Fellowship From the Brother Above – September 15, 2025 (Part Four)

I. Questions Regarding the Preaching of the Gospel

Question 1: When we fellowship on the topic of how God does the work of judgment, we want to talk about our own experiences of judgment and chastisement so that potential gospel recipients can better understand this matter. However, most of our experiences are about what happens in our duties, which potential gospel recipients might not understand. How can we testify to God’s work of judgment more practically?

Answer: It’s essential to fellowship on the truth and to share experiential testimonies, but before you fellowship on certain truths, you first have to pave the way. You also have to find out whether the person you’re talking to can comprehend what you’re saying and is willing to listen. If they can’t comprehend it and aren’t willing to listen, but you talk to them about it anyway, you won’t achieve results. If they can understand and are actually interested in hearing you fellowship on this aspect of the truth, then it’s appropriate for you to fellowship with them, and you’ll be able to achieve the desired result. For example, when you testify to God’s work of judgment, it should be perfectly natural and justified to share experiences of your coming to know yourself. How can you talk about life experiences without talking about your coming to know yourself? But some people are opposed to talking about knowing oneself. If you talk to them about your experiential understanding in this area, it won’t be effective. They won’t be interested, right? (Right.) Therefore, no matter what aspect of the truth you are fellowshipping on, you must first pave the way. What does it mean to pave the way? For instance, you may want to share a testimony of experiencing judgment and chastisement, but can the potential gospel recipient comprehend it? If they don’t even know what judgment and chastisement are, then in this context, if you directly share a testimony about experiencing these things, they’ll have a hard time understanding what you’re talking about. If they don’t understand, they won’t want to listen, and they won’t be interested in what you’re saying. You first have to tell them, “Through experiencing God’s judgment and chastisement, we’ve gained some knowledge of ourselves and cast off some of our corrupt dispositions. This has allowed us to make progress in submitting to God, and it has been incredibly beneficial for us in coming to know and worship Him!” Once they hear this, they’ll understand and will want to hear about your experiences. At that point, when you share your experiential testimony, things will simply fall into place, and you’ll get better results. So, when fellowshipping on the truth, you have to learn to pave the way. You have to base your fellowship on what the person you’re talking to can understand, and only then will they be willing to listen. If you don’t know how to pave the way, you won’t achieve any results. For example, say you are testifying to someone about Almighty God, but they don’t understand what believing in Almighty God is all about. They don’t want to hear your testimony, yet you insist on sharing it. Will this achieve good results? (No.) Or perhaps a potential gospel recipient has decent humanity but poor comprehension of the truth. If you testify to them about Almighty God directly, they will certainly refuse to accept your testimony, and they may even condemn you, saying you’re preaching heresy. In a situation like this, how should you share your testimony with them appropriately? Where can you find an opening to testify to Almighty God? This requires wisdom, and you need to find the right approach. So, what’s the right approach? You could say, “We’ve believed in the Lord all this time, but we still haven’t welcomed His return. Why is this? How exactly will the Lord come? What work will He do when He returns?” You can use this topic to find an opening. When they hear this, they’ll think, “Oh, you believe in the Lord too, and you’re asking exactly what I’m concerned about. We have something in common to talk about, so I’m willing to discuss this matter with you.” You see? Then they’ll be willing to talk with you. Suppose they say, “My view on welcoming the Lord is that we should just wait until we see Him descending on a cloud before we accept Him. That’s absolutely foolproof—nothing could be safer.” What do you do then? They’re just waiting to see the Lord descending on a cloud before they’ll accept Him. If you testify to them about Almighty God directly, it will be sure to conflict with their views, and they’ll become resistant, right? (Right.) So how should you guide them so that they become willing to investigate Almighty God? You have to say, “Is descending on a cloud the only way the Lord will return? Are there other ways?” If they say, “I don’t know of any other ways,” then you can read them a couple of biblical prophecies: “Behold, I come as a thief” (Revelation 16:15), and “Be you also ready: for in such an hour as you think not the Son of man comes” (Matthew 24:44). Then ask them, “What does ‘the Son of man’ refer to? And what does it mean when it says He will come at an hour you do not expect, as a thief suddenly appearing to you? When the Lord says He will return ‘as a thief,’ is He referring to His coming in secret? That’s not the same thing as descending on a cloud!” With these few verses, you