Bible Verses for Reference:

“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

“And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on My name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is My people: and they shall say, Jehovah is my God” (Zechariah 13:9).

“And Jehovah said to Satan, Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that fears God, and eschews evil? Then Satan answered Jehovah, and said, Does Job fear god for nothing? Have not you made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. But put forth your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will renounce you to your face. And Jehovah said to Satan, Behold, all that he has is in your power; only on himself put not forth your hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of Jehovah” (Job 1:8–12).

“Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down on the ground, and worshiped, And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: Jehovah gave, and Jehovah has taken away; blessed be the name of Jehovah” (Job 1:20–21).

“Then said his wife to him, Do you still retain your integrity? renounce god, and die. But he said to her, You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive adversity? In all this did not Job sin with his lips” (Job 2:9–10).

Relevant Words of God:

When God works—when God cares for a person and scrutinizes them, and when He finds them worthy and approves of them—Satan trails closely behind, trying to mislead and grievously harm them. Since God wishes to gain this person, Satan does everything in its power to get in the way, using various wicked methods to tempt, disturb, and damage the work of God, in order to achieve its unspeakable objective. What is this objective? It does not want God to gain anyone; it wants to snatch away those whom God intends to gain, so that it can occupy them, control them, and take charge of them, so that they worship it and join it in doing evil to resist God. Is this not Satan’s sinister motive? You often say that Satan is so wicked, so bad, but have you seen it? You can see how bad mankind is; you have not seen how bad the real Satan is. Yet in the matter of Job, you have clearly observed just how wicked Satan is. This matter has made Satan’s hideous countenance and its essence very clear. In warring with God, and trailing along behind Him, Satan’s objective is to demolish all the work God wants to do, and to occupy and control those whom God wants to gain. It wants to completely destroy those whom God wants to gain, or to possess them and use them if they are not destroyed. This is its objective.

—The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique IV

Every step of work that God does on people externally appears to be interactions between people, as if born of human arrangements or from human disturbance. But behind every step of work, and everything that happens, is a wager made by Satan before God, and they require people to stand firm in their testimony for God. Take when Job was tried, for example: Behind the scenes, Satan was making a wager with God, and what Job was faced with was the actions and disturbances of people. Behind every step of work that God does on you is Satan’s wager with God—behind it is a battle. … When God and Satan do battle in the spiritual realm, how should you satisfy God, and how should you stand firm in your testimony for Him? You should know that everything that happens to you is a great trial and the time when God needs you to bear witness. Though they may seem insignificant from the outside, when these things happen, they show whether or not you love God. If you do, you will be able to stand firm in your testimony for Him, and if you have not practiced loving God, this shows you are not someone who puts the truth into practice, that you are without the truth, and without life, that you are chaff! In everything that happens to people, God needs them to stand firm in their testimony for Him. Though nothing major is happening to you at the moment and you do not bear great testimony, all the details of your daily life relate to testimony to God. If you can win the admiration of your brothers and sisters, your family members, and everyone around you; if, one day, the nonbelievers come, and admire all that you do, and see that all that God does is wonderful, then this will be your testimony. Although you have no insight and your caliber is poor, through God’s perfection of you, you are able to satisfy Him and be considerate of His intentions, showing others what great work He has done on people of the poorest caliber. When people come to know God and become overcomers before Satan, loyal to God to a great extent, then none has more backbone than this group of people, and this is the greatest testimony. Although you are incapable of doing great work, you are able to satisfy God. Others cannot let go of their notions, but you can; others cannot bear witness to God during their actual experiences, but you can use your actual stature and actions to repay God’s love and bear resounding witness for Him. Only this counts as actually loving God. If you are incapable of this, then you do not bear witness among your family members, among your brothers and sisters, or before the people of the world. If you cannot bear witness before Satan, Satan will laugh at you, it will treat you as a joke, as a plaything, and it will often make a fool of you and throw your mind into disorder. In the future, great trials may come upon you—but today, if you love God with a true heart, and if, regardless of how great the trials ahead, irrespective of what happens to you, you are able to stand firm in your testimony and are able to satisfy God, then your heart will be comforted, and you will be unafraid no matter how great the trials you encounter in the future. You cannot see what will happen in the future; you can only satisfy God in today’s circumstances. You are incapable of doing any great work—you should focus on satisfying God by experiencing His words in real life, and you should bear strong and resounding witness and thus bring shame upon Satan. Although your flesh will not have found satisfaction and will have suffered, you will have satisfied God and brought shame upon Satan. If you always practice in this way, God will open up a path before you. When, one day, a great trial comes, others will fall down, but you will still be able to stand firm: Because of the price you have paid, God will protect you so you can stand firm and not fall down. If, ordinarily, you are able to put the truth into practice and satisfy God with a genuine God-loving heart, then God will surely protect you during future trials. Though you are foolish and of small stature and poor caliber, God will not be biased against you. It depends on whether your intents are right. Suppose that today, you are able to satisfy God—being exacting even when it comes to small, detailed matters, and satisfying God in all things—you have a genuine God-loving heart, you give your true heart to God, and although there are some things that you cannot see clearly, you can come before God to rectify your intents and seek God’s intentions, and you do everything to satisfy God. And though your brothers and sisters might reject you, your heart is satisfying God, and you are not coveting the pleasures of the flesh. If you always practice in this way, you will be protected when great trials come upon you.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Only Loving God Is Truly Believing in God

