Because of faith, we are forgiven of sins; because of faith, we follow Christ till today. The website, Follow Christ, provides the latest information about the truth of Christ's return.
God says, “God’s Mercy and Tolerance Are Not Rare—Man’s True Repentance Is Regardless of how angry God had been with the Ninevites, as soon as they declared a fast and donned sackcloth and ashes, His heart began to soften and He began to change His mind. When He proclaimed to them that He would destroy their city—the moment prior to their confession and repentance for their sins—God was still angry with them. Once they had carried out a series of repentant acts, God’s anger for the people of Nineveh gradually transformed into mercy and tolerance for them. There is nothing contradictory about the coinciding revelation of these two aspects of God’s disposition in the same event. So, how should one understand and know this lack of contradiction? God expressed and revealed each of these two polar-opposite essences in turn as the people of Nineveh repented, allowing people to see the realness and the unoffendableness of God’s essence. God used His attitude to tell people the following: It is not that God does not tolerate people, or that He does not want to show mercy to them; rather, it is that they rarely truly repent to God, and it is rare that people truly turn away from their evil ways and abandon the violence in their hands. In other words, when God is angry with man, He hopes that man will be able to truly repent, and indeed He hopes to see man’s true repentance, in which case He will then liberally continue to bestow His mercy and tolerance upon man. This is to say that man’s evil conduct incurs God’s wrath, whereas God’s mercy and tolerance are bestowed upon those who listen to God and truly repent before Him, upon those who can turn away from their evil ways and abandon the violence in their hands. God’s attitude was very clearly revealed in His treatment of the Ninevites: God’s mercy and tolerance are not at all difficult to obtain, and what He requires is one’s true repentance. As long as people turn away from their evil ways and abandon the violence in their hands, God will change His heart and His attitude toward them.”
I was once a leader of a Three-Self church. Seeing the pastors and elders scrambled for fame and gain, I was very disappointed with them and my faith and love gradually grew cold. Later, Almighty God’s work of the last days was preached to me. Through a period of investigation, I felt the work and guidance of the Holy Spirit and recovered the faith and love I had at the start. I was fully convinced of Almighty God’s work of the last days, and began to read His words hungrily and have meetings with my brothers and sisters in the Church of Almighty God. However, just then, I unexpectedly encountered the disturbances and sieges of the leaders and fellow believers in the Three-Self Church. In my bewilderment and confusion, it was Almighty God’s words that led me to overcome the temptations and disturbances of Satan, made me see clearly Satan’s ugly face and evil nature, and strengthened my faith in following Him to the very end.
Prophecies are about things that haven’t happened yet, that God has already told us about. Some of them are signs that He gave to prophets so that they would write about them, such as in the books of Isaiah and Daniel. Some of them were told to people directly by God in the flesh, like the Lord Jesus’ prophecies about the last days. How a prophecy is actually fulfilled isn’t something that we as humans can fathom. What I want to express here is that we all know that prophecies aren’t things that people can full understand, but many people still try to rely on their own thinking and imaginations in looking at biblical prophecies. They give sermons without any restraint based on the literal meanings of prophecies. This is a really serious issue. Not only can this bring harm to others, but it can also mislead them so that they may miss out on God’s salvation or even be resistant to God.
Here the Lord Jesus teaches us to understand and forgive others. If we do this, our mistakes will also be understood and forgiven by others when we do something wrong. Just as we are deeply corrupted before the Lord, yet the Lord still saves us with His supreme love. As Christians, we should live out the Lord’s love and always put ourselves in others’ shoes to understand and forgive others, just like the Lord Jesus telling Peter to forgive others seventy times seven. Each of us has weakness and some shortcomings. If people’s relationship cannot be built on the basis of loving and forgiving one another, they cannot achieve harmony and show love and mercy to one another, thus they cannot get along with one another. The Lord is unwilling to see this situation. However, in real life, we always have barriers with others because of some small things, and always request others to understand us first. In order to get along well with others, what should we do? Some God’s words came to me, “A proper relationship between people is established on the foundation of giving their heart to God; it is not achieved through human effort. Without God, relationships between people are merely relationships of the flesh. They are not proper, but are indulgent of lust—they are relationships that God detests, that He loathes” (from “Establishing a Proper Relationship With God Is Very Important”). In fact, if we want to be able to show love, mercy and understanding to others, first we should have a normal relationship with God. Only if we have a normal relationship with God and understand God’s will can we know how to treat others. God will also guide us.
Brothers and sisters, we know that disasters are getting worse. But in order to support your family, perhaps you still have to go out to work despite the exposure to the virus. Please take care and protect yourself. More than that, please remember to pray more and rely on God more. We will also pray for you.
Disasters are growing in scale. What do you think about this? Do you realize this prophecy of the Lord Jesus has been fulfilled? “For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows” (Matthew 24:7–8). The fulfillment of the prophecies of the Lord’s return indicates that the Lord has already returned. So we should hurry to seek and welcome the Lord’s return, which is an urgent priority. Only in this way can we have the chance to be protected by God. Then how should we search for God’s footsteps so as to greet the Lord soon? The Lord Jesus prophesied, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me” (Revelation 3:20). “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me” (John 10:27).
The night was quiet, and Li Gang was lying awake tossing and turning. Several years before, he and many other brothers and sisters left the house church and joined the Three-Self Church because of the CCP government’s persecution of the Christian house churches. For these years, he had always thought that no matter where they practiced their faith, they would still be taken into the kingdom of heaven when the Lord returns as long as they kept the Lord’s name, prayed, read the Bible, and insisted on attending gatherings. However, Brother Wang’s remarks today made it hard for him to calm down. Brother Wang said, “In my opinion, we, who fear to suffer the persecution of the CCP government and choose to believe in the Lord in the Three-Self Church are all the fearful. I’m afraid we won’t be qualified to be raptured to the kingdom of heaven when the Lord returns.” While remembering this, Li Gang even more had no thoughts of sleep and asked himself constantly: “Are we who believe in the Lord in the Three-Self Church really condemned to be the fearful by the Lord? Will the Lord really not take us into the kingdom of heaven?” The scene of today’s meeting appeared in his mind.
