Eastern lightning | God's word | You Should Know How the Whole of Humanity Has Developed to the Present Day
The entirety of the work over the 6,000 years has gradually changed along with the times. The shifts in this work have occurred according to the entire world’s circumstances. God’s management work has only gradually transformed according to the developmental trends of humanity as a whole; it was not already planned at the beginning of creation. Before the world was created, or right after it was created, Jehovah had not yet planned the first stage of work, that of law; the second stage of work, that of grace; or the third stage of work, that of conquering, in which He would first work among a group of people—some of the descendants of Moab, and from this He would conquer the entire universe. He did not speak these words after creating the world; He did not speak these words after Moab, let alone before Lot. All of His work was done spontaneously. This is exactly how His entire six-thousand-year management work has developed; by no means had He written out such a plan as Summary Chart for Humanity’s Development before creating the world. In God’s work, He directly expresses what He is; He does not rack His brains to formulate a plan. Of course, many prophets have spoken many prophecies, but it still cannot be said that God’s work has always been one of precise plan-making; the prophecies were made according to God’s actual work. All of His work is the most actual work. He carries out His work according to the development of the times, and He carries out His most actual work according to the changes of things. For Him, carrying out work is akin to administering medicine to an illness; He observes while doing His work; He works according to His observations. In every stage of His work, He is capable of expressing His ample wisdom and expressing His ample ability; He reveals His ample wisdom and ample authority according to the work of that particular age and allows any of those people brought back by Him during those ages to see His entire disposition. He supplies people’s needs and carries out the work He should do according to the work that must be done in each age; He supplies people’s needs according to the degree to which Satan has corrupted them. It was this way when Jehovah initially created Adam and Eve in order to allow them to manifest God upon the earth and to have God’s witnesses among the creation, but Eve sinned after being tempted by the snake; Adam did the same, and together in the garden they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And thus, Jehovah had additional work to perform among them. He saw their nakedness and covered their bodies with clothing made from animal hides. Following this, He said unto Adam, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree, of which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat of it: cursed is the ground for your sake … till you return to the ground; for out of it were you taken: for dust you are, and to dust shall you return.” To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in sorrow you shall bring forth children; and your desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you.” From then on He banished them from the Garden of Eden and made them live outside the garden, as modern man now does upon the earth. When God created man in the very beginning, He did not plan to let man be tempted by the snake after he had been created and then curse man and the snake. He did not actually have this kind of plan; it was simply the development of things that gave Him new work among His creation. After Jehovah carried out this work among Adam and Eve upon the earth, humanity continued to develop for several thousand years, until “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. … But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.” At this time Jehovah had more new work, for the humanity He created had become too sinful after being tempted by the snake. Given these circumstances, Jehovah selected Noah’s family from among these people and spared them, and carried out His work of destroying the world with a flood. Humanity has continued to develop in this manner to this very day, becoming increasingly corrupt, and when humanity’s development reaches its peak, it will also be humanity’s end. From the very beginning to the end of the world, the inside truth of His work has always been this way. It is the same as how man will be classed according to their kind; far from each and every person being predestined to the category they belong to at the very beginning, people are gradually categorized only after undergoing a process of development. In the end, anyone who cannot be saved entirely will be returned to his or her ancestors. None of God’s work among humanity was already prepared at the creation of the world; rather, it was the development of things that allowed God to perform His work step by step more realistically and practically among humanity. This is just like how Jehovah God did not create the snake in order to tempt the woman. It was not His specific plan, nor was it something that He had intentionally predestined; one could say that this was unexpected. It was thus because of this that Jehovah expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and vowed to never again create man. But God’s wisdom is only discovered by people upon this foundation, just like the point that I mentioned earlier: “My wisdom is exercised based on Satan’s plots.” No matter how corrupt humanity grew or how the snake tempted them, Jehovah still had His wisdom; therefore, He has been engaged in new work ever since He created the world, and none of the steps of this work have ever repeated. Satan has continuously carried out plots; humanity has been continuously corrupted by Satan, and Jehovah God has also continuously carried out His wise work. He has never failed, and He has never ceased His work from the creation of the world through now. After humanity was corrupted by Satan, He continuously worked among people to defeat His enemy who corrupts humanity. This