When moral horrors surround us let us look up to Heaven and rejoice because our redemption from sin and death is near. In view of our wonderful hope of deliverance from sin let us throw off all worldliness, sin, and rebellion from our personality.

We have been sealed by the Holy Spirit to the day when God removes our sin.

So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. (Hebrews 9:28)

At His first coming the Lord forgave our sins. At His second coming the Lord will remove the presence of sin from us, thus reconciling us to God.

Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (I Peter 1:5)

The salvation that is to be revealed in the last days is deliverance from the presence of sin. We believe the day of deliverance has begun with those who are seeking the Lord earnestly.

The Day of Atonement is the Day of Vengeance on God's enemies because atonement (reconciliation) comes to us as the Lord judges and removes the works of Satan that are in us.

The Day of Vengeance against the enemies of God had not come at the time the Lord Jesus read from the scroll of Isaiah. The Lord rolled up the scroll without reading "the day of vengeance of our God."

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. (Luke 4:18-20)

The next statement to be read, had Jesus not rolled up the scroll of Isaiah, concerns the Day of Vengeance, the Day of Atonement:

To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; (Isaiah 61:2)

The demons knew the time of judgment, the comforting of God's people, had not arrived, and they protested the presence of Jesus.

And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time? (Matthew 8:29)

"Before the time"! The time of the Day of Vengeance, the Day of Reconciliation.

So far we have learned that many high-ranking angels rebelled during some previous age, most likely before the heaven and earth were created. The rebellion began at the highest level of the heaven in that Satan was one of the two cherubim that overshadowed the Throne of God with their wings.

From that moment, God the Father charged His entire creation with error.

But God found that the Logos, the Word, the Lord Jesus, loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God chose Him to be the first to be reconciled to God. God anointed Him with the fullness of the Holy Spirit and then tested His obedience on the earth until no shadow of doubt remained. Christ was made perfect by the things He suffered and became the Firstborn and Head of a company of sons yet to come.

To be continued.