Some new members of the church have raised some practical issues. We can understand the difficulties they are having because when we first entered into the Church of Almighty God we also encountered lots of issues. However, as we ate and drank the word of God, communed the truth and began to grasp the truth and see it clearly, unwittingly, many of our questions faded away. Why did our conceptions and illusions and the questions raised disappear? It was all because we ate and drank the word of God, communed the truth, and were unwittingly purified by the truth—our issues were resolved with the truth. Some people ask: “Almighty God of the last days has come to do the work: How does Almighty God purify and save people? In the Age of Kingdom, you read The Word Appears in the Flesh, and in the Age of Grace we read the Bible. Our faith has attained this level and yet you say we have yet to receive purification. Now you eat and drink the word of Almighty God in meetings and, in so doing, receive purification? You have no personal illusions? You have an understanding of God? Your life disposition has changed? We don’t believe it.” Is it normal of them to question in this way? Yes, it’s normal. Because they have not experienced God’s work in the last days; they don’t understand how the words that Almighty God expresses purify and remove the corruption, satanic disposition, illusions, misconceptions, fallacies, misreadings of and conflicts with God that exist within man. “Is God’s word truly this powerful? Can it really achieve this result? If it truly can achieve this result, then it is surely God’s word, it is surely the truth and God’s voice. If it cannot achieve this result, then it is not God’s word and is not the truth.” Many new believers also say: “You claim that God has arrived: Why can’t I see Him?” Is this a good question? Now let me ask you a question: You’ve all accepted Almighty God and God has come—do you see Him? If you haven’t seen Him, then why do you believe in Almighty God? Why is it that you believe in Almighty God? Many people say that their faith derives from reading God’s word. So how do you prove that God has truly come? According to God’s words—you use God’s word to prove that God has come. Some say, “When God comes and reveals Himself directly so that we can see His glorious countenance, only then has God truly come.” Is this statement tenable? It is not. Why isn’t it tenable? Because God’s Spirit doesn’t reveal Himself directly to mankind. God’s spiritual body, His actual body, does not reveal itself to man; it never reveals itself to man. Do you get what I’m saying? Who understands what I mean? This is because, while man is embodied in flesh, he is incapable of seeing the spiritual body. If man were to see God’s real person, he would die. Forget seeing the spiritual body of God, even if man were to see a ghost he’d be scared half to death and would likely become ill. Man can barely even survive an encounter with a ghost and yet you want to see God’s spiritual body? So, many say, “God has come, why haven’t we seen Him? What is God’s real person like?” Is it immature to say this? God can only reveal Himself to man in the flesh, not in the form of His real person. Only after man has been purified, may God appear in the spiritual body of the Lord Jesus resurrected. God’s real person cannot yet be revealed to man. For one, man does not deserve to see God’s real person: Man is corrupt and impure. No matter how much he believes in God, how much of God’s grace he’s enjoyed, how much he loves God and has given to Him, man still does not deserve to see God. Why do I say he is undeserving? I say this because man’s satanic disposition and corrupt nature are unresolved. Man still obstructs God. Even though you might have love for God and the truth in your heart, even though you accept and have experienced God’s word and are worthy of salvation and of receiving God’s blessing, if you haven’t been judged and chastised by God and received purification, you are not worthy of seeing God. Therefore, God only reveals Himself to corrupt man and to His believers as the Word become flesh. He can only go through the Word become flesh to live, interact, speak with and express Himself to people. We can see this aspect of the truth very clearly in God’s word.
