John the Baptist came in the spirit and power of Elijah and prepared the way for the first coming of the Lord Jesus. John preached the baptism of repentance.

In the last days the spirit of Elijah and Elisha, two witnesses of God, shall abide on the warlike remnant of the Church. God's witnesses shall torment those who live on the earth. The double portion of God's Spirit in His saints will prepare the way for the second coming of the Lord.

The Lord's churches are filled with worldliness, lust, and self-will. The believers must be baptized with the Divine fire of judgment so their sin will be washed away; not the guilt of sin, for that already has been removed. It is the presence of sin itself that must be exposed to the consuming Fire.

The Kingdom of God is as a great net that has been let down into the sea of mankind. As the time draws near for the return of the Judge (He stands at the very door in our day), the behavior that offends God will be judged in those who are closest to the Lord. Every individual who will permit the Holy Spirit to do so will be purified by fire. But the believers who reject the convicting power of the Spirit, choosing instead to listen to the modern "prophets" of the rapture, of prosperity, who tell the Lord's flock they do not have to suffer tribulation in order to enter the Kingdom of God, will face the fiery wrath of Christ when He descends with many thousands of His saints to execute judgment on the sinners in the churches.

And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these [certain men who had crept into the assembly of the saints], saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. (Jude 1:14,15)

The sinners in Zion will be terrified when they are faced with the fiery judgment that will come at the hand of Christ and His servants.

The Christian churches are woefully unprepared for the future!

Notice in the following passage the purging of the Kingdom in the last days:

The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; (Matthew 13:41)

First the things that offend, and then those who are lawless. If we permit the Lord to do so He will remove from our personality all that is offensive to Him. But if we do not, then we ourselves will be removed. Who knows whether Christ in His mercy will, in this case, grant that we may be saved by fire as was Lot?

All sin and sinners in the Kingdom will be cast into the fire.

To be continued.