You Should Put Aside the Blessings of Status and Understand God’s Intention to Bring Salvation to Man
From a human point of view, it is not possible for the descendants of Moab to be made complete, nor are they qualified to be made so. The children of David, on the other hand, certainly have hope, and can indeed be made complete. If someone is a descendant of Moab, they cannot be made complete. Even now, you still do not know the significance of the work being done amongst you; at this stage, you still hold your future prospects in your hearts, and are loath to relinquish them. No one cares why today God has just chosen to work on a most unworthy group of people such as yourselves. Could it be that He has made a mistake in this work? Is this work a momentary oversight? Why has God, who has always known you are the children of Moab, come down precisely to work in your midst? Does this never occur to you? Does God never consider this when doing His work? Does He behave in a brash manner? Did He not know from the start that you are the descendants of Moab? Do you not know to consider these things? Where have your notions gone? Has that healthy thinking of yours become maladjusted? Where have your cleverness and wisdom gone? Is it that you have such a magnanimous bearing that you do not take heed of such small matters? Your minds are most sensitive to such things as your future prospects and your own fate, but when it comes to anything else, they are numb, dull-witted, and utterly ignorant. What on earth is it that you believe in? Your future prospects? Or God? Is everything you believe in not your beautiful destination? Is it not your future prospects? How much of the way of life do you now understand? How much have you attained? Do you think that the work being done now on the descendants of Moab is done to humiliate you? Is it done deliberately to expose your ugliness? Is it done intentionally to make you accept chastisement, and then to toss you into the lake of fire? I never said that you have no future prospects, much less that you have to be destroyed or suffer perdition. Have I publicly announced such things? You say you are without hope, but is this not a conclusion you yourself have drawn? Is this not the effect of your own mindset? Do your own conclusions count? If I say you are not blessed, then you will certainly be the object of ruination; and if I say you are blessed, then you will definitely not be destroyed. I am only saying that you are the descendant of Moab; I did not say that you would be destroyed. It is simply that the descendants of Moab have been cursed, and are one breed of corrupt humans. Sin was mentioned earlier; are you not all sinful? Have not sinners all been corrupted by Satan? Do sinners not all defy and rebel against God? Are those who defy God not to be cursed? Must sinners not all be destroyed? In that case, who among people of flesh and blood can be saved? How can you have survived to this day? You have grown negative because you are the descendants of Moab; do you not also count as humans, who are sinners? How have you lasted to this day? When perfection is mentioned, you become happy. After hearing that you must experience the great tribulation, you feel that this makes you even more blessed. You think that you can become overcomers after emerging from the tribulation, and that this, moreover, is God’s great blessing and His great exaltation of you. Upon mention of Moab, tumult arises among you; adults and children alike feel unspeakable sadness and you have absolutely no joy in your hearts, and you regret being born. You do not understand the significance of this stage of work being done on the descendants of Moab; you only know to seek high positions, and whenever you perceive that there is no hope, you backslide. Upon mention of perfection and the future destination, you feel happy; you have put your faith in God in order to gain blessings and so that you can have a good destination. Some people now feel apprehension because of their status. Because they are of low worth and low status, they do not wish to seek to be perfected. First, perfection was spoken about, and then mention was made of Moab’s descendants, so people negated the path of perfection mentioned previously. This is because from start to finish, you have never known the significance of this work, nor do you care about its significance. You are too small of stature, and cannot endure even the slightest disturbance. When you see that your own status is too low, you become negative and lose the confidence to go on seeking. People merely regard the attainment of grace and the enjoyment of peace as symbols of faith, and see the seeking of blessings as the basis for their belief in God. Very few people seek to know God or seek a change in their disposition. In their faith, people seek to make God give them a suitable destination and all the grace they need, to make Him their servant, to have Him maintain a peaceful, friendly relationship with them so that, no matter when, there would never be any conflict between them. That is, their belief in God demands that He promise to meet all their requirements and to bestow upon them whatever they pray for, in keeping with the words they have read in the Bible, “I will listen to all your prayers.” They expect God not to judge or prune anyone, for He has always been the merciful Savior Jesus who keeps a good relationship with people at all times and in all places. Here is how people believe in God: They just shamelessly make demands of God, believing that whether they are rebellious or obedient, He would just grant everything to them blindly. They just continually “collect debts” from God, believing He must “repay” them without any resistance and, moreover, pay double; they think, whether God has gotten anything from them or not, He can only be manipulated by them, and He cannot arbitrarily orchestrate people, much less reveal to people His wisdom and righteous disposition, which have been hidden for many years, whenever He wants and without their permission. They simply confess their sins to God, believing God would just absolve them, that He would not get sick of doing so, and that this will go on forever. They just order God about, believing He would just obey them, because it is recorded in the Bible that God did not come to be served by humans, but to serve them, and that He is here to be their servant. Have you not always believed in this way? Whenever you are unable to gain something from God, you wish to run away; when you do not understand something, you grow so resentful, and even go so far as to hurl all kinds of abuse at Him. You simply will not allow God Himself to fully express His wisdom and wonder; instead, you just want to enjoy temporary ease and comfort. Until now, your attitude in your belief in God has merely consisted of the same old views. If God shows you just a slight bit of majesty, you become unhappy. Do you see now exactly how great your stature is? Do not assume that you are all loyal to God when in fact your old views have not changed. When nothing befalls you, you believe that everything is going smoothly, and your love for God reaches a high point. When something minor happens to you, you fall down into Hades. Is this being loyal to God?
