The Word Appears in the Flesh

Those Who Obey God With a True Heart Shall Surely Be Gained by God

The work of the Holy Spirit changes from day to day, rising higher with each step; the revelation of tomorrow is even higher than today’s, step by step climbing ever higher. Such is the work by which God perfects man. If man cannot keep pace, then he may be left behind at any time. If man does not have an obedient heart, then he cannot follow to the end. The former age has passed; this is a new age. And in a new age, new work must be done. Particularly in the final age in which man will be perfected, God will perform new work ever more quickly. Therefore, without obedience in his heart, man will find it difficult to follow the footsteps of God. God does not abide by any rules, nor does He treat any stage of His work as unchanging. Rather, the work He does is ever newer and ever higher. His work becomes more and more practical with each step, more and more in line with the actual needs of man. Only after man experiences this kind of work can he attain the final transformation of his disposition. Man’s knowledge of life reaches ever higher levels, and so likewise the work of God reaches ever higher levels. Only in this way can man be made perfect and become fit for God’s use. God works in this way on the one hand to counter and reverse the notions of man, and on the other to lead man into a higher and more realistic state, into the highest realm of belief in God, so that in the end, the will of God can be done. All those of a disobedient nature who willfully oppose shall be left behind by this stage of God’s swift and furiously advancing work; only those who willingly obey and who gladly humble themselves can progress to the end of the road. In this kind of work, all of you should learn how to submit and how to put aside your notions. You should be cautious in every step you take. If you are careless, you will surely become one who is spurned by the Holy Spirit, one who disrupts God in His work. Prior to undergoing this stage of work, man’s rules and laws of old were so innumerable that he got carried away, and as a result, he became conceited and forgot himself. These are all obstacles that keep man from accepting the new work of God; they become opponents to man’s coming to know God. If a man has neither obedience in his heart nor a yearning for the truth, then he will be in danger. If you submit only to work and words that are simple, and are incapable of accepting any of a deeper intensity, then you are one who keeps to old ways and cannot keep pace with the work of the Holy Spirit. The work done by God differs from period to period. If you show great obedience in one phase, yet in the next phase show less or none at all, then God shall desert you. If you keep pace with God as He ascends this step, then you must continue to keep pace when He ascends the next. Only then are you one who is obedient to the Holy Spirit. Since you believe in God, you must remain constant in your obedience. You cannot simply obey when you please and disobey when you do not. This kind of obedience does not meet with God’s approval. If you cannot keep pace with the new work I fellowship and continue to hold on to the former sayings, then how can there be progress in your life? God’s work is to supply you through His words. When you obey and accept His words, then the Holy Spirit shall surely work in you. The Holy Spirit works exactly in the way I speak. Do as I have said, and the Holy Spirit will promptly work in you. I release a new light for you to see and bring you into the light of the present time. When you walk into this light, the Holy Spirit will immediately work in you. There are some who may be recalcitrant, saying, “I simply will not carry out what you say.” Then I tell you that you have now come to the end of the road, you are dried up, and have no more life. Therefore, in experiencing the transformation of your disposition, it is most crucial to keep pace with the present light. The Holy Spirit not only works in certain men who are used by God, but even more in the church. He could be working in anyone. He may work in you for the present, and when you have experienced it, He may work in someone else next. Make haste to follow; the more closely you follow the present light, the more your life can mature and grow. No matter what manner of man he may be, so long as the Holy Spirit works in him, make sure to follow. Take in his experiences through your own, and you will receive even higher things. In so doing you will progress more quickly. This is the path of perfection for man and a way through which life grows. The path to being made perfect is reached through your obedience to the work of the Holy Spirit. You do not know through what kind of person God will work to perfect you, nor through what person, occurrence, or thing He will enable you to enter into possession and to gain some insight. If you are able to walk onto this right track, it shows that there is great hope for you to be perfected by God. If you are unable to do so, it shows that your future is bleak and devoid of light. Once you get on the right track, you will gain revelation in all things. No matter what the Holy Spirit may reveal to others, if you proceed on the basis of their knowledge to experience things on your own, then this experience will become a part of your life, and you will be able to supply others out of this experience. Those who supply others by parroting words are people who have not had any experiences; you must learn to find, through the enlightenment and illumination of others, a way of practice before you can begin to speak of your own actual experience and knowledge. This will be of greater benefit to your own life. You should experience in this way, obeying all that comes from God. You should seek the will of God in all things and study the lessons in all things, that your life may mature and grow. This kind of practice affords the fastest progress.

