First God created Adam and Eve, and He also created a serpent. Of all things, this serpent was the most poisonous; its body contained venom, which Satan utilized to take advantage of it. It was the serpent that tempted Eve to sin. Adam sinned after Eve did, and the two of them were then able to distinguish between good and evil. If Jehovah had known that the serpent would tempt Eve and that Eve would tempt Adam, then why did He place them all inside a garden? If He had been able to predict these things, then why did He create a serpent and place it within the Garden of Eden? Why did the Garden of Eden contain fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Had He meant for them to eat the fruit? When Jehovah came, neither Adam nor Eve dared to confront Him, and it was only then that Jehovah knew that they had eaten the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and fallen prey to the serpent’s trickery. In the end, He cursed the serpent, and He cursed Adam and Eve as well. When the two of them ate of the fruit of the tree, Jehovah was not at all aware that they were doing it. Humanity became corrupted to the point of being evil and sexually promiscuous, going even so far that everything they harbored in their hearts was evil and unrighteous; it was all filth. Jehovah therefore regretted having creating humanity. After that, He carried out His work of destroying the world with a flood, which Noah and his sons survived. Some things are not actually as advanced and supernatural as people might imagine. Some ask, “Since God knew the archangel would betray Him, why did He create it?” These are the facts: Before the earth existed, the archangel was the greatest of heaven’s angels. It had jurisdiction over all the angels in heaven; this was the authority God had granted it. With the exception of God, it was the greatest of heaven’s angels. Later, after God had created humanity, down on earth the archangel carried out an even greater treachery against God. I say it betrayed God because it wanted to manage humanity and to surpass God’s authority. It was the archangel that tempted Eve into sin, and it did so because it wished to establish its kingdom upon earth and to get humans to turn their backs on God and obey the archangel instead. The archangel saw that so many things could obey it—the angels could, as could the people upon the earth. The birds and beasts, trees, forests, mountains, rivers, and all things upon the earth were under the care of humans—that is, Adam and Eve—while Adam and Eve obeyed the archangel. The archangel therefore desired to surpass God’s authority and to betray God. After that, it led many angels in rebellion against God, which later became various sorts of unclean spirits. Has not humanity’s development to this day been caused by the archangel’s corruption? Humans are only the way they are today because the archangel betrayed God and corrupted humanity. This step-by-step work is nowhere near as abstract and simple as people might imagine. Satan carried out its betrayal for a reason, yet people are unable to comprehend such a simple fact. Why did God, who created the heavens and earth and all things, also create Satan? Since God despises Satan so much, and Satan is His enemy, why did He create Satan? By creating Satan, was He not creating an enemy? God did not actually create an enemy; rather, He created an angel, and later that angel betrayed Him. Its status had grown so great that it wished to betray God. One could say that this was a coincidence, but it was also an inevitability. It is similar to how a person will inevitably die after maturing to a certain point; things have just developed to that stage. Some absurd fools say, “Since Satan is Your enemy, why did You create it? Did You not know that the archangel would betray You? Can You not gaze from eternity to eternity? Did You not know the archangel’s nature? Since You clearly knew that it would betray You, why did You make it into an archangel? Not only did it betray You, it also led so many other angels with it and descended to the world of mortals to corrupt humanity, yet to this day, You still have been unable to complete Your six-thousand-year management plan.” Are those words correct? When you think in this way, are you not putting yourself through more trouble than is necessary? There are others who say, “Had Satan not corrupted humanity through to the present day, God would not have brought humanity salvation like this. As such, God’s wisdom and almightiness would have been invisible; where would His wisdom have been revealed? God therefore created a human race for Satan so that He could later reveal His almightiness—otherwise, how could man discover God’s wisdom? If man did not resist God or rebel against Him, it would be unnecessary for His acts to be revealed. If all of creation were to worship Him and submit to Him, God would have no work to do.” This is even further from reality, for there is nothing filthy about God, so He cannot create filth. He reveals His acts now only in order to defeat