130-A-8

There are some people who take believing in God and entering the kingdom of heaven to be simple, but this is indulging in fantasy. Once you hear me discuss this today, you may say: “Is something amiss here? Is entering the kingdom of heaven truly this difficult? In believing in God, is it really so difficult to be gained by God? Is it as complicated as what you say? Is God really not content with us believing in Him so purely and simply? Does He demand that we seek the truth in order to know Him? So, if we do not seek the truth and just continue to believe, will that be fine? We are still able to spend for God, and to bear witness to Him—will this also not do? Is this still not enough?” How can these things be explained? Can you explain them? It is just that once God’s work does not conform to people’s notions, people are unable to be obedient to Him. For example, when people encounter a trial, it is not easy for them to be obedient. In the Age of Law, the people of Israel chose their king, and the first whom they chose was Saul. He was a tall man, taller than others by a head, and the people of Israel said, “We will be tremendous if we choose this kind of a man. How would either the Philistines or Gentiles dare to come attack Israel?” As a result, they chose him as their leader, and the victories they won were not many, and neither did Saul have much ability. The Philistines had a person among them who was a giant, who would be measured as more than three meters using today’s measurements. Even if many people gathered together they could not defeat him, and the Israelites were scared to death. “Who can defeat this giant!” And what was the result? When they were all terrified and dared not go out to do battle, David entered the field of war, and with just one small motion he flung a rock which toppled the giant over. And after that, he did not get back up. When the Israelites saw this, they said, “Oh! This David is so fierce! His height is not so tall, and he looks unremarkable. Why is he this fierce? It seems that the person God has chosen is of good quality, and that man, Saul, whom we chose is not capable.” What else is explained through this matter? People cannot rely on the imaginary notions to consider the work of God. They say, concerning God taking on the flesh, “This person looks quite unremarkable; how can he be the incarnate Christ? How can he be the appearance of God?” Can this kind of consideration work or not? This is not something that you can measure. People’s two eyes cannot see further than two miles, and you cannot see even an inch of the spiritual world. Is that not so? At your side many spirits are watching, but can you know this? Aliens may be at your side, and could you know this? You cannot see anything. So you must not measure the work of God by relying on your imaginary notions, it is impossible in your eyes, but it is possible in the eyes of God. When God does things, it is in order to fight back against people’s notions—everywhere to fight back against your notions—and there is no place where He does not fight back against your notions. In the end He conquers you, defeats you. He causes you to renew your knowledge of God and not again to rely on the imaginary notions of people to know God. When people reach the point of truly being conquered, God does another new thing. God asks people, “Do you still have any notions?” “There are none; whatever God does, we will be obedient.” God says, “Look, are these words the word of God?” “They are.” “Do they or do they not accord with your notions?” “They do not.” “If they do not, then how do you still say that they are God’s words?” “They are absolutely.” Whatever God does we acknowledge, whatever God does we obey, and there are none of man’s imaginary notions. Is this or is this not having been conquered? So is the process of God conquering people the same process as fighting against the brood of Satan? After having been conquered, people begin to seek the truth, and once they pursue the truth the time of formally being cleansed begins. People’s imaginary notions, their disobedience, their nature, and their satanic disposition are all revealed, and they are all cleansed one by one. They must all be cleansed by means of the truth, and after they are cleansed, people are perfected. The truth becomes people’s life, and God’s word becomes man’s love and faith; it all enacts its practical function and attains to its result. This group of people who have experienced the judgment before the seat of Christ and are purified, saved, and perfected will be the people of the kingdom. God works in such practical ways. God’s work is just this normal, and there is nothing supernatural about it, nor are there any marvelous signs and wonders. In the end, God’s word accomplishes everything: The judgment of God’s word produces the result of judging man; the cleansing of God’s word produces the result of cleansing man; the perfecting of God’s word produces the result that “His word becomes man’s faith, His word becomes man’s love, and His word becomes man’s life.” Having experienced this course, this is being raptured to enter the kingdom of heaven. There are some people who say, “We were raptured ten years ago, twenty years ago. But how have we still not entered the kingdom of heaven? When people have achieved their cleansing, they have obtained the truth, and this means they are in the kingdom of heaven. Some people say, “The great calamity has not yet befallen!” When the great calamity has not yet befallen, you are in