battle will continue from the beginning until the world’s end. In doing all this work, He has not only allowed humanity, who has been corrupted by Satan, to receive His great salvation, but also allowed them to see His wisdom, almightiness and authority, and in the end He will let humanity see His righteous disposition—punishing the wicked and rewarding the good. He has battled Satan to this very day and has never been defeated, for He is a wise God, and His wisdom is exercised based on Satan’s plots. And so He not only makes everything in heaven submit to His authority; He also makes everything upon earth rest below His footstool, and not last of all, He makes those evildoers who invade and harass humanity fall within His chastisement. All the results of the work are brought about because of His wisdom. He had never revealed His wisdom before the existence of humanity, for He had no enemies in heaven, upon earth, or in the entire universe, and there were no dark forces that invaded anything among nature. After the archangel betrayed Him, He created humanity upon the earth, and it was because of humanity that He formally began His millennia-long war with Satan, the archangel, a war that grows more heated with every successive stage. His almightiness and wisdom are present in each of these stages. Only at this time can everything in heaven and earth see God’s wisdom, almightiness, and particularly God’s realness. He still carries out His work in this same realistic manner today; in addition, as He carries out His work He also reveals His wisdom and almightiness; He allows you to see the inside truth of each stage of work, to see exactly how to explain God’s almightiness, and particularly exactly how to explain God’s realness.
Do people not believe it was fated before creation that Judas would sell Jesus? Actually, the Holy Spirit had planned this according to reality at the time. It had just so happened that there was someone by the name of Judas who would always embezzle funds. He was thus chosen to play this role and to be of service in this way. This is a true example of making use of local resources. Jesus was unaware of this at first; He only knew once Judas had been revealed later. If someone else had been able to play this role, then someone else would have done this rather than Judas. That which was predestined was in fact done contemporaneously by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit’s work is always done spontaneously; anytime He plans His work, the Holy Spirit will carry it out. Why do I always say that the work of the Holy Spirit is realistic? That it is always new and never old, and always the most fresh? God’s work was not already planned when the world was created; this is not at all what happened! Every step of work attains its proper effect for its respective time, and they do not interfere with one another. There are many occasions in which the plans in your mind are simply no match for the Holy Spirit’s latest work. His work is not as simple as people’s reasoning, nor is it as complex as people’s imaginations; it consists of supplying people at any time and any place according to their current needs. No one is clearer as to people’s substance as He, and it is precisely for this reason that nothing is able to suit people’s realistic needs as well as His work does. Therefore, from a human perspective, His work was planned several millennia in advance. As He works among you now, according to your condition, He is also doing work and speaking at any time and any place. When people are in a certain condition, He speaks those words that are precisely what they need within. It is like the first step of His work of the times of chastisement. After the times of chastisement, people exhibited certain behavior, they acted rebelliously in certain ways, certain positive conditions emerged, certain negative conditions also emerged, and the upper bounds of this negativity reached a certain level. God conducted His work based on all these things, and thus seized upon these to attain a much better effect for His work. He is simply carrying out His supplying work among people in accordance with their current conditions. He carries out every step of His work according to people’s actual conditions. All of creation is in His hands; could He not know them? In light of people’s conditions, God carries out the next step of work that should be done, at any time and place. By no means was this work planned thousands of years beforehand; this is a human conception! He works as He observes the effects of His work, and His work continuously deepens and develops; as He observes the results of His work, He carries out the next step of His work. He uses many things to transition gradually and to make His new work visible to people over time. This kind of work is able to supply people’s needs, for God knows people all too well. This is how He carries out His work from heaven. Likewise, God incarnate does His work in the same way, planning according to reality and working among humanity. None of His work was planned before the world was created, nor was it meticulously planned beforehand. 2,000 years after the world was created, Jehovah saw that humanity had become so corrupt that He used the mouth of the prophet Isaiah to prophesy that after the Age of Law ended, He would carry out His work of redeeming humanity in the Age of Grace. This was Jehovah’s plan, of course, but this plan was also made according to the circumstances He observed at the time; He certainly did not think of it immediately after creating Adam. Isaiah merely prophesied, but Jehovah did not immediately make preparations for this during the Age of Law; rather, He set about this work at the start of the Age of Grace, when the messenger appeared in Joseph’s dream and enlightened him, telling him that God would become flesh, and thus His work of incarnation began. God did not, as people imagine, prepare for His work of incarnation after creating the world; this was only decided according to the degree of humanity’s development and the status of His war with Satan.
