The Results of Reversionism

Phil 3:18-19

“For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, 19 whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.”

In context the apostle Paul is speaking about believers in this passage, believers who once were positive towards God's plan but have gone astray because they have set their mind on earthly things.

These believers still possess the gift of eternal life, but they will live a life under discipline from God, and lose rewards in the eternal state.

Characteristics of reversionism (falling away from God) are given in in this short verse, which deals with the future of the "enemy of the Cross."

First, the reversionistic believer enters eternity through maximum divine discipline.

It is essential to understand that the word translated "end" in vs. 19 is a reference to dying.

It is the Greek noun "telos," which means termination, end, ultimate result, outcome, or conclusion. Here, it is the termination of physical life ("whose termination of life is destruction").

Remember that Paul is weeping as he thinks of believers he loves becoming the enemies of God.

In verse 19 he uses the Greek word "apoleia" (translated "destruction"), meaning that which causes waste, or a destruction experienced by an individual; here it refers to the sin unto death.

The sin unto death is the ultimate fate in time for the born-again believer who is the enemy of the cross.

This brings us to the Doctrine of the Sin unto Death, the eulogy of the reversionist, who dies in ignorance, after learning nothing, resisting doctrine and the plan of God, and leading a miserable life.

The believer who dies the sin unto death misses the blessings of God for living in resurrection life in time, and the blessings beyond ultra-supergrace for eternity.

1JO 5:14-16 "And this is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him. If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will for him give life to those who commit sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that he should make request for this."

We are not to pray for a believer dying the sin "leading to" [or terminating in] death because he is under the judgment of the Supreme Court of Heaven.

Everything has already been done from the righteousness of God (which condemned his failure), the justice of God (which judged his failure), and the love of God (which provided the solution as expressed in grace), and the believer under the sin unto death has rejected all three.

This "sin" is simply constant refusal to execute the spiritual life of the Church-age, despite years and years of warnings from the integrity and love of God.

The phrase "leading to" is the Greek preposition "pros," which literally means "face-to-face."

The sin "face-to-face with death" is not based on gossip, maligning, spreading tales about the sins of others, or any specific sin.

The sin face-to-face with death is the culmination of many repeated sins, and there is no Rebound (confession to God, 1Jo 1:9) from this reversionistic believer.

No one gets away with anything.

The believer who decides to ignore the Word of God and live for himself will suffer the consequences.

There is the law of volitional responsibility (reaping what you sow) in Gal 6:7.

And then there is divine discipline from God, designed to wake the believer up from his negative decisions. Heb 12:4-11

When negative decisions continue, and the believer refuses to wake up and follow God, then comes the sin face-to-face with death.

It does not come all at once, but in segments.

Failure to use the Rebound technique of 1Jo 1:9 results in perpetual carnality.

God is always looking for us to return to him when we sin, as He always asked Israel to return to Him in the Old Testament, despite their worship of idols which amounted to adultery against God.

So when we sin, God simply wants us to come back to Him.

He wants us to confess our sins to Him so our fellowship with Him is restored. 1Jo 1:9, Prov 1:23

He wants us to judge ourselves rightly, so we will not have to be judged (disciplined). 1Co 11:31

The believer who returns to Him by simple confession of his sins is restored by a faithful God, allowing God to remove discipline.

1 John 1:8-9

If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

In 1 John 1:9, the Greek verb homologeo, “confess” has no emotional connotation attached to it.

It was used in classical Greek for confessing your guilt in court.

The Bible does not teach that we are to feel sorry for our sins.

God is not concerned with you emoting, but rather God interested in what His Son did at that cross of Calvary 2000 years ago.

At the Cross, every sin in human history, past, present and future was imputed to the impeccable humanity of Christ in hypostatic union and was judged by the justice of God the Father.

This is why the Scriptures state in Hebrews 8:11 that God remembers our sin no more.

His Son paid the penalty for those sins with His substitutionary spiritual death.

The humanity of Christ was separated from the Father during the last three hours on the cross. There was a transaction taking place between the Father and the Son.

So if the Lord paid for the believer’s sins, then why should he have to confess them? The reason is fellowship with God.

No believer can remain in perpetual fellowship with God, but he can remain consistently in fellowship with God.

So when the believer confesses his sins to the Father, he is pointing to what took place at the cross during those last three hours in darkness.