the kingdom of heaven, and when it occurs, you are still in the kingdom of heaven. Why? No matter what calamity befalls the earth, you do not die, for you have gained life. That is merely a matter of a course of events. Is it this way or not? There are people who say, “I have obtained the truth. So, am I guaranteed not to die when the great calamity befalls?” “Correct, you are guaranteed not to die.” “Do you dare to guarantee this?” “I dare to guarantee it.” “Well, those who have not obtained the truth are still alive now, are they not?” “They will not be able to live. Death is near at hand for them, and they do not know it. They are doomed to die, and if you have genuinely obtained the truth, you are guaranteed not to die.” “On what basis are you speaking?” Is there a basis in the word of God that we just read? Therein are many bases, and they are indeed the final phrases in this passage of the word of God: “You fool and deceive Me, you play with the truth, and conceal the existence of the truth, and betray the substance of the truth, and you place yourselves in such enmity to Me. So what awaits you in the future?” Continue reading: “You merely seek compatibility with a vague God, and merely seek a vague belief, yet you are not compatible with Christ. Will not your maleficence receive the same retribution as that deserved by the wicked?” Are these words not a basis? God says, “When that day arrives, your dreams of being blessed for your belief in God, and of gaining entry to heaven, shall all be shattered. It is, however, not so for those who are compatible with Christ. Though they have lost so much, though they have suffered a lot of hardship, they shall receive all of the inheritance that I shall bequeath to mankind. Ultimately, you will understand that only I am the righteous God, and that only I am capable of taking mankind into his beautiful destination.” In the above there are many words that can be used as a basis for this. These words of God will be fulfilled, and they will all come to be true. Do you understand? Believing in Almighty God is the path to entering the kingdom of heaven, for certain, but if you do not pursue the truth, will you be able to obtain it? If people, in the very end, are not able to attain compatibility with Christ, what will be their ending? God made all these words and this path be clearly spoken. The ending of every kind of person has been clearly spoken, and what phrase of the Bible has come true here? “Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:12). When the last days come, God begins the winnowing. The winnowing is separating the seeds from the chaff, while the chaff is blown away and scattered by the wind, yet the seeds are gathered in the granary; this is the meaning of winnowing, and this is the result of the winnowing. Now is it or is it not that each follows along according to its class? As for those people in religion? They are finished, they all go down into hell, they are exterminated! The great city of religion, Babylon, topples over, and they do not emerge from there and all die there. Can this be said?

There was one time when I asked God about such a phrase, and I said, “In the Age of Grace, those people of old who spread the gospel, those people of renown, did not accept this stage of the work of God in the end. Among those people were some whose moral quality was quite good, and who were quite faithful, but when this stage of work came upon them, they just died in that way. Can their ending really be like that?” God said, “Did they accept this stage of the work?” I said, “They did not accept it.” God said, “Their career of believing in God ended, they were eliminated, and all their labors were then of no use. Their prestige, though great, was without use. If they did not accept this stage of the work, they are then of the ilk of Satan; they are all people who resist God. Why was it that they did not accept this stage of the work? Because they did not acknowledge God’s word as the truth, they did not acknowledge the reality of God becoming flesh, and this is resisting God. Tell me, in the Age of Grace, did they observe the name of the Lord Jesus? It appears they did not resist the Lord Jesus, but when the Spirit of the Lord Jesus came, it was the Spirit of truth again having put on an ordinary flesh, yet still they did not acknowledge this, nor did they accept this. Is this or is this not resisting the Lord Jesus?” I said, “Were these people thoroughly ruined?” God said, “They were thoroughly ruined. Eternally, they will not have a chance to come back to life, and they will not ever again have the opportunity to be raised up before God to obtain the approval of God. Their ending has been determined.” How about those who have not yet died? If they still do not accept this now, the great calamity will befall and they will be destroyed, they will all be destroyed! There are a few persons within the religion who do not know this matter. If they do not know Almighty God’s work in the last days, but they are quite devout, God will take pity on people like them. All people who have condemned Almighty God will be destroyed and completely dead! “Whoever resists will die!” This phrase is the word of God. When God had finished speaking, there were people who did not comprehend, and I asked, “Does this need to have some explanatory comments added?” God said, “It does not need to have anything added. Regardless of what they say, do not add anything else, whether they accept it or not. If they do not accept it, they will die.” God