His enemy, to save the humans He created, and to defeat the demons and Satan, which hate, betray, and resist God, and which were under His dominion and belonged to Him in the very beginning. God wants to defeat these demons and, in doing so, reveal His almightiness to all things. Humanity and everything on earth are now under Satan’s domain and lie under the domain of the wicked. God wants to reveal His acts to all things so that people may know Him, and thereby defeat Satan and thoroughly vanquish His enemies. The entirety of this work is accomplished through revealing His acts. All of His creation is under Satan’s domain, so God wishes to reveal His almightiness to them, thereby defeating Satan. If there were no Satan, He would not need to reveal His deeds. If not for Satan’s harassment, God would have created humanity and led them to live in the Garden of Eden. Why, prior to Satan’s betrayal, did God never reveal all His deeds to the angels or to the archangel? If, in the beginning, all the angels and the archangel had known God and had submitted to Him, then God would not have carried out those meaningless acts of work. Because of the existence of Satan and demons, humans, too, have resisted God, and are filled to the brim with rebellious disposition. God therefore wishes to reveal His acts. Because He wishes to do war with Satan, He must use His own authority and all His acts to defeat it; in this way, the work of salvation that He performs among humans will allow them to see His wisdom and almightiness. The work God is doing today is meaningful, and in no way resembles that to which some people refer when they say, “Is not the work You do contradictory? Is not this succession of work merely an exercise in making trouble for Yourself? You created Satan, and then allowed it to betray and resist You. You created humans, and then handed them over to Satan, allowing Adam and Eve to be tempted. Since You did all these things on purpose, why do You still detest humanity? Why do You loathe Satan? Are these not all of Your own making? What is there for You to hate?” Quite a few absurd people say such things. They wish to love God, but deep down, they complain about God. What a contradiction! You do not understand the truth, you have too many supernatural thoughts, and you even claim that God made a mistake—how absurd you are! It is you who are fiddling with the truth; it is not the case that God has made a mistake! Some people even complain over and over, “It was You who created Satan, and You who cast Satan down among humans and handed them over to it. Once humans possessed satanic disposition, You did not forgive them; on the contrary, You hated them to a certain degree. At first You loved them to a certain degree, but now You detest them. It is You who has hated humanity, yet You are also the one who has loved humanity. What exactly is going on here? Is this not a contradiction?” Regardless of how you look at it, this is what happened in heaven; this was the manner in which the archangel betrayed God and humanity was corrupted, and this is how humans have continued to this day. Regardless of how you phrase it, that is the entire story. However, you must understand that the whole purpose behind this work God is doing today is to save you and to defeat Satan.

Because the angels were particularly frail and possessed no abilities to speak of, they grew arrogant as soon as they were given authority. This was especially true of the archangel, whose status was higher than that of any other angel. A king among angels, it led millions of them, and under Jehovah, its authority surpassed that of any of the other angels. It wanted to do this and that, and to lead the angels down among humans to control the world. God said that He is the One who is in charge of the universe; but the archangel claimed that it was in charge of the universe—thenceforth, the archangel betrayed God. God had created another world in heaven, and the archangel wished to control this world and also to descend to the mortal realm. Could God allow it to do so? Thus, He struck the archangel and cast it down into midair. Ever since it corrupted humans, God has waged war with the archangel in order to save them; He has used these six millennia toward its defeat. Your conception of an almighty God is incompatible with the work God is currently carrying out; it is absolutely impractical, and is very much a fallacy! Actually, it was only after the archangel’s betrayal that God declared it to be His enemy. It was only due to its betrayal that the archangel trampled upon humanity after arriving in the mortal realm, and it is for this reason that humanity has developed to this point. After that happened, God vowed to Satan, “I will defeat you and bring salvation to all of the humans I created.” Unconvinced at first, Satan replied, “What can You honestly do to me? Can You really strike me down into midair? Can You truly defeat me?” After God cast it down into midair, He paid the archangel no further attention, and later on began to save