Aishen, America
I
am a Christian. When I first started believing in God, I frequently
heard sermons where people said, “The Lord
Jesus is our Redeemer. He was nailed to the cross for our
sins. Jesus is merciful and loving. As long as we frequently come
before the Lord and confess our sins through prayer, our sins will be
forgiven and when the Lord returns, we will be able to enter the
kingdom of heaven.” Afterward, I noticed, when I read the Bible,
many parts where the word “judgment” is mentioned. For example:
“For
the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God”
(1Pe 4:17). “Because he has appointed a day, in the which he will
judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he has ordained”
(Act 17:31). At the time, I did not understand what judgment meant.
So, I went to ask the preacher. The preacher told me, “When the
Lord returns, He will do the work of judgment to determine man’s
sins. Since Jesus is the sacrifice for our atonement, our sins will
be forgiven and we will not be convicted. Furthermore, those who
spend and toil for the Lord will receive crowns in accordance with
their contributions. There will be large and small crowns….” I
did not quite understand what the preacher told me. I felt that this
“crown” idea was very similar to the idea that seniority must be
given priority in the secular world. My heart could not accept it.
Afterward, I
found a secretary position working for a gospel organization. My boss
was also a preacher and she naturally became one of my spiritual
elders. She explained many spiritual perspectives to me. The one I
remembered most clearly was: As a person, one not only must have
wisdom, he must also be clever when it comes to the secular world.
What she meant by wisdom referred to doing more work for the Lord.
Since the results of people’s work are not the same, the crowns are
also not the same. If the results of the work are big, the crown
would also be big. She used her own experiences as an example. In
order to spread the gospel, she suffered a lot and paid a great
price. Locally, she had established a church and had guided many
people into believing in the Lord. She has also been to many
countries to spread the gospel and she had also been imprisoned for
believing in the Lord. Each time she talked about these experiences,
I thought back to the words, “The crowns will be given in
accordance with the work.” Unconsciously, I felt that she was a
person that the Lord liked. After all, she had done a lot of work for
the Lord and she had suffered a lot. As a result, I started to
worship her more and more.
Just as I was
passionately worshiping this preacher, I discovered that she had
unexpectedly embezzled some funds from the church. This was not a
small amount either. No wonder she would spend ostentatiously every
day. She would frequently take her family to the restaurant to eat,
pay for me to study theology with her own name and even bought a big
house in the States with cash. Previously, I was very puzzled, “When
her husband came to the States, he did not have a job. Her family was
completely dependent on her financially. How did she have so much
money?” I did not understand the inside story until I discovered
that she had embezzled money from the church. I could not comprehend
it. She was a preacher, yet she was able to openly violate the Lord’s
teachings and steal His offerings. Could it be that she was not
afraid of being punished? The Bible says: “For he comes, for he
comes to judge the earth: he shall judge the world with
righteousness, and the people with his truth” (Psm 96:13). God is
righteous and trustworthy. What this preacher did had already
violated the Lord’s demands. Could it be that when the Lord comes,
He will not judge her? Externally, she looked perfect, but in
reality, she was someone that did not have any reverence or fear for
the Lord. Is this someone that truly believes in the Lord? Could it
be that a Christian who has worked and suffered for the Lord will not
be convicted regardless of how great a sin she commits? These
successive problems made me want to understand just what judgment is
all about. When the Lord returns, how will He judge people? However,
in the end, I was unable to find the answer in the Bible.
Due to this
preacher, I came to know many Christian leaders. Through my
interactions with them, I could see that a great many of them lived
within sin and were unable to extricate themselves from it. They
sinned during the day and asked for forgiveness at night. They
brandished God’s name to collect money and afterward took it for
themselves so that they and their families could live a lavish
lifestyle. Some even had extramarital affairs which hollowed out
their marriages. Some even had divorces…. Verbally, they claimed to
obey the Lord’s way and that their priorities were God’s kingdom
and God’s righteousness. However, in practice, they were the same
as worldly people. They lusted after wealth, status and fame and they
lived despicable, dirty and evil lives. I was disgusted with what
they did and my heart was unable to approve of it.
Afterward, full
of hope, I went to a few other churches. However, the circumstances
of these churches and the believers in these churches were pretty
much the same as what I had seen in the past. I was very
disappointed. In addition, I was unable to live out the Lord’s
teachings. When interacting with my family members and friends, I
always got angry and got into arguments with them over small matters.