When God comes into flesh, His Spirit descends upon a man; in other words, the Spirit of God wears a flesh. He does His work upon the earth, and rather than bringing with Him several restricted steps, this work is utterly unlimited. The work that the Holy Spirit does in the flesh is still determined by the effects of His work, and He uses these things to determine the length of time for which He will do work while in the flesh. The Holy Spirit directly reveals each step of His work; He examines His work as He goes along; it is nothing so supernatural as to stretch the limits of human imagination. This is like Jehovah’s work in creating the heavens and earth and all things; He simultaneously planned and worked. He separated the light from the darkness, and morning and evening came into being—this took one day. On the second day He created the sky, which also took one day, and then He created the earth, seas and the things that populated them, also taking another day. This went on through the sixth day, when God created man and let him manage all the things upon the earth, until the seventh day, when He had finished creating all things, and rested. God blessed the seventh day and designated it as a holy day. He decided upon this holy day after He had created all things, not before creating them. This work was also carried out spontaneously; before creating all things, He did not decide to create the world in six days and rest on the seventh; the facts are not at all like this. He did not say this, nor did He plan it. By no means did He say that the creation of all things would be completed on the sixth day and that He would rest on the seventh; rather, He created according to what seemed good to Him. Once He had finished creating everything, it was already the sixth day. If it had been the fifth day when He finished creating everything, He would have thus designated the sixth day as a holy day; however, He finished creating everything on the sixth day, and thus the seventh day became a holy day, which has been promulgated to this very day. Therefore, His current work is carried out in this same way. He speaks and supplies your needs in accordance with your conditions. That is, the Spirit speaks and works according to people’s conditions; the Spirit keeps watch over all and works at any time and place. That which I do, say, place upon you and bestow upon you is, without exception, that which you need. That is why I say that none of My work is separate from reality; it is all real, for you all know that “God’s Spirit keeps watch over all.” If this had all been decided ahead of time, would it not have been too cut-and-dried? You think that God worked out six whole millennia and then predestined humanity as being rebellious, resistant, crooked and deceitful, as having the flesh, corrupt satanic disposition, lust of the eyes, and their own indulgence. This was not predestined, but rather due to Satan’s corruption. Some will say, “Was Satan not also within God’s grasp? God had predestined that Satan would corrupt man in this manner, and after that He carried out His work among man.” Would God actually predestine Satan to corrupt humanity? He is only too eager to allow humanity to live normal human lives; would He harass the lives of humanity? Then wouldn’t defeating Satan and saving humanity be a futile effort? How could humanity’s rebelliousness be predestined? It was due to Satan’s harassment in actuality; how could it be predestined by God? The Satan within God’s grasp that you understand and the Satan within God’s grasp that I speak of are very different. According to your statements that “God is almighty, and Satan is within His hands,” Satan would not betray Him. Have you not said that God is almighty? Your knowledge is too abstract and is out of line with reality; it does not hold water and does not work! God is almighty; this is not false at all. The archangel betrayed God because God initially gave it a portion of authority. Of course, this was an unexpected event, like Eve succumbing to the snake’s temptation. However, no matter how Satan carries out its betrayal, unlike God it is not almighty. As you have said, Satan is mighty; no matter what it does, God’s authority always defeats it. This is the true meaning behind the saying “God is almighty, and Satan is within His hands.” Therefore, His war with Satan must be carried out one step at a time; furthermore, He plans His work in response to Satan’s ruses. That is to say, in accordance with the ages, He saves people and reveals His wisdom and almightiness. Likewise, the work in the last days was not predestined before the Age of Grace; it was not predestined in an orderly manner like this one: First, make man’s external disposition change; second, make man receive His chastisement and trials; third, make man experience death; fourth, make man experience the times of loving God and express the resolution of a created being; fifth, make man see God’s will and know God completely, then complete man. He did not plan all these things during the Age of Grace; rather, He began planning them in the present age. Satan is at work, as is God. Satan expresses its corrupt disposition, whereas God speaks directly and reveals some substantive things. This is the work being done today, and this same kind of working principle was used long ago, after the world was created.
