At a predetermined time, the brothers and sisters meet at go to Sister Wang’s for Bible study. Today it was at 7 p.m.
At 7 p.m., as the brothers and sisters arrived one after another, the room became noisy. When Sister Dong was talking with others, there was a knock at the door. Sister Wang rose to open the door, and it turned out to be Sister Lin, who walked in while singing a song, “In the last days there will be a great white throne; the Lord Jesus sits on it, from whose face everyone will pass through a sea of glass where their entire life’s transgressions will be showed….”
Attracted by Sister Lin’s singing, the others all clapped their hands and sang along. After Sister Lin came, smiling, to the chair and sat down, the singing gradually faded.
Sister Wang walked up to Sister Lin, sat down and asked curiously, “Hey, why did you sing this song today?”
Question 2: God’s name in each age cannot represent God’s all, so what is the significance of His name in each age?
Answer: This question is very critical. Today Almighty God has already told us the answer. He says, “‘Jehovah’ is the name that I took during My work in Israel, and it means the God of the Israelites (God’s chosen people) who can take pity on man, curse man, and guide the life of man. It means the God who possesses great power and is full of wisdom. ‘Jesus’ is Emmanuel, and it means the sin offering that is full of love, full of compassion, and redeems man. He did the work of the Age of Grace, and represents the Age of Grace, and can only represent one part of the management plan. That is to say, only Jehovah is the God of the chosen people of Israel, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of Moses, and the God of all the people of Israel. And so in the current age, all the Israelites apart from the tribe of Judah worship Jehovah. They make sacrifices to Him on the altar, and serve Him wearing priests’ robes in the temple. What they hope for is the reappearance of Jehovah. Only Jesus is the Redeemer of mankind. He is the sin offering that redeemed mankind from sin. Which is to say, the name of Jesus came from the Age of Grace, and existed because of the work of redemption in the Age of Grace. The name of Jesus existed to allow the people of the Age of Grace to be reborn and saved, and is a particular name for the redemption of the whole of mankind. And so the name Jesus represents the work of redemption, and denotes the Age of Grace. The name Jehovah is a particular name for the people of Israel who lived under the law. In each age and each stage of work, My name is not baseless, but holds representative significance: Each name represents one age. ‘Jehovah’ represents the Age of Law, and is the honorific for the God worshiped by the people of Israel. ‘Jesus’ represents the Age of Grace, and is the name of the God of all those who were redeemed during the Age of Grace. If man still longs for the arrival of Jesus the Savior during the last days, and still expects Him to arrive in the image He bore in Judea, then the entire six-thousand-year management plan would stop in the Age of Redemption, and would be incapable of progressing any further. The last days, furthermore, would never arrive, and the age would never be brought to an end. That is because Jesus the Savior is only for the redemption and salvation of mankind. I took the name of Jesus for the sake of all the sinners in the Age of Grace, and it is not the name by which I shall bring the whole of mankind to an end” (“The Savior Has Already Returned Upon a ‘White Cloud’” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).
Later, I saw it said in the words of God: “The fate of man is controlled by the hands of God. You are incapable of controlling yourself: Despite always rushing and busying about for himself, man remains incapable of controlling himself. If you could know your own prospects, if you could control your own fate, would you still be a creature?” (“Restoring the Normal Life of Man and Taking Him to a Wonderful Destination” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).
“Is it the thoughts and wishes of man that have brought him to today? Many people go their whole lives without having their wishes fulfilled. Is this really because of a fault in their thinking? Many people’s lives are filled with unexpected happiness and satisfaction. Is this really because they expect too little? Who of the whole of mankind is not cared for in the eyes of the Almighty? Who does not live in the midst of the Almighty’s predestination? Whose birth and death come from their own choices? Does man control his own fate?” (“The Eleventh Utterance” of God’s Utterances to the Entire Universe in The Word Appears in the Flesh). God’s words awakened me to the truth that: People’s everything is in the hands of God and people cannot grasp hold of their destiny themselves. What family a person is born into, their appearance, how cultured they are and what work they will do in the future are all things that God pre-determined long ago. No one can get around this. No wonder my many years of hard work were exchanged for contrary to my wishes. It turns out I am a created being and cannot dominate mine or my child’s own destiny. Mine and my daughter’s destiny is dictated by God. As a created being, one can only obey the dominance of the Lord of creation and be at the mercy of God to be able to attain God’s care and protection. Otherwise one can only be afflicted and fooled by Satan! After I had understood God’s intentions, I gave up the forced education and observation of my child and just prayed to deliver her to God and obeyed the arrangements dictated by God. This way of living felt much more relaxed.