I would even judge others behind their backs. Basically, I was unable
to put patience and acceptance into practice. I could see that I
myself was living in sin and I had no way of extricating myself from
it. I felt very perplexed and I frequently thought, “If we continue
down this path of faith, this endless cycle of committing sins and
then asking forgiveness for them, when the Lord comes to judge
people, would we really be forgiven for our sins because of Jesus’
atonement and be able to enter the kingdom of heaven?” I felt this
may not be possible since I remember that the Bible said, “You
shall therefore be holy, for I am holy” (Lev 11:45). “Follow
peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the
Lord” (Heb 12:14). If man is not pure and holy, he is not qualified
to even see the Lord. Would the Lord let him into the kingdom of
heaven? This is like believing one’s own lies! Nobody was able to
answer my questions and it seemed that nobody was concerned about
them either. Furthermore, since I was continuously committing sins
and asking forgiveness for them, I felt ashamed to come before the
Lord. Gradually, I no longer wanted to go to church.
Just when I was
feeling desperate, one day in February, 2017, I met a sister online.
Listening to her talk about her acceptance of the Bible, I thought it
was very pure. She communicated with a lot of light and I felt very
happy that I had finally found a kindred spiritual sister. We talked
endlessly. Sometimes, we would not even realize that we had talked
for an entire afternoon. It never felt tiring. On the contrary, I
enjoyed it very much because each time I listened to this sister
communicate, I felt like I benefited a lot. One day, this sister told
me that the Lord had already returned, He is expressing new words and
doing His work of judgment beginning with God’s family, which
fulfills Jesus’ following words: “And if any man hear my
words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the
world, but to save the world. He that rejects me, and receives not my
words, has one that judges him: the word that I have spoken, the same
shall judge him in the last day” (Jhn 12:47-48). When I heard
this news, I was both shocked and happy. Our Jesus, whom we have been
expecting, has finally returned! In the past, when I was reading the
Bible, I envied the disciples that followed Jesus because they were
able to see the Lord face to face and listen to Him speak. What a
blessed opportunity! I never thought that I myself would have the
opportunity to welcome the returned Lord. Astonishingly, I also had
some worries: The Lord has returned to do His work of judgment. How
will the Lord judge people? How will the Lord judge me? I was very
anxious and I wanted to know the answer to these questions.
Thereupon, I
spoke out these questions that I had. The sister read two passages of
God’s words for me: “In the last days, Christ uses a variety
of truths to teach man, expose the essence of man, and dissect his
words and deeds. These words comprise various truths, such as man’s
duty, how man should obey God, how man should be loyal to God, how
man ought to live out the normal humanity, as well as the wisdom and
the disposition of God, and so on. These words are all directed at
the essence of man and his corrupt disposition. In particular, those
words that expose how man spurns God are spoken in regard to how man
is an embodiment of Satan and an enemy force against God. In
undertaking His work of judgment, God does not simply make clear the
nature of man with just a few words; He exposes, deals with, and
prunes it over the long term. These methods of exposure, dealing, and
pruning cannot be substituted with ordinary words, but with the truth
that man does not possess at all. Only methods of this kind are
deemed judgment; only through judgment of this kind can man be
subdued and thoroughly convinced into submission to God, and moreover
gain true knowledge of God. What the work of judgment brings about is
man’s understanding of the true face of God and the truth about his
own rebelliousness. The work of judgment allows man to gain much
understanding of the will of God, of the purpose of God’s work, and
of the mysteries that are incomprehensible to him. It also allows man
to recognize and know his corrupt substance and the roots of his
corruption, as well as to discover the ugliness of man. These effects
are all brought about by the work of judgment, for the substance of
this work is actually the work of opening up the truth, the way, and
the life of God to all those who have faith in Him. This work is the
work of judgment done by God” (“Christ Does the Work of
Judgment With the Truth” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “The
essence of God’s work of chastisement and judgment is to cleanse
humanity, and it is for the day of final rest. Otherwise, the whole
of humanity will not be able to follow their own kind or enter into
rest. This work is humanity’s only path to enter into rest. Only
God’s work of cleansing will cleanse humanity of their
unrighteousness, and only His work of chastisement and judgment will
bring to light those disobedient things among humanity, thereby
separating those who can be saved from those who cannot, and those
who will remain from those who will not” (“God and Man Will
Enter Into Rest Together” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).