First God created Adam and Eve, and He also created a snake. Among all things, the snake was the most poisonous; its body contained venom, and Satan used this venom to utilize it. It was the snake that tempted Eve to sin. Adam sinned after Eve did, and the two of them were then able to distinguish between good and evil. If Jehovah had known that the snake would tempt Eve, and that Eve would tempt Adam, why did He place them all inside a garden? If He was able to predict these things, why did He create a snake and place it inside the Garden of Eden? Why did the Garden of Eden contain fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Did He mean for them to eat the fruit? When Jehovah came, neither Adam nor Eve dared to confront Him, and it was only at this time that Jehovah knew that they had eaten the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and fallen prey to the snake’s trickery. In the end He cursed the snake, and He cursed Adam and Eve. Jehovah was not aware when the two of them ate of the fruit of the tree. Humanity became corrupt to the extent of being evil and sexually promiscuous, even to the point that the things they harbored in their hearts were all evil and unrighteous; they were all filth. Jehovah thus regretted creating humanity. Thereafter He carried out His work of destroying the world with a flood, which Noah and his sons survived. Some things are not actually as advanced and supernatural as people might imagine. Some ask: “Since God knew the archangel would betray Him, why did He create it?” These are the facts: When the earth did not yet exist, the archangel was the greatest of heaven’s angels. It had jurisdiction over all the angels in heaven; this was the authority that God granted it. With the exception of God, it was the greatest of heaven’s angels. When God later created humanity, the archangel carried out a greater betrayal toward God upon the earth. I say it betrayed God because it wanted to manage humanity and to surpass God’s authority. It was the archangel that tempted Eve into sin; it did so because it wished to establish its kingdom upon earth and to make humanity betray God and obey it instead. It saw that there were many things that obeyed it; the angels obeyed it, as did the people upon the earth. The birds and beasts, trees, forests, mountains, rivers and all things upon the earth were under the care of man—that is, Adam and Eve—while Adam and Eve obeyed it. The archangel thus desired to surpass God’s authority and to betray God. Later on it led many angels to betray God, which then became various unclean spirits. Has not humanity’s development to this day been caused by the archangel’s corruption? Humanity is only the way it is today because the archangel betrayed God and corrupted humanity. This step-by-step work is nowhere near as abstract and simple as people imagine. Satan carried out its betrayal for a reason, yet people are unable to comprehend such a simple thing. Why did God create the heavens and earth and all things, and also create Satan? Since God despises Satan so much, and Satan is His enemy, why did He create Satan? By creating Satan, was He not creating an enemy? God did not actually create an enemy; rather, He created an angel, and later the angel betrayed Him. Its status was so great that it wished to betray God. One could say that this was a coincidence, but it was also an inevitable trend. It is similar to how one will inevitably die at a certain age; things have already developed to a certain stage. There are some absurd ones who say: “Since Satan is Your enemy, why did You create it? Did You not know that the archangel would betray You? Can You not peer from eternity to eternity? Do You not know its nature? Since You clearly knew that it would betray You, then why did You make it archangel? Even if one ignores the matter of its betrayal, it still led so many angels and descended to the world of mortals to corrupt humanity; until this day, You have been unable