The Daily Word of Righteousness

Seven Steps to the Rest of God, #21

Now when every maid's turn was come to go in to king Ahasuerus, after that she had been twelve months, according to the manner of the women, (for so were the days of their purifications accomplished, to wit, six months with oil of myrrh, and six months with sweet odours, and with other things for the purifying of the women;) (Esther 2:12)

No saint can be beautiful in holiness before the Lord until he or she has received both the myrrh and the sweet odors and spices, the bitter and the sweet, the painful and the pleasing.

Great tribulation soon is to fill the earth. The Christians will be persecuted bitterly. At the same time, the Lord Jesus is ready to come and abide in the saints in a fullness of glory that has not been our experience until now.

Both the great tribulation and the glory are necessary if we are to be fit for the Presence of Christ. We are to follow both the cloud of blessing and the fire of suffering as we march toward the promised-land rest of God.

The Christian believer who is seeking a path that will bypass suffering, that will lead around the disciple's cross, is making himself vulnerable to deception. Multitudes are in deception today. Many are preaching that the saints are not to suffer, going against the Apostle Peter who counseled us to arm ourselves with a mind to suffer (I Peter 4:1).

Such preachers and teachers may spend eternity with their followers The preachers themselves were deceived and without realizing it brought a false message to their listeners.

Great tribulation and persecution are at hand. As the believers pass through fiery judgments the tares will be separated from the wheat. The wicked will be removed from the true Church of Christ. The valleys will be exalted and those who are walking in pride will be brought down. The rough places of sin will be burned with fire and the crooked areas of self-seeking will be nailed to the cross. The way of the Lord shall be made straight.

If the Lord's people repent today they will save themselves and their loved ones. If the Lord's people do not repent and seek His face, Jesus will come and chasten them with fiery tribulations. This is His Word to us in the hour in which we are living.

The Lord Jesus has come to us in the Spirit. He is passing among the lampstands. His eyes are as a flame of fire. He stands at the door of the heart of each believer. He has come to wash away the filth of the daughters of Zion.

Who will be able to stand in the day in which we are living? We know from the Scriptures that when sin abounds, as is true in our time, the love of the majority will grow cold (Matthew 24:12).

Many of the saints will be purified during the hour of tribulation and judgment that is on the horizon.

And some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed. (Daniel 11:35)

To be continued.