The sufferings of the Christian, if he is following the Lord as he should, are God's judgments on his life: not a judgment of condemnation and wrath but a judgment of discipline to salvation. We are saved by the judgment of discipline. Apart from Divine judgment we remain sinful, self-centered, and otherwise spiritually immature and subject to the authority of the Lake of Fire.

The Judgment Seat of Christ has begun with the judgment of the house of God. The nearer we are to God the stricter and more immediate is our judgment. Jerusalem always receives double for her sins (Isaiah 40:2). After the accounts of the righteous have been settled Christ will turn His attention to the disobedient.

The Judgment Seat of Christ is in session. The first to be tried are God's saints. Therefore when we suffer let us hold steady in the Lord. When we are tested we, through Christ's own Presence, and Virtue, shall come forth as refined gold. Then we shall have no fear. Then we shall have perfect love. Then we shall have boldness in the Day of Judgment.

One reason why Christian theology has gotten as far off course as it has is that deductive reasoning is being employed without reference to the whole counsel of God.

A more effective technique for developing a theology is to study all that is said on a matter and then to allow the Holy Spirit to induce truth.

The deductive approach, selecting one verse as a "key verse" and then drawing conclusions from it, treating passages that state the opposite as less important or even suspect and to be avoided, is not a sound procedure to follow. This especially is true because of the several seeming contradictions in the Scriptures. The prevailing custom is to select the preferred leg of the seeming contradiction and to cut off the other. As a result, truth stumps about wildly.

Some of the major seeming contradictions are as follows: Divine election, and "whosoever will"; Paul states we are justified by faith while James teaches we are justified by works; the Scripture declares that all we must do to be saved is to believe and be baptized, whereas Christ told us plainly that in order to be saved we must endure to the end.

The "leg" of the seeming contradiction chosen in our day is the one that leans toward human welfare. In time past the reverse may have been true. Men are becoming lovers of themselves.

Current Christian theology has been developed by means of selecting the preferred "leg" and cutting off the other. Thus we hear much preaching about being justified by faith, little to the effect that we are justified by works (James 2:21). Truth falls flat on its face, being unbalanced.

It is not unusual for the editors of study Bibles to underline the verses they are employing as "key verses." The student is to leap around in the Scriptures according to the scheme of deductive reasoning without paying attention to the line of thought of the writer of the particular book of the Bible or what he has written elsewhere.

This is why the believers of today may know certain "key verses" (verses removed from their contexts) but are ignorant of the line of thought the Spirit was developing, of which the key verse was a part.

To be continued.