to complete Your six-thousand-year management plan.” Is this right? Are you not putting yourself through more trouble than is necessary? Still others say: “Had Satan not corrupted humanity through the present day, God would not have saved humanity this way. In this case God’s wisdom and almightiness would have been invisible; where would His wisdom manifest itself? God thus created a human race for Satan; in the future God would reveal His almightiness—otherwise, how would man discover God’s wisdom? If man did not resist Him and act rebelliously to Him, it would be unnecessary for His acts to manifest themselves. If all of creation were to worship Him and obey Him, He would have no work to do.” This is even further from the reality of things, for there is nothing filthy about God, and so He cannot create filth. He reveals His acts now only in order to defeat His enemy, to save humanity, who He created, to defeat the demons and Satan, which hate Him, betray Him and resist Him, which were under His dominion and belonged to Him in the very beginning; He wants to defeat these demons and in doing so reveal His almightiness to all things. Humanity and all things upon the earth are now under Satan’s domain and under the domain of the wicked. God wants to reveal His acts to all things so that people may know Him, and thereby defeat Satan and utterly vanquish His enemies. The entirety of this work is accomplished through revealing His acts. All of His creatures are under Satan’s domain, and so He wishes to reveal His almightiness to them, thereby defeating Satan. If there were no Satan, He would not need to reveal His acts. If not for Satan’s harassment, He would have created humanity and led them to live in the Garden of Eden. Why did He never reveal all His acts for the angels or the archangel before Satan’s betrayal? If the angels and archangel had known Him, and also obeyed Him in the beginning, then He would not have carried out those meaningless acts of work. Because of the existence of Satan and demons, people resist Him and are filled to the brim with rebellious disposition, and so God wishes to reveal His acts. Because He wishes to do war with Satan, He must use His own authority to defeat Satan and use all His acts to defeat Satan; this way, His work of salvation that He performs among humanity will let people see His wisdom and almightiness. The work God does today is meaningful and in no way resembles what some people say: “Is not the work You do contradictory? Is not this succession of work merely an exercise in troubling Yourself? You created Satan, then let it betray You and resist You. You created humanity, and then handed it over to Satan, and You allowed Adam and Eve to be tempted. Since You did all these things intentionally, why do You detest humanity? Why do You detest Satan? Are these things not of Your own making? What is there for You to hate?” Many absurd people will say that. They wish to love God, but in their hearts they complain about God—how contradictory! You do not understand the truth, you have too many supernatural thoughts, and you even claim that this is God’s error—how absurd you are! It is you who fiddle with the truth; it is not God’s error! Some people will even complain over and over: “It was You who created Satan, and You who gave humanity to Satan. Humanity possesses satanic disposition; rather than forgive them, You detest them to a degree. At first You loved humanity to a degree. You struck Satan into the world of man, and now You detest humanity. It is You who detest and love humanity—what is the explanation for this? Is this not a contradiction?” Regardless of how you look at it, this is what happened in heaven; the archangel betrayed God in this way, and humanity was corrupted in this way and continued until today in this manner. Regardless of how you phrase it, this is the whole story. However, you must understand that God does today’s work in order to save you, and in order to defeat Satan.
