The Lord Jesus once said: “Then if any man shall say to you, See, here is christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; so that, if it were possible, they shall mislead the very elect” (Matthew 24:23–24). Pastors and elders of the religious world often use this passage of scripture as a basis to determine that it is impossible for God to become flesh and appear and work in the last days, determining that any claim testifying to the Lord’s coming is false. This leads many believers to blindly guard against false christs when it comes to welcoming the Lord; they don’t dare to actively seek and investigate God’s appearance and work. As a result, it becomes impossible for them to welcome the Lord. Therefore, the key to welcoming the Lord is being able to distinguish the true Christ from false christs. So how do you distinguish the true Christ from false christs? First, we must know that the statement, “False christs will appear in the last days to mislead people,” was spoken by the Lord Jesus Himself. This statement is true—it is a fact. We have all seen incidents of false christs appearing to mislead people in some countries, which proves that the words of the Lord Jesus have been fulfilled. However, some people deny the Lord’s return because false christs appear in the last days. What mistake are they making? Is this not just like giving up eating for fear of choking? Are they not denying the prophecies of the Lord Jesus’ return? If people believe in the Lord but dare to deny the Lord Jesus’ prophecies, are they not resisting the Lord? How can such people welcome the Lord? Then why did the Lord Jesus warn people in the last days to guard against false christs? This is God’s love. God did this to protect us and to keep us from being misled by false christs and following them. If we were to be misled, we would be unable to attain God’s salvation. Therefore, the Lord Jesus spoke these words early on, in the Age of Grace, so that we might guard against false christs. We can see God’s painstaking intentions in this. However, many people do not have a pure comprehension of the Lord Jesus’ words. While guarding against false christs, they deny the return of the Lord Jesus in the last days. In order to guard against false christs, they deny the fact of God becoming flesh to express the truth. Is this not just like giving up eating for fear of choking? Are such people not foolish virgins? Is it not utterly ridiculous to do this? By telling us to guard against false christs, the Lord Jesus was reminding us that we need to be watchful and prepare. If we are not watchful and prepared, and so happen to be misled by false christs, would we not be done for? Not only would we fail to welcome the Lord, but we would ultimately have to go to hell and be punished. Now that we know false christs have already appeared, how should we be watchful and prepared to welcome the Lord’s return? How should we distinguish the true Christ from false christs? First, we must learn to discern what exactly the truth is and who can express the truth. Once we see this clearly, it will be easy for us to distinguish the true Christ from false christs. This is because false christs and false prophets do not have the truth, neither do various evil spirits. Can those without the truth express the truth? They certainly cannot. False christs and false prophets are all people possessed by evil spirits; they come from Satan, so they do not have the truth and cannot express the truth. Then what do false christs rely on to mislead people? Firstly, they rely on speaking false prophecies; secondly, they rely on spreading heresies and fallacies; thirdly, they rely on the work of evil spirits, speaking in false tongues and performing signs and wonders. Nowadays, when false christs mislead people, they generally do so by speaking a few false prophecies and spreading some heresies and fallacies. They rely on this to mislead people. We have not yet seen them perform great signs and wonders to mislead people. This is very rare; perhaps it is because God does not permit it. If God truly permitted Satan to perform great signs and wonders to mislead people, then ninety-nine percent of the entire religious world would go and believe in false christs. This is because there are very few among all mankind who truly understand the truth. People without the truth are in great danger, and are all easily misled by false christs and false prophets. Therefore, the Lord Jesus made this prophecy primarily to have people guard against the false christs that appear in the last days and to tell people the characteristics of false christs; this way, people can distinguish false christs and avoid being misled. This was the Lord Jesus’ purpose in speaking these words, and it is also the Lord’s painstaking intention. However, the Lord Jesus never said that He would not return. If someone does not believe that the Lord has returned because the Lord Jesus said false christs would appear, they are wrong. The Lord Jesus said: “Behold, I come quickly” (Revelation 3:11). Therefore, the return of the Lord Jesus is inevitable. But how do the pastors and elders explain this passage of scripture? They tell believers, “Because false christs will appear in the last days to mislead people, any message that says that the Lord has returned is false. You are not allowed to seek and investigate, much less should you accept this.” This is a covert way