The Holy Spirit enlightens you through your practical experiences and perfects you through your faith. Are you truly willing to be perfected? If you are truly willing to be perfected by God, then you will have the courage to cast aside your flesh, and will be able to carry out God’s words and not be passive or weak. You will be able to obey all that comes from God, and all of your actions, whether done in public or in private, will be presentable to God. If you are an honest person, and practice the truth in all things, then you will be perfected. Those deceitful men who act one way before the face of others and another way behind their backs are not willing to be perfected. They are all sons of perdition and destruction; they belong not to God but to Satan. They are not the kind of man chosen by God! If your actions and behavior cannot be presented before God or be looked upon by the Spirit of God, this is proof that there is something wrong with you. Only if you accept the judgment and chastisement of God, and place importance on the transformation of your disposition, will you be able to get on the path to being perfected. If you are truly willing to be perfected by God and to do the will of God, then you should obey all of God’s work, without giving voice to a single word of complaint, without presuming to evaluate or to judge the work of God. These are the minimal requirements for being perfected by God. The necessary requirement for those who seek to be perfected by God is this: do all things with a heart that loves God. What does it mean “to do things with a heart that loves God”? It means that all of your actions and behavior can be presented before God. As you hold the right intentions, whether your actions are right or wrong, you are not afraid for them to be shown to God or to your brothers and sisters; you dare to make a vow before God. That your every intention, thought, and idea be fit to be examined in God’s presence: if you practice and enter in this way, then progress in your life will be swift.

Since you believe in God, then you must put faith in all of the words of God and in all of His work. That is to say, since you believe in God, you must obey Him. If you are unable to do this, then it does not matter whether you believe in God. If you have believed in God for many years, and yet have never obeyed Him or accepted all of His words, but instead asked God to submit to you and act in accord with your notions, then you are the most rebellious of persons, and you are an unbeliever. How is one such as this able to obey the work and the words of God that do not conform to the notions of man? The most rebellious person is one who intentionally defies and resists God. He is the enemy of God and the antichrist. Such a person constantly bears a hostile attitude toward the new work of God, has never shown the smallest intention of submitting, and has never gladly shown submission or humbled himself. He exalts himself before others and never shows submission to anyone. Before God, he considers himself the most proficient in preaching the word and the most skillful in working on others. He never discards the treasures already in his possession, but treats them as family heirlooms for worship, for preaching about to others, and uses them to lecture those fools who idolize him. There are indeed a certain number of people like this in the church. It can be said that they are “indomitable heroes,” generation after generation sojourning in the house of God. They take preaching the word (doctrine) to be their highest duty. Year after year and generation by generation, they go about vigorously enforcing their “sacred and inviolable” duty. None dare touch them and not a single person dares openly reproach them. They become “kings” in the house of God, running rampant as they tyrannize over others from age to age. This pack of demons seeks to join hands and demolish My work; how can I allow these living devils to exist before My eyes? Even those with only half obedience cannot walk until the end, how much less these tyrants without the slightest obedience in their hearts! The work of God is not easily gained by man. Even if man uses all of his strength, he will only be able to gain a mere portion and attain perfection in the end. What then of the children of the archangel who seek to destroy the work of God? Do they not have even less hope of being gained by God? My purpose in doing the work of conquest is not solely to conquer for the sake of conquest, but to conquer so as to reveal righteousness and unrighteousness, to obtain proof for the punishment of man, to condemn the wicked, and even more, to conquer for the sake of perfecting those who willingly obey. In the end, all will be separated according to kind, and all the ones who are perfected have their thoughts and ideas filled with obedience. This is the work to be completed in the end. But those who are filled with rebellious ways will be punished, sent to burn in the fires and become the object of eternal curse. When that time comes, those “great and indomitable heroes” of ages past will become the basest and the most shunned “weak and impotent cowards.” Only this can illustrate every aspect of God’s righteousness and reveal His disposition which brooks no offense from man. Only this can appease the hatred in My heart. Do you not agree that this is entirely reasonable?