humanity and carry out His own work in spite of Satan’s ongoing disturbances. Satan was able to do this and that, but it was all thanks to the powers God had previously given to it; it took them with it into midair, and has kept them to this day. When striking the archangel down into midair, God did not take back its authority, and so Satan continued to corrupt humanity. God, on the other hand, began saving humanity, whom Satan had corrupted soon after their creation. God did not reveal His acts while in heaven; however, prior to creating the earth, He allowed people in the world He created in heaven to see His acts, thus guiding those people above heaven. He gave them wisdom and intelligence, and led those people to live in that world. Naturally, none of you has ever heard of this before. Later, after God created humans, the archangel began to corrupt them; on earth, all of humanity fell to chaos. It was only then that God began His war against Satan, and it was only at this time that humans began to see His deeds. In the beginning, such acts had been concealed from humanity. After Satan was cast down into midair, it did its own things and God continued to do His own work, continuously waging war against Satan, right up until the last days. Now is the time in which Satan should be destroyed. In the beginning, God gave it authority, and He later struck it down into midair, yet it remained defiant. After that, it corrupted humanity upon earth, but God was there managing humanity. God uses His management of humans to defeat Satan. By corrupting people, Satan brings their fate to a close and disrupts God’s work. On the other hand, God’s work is the salvation of humanity. Which step of the work God does is not meant to save humanity? Which step is not meant to cleanse people, and to make them behave righteously and live out the image of ones who can be loved? Satan, however, does not do this. It corrupts humanity; it continuously carries out its work of corrupting humanity throughout the universe. Of course, God also does His own work, paying no attention to Satan. No matter how much authority Satan has, that authority was still given to it by God; God simply did not actually give it all His authority, and so no matter what Satan does, it can never surpass God and will always be within God’s grasp. God did not reveal any of His acts while in heaven. He merely gave Satan a small portion of authority and allowed it to exercise control over the other angels. Therefore, no matter what Satan does, it cannot surpass God’s authority, because the authority that God originally granted it is limited. As God works, Satan disrupts. In the last days, its disruptions will be finished; likewise, God’s work will also be finished, and the kind of humans God wishes to complete will be completed. God directs people positively; His life is living water, immeasurable and boundless. Satan has corrupted man to a certain degree; in the end, the living water of life will complete man, and it will be impossible for Satan to interfere and carry out its work. Thus, God will be able to gain these people completely. Even now, Satan still refuses to accept this; it continuously pits itself against God, but He pays it no attention. God has said, “I will be victorious over all of Satan’s dark forces and over all dark influences.” This is the work that is to be done in the flesh, and it is also what makes becoming flesh significant: that is, to complete the stage of work of defeating Satan in the last days, and to wipe out all things that belong to Satan. God’s victory over Satan is inevitable! Actually, Satan already failed long ago. When the gospel began to spread throughout the land of the great red dragon—that is, when God incarnate began His work and this work was set in motion—Satan was utterly defeated, for the very purpose of the incarnation was to vanquish Satan. As soon as Satan saw that God had once again become flesh and begun to carry out His work, which no force could stop, it therefore became dumbfounded at the sight of this work, and did not dare to do any further mischief. At first Satan thought that it, too, was endowed with plenty of wisdom, and it interrupted and harassed God’s work; however, it did not expect that God would once again become flesh, or that in His work, God would use Satan’s rebelliousness to serve as a revelation and judgment for humanity, thereby conquering humans and defeating Satan. God is wiser than Satan, and His work far exceeds it. Therefore, as I have previously stated, “The work that I do is carried out in response to Satan’s ruses; in the end, I will reveal My almightiness and Satan’s powerlessness.” God will do His work in the forefront, while Satan will trail behind, until, in the end, it is finally destroyed—it will not even know what hit it! It will only realize the truth once it has already been smashed and crushed, and by then, it will already have been incinerated in the lake of fire. Will it not be completely convinced then? For Satan will then have no more schemes to employ!

