives. …

A number of religions on the planet today claim absoluteness. Judaism for several thousands of years has claimed to be the supreme religion, the only revealed religion of the truth from God to man. After God made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He then made an exclusive covenant with the nation Israel; no other nation has known such a covenant. In those days in order to find favor with the true God, man had to come by way of the religion of Israel. …

Having entered into the year of 2014, there is much to be thankful for as providence continues to preserve God’s saints amidst the worst season of human history. These desperate days of moral and spiritual decline are bringing us closer to the Tribulation Period of Judgment from God. …

Our last article addressed our country’s being given over by God to its own self-destruction. This article presents God’s sobering judgment upon the institutional Church. Judgment upon the Church is different from the judgment of a country. Upon a country, God simply gives it over to what its people are; with the Church, Christ Himself judges it by spewing it out of His mouth. …

God’s true men throughout history often have been labeled a “dictator.” Accused of being a dictator, John Wesley made the casual statement, “I have no problem with a dictator if he is a good one.” In the light of the Laodicean church age, given to doing that which is right in its own eyes, such a statement certainly is not understood. Wesley was not declaring that he himself was a dictator; he simply was declaring he believed a dictator for leadership was not improper if such an individual was a good one. …

The revival of Romanism in our times initially can be attributed to the modernistic changes that took place in Vatican II in the early 1960s and to the medium of the Charismatic movement in the early 1970s. One of the side effects of Romanism’s revival is the popularizing of their subtle, anti-biblical presentation of the virgin Mary. This Romanist picture of the virgin Mary is fast becoming a prominent belief among Protestants.

We as Christians in the United States of America now stand in obvious, ominous days. An unknown, dark future lies ahead of us as a country. We are far from the shore of morality and righteousness. The billows and engulfing waves of the high seas of humanity are filling up the boat that was launched some 224 years ago when our country became a nation. We have often read the prophesy of Luke 21:25,26, "And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken." We have arrived at such an hour. …

Tucked away in the annals of Old Testament history is the sobering story of a syncretistic king and a noble layman—the story of Ahab and Naboth. This historical incident given by infallible record in I Kings 21 brings to the righteous reader a holy anger commingled with lamentation. It is a story not so removed in its nature and spiritual battlement from the late times in which we live. It is a story that must be told again and again to the Lord’s people in every generation in order to preserve their God-given legacy and to remind them of the powers that are ever present to seize and destroy that legacy.

How often we read in the Old Testament of God's sending a prophet to a man or a woman. Examples include such cases as Nathan to David (II Samuel 11), an unnamed prophet to Jeroboam (I Kings 13), Elijah and Elisha to Ahab (I and II Kings), or Jehu the son of Hanani the seer to Jehoshaphat (II Chronicles 19). These men were God's men, anointed men, the appointed mouthpiece of God to the people. …

In recent years it has become more and more difficult for biblical ministries to exist in Western Civilization as far as their divine appointment in purpose, vision, and principles of living is concerned. The spirit and mood of the age has radically changed in the past fifteen years, especially in the past five to ten years. True Christianity, which now is only found in the Remnant, is increasingly viewed with disdain and animosity by the world; it is seen as that which is against everything the world now hopes to birth in its new world system/order. It will become more difficult to survive in this final, apostate Church age. …

The night season is the most difficult for watching and praying. The tendency is to spiritually sleep and to enter into periods of apathy and indifference. Christ warned in the Olivet Discourse that because of the abounding of iniquity (lawlessness), the love of many would wax cold. We truly are witnessing the lawlessness of society, of government, as well as of the churches throughout the world. Without the Bible, Christians cannot maintain a proper worldview of life and will be drawn into the powers of lawless and loose living. As a result, our burning love for God will “progressively cool” down (Greek translation of “wax cold,” Matt. 24:12), and lukewarmness will take over the heart and the living. Amidst the aggressive side effects that have come because of global apostasy, even in the most conservative camps of Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism, compromise has become commonplace. …

It is through the reading of the books of the Bible in the light of prophecy that we must view our age, an age swiftly culminating and ripening for the coming of the one-world government and one-world religion. How near will we get to the uniting of this now fragmented globalism before Christ calls His own in a secret Rapture from the earth? The very reading of the Bible in our day and time should inspire the heart in both living and praying without ceasing for the coming of our Blessed Saviour! …

We must be mindful of the subtleness of the age, our Christian testimony, and our spiritual life when interacting with the Internet. The Internet is essentially an ungoverned venue. Now as Christians, we know that our lives must be always governed by the standards of God’s holiness. However, entering into the Internet is much the same as entering into a room in which you are all alone. Only in this room you are only alone in the sense that there is no material authority present. What is present is the avenue to every conceivable manner of sin and the ease of entering those avenues. In light of such scriptural imperatives as “I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me” (Ps. 101:3), “Incline not my heart to any evil thing, to practise wicked works with men that work iniquity: and let me not eat of their dainties” (Ps. 141:4), and “For your obedience is come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf: but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil” (Rom.16:19), it is imperative that we take some action to at least bar, if not remove as many of these avenues as possible. …