Examine once again if you will the eight concepts we claim are destroying righteousness in the churches.

* The purpose of Divine grace is to provide us with a ticket to Heaven.

* No believer in Christ will be punished at the Judgment Seat of Christ.

* God's love is to be emphasized but His wrath is not to be emphasized. The positive is to be stressed but the negative, the unpleasant, is not to be stressed. God's goodness is to be pressed but His severity is not to be pressed. The sinner is to be invited warmly but not warned and rebuked with vigor.

* We are to reverence God but not fear Him.

* The validity of our salvation cannot be affected by our behavior.

* The believers will be translated secretly for the purpose of avoiding suffering.

* The Gentile believers are a special dispensation of God and are not required to obey the laws of righteousness, holiness, and obedience to God.

* It is God's will that Christians use their faith for material gain.

Such beliefs can only weaken the determination of the Christians to perform God's will in the earth. Experience demonstrates that they indeed do have a weakening effect. These errors are increasingly destructive because we are in an age when demonic pressure is mounting to unprecedented proportions!

Christians believe that the purpose of salvation is to bring us to the spirit Paradise where we will be made strong in the Lord. They believe that God forgives what we do in the present world because we are weak. Can we be surprised, therefore, when there is little strength of righteousness in the Christian churches? Practice follows doctrine. The people are being destroyed because a wrong vision is held.

The rapturists will protest, "we are able to frighten the believers into holiness by threatening them with the imminent appearing of Christ."

Frighten them with what, we may ask, if no believer will hear anything negative at the Judgment Seat of Christ (as they claim)?

Can't the rapturists see that the technique of frightening people with an immediate rapture is not working? While the believers may assent temporarily to the Lord's imminent return, and be moved at times of emotional appeal, the effect is not lasting. People are not able to base their conduct on the threat of Christ's imminent return—especially after they have been Christians for a number of years.

The idea that people will not serve God unless they are afraid the Lord may return suddenly and catch them in their lukewarmness has little appeal for the true saint. It was the Lord Jesus who warned us to watch lest we be caught in sin when He appears. This warning is to the ungodly, not to the godly.

The godly serve Christ because they love Him. If they knew Christ would not return for a hundred years it would make no difference as to the intensity of their service. They are not as naughty children who run about the classroom until they think the teacher is returning.

The godly walk in the Light of God, and the Day of Christ will not overtake them as a thief in the night (I Thessalonians 5:4,5).

We cannot deceive God's people forever with our manmade traditions, leaving them with the impression that "grace" is the Divine excuse for the sins of God's followers, and then attempt to frighten them with the prospect of an imminent rapture. These two concepts are inconsistent. On what basis can we frighten people if God will not judge our behavior? If salvation is unconditional?

The device of frightening the believers is not working. The Lord's people are living in the flesh while giving mental assent to an imminent rapture. Also, the doctrine of the imminent bodily return is not scriptural (II Thessalonians 2:2,3).

To be continued.