So the confession of sins to the Father is critical in order to be restored to fellowship; to experience an intimate daily relationship with the Father.

However, without Rebound (confession, 1Jo 1:9) and Recovery (going forward in God's plan, Phil 3:13-14) the believer will be traveling the road of the sin terminating with death.

God has never made a judgment on anyone that excluded His love. Therefore, God's judgment of this person is always fair.

The sin face-to-face with death is maximum divine discipline from the integrity of God, and is the worst form of disgrace that can ever happen to a believer.

Divine discipline is the result of the believer creating his own failures with his own volition. The sin face-to-face with death is described in Psalm 7.

PSA 7:14-16 Behold, he travails with [or shall have labor pains of] wickedness [vanity]. [This is warning discipline.] And he conceives [or has become pregnant with] mischief [frustration], and brings forth falsehood. He has dug a pit and hollowed it out [he has given birth to a life of deceit]. And has fallen into the hole [the sin face-to-face with death] which he has made. His mischief will return upon his own head, and his violence [frustration] will return on his own head."

The sin face-to-face with death does not come all at once, but in steady increments.

There is no particular sin that causes the premature death of the believer; it is the result of years, even decades, of reversionism.

Therefore, while the believer is going through this miserable death, he can still commit more sins, which only serve to intensify his suffering in dying.

Regrets and sorrows now become greatly multiplied.

The sin face-to-face with death includes the jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, self-pity, fear, worry, and anxiety experienced by the reversionist when he is in that "death-shadowed valley" of PSA 23:4.

There are those who sow to the wind and reap the whirlwind in the death-shadowed valley, making their journey through that valley a very miserable one.

The believer who is under this ultimate form of discipline creates his own dying misery in the death-shadowed valley God has prepared for him.

The grace of God challenges the believer to use the problem-solving devices from Bible doctrine, and to have them on the "FLOT" line (Forward Line Of Troops) of the soul, so that he can travel through his death-shadowed valley with the most fantastic blessings, PHI 1:21, PSA 23:4.

The training for the blessing (or "profit") in dying comes from the daily function of the spiritual skills in your life.

2TI 1:7 says, "For God has not given us a lifestyle of fear, but of power and of virtue-love and of sound judgment."

Phil 1:21

“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

There are five ways that believers can leave this earth:

1. Dying grace is given to mature or advancing believers. It is the greatest blessing of life and is only exceeded by the rewards given at the Judgment Seat of Christ, PSA 116:15, PHI 1:21.

2. There are only two known instances of transfer to heaven apart from death - Enoch, HEB 11:5, and Elijah, 2KI 2:11-12.

3. Reversionistic super-imposition (of the believer's will over God's perfect will), or Christian suicide, is a violation of PSA 31:15a.

4. The exit-resurrection, called the "Rapture," will take place at the end of the Church-age. 1Thess 4:13-18, 1Co 15:51-52

5. The sin face-to-face with death is the disciplinary death experienced by believers who refuse to execute the spiritual life.

The sin face-to-face with death results in loss of reward and blessing, as well as shame at the Judgment Seat of Christ.

It includes discipline for carnality, and then the ultimate discipline for reversionism.

No believer in his right mind wants to go through this disastrous experience, which comes with great failure in the spiritual life, suffering and pain, all eight stages of reversionism, and the three stages of divine discipline (warning discipline, intensive discipline, and finally dying discipline).

This is the greatest time of self-induced misery. It is a miserable life followed by a very intensified miserable death.

It is important to note the conditions for the sin "face-to-face with death."

It is the greatest possible administration of divine discipline, which can be defined as the sum total of punitive measures by which God judges, corrects, and teaches the believer in time.

HEB 12:5-6 "And you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, 'My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him; for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives.'"

Again, divine discipline results from the believer's own volitional decisions to create his own failures, as seen in Psa 7:14-16.

For the believer living in the cosmic (world) system, there are three stages to the sin face-to-face with death:

1. Warning Discipline, REV 3:20, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone has heard My voice and he opens the door [rebound], I will enter face-to-face with him and dine with him [restoration to fellowship with God] and he with Me."

2. Intensive Discipline, PSA 32:1-5, PSA 118:17-18.

3. The sin face-to-face with death, REV 3:16, "Therefore, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold [the unbeliever] nor hot [the believer executing the spiritual life], I am about to vomit you out of My mouth."

