Fellowship From the Brother Above – January 21, 2025 (Part Nine)

The lesson of submission must be learned through experiencing many things. You cannot achieve true submission merely with simple imaginings, simple faith, or simple resolve. You say, “Even if no one else submits to God, I will. Even if no one else follows Him, I will.” This is big talk, because you have experienced too little. When God perfects people, He does many things to them—things that are unimaginable to you, things that do not conform to your notions. He uses these things to try you and cleanse you. This is what it means to perfect people. In the face of facts, He digs out and reveals the things in your bones, your corrupt nature that lies in your bones. For example, God scrutinizes the depths of the human heart. How does He do this? One day, He will have you experience something, and you will know what it means to scrutinize the depths of the human heart. God has you learn this lesson, and He demonstrates to you your true stature, the notions and imaginings in your heart, and the things in your heart that cannot see the light of day. He has you know these things, and you will know that God’s almightiness and full wisdom are forever unfathomable to man. Tell me, with God perfecting people in this way, can they be perfected in just a few short years? (No.) It is not possible without a certain amount of time. Some people say, “I have this difficulty, and I have that difficulty. It won’t be too late for me to follow God in a few years.” Such a person is done for. After a few years, when God’s work is over and you come to follow God, everything will be too late. The little work you do in the world and the little money you earn are utterly meaningless for your salvation. This is a foolish and ignorant idea of yours, and it is not valid. Some people love their husband their whole lives, and in the end, when their husband dies, what have they gained? Some people love their children their whole lives. What have they gained? Some people love money and wealth their whole lives. What have they gained? Nothing! It is all empty! You must see through to the fact that these things in the human world are all empty. What is not empty? Only gaining the truth is not empty. The truth is most practical and the truth is life. Loving fame and gain, money, or other such things of the world all leads to woe. Pursuing these things will really hold you back. It will ruin you, will it not? (It will.) Then you must now seek to understand the truth. When you understand the truth and know yourself, and finally, after experiencing many trials, you can bear good testimony and absolutely submit to God, then you will have been perfected. This is the process of being perfected. Being perfected means that you have experienced many unimaginable things and have gained true knowledge of God. This true knowledge is gained through suffering, through encountering disasters, and through encountering great trials. Then tell me, when these things befall you, are they not God’s blessings? (They are.) But if these things were to befall you now, would you be willing to submit? (It is not easy to submit.) It is not easy for you to accept! God wants to perfect you, and He has you encounter some disasters, some pain and tribulations that you cannot imagine and have never experienced before. When you truly understand God’s intentions and have learned a lesson, you will then see, “Through that matter, I have gained true knowledge of God. This true knowledge is truly precious and cannot be gained from anyone’s experience or from any book. That experience was so good!” Although you have lost some property, or your relatives have died, or you have encountered some tribulation and suffered great pain, it will all have been worth it. You will have gained true knowledge of God, and you will have gained the truth. It is so worth it! It takes a few experiences to reach this conclusion. Therefore, what God does is so good. God has you encounter various situations to let you learn lessons and gain the truth. Although your flesh suffers a lot of pain, and although you lose a lot of material benefits or your relatives are gone, you have gained eternal life, and you have come to know God. Knowing God is a treasure, and this can decide your eternity. No matter how great the material benefits you gain or how great your enjoyment, this cannot decide your eternity. Only gaining the truth can decide your eternity. Therefore, what God has done is so good! To perfect you, God has you encounter many unexpected things, things that you cannot imagine how they could happen, things that you cannot deduce with logic. But in the end, what you gain is truly precious. If God did not act this way, you would go your whole life without ever experiencing this. Then tell me, are these things that God does that are not in line with people’s notions not the greatest blessings for people? (They are.) Will people with small stature encounter these things? (No.) It is not likely. If you have only believed in God for three to five years, can you encounter these things? (Generally not.) This is unless this person is especially loved by God, and to be specifically cultivated and trained. Ordinary people do not have that faith, so God does not do it. So you must remember, on this path of believing in God, no matter what you encounter, pray to God earnestly and do not complain. Many things are absolutely not as you imagine—that God hates you and curses you. It is absolutely not so. You just need to submit with a God-fearing heart. You say, “Oh God, I do not understand this matter that has befallen me. I cannot see through it. But I will not say anything. I believe that what You have done is not wrong. May You enlighten me and let me understand. As long as I can learn a lesson