Let’s dwell on this subject a little further and make a few more remarks. During the Age of Law, the Israelites all believed in Jehovah God. Did God ever reveal Himself to the Israelites? He did not. So why did they believe in Jehovah God? They believed in Him because of the laws that God dictated and because of God’s words and works. The Israelites believed that the laws that Moses made and promulgated came from God, that this was the work that God assigned to Moses when He appeared to him on Mount Sinai. As a result, the Israelites fully believed that this was God’s word and work and that Jehovah God was real. Thus, the Israelites were able to believe in Jehovah God for three, almost four, millennia. So then you’re clear, now, as to why the Israelites believed in Jehovah God. Did Jehovah God reveal Himself to them? No. So you see, in modern day faith you should not expect to see the real person of God or see God reveal Himself. Being able to see the incarnate Son of man interacting with and speaking and doing work for us already constitutes an exception and exaltation made by God. Man shouldn’t have such extravagant desires: He is not worthy of seeing God’s real person. First, you’re not worthy; secondly, if you were to see God’s real person you would die. So, according to man’s needs, God chose to come as the incarnate Son of man to reveal Himself, voice His words, express the truth and do the work among men. Some say, “God reveals Himself to man through incarnation? Isn’t it the same method that the Lord Jesus used during the Age of Grace?” Indeed! The three stages of work that God has performed among men are all aimed at saving corrupt man. God became flesh in the Age of Grace and in the last days, and God used man to work in the Age of Law—He used Moses. Moses was not God incarnate, but rather the transmitter of God’s law and commandments. Because that stage of work was concerned with guiding the Israelites and instructing humanity in how to live on earth and not with the work of judgment or the work of redemption, God did not need to become flesh—using man was sufficient. Actually, when God uses man, it is still the Spirit of God working through man, is it not? When Moses did those works, said those words, promulgated those laws, commandments and decrees, were they not given to him through inspirations from God? These weren’t things that Moses worked out for himself, or things that he wrote himself, but were rather direct inspirations from God—God made him realize these things. When God wants to use man as a conduit, He must send an inspiration to man. This is different from how God incarnate works. The Lord Jesus and Almighty God are the Word become flesh—in this case, the Spirit acts directly through Them and They do not require an inspiration from God because They have the Spirit of God within Them. Men do not have God’s Spirit within them, so they must receive inspirations from the Spirit of God. For Those within whom there is God’s Spirit, God’s Spirit may express Himself directly—such People are direct mouthpiece for God’s Spirit. Is this not the case?
Someone asked: “When God arrives, the arrival of His spiritual body must be a special event—light ought to flash in the sky. Why is it that no astronomers or cosmologists from any country observed anything? Given that they didn’t observe anything, how can you be sure that God has come?” Just now, some of our brothers and sisters said: “We have seen the Word appear in the flesh.” This is the best proof there is. Can science detect the existence of the Spirit of God within Christ? Science can detect no such thing. Can science detect the presence of the spirit within man? It cannot. Sometimes people become possessed by ghosts or evil spirits—in such cases, when we call upon scientists or psychiatric hospitals to use radiology on the person, are they able to see if there is an evil spirit within the person’s body? They are not. This is because the spirit is different from the material body and material things. The spirit cannot be touched or seen, and yet it truly exists. The spirit can walk through walls and appears and disappears at will: Now you see it, now you don’t. Only when the spirit reveals itself to you may you see it. If the spirit does not reveal itself to you, then even if it lingers beside you, if it watches and observes you in obscurity, you will be unaware of its presence. Isn’t this how things are? So is it really possible to use science to prove that “God has come, this person is God”? Impossible.
