As we press forward into Jordan the Lord comes to us. He is "like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap." He is enthroned in our heart as a refiner and purifier of our redemption.

The crowds always will hail the Son of David when He enters through the gates into the city of God. But when He goes into the Temple of God He casts out the moneychangers.

The hearts of God's people today are full of "moneychangers." Christ is driving the love of money from the personalities of His people.

Perhaps you have been a Christian for a while and now severe troubles have come upon you. You have believed that such things would never happen to you. God seems far away.

Your distress may be an indication the Lord is drawing near to you. Whenever Christ draws near to an individual He will judge that person. But it is judgment to life, not to death.

God is a Spirit. God brings people into a relationship to Himself by the blood of the Lamb, by His sword, by the fire of tribulation. There must be a circumcision, a cutting back of the proud flesh of a person before God will accept him or her.

We may know God as a Teacher or as the Good Shepherd. God is much more than these. He is a consuming Fire. Before we can dwell in peace with the consuming Fire the chaff in our life must be burned away.

If you are in suffering today, commit the keeping of your soul to God as to a faithful Creator.

God's way is to wound and tear us before He accepts us.

Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. (Hosea 6:1)

Recently a believer was heard to say, "I would not serve God if I thought He would allow me to suffer."

Such a statement is the fruit of the horrible deception that pervades the thinking of the Lord's people in our time. We have been taught that grace is an alternative to godly living, that God is love and not a consuming fire, that God will not allow tribulation to touch His people, and that God's people should be rich in this world.

All four of these current doctrines are unscriptural and self-centered—contrary to the principles of the Kingdom of God. They are of the False Prophet, the spirit of religious delusion.

We understand that the deceiver will come in the last days and confuse our thinking, enticing us to sin. He has done so already. The nature of deception is such we do not realize when we have been deceived.

Great change, tribulation, chaos, are at hand. Christ is walking among the churches preparing each of us for what is at hand. Whosoever will choose to do so may become an overcomer and enter resurrection life, authority, power, and complete union with Christ.

The Lord does not heal until He first has "torn." The Lord does not bind up until he first has "smitten."

God tears out of us what is sinful. God smites what is self-seeking, self-centered, self-willed, and therefore harmful to us.

God heals us with an impartation of His love and eternal life. God binds us up with eternal healing virtue and love that are stronger than death itself.

What God tears and smites is passing away with the present age. What God heals and binds up becomes eternal. It will never perish.

To be continued.