can refute their views. When they hear this, they’ll think, “That’s right, the secret coming of the Son of man is also in the Bible,” and then they’ll be ready to talk with you and ask, “So what is this coming of the Son of man all about? Is it the same as a spiritual body coming?” You can then tell them, “The coming of the Son of man is definitely not the same as a spiritual body coming. So what is meant by this? The Lord Jesus prophesied: ‘For as the lightning, that lightens out of the one part under heaven, shines to the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in His day. But first must He suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation’ (Luke 17:24–25). The Lord Jesus was already rejected by one generation, and here it says that in the last days He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. This shows that the Lord’s return in the last days will be as the Son of man, just as when the Lord Jesus first came. The coming of the Son of man means that God puts on an ordinary and normal flesh to do His work, rather than working in a spiritual body. If He came in a spiritual body, could He still suffer many things? Could He still be rejected by this generation? If people saw a spiritual body descending, the entire religious world would fall down before God and accept His appearance. Even atheists would accept God’s appearance if they saw Him appearing openly, and then it would be impossible for the Lord to be rejected by this generation.” Is this not the case? (It is.) Let’s take an example. Most countries in the Middle East practice Islam, and Muslims are among the hardest people to preach the gospel to, but God also wants to save some of them. So how does God save these people? He does so through the Lord’s public appearance. When they saw the vision of the Lord Jesus appearing in the sky, they acknowledged that the Lord Jesus is God, forsook Islam, and began to believe in the Lord Jesus. In the Muslim countries of the Middle East, at least tens of millions of people have turned to the Lord Jesus. This has been achieved by God’s public appearance. So why did God do this? It’s because these people are truly stubborn. If it were left up to people to preach the gospel to them, they would never accept it. Only when God showed them miracles and wonders could they accept it, so God did this as a last resort. Now, would you say Jewish people are easy to preach to? They too are among the hardest people to preach to. They are all experts and scholars who study the Bible, and they cling to it stubbornly. But every time God appears and works, He does new things and forges new paths. God’s work is not based on the Bible. People can find bases in the Bible for some of the things God does, but for others, they can’t. This makes it difficult for people to believe in and accept God’s appearance and work. Therefore, among these groups of people who are the least likely to accept the true way, God sometimes performs supernatural acts to make some of them believe in and accept His work. Although these people accept it upon seeing miracles and wonders, what will their outcome be? That’s hard to say; it’s unknown. We don’t know. But if these people only believe in the Lord Jesus, can they enter the kingdom of heaven? Absolutely not. Believing in the Lord Jesus is just the first step that people need to take to enter the kingdom of heaven and gain eternal life. Once they believe in the Lord Jesus and thus come out of Islam and Judaism, it becomes easier for us to preach Almighty God’s gospel of the last days to them. Perhaps a few of them will also be able to accept this stage of work. And what great blessing will those who accept this stage of work receive? This blessing is certainly the greatest. The greatest blessing in believing in God is accepting this stage of Almighty God’s work. So now, in order to save the people of Islam and Judaism, God first appeared to them openly to have them accept the Lord Jesus. Is this not paving the way for them to accept Almighty God? (It is.) So when we preach the gospel to religious people, do we not also have to learn to pave the way and use wisdom and the right approach? If you just come out and say to them, “Almighty God is the returned Lord Jesus. If you believe in Almighty God, you have welcomed the Lord,” will that work? (No.) They won’t be willing to accept it. You have to guide them step by step to help them understand many things, and you have to guide them to become willing to investigate the way of Almighty God. At that point, when you testify to them about Almighty God, things will fall right into place. You’ll double your gains for half the effort. This is what’s meant by paving the way. It’s like when you are looking for a partner. If you see someone you think is nice and you like them, and you just come right out and ask if they want to marry you, is it likely to succeed? (No.) You’ll be rejected. So how can you succeed? You have to pave the way. First, you spend some time together and get to know each other. Then, once you’ve started to develop feelings for one another and both want to go for something long-term, that’s when you can successfully propose marriage. Preaching the gospel is the same. You’ve got to start by paving the way, and then when the potential gospel recipient is willing to investigate and listen to your testimony, you can share it. Then things will fall into place naturally.