If the final stage of the work of conquest were to begin in Israel, then such work of conquest would have no meaning. The work is most significant when done in China, and when it is done on you people. You are the lowliest of people, the people with the least status; you are the ones at the lowest level of this society, and you are those who least acknowledged God in the beginning. You are the people who have strayed farthest from God and who have been harmed most severely. Because this stage of work is only for the sake of conquest, is it not most suitable for you to be chosen to bear the future witness? If the first step of the work of conquest were not to be done on you people, then it would become difficult to advance the work of conquest that is to come, for the work of conquest that will follow will achieve results based on the fact of this work being done today. The current work of conquest is only the beginning of the overall work of conquest. You are the first batch to be conquered; you are representatives of all humankind that will be conquered. People who genuinely possess knowledge will see that all the work God does today is great, and that He not only allows people to know their own rebelliousness, but also reveals their status. The purpose and meaning of His words is not to make people negative, nor is it to topple them. It is for them to attain enlightenment and salvation through His words; it is to awaken their spirit by way of His words. Ever since the world’s creation, man has lived under Satan’s power, neither knowing nor believing that there is a God. That these people can be included in God’s great salvation and can be greatly raised up by God indeed shows God’s love; all those who truly understand will believe this. What about those who have no such knowledge? They will say, “Ah, God says we are the descendants of Moab; He said this with His own words. Can we still obtain a good outcome? We are the descendants of Moab, and we have resisted Him in the past. God has come to condemn us; do you not see how He has always judged us, right from the start? Since we have resisted God, this is how we should be chastised.” Are these words correct? Today God judges you, chastises you, and condemns you, but you must know that the point of your condemnation is for you to know yourself. He condemns, curses, judges, and chastises so that you might know yourself, so that your disposition might change, and, moreover, so that you might know your worth, and see that all of God’s actions are righteous and in accordance with His disposition and the requirements of His work, that He works in accordance with His plan for man’s salvation, and that He is the righteous God who loves, saves, judges, and chastises man. If you only know that you are of lowly status, that you are corrupt and rebellious, but do not know that God wishes to make plain His salvation through the judgment and chastisement that He does in you today, then you have no way of gaining experience, much less are you capable of continuing forward. God has not come to kill or destroy, but to judge, curse, chastise, and save. Until His 6,000-year management plan comes to a close—before He reveals the outcome of each category of man—God’s work on earth will be for the sake of salvation; its purpose is purely to make those who love Him complete—thoroughly so—and to bring them to surrender under His dominion. No matter how God saves people, it is all done by making them break away from their old satanic nature; that is, He saves them by having them seek life. If they do not do so, then they will have no way to accept God’s salvation. Salvation is the work of God Himself, and the seeking for life is something that man must take on in order to accept salvation. In the eyes of man, salvation is the love of God, and the love of God cannot be chastisement, judgment, and curses; salvation must contain love, compassion, and, moreover, words of solace, as well as boundless blessings bestowed by God. People believe that when God saves man, He does so by moving them with His blessings and grace, so that they can give their hearts to God. That is to say, His touching man is His saving them. This sort of salvation is done by striking a deal. Only when God grants them a hundredfold will man come to surrender before God’s name and strive to do well for Him and bring Him glory. This is not what God intends for mankind. God has come to work on earth in order to save corrupt mankind; there is no falsehood in this. If there were, He would certainly not have come to do His work in person. In the past, His means of salvation involved showing the utmost love and compassion, such that He gave His all to Satan in exchange for the whole of mankind. The present is nothing like the past: The salvation bestowed upon you today occurs at the time of the last days, during the classification of each according to kind; the means of your salvation is not love or compassion, but chastisement and judgment, in order that man may be more thoroughly saved. Thus, all that you receive is chastisement, judgment, and merciless smiting, but know this: In this heartless smiting there is not the slightest punishment. Regardless of how harsh My words might be, what befall you are but a few words that might appear utterly heartless to you, and no matter how angry I might be, what rain upon you are still words of reproach, and I do not mean to harm you or put you to death. Is this not all fact? Know that nowadays, whether it be righteous judgment or heartless refinement and chastisement, everything is for the sake of salvation. Regardless of whether today each is classified according to kind or the categories of man are laid bare, the purpose of all of God’s words and work is to save those who truly love God. Righteous judgment is brought to purify man, and heartless refinement is done to cleanse them; harsh words or chastening are both done to purify and are for the sake of salvation. Thus, today’s method of salvation is unlike that of the past. Today, you are brought salvation through righteous judgment, and this is a good tool for classifying you each according to kind. Moreover, ruthless chastisement serves as your utmost salvation—and what have you to say in the face of such chastisement and judgment? Have you not always enjoyed salvation, from start to finish? You have seen God incarnate and realized His omnipotence and wisdom; in addition, you have experienced repeated smiting and discipline. However, have you not also received supreme grace? Are your blessings not greater than those of anyone else? Your graces are more bounteous even than the glory and riches enjoyed by Solomon! Think about it: If My intention in coming were to condemn and punish you rather than save you, could your days have lasted so long? Could you sinful beings of flesh and blood have survived until today? If My goal were merely to punish you, then why would I have become flesh and embarked upon such a great enterprise? Could punishing you mere mortals not simply be done by uttering a single word? Would I still need to destroy you after purposely condemning you? Do you still not believe these words of Mine? Could I save man merely through love and compassion? Or could I only use the crucifixion to save man? Is My righteous disposition not more conducive to making man completely submissive? Is it not more capable of thoroughly saving man?
