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 2:5)

Before the Lord is ready to reveal His glory in us He first must wage war against the wickedness that is in us. A forerunner of Armageddon will be fought in the personalities of the members of the Bride of the Lamb before the battle takes place against the nations that come up to attack Jerusalem.

You may recall that before the Lord revealed His glory in the presence of Pharaoh He sought to kill Moses because Moses did not keep the covenant of circumcision.

The Lord God of Heaven will cleanse His Church in the last days. The cleansing of the Church, the Bride of the Lamb, is one of the purposes of the great tribulation. The great tribulation will refine the elect until many of them will become fit to be members of the Wife of the Lamb. The tribulation will seek to kill the adamic nature of the members of Christ's Body.

The "great tribulation" is so termed, not because the sufferings will be more intense than those that Christians already have suffered throughout history but because it will be worldwide rather than confined to one area. Many who walk with God through the great tribulation will come to high rank in the Kingdom of God.

Also, the great tribulation period and the reign of Antichrist will divide between those who will rule with God (Revelation 20:4) and those who will be tormented with fire and sulfur (Revelation 14:10). The coming of the Lord in judgment and fire will make His way straight in the hearts of His people and then in the whole earth. The Divine judgment begins with the household of God.

The Wife of the Lamb will be reconciled to Him by fire.

And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem: when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning. (Isaiah 4:3,4)

This passage parallels in meaning Matthew 3:11,12, Malachi 3:1-3 and the fourth chapter of I Peter. This is the reason we must "through much tribulation" enter the Kingdom of God (Acts 14:22).

"The Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, . . . by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning."

This is the baptism with fire. This is the reconciliation stage of the marriage of the Lamb.

Before the Lord receives Jerusalem, He fights against her.

Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. (Isaiah 40:2)

"Her warfare is accomplished."

To be continued.