of completely denying the words spoken by the Lord Jesus: “Behold, I come quickly.” By explaining it in this way, pastors are misinterpreting the Lord Jesus’ words. If people believe the pastors’ claims and no longer investigate the true way, they have fallen for the trickery of Satans and devils. Therefore, any pastor who explains this passage in this way is simply misleading people. They use the example of false christs misleading people to deny the return of the Lord Jesus, to deny God’s incarnation, and to deny that God expresses the truth to do the work of saving mankind in the last days. Their purpose is to keep you from welcoming the Lord’s return, to make you refuse to believe or investigate regardless of whether you hear anyone testifying to Christ or saying where Christ is, and to make you just stay in the church listening to their sermons and believing their words, so that in the end, you will follow them to hell. This is what the pastors intend. Then what is the pure way to interpret this passage? It should be interpreted like this: “We believe in the Lord’s words. It is a fact that false christs who mislead people will inevitably appear in the last days, but it is also true that the Lord Jesus will certainly return. This is the Lord’s promise. The Lord is faithful. The Lord promised that He would return, and so He will certainly come. No matter what, we cannot deny the Lord’s return because false christs appear in the last days, nor can we shrink from investigating the true way or reject welcoming the Lord just because we are on our guard against false christs. Doing so puts us at risk of missing our opportunity to welcome the Lord and be saved.” Explaining it in this way is not misleading people. But pastors often spread fallacies, determining that any message that says that the Lord has come is false, and saying that any message that says that the Lord has come incarnate as the Son of man is false. Is this not misinterpreting the words of the Lord Jesus? All of this is misinterpreting the words of the Lord Jesus, which proves that the pastors are misleading people. They are misinterpreting the Lord Jesus’ words and twisting the facts to achieve their goal of misleading people. This is the intention and scheme of the pastors in how they explain this passage. So, how should we distinguish the true Christ from false christs when it comes to welcoming the Lord? There are three things that people need to understand. First, how to interpret the Lord Jesus’ words that “false christs will appear in the last days to mislead people”; second, how to distinguish the true Christ from false christs; and third, the intention and purpose behind the ways that the pastors explain this passage. Once these three things are clear to you, you will be able to distinguish the true Christ from false christs. Only Christ can express the truth. False christs do not have the truth; they can only tell false prophecies or perform some signs and wonders to mislead people. Those who do not have spiritual understanding and are devils only believe in signs and wonders, not the truth, and so they are misled into following false christs. But those who believe in and love the truth only follow Christ and accept the truth, and ultimately they gain life and are perfected by God.

So, what is the work that the Christ of the last days has primarily come to do? The Lord Jesus said: “When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). God becomes flesh in the last days precisely to do this work; He will guide people into all truth. Then what work does He do specifically? It is the work of judgment in the last days. The Bible says: “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God” (1 Peter 4:17). “And I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works” (Revelation 20:11–12). What does the judgment of the great white throne prophesied in Revelation refer to? It refers to God becoming flesh to express the truth. Then what does becoming flesh refer to? It means becoming the Son of man. Like the Lord Jesus, this Son of man is the incarnate God. He has a divine essence, and He is the appearance of God, sitting on the great white throne judging all nations and all peoples. Therefore, when you see God expressing the truth and doing the work of judgment, it means that He has come. Now Almighty God is expressing the truth and doing the work of judgment in the last days, which is enough to prove that Almighty God is the Christ of the last days. Can false christs express the truth? They cannot express the truth. The One who can express the truth is God, who has appeared and is working; only the One who can express the truth is the One who can do the work of judgment. The truth is like a mirror that reveals demons—the truth is what reveals people the most. When God expresses the truth, all people will be shamed before the truth, and their true colors must be revealed. No matter how high their status or how much knowledge they have, when they see the truth, they start to behave themselves and dare not speak rashly. Their few words and theories are completely worthless before the truth. Therefore, even Satan behaves itself and dares not say anything before the truth. In the past, the religious world spread baseless rumors and smeared The Church of Almighty God. But ever since the words of Almighty God were published online, the religious world has fallen silent and become much better