Fellowship From the Brother Above – August 1, 2025 (Part Two)

Right now, the key thing for us to do is to pursue the truth and survive. This is of the utmost urgency. I believe that those who pursue the truth all have this desire. Some people even have the resolve to gain the truth, but in what way should they practice that will enable them to gain the truth? How quickly can one enter the truth reality? Is three months enough? (No.) Is a year enough? (No. In a year, at most, one can come to behave well in some ways.) Is three years enough? (A person who pursues the truth can gain a little truth in about three years.) Then can the little truth gained in three years lead to a change in disposition? (No. Three years is only just enough time for one to get started.) Then is five years enough? If five years is not enough, is ten years enough? (Yes, but that is too slow.) Does God’s work still have that much time left? (No.) Then one must enter the truth reality and achieve salvation in the shortest possible time. How should one do this to achieve salvation? Tell me, on what basis does God determine a person’s outcome? A passage of God’s words mentions: “I decide the destination of each person not on the basis of age, seniority, amount of suffering, and least of all, the degree to which they invite pity, but according to whether they possess the truth. There is no other choice but this” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Prepare Sufficient Good Deeds for Your Destination). God determines a person’s outcome based on whether they have the truth. Then what does it mean to have the truth? What is the minimum degree a person must reach to be said to have the truth? If it is said that the great catastrophes will descend in another year, how can one come to have the truth within a year? Have you pondered this matter? (No.) Then that is troublesome. I will tell you, do not delimit how much time God’s work still has. Whether it is three or five years, it is useless for you to try and delimit this time. What’s most important is that you must be certain that gaining the truth is not something that can be achieved overnight, nor is it something that can be gained just by reading a certain amount of God’s words. The truth must be gained through a person’s experience and practice. The more you experience and practice, the more you will gain. This is accurate. How much you have experienced God’s words is how much you will have gained. How much you have experienced God’s work, how much judgment and chastisement, how many trials and refinements you have experienced, is how much truth you will have gained. Those who only read God’s words but do not experience them will not gain the truth. Don’t dwell on how some people have strong reading abilities and can read ten lines at a glance, and can finish reading a book of God’s words in a few days while it takes the rest of us a month. Does this mean that they have gained the truth? (It doesn’t.) The truth is not gained by finishing reading God’s words as quickly as possible. It is not like that. The truth cannot be gained by merely reading God’s words. Reading God’s words is one aspect, and experiencing is another. Is that understood? (Yes.) Just look at how some people, when they write experiential testimony articles, only write about their experiential testimony in one aspect. They cannot write about their experiential testimony in other aspects. Why is this? They can only write about their experiential testimony in the aspects of the truth that they have experienced. If there are aspects of the truth that they have only understood the literal meaning of but have not experienced, then they cannot write about their experiential testimony in these aspects. For example, some people are willing to accept it when others fellowship the truth, but when pruning, trials, and refinement come upon them, they do not accept or submit, but immediately run away from such situations. Is such a person truly submitting? Do they have experiential testimony in this aspect? (No.) That they do not have experiential testimony shows that they have not gained the truth. Therefore, for a person to gain the truth, the most important thing is to experience God’s work. The more you experience, the more you will gain. The less you experience, the less you will gain. If a person only reads God’s words but does not experience God’s work, then they will not make much progress. There are also some people who have their own preferences and choices when they read God’s words. They only want to read the words of God that reveal mysteries, and the words of God that comfort and bless people. Not only do they read these words more, but they also memorize them. But as soon as they read the words of God that expose, judge, condemn, and curse people, their hearts are pierced and they feel uncomfortable, so they skip over them and avoid reading them. Is this experiencing God’s work? (No.) They only pick and choose the words of God that are in line with their notions to read, and they don’t read those that are not in line with their notions. Tell me, do such people pursue the truth? Can they gain the truth? (No.) Why can they not gain the truth? The most crucial thing is that they do not experience God’s work and do not accept the judgment and chastisement of God’s words. The more God’s words judge and expose people, the less they are willing to read them. By reading God’s words in this way, they cannot understand the truth or know themselves, so they cannot gain the truth. All the words expressed by Almighty God in the last days are for the purpose of judging and cleansing people. You must read all these words. It will not do if you miss any part. God blesses those who accept the judgment and chastisement of His words. If you do not accept the judgment and chastisement of God’s words, you will not gain the truth, no matter how many of God’s words of blessing you read. Those who focus on experiencing God’s work mainly read the words of God that expose people, such as what corrupt dispositions people have, what their nature essence is, what they live by now, whether they have normal humanity, and whether they have conscience and reason. They focus on reading these words to reflect on and know themselves. After going through a period of experience, they can come to know the truth of mankind’s deep corruption by Satan, and recognize that people all live by satanic philosophies and have long since lost the conscience and reason of normal humanity. Outwardly, though people still have a human appearance, in essence, they are like beasts, without any humanity. If people can even be averse to and hate the truth, then they are not just beasts, but devils and Satans. When a person has gone through a certain amount of experience, they will be able to understand the truth and see through to things.

