When we receive Jesus into our lives, believing the gospel that He is LORD, we pass from eternal death into eternal life, and are given the assurance that we shall be saved.  This salvation is by grace through faith alone rather than works – it is the gift of God.  The timing of that salvation, on the other hand, is very much a matter of both faith and works.  While we will all receive the same salvation, the paths we take to receive that free gift of grace are dependent on our obedience and spiritual maturity.

Like the laborers in the vineyard, we have all agreed upon salvation as the wage for our work -- but the landowner blesses the humbled, pathetic losers who were last to be hired by sparing them the burden of the work and heat of the day, and giving them their reward before the others -- so that the last will be first, and the first will be last.

Many Christians are eagerly awaiting the imminent rapture of the Bride of Christ, but not all of us will be counted worthy to escape the terrible hour of trial that is coming upon the whole earth.  Not all of us are laying down our lives as living sacrifices, taking up the cross of Christ, and following Him day by day.  Not all of us are enduring with patience and faith both persecutions and tribulations for His name’s sake.  Not all of us are loving the Lord more than our earthly father, mother, or child – and everything else, for that matter – or loving others as ourselves.  And not all of us have come to maturity In Christ, so that we are even ready to be harvested from this earth.  Like the foolish virgins we wait upon His arrival but lack sufficient oil -- and are destined to be spurned by Him and ultimately find the door and strait gate closed to us.

Just as Abraham chose a wife for his son Isaac and sent his servants forth to fetch her, so the Father will choose who is worthy to become the Bride of His Son:  He searches all hearts and understands all the imaginations of our thoughts.  And while we are so very quick to rationalize away all our trespasses and rebellions, He discerns every motive and intent.  He alone is the Arbiter of who is worthy to reign in heaven at the side of the Lord 

Jesus.

We are utterly incapable of judging ourselves fairly, as even the Apostle Paul realized.  And while we expend much time and effort trying to decipher the exact date and time the next train is leaving the station, we cannot guarantee we will be allowed on-board.  In that sense, none of us can know the day and hour of our deliverance – only the heavenly Father.  Our time, therefore, is better spent not just watching, but praying we will be counted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.

Paul himself spoke of the possibility of becoming a castaway – even as he pressed toward the mark for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.  He recognized that we are all running a race, but not all would obtain that prize.  He was very clear that there are those among us who will by no means escape the tribulation and enter the kingdom, i.e., those whose works are unrighteous.  Those of us who are idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, abusers of themselves with mankind, unclean, lascivious, participants in orgies, practitioners of witchcraft, hateful, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners, contentious, jealous, wrathful, seditious, heretical, or stir up wrath and strife will NOT inherit the kingdom of God.  To this list the Lord Jesus added those who have forsaken their first love, those who are lukewarm, and those who have defiled themselves by embracing and imitating the world, its doctrines, and its ways – including the rich.

Are you a Christian homosexual who takes pride in your ways?  Under the Old Covenant there was a remediation for sin, even the blood of the animal sacrifices sprinkled upon the mercy seat.  But for those who sinned presumptuously (i.e., high-handedly) there was no remedy:  they were to be cut off from their people.  Under the New Covenant there is also a remediation for sin, even the blood of our precious Lord and Savior on the cross.  But those who sin presumptuously are still destined to be cut off from their people.  When Jesus spoke of cutting off a hand or foot, or plucking out an eye that offends you, was He advocating for self-mutilation, or was He signaling His intent to cut off and cast away those members that cause His body to sin – lest the entire body be cast into the hell on earth of the tribulation?

Christian fornicators and adulterers, do you excuse your behavior thinking our Lord’s patience is a license to sin?  If you give yourself over to sin, then you are its slave.  When He pardoned the woman caught in adultery, it was with the proviso that she go and sin no more.  Was not the finger that wrote there in the dust the same one that inscribed the commandment on the stone tablet?  Our Lord is not lax on sin -- especially sexual sin.  It was for such sins that He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and drove out the nations before the Israelites.

While the Lord will neither destroy not condemn His children, He can certainly withhold His rewards from them.  Those who now see His grace as an opportunity to sin will find themselves in dire straits when they have been barred from entering the kingdom.  Like the man who had no wedding garment, they will be bound hand and foot, taken away, and cast into outer darkness, where they will weep and gnash their teeth.  For many are called, but few are chosen.

Perhaps you doubt the Lord could ever be so stern with His people, but six million Jews would undoubtedly beg to differ.  The Apostle John wrote extensively about the wonderful love of God in his gospel and letters, and rightly so, for He sent His only Son to die for us that we might have eternal life.  Our Father is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in love and faithfulness.  But He is also a God who is perfectly just and faithfully recompences men for their works.  And the work He desires is that we imitate Christ -- suffering the death of self upon the cross, being buried/baptized in Him, and then resurrected with His new life within so that we are seated together with Him in heavenly places.

When that same Apostle of love experienced the Revelation of Jesus Christ, however, he fell down at His feet as dead.  Where, oh where was that milquetoast Jesus on whose chest he had reclined at the last supper?  John now cowered before the Almighty Lion of Judah!  It is interesting that Paul never records such an experience during his visit to heaven, perhaps because his first introduction to the Lord was being knocked to the ground and blinded by Him.  Our God is a consuming fire, and we all need to learn the lesson He taught Job – that the Lord God of Hosts has the right to do whatsoever He pleases with His children and His creation, to include withholding our deliverance and leading us into tribulation!

Like prodigal sons, there are those among us who have squandered our inheritance on riotous living and joined ourselves to the children of this world.  We thereby have set ourselves up for a time of great famine and anguish over being separated from the Father.  When we are finally restored to His side, it will be to much fanfare and rejoicing – but make no mistake, we will enter the kingdom with no inheritance.  All that the Father has now belongs to the elder son, who was always with Him.  And that Bride of Christ will be indignant that such prodigals are so highly honored – yet in sharing the sufferings of the cross during the tribulation, the latter will at some point have been counted worthy to escape.

