God is judging His people today and every imaginable idol, lust, and stubbornness is coming to light.

Many years ago a pastor in National City, California had a vision of his church. It was as a beautiful green turf. Then the Lord lifted up one corner of the turf and there were all sorts of bugs, slime, and other uncleanness.

For so long we have heard that once we accept Christ we will never be judged. This is not scriptural. Hebrews teaches us that the Lord will judge His people. First Peter maintains that judgment begins with the house of God. I Corinthians warns that if we do not judge ourselves God will judge us so we are not condemned with the world.

The truth is, when we receive the Lord Jesus the sins of the past are forgiven. The guilt is removed so we can serve God without condemnation.

But we ourselves are full of worldliness, lust, and self-will. All of this corruption is to be judged and removed from us so we can enter the Kingdom of God.

Have we been forgiven? Absolutely! But now the Holy Spirit (while we remain under the blood of the atonement) is leading us to confess and get rid of our sins. Little by little the candle of the Lord is revealing the heart.

The heart of every person, including the Christian, is deceitful and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Certainly not the person. Each of us has little idea of what is going on inside, what is driving us.

Yes we have been forgiven. Now we are to be delivered.

When the Holy Spirit brings to light the sin in us we are to confess it as sin and ask God to forgive us and remove it from us. We have to judge it. We have to condemn it to the Lake of Fire.

If we are faithful to confess our sin, God is faithful and righteous to forgive our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Then our fellowship with God is restored and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.

But if we act out in a sinful manner and then justify our behavior in some manner, if we do not judge it as sin and assign it to the Lake of Fire, there is no forgiveness and no deliverance. Then our state before the Lord is placed in jeopardy.

Please don't give me this stuff about once we are saved we never can be condemned. The Bible from Matthew to Revelation warns us Christians about the danger of continuing in sin. Peter says the righteous are saved with difficulty. The fourth chapter of I Peter explains the meaning of this saying. It is that the righteous suffer fiery trials. The fiery trials are the judgment of God on the righteous so they may be saved.

To be continued.