The solution to the first question is to pave the way. What do you think of this approach? (It’s good.) If you want to talk about how you have experienced judgment, you first have to say, “Do you know what work God is coming to do in the last days?” They might say, “Isn’t God coming in the last days to take us up into the kingdom of heaven?” You can then say to them, “Look, there’s a passage in the Bible that says: ‘I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth’ (John 16:12–13). Isn’t this the work God will do in the last days? This was prophesied by the Lord Jesus Himself. The Lord Jesus also said: ‘Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, and in Your name have cast out devils, and in Your name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess to them, I never knew you: depart from Me, you that work iniquity’ (Matthew 7:22–23). What does this mean? This means that even though your sins are forgiven after you start believing in the Lord, and you can even preach and perform many miracles in the Lord’s name, in the end the Lord still says you are an evildoer. Why is that? It’s because in the last days, God will do another stage of work, the work of judgment and chastisement, and this is the work that thoroughly cleanses and saves people. If people have not accepted and experienced God’s work of judgment, and their corrupt dispositions have not been cleansed, then it is impossible for them to enter the kingdom of heaven in a single leap just by having their sins forgiven or through justification by faith. Such people are condemned by God as evildoers.” If, after hearing this, they can acknowledge the fact that God will do the work of judgment in the last days and that this is in accordance with the Bible, then when you talk about how you have experienced judgment and chastisement, won’t that be the perfect time for things to fall right into place? (Yes.) So, no matter what truth you are fellowshipping on, you must pave the way well, which means doing preparatory work well. If the person you are speaking to is not yet ready to accept the truth you want to fellowship on, don’t rush to talk about it. You need to say some preliminary words to prepare them to accept the truth you want to fellowship on. Then it will be appropriate for you to fellowship with them formally. Let me give another example. Say your neighbor has decent humanity and you want to preach the gospel to them, but you don’t know if they believe in God or if they can accept the truth. What should you do in this situation? (We should start by getting in touch with them and getting to know them.) You can start by chatting with them. You could say, “I see that there are a lot of people who believe in the Lord, and they all seem like good people. What do you think about believing in the Lord?” If they are a believer, they’ll say, “I believe in the Lord, too,” when they hear you bring it up, and then it’ll be a natural next step to talk with them about matters of faith. You could say, “Oh, you believe in the Lord? How many years have you believed in Him? What have you gained?” Or you could say, “Isn’t it crucial for believers to welcome the Lord? So how should we welcome Him? What kind of people can welcome the Lord?” When is the right time to testify to Almighty God? You can’t be too hasty. You first have to tell them about the biblical prophecies concerning the Lord’s coming. Let them know that welcoming the Lord isn’t about gazing at the sky and watching the clouds, or waiting foolishly in a church. Instead, it’s about going out to welcome and seek Him when the Lord knocks on the door—because one absolutely cannot welcome the Lord without seeking. So how should one seek? You can say, “Look for a church that has the work and utterances of the Holy Spirit—a church that testifies to God’s arrival. Once you find such a church, you should hurry to investigate it. See what work God has done upon His arrival, what truths He has expressed, what direction the Holy Spirit’s work is moving in, and what result the Holy Spirit’s work is to achieve. If you investigate and understand these things clearly, won’t you be able to welcome the Lord?” When they hear this, they’ll say, “You’re right. I also want to welcome the Lord. Do you know of a way? Where can I find a church that testifies to God’s arrival?” You can then say, “I’ve seen testimonies to Almighty God online. Almighty God has expressed many truths. Have you seen them?” Then they will be willing to investigate the true way, and at that point, you can show them the words of Almighty God. What do you think of us preaching the gospel and testifying to God this way? (It’s good.) If you preach the gospel this way, will you still be rejected by them and make things awkward between the two of you? (No.) This is what it means to preach the gospel with preparation and wisdom. Remember this! When you preach the gospel, never testify to people about God directly. Testifying to people about God directly is likely to fail. It probably won’t even work if you testify to your own relatives about God directly, so it’s even less likely to work when you’re testifying to outsiders about God directly.