from this, that will be enough, and thus I will thank You.” Accepting God’s salvation and perfection is not as simple as religious people imagine. I have only experienced some of this after a great many years. When you encounter anything that is not in line with your notions, you must never complain about God. God’s good intention is in this, and you are guaranteed to see God’s blessings. If you complain, resist, and reject, then you are done for, and you will not be able to see anything. Is experiencing God’s work to achieve salvation a matter of a few days or a few years? (No.) According to their notions, some people think, “My family has difficulties, so I cannot follow God. I cannot forsake everything. I will just do my duty in my spare time, or after I retire and have nothing to do, then I will follow God.” To think this way is in line with people’s notions, but you will not receive any great blessings. That is having little faith, and little faith does not bring about great blessings. Do you dare to pray, “Oh God, give me trials, so that my corrupt disposition may be cleansed as soon as possible”? Do you dare to pray like this? If you do, God will perfect you according to your prayer, and God will arrange situations for you in the spiritual realm, and perhaps a trial will befall you at any time. But if you pray like this, and then when God sets up a situation to try you, you do not accept it and even complain about God, that will not do. I used to pray like this all the time. I would say, “Oh God, my corruption is too deep. I am willing to accept more severe judgment and more severe chastisement.” As a result, things would befall me. Every time I prayed like this, after a period of time, things were guaranteed to befall me. Later, I was so scared that I did not dare to pray like this anymore, but I thought to myself, “No, I still have to pray. God sees that there are still parts of me that are corrupt, filthy, and rebellious. God knows this, and it will not do if I do not pray.” Do you dare to pray like this? (Yes.) After praying, what if the things that befall you are unbearable? I will tell you, do not worry if you cannot bear it. Just strive toward the truth. Or you can pray like this, “Oh God, perfect me according to my stature, according to what I can bear.” This is also fine.

Experiencing various trials, refinements, and tribulations in one’s belief in God means enduring great suffering and shedding many tears. If a minor, immediate incident befalls a person like being robbed by a thief or beaten by a robber, then this does not count as a great trial. Some trials involve a long period of refinement, causing one’s heart to suffer torment. The pain of a tormented heart is great. For example, if your spouse is seriously ill and in danger of dying, and you are by their side taking care of them all day long, is this a great trial? If your child has an incurable disease, and after you have endured several months of suffering, they still have to die; is this a great refinement? Most people cannot bear such a thing, and they would be in tears every day. Why does this happen? God allows it to happen precisely to try you, to serve your life growth. When this child was born, God had already arranged for such a thing to happen to you. Therefore, all people, events, and things around a person who is being perfected are rendering service. Whether it is your wife (husband), children, or parents—they are all service-doers. To perfect just one person, God arranges countless service-doers to render service for their life to grow. Do you acknowledge this? (Yes.) Even if you acknowledge it now, your thoughts are simple, and you have no true understanding. One day you will know that everything around you is rendering service. To truly understand this requires time and without several years and great trials, this cannot be achieved. I once wrote a hymn with lyrics to the effect of: “Without trials, I cannot know myself. The little understanding I have from thinking is not knowing myself. It is but doctrine, words on a page. Without trials, I cannot know myself. May God give me more trials, so that I may know myself more deeply and become able to completely cast off my corruption.” This is how one experiences God’s work. Being cleansed of corruption and achieving salvation are not as simple as people imagine. You must pray earnestly. If you pray and you experience many things that are not in line with your notions and imaginings, then your life will grow very quickly, and you will have stature in the end. What are the manifestations of having stature? First, you are not afraid of death. That is to say, you recognize that a person’s life and death are in God’s hands, and that the time when a person dies is all arranged by God without the slightest deviation, and you are able to entrust your life to God and not be afraid of death. Second, you are okay with dying in any way, as long as it can glorify God. Even if the devil cuts you into a thousand pieces, you are able to submit. This is having understanding. Therefore, experiencing God’s work to gain life is no simple matter. Some people say, “I will believe after I retire in a few years,” or “I will believe after my children have grown up,” or “I will believe after my family is well-off.” These ideas will not do. If you’re saying this, you will gain nothing. You have no resolve, and you are not someone who sincerely wants God. What is the ultimate result achieved by believing in God? In human terms, it is to gain God. In God’s terms, it is for God to gain man. If, in the end, God says, “I have not gained you. You don’t have Me in your heart, and your heart does not love Me or submit to Me,” then is your saying that you want to gain God not just empty words? For God to gain you, you must be able to absolutely submit to