How God Establishes Man’s Outcome and the Standard by Which He Establishes Man’s Outcome
Before you have any of your own views or conclusions, you should first understand God’s attitude toward you, what God is thinking, and then decide whether or not your own thinking is correct. God has never used units of time to establish a person’s outcome, and He has never used the amount of suffering endured by someone to establish their outcome. Then what does God use as a standard for establishing man’s outcome? Using time units to establish a person’s outcome—this is what most conforms to people’s conceptions. And there are also those individuals who you often see, those who at one point devoted a lot, spent a lot, paid a lot, suffered a lot. These are ones who, in your views, can be saved by God. All that these people show, all that they live out, is precisely mankind’s conception of the standard by which God establishes the outcome of man. Regardless of what you believe, I won’t list out these examples one by one. In short, so long as it isn’t the standard of God’s own thinking, then it comes from man’s imagination, and it’s all man’s conception. What’s the consequence of blindly insisting on your own conception and imagination? Obviously, the consequence can only be God spurning you. This is because you always flaunt your qualifications before God, compete with God, and dispute with God, and you do not try to truly comprehend God’s thinking, nor do you try to comprehend God’s intentions and God’s attitude toward humanity. Proceeding like this is honoring yourself above all, not honoring God. You believe in yourself; you don’t believe in God. God doesn’t want this type of person, and God won’t save this type of person. If you can let go of this kind of viewpoint, and then rectify these incorrect viewpoints of the past; if you could proceed according to God’s demands; start practicing the way of fearing God and shunning evil from this point forward; manage to honor God as great in all things; don’t use your own personal fancies, viewpoints, or beliefs to define yourself, define God. And instead, you seek out God’s intentions in all respects, you achieve a realization and understanding of God’s attitude toward humanity, and you use God’s standard to satisfy God—that would be wonderful! This would mean you are about to embark on the way of fearing God and shunning evil.
Li Qingxin is a preacher in a house church in China who has been faithful to the Lord for many years. Always she enthusiastically does the Lord's work of spreading the gospel, vigilantly awaiting the Lord's coming to bring her up to the heavenly kingdom. In recent years, Li Qingxin has seen that assorted sects and churches have become ever more desolate. Eastern Lightning, however, has become ever more vibrant, despite frenzied condemnation and persecution by the Chinese Communist government and religious circles. More and more good sheep and leading sheep of various denominations and sects have accepted Eastern Lightning. This causes Li Qingxin to do some introspection. In particular, she has seen that pastors and elders of religious circles don't hesitate to fabricate assorted rumors and nonsense to condemn and blacken the name of The Church of Almighty God. They even coordinate with the Chinese Communist government to arrest preachers of Eastern Lightning. She feels that the deeds and actions of the pastor and elder deviate from the way of the Lord, and she realizes that what the Chinese Communist Party and religious circles wildly resist and condemn may be the true way, and could be the manifestation and work of the Lord. Thereon she and some co-workers decide to seek out and investigate Eastern Lightning, but they encounter all means of obstruction and trouble from the pastor and elder. Through reading the words of Almighty God and listening to testimony by preachers of The Church of Almighty God, Li Qingxin and the others gain the ability to discern the rumors and fallacies of the pastor and elder. This allows them to understand the contemptible intent and vicious tricks in their obstructing followers from investigating the true way, and they see clearly the true colors of the pastor and elder as hypocrites. Li Qingxin and the others say in full voice to the religious pastor and elder, "Stay out of our business!" They are finally able to thoroughly cast off the entrapment and bondage of the pastor and elder, and return before the throne of God.
Mankind, who lives among all things, has been corrupted and deceived by Satan, but he still can’t forgo the water made by God, and the air and all things made by God. Mankind still lives and proliferates in this space created by God. Mankind still lives and proliferates in this space created by God. The instincts of mankind have not changed. Man still relies on his eyes to see, on his ears to hear, on his brain to think, on his heart to understand, on his legs and feet to walk, on his hands to work, and so on; all the instincts God bestowed upon man to gain His provision remain unchanged. Mankind’s faculties have not changed, through which he cooperates with God and fulfills the duty of a created being. His spiritual needs have not changed; his wish to find his origins has not changed. The yearning of mankind to be saved by the Creator has not changed. This is the situation of mankind, who lives under God’s authority, and who has endured the bloody destruction wrought by Satan. from The Word Appears in the Flesh