There are two categories of suffering in the life of the believer:

1. Suffering under discipline is meant to be a teaching aid. However, if you ignore it, this discipline becomes unbearable.

(ALL sons of God will be disciplined at times by their loving Father)

2. Suffering for blessing is bearable and accelerates your spiritual growth by giving you the greatest opportunity to apply doctrine.

Divine discipline is confined to time, as seen in REV 21:4, and administration of the sin face-to-face with death in no way implies loss of salvation!

2TI 2:11-13, "It is a trustworthy statement: For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him; if we endure, we will also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us [of rewards]; if we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself."

Thank God for His tremendous grace;

that eternal life is a free gift (Rom 3:24, 6:23),

received by faith alone in Christ alone (Eph 2:8-9, Joh 3:16-18),

and that once God gives a gift He can never take it back (Rom 11:29).

But any believer who rejects Bible doctrine and the pre-designed plan of God long enough will die under the sin face-to-face with death.

He will be ashamed at the Judgment Seat of Christ when he sees those fantastic blessings of eternity that will never be conveyed to him, simply because he refused to take advantage of the grace of God after salvation, and did not fulfill the conditions of the unique spiritual life, in spite of all the phenomenal assets that God provided.

Documentation for the Sin face-to-face with death.

1. In the Old Testament, Ps 118:17-18.

2. In the New Testament, 1 Jn 5:16.

Ps 118:17-18

I will not die, but live,

And tell of the works of the LORD.

18 The LORD has disciplined me severely,

But He has not given me over to death.

1 John 5:16

If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will for him give life to those who commit sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that he should make request for this.

This is where we mind our business, even as pastors, and let God handle His children.

We work out our own salvation with respect and awe. Phil 2:12

The sin face-to-face with death is related to the stages of

reversionism.

1. The 8 stages of reversionism are:

a. Reaction to Bible teaching or distraction from Bible teaching.

b. A frantic search for happiness.

c. Operation Boomerang. (everything backfires)

d. Emotional revolt of the soul.

e. Locked in negative volition. (bitter toward God) – (If you want to blame anyone blame Satan! He's the god of this world in 2Co 4:4, Eph 2:2, 1Jo 5:19!)

f. Blackout of the soul.

g. Scar tissue of the soul. (hardness of the heart)

h. Reverse process reversionism.

The sin face-to-face with death is related to the rejection of divine

establishment truth, Jer 9:13-16. (Free Will, Marriage, Family, & Nationalism)

2. The sin face-to-face with death means shame at the judgment seat of Christ with failure to receive your escrow blessings for all of eternity.

3. Maximum punitive action (divine discipline) of dying the sin face-to-face with death does not imply that the believer will be miserable after death, because there is "no more sorrow, no more tears, no more pain," for all believers who are face-to-face with the Lord. Rev 21:4

**Administration of the sin face-to-face with death does not imply loss of salvation, 2 Tim 2:11-13, 1Co 3:15, 1Pe 1:5.

Case histories of believers who have faced the sin face-to-face with death.

1. Certain believers in Philippi, Phil 3:18-19.

2. Certain believers in the church at Laodicea, Rev 3:16.

3. King Saul, 1 Chr 10:13-14. This is occult reversionism resulting in the sin face-to-face with death.

In fact after years of Saul's reversionism, Samuel came back from the dead and told Saul he would die for his disobedience, but would still end up being with Samuel in heaven!

1 Sam 28:15-19

Then Samuel said to Saul , "Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?" And Saul answered, "I am greatly distressed; for the Philistines are waging war against me, and God has departed from me and no longer answers me, either through prophets or by dreams (the Old Testament means of hearing from God); therefore I have called you, that you may make known to me what I should do."

16 Samuel said, "Why then do you ask me, since the LORD has departed from you and has become your adversary? 17 "The LORD has done accordingly as He spoke through me; for the LORD has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor, to David. 18 "As you did not obey the LORD and did not execute His fierce wrath on Amalek, so the LORD has done this thing to you this day. 19 "Moreover the LORD will also give over Israel along with you into the hands of the Philistines, therefore tomorrow you and your sons will be with me.

Saul was a believer and once someone becomes a believer by faith in Christ, he cannot be lost eternally. Rom 8:38-39

So Saul died the sin unto death, and will be a believer without rewards for all eternity.

4. 1 Cor 11:27-28, 30-31 describes participating in the communion service in a state of perpetual carnality resulting in the sin face-to-face with death.