spoke this way. There are some people there inspecting the true way, coming and going in doubt, just coming and going in doubt. For a while they accept it; for a while they think the way is correct; for a while they think that is impossible; for a while they again are not thus; for a while they are obedient; for a while they are in opposition. Resembling those roly-poly toys, they persistently wonder about this. Tell me, when you see God’s word, do you doubt it? The word of God is the truth; can you doubt this? If you can doubt even the truth, then how do you believe? You are a person with no belief. Some people say, “I acknowledge that the word of God is correct, but I do not know the Church of Almighty God. I cannot see through it, and I dare not come into contact with these people.” It is finished. If you deny the Church of Almighty God, then you are a person who denies God, and you are a person who resists God. God works upon these people, God makes use of them, God dispatches them, and if you have doubt concerning them, are you not doubting God? You doubt the Church of Almighty God, you do not believe in the Church of Almighty God, so can the Church admit you? You doubt the Church of Almighty God, and this is essentially the same as doubting God, so you can more or less draw an equal sign between the two, because you do not acknowledge that God has chosen and called these people! You only acknowledge those devout Christians in the religion, and do not acknowledge those of the Church of Almighty God who have experienced the judgment before the seat of Christ and been conquered by the word of God. You do not believe the witness borne by these people, and still doubt these people. You are there doubting the work of God, you think that people who are gained by God in His work are not necessarily good people, and you think that those people who believe in God are not all necessarily good people, which means you deny that God’s word is the truth, deny that God is the God of righteousness. Is it not so? Herein it appears that there is no great problem, but in reality the problem is very serious. Here, in people’s faith, is there a problem? Gentiles often say one phrase: “Within one thought.” Sometimes they do or do not accept the true way within one thought, sometimes they are able or unable to be obedient to God within one thought, sometimes they are defeated and stumble within one thought, sometimes success and failure are also within one thought. The most serious of all is that sometimes people’s life and death are within one thought, that within this one thought their destiny is decided. In such a small amount of time, victory or defeat comes out of this, and their ending is revealed. “Within one thought” is too crucial. There are some people whom, upon having accepted this, Satan comes and subjects to a test. It arrives suddenly, and they follow Satan. Within one thought they collapse. There are some people who, upon doubting, want to leave, but before they have left, they hear one phrase of the word of God; once the brothers and sisters bear witness, they say, “I believe this is the word of God, I accept it.” Just a moment ago they wanted to revert, but this time they accept. After they accept it, they go through a period of time of being watered, of reading the word of God, then they are certain this is the true way, and they have not gone back. In the very end they are gained by God; is this or is this not within one thought? There are some people who suddenly have a calamity befall their family, and there are some people who are suddenly seized by the great red dragon. Within one thought their end is decided; is this or is this not the reality? And there are people who say, “Are things really so random?” They are random, but there must also be some kind of connection. If a person, in their nature, does not love the truth, then this one thought is very critical. If they have the truth then this question would not exist, is it not so? This test is not necessarily of a dangerous character. For people who do not have the truth, every matter is within one thought, because the possibility of them betraying God is still one hundred percent. So whether one will examine the true way, within one thought; whether one can stand firm, within one thought; how to face a trial, within one thought; whether one can depart from God, within one thought—if a person does not have the truth then it is just this random. If a person has the truth, the problem is not that severe, and they can stand firm, and the tests of Satan will be nothing difficult to deal with, nor will the rumors and lies of Satan when they befall be anything difficult to deal with. One phrase will be able to unmask their real nature, and their essence, and one phrase will see through the schemes of Satan, and Satan will be ashamed at that one phrase. See, does “within one thought” still exist? The nature of the test is reduced considerably in severity. Once you obtain the truth you will then be considered to be secure, and if you do not have the truth you will seem like a newborn baby, a premature birth, still needing to be put in the incubator. The time when an infant is put in the incubator is the most dangerous of all, and it is hard to tell if it will live or die. So as for new believers, can you guarantee that you yourselves will not be tested, or that you are totally able to stand firm when faced with whatever test? Who can guarantee this? In the face of Satan’s rumors, you are all there still wavering and indecisive, still unable to see through them, thinking: “True or no