In this darkest and most wicked of worlds, God has become incarnate and come to earth to express the truth and to cleanse and save man. So tell me, in this wicked world that we are now in, who is the truth? (Christ.) The incarnate Son of man is the truth. Christ of the last days, Almighty God, is the truth. Then, can believing in the name of Jehovah or the name of the Lord Jesus save you? (No.) No matter how much you believe in the name of Jehovah or the Lord Jesus, this cannot save you. The Holy Spirit is no longer working in the name of Jehovah, nor in the name of Jesus. Instead, He is now working in the name of Almighty God. Then, if you only rely on the words of Jehovah and Jesus now, can you enter the kingdom of heaven? (No.) Then, if you worship and have blind faith in the Bible, can the Bible save you? (Even less so.) Why is this? It is because the words of God recorded in the Bible are too few, and the words spoken by God in the first two stages of work are also very limited. In addition, when God spoke those words at that time, He was not formally and specifically expressing the truth. Rather, what He was expressing were just the most superficial truths, not the truths that can thoroughly cleanse and save man. In the last days, God has begun to do the work of cleansing and saving mankind, and those words have become outdated. In the last days, Almighty God has expressed all the truths that corrupt mankind needs to be saved, and in this world, only Almighty God can express the truth, and only Almighty God can save corrupt mankind. This is the most realistic. Therefore, if you believe in the name of Jesus, it will be useless even if you were to believe in it for another two thousand years. If you have blind faith in and worship the Bible, this too will be useless, and it will not be possible for you to be saved. Some people have blind faith in and worship the Bible, but can they understand the truth and gain eternal life by reading the Bible? The Lord Jesus said: “Search the scriptures; for in them you think you have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me. And you will not come to Me, that you might have life” (John 5:39–40). The Lord Jesus only said that the Bible is God’s testimony. He did not say that the words in the Bible are all the truth and life, and that you can be saved by believing in the Bible. This is something that the Lord Jesus never said. The Lord Jesus wants people to come to Christ to gain the truth and life. The Bible says: “He that believes on the Son has everlasting life” (John 3:36). In other words, only those who believe in the Son can gain eternal life. Then what does it mean to believe in the Son? It means to believe in the incarnate God. Only by believing in the incarnate God of the last days can one have eternal life. Apart from this, no matter what you believe in, you will not have eternal life. There is no eternal life to be gained by believing in the Bible, no eternal life to be gained in believing in the name of the Lord Jesus, and no eternal life to be gained in believing in the name of Jehovah God. Regarding how to gain the truth and eternal life by believing in God, the Lord Jesus prophesied: “When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). What the Lord Jesus meant by this was: “It is useless for you to only believe in Me. In the future, a God who expresses the truth will come, and He will lead you into all truths. If you encounter this God and can welcome Him, believe in Him, and follow Him, you will be blessed. If you follow Him to the end and gain the truth, you will have a share in the kingdom of heaven. If you cannot welcome Him and do not accept Him, then no matter how much you believe in My name, it will be in vain.” The Lord Jesus was telling people in advance that only by welcoming the God who expresses the truth can one receive blessings. If you cannot accept this God, then no matter whether you believe in the name of Jesus or Jehovah, or whether you cling to the Bible, it will all be in vain. Is this not the meaning of the Lord Jesus’ prophecy? (It is.) If you do not understand this prophecy of the Lord Jesus thoroughly and still cling to the name of the Lord Jesus until the end of the world, what will be the consequences? You will be eliminated, and you will fall into the great catastrophes and be punished. The God who expresses the truth has now become incarnate and has come. Some people have notions, thinking, “Although this God can express the truth, He doesn’t appear lofty, and He doesn’t look like a Jew. He doesn’t feel like God at all. It is really hard to believe that He is God. If we just read the words He speaks, it is fine. These words are the truth, the voice of God. But from His appearance, He does not look like God at all. Moreover, there are all kinds of negative propaganda and baseless rumors flying around, which also makes it difficult