It is this step-by-step, realistic work that often weighs God’s heart down with grief for humanity, so His war with Satan has lasted for six thousand years, and God has said, “I will never again create humanity, nor will I again bestow authority upon angels.” From then on, when the angels came to work on earth, they merely followed God to do some work; He has never again given them any authority. How did the angels that the Israelites saw carry out their work? They revealed themselves in dreams and conveyed the words of Jehovah. When Jesus was resurrected three days after being crucified, the angels were the ones who pushed the boulder to the side; God’s Spirit did not do this work personally. The angels only did this sort of work; they played supporting roles, but had no authority, for God would never again bestow any authority upon them. After working for some time, the people whom God used on earth assumed God’s position and said, “I wish to surpass the universe! I want to stand in the third heaven! We want to hold the reigns of sovereign power!” They would become arrogant after several days of work; they wished to possess sovereign authority upon the earth, to establish another nation, to have all things under their feet, and to stand in the third heaven. Do you not know that you are merely a man used by God? How could you ascend to the third heaven? God comes to earth to work, silently and without crying out, and then leaves after stealthily completing His work. He never cries out as humans do, but rather is practical in the carrying out of His work. Nor does He ever enter a church and cry, “I will wipe you all out! I will curse you and chastise you!” He merely continues doing His own work, and leaves once He is finished. Those religious pastors who heal the sick and cast out demons, lecture others from the pulpit, give long and pompous speeches, and discuss unrealistic matters are all arrogant to the core! They are but descendants of the archangel!

After having carried out His six thousand years of work through the present day, God has already revealed many of His acts, the primary purpose of which has been to defeat Satan and bring salvation to all of humanity. He is using this opportunity to allow everything in heaven, everything upon the earth, everything within the seas, and every last object of God’s creation on earth to see His almightiness and to witness all of His acts. He is seizing the opportunity provided by His defeat of Satan to reveal all of His deeds to humans, and to enable them to praise Him and exalt His wisdom in defeating Satan. Everything on earth, in heaven, and within the seas brings God glory, praises His almightiness, praises every one of His deeds, and shouts His holy name. This is proof of His defeat of Satan; it is proof of His vanquishing of Satan. More importantly, it is proof of His salvation of humanity. The whole of God’s creation brings Him glory, praises Him for defeating His enemy and returning victoriously, and extols Him as the great victorious King. His purpose is not merely to defeat Satan, which is why His work has continued for six thousand years. He uses Satan’s defeat to save humanity; He uses Satan’s defeat to reveal all His acts and all of His glory. He will obtain glory, and all the multitude of angels will see all His glory. The messengers in heaven, the humans upon earth, and all objects of creation upon earth will see the glory of the Creator. This is the work that He does. His creation in heaven and on earth will all witness His glory, and He will return triumphantly after utterly defeating Satan, and allow humanity to praise Him, thus achieving a double victory in His work. In the end, all of humanity will be conquered by Him, and He will wipe out anyone who resists or rebels; in other words, He will wipe out all those who belong to Satan. You are currently witnessing so many acts of God, yet still you resist, are rebellious, and do not submit; you harbor many things within you, and do whatever you wish. You follow your own lusts and preferences; this is all rebelliousness and resistance. Any belief in God for the sake of the flesh and one’s lusts, as well as for the sake of one’s own likes, the world, and Satan, is filthy; it is resistant and rebellious in nature. Nowadays, there are all different kinds of faith: Some seek shelter from disaster, and others seek to obtain blessings; some wish to understand mysteries, while still others seek money. These are all forms of resistance and they are all blasphemy! To say that one resists or rebels—does that not refer to such behaviors? Many people these days grumble, complain, or make judgments. Those are all things done by the wicked; they are examples of human resistance and rebelliousness. Such people are possessed and occupied by Satan. Those whom God obtains are those who submit to Him completely; they are people who have been corrupted by Satan but