t? True or not? How do I find this out?” Find out what? Look at the word of God. If this is indeed the word of God and the work of God, what else should you find out? Even if, in the church, there are some people who are fake believers or who are condemned and eliminated by God, that does not represent God, nor does it represent the Church of Almighty God. The family of God is controlled by the truth, the Holy Spirit controls it, Christ controls it. You have not seen through this matter either. When an evil person or an unbeliever appears in the church, can he represent the church? Does it mean that he is one of the chosen people of God? The word of God says that He will eliminate people, that a great wind will befall people, and many people will be blown and scattered by the wind; do you not know these words? Some people do not believe the word of God, so they do not read the word of God; they just rely on people’s brains to ponder this, to ponder it that way, or to think it over in this way, or to reason about it in this way, and this is useless! If you find that the word of Almighty God is one hundred percent the truth, it is the word of God, then no doubt the people of the Church of Almighty God are God’s chosen. What, then, is there in this that can be doubted? When a few false leaders or antichrists appear, most of them must be expelled, and they are not able to stand firm. The Church of Almighty God expels the antichrists and evil people, and that is not a matter that only exists now. In these past ten or twenty years, it has been continuously expelling people, and up to now it is no fewer than three or five hundred thousand people. If you come into contact with people of the Church of Almighty God, and you discover an evil person, you say, “This person cannot stand firm, and sooner or later he will be eliminated, certainly.” What about within the religion? Within the religion is there still now this matter of expelling people? They offer shelter to any and all, even such shoddy goods as these people, and are continuously entrapping people, afraid that their numbers are few and afraid that people will leave and their pastors will have no earnings. So as long as one can dedicate wealth, they will give him blessing; as long as one can offer money, he is considered good. They entrap people, they do not expel people. The Church of Almighty God is unceasingly expelling evil people, unceasingly accepting new believers. Then you say, which church is the true church? Which church truly believes in God? Which church is the one controlled by the truth? Which church is the one that is truly blessed by God? These things you cannot all see through, and what are you still doing there researching? You think that your brain functions well, but brains of science do not even come close to pertaining to belief in God. Scientists’ research is unable to know God, so what are you still researching? You must hurriedly read the word of God, and in the word of God it says that evil people must all be eliminated. So look around, how are those evil people in the family of God to be eliminated? Which kinds of people should be expelled and when should they be expelled? Everything is there in the word of God—it is also there in the work arrangements of the family of God. The people expelled from the family of God in these past twenty or thirty years are all recorded in accounts, and when any shepherding district expels someone it announces and preserves this. Whichever shepherding district it may be, they have all expelled several tens of thousands of people. If they are really evil or indecent people, who are not fit to enter the Church of Almighty God, then the church does not admit them. So as the people who accept the gospel are very many, they must all be investigated, and those who meet the standard will be admitted while those who do not meet the standard will not be admitted. The Church of Almighty God disseminates the books of God’s word, and this is all for free. When some brothers and sisters have difficulties, or when there are challenges in their lives, or when they have no food to eat, other brothers and sisters will help them; when there is food, everybody will eat together. Just look—is there any other church like this on earth? This is the church formed by people obtained by God in doing the work of the last days, and they truly love each other. The family of God has never called for people to give offerings, and whichever leader or worker ever emphasizes giving offerings, we should then dismiss and replace him, for he is not fit to serve God. God does not force anybody to do anything, and if people who are in the early stages of their faith give offerings, the family of God does not accept them. After believing for one year, they will understand the truth. If they go through prayer many times, then they may give offerings. What the chosen people of God have consecrated and given to God is very much, and it cannot be returned. Some people say, “If you do not accept my money, that is the same as expelling me”; there are some people who are expelled and are still giving offerings, there are some people who bite off the tips of their fingers to sign in blood. “Expulsion is not departing from God!” What kind of witness is this? This is a witness of having been conquered by God, and even in death they acknowledge God. Is this found in religion? You cannot see this witness, and you still investigate the Church of Almighty God!