for me to accept Him. Why is it so difficult to believe in the God who expresses the truth? If I truly follow this Son of man, I will be condemned and rejected by the religious world, and my family will persecute and oppose me. This is truly a difficulty of difficulties, and it is really not easy to follow this God to the end! Why has God arranged for such an ordinary Son of man to express the truth? Is this not making things difficult for people?” Tell me, is this making things difficult for people? (No.) Can believing in the God who expresses the truth be such an easy thing? This God looks like an ordinary person. Tell me, how much suffering must one endure, how much humiliation must one suffer, and how much persecution must one suffer to believe in such a practical God? How much rejection, condemnation, and abandonment must one suffer in the religious world and in society? It is not so easy to follow the practical God. If it were so easy, then absolutely everyone would have come to believe in God, and even the devils and Satans would have come to believe. As such, we see so many heroic figures in the religious world whose families have served the Lord Jesus in Christianity for generations, but when they see this ordinary Son of man expressing so many truths, they say, “Why does this Son of man not perform signs and wonders? Only if He performs some signs and wonders can we believe in Him justifiably. This Son of man does not perform a single sign or wonder, and there is nothing supernatural about Him at all. This makes it impossible for us to accept Him!” They do not accept this Son of man, and in the end, they will all fall into the disasters and be destroyed. You see, the appearance and work of the incarnate God in the last days has stumped so many heroes. Only we have accepted this ordinary Son of man. No matter how much humiliation, slander, and judgment we have suffered, we have not turned back, and we are determined to follow to the end. This is because we have understood the truths of visions and have faith in God. People without the truths of visions cannot follow to the end, and after believing for a few days, they will fall behind! Some people have worked in society for decades, and after retiring, they want to rest, take care of their bodies, and enjoy their old age. Later, they accept God’s work of the last days, and they are busy from morning to night. They do not understand, thinking, “How is it that believing in Almighty God is busier than working a job?” You are so busy because you have encountered the God who expresses the truth, and He wants to lead you into all truths. If you are not busy, can you gain the truth? You still want to believe in the same leisurely and free way as when you believed in Jesus, being satisfied with gaining just a little of God’s grace. This way of believing cannot lead a person to gain the truth. I will tell you, the greatest blessing for people is to gain the truth and achieve salvation and enter God’s kingdom. This is an eternal blessing. The temporary grace of now isn’t even worth mentioning in the face of eternal blessings. Then, to gain this greatest blessing, you must pursue the truth and do your duty well at all costs. Do you have this resolve? (Yes.) If you are doing your duty, and your nonbelieving spouse opposes and hinders you, and wants to divorce you, can you stand firm? Do you choose to live a happy life with your spouse or do you choose to suffer and gain the truth by following God? Just look at God’s chosen people in mainland China who have been arrested by the great red dragon. What they face is cruel torture. In such an environment, saving one’s own life or standing firm in one’s testimony for God is a life-or-death choice for them. If you choose to stand firm in your testimony, you have to pay with your life. If you choose to save your life, you will lose your testimony. This fulfills the words of the Lord Jesus: “He that finds his life shall lose it: and he that loses his life for My sake shall find it” (Matthew 10:39). Is it not necessary to pay with one’s life to gain the truth? (It is.) Then has the time come for you to pay with your life? What you are facing is just that your nonbelieving spouse wants to divorce you, and your nonbelieving children want to reject you. Why can’t you bear it? Are your spouse and children more important than the truth? Gaining the truth is gaining eternal life, never dying. Nothing can compare to this blessing. If you forsake your spouse and children to pursue and gain the truth, you can still live, and you will live even more happily, peacefully, and joyfully. Can you see through to this matter? (Yes.) You must know what the value of pursuing the truth is. If you can see through to this matter, you can forsake everything. If you cannot see through to this matter, you will be unable to forsake the entanglements of the world.

