The mature fruit of the moral image of Christ does not spring forth in our personality in a moment. Godly character requires years of patient discipline as the Holy Spirit slowly works redemption in our nature.

The Christian salvation is moral and character transformation. This is what salvation is. This is what the new covenant is. To define grace to mean that righteous works are unrelated to our salvation entirely misses the meaning of what God is performing through the new covenant.

A second path by which the money-lovers seek to evade the cross is the current overemphasis on God's love. God is Love—this is what the Scripture teaches. The Scripture teaches also that God is a consuming Fire. Sodom and Gomorrah dramatically portray this fact.

The flood of Noah is a warning to every creature, revealing that God is an all-powerful Spirit who is to be feared. The individual who does not fear God is foolish and ignorant.

God has not changed. Christ has not changed. The God of Noah and Abraham has not changed. We have boldness in Christ, not because God has changed but because of the adequacy of the atonement made on the cross of Calvary. Jesus warned His elect that He has not changed. He emphasized the fact that as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the day when He is revealed.

An emphasis on God's love that causes the believers to cease to fear God and to continue in the delusion that they love God while they are frolicking in the world and amassing money, is of Satan. The spirit that pretends to sympathize with the plight of man, teaching us to shun the cross of self-denial, proceeds from Satan. We have the words of Christ to Peter as follows:

But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. (Matthew 16:23)

Where there is no fear of the Lord there is no wisdom.

The true saint both loves and fears God. He loves God with all his strength. He also has experienced the terror of the Lord. He works out his salvation with fear and trembling.

The saint understands he will not have an excess amount of "oil" to share with the unwise in the Day of Christ. He knows that even those of righteous conduct are saved with difficulty (I Peter 4:18).

Extreme positions on grace or on God's love place in jeopardy the redemption of the believer. They are false, satanic teachings.

A third path that appeals to those who trust in money, that seeks to evade the cross, centers around the teaching of the first resurrection and ascension of the saints. When comforting the relatives of deceased Christians, Paul mentioned the first resurrection, the resurrection of the royal priesthood, to the church of the Thessalonians (I Thessalonians 4:13-5:3).

The term "rapture" has now been applied to the ascension that will follow the first resurrection of the dead. As is true of the first two errors mentioned (extremism concerning grace and concerning God's love), the doctrine of the "rapture," as it is taught today, is a departure from a fundamental truth of God's Word. It is a misapplication of Divine truth, bringing harm instead of blessing to the Lord's people.

To be continued.