Because the angel was particularly weak and possessed no abilities, it became arrogant when given authority, particularly the archangel, whose status was higher than that of any other angel. The archangel was the king of all the angels. It led millions of angels, and under Jehovah its authority surpassed that of any of the other angels. It wanted to do this and that, and to lead the angels into the world of man to administer the world. God said that He administrates the universe; the archangel said that the universe was its own to administrate, and thenceforth it betrayed God. In heaven, God had created another world. The archangel wished to administrate this world and also to descend to the realm of man. Could God allow it to do this? Thus, He struck it down and into the air. Ever since it corrupted humanity, God has waged war with it in order to save humanity; He has used these six millennia to defeat it. Your conception of an almighty God is incompatible with the work God is carrying out now; it does not work in practice and is very much absurd! Actually, God only declared the archangel to be His enemy after it betrayed Him. It was only due to its betrayal that it trampled upon humanity after arriving at the world of man, and it was for this reason that humanity thus developed to this stage. Following this, God made an oath with Satan: “I will defeat you and save humanity, My creation.” Satan was unconvinced at first and said, “What can You honestly do to me? Can You truly strike me into the air? Can You truly defeat me?” After God struck it into the air, He paid it no more attention and then began to save humanity and do His own work, despite Satan’s continued harassment. Everything that Satan could do was thanks to the power given to it by God; it took these things with it into the air and has kept these things to this day. God struck it into the air but did not take back its authority, and so it continued to corrupt humanity. God, on the other hand, began saving humanity, whom Satan had corrupted following their creation. God did not reveal His acts while in heaven; however, prior to creating the earth, He allowed people in the world He created in heaven to see His acts and thus led the people above heaven. He gave them wisdom and intelligence, and led those people to live in that world. Naturally, none of you have heard of this before. Later, after God created humanity, the archangel began to corrupt humanity; on earth, all of humanity was in chaos. It was only at this time that He began His war against Satan, and it was only at this time that people saw His acts. At first His acts were concealed from humanity. After Satan was struck into the air, it concerned itself with its matters, and God concerned Himself with His own work, continuously waging war against it, all the way until the last days. Now is the time in which Satan should be destroyed. In the beginning God gave it authority, and later God struck it into the air, but it stayed defiant. Later, upon earth, it corrupted humanity, but God was actually on earth managing humanity. God uses His management of people to defeat Satan. By corrupting people, Satan brings people’s fate to a close and harasses God’s work. On the other hand, God’s work is the salvation of humanity. Which step of God’s own work is not meant to save humanity? Which step is not meant to cleanse people, to make them do righteousness and live in a manner that creates an image that can be loved? Satan, however, does not do this. It corrupts humanity; it continuously carries out its work of corrupting humanity throughout the universe. Of course, God also does His own work. He pays no attention to Satan. No matter how much authority Satan has, its authority was still given by God; God merely did not actually give it all His authority, and so no matter what it does, it cannot surpass God and is always within God’s grasp. God did not reveal any of His acts while in heaven. He merely gave Satan a small portion of authority to allow it to exercise control over the angels. Therefore, no matter what it does, it cannot surpass God’s authority, because the authority that God originally gave it is limited. As God works, Satan harasses. In the last days, it will finish its harassment; likewise, God’s work will be finished, and the kind of person God wishes to complete will be completed. God directs people positively; His life is living water, immeasurable and without limits. Satan has corrupted man to a certain degree; in the end, the living water of life will complete man, and it will be impossible for Satan to interfere and carry out its work. Thus, God will completely obtain these people. Satan still refuses to accept this now; it continuously pits itself against God, but God pays it no attention. He has said, I will be victorious over all of Satan’s dark forces and over all dark influences. This is the work that must now be done in the flesh, and it is also the meaning of the incarnation. It is to complete the stage of work of defeating Satan in the last days, to wipe out all things that belong to Satan. God’s victory over Satan is an inevitable trend! Satan actually failed long ago. When the gospel began to spread throughout the land of the great red dragon, that is, when God incarnate began working and this work was set in motion, Satan was utterly defeated, for the incarnation was meant to defeat Satan. Satan saw that God had once again become flesh and had also begun to carry out His work, and it saw that no force could stop the work. Therefore, it was dumbfounded when it saw this work and did not dare to do any more work. At first Satan thought that it also possessed plenty of wisdom, and it interrupted and harassed God’s work; however, it did not expect that God had once again become flesh, and that in His work, God had used its rebelliousness to serve as a revelation and judgment for humanity, and thereby conquer humanity and defeat it. God is wiser than it, and His work far exceeds it. Therefore, I previously stated the following: The work that I do is carried out in response to Satan’s ruses. In the end I will reveal My almightiness and Satan’s powerlessness. When God does His work, Satan tails Him from behind, until in the end it is finally destroyed—it will not even know what hit it! It will only realize the truth once it has already been smashed and crushed; at that time it will already have been burned in the lake of fire. Will it not be completely convinced then? For it has no more schemes to employ!