“Jehovah” is the name that I took during My work in Israel, and it means the God of the Israelites (God’s chosen people) who can take pity on man, curse man, and guide the life of man. It means the God who possesses great power and is full of wisdom. “Jesus” is Emmanuel, and it means the sin offering that is full of love, full of compassion, and redeems man. He did the work of the Age of Grace, and represents the Age of Grace, and can only represent one part of the management plan. That is to say, only Jehovah is the God of the chosen people of Israel, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of Moses, and the God of all the people of Israel. And so in the current age, all the Israelites apart from the tribe of Judah worship Jehovah. They make sacrifices to Him on the altar, and serve Him wearing priests’ robes in the temple. What they hope for is the reappearance of Jehovah. Only Jesus is the Redeemer of mankind. He is the sin offering that redeemed mankind from sin. Which is to say, the name of Jesus came from the Age of Grace, and existed because of the work of redemption in the Age of Grace. The name of Jesus existed to allow the people of the Age of Grace to be reborn and saved, and is a particular name for the redemption of the whole of mankind. And so the name Jesus represents the work of redemption, and denotes the Age of Grace. The name Jehovah is a particular name for the people of Israel who lived under the law. In each age and each stage of work, My name is not baseless, but holds representative significance: Each name represents one age. “Jehovah” represents the Age of Law, and is the honorific for the God worshiped by the people of Israel. “Jesus” represents the Age of Grace, and is the name of the God of all those who were redeemed during the Age of Grace. If man still longs for the arrival of Jesus the Savior during the last days, and still expects Him to arrive in the image He bore in Judea, then the entire six-thousand-year management plan would stop in the Age of Redemption, and would be incapable of progressing any further. The last days, furthermore, would never arrive, and the age would never be brought to an end. That is because Jesus the Savior is only for the redemption and salvation of mankind. I took the name of Jesus for the sake of all the sinners in the Age of Grace, and it is not the name by which I shall bring the whole of mankind to an end. Although Jehovah, Jesus, and the Messiah all represent My Spirit, these names only denote the different ages in My management plan, and do not represent Me in My entirety. The names by which people on earth call Me cannot articulate My entire disposition and all that I am. They are merely different names by which I am called during different ages. And so, when the final age—the age of the last days—arrives, My name shall change again. I shall not be called Jehovah, or Jesus, much less the Messiah, but shall be called the powerful Almighty God Himself, and under this name I shall bring the entire age to an end. I was once known as Jehovah. I was also called the Messiah, and people once called Me Jesus the Savior because they loved and respected Me. But today I am not the Jehovah or Jesus that people knew in times past—I am the God who has returned in the last days, the God who shall bring the age to an end. I am the God Himself that rises up at the ends of the earth, replete with My entire disposition, and full of authority, honor and glory. People have never engaged with Me, have never known Me, and have always been ignorant of My disposition. From the creation of the world until today, not one person has seen Me. This is the God who appears to man during the last days but is hidden among man. He resides among man, true and real, like the burning sun and the flaming fire, filled with power and brimming with authority. There is not a single person or thing that shall not be judged by My words, and not a single person or thing that shall not be purified through the burning of fire. Eventually, all nations shall be blessed because of My words, and also smashed to pieces because of My words. In this way, all people during the last days shall see that I am the Savior returned, I am the Almighty God that conquers all of mankind, and I was once the sin offering for man, but in the last days I also become the flames of the sun that burn all things, as well as the Sun of righteousness that reveals all things. Such is My work of the last days. I took this name and am possessed of this disposition so that all people may see that I am a righteous God, and am the burning sun, and the flaming fire. It is so that all may worship Me, the only true God, and so that they may see My true face: I am not only the God of the Israelites, and am not just the Redeemer—I am the God of all creatures throughout heavens and earth and seas.
The Lord Jesus clearly told His disciples to beware of the teachings of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Pharisees and the Sadducees were the upper ranks of the Jewish religion of that time. Why did the Lord Jesus teach His disciples to guard against them? I wondered: What did the Pharisees and the Sadducees do at that time?
When you are expecting to welcome the Lord, have you noticed that there are two kinds of prophecies of the Lord’s return? One is the Lord coming on a cloud to appear to all the people, such as “Behold, He comes with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him” (Revelation 1:7). The other is the Lord coming secretly as a thief, such as “Behold, I come as a thief” (Revelation 16:15). Here, “as a thief” means the Lord will quietly come and that not everyone will know it. You may be wondering: If the Lord comes upon a cloud, how could He come quietly as a thief? How will these two completely different ways be fulfilled?
Actually, the Lord’s return happens in steps. In the last days, the Lord first becomes incarnate as the Son of man at the hidden advent to express the truth and do the work of purifying and saving man, with the purpose of resolving our sinful nature and making a group of overcomers before the disasters. When God’s work of salvation in the last days comes to an end, God will bring down the great disasters and start to reward the good and punish the evil. That will be the time when the Lord openly descends with clouds and appears to all nations and all peoples. However, some people insist that the Lord will come on a cloud, and thus they refuse to investigate and accept God’s secret work, and even resist and condemn it. They will lose the chance to be saved by God but become the objects of God’s punishment. They shall become embroiled in the disasters with much wailing and gnashing of teeth. This fulfills the prophecy of the Lord coming with clouds, “Behold, He comes with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him” (Revelation 1:7).
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