1 Cor 11:27-32

Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. 28 But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. 30 For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. 31 But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world.

When trapped in a lifestyle of sin, you have a choice between using the Rebound technique (1Jo 1:9, 1Co 11:31) or dying from divine discipline.

5. King Hezekiah had an evil foreign policy of going to Egypt for help, Isa 30:1-3. So God put him under the sentence of the sin which terminates with death, Isa 38.

However, Hezekiah rebounded and was given more time to live.

6. The case of the incestuous Corinthian, 1 Cor 5:1-10,

who later Rebounded and Recovered, 2 Cor 7:8-11, Phil 3:13-14.

7. The case of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-10. Their life in perpetual carnality was manifest by lying to God (this must have been a lifestyle). So they were taken home early, and therefore ended up as loser believers with no rewards.

8. The case of Hymenaeus and Alexander, 1 Tim 1:19-20, who also lived in perpetual carnality.

The Doctrine of Shame.

PHI 3:19 Whose termination is destruction, whose god is their emotion, and whose glory is in their shame...

Point 1: Introduction.

Feelings of shame will be the unfortunate experience of many born-again believers at the Judgment Seat of Christ after the Rapture of the Church.

After the Rapture (resurrection) of the Church, every believer is assembled at the event known as the Big Genuflex, PHI 2:9-11, ROM 14:10-12.

At this time, the entire Royal Family of God will identify Jesus Christ as the Head of the family, to the glory of God the Father.

(To "genuflect" means to bend the knee in worship, to be humbly obedient and respectful.)

At this time, all members of the Church in their resurrection bodies will make a formal acknowledgment of the Father's function in the resurrection, ascension and session of Christ.

The Big Genuflex occurs immediately after the Rapture and before the Judgment Seat of Christ.

ROM 14:10-12 But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we shall all stand before the Judgment Seat of God. For it is written, "'As I live,' says the Lord, 'every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall give praise to God.'" So then [or literally, after that] each one of us shall give account of himself to God.

PHI 2:9-11 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name [title] which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus Christ becomes your Lord at salvation, regardless of your lifestyle, when you are entered into union with Him through the baptism of the Spirit. 1Co 12:13

However, we do not have full understanding of the lordship of Christ until we advance to spiritual maturity.

During our lifetime, the lordship of Christ is really a matter of our priorities.

If Bible doctrine is most important in our life, then Jesus Christ has highest priority as our Lord, for Bible doctrine is the thinking of Christ. 1Co 2:16, Joh 1:1, Psa 138:2.

If not, we become losers and will not recognize Jesus Christ as Lord until we are in a resurrection body in heaven.

Our time of glory then, will be a time of shame, only momentarily, but still a time of shame and regret.

Loser believers will be embarrassed when they see Him, because they will immediately realize they wasted their lives on earth, and did not live for the One who died for them.

PHI 2:11a And that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord...

The Big Genuflex (when every knee bows to Christ) is the moment of maximum perfect happiness, which will be perpetuated forever!

After this unforgettable moment, there will no longer be any equality in the Royal Family of God.

Following the Big Genuflex is the Judgment Seat of Christ, in which tremendous differences will be seen among believers in resurrection bodies - some with fantastic decorations, but most with nothing to show for their entire life on earth.

The chronology of events so far looks like this:

1. The Rapture, 1CO 15:51-58, 1TH 4:13-18.

2. The Big Genuflex, PHI 2:9-11.

3. The Judgment Seat of Christ (during which the Tribulation occurs on earth), 2CO 5:10, ROM 14:10.

The Big Genuflex is the interim event between the Rapture and the Judgment Seat of Christ.

It is a time of total appreciation and glorification of the Father's plan and the recognition of our Lord's battlefield royalty, which was bestowed on Him at His session. (“The King of kings and Lord of lords”, 1Tim 6:15, Rev 19:16)

Our Lord's royalty demands the resurrection of His Royal Family. We must have a resurrection body as He does because we are His Bride and His family.

However, this great moment of emotion and joy is followed by the Judgment Seat of Christ, at which the loser believer's glory will become an experience of shame and regret.

Winner believers fulfill their happiness by receiving their eternal rewards and decorations, whereas, in PHI 3:19, loser believers, in what would have been their time of glory, will be regretting their lost opportunities.

Many will say "I could have, but I didn't!"