Though My words may be stern, they are all said for man’s salvation, as I am only speaking words and not punishing man’s flesh. These words cause man to live in the light, to know that the light exists, to know that the light is precious, and, even more so, to know how beneficial these words are to them, as well as to know that God is salvation. Though I have uttered many words of chastisement and judgment, what they represent has not been done unto you in deed. I have come to do My work and to speak My words, and though My words may be strict, they are spoken in judgment of your corruption and your rebelliousness. The purpose of My doing this remains to save man from Satan’s power; I am using My words to save man. My purpose is not to harm man with My words. My words are stern in order to achieve results in My work. Only through such work can man come to know themselves and break away from their rebellious disposition. The greatest significance of the work of words is allowing people to put the truth into practice after having understood it, to achieve changes in their disposition, and to gain knowledge of themselves and of the work of God. Only doing the work by way of speaking words can make possible the communication between God and man, and only words can explain the truth. Working in this way is the best means of conquering man; apart from the utterance of words, no other method is capable of giving people a clearer understanding of the truth and the work of God. Thus, in His final stage of work, God speaks to man in order to unlock for them all the truths and mysteries that they do not yet understand, allowing them to gain from God the true way and the life, thereby satisfying His intentions. The purpose of God’s work on man is to enable them to satisfy God’s intentions, and it is done to bring them salvation. Therefore, during the time of His salvation of man, He does not do the work of punishing them. While bringing salvation to man, God does not punish evil or reward good, nor does He reveal the destinations of various kinds of people. Rather, only after the final stage of His work is complete will He do the work of punishing evil and rewarding good, and only then will He reveal the ends of all the different sorts of people. Those who are punished will be those who are actually unable to be saved, while those who are saved will be those who have obtained God’s salvation during the time of His salvation of man. While God’s work of salvation is being done, every single person who can be saved will be saved as far as possible, and none of them discarded, for the purpose of God’s work is to save man. All those who, during the time of God’s salvation of man, are unable to achieve a change in their disposition—as well as all those who are unable to submit to God completely—will become objects for punishment. This stage of work—the work of words—will unlock for people all of the ways and mysteries that they do not understand, so that they can understand the intentions of God and God’s requirements of them, and so that they can have the prerequisites to put God’s words into practice and achieve changes in their disposition. God uses only words to do His work and does not punish people for being a little rebellious; this is because now is the time of the work of salvation. If anyone who acts rebelliously were punished, then no one would have the opportunity to be saved; everyone would be punished and fall into Hades. The purpose of words that judge man is to allow them to know themselves and submit to God; it is not to punish them with such judgment. During the time of the work of words, many people will expose their rebelliousness and defiance, as well as their lack of submission toward the incarnate God. Nevertheless, He will not punish all these people as a result, but instead will only cast aside those who are corrupt to the core and who cannot be saved. He will give their flesh to Satan, and, in a few cases, terminate their flesh. Those remaining will continue to follow and experience being pruned. If, while following, these people still are unable to accept being pruned, and become more and more degenerate, then they will have lost their chance for salvation. Each person who has accepted being conquered by God’s words will have ample opportunity for salvation; God’s salvation of each of these people will show His utmost leniency. In other words, they will be shown the utmost tolerance. As long as people turn back from the wrong path, and as long as they can repent, God will give them opportunities to obtain His salvation. When humans first rebel against God, He has no desire to put them to death; rather, He does all He can to save them. If someone really has no room for salvation, then God will cast them aside. The reason God is slow to punish certain people is that He wishes to save everyone who can be saved. He judges, enlightens, and guides people only with words, and does not use a rod to put them to death. Employing words to bring humans salvation is the purpose and significance of the final stage of work.