Then what standard must a person’s pursuit of the truth meet to be able to survive? This is what most people are most concerned about. This is because there is not much time left, not even ten or twenty years, after which this world will end. Then in these few short years, to what degree must our pursuit of the truth reach for us to be able to survive? At the very least, you must have entered into some basic truth realities, and at the very least, you must have undergone some changes. This counts as you obtaining the truth. But this is not yet completely gaining the truth. Completely gaining the truth is being perfected. Having now entered into a little truth reality does not mean you have been perfected. It just means you have hope of being saved and entering the kingdom. In the future, in the millennial kingdom, you will still have to continue to pursue the truth to be perfected. Then what are the aspects of the truth reality that people should enter into at a minimum right now? There are mainly three aspects.

First, you must experience the judgment and chastisement of some of God’s words and know your corrupt disposition, and then have true repentance. That is to say, you must at least know yourself. Whether a person has the truth reality is first of all seen in whether they know themselves. This is truly important. The first criterion for discerning whether a person has the truth reality is to see if they know themselves. The first criterion for discerning a false leader is also to see if they know themselves. If this person doesn’t know themselves, then they do not have the truth reality and are a false leader. The first criterion for discerning an antichrist is still to see if they know themselves. If a certain person causes disruptions and disturbances in the church, acts recklessly, and tries to establish an independent kingdom of their own, and yet does not know themselves at all and has no repentance at all, then they are an antichrist. Therefore, whether a person has the truth reality, and whether they are a false leader or an antichrist, all depends on whether they know themselves. This one point is truly important. If you, through experiencing the judgment and chastisement of God’s words, have come to have much knowledge of your corrupt disposition, and can also see your own nature essence clearly, and you can recognize that “I used to live entirely by satanic philosophies, and nothing I did met the standard of the truth, and sometimes not even the standard of conscience and reason. My nature essence is still of Satan,” then this means that you have reality. Knowing yourself to this degree is the first manifestation of a person entering the truth reality. Knowing yourself proves that you have experienced God’s work and God’s judgment and chastisement. Knowing yourself proves that you love the truth and can accept the truth. Knowing yourself proves that you have seen through to your own nature essence and have the manifestation of repentance. Look, are there not many results achieved by knowing oneself? (There are.) The first step in life entry is to know oneself. If you cannot achieve this one step, it reveals that you have many problems, and that you are a disbeliever and a nonbeliever, and no matter what is said, it is not an exaggeration. If you are a leader or worker, and you do not know yourself, then you are a false leader or a false worker. If you also find yourself capable of trying to establish an independent kingdom of your own, then you are an antichrist. Tell me, is knowing oneself not very important? This is the first aspect of the truth that a person should at least enter into in their belief in God. If you know yourself, you will have hope of surviving. This is absolutely accurate.

Second, whether you can fulfill your duty, and whether you can fulfill more responsibilities and obligations. This aspect is also of the utmost importance, and it relates to whether you are a person who follows God. If you just believe in God at home and do not do your duty, then you are not actually following God. Only when you do your duty in the church are you a person who follows God. The more duties you do, and the more responsibilities and obligations you fulfill, the more it proves that you are a person who truly follows God. In addition, if you can also do some other duties, such as hosting, and when the circumstances permit, you can also go and preach the gospel, or you can testify to God before nonbelievers, and fellowship and practice God’s words before your relatives, and set a practical example for them, and lead them to return before God, this too is fulfilling your responsibility and doing your duty. In short, the more responsibilities and obligations you fulfill, the more you are a person who follows God. This is the second aspect of the truth reality that a person should enter into.

Third, whether you are an honest person. This relates to one’s character. If you are an honest person, and there are no lies, no deception, and no satanic philosophies in your speech and conduct, and you live out a normal humanity and the likeness of a true human, then have you not truly changed? If from your words, actions, and conduct, no lies can be seen, and no matter how much you speak, there are no lies, every word you speak is true, every word is from the heart, there is not a single exaggerated word, not a single word with deception or deceit, and not a single word that is a slogan or doctrine, spoken to win people’s approval and make them look up to and worship you, then you are an honest person. Honest people are capable of fearing God and shunning evil. This is the third aspect of the truth reality that a person should enter into.