If many things come upon you that do not align with your notions but yet you are able to let them go and gain knowledge of God’s deeds from these things, and in the midst of refinements reveal your God-loving heart, then this is standing firm in your testimony. If your home is peaceful, you enjoy comforts of the flesh, no one is persecuting you, and your brothers and sisters in the church obey you, can your God-loving heart be revealed? Can this situation refine you? It is only through refinement that your God-loving heart can be shown, and it is only through things occurring that do not align with your notions that you can be perfected. With the service of many negative things, and by employing all sorts of Satan’s manifestations—its actions, its accusations, its disturbances and misleading—God shows you Satan’s hideous face clearly, and thereby gives you the ability to discern Satan, so that you may hate Satan and rebel against it.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Those Who Are to Be Made Perfect Must Undergo Refinement

Everything that God does is truly necessary and possessed of extraordinary significance, for all that He does on man concerns His management and the salvation of mankind. Naturally, the work that God did on Job is no different, even though Job was perfect and upright in the eyes of God. In other words, regardless of what God does or the means by which He does it, regardless of the cost, regardless of His objective, the purpose of His actions does not change. His purpose is to work God’s words into man, as well as God’s requirements and intentions for man; in other words, it is to work into man all that God believes to be positive things in accordance with His steps, enabling man to understand God’s heart and to understand and comprehend God’s essence, and enabling man to submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangements, thus allowing man to attain fear of God and shunning of evil—all of this is one aspect of God’s purpose in all He does. The other aspect is that, because Satan is the foil and service object in God’s work, man is often given to Satan; this is the means God uses to allow people to see in Satan’s temptations and attacks the wickedness, ugliness, and despicableness of Satan, thus causing people to hate Satan and be able to know and discern negative things. This process allows them to gradually free themselves from Satan’s control, accusations, disturbances, and attacks—until, thanks to God’s words, their knowledge of God, their submission to God, their faith in God, and their fear of God, they completely triumph over the attacks and accusations of Satan; only then will they have been thoroughly delivered from the power of Satan. People’s deliverance means that Satan’s defeat has been declared, it means that they are no longer the food in Satan’s mouth, that they are no longer to be devoured by Satan, and that they have instead been relinquished by Satan. This is because such people are upright, because they have faith in, submission to, and fear of God, and because they have made a complete break with Satan. They bring shame upon Satan, they make a coward of Satan, and they utterly defeat Satan. Their faith in following God, and submission to and fear of God defeat Satan, and make Satan completely give them up. Only people such as this have truly been gained by God, and this is God’s ultimate objective in saving man. For all who follow God, if they wish to be saved, and wish to be completely gained by God, then they must face temptations and attacks both great and small from Satan. Those who emerge from these temptations and attacks and are able to completely triumph over Satan are those who have been saved. This is to say, those who have been saved by God are those who have undergone God’s trials, and who have been tempted and attacked by Satan an untold number of times. Those who have been saved by God understand God’s intentions and requirements, and are able to submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangements, and they do not renounce the way of fearing God and shunning evil amid Satan’s temptations. Those who have been saved by God possess honesty, they are kindhearted, they differentiate between love and hate, they have a sense of justice and are rational, and they are able to show consideration for God and treasure all that is of God. Such people are not bound, spied upon, accused, or grievously harmed by Satan; they are completely free, they have been completely liberated and released. Job was just such a man of freedom, and this is precisely the significance of God handing him over to Satan.

—The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God’s Work, God’s Disposition, and God Himself II

During the work of God’s abiding provision and support of man, He tells the entirety of His intentions and requirements to man, and shows His deeds, disposition, and what He has and is to man. The objective is to equip man with stature, and to allow man to gain various truths from God while following Him—truths that are the powerful weapons given to man by God with which to fight Satan. Thus equipped, man must face God’s tests. God has many means and avenues for testing man, but every one of them requires the “cooperation” of God’s enemy: Satan. This is to say, having given man powerful weapons with which to do battle with Satan, God hands man over to Satan and allows Satan to “test” man’s stature. If man can break out from the battle formations that Satan has set up, if he can escape Satan’s encirclement and still live, then man will have passed the test. But if man fails to leave Satan’s battle formations, and is subdued by Satan, then he will not have passed the test. Whatever aspect of man God tests, the criteria for His tests are whether or not man stands firm in his testimony when attacked by Satan, and whether or not he renounces God and capitulates and surrenders to Satan while ensnared by Satan. It may be said that whether or not man can be saved depends on whether he can overcome and defeat Satan, and whether or not he can gain freedom depends on whether he is able to wield, on his own, the weapons given to him by God to overcome Satan’s bondage, making Satan completely abandon hope and relinquish him. If Satan abandons hope and relinquishes someone, this means that Satan will never again try to take this person from God, will never again accuse and disturb this person, will never again wantonly torture or attack them; only someone such as this will truly have been gained by God. This is the entire process by which God gains a person.

—The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God’s Work, God’s Disposition, and God Himself II