The greatest lie ever told, the lie being proclaimed over and over again, is that we will enter the Kingdom of God by grace even though we "do such things."

No one ever enters the Kingdom of God except by repenting, by forsaking his wicked practices and turning to God in newness of behavior. Christ enables us to do this. Christ does not serve as the Divine excuse for wicked behavior.

Let us think about the Great Commission.

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach [make disciples of] all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen. (Matthew 28:18-20)

* Make disciples of all the nations.

* Baptize them.

* Teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.

The commandment is to make disciples of all of God's elect found in the nations, water baptism being part of the provisions and truths of the Divine salvation, and also to teach the elect to obey the commandments of the all-powerful Christ, which are the laws of the Kingdom of God.

Notice also:

And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. (Mark 16:15,16)

Both the Catholic Church and the Protestant churches have sought to go into all the world and preach the good news of forgiveness through the blood of Jesus, encouraging people to be converted through some form of baptism in water.

But teaching the members of the nations the righteous ways of the Lord, putting repentance and godly living on the same level of importance as forgiveness and the other provisions and truths of the Divine redemption, has not occurred in many instances in either the Catholic or Protestant organizations.

The historical record of the Catholic Church, with its torture and murder of dissidents and its building of cathedrals on the backs of the poor is hardly a credit to the name of the gentle Jesus of Nazareth. The Catholic Church appears to be nearly totally ignorant of the authoritative and powerful provisions God has made for personal transformation and of the absolute importance of such moral transformation in the Kingdom of God.

The historical record of the Protestant churches may be somewhat closer to the Nature of the Lord Jesus but not much closer. Many early groups, such as the first Methodists, stressed holy living. But today in the fundamentalist churches the accent seems to be almost entirely on the grace of forgiveness, mansions in Heaven, and a flight to Heaven so that today's believers (unlike the Christians throughout the centuries as well as multitudes of believers in this day) will not suffer persecution.

To be continued.