The World and the Word

                                             Freedom versus Tyranny

The original tyrant was Satan himself. Being very intelligent, the Devil used very subtle lies to get Eve to sin and then Adam. No doubt, the Devil put the fearful idea into Adam's mind that he had to fall to Eve's level or he would lose his physical love with her. Once Adam and Eve disobeyed God, then that failure opened a weakness in them that the Devil could exploit to inject the evil of spiritual death into their very beings which was foreign to them because God had created them in His own image. Genesis 1:27; Genesis 2:17; Genesis 3:1-7; Romans 5:12. God loves all of His creations, including all humans, with an unfailing Love. I Corinthians 13:8; Romans 11:29. The Devil seeks to use the evil that he has injected into all humans to so overpower the good image of God in at least one human that the Devil will be able to annul that good image and thereby prove that God's Love can fail. By such a means, the Devil seeks to prove that God's free will demonstrates a weakness in God Himself that the Devil can exploit to the extent that he can eventually find a way to murder God and take His place. Isaiah 14:12-15. In other words, the Devil thinks that he can eventually get God to sin. Matthew 4:1-11. Satan got his chance when the Father allowed all of the sins and evil of all mankind to nail Jesus to the cross. Isaiah 53:6. God came to the rescue of Adam and Eve and all of their descendants when He promised them that He would send them a Savior who would sacrifice Himself to take away all of the sins and evil of the whole human race and provide a higher and a lesser form of salvation for everyone of them. John 3:16; John 5:24; Genesis 3:14-21; Genesis 8:20-21; John 1:29; I Corinthians 15:22; Luke 20:38.

The highest form of salvation occurs when a person repents of their sins while still alive in the flesh and puts his faith in the sacrifice of Christ to take away his sins and evil. Genesis 3:21; John 3:16. God delivers His salvation to the believer by His grace the moment he believes wholly apart from any good works done by the believer. Romans 4:5-8. Upon repentance and faith, the Holy Spirit washes the sins of the believer's soul and spirit away with the spiritual blood of Christ. John 6:63; I Corinthians 6:11; Revelation 1:5. After cleansing, the Holy Spirit recreates the soul and spirit of the believer with no more sins and evil within and gives that believer the righteousness of Christ Himself by means of which God can accept him to live in Heaven with Him forever. I John 3:9; Romans 8:14-17. However, God will allow the evil that causes the believer saved by grace to sin to still adhere to his fleshly nature. Believers can still sin but only in the flesh. But the Holy Spirit will wash these fleshly sins away with the spiritual water that Jesus shed on the cross as the believer daily confesses and repents of them. I John 1:9; John 13:1-14.

But the believer who backslides on God and fails to daily repent of his fleshly sins will appear filthy before Christ at the Rapture of the Church. Christ has promised all believers saved by grace a home with Him in Heaven forever. I Peter 1:2-5. In order to be able to accept the Church into Heaven at the Rapture, Christ must thoroughly cleanse it of all fleshly sins and evil. At that time, Christ will temporarily punish the inveterate backslidder by casting him into the bottomless pit. Matthew 5:25-26; Matthew 24:48-51; Luke 12:25-26. Once there, the backslidder will greatly suffer, but he will remember that Christ is his Savior and he will repent of all his sins and cry out for Christ to save him from his torment. Christ will hear his cry, cleanse him of all his fleshly sins and evil, forgive him, and restore him to His Church. According to God's promise of Ephesians 5:25-27, Christ will thoroughly cleanse His Church at the Rapture of all of its unrepentant fleshly sins and evil by washing it in the water of His Word so that He can present it to the Father as a glorious Church worthy to be with Him in Heaven forever.