After
she finished reading God’s words, the sister said, “During the
Age of Grace, the work of the Lord
Jesus is that of redemption, not of absolving man of his
sinful nature. That is why, even though we have been forgiven for our
sins, our nature of committing sins still resides within and we are
still capable of frequently expressing satanic corrupt disposition
such as arrogance, conceitedness, crookedness, treachery,
selfishness, greed, evil, etc. Due to the bindings and control of
satanic nature, we frequently live in and are unable to escape from
this endless cycle of committing sins and admitting to them.” The
sister asked me, “If we live in sin all the time, would we be
raptured into the kingdom of heaven?” I replied with certainty,
“No.” The sister nodded her head and said, “Correct. Those that
live in sin absolutely cannot enter the kingdom of heaven because God
is pure and holy. Why would God allow people who are filled with
satanic corrupt disposition and are not at all able to put the Lord’s
words into practice to enter into the kingdom of heaven? If this were
so, there is no way of letting people see God’s righteousness,
purity and holiness, nor would Satan be convinced. Therefore, in the
last days, God has done a stage of work of judgment through His words
on the foundation of Jesus’ redemption work. He has expressed the
truth of millions of words, revealed mysteries, exposed the truth and
essence of mankind’s corruption and also pointed a practical path
for man to walk, etc. The purpose of these truths is to cleanse and
change man’s life disposition so that we can attain salvation, and
perfection and so that we can be qualified to enter into God’s
kingdom. Additionally, the purpose of God’s judgment work is not
targeting any one specific person’s corruption. Instead, it targets
the entire human race’s nature and essence of resisting God and
betraying God in order to judge man. Through reading God’s words of
judgment, we are able to understand the truth of how we have been
corrupted by Satan and we can see clearly satanic poisons within us
as well as satanic nature of contradicting and resisting God. This is
similar to how externally, even though we are able to toil, work,
cast away and spend for God, a part of the results of our work are
immeasurably self-satisfied. We still lift up ourselves and bear
witness to ourselves so that others will regard us highly and look up
to us. When we have spent a bit for God, we try to enter into a deal
with God because we want to obtain God’s grace, blessings, rewards
and crowns. When we encounter unhappy situations or disasters, we
start to complain to God, misunderstand God and during serious times,
we are even able to betray God and leave God, etc. Within the
judgment of God’s words and revealing of facts, we are finally able
to have a true understanding and hatred of ourselves and thirst to no
longer live in these corrupt dispositions that cause God to detest
us. At the same time, we can see that God’s righteous disposition
does not tolerate offense and God’s pure and holy essence does not
tolerate tarnishes. We have corrupt dispositions and we should accept
God’s judgment. From this, we should generate hearts that revere
God. By experiencing many instances of this kind of judgment and
chastisement, we gradually cast away the bindings of our satanic
corrupt disposition. Our conscience and rationality is restored bit
by bit and we can live out a bit of the likeness of a genuine human
being. These are all results that can be obtained through God’s
judgment work of the last days.”
Listening
to God’s words and the sister’s communications, my heart felt
that everything suddenly became clear and I was benefiting immensely.
I understood that in the last days God does His work of judgment by
means of expressing the truth. He judges, cleanses and saves man with
His words. At this time, I deeply felt that this work of God was
truly practical and fantastic! Now, I finally understood. If we want
to enter into the kingdom of heaven, just experiencing Jesus’
redemption and having one’s sins pardoned is not enough. We must
also accept the work of judgment through His words that Jesus
returned to do. Only then will we be cleansed and saved. This is
the only path through which man can be saved and enter the kingdom of
heaven. I could not help but think of the following verses from the
Bible: “Sanctify them through your truth: your word is truth”
(Jhn 17:17). “Who are kept by the power of God through faith to
salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1Pe 1:5). At that
very moment, I felt all the confusion that I had carried up to that
point was lifted off my shoulders and my heart felt crystal clear. I
thought of what Jesus said: “I
am the way, the truth, and the life”
(Jhn 14:6). The truth can only come from God. Only God can express
the truth. I believe that the judgment work that Almighty
God has started doing begins with God’s family and that it is
the work of God. Almighty God is the returned Lord. Consequently, I
gladly accept Almighty God’s salvation of the last days.
Afterward,
I actively participated in gatherings and I eagerly read God’s
words. One day, I read the following passage: “I
decide the destination of each person not on the basis of age,
seniority, amount of suffering, and least of all, the degree to which
they invite pity, but according to whether they possess the truth.
