With the burning of the tares there will be no one left who will dare make the claim of being a saint, a Christian, a true follower of Christ for all the true followers of Christ will have been made manifest having been taken from the earth by the apostate church, proving that all the rest were merely nominal Christians, Christians in name only (imitators, i.e. “TARES”), that they were not of nor ever a part of the TRUE Church of Christ, but as the Lord stated were “of the synagogue of Satan”, the FALSE or apostate church, the church nominal.

Here we would like to make very clear that just because someone is not a part of “the Church of the First Born” does not imply that they are not saved, remember there are Two Salvation’s one to a heavenly inheritance and one to an earthly inheritance. The “tares” are neither part of the true Church nor are they spirit begotten despite all their professions to the contrary, thus none shall have a share in the heavenly inheritance.

Unfortunately they were deceived by the blind guides of Christendom who in their vanity in order to fill both their pews and their coffers so lowered the standard of what it means to be a true Christian that they let everyone in. The proposition being that they need only to repent and profess Christ and they will have secured a position in the church and a heavenly reward; alas in their haste (following these blind teachers) they have missed the way. They apparently had more faith in the teachings of men and in their ministers than they had in the Word of God. Had they searched for themselves they would have found that there is a distinct difference between the “common salvation” (Jude 3), and its requirements and the “great salvation” or “heavenly calling” and its requirements.

The first salvation is all of grace (the unmerited favor of God); and thus requires nothing of the individual save belief in the finished work of Christ and a consecration to righteousness (right living). The latter (the “great salvation”) however requires a bit more, it requires all the same as the first, but additionally it requires a consecration of sacrifice, that one be willing to follow in the Master’s footsteps.

THE NEXT TWO GROUPS

Unlike the great company class who enter the great time of trouble, there to be delivered over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh (i.e. to have their lives taken from them, lives which they had consecrated to the Lord but had failed to willingly surrender) that the Spirit (the new creature in them) might be saved in the day of the Lord (1 Cor 5:5; 1 Tim 1:20) the next two classes the nation of Israel and the world of mankind will both have survivors some who will live all the way through this trouble to its very end, howbeit only a small percentage of each.

With respects to the Nation of Israel we had found that only a “Holy Remnant” (the Good), and possibly some of those taken captive (the bad) just prior to the final assault upon the city would survive.

With regards to the rest of the world there too, some good, some bad would survive. As evidence of this we present the following:

In Zechariah the 14th Chapter in regards to the Great Day of God Almighty the Lord states:

“Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, and your spoil will be divided in your midst. For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem; the city shall be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the city shall go into captivity (the bad), but the remnant (the good) of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, As He fights in the day of battle… And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem (thus denoting survivors of the battle; compare with Isa 66:19) shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts… And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, on them there will be no rain (no blessings, no restitution)… they shall receive the plague with which the Lord strikes the nations who do not come up …” (Zech 14:1-3, 16-19)

Next up we have Psalms 46:1-10

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, Even though the earth (society, the present order of things) be removed, And though the mountains (the kingdoms, governments) be carried into the midst of the sea (swallowed up by a revolution of the masses who will no longer be ruled by them)… The nations (the heathen, the people) raged, the kingdoms were moved; He uttered His voice, the earth melted (organized society was dissolved; compare with 2 Pet 3:10). Come; behold the works of the Lord, Who has made desolations in the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth…Peace! Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”

Here we see that God will be exalted among the nations (both the good AND the bad), the people who were raging just prior to God’s desolating work.

Next we turn to Zephaniah Chapter 3 Verses 8 and 9

“Therefore wait for me,” says the Lord, “Until the day I rise up for plunder; My determination is to gather the nations To My assembly of kingdoms, To pour on them My indignation, All My fierce anger; All the earth shall be devoured With the fire of My jealousy. “For THEN (After this destruction of the kingdoms and the present social order in the time of trouble) I will restore to the peoples (the masses, the unconverted) a pure language (the pure word of truth, uncontaminated by the errors and contradictions of the creeds as taught by men) that they ALL may call on the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one accord.” (Compare this with Isa 6:6-11)

The righteous already know the pure language it’s the unrighteous, the disobedient, to which the pure language will be made known.

Now this brings up the question as to who the “good” are who survive the great time of trouble.

We will examine this in our next post.