Perhaps PRO 5:12-13 will come to their minds: "And you say, 'How I have hated instruction! And my heart spurned reproof! And I have not listened to the voice of my teachers, nor inclined my ear to my instructors!'"

Remember, however, that even the worst loser believer of all will never lose the permanent perfect happiness of God for all eternity, even though he received no rewards because of his failure to live the spiritual life in time.

1CO 3:15 If any man's work is burned up, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire.

This moment will be the fulfillment of all the Bible doctrine we have perceived, metabolized, and applied, and the realization of the purpose of our new birth.

We will each personally praise the strategic victory of Jesus Christ in the angelic conflict and relate it to our very purpose for living.

A complete look at the chronology is as follows:

1. The Rapture, 1CO 15:51-58, 1TH 4:13-18.

2. The Big Genuflex, PHI 2:9-11.

3. The Judgment Seat of Christ, 2CO 5:10, ROM 14:10. (Will your time of glory be a time of shame and regret or a time of thankfulness for the decisions you made in this life?)

4. The return of Christ with His Bride at the Second Advent, 1Th 3:13, REV 19:11-20:6.

5. The manifestation of the Bride, ROM 8:19, COL 3:4.

6. Operation Footstool, PSA 110:1, ZEC 13:2, COL 2:15, 1CO 15:24-25.

7. The coronation of Christ, REV 19:6.

8. The Wedding Supper of the Lamb, REV 19:7-9.

Point 2: The Shame of the Loser Believer in Time.

2TI 4:6-8 For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.

There is an embarrassment for the believer who fails to fulfill God's plan under spiritual freedom and the principle of equal privilege and equal opportunity.

This is the result of rejection of such passages as:

JOH 3:30 "He must increase, but I must decrease."

LUK 14:26 "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate ["miseo," or "love less"] his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple."

JOH 12:43 "For they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God." (They refused to go "against the grain" and followed the world.)

ACT 5:29 "We must obey God rather than men."

The loser believer allows people to intimidate him rather than obeying God. This can include anyone in authority, be it the pastor, boss, husband, parents, or anyone else who has authority in any realm.

Adam was cursed when he allowed his wife to manipulate him into making a spiritual decision that he knew was wrong, 1TI 2:14, and Saul was cursed when he allowed the people to pressure him into violating God's Word, 1SA 15:11.

The embarrassment and shame of many believers at the Judgment Seat of Christ will be the result of listening to human viewpoint rather than divine viewpoint.

They listened to the voice of men in time rather than the voice of God.

When the believer experiences shame at the Judgment Seat of Christ, there is no way to make amends or correct the wrong; it will be too late.

The point is - don't wait until it's too late!

As long as you are still alive, God still has plans for you.

Regret for time wasted can become a motivation for the time that remains.

And again, the shame at the Judgment Seat of Christ is only a temporary shame; there is no sorrow in the eternal state.

Christian losers are believers who fail to execute the pre-designed plan of God in time, even though they had equal opportunity to do so.

Loser believers have no glory other than their resurrection body and no blessing at the Judgment Seat of Christ.

This is the result of the wrong set of priorities and the wrong scale of values. They will not have what the "twenty-four elders" in Revelation had - crowns to cast at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ!

REV 4:10-11 The twenty-four elders will fall down before Him Who sits on the throne, and will worship Him Who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne [what a great privilege!], saying, "Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created."

Believers who will have shame at the Judgment Seat of Christ are described under at least seven categories in the New Testament.

1. The believer who has "drifted off course from grace," GAL 5:4. He began in grace (at salvation), but then allowed himself to be deceived.

2. The believer who "comes short of the grace of God," through forms of backsliding such as bitterness, HEB 12:15.

3. The "lukewarm" believer, REV 3:15-16.

4. The "shipwrecked" believer, 1TI 1:19.

5. The "double-minded" (psycho) believer, JAM 1:8.

6. The believer who fails to metabolize doctrine, JAM 1:22-24.

7. The "enemy of the Cross," PHI 3:18-19.

The loser believer lives out his life in a state of irrationality under the control of his own emotions.

He lives in fear of what others are trying to do to him, in a lifestyle of insecurity and instability.

He simply does not learn and apply the Word of God, so he is captured by the worries of this world.

There are at least five categories of the emotional complex of sins that cause the most problems and distractions for the loser believer.

These sins produce an emotional reaction that results in an irrational distraction from God's plan.