God, be sent by God to work for God and testify for Him, and you must be able to submit to all of God’s arrangements. For God, this is what it means for Him to have gained you. Only when God has gained you will your belief in God have been a success. You will have believed in God to the fullest. But if your belief in God is a hundred thousand miles from God gaining you, and you still say you believe in God, then are these not empty words? What kind of true faith is that? It takes roughly seven to ten years for God to gain a person through His work. Tell me, Peter began to follow Jesus when he was in his teens, so how old was he when he underwent his final seven years of trials? He was somewhere in his fifties. Peter was likely martyred in his sixties. In those seven years, he completely achieved true love for God, submission unto death, and love for God to the utmost extent. The seven years of trials perfected Peter. If a person were to undergo the seven years of trials at the beginning of their belief in God, would that be suitable? (No.) Why not? (Their stature would not be sufficient.) Then how many years did Peter prepare before God began to do the work of perfection on him? At least twenty or so years of preparation. Peter was seventeen or eighteen when he began to follow the Lord Jesus and listen to His sermons. From his twenties to his fifties, there was a preparation period of over thirty years before God began to do the work of perfection on him. Without the foundation laid by these thirty-odd years of experience, could he have stood firm when he encountered so many trials? Could he have achieved submission unto death? Some people say, “Peter was perfected by accepting those seven years of trials.” These are empty words. Without those thirty or so years of preparation, God would not have done the seven years of trials, right? (Right.) Therefore, it takes a certain amount of time for God to perfect people. You view the matter of following God as too simple, and you always say, “Oh, my circumstances do not permit it right now. I still have to take the university entrance exam, I still have to be filial to my parents, and I still have to raise my children.” If these things entangle you, you cannot be perfected, and there is no way for you to be perfected. Some people say, “Then I will forsake all my children, not care for them, and cast them aside.” That will not do either. This is a human practice; you should not make the mistake of being too far to the other extreme. Look at those who are too far in one direction; they do not pursue the truth and want to wait until their circumstances permit before they believe in God. But those who are too far in the other direction simply go all out, regardless of whether their circumstances are suitable or not. They forsake their wives, their husbands, they do not care for their parents, and they do not raise their children. Is this okay? (No.) This is not what God does. You must pray to God and submit to all of God’s orchestrations and arrangements. In addition, when trials have not yet befallen you, you should not ask for them. If you pray, “Oh God, I ask You to give me trials, and to give me seven years of trials like You gave to Peter to perfect him,” is this appropriate? (No.) Why not? It is too early, and your stature is not sufficient. It is not okay for such a thing to come too early. Whatever situation God arranges for you now, you should focus on the truth. As much time as you can spend for God, you should offer it up, suffer a little more, eat and drink more of God’s words, and experience and practice God’s words. In every matter, reflect on and know yourself. In every matter that befalls you, do not waste time, but learn a lesson. In every matter you experience each day, do your lesson sufficiently and well, and you will make gains and progress every day. When God sees that you pursue the truth, and that your stature is ready, and that you can undergo some trials, then He will arrange them for you. This is something that will happen naturally when the time is right. If your stature has not reached that level, it will not do for you to act blindly. Whatever you do, do not act blindly. You must have the guidance and arrangements of the Holy Spirit. To achieve a result in pursuing the truth, one cannot be separated from the work and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Just the matter of knowing oneself—without trials, one cannot know it thoroughly. The lesson of submitting to God is also very deep. Without experiencing several years of pruning, no one can achieve true submission. It is easy to submit in matters that are in line with one’s notions, but it is not easy to submit in matters that are not in line with one’s notions. There is also the matter of knowing God. Without God’s perfection, you cannot know God. God sets up situations for you to experience, and when you have learned some lessons, you will have gained the truth. In what context did Job come to have some knowledge of God? Job was seventy years old when his trial befell him, and before the age of seventy, he was very pious in his belief in God. It is recorded in the Bible that Job, fearing that his children might sin and offend God, would often send for his children to sanctify themselves, and he would also offer sacrifices for them. As you can see, Job’s attitude toward his children was very pious. When Job’s trial befell him, he also had fifty or sixty years of preparation. With this foundation of fifty or sixty years, God did the work of trying Job, right? (Right.) Peter was in his fifties when his seven years of trials befell him, and it was in the last seven years of his life that God carried out the work of perfection upon him. Sufficient preparation work is absolutely necessary. These things must be seen through.

