Every person born into the world is as a weed, being conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity. This is our inheritance because of Adam and Eve's obedience to Satan. We were born spiritually dead—cut off from God. Even after we become a Christian our physical body is dead because of sin.

When Christ is conceived in us we now are part weed, part wheat. As we serve the Lord faithfully, the weed diminishes and the wheat increases.

If we follow the Spirit of God carefully, the Lord will baptize us with fire. Then the weeds will be burned out of us and the wheat will be gathered into the barn.

When we say there are no weeds in us we deceive ourselves. When we confess the weeds, the Lord is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to purify us from all unrighteousness.

We must be forgiven, and then we must be purified from all unrighteousness.

The Christian salvation to the present hour has been almost totally one of forgiveness. As I stated before, when the Lord says He will take away our sins we automatically insert the word "guilt." What we perceive is that the Lord will remove the guilt of our sins. It may take a while, as we are drawing near to the coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth, for us to believe Jesus Christ intends to actually remove the very presence of sin from us.

However, we always have realized that somehow the new world of righteousness will not be one of imputed righteousness only. In that case there would be no Kingdom of God, no rule of God in which His will is done in the earth as it is in Heaven. Somehow, somewhere, at some point, sin must be removed from the people who inherit the Kingdom of God.

We look forward to peace and joy in the Paradise of God. But what if the people in Paradise were forgiven but not transformed? Then we would have the condition that is true today in the churches.

For I am afraid when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder. I am afraid when I come again my God will humble me before you, and I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual sin and debauchery in which they have indulged. (II Corinthians 12:20,21)

If the Lord were to "rapture" the Christian believers into Heaven today, then Heaven would be filled with quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance disorder, and other spiritual impurities.

We have assumed that once we are in Heaven we will be changed and such behaviors, which are common in the churches of today, will no longer be present.

Try to find one passage in the Bible that tells us we will be changed morally by dying and passing into the spirit realm.

To be continued.