There is no other choice but this. You must realize that all those
who do not follow the will of God will be punished. This is an
immutable fact. Therefore, all those who are punished are so punished
for the righteousness of God and as retribution for their numerous
evil acts”
(“You Ought to Prepare a Sufficiency of Good Deeds for Your
Destination” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “I
will have no sense of pity for those of you who suffer for many years
and work hard with nothing to show for it. On the contrary, I treat
those who have not met My demands with punishment, not rewards, still
less any sympathy. … I do not care how meritorious your hard work
is, how impressive your qualifications, how closely you follow Me,
how renowned you are, or how improved your attitude; so long as you
have not done what I have demanded, you will never be able to win My
praise. … for I cannot bring My enemies and people reeking of evil
on the model of Satan into My kingdom, into the next age”
(“Transgressions Will Take Man to Hell” in The Word Appears in
the Flesh). God’s words helped me understand that God is fair to
each and every person. God does not determine someone’s final
destination based on their external spending. Instead, it is based on
whether someone has the truth and whether they comply with God’s
way. God is indeed very righteous! Only God
Himself can reveal such a righteous disposition. After
reading Almighty God’s words, I associated those words with
something that Jesus once said: “Not
every one that said to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom
of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father which is in heaven”
(Mat 7:21). Before, I believed that those who toiled and worked for
the Lord and those who paid a big price and suffered a lot, when the
Lord returns to do His work of judgment, God would definitely treat
them leniently. Now, I learned that this was completely my own notion
and imagination. It is an erroneous way of accepting it and it
basically is not in accordance with God’s intentions. Today,
Almighty God has opened up His own work, His disposition and His
intentions to us. This was when I understand the inner meaning of
what Jesus said. This is truly God’s
blessing!
What made me
even happier was, after I accepted Almighty God’s work for a period
of time, I could see that God’s words of judgment and chastisement
were indeed able to resolve my problem of committing sins. In the
past, Jesus taught us that we must be tolerant and patient to others,
however, I was unable to put this into practice. After reading
Almighty God’s words and accepting God’s judgment and
chastisement, I recognized that the reason I was unable to put these
things into practice was because I was being controlled by my
arrogant and conceited satanic nature. I realized that I was full of
hubris, my gaze was always fixated on others and I always looked down
upon others. Through God’s words of judgment and chastisement, I
came to realize the truth of how I was corrupted by Satan. In fact, I
was no different from anybody else. We were all crooked, treacherous,
selfish, despicable and only out for profit. We had every kind of
corrupt disposition. I was also someone who had been corrupted deeply
by Satan and I had no humanity and rationality. The more I received
God’s judgment, the more I could see that I was impoverished,
pathetic and insignificant, and the more I saw that God was pure,
holy, great and supreme. I no longer wanted to be so egotistical and
look down upon others. When I interacted with those around me, I was
able to treat them properly. In this way, I was not relying on
practicing external self-control and patience. Instead, from my
heart, I had more understanding, tolerance and forgiveness for
others. I understand that actually, everybody is living within
satanic corrupt disposition. We are all victims. It is Satan who has
corrupted us. At the same time, I was a little more grateful toward
God. It is Almighty God’s work of judgment that has brought us to
the path of changing our disposition and the opportunity of attaining
cleansing and salvation!
Through
experiencing Almighty God’s judgment and chastisement work, I can
see that God’s work of saving man is very practical! In the past,
when I believed in the Lord, I sought to become holy but I did not
have a path. My sins became more and more serious. Aside from praying
to the Lord and asking the Lord for forgiveness, in terms of our
essence of committing sins, we were the same as those who do not
believe in God. God has incarnated to
do His work of judgment in order to resolve our essence of committing
sins. This is the work that Jesus wants to do when He returns in the
last days. It completely fulfills the prophecies in the Bible
involving the
Son of man doing the work of judgment in the last days. Even
though it has not been a long time since I had accepted God’s work
of the last days, however, through reading God’s words and
experiencing God’s work, I feel that when I accept God’s words of
judgment and chastisement, reflect upon myself based on God’s
words, seek to understand God and put God’s words into practice, I
am able to attain a change in my disposition. Seeking to the very end
in this manner, one can definitely attain cleansing and salvation and
be allowed by God to enter God’s kingdom. At this moment, it is as
if I can already see the beautiful sight of life in the kingdom.
Thank God! May
all the glory belong to Almighty God!
