Our main purpose today is to bear witness of the glory to come. The fullness of redemption, the Kingdom of God, cannot come until the Lord appears from Heaven. Yet, we can bring to people the redeeming power of Jesus if we are willing to pay the price for their deliverance. Paul teaches us concerning the price that must be paid if we would bring the glory of the age to come into the world of today.

It is as we are willing to share in the sufferings of Christ, the suffering of the cross, that we can receive on behalf of others the redeeming glory that always follows the suffering of the cross.

It is not permitted to us to go forth in our own wisdom and strength to redeem the material creation. God will not give His Glory to another person. In order for us to receive the redeeming glory we must become one with God, and that oneness can be accomplished only as we are willing to share in the sufferings of Christ.

A movement has arisen in Christian circles that would force Christian moral standards on the civil governments of the world. There is a spirit of rage in the proponents of the "Reconstruction Movement." It is not of the Lord Jesus.

The result of the actions of these modern-day Zealots will be fiery persecution of all Christians, for the Reconstructionists will not be able to fulfill their objectives. God is not leading them. The "man with the sword in his hand," the commander of the warrior angels, is not marching with them.

When God is looking for a vessel to bear His Glory, He seeks out an individual who is spiritually alive, who is serving the Lord with diligence. God starts with a "living" saint.

Then the Lord slashes and prunes and pares until the love of the world, the love of sin, and (especially) the love of self are driven from His chosen. Such purging and refining includes instruction, experience, patience, and pain. The saints always enter the Kingdom of God through many tribulations.

For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. (II Corinthians 4:11)

If we are willing to accept in our personality the sufferings of Christ, then the redeeming Life of Christ will flow from us to the peoples of the earth, beginning with the weaker members of the Body of Christ.

God will not work in any other manner. If redeeming Life is to come, some individuals must through suffering become one with Christ in God.

So then death worketh in us, but life in you. (II Corinthians 4:12)

The land of Canaan, the land of promise of the Jews, typifies the goal of the Divine redemption. The goal of the Divine redemption is the casting out of Satan and his hordes from the material creation, from the things God has created, and the entrance of the eternal rule and Life of Christ into those things.

Redemption includes both the casting out of Satan and the entrance of the rule and Life of Christ. Both the casting out and the entrance of the rule and the Life are aspects of the Divine redemption, one being the negative aspect and the other being the positive aspect. They must go together.

To be continued.