It is this step-by-step realistic work that often weighs down God’s heart with grief for humanity, so that His war with Satan has gone on for 6,000 years. God said thus: “I will never again create humanity, nor will I again bestow authority upon angels.” From then on, when the angels came to work on earth, they merely followed God to do some work. He never gave the angels authority. How did the angels that the Israelites saw carry out their work? They revealed themselves in dreams and conveyed the words of Jehovah. When Jesus was resurrected three days after being crucified, it was the angels who pushed the boulder to the side; the Spirit of God did not do this work personally. The angels only did this kind of work; they played supporting roles and had no authority, for God would never again bestow them with authority. After working for some time, the people who God used on earth assumed God’s position and said, “I want to surpass the universe! I want to stand in the third heaven! We want the reigns of sovereign power!” They would become arrogant after several days of work; they wanted sovereign power on earth, they wanted to establish another nation, they wanted all things under their feet and wanted to stand in the third heaven. Do you not know that you are merely a man used by God? How can you ascend to the third heaven? God comes to earth to work, silently and without crying out, and leaves after stealthily completing His work. He never cries out as humans do, but rather realistically carries out His work. Nor does He ever enter a church and cry, “I will wipe you all out! I will curse you and chastise you!” He merely carries out His own work, leaving once He is finished. Those religious pastors who heal the sick and cast out demons, lecture others from the pulpit, give long and pompous speeches and discuss unrealistic matters, are arrogant to the core! They are descendants of the archangel!
After carrying out His 6,000 years of work through the present day, God has already revealed many of His acts, primarily to defeat Satan and save all of humanity. He uses this opportunity to allow everything in heaven, everything upon the earth, everything within the seas as well as every last object of God’s creation on earth to see God’s almightiness and to see all of God’s acts. He seizes the opportunity of defeating Satan to reveal all of His acts to humanity and allow people to be able to praise Him and exalt His wisdom of defeating Satan. Everything on earth, in heaven and within the seas brings Him glory, praises His almightiness, praises all His acts and shouts His holy name. This is proof of His defeat of Satan; it is proof of His conquering of Satan; more importantly, it is proof of His salvation of humanity. The whole of God’s creation brings Him glory, praises Him for defeating His enemy and returning victoriously and praises Him as the great victorious King. His purpose is not merely to defeat Satan, and so His work has continued for 6,000 years. He uses Satan’s defeat to save humanity; He uses Satan’s defeat to reveal all His acts and reveal all of His glory. He will obtain glory, and all the multitude of angels will also see all His glory. The messengers in heaven, the humans upon earth and all of creation upon earth will see the glory of the Creator. This is the work that He does. His creation in heaven and on earth will all see His glory, and He will return triumphantly after utterly defeating Satan and let humanity praise Him. He will thus successfully achieve both of these aspects. In the end all of humanity will be conquered by Him, and He will wipe out anyone who resists or rebels, that is to say, wipe out all those who belong to Satan. You see all these acts of God now, yet still you resist and are rebellious and do not submit; you harbor many things inside yourself and do whatever you wish; you follow your own lusts, and likes—this is rebelliousness; this is resistance. Belief in God that is carried out for the flesh, for one’s lusts, and for one’s own likes, for the world, and for Satan, is filthy; it is resistant and rebellious. There are all different kinds of belief now: Some seek shelter from disaster, and others seek to obtain blessings, while some wish to understand mysteries and still others try to get some money. These are all forms of resistance; they are all blasphemy! To say that one resists or rebels—is it not in reference to these things? Many people now grumble, utter complaints or make judgments. These are all things done by the wicked; they are human resistance and rebelliousness; such people are possessed and occupied by Satan. The people that God obtains are those who submit to Him completely, those who have been corrupted by Satan but have been saved and conquered by His work now, who have endured