On one particular winter, a man was lost in the mountains. He was very cold and hungry, so he sat down and took a break. Because it was in the middle of a cold winter, once he stopped walking, he would surely freeze to death.
However, he didn’t know that he was very close to his home. After a while, a warm-hearted man passed by and advised him to go home quickly. Though he shivered with cold, he didn’t get up. The warm-hearted man could only give him his winter jacket and then left. Soon after, a carriage passed by. Seeing that this man was about to freeze to death, the coachman knew that the most important thing to do was to make the man move his body. So, he used his whip to beat the man and scolded him. The man was outraged by the coachman. He got up immediately and wanted to fight with the coachman. The coachman started to drive his carriage, and the man kept chasing behind. While running, the man felt that his body was becoming warmer and his mind became clearer; moreover, he saw his house was only a few steps away from him. At this moment, he realized that the driver had saved his life.
Having read this story, all of us are glad that the man was lucky enough to meet the carriage, and that the driver used a special way to save his life. In the meantime, this story tells us that no matter what we encounter in life, do not judge it only with our minds; there are some hidden messages or stories behind everything. In this story, the man was very grateful when the first warm-hearted man gave him the winter jacket, but the winter jacket could only bring temporary warmth for him; it could not save his life. He would freeze to death if he stayed there too long. However, the driver whipped the man, and in our view, the driver seems to have done something wrong, but the driver actually saved the man’s life. From this story we can understand that things that conform to our conception might not be the best; on the contrary, some ideas or ways that we are not willing to accept might be more beneficial to us. It reminds me of those brothers and sister who are still holding on to the Age of Grace. When they heard that the return of Lord Jesus, Almighty God, has come and done the work of judgment and chastisement, some of them cannot accept it, thinking that God is merciful and God always bestows man grace; it is impossible for God to do the work of judgment; if God judges man, man will be condemned and die. As a result, they refuse God’s work in the last days. Are these views correct?
In the Age of Grace, all believers of the Lord Jesus accepted the Lord’s salvation and got endless grace from the Lord. As time went by, these believers thought that the Lord is a God that bestows grace upon man, and thus they believed that God is meant to be merciful and God will always give man grace. So when they hear that Christ of the last days, Almighty God, has expressed words to do the work of judgment and chastisement, many of them do their utmost to deny Almighty God and refuse to accept His work. However, all the work the Lord Jesus had done in the Age of Grace was according to the needs of people at that time. At the late period of the Age of Law, people could not keep the law and were in the danger of being put to death by the law. Therefore, God incarnated in the name of the Lord Jesus and started His salvation work in the Age of Grace. The Lord Jesus was crucified, became mankind’s eternal sin offering and bestowed rich grace and blessings upon humans. However, although our sins are forgiven by the Lord Jesus, our sinful natures have not been removed completely. We live in a situation of committing sins in the day and confessing at night, committing sins involuntarily and unable to get rid of the bondage of sin. Therefore, we have only enjoyed the Lord’s grace and mercy, but have not ridden our sinful nature. We still need to experience God’s deeper salvation. Almighty God says, “God has already carried out one stage of the work of grace in the flesh, and has already bestowed material blessings upon man—but man cannot be made perfect with grace, love, and mercy alone. In man’s experiences he encounters some of God’s love, and sees the love and mercy of God, yet having experienced for a period of time, he sees that God’s grace and His love and mercy are incapable of making man perfect, and incapable of revealing that which is corrupt within man, nor are they able to rid man of his corrupt disposition, or make perfect his love and faith. God’s work of grace was the work of one period, and man cannot rely on enjoying the grace of God in order to know God” (“Only by Experiencing Painful Trials Can You Know the Loveliness of God”). The word of God tells us that we cannot know God completely and attain perfection only by God’s love, grace and blessings. Because we have not broken free from our corrupt disposition, we still belong to Satan, and thus we cannot be saved. If we want to break free from our corrupt disposition and receive God’s salvation, the only way is to accept Almighty God’s work of judgment and chastisement in the last days.
Almighty God says, “Through what is God’s perfection of man accomplished? Through His righteous disposition. God’s disposition primarily consists of righteousness, wrath, majesty, judgment, and curse, and His perfection of man is primarily through judgment. Some people don’t understand, and ask why it is that God is only able to make man perfect through judgment and curse. They say that if God were to curse man, wouldn’t man die? If God were to judge man, wouldn’t man be condemned? Then how can he still be made perfect? Such are the words of people who do not know the work of God. What God curses is the disobedience of man, and what He judges are the sins of man. Although He speaks harshly, and without the slightest sensitivity, He reveals all that is within man, and through these stern words He reveals that which is essential within man, yet through such judgment, He gives man a profound knowledge of the essence of the flesh, and thus man submits to obedience before God. The flesh of man is of sin, and of Satan, it is disobedient, and the object of God’s chastisement—and so, to allow man to know himself, the words of God’s judgment must befall him and there must be employed every kind of refinement; only then can God’s work be effective” (“Only by Experiencing Painful Trials Can You Know the Loveliness of God”).
Almighty God clearly tells us that God uses His words to judge our sins and chastise our disobedience in the last days. Because our sins are forgiven by the Lord’s salvation, there is a corrupt nature and substance within us; we often sin, living in sin without being able to be free from it. In the end, we are still the food of Satan and will certainly sink into destruction. Therefore, God’s work of judgment and chastisement by the word of the last days is to clean our corrupt disposition and is a new and higher work than the work in the Age of Grace. The words of the judgment and chastisement of God have revealed our nature and substance of resisting and rebelling against God, which allows us to know and accept God’s judgment and chastisement and know our corrupt disposition, so that our old outlook of life and values can change gradually. When the words of God become our life, we will no longer live in dependence on the nature and essence of Satan, no longer resist, rebel, and betray God. Instead, we can be the one who knows and obeys God. Through God’s work of judgment and chastisement, we can be cleansed and have our life disposition transformed; in the end, we can be gained and saved by God. So God’s work of judgment and chastisement is the best salvation and actual love for us.
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