Whether or not a nation is permitted to be delivered from sin and to enter eternal life depends on how that nation received the saints, the brothers of Jesus.

The members of the nations of the saved will become the Lord's people in the Day of the Lord.

And many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day, and shall be my people: and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto thee. (Zechariah 2:11)

The nations of saved peoples of the earth will rejoice in the Lord forever because the saints in whom the Father and the Son are tabernacling will be to them trees of life, bringing to them the eternal life and healing that are in Christ.

And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it. (Revelation 21:24)

The pattern, then, is the purging of sin from a firstfruits of the elect, from all the elect, and finally from the nations that God has chosen to save. There can be no new heaven and earth reign of Christ, no complete spiritual fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles, either in an individual or in a nation, until the presence of sin has been removed. This always has been true, is true today, and will be true throughout eternity.

Now let us consider the three principal areas of sin—that which will be separated from the Church and from the world as the Kingdom of God begins to come from Heaven to the earth.

It is important for the reader to understand that the sanctuary in Heaven has been purified by the blood of the Lord Jesus but the heavens themselves still are filled with rebellious spirits. All spirits, spiritual or human, who continue to rebel against the Lord must be purged from the heavens before lasting peace can come to the earth. However we will not deal with this aspect of the Day of Atonement in the present essay.

The first area of the darkness that enslaves mankind is the embracing of the world to the exclusion of God. It is the attempt to live by bread alone. It is the loving of the creature more than the Creator.

Every true Christian dies to the world in water baptism. He counts himself as crucified to the world and the world to him. He has laid down his life, has taken up his cross, and is following Christ during the years of his pilgrimage on the earth.

The second area of the darkness that chains us is that of the various lusts and perversions in our flesh and our environment that proceed from the corrupted personality of Satan, as the demons seek to satisfy their tortured, inflamed appetites through the flesh of human beings.

To be continued.