behaved. Now, not many people dare to judge and condemn the Church, and criticisms of The Church of Almighty God have become fewer and fewer. Although a few devils do dare to criticize, it does not take long for their fallacies to become untenable, and most of those who judge and condemn God have fallen. When many people see the words of Almighty God, they feel that these words have authority and power, and that they are all the truth. They feel that The Church of Almighty God has the truth and the work of the Holy Spirit, and that Almighty God is very likely the Lord Jesus, who has appeared and is working. Some people investigate for a year or two and then accept God’s work of the last days; some investigate for three to five years and then accept it; and some investigate for seven or eight years, or even a decade, before accepting it. There are well-known figures in various Western countries who have accepted it, including various notable people such as pastors, writers, and professors. How did they come to accept it? They saw that the words of Almighty God are all truth, they became certain that these words were expressed by God, and they became certain that the work of Almighty God is the work of God. Although Almighty God has become flesh as an ordinary Son of man, the words expressed by Almighty God are all the truth and thoroughly convince people, and so those who love the truth accept Him. Those who do not love the truth are just like the Pharisees when the Lord Jesus appeared and worked. They also acknowledge that the words of Almighty God have authority and power, but because they do not love the truth, they do not accept Almighty God. There are also a few individuals who are constrained by the religious world. Afraid of being expelled by the religious world, they dare not believe in or accept Almighty God. Is this not foolish and ignorant? In believing in the Lord and investigating the true way, you must have your own mind. You cannot always listen to pastors, much less believe your ancestors, because they do not represent God, much less do they represent having the truth. Being a wise virgin requires you to watch, pray, and know how to seek the truth. If you do not know how to pray and do not know how to rely on God, you are liable to be misled, controlled, and captured by Satan and by pastors.

So, what must you be able to possess in order to seek and investigate the true way? First, you must be able to discern what the truth is, who possesses the truth, and who can express the truth. Once you see these things clearly, you will be able to distinguish the true Christ from false christs. If He is Christ, He can certainly express the truth; if he is not Christ, then he cannot express the truth. What do false christs rely on to mislead people? Making false prophecies and spreading heresies and fallacies. False christs do not have the truth at all. If you can see this clearly, you will not be liable to be misled by false christs. Furthermore, if you can see clearly that pastors and elders do not have the truth and are false shepherds, then you will not be misled by pastors and elders either. If people who believe in the Lord are controlled by pastors and elders, they are definitely not chosen by God, but rather are of Satan. All those who worship pastors and elders are foolish virgins and cannot welcome the Lord. Remember this! Investigating the true way means, for one thing, being able to determine that the words of Almighty God have authority and power and are all truth, that only God can express the truth, and that apart from God, no one can express the truth. For another thing, it means determining that the words of Almighty God are absolutely the truth and can only be expressed by God; that no devil, Satan, or evil spirit can express the truth; and that any misleading words and any negative propaganda are lies and devilish words that are not worth believing. When investigating the true way, it is enough just to be sure about these two things. If this ordinary person can express the truth, and can express words that have authority and power, then He is the appearance of the Son of man prophesied by the Lord Jesus. This is the appearance of the incarnate God; it could also be said that this is the Word appearing in the flesh. Just as Almighty God says: “God become flesh is called Christ, and so calling the Christ who can bestow the truth upon people God is not excessive at all. This is because He possesses the essence of God, and He possesses God’s disposition, and the wisdom of God’s work, which are unattainable by man. Those who call themselves christ, yet cannot do the work of God, are frauds. Christ is not merely the manifestation of God on earth, but also the particular flesh assumed by God as He carries out His work on earth and completes His work among man. This flesh cannot be supplanted by just any man, but is a flesh that can adequately bear God’s work on earth, that can express the disposition of God, that can adequately represent God, and that can provide man with life. Sooner or later, those who impersonate Christ will all fall, for although they claim to be christ, they possess none of the essence of Christ. And so I say that the authenticity of Christ cannot be determined by man, but is answered and decided by God Himself” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Only Christ of the Last Days Can Give Man the Way of Eternal Life).