These (the roles and tasks mentioned in the previous essay) are real, practical needs God has. While we can perform these tasks to a certain extent before we have been transformed, their full, pure, effective implementation depends on our being conformed to Christ's moral image and our abiding in untroubled rest in God's perfect will.

Perhaps the greatest of the several errors of Evangelical thinking is that these roles will be fulfilled by untransformed people on the basis of "grace." If this were the case, the Kingdom of God would have no substance, no reality.

We need to realize in addition that going to Paradise will not change us. Sin began in Heaven around the throne of God. Sin began in the earth while the first man and woman were in Paradise.

Living in Paradise will not make us righteous, holy, or obedient to God. But living righteously, holily, and obediently to God will eventually result in our being in Paradise.

We will not be made fit to fulfill the needs God has by our dying, by our going to Heaven, or by the coming of the Lord. Fitness to serve God in His Kingdom can come only through transformation, and transformation can come only as we interact with Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit.

We already have spoken of the significance of the Jewish feast of Trumpets as having a bearing on the present emphasis on transformation.

Let us employ another major type from the Old Testament, the Tabernacle of the Congregation. The fourth furnishing of the Tabernacle was the Lampstand. The Lampstand corresponds to the fourth feast of the Lord, the feast of Pentecost.

The fifth furnishing of the Tabernacle was the Altar of Incense. The fifth feast of the Lord was the blowing of Trumpets. We see these coming together in Revelation, Chapter Eight where the incense from the altar resulted in the blowing of the seven trumpets, the trumpets that announce the coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth.

Since four is midway between one and seven, we conclude that at Pentecost we are halfway through the program of salvation. We of today are at a midpoint, a turning point. The decision we must make is whether we will attempt to make God our servant or whether we will be a member of the great Servant of the Lord, the Body of Christ, the One who is to bring deliverance to Israel and justice to the saved nations of the earth.

God is asking you today: Will you humble yourself, count your own life as finished, present your body a living sacrifice, and begin to do God's will? Or will you cling to your state of imputed righteousness and your gifts and live to please yourself?

This is a decision of extreme importance. It must be made by every believer who desires to move past the Pentecostal experience. There absolutely is no way in which anyone can move past Pentecost without bowing at the Altar of Incense.

To be continued.