Now, some will say it is not possible there can be sinners in the churches. If we know anything about the Christian churches we realize the members are filled with every type of sin from slander to child molestation. Sin abounds in the churches. When the Lord comes the sinners in Zion, in the churches, will be terrified. They do not understand the program of salvation, thinking it is some kind of magic in which God puts on rose-colored glasses and doesn't see the sins of the Christians.

Much of the Old Testament and some of the New Testament speaks of the sin in the hearts of God's people. The second chapter of II Peter and the Book of Jude emphasize this condition.

The Scripture does not state the sinners in the churches will escape judgment because they believe in Christ.

They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you. With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed—an accursed brood! They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved the wages of wickedness. But he was rebuked for his wrongdoing by a donkey—a beast without speech—who spoke with a man's voice and restrained the prophet's madness. These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him. If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud." (II Peter 2:13-22 NIV)

The above is speaking of some of the people of the early churches. They were believers who had been washed but then had decided to return to the filth from which they had emerged.

In today's teaching such would be glorified and caught up to meet the Lord in the air, to then be ever with the Lord. At the Judgment Seat of Christ they would receive a smaller mansion than the Apostle Paul but would still hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant." After that they would enter the joy of the Lord.

To be continued.