God has forgiven the world freely, asking only that people come to Christ for salvation. Those who reject Christ will be lost to God's Presence and purpose, for there is salvation only in Christ.

When an individual comes to Christ he is received. The blanket forgiveness purchased on the cross is applied to him. Now he is without condemnation. He stands before Christ as a living soul, an adamic nature. But in him there lives a body of sin.

The Lord, perhaps after a season of blessing and joy, directs the believer to the cross of suffering. Whether or not he understands what is taking place, the believer begins to experience tribulation. The tribulation is Divine judgment on his first personality. He may not be suffering because of some specific disobedience but because of what he is in personality.

The first man, the living soul, has been appointed to death. The entire material creation, the first creation, has been appointed to death. God does not intend to save it and bring it to Paradise. God counts the first creation as crucified, as having died with Christ on the cross of Calvary.

The believer is made worthy of the Kingdom of God by the sufferings that come upon him. He does not punish himself so he may be worthy, he submits himself to Christ. Christ is the Judge. For us to punish ourselves is to take our salvation into our own hands. The result of self-punishment is the enlargement of our first personality in religious pride, not its crucifixion. We must allow God to do the chastening of us.

Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer: (II Thessalonians 1:5)

The journey of Israel from Egypt to Canaan is a type, an illustration of our change from the living soul to the life-giving spirit.

Egypt represents the living soul. Canaan represents the life-giving spirit. We are journeying from the slavery and misery of the living soul to the eternal joy of the life-giving spirit.

We leave the life of the world and wander about, for a season, in a wilderness of confusion and testing. If we do not throw away our confidence while in the wilderness we come at last to the border of Canaan, to the Jordan River. Now we are ready to enter resurrection life in Christ.

There is one problem: our land of promise is occupied by the enemy.

Judgment Upon the Enemy

Israel was moving toward Canaan. The tribes were carrying with them the Ark of the Covenant in which were the tables of stone, the Ten Commandments. The moral law of God was moving toward the enemy.

So it is true of us. God is writing His moral law in our minds and hearts. We are at a place now where God is ready to judge His enemy, who is the devil. God's judgment is not on us, not on the conscious "I." God's judgment is on the unclean spirits.

To be continued.