Not all those who experience the work of the Holy Spirit can gain life, and not all the people in this stream can gain life. Life is not a common property shared by all humanity, and the transformation of disposition is not something that is easily achieved by all. Submission to the work of God must be tangible and must be lived out. Submission on a superficial level cannot receive the approval of God, and merely to obey the superficial aspects of God’s word, without seeking a transformation of one’s disposition, will not be able to please God’s heart. Obedience to God and submission to the work of God are one and the same. Those who submit only to God but not to His work cannot be deemed obedient, even less can those who do not truly submit but are outwardly sycophantic. Those who truly submit to God are all able to gain from the work and achieve understanding of the disposition and work of God. Only such men truly submit to God. Such men are able to gain new knowledge from new work and experience new changes from the same. Only such men have the approval of God; only this kind of man is one who is perfected, one who has undergone a transformation of his disposition. Those who receive God’s approval are those who gladly submit to God, as well as to His word and work. Only this kind of man is in the right; only this kind of man sincerely desires God, and sincerely seeks God. As for those who merely speak of their faith in God with their mouths but in actuality curse Him, they are men who mask themselves, who bear the venom of snakes, the most treacherous of men. Sooner or later, these scoundrels will have their vile masks ripped away. Is that not the work that is being done today? Wicked men will always be wicked and will never escape the day of punishment. Good men will always be good and will be revealed when the work comes to an end. Not one of the wicked shall be deemed to be righteous, nor any one of the righteous deemed to be wicked. Would I let any man stand wrongfully accused?

As your life progresses, you must always have new entry and new and higher insight, which grow deeper with every step. This is what all humanity should enter into. Through communing, listening to a message, reading the word of God, or handling a matter, you will gain new insight and new enlightenment. And you do not live within the rules of old and times of old. You always live within the new light, and do not stray from the word of God. This is what is called getting onto the right track. It will not do to simply pay the price on a superficial level. Day by day, the word of God enters a higher realm, and new things appear every day. It is also necessary for man to make a new entry every day. As God speaks, so He brings to fruition all that which He has spoken; if you cannot keep up, then you fall behind. Your prayers must penetrate deeper; you must eat and drink more of the word of God, deepen the revelations you receive, and lessen those things that are negative. You must also strengthen your judgment so that you are able to gain insight into things, and by understanding that which is in the spirit, gain insight into the outward things and grasp the core of any issue. If you are not equipped with these things, how will you be able to lead the church? If you only speak of letters and doctrines without any reality and without a way of practice, you will only be able to get by for a short period of time. It may be marginally acceptable when speaking to new believers, but after a time, when new believers have had some actual experience, then you will no longer be able to supply them. Then how are you fit for God’s use? Without new enlightenment, you cannot work. Those without new enlightenment are those who do not know how to experience, and such men never gain new knowledge or new experience. And, in the matter of supplying life, they can never perform their function, nor can they become fit for God’s use. This kind of man is good for nothing, a mere wastrel. In truth, such men are wholly incapable of performing their function in the work and are all good for nothing. Not only do they fail to perform their function, but they actually place much unnecessary strain on the church. I exhort these “venerable old men” to make haste and leave the church so that others no longer have to look upon you. Such men have no understanding of the new work but are filled with endless notions. They serve no function whatsoever in the church; rather, they make mischief and spread negativity everywhere, even to the point of engaging in all manner of misconduct and disturbance in the church, and thereby throwing those who lack discrimination into confusion and disarray. These living devils, these evil spirits should leave the church as soon as possible, lest the church be blighted on your account. You may not fear the work of today, but do you not fear the righteous punishment of tomorrow? There are large numbers of people in the church who are freeloaders, as well as a great number of wolves that seek to disrupt the normal work of God. These things are all demons sent by the Devil, vicious wolves who seek to devour the guileless lambs. If these so-called men are not expelled, they become parasites on the church and moths devouring the offerings. These contemptible, ignorant, base, and repulsive maggots will one day be punished!

Learn More: Bible Study Topics: The Gospel Movie from the Church of Almighty God: Spread and testify God’s kingdom gospel.