1. Hysteria -characterized by fear, worry, anxiety, panic, confusion, irrationality, dislocation, and garbage in the subconscious.

2. Hatred -characterized by anger, hatred, bitter jealousy, loathing, animosity, vulnerability to imagined insults or injury, implacability, malice, tantrums, irrational violence, and even murder.

3. Self-centeredness - (the arrogance skills), including self-justification, self-deception, and self-absorption- characterized by arrogant self-righteousness, egotistical irrationality, hypersensitivity (concerning self) and insensitivity (concerning others), projection, denial, self-pity, and whining.

4. Reaction - which combines the arrogance complex of sins with the emotion complex of sins - characterized by jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, hatred, vilification, vituperation, malice, revenge motivation and operation, and inordinate ambition and inordinate competition (and Bible doctrine, not psychology, is the answer).

5. Guilt - a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some real or imagined offense.

Religion in general functions by producing guilt in its members, which is not the Christian way of life.

Guilt is a sin related to repression, which is rejection from the soul of anything that is painful or disagreeable.

When you fall into the sin of guilt, you have succumbed to the greatest weakness in your soul. The most helpless and most easily manipulated people in the world are those that live under guilt!

1CO 15:34 Come to your senses [dikaios] righteously [or awake to righteousness] and stop sinning [referring to a specific sin, which Paul will now mention]; for some [believers] have no knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.

[In other words, wake up and understand why you are here after salvation!]

All believers are given God's very own righteousness at the point of salvation, 2Co 5:21, as capacity for blessing in "lag time" until we begin to grow spiritually.

This gives us capacity to enjoy lesser blessings in life, such as logistical grace blessings, which provide everything we need to continue in this life and which serve as motivation to keep advancing in the spiritual life.

At salvation, God the Holy Spirit entered us into union with Christ, and we now share His righteousness.

This is our "wall of fire" (Zec 2:5), our protection.

Volition, not environment or circumstances, is the issue in our spiritual life, and the question for all God's people is, "What are you going to do with all the spiritual assets God has provided for you?"

This is revealed by our attitude toward the Word of God and the constant inculcation of Bible doctrine in our souls.

The filling of the Holy Spirit has given us all equal ability to understand Bible doctrine, which is the only means (HEB 11:6) of avoiding shame in the "day of Christ."

PHI 1:9-11 And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

1JO 2:28 Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.

The importance of this doctrine can not be overemphasized, as it is a great challenge for us to be prepared for one of history's greatest events, the coming of our Lord at the Rapture.

Our Lord prophesied that because the Jews had rejected Him, they would be scattered throughout the world during the Jewish-Roman war of A.D. 70, Luke 21:24.

He also prophesied that before His return, the nation Israel would return to their homeland, and that is exactly what happened on May 14, 1948.

In spite of the constant disorder and turmoil in the Middle East, the pieces are falling together perfectly for the Second Coming of Christ.

The Second Coming will not take place until seven years after the Rapture.

At the Rapture of the Church, Christ does not actually return to the earth as in the Second Advent - we meet Him in the air.

The Lord promised the disciples and all of us that He would be coming back for us, JOH 14:1-3.

John 14:1-3

" Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 "In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3 "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.

He is coming back soon, to take us with Him, not to leave us here on the earth (later, during His Millennial Reign, winners will rule with Him on earth).

• We are also told that just before our Lord comes back there would be many capital and labor conflicts, JAM 5:1-6.
• Scoffers will be everywhere, 2PE 3:3-4.
• Famines, violence, and wars will break out, MAT 24:3-8. Violence has become an epidemic; the number of wars in this world has increased dramatically.
• There will also be a rise in lawlessness, 2TH 2:7-10, and a rise in occultism, 1TI 4:1-5; Fortune telling and voodoo grow more popular every day.
• There will also be a rise in apostasy, 1TI 4:1; today, many Churches deny the eternal truths of Scripture and the power of the Holy Spirit, replacing them with ungodly values.
• We are also told of the coming New World Order, Rev 13. Increased centralization of world, financial, and political power is part of the groundwork for the soon-to-arrive world power system in the hands of Antichrist.

The world has entered a time of dramatic and threatening change.

Everyone is trying to build a peaceful world, but there is no peace within people's hearts.

Reversionism is the order of the day among believers, but those who live for Christ and His Word shall be rewarded above and beyond their wildest dreams.

God is not shy about rewarding His servants!