In God’s eyes, people are like the animals in the animal world. They fight with each other, slaughter each other, and have extraordinary interactions with each other. In God’s eyes, they are also like apes, scheming against one another regardless of age or gender. As such, all that the whole of mankind does and manifests has never been in line with God’s intentions. The time that God covers His face is precisely when people all over the world are tested. All people groan in pain, they all live under the threat of catastrophe, and not a single one of them has ever escaped from God’s judgment. Actually, God’s primary aim in becoming flesh is to judge man and condemn him in His flesh. In God’s mind, it has long since been decided who, in accordance with their substance, shall be saved or destroyed, and this shall be gradually made plain during the final phase. As the days and months pass, people change and their original form is revealed. It becomes apparent whether there is a chicken or a duck in the egg when it cracks open. The time when the egg breaks is the very time that the disasters on earth shall come to an end. From this it can be seen that, in order to know whether there is a “chicken” or a “duck” inside, the “egg” must be broken open. This is the plan in God’s heart, and it must be accomplished.

“Poor, pitiable mankind! Why is it that man loves Me, but is unable to follow the intentions of My Spirit?” Because of this state of man, he must undergo being pruned in order to satisfy God’s intentions. And because of God’s loathing for mankind, He has proclaimed many times: “Oh the rebels of all mankind! They must be crushed beneath My feet; they must vanish amid My chastisement, and they must, on the day on which My great enterprise is completed, be cast out from among mankind, so that the whole of mankind knows their ugly face.” God is speaking to all mankind in the flesh, and He is also speaking to Satan in the spiritual realm, which is above the entire universe. This is the intention of God, and this is what is to be achieved by God’s 6,000-year plan.

In truth, God is especially normal, and there are some things that can only be accomplished if He carries them out in person and sees them with His own eyes. It is not as people imagine, God does not lie there whilst all goes as He wishes; this is the consequence of Satan’s disturbance in people, which makes people unclear about God’s true face. As such, during the final age, God has become flesh to openly reveal His practicality to man, without hiding anything. Some descriptions of God’s disposition are pure exaggeration, such as when it is said that God can annihilate the world with a single word or the slightest thought. As a result, most people say things like, Why is it that God is omnipotent, but cannot swallow Satan in a single mouthful? These words are absurd, and show that people still do not know God. For God to annihilate His enemies requires a process, yet it is true to say that God is all-victorious: God shall ultimately defeat His enemies. Just as when a strong country defeats a weak one, it must achieve victory itself, step-by-step, sometimes using force, sometimes using strategy. There is a process, but it cannot be said that, since the strong country has new-generation nuclear weapons and the weak country is far inferior, the weak country will give up without a fight. That is an absurd argument. It is fair to say that the strong country is sure to win and the weak country is sure to lose, but the strong country can only be said to have greater force when it personally invades the weak country. Thus, God has always said that man does not know Him. So, do the words above represent one side of why man does not know God? Are these the notions of man? Why does God ask only that man know His practicality, and thus became flesh in person? Thus, most people devoutly worshiped Heaven, yet “Heaven has never been the slightest bit affected by the actions of man, and if My treatment of man were based on his every action, then the whole of mankind would live amid My chastisement.”

God sees through to man’s substance. In God’s utterances, God seems so “tormented” by man that He has no interest in paying any more attention to man, nor the slightest hope in him; man, it would seem, is beyond salvation. “I have seen many people with tears coursing down their cheeks, and I have seen many people offer up their hearts in exchange for My riches. Despite such ‘piousness,’ I have never freely given My all to man as a result of his sudden urges, for man has never been gladly willing to devote himself before Me.” When God reveals man’s nature, man is ashamed of himself, but this is but superficial knowledge, and he is incapable of truly knowing his nature in God’s words; thus, most people do not understand God’s intentions, they cannot find a path for their life in God’s words, and so the more dull-witted they are, the more severely God mocks them. Thus, they unconsciously enter into the role of hideousness—and as a result, they come to know themselves as they are stabbed by the “soft sword.” God’s words appear to applaud man’s deeds, and to encourage man’s deeds—and yet people always feel that God is ridiculing them. And so, when they read God’s words, the muscles in their faces twitch from time to time, as if they are convulsing. This is the impurity of their consciences, and it is because of this that they twitch involuntarily. Their pain is the sort in which they want to laugh, yet they cannot—nor can they cry, for people’s farcical manner is played on the remote control “VCR,” yet they cannot switch it off, but can only endure. Though “focusing on God’s words” is preached during all co-worker meetings, who knows not the nature of the spawn of the great red dragon? Face-to-face, they are as obedient as lambs, but when backs are turned they are as savage as wolves, which can be seen in God’s words that “many people genuinely love Me when I provide My words, yet do not cherish My words in their spirits, instead casually using them like public property and tossing them back to where they came from whenever they feel like it.” Why has God always exposed man? This shows that man’s old nature has never budged an inch. Like Mount Tai, it stands tall in hundreds of millions of people’s hearts, but the day will come when Yu Gong^[a] moves that mountain; this is the plan of God. In His utterances, there is not a moment when God does not make requirements of man, warn man, or point out man’s nature which is revealed in his life: “When man is distant from Me, and when he tests Me, I hide Myself from him among the clouds. As a result, he is unable to find any trace of Me, and lives only by the hand of the evil, doing all that they ask.” In reality, people rarely have the opportunity to live in God’s presence, because they have too little desire for seeking; as a result, although most people love God, they live under the hand of the evil one, and all that they do is directed by the evil one. If people truly lived in the light of God, seeking God at every moment of every day, there would be no need for God to speak like this, would there? When people put the texts aside, they immediately put God aside together with the book, and so they concern themselves with their own business, after which God disappears from their hearts. Yet when they pick up the book again, it suddenly occurs to them that they had put God to the back of their minds. Such is man’s life “without memory.” The more God speaks, the higher His words. When they reach their peak, all of the work is concluded, and as a result, God ceases His utterances. The principle by which God works is to conclude His work when it reaches its pinnacle; He does not continue working once it has reached its pinnacle, but abruptly stops. He never does work that is unnecessary.

Footnotes:

a. Yu Gong, also known as “Old Man Yu,” is a legendary figure in Chinese folklore. The story of Yu removing the mountains represents perseverance in the face of a seemingly impossible task.