The Apostle Peter, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit about sin in God’s church, made a statement that should get the attention of everyone who believes 1) that salvation is received in this lifetime, 2) that it is based on faith and grace alone, 3) that anything beyond faith and grace is God-rejected legalism and 4) that baptism plays a part in the salvation experience. Addressing these and other errors, Peter wrote: “For the time has come for judgment to begin in the House of God (His church), and if (self) judgment begins with us (including Peter), what will become of those (in the church) who do not believe the gospel of God? If the righteous can just barely be saved, what will happen to the ungodly and the sinner (in the church)?” (1 Pet. 4:17,18). To fully understand what God is saying in this passage, several facts must be believed and acted upon. These facts are: 1) that God is speaking to His church about His church, 2) that continuous self-judgment is a commanded exercise in His church, 3) that no one in His church is exempted from the command, 4) that only the righteous (by God’s definition) in His church will be saved–and they just barely, 5) that the “ungodly” and the “sinner” are those who “do not believe the gospel of God,” and 6) that there is much more to the salvation process (not event) than those in His church have been led to believe. To have any chance of salvation one must know, believe and obey His unedited Word.

As has been proven in previous postings, to doubt even one Word of the Holy Bible is to doubt the entire Bible because no man is wise enough to determine which of the Lord’s Words can be taken at face value, which need to be altered and which must be discarded. Jesus settled the issue in John 17:17 when He said to His Father, “… thy (whole) Word is Truth” (Jn. 17:17). Case closed. Also, as is proven in John 12:44-50, to reject even one Word in the Bible is to accuse both God and His Messiah of error at best, and lying at worst. Either accusation equates to rejection of Their Godship in that neither a deceiver nor a liar can be God. God is incapable of either. A sinning God cannot save a sinning human. Now back to the Apostle Peter’s eye-opening statement directed to the church then and now.

The judgment Peter refers to involves each professing Christian routinely examining his life’s “walk” (1 Jn. 2:6) by comparing it to that of Jesus of Nazareth when He walked the earth as a man. There is no other standard by which to judge one’s Christian life. Peter tells us that self-judgment by comparison to the Lord’s standard is a commanded requirement for the church of which Jesus is the Head–as goes the Head, so goes the body that belongs to the Head. If one does not follow (obey the gospel of) the Head, one is a goat in the sheep pen, a tare in the wheat field, a foolish virgin in the congregation. Such a one is not among the righteous who can be saved, but rather is among the “ungodly sinners” whom the Lord is warning.

In his statement Peter is warning those in professing Christendom that are not practicing self-judgment that they must begin the process immediately and continue it until Christ returns. There is a reason why parishioners refuse to do so–they do not know God’s Word and therefore cannot compare their walk to it. Due to Satan’s control over professing Christendom, those within her have never heard God’s Truth and refuse to hear it, for to do so would reveal the depth of the darkness in which they live. For the past 1700+ years the church has rejected God’s Truth. Being supposedly “saved and born again” she sees no need to know and obey it. Her collective mind will change when the Lord casts her into the soon-coming Great Tribulation. To be continued. For more information relative to the church’s apostasy and the false prophets that have led her into it, visit my YouTube site at   WWW.YouTube.com   Then search for proveallthingsofgod. L.J.