I

God has a plan for every one of His followers. Each one of them has an environment, furnished for man by God, in which to perform their duty, and they have the grace and favor of God that is man’s to enjoy. They also have special circumstances, which God lays out for man, and there is much suffering they must undergo—it’s nothing like the smooth sailing that man imagines. Beyond this, if you acknowledge that you’re a created being, you must prepare yourself to suffer and pay a price for the sake of fulfilling your responsibility to spread the gospel and for the sake of doing your duty properly. The price might be suffering some physical ailment or hardship, or suffering the great red dragon’s persecutions or the misunderstandings of worldly people, and the tribulations in spreading the gospel, such as being sold out, being beaten and scolded, being condemned—even being mobbed and put in mortal danger. It is possible, in the course of spreading the gospel, that you will die before the work of God is completed, and that you will not live to see the day of God’s glory. You must be prepared for this.

II

Among the disciples of the Lord Jesus, there were those who were stoned, dragged behind a horse, crucified upside down, dismembered by five horses—every sort of death befell them. Because they spread the Lord’s gospel, they were rejected by the people of the world and they were condemned, beaten, scolded, and put to death—that is how they were martyred. This was how their bodies died and passed away; this was their means of departure from the human world, yet that does not mean their outcome was thus determined. No matter what the means of their death and departure was or how it happened, it was not how God defined the final outcomes of those lives, of those created beings. This is something you must see clearly. On the contrary, they used precisely those means to condemn this world and to testify to the deeds of God.

III

These created beings used their most precious lives—they used the last moment of their lives to testify to God’s deeds, to testify to God’s great power, and to declare to Satan and the world that the deeds of God are right, that the Lord Jesus is God, that He is the Lord, and God’s incarnate flesh. They never denied the name of the Lord Jesus, even down to the final moment of their lives. Was this not a form of judgment upon this world? They used their lives to proclaim to the world, to confirm to human beings that the Lord Jesus is the Lord, that the Lord Jesus is Christ, that He is the incarnate flesh of God, that the work of redemption He did for all humanity allows humanity to live on—this fact is forever unchanging.

IV

To every living person, life is the thing most worthy of being treasured, the most precious thing and these people were able to offer their most precious possession—life—as confirmation of and testimony to God’s love for mankind. Until the day they died, they didn’t deny God’s name, nor did they deny the work of God, and they used their last moments of life to testify to the existence of this fact—is this not the highest form of testimony? This is the best way of doing one’s duty; this is what it is to fulfill one’s responsibility. When Satan threatened and terrorized them, and, in the end, even when it made them pay the price of their lives, they didn’t abandon their responsibility. This is what it’s to fulfill one’s duty to the utmost extent.

from The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Spreading the Gospel Is the Duty to Which All Believers Are Honor-Bound