tribulations and in the end have been obtained completely by God and no longer live under Satan’s domain and have broken free from unrighteousness, who are willing to live out holiness—these are the holiest people; they are the holy ones. If your current actions do not match one part of God’s requirements, you will be eliminated. This is indisputable. Everything is done according to today; although He has predestined and chosen you, your actions today will still determine your outcome. If you cannot keep up now, you will be eliminated. If you cannot keep up now, how can you even hope to[a]keep up later? Now that such a great miracle has appeared before you, you still do not believe. Tell Me, how will you believe in Him later, when He finishes His work and does no more such work? At that point it will be even more impossible for you to follow Him! Later on God will rely on your attitude and knowledge toward the work of God incarnate and your experience to determine whether you are sinful or righteous, or to determine whether you are a perfected one or an eliminated one. You must see clearly now. The Holy Spirit works thusly: He determines your outcome according to your behavior today. Who speaks today’s words? Who does today’s work? Who decides you will be eliminated today? Who decides to make you perfect? Is this not what I do Myself? I am the One who speaks these words; I am the One who carries out this work. Cursing, chastising and judging people are all part of My own work. In the end, eliminating you will also be My own work. All is My own business! Making you perfect is My own business, and letting you enjoy blessings is also My own business. This is all My own work. Your outcome was not predestined by Jehovah; it is determined by the God of today. It is determined now; it was not determined before the world was created. Some absurd people say, “Perhaps there is something wrong with Your eyes, and You do not see me the way You should. In the end You will see how the Spirit manifests everything!” Jesus originally chose Judas as His disciple. People think that Jesus had made a mistake with him. How could He choose a disciple who would betray Him? At first Judas had no intention of betraying Jesus. This merely happened later. At the time, Jesus had looked upon Judas quite favorably; He made the man follow Him and made him responsible for their financial matters. If He had known that Judas would embezzle money, He would not have left him in charge of the money. One can say that Jesus did not originally know that this man was crooked and deceitful, and cheated his brothers and sisters. Later on, after Judas had followed for some time, Jesus saw him deceive his brothers and sisters and deceive God. People also discovered that he would always spend money from the money bag, and they then told Jesus. Jesus only became aware of all this at this time. Because Jesus was to carry out the work of the crucifixion and needed someone to betray Him, and Judas just so happened to fit this role, Jesus said, “There will be one among us who will betray Me. The Son of man will use this betrayal to be crucified and in three days be resurrected.” At the time, Jesus did not actually select Judas so that he may betray Him; to the contrary, He wished that Judas would be a loyal disciple. To His surprise, Judas turned out to be an avaricious degenerate who betrayed the Lord, and He used this situation to select Judas for this work. If all of Jesus’ twelve disciples had been loyal, and no one like Judas had been among them, the person to betray Jesus would have ultimately been someone outside the disciples. However, at the time it so happened that there was one among them who enjoyed taking bribes—Judas. Jesus thus used this man to complete His work. How simple this was! Jesus did not predetermine it at the beginning of His work; He only made this decision once things had developed to a certain step. This was Jesus’ decision, namely, the decision of God’s Spirit Himself. At the time it was Jesus who chose Judas; when Judas later betrayed Jesus, this was the doing of the Holy Spirit in order to serve His own ends; it was the work of the Holy Spirit at the time. When Jesus chose Judas, He had no idea that he would betray Him. He only knew that he was Judas Iscariot. Your outcomes are also determined according to your level of submission today and according to your life’s level of growth, not according to the idea among human conceptions that it was predestined at the creation of the world. You must perceive these things clearly. The whole of this work is not carried out according to your imaginations.
From Utterances of Christ of the Last Days (Selections)
Footnotes:
a. The original text omits “even hope to.”
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