There is indeed hope for those left behind at the next rapture.  They will be given yet another chance to lay down their lives for their Savior and bear the fruits they previously denied Him.  While the Lord came like a thief in the night to steal away His Bride, there is still the opportunity to repent and escape at a later watch – perhaps at midnight, when the rooster crows, or at dawn.  Yet others will never come to repentance, and the wood, hay, and stubble they have built upon the foundation of Christ will be burned away.  They will suffer the loss of all rewards – yet they themselves will be saved as in passing through the fire.  Their salvation is the gift of God, and the foundation of Jesus Christ cannot be destroyed.  Even if there be nothing of value found in us, yet we will have the imputed righteousness of our Lord to fall back upon.

Paul discerned by the Spirit that the events at the end of the age (the last trump) would follow the same pattern as the mass resurrection and rapture at the beginning of the age (the first trump), when Jesus and the worthy dead were raised in their glorified bodies and immediately ascended together to the Father.  Christ was the firstfruits, but others will be harvested in similar fashion when they reach maturity at the end of the age.  Based on merit, every man will be taken in his own order, from the greatest to the least, and even those who sleep (with some having suffered horribly that they might gain a better resurrection) will be made perfect with us according to their order.

Christ revealed that the rich would not be first in that order.  We in America are very wealthy by this world’s standards: there are very few among us who are dying for lack of food or medical attention.  But the Lord Jesus wasn’t whistling Dixie when He said it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.  That saying must have greatly shocked the disciples, since under the Old Covenant of the flesh, material blessings or cursings flowed from being obedient or disobedient to the Law, respectively.  But under the New Covenant of grace, our Blessing is embodied in our risen and eternal Savior – not in the things this world can offer us.

Solomon wisely diagnosed the problem with money – it answers all things (or at least deceives us that it can)!  Those who seek after and trust in riches typically never attain the degree of brokenness and self-abandonment necessary to surrender fully to the Holy Spirit (as opposed to the dictates of self and the flesh), and thus never reach the level of true Christian maturity necessary to be harvested.  They are like the seed that falls among thorns, which grow up and strangle the plants – the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and those plants become unfruitful.  Indeed, money becomes a stumbling block that prevents us from embracing the cross of Christ, and the Lord in many cases allows troubles that money cannot fix – because we have used it to resist His gentle direction in our lives.

Are we poor in spirit and despise mammon?   Is our trust in the living God rather than uncertain riches, being just as content whether we abase or abound?  Have we humbled ourselves to do good and be rich in good works, ready to distribute and communicate, and thereby secure a rich reward in the time to come?  Or will we be denied an escape and watch as the treasure we have heaped together for the last days is corrupted, then weep and howl for the miseries that shall come upon us?  Jesus counseled us to make for ourselves friends using the mammon of unrighteousness so that, when it fails, we might be received into everlasting habitations (i.e., inducted into the kingdom).

Our Father is far more concerned with our spiritual growth than our health, happiness, or prosperity.   Godliness is NOT a means of gain: on the contrary, seeking to obtain that prize of the treasure in the field or the pearl of great price, we will gladly surrender EVERYTHING.

There are other pitfalls that will hinder our entrance to the kingdom.  We should not presume that belonging to some particular Christian group or organization will render us worthy to escape.  There are doctrines in Christianity today that are just as odious to the Lord as those of Balaam or the Nicolaitans, and invariably involve a compromise with worldly views and mores.  From the smallest of seeds (just one Man who was crucified, dead, buried, resurrected, and ascended), the church has grown into something it was never designed to be, a monstrosity with many branches where the wicked children of this world have come to roost.  And the evil that was erstwhile hidden in that worldly church has over time metastasized to leaven the whole lump.

But perhaps the greatest shortcoming of this generation is that we Christians are so lukewarm.  The Lord Jesus has said He will spew such out of His mouth.  A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways and should not expect to receive anything – including a deliverance from evil.  Indeed, if we are the salt of the earth and have lost our saltiness, we are destined to be cast out and trodden under foot of men.  And how did He say our saltiness is to be restored?   With fire!

In contrast to that, we should not be deluded that obedience to the Law will somehow make us worthy.  Saul, a Pharisee of Pharisees, was zealous for the Law, striving with all his might to follow it perfectly.  He was thunderstruck to discover he was persecuting the very God he thought he was serving.  Unless our righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, we will in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.  While the Law is crucial for identifying sin in our lives, it simply cannot produce righteousness in us.  So while it commands us not to commit adultery, we somehow think it acceptable to look on a woman to lust after her -- or that while it is wrong to kill, being angry with a brother without a cause is perfectly fine.  Even if the Law succeeds in making us “squeaky clean” on the outside, it is absolutely powerless to change us on the inside.  At best, we become whitewashed tombs, full of dead men’s bones!

Indeed, the Law can never cure the fallen nature of man from the garden.  Instead, our Lord gave a different prescription: man must suffer and die.  When we heed Paul’s advice to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof, we nail our carnal self to the cross and His Holy Spirit takes its place -- infilling us with God’s righteousness.

Finally, brethren, none of us should be overconfident that we will be chosen to escape.  Jesus warned that when someone invites us to a wedding feast, we are not to presume a place of honor – for others more worthy than us may arrive and we end up suffering great humiliation when He removes us to the least important place.  Instead, we should approach it with humility, praying the Lord will bid us “come up hither” and thereby honor us in the presence of our fellow believers.  For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

He who has ears, let him hear!  Amen.