From any perspective, achieving salvation in our belief in God is not as simple as people imagine. It is not as the theories of the Age of Grace say, such as “once saved, always saved,” “if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth, you will be saved. You are justified by faith,” and “if you pray to the Lord and confess your sins, your sins will be forgiven, and you will be qualified to be caught up into the kingdom of heaven.” These are all just words of human notions and imaginings, and they are not valid. If you still have these notions in your heart, you will say, “I will believe after I retire. Believing in God is very simple anyway. If you believe in your heart and acknowledge with your mouth, you will gain salvation. Such a simple thing does not require much time or for me to forsake everything. When the time is ripe, I will believe, pray, and live the church life, and then I can enter the kingdom.” Is this not a dream? (Yes, it is unrealistic.) It takes time to go through the process of experiencing God’s work to understand the truth and achieve submission to Him. Look at the brothers and sisters in mainland China who have been persecuted, suppressed, and arrested by the great red dragon. They go through an experience and learn a little lesson, and then they go through another and learn another little lesson. They fail and learn a little lesson, and then they fail again and learn some more lessons. This is called experience. It is through experiencing many things that one comes to understand some truths, see through certain things, and make some progress. This is called experience. Then, to be saved by believing in God makes long-term experience even more necessary. What does being saved refer to? What is the standard for being saved? People must understand the truth, cast off their corrupt dispositions, no longer do evil and resist God, and be able to truly submit to God. This is the standard for being saved. Corrupt mankind has a satanic nature and is filled with satanic dispositions. Their thoughts and actions all resist God. If, as people imagine, “if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart, you will be saved,” can their corrupt dispositions be cast off? Can their God-resisting disposition be resolved? (No.) Then is their hope of entering the kingdom of heaven nothing but a dream? Tell me, how long does it take to resolve these corrupt dispositions? How long must one go through experiences to acknowledge that their nature is satanic, and that they do not have the truth as their life? It is not possible without several years, right? (Yes.) Look at those who believe in the Lord. They all think that their sins have been forgiven and they possess some good behavior, so they are just waiting for the Lord to come and to be caught up into the kingdom of heaven. Are these nothing but human notions and imaginings? (They are.) Then what did the Lord Jesus say? The Lord said: “I never knew you: depart from Me, you that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:23). Religious people believe that because their sins have been forgiven and they are justified by faith, they can therefore enter the kingdom of heaven. Then what is God’s view on this? God says: “You people resist God. I have never known you. You are workers of iniquity. Depart from Me!” Look, is this not a contradiction? Man’s imaginings have completely diverged from God’s requirements, right? (Right.) Therefore, if being saved is understood according to the notions of religious people, then it is wrong, and a grave error! If a person does not experience several years of God’s judgment and chastisement, can they truly change? Can they change from a person who rebels against and resists God and does not know God at all into a person who submits to and worships God? (No.) Religious people can confess their sins to God a hundred times and cry a hundred times, but they will not change at all. They continue to live by their corrupt dispositions, and by their notions and imaginings. Their nature essence has not changed at all. In what way are they qualified to enter the kingdom of heaven? If they entered the kingdom of heaven, would they not nail the Lord Jesus to the cross again? To say nothing about nailing Him to the cross, can they even be compatible with the Lord Jesus? (They cannot.) When they hear the Lord Jesus speak such high truths, they would condemn Him and resist Him at every turn! Therefore, in your belief in God, simply acknowledging that this person is God and that He is the incarnate God doesn’t mean you can submit to God. If your corrupt disposition is not resolved, you cannot submit. You really think it’s that straightforward and simple, but that’s not the way it is. Tell me, there are so many people in mainland China who follow and believe in Almighty God, so why have hundreds of thousands of them been cleared out in just over a decade? Most of those who were cleared out were antichrists and evil people. They did evil and resisted God. They stole offerings, disturbed the work of the church, and split the church. They did all kinds of bad things. What is the problem here? There are many people who believe in God but resist God! Do not think, “He believes in God and can forsake everything, and can endure any hardship, so he must be a person who submits to God.” Is this correct? (No.) You see this matter in an overly simple way. People who have not undergone judgment and chastisement and whose life dispositions have not changed are devils, people who resist God. No matter how well such a person speaks, they are still a devil. Can you accept this? (Yes.) Those who do not accept God’s judgment and chastisement will fulfill what the Lord Jesus said in the Age of Grace: “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5). To be born of the Spirit means to experience the work of the Holy Spirit, to experience the various trials, tribulations, and refinements arranged by the Holy Spirit, and to then cast off their corrupt disposition and gain the truth. This is the Holy Spirit doing the work of perfecting man. Only when a person is perfected by God can it be said that they are born of the Spirit. Therefore, to experience God’s judgment and chastisement, one must experience hundreds of trials and refinements. Only when a person’s corrupt disposition has been cleansed can they be reborn and enter the kingdom of heaven. You want to enter God’s kingdom without the refinement and trials of the Holy Spirit and without the work of saving and changing man done by God? Is this not a dream? So being saved is no simple matter. It is not as religious people so casually say, “If you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth, you will be saved.” These are devilish words of deception!

Let’s end our fellowship here for today. Goodbye!