For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. (Genesis 3:5)

Remember, Satan desires to be like God in every way, but he wants to reserve the right to be himself apart from God. The desire to preserve one's right to make decisions apart from God was enough to turn the most beautiful of the cherubim into a monster so hideous that to see him would be the worst of all possible calamities.

We just begin to know the Lord in the present world. If we have diligently followed the Lord during our lifetime on the earth we will be brought into perfect reconciliation to God and into the fullness of knowledge, union, growth, and service in the ages to come.

God is seeking to reconcile us to Himself, to teach us obedience. Until we learn obedience we will not be readmitted to Paradise. To be saved is to be delivered from what causes us to be disobedient. Entrance into Paradise is automatic as soon as we learn to obey God faithfully but never can take place while we are disobedient.

As soon as we learn obedience to God we become candidates for eternal life in the Paradise of God.

The Divine Salvation

There comes a time in the life of a person when he is faced with Christ. We should say, there come times; for the Lord does not appear to us just once but on many occasions and on many levels of challenge to obedience. There are not just the "four steps of salvation," as in the current formula, there are at least four million steps of salvation. Each experienced saint understands this very well as he seeks to abide in Jesus during his present instruction.

The important aspect of the Divine salvation is how we respond to the will of the Lord Jesus—now and always. Either we are obeying His voice or else we will suffer the consequences.

Although it is extremely important that there be a definite point in our life when we receive Jesus, believing in Him and His work of salvation (we do not just slide into salvation), it is true nevertheless that one cannot regard this point as the time when he was "saved" and now is waiting to "go to Heaven."

According to the Scriptures we are saved when we endure to the end, when we hold fast our confidence in Christ steadfastly to the end of our pilgrimage.

We are being saved every day: saved from the world; saved from Satan; saved from our lusts; saved from our self-will. If we are not being saved every day we are not abiding in the Vine. If we are not abiding in the Vine we are in danger of being cut out of the Vine, of losing our place in Christ. Any teaching contrary to this is not of God and leads God's people to destruction.

To be continued.