have been saved and conquered by God’s current work, who have endured tribulations, and who, in the end, have been utterly obtained by God, who no longer live under Satan’s domain, who have broken free from unrighteousness, and who are willing to live out holiness—such are the holiest of people; they are indeed the holy ones. If your current actions are not in line with even one part of God’s requirements, then you will be eliminated. This is incontrovertible. Everything depends on what happens now; even though you have been predestined and chosen, your actions today will still determine your outcome. If you cannot keep up now, you will be eliminated. If you cannot keep up now, how can you keep up later? Such a great miracle has appeared before you, yet you still do not believe. How, then, will you believe in God later, when He has finished His work and will no more do such work? By then, it will be even more impossible for you to follow Him! Later on, God will rely on your attitude, your knowledge toward the work of God incarnate, and your experience to determine whether you are sinful or righteous, or to determine whether you are perfected or eliminated. You must see clearly now. The Holy Spirit works thusly: He determines your outcome according to your behavior today. Who speaks today’s words? Who does today’s work? Who decides you will be eliminated today? Who decides to perfect you? Is this not what I do Myself? I am the One who speaks these words; I am the One who carries out such work. Cursing, chastising, and judging people are all parts of My work. In the end, it will also be up to Me to eliminate you. All these things are My business! Making you perfect is My business, and allowing you to enjoy blessings is also My business. This is all work that I do. Your outcome was not predestined by Jehovah; it is being determined by the God of today. It is being determined right now; it was not determined way back before the world was created. Some absurd people say, “Perhaps there is something wrong with Your eyes, and You do not see me the way You should. In the end, You will see just what the Spirit reveals!” Jesus originally chose Judas as His disciple. People ask: “How could He choose a disciple who would betray Him?” At first, Judas had no intention of betraying Jesus; this merely happened later. At the time, Jesus had looked upon Judas quite favorably; He had caused the man to follow Him, and had given him responsibility over their financial matters. Had Jesus known that Judas would embezzle money, He would never have left him in charge of such matters. It can be said that Jesus did not originally know that this man was crooked and deceitful, or that he would cheat his brothers and sisters. Later on, after Judas had been following Jesus for some time, Jesus saw him wheedle his brothers and sisters and wheedle God. People also discovered that Judas had a habit of taking money from the money bag, and they then told Jesus about it. It was only then that Jesus became aware of everything that was going on. Because Jesus was to carry out the work of the crucifixion and needed someone to betray Him, and because Judas just so happened to be the right kind of person to carry out this role, Jesus said, “There will be one among us who will betray Me. The Son of man will use this betrayal to be crucified, and after three days will be resurrected.” At the time, Jesus had not actually selected Judas so that he would betray Him; on the contrary, He had hoped that Judas would be a loyal disciple. Unexpectedly, Judas turned out to be an avaricious degenerate who betrayed the Lord, so Jesus used this situation to select Judas for this work. If all of Jesus’ twelve disciples had been loyal and none like Judas had been among them, then the person to betray Jesus would have ultimately been someone who was not one of the disciples. However, at the time, it just so happened that there was one among the disciples who enjoyed taking bribes: Judas. Jesus therefore used this man to complete His work. How simple this was! Jesus had not predetermined it at the beginning of His work; He only made this decision once things had developed to a certain point. This was Jesus’ decision, which is to say that it was the decision of God’s Spirit Himself. Originally, it was Jesus who had chosen Judas; when Judas later betrayed Jesus, this was something the Holy Spirit did in order to serve His own ends. It was the Holy Spirit’s work carried out at that time. When Jesus had chosen Judas, He had had no idea that Judas would betray Him. He only knew that the man was Judas Iscariot. Your outcomes, too, are determined according to your level of submission today and according to your life’s level of growth, not according to any human notion that your outcomes were predestined upon the creation of the world. You must perceive these things clearly. None of this work is done the way you imagine it to be.