If you have some entry into these three aspects of the truth reality, and you have gained them from experience, then no matter how deep or shallow your entry is, you are guaranteed to survive. This is the minimum. Generally, a person can have some entry into these three aspects of the truth reality after one or two years of experience, but at this point they cannot attain any real depth. No matter which aspect of the truth reality one enters into, there is no end. If you go through ten years of experience, you will have the entry of ten years. If you go through twenty years of experience, you will have the results of twenty years. If you go through thirty years of experience, you can reach a higher realm. Therefore, if you, after going through one or two years of experience, can basically know yourself, basically be able to fulfill your duty, and basically be an honest person, and you have some shallow entry in these three aspects and come to have some true changes, you will be able to survive, and you will be a right person, a person whom God wants to save. Remember, no matter how deep or shallow your entry is into these three aspects of the truth reality, as long as you have some entry, you will be able to survive. Tell me, are God’s requirements for man high? (No.) Some of those who survive have in fact entered very shallowly into life and have not yet been perfected, but God gives them a chance to survive, and in the millennial kingdom, they will still have a chance to be perfected. Then how many years will a person have to pursue the truth in the millennial kingdom? At least a thousand years. Some people do not believe this, and they say, “There’s nobody who can live for a thousand years!” Is this statement correct or not? (It is not.) In this wicked world, no one can live for a thousand years, but those who survive will be able to live for a thousand years in the millennial kingdom. If they die after a few hundred years, that would be considered a short life. Remember, to be saved, it is enough for you to at least have some entry into these three aspects. Then you will be able to survive. Then what if one only enters into one aspect? If you truly enter into one aspect, for example, if you experience judgment and chastisement and have some true knowledge of yourself, and have the resolve and manifestation of repentance, and are willing to strive toward the truth, if you can achieve this one aspect, then that is also fine, but you must also guarantee that you do not do evil and that your performance of your duty does not constitute a disruption or disturbance. Only then will you have hope of surviving. Therefore, if you want to be saved and survive, it is not particularly reliable to only enter into one aspect of the truth reality. If you can gain some entry into all these three aspects of the truth reality, it will be more reliable. So let’s strive for the more reliable standard, and seek to enter into these three aspects of the truth reality. In this way, it will be relatively certain that we can survive. Then if some people think, “The great catastrophes are about to come. In these one or two years, how am I supposed to enter into so many truths and be perfected? It is impossible! There’s not enough time, and I cannot enter into so many truths! Pursuing the truth is too difficult!” and so they stop believing, tell me, are such people not a bit foolish? (They are.) In what way are they foolish? (Perhaps if they pursued for another one or two years, they could have gained the truth, but now that they have given up, they have no chance to gain the truth. In this respect, they are foolish.) They are foolish in that they do not understand the standard by which God saves people. Has God said, “I have expressed so many truths, and you must enter into all of them and live out all of them to be able to survive”? (No.) God has not said such a thing, but they take this as the condition for being saved and surviving. What mistake are they making? (They think of the standard for being saved as being too high.) Therefore, you see, everything must be based on the truth, not on notions and imaginings. By relying on notions and imaginings, it is easy to make mistakes in many things. Then what will be the consequence if a person always believes in God according to their notions and imaginings? (By doing this, they will not gain the truth, and they’ll just end up ruining themselves and being eliminated.) Who is to blame for this? (They themselves are.) They are too clever for their own good. They think too highly of their own notions and imaginings. Is this not being arrogant and self-righteous? (It is.) What God does is all the truth. Then what is the standard by which God measures whether a person is saved? It is that a person must strive and use all their strength, and in the end, be able to gain some truths. Then they can be saved. It is not enough to just use a little strength; you must use all your strength. This is God’s required standard for man, and if you practice in this way, you are guaranteed to be able to achieve it. The standard that people imagine for themselves is higher than God’s standard, and if they cannot reach it, it is easy for them to become discouraged, negative, and disappointed, and even in the end, for them to give up on pursuing the truth. This is what it means to be too clever for one’s own good. People who do not have the truth and only believe in their own notions and imaginings are falsely clever. Now do you understand what the standard for surviving is? (Yes.) Remember! You do not have to understand, enter into, and live out all the truths expressed by God before the great catastrophes to be able to survive. As long as you have some entry into the three aspects of the truth reality, you will have met God’s required standard. If you understand these words, then do not be negative and make things difficult for yourself. You just need to do your best to pursue the truth.