God has entrusted much to humans and has also addressed their entry in countless ways. But because people’s caliber is considerably poor, many of God’s words have failed to take root. There are various reasons for this poor caliber, such as the corruption of human thought and morality, and a lack of proper upbringing; feudal superstitions that have seriously taken hold of the heart of man; depraved and decadent lifestyles that have lodged many ills in the deepest corners of the human heart; a superficial grasp of cultural literacy, with almost ninety-eight percent of the people lacking education in cultural literacy and, what is more, very few receiving higher levels of cultural education. Therefore, people basically have no idea what is meant by God or the Spirit, but have only a vague and unclear image of God acquired from feudal superstitions. Pernicious influences that thousands of years of “the lofty spirit of nationalism” have left deep in the human heart, as well as the feudal thinking by which people are bound and chained, without an iota of freedom, with no will to aspire or persevere, no desire to make progress, remaining instead passive and regressive, entrenched in a slave mentality, and so on—these objective factors have imparted an indelibly filthy and ugly cast to the ideological outlook, ideals, morality, and disposition of humanity. Humans, it would seem, are living in a dark world of terrorism, which none among them seeks to transcend, and none among them thinks of moving on to an ideal world; rather, they are content with their lot in life, to spend their days bearing and raising children, striving, sweating, going about their chores, dreaming of a comfortable and happy family, and dreaming of conjugal affection, of filial children, of joy in their twilight years as they peacefully live out their lives…. For tens, thousands, tens of thousands of years until now, people have been squandering their time in this way, with no one creating a perfect life, all intent only on mutual slaughter in this dark world, on the race for fame and fortune, and on intriguing against one another. Who has ever sought after God’s will? Has anyone ever heeded the work of God? All the parts of humanity occupied by the influence of darkness have long since become human nature, and so it is quite difficult to carry out the work of God, and people have even less heart to pay attention to what God has entrusted to them today. In any case, I believe that people will not mind Me uttering these words since what I am talking about is the history of thousands of years. To speak of history means facts and, moreover, scandals that are obvious to all, so what point is there in saying that which is contrary to fact? But I also believe that reasonable people, upon seeing these words, will awaken and strive for progress. God hopes that humans can live and work in peace and contentment while at the same time be able to love God. It is God’s will that all of humanity may enter into rest; more than this, the filling of the entire land with God’s glory is God’s great desire. It is just a shame that human beings remain sunk in oblivion and unawakened, so badly corrupted by Satan that today they no longer have the likeness of humans. So human thought, morality and education form an important link, with training in cultural literacy forming a second link, the better to raise the cultural caliber of human beings and change their spiritual outlook.

Excerpted from The Word Appears in the Flesh