We have said the resurrection in which we participate depends on the time when we are judged. If we are judged and accepted by the Lord Jesus prior to the first resurrection, then we are eligible to be raised and caught up to meet Christ in the air. If we have not been judged by that time we must wait for the resurrection that will take place before the White Throne. Sooner or later we will be judged!

You can claim "grace" all you want to. It is your future I am concerned about. If I should prove to be correct, and you do not make the effort to attain the first resurrection from the dead, and wake up to find yourself before the White Throne, I won't even say "I told you so."

"But where will I be before I am awakened?" I don't know, probably in a place that accepts your kind of behavior would be my guess. We have a lot of mythology about what happens to us when we die but very little of it has clear scriptural support.

The issue is the point at which you are judged. The Bible says, "It is appointed unto man once to die and after this the judgment." Therefore we know we will be judged after we die.

I would submit to you that the proper orientation to the Christian salvation, an orientation not always presented in our day, is our death and resurrection with Jesus Christ.

We have to count ourselves as dead with Him and risen with Him. Until we do this we are not a true Christian but merely a religious person.

I would submit further that God regards your profession of death as a real death, not a figure of speech—a death more real than physical death, which the Scriptures sometimes refer to as "sleep."

Most believers, it appears, are bent on saving their life. When we preach against worldliness, lust, and selfish-ambition they may appear to agree but they do not intend to go to such lengths in serving the Lord. They know they are going to continue in their worldly ways. They know there are lusts and passions in their flesh they are not going to renounce. They know they are going to follow their own path through life and not give all to Jesus.

They are not going to deny themselves, take up their personal cross, and follow the Lord wherever He leads them.

They are not going to lose their life in Him, they are going to save their life.

If you don't believe me, look around you. How many believers do you know who truly are denying themselves and carrying their cross behind Jesus? These are the only true Christians, the remainder are churchgoers.

The point is this: as soon as we die after this fashion, God is free to judge us, for it is appointed to people once to die and after this the judgment.

To be continued.