Some say, “Why is it that I just can’t believe in God’s appearance?” The most important thing is that you recognize God’s word and can hear His voice. If you cannot hear His voice, then you will never witness God’s appearance. Can we say that the Lord Jesus’ visage in the Age of Grace was the image of God? It was not—the visage of God incarnate is not the true image of God. However, Lord Jesus’ word and work is the work of the Spirit of God and the expression of the Holy Spirit. Now, do you agree that Lord Jesus is the incarnate God? Someone said, “You say that Lord Jesus is the incarnate God, so why is it that Jews don’t accept this belief?” In this era of wanton evil, ninety-nine percent of people do not accept God. This is just the same as in the age of Noah. In that age, only Noah was a righteous man, and so God wanted to save Noah. How did God save Noah? God told Noah, “I am going to destroy this world. Mankind is far too evil—all day long they think evil thoughts. You must build an ark, and once you have finished building the ark and your family of eight, as well as every kind of animal, has boarded, then I will begin the destruction: I will release the floods to wash over and destroy everything on this earth.” Having heard this, Noah, for over a hundred years, held not even the least bit of suspicion. He said, “This is God’s instruction. This is the most high God speaking to me. There is no mistaking, I have no doubt.” Noah never doubted the word of God and thus God called Noah a righteous man. So why was it that Noah, this righteous man, was called righteous? Noah believed that God’s word was His will and was truth. He had not even the slightest bit of doubt. This is what constitutes a righteous man. Also, for God’s one utterance, Noah spent one hundred years building the ark. During the time that Noah was building this ark, putting aside how he spread the gospel and bore witness to God’s word, just consider how much pain Noah suffered during those hundred years, how many people slandered and condemned him? Wouldn’t you say, that during that age, news of Noah’s ark building would have spread all over the world? People would say: “In that place there is a man named Noah who claims that God instructed him to build an ark, and once the ark is completed and his family has boarded, all those who are not on board the ark will be destroyed.” After everyone heard such a story they would no doubt break out in uproarious laughter and pronounce him a lunatic! Who believed in God during that age? Only Noah believed. Did his sons and his sons’ wives believe? We don’t know, the Bible doesn’t say. At the very least, Noah’s sons believed what Noah said. They obeyed their father when he told them to build the ark and so, by relation to Noah they were saved. Did Noah see the face of God in the time that he believed in God? He didn’t even see the incarnate God. All that he had to go on was the word of God that he heard—just a few sentences were all he needed to believe, a hundred years without a single doubt. Once the ark was built and they had boarded and closed the door, God’s word came true. The flood rained down for forty days and nights. What do you think they were feeling at that moment? What were they thinking? Noah made the following prayer: “God, You spoke and it was done, You commanded and it stood fast. We have seen the authority of Your word, we have seen Your omnipotence. God, You are so very trustworthy. What You say all comes to be and is fulfilled. You never go back on Your word. Thanks to God for giving me faith and allowing me to persist unto the end, making it possible for this ark to be made.” When he saw the flood pour down, tears came streaming down his face, “Thanks be to God!” How great, do you say, was Noah’s faith in God? This is Noah’s faith in God, in God’s word, in the fact that God’s word is truth and will be fulfilled and that God is almighty and never fails. These are the articles of Noah’s faith. Put simply, this is what is meant by true faith.
Nowadays some people, hearing God speak so much, do not acknowledge that God has come. They say: “If God has come, where is He? Why can’t I see Him?” You rely upon your eyes to see God, but you don’t believe in God’s word. If you rely solely upon your eyes, even if you were to see the Lord Jesus, would you recognize Him? The incarnate God is just a normal person in outward appearance—He conceals Himself in layman’s garb. Could you recognize Him? If the incarnate God were to speak to you just one sentence of God’s word, would you recognize it as God’s word? Corrupt man has no belief in God and does not believe a word that God says. When thunder rumbles in the heavens they are seized with fear, they say, “This is thunder, thunder is mighty!” When God incarnates as man and speaks in man’s tongue, no one accepts His word. So what now constitutes true faith? What constitutes true faith is the belief that God’s word is the voice of God and the truth, that God’s word will be fulfilled and that even if heaven and earth shall pass away, God’s words will not pass away. Now, do you have this kind of faith in God? The unbelievers and the great red dragon say, “The One you believe in is human—just a regular person—not some graduate of a famous university, perhaps not a graduate of any university at all. Also, the leader of your church is a man; we’re pursuing him now. He is your high leader, the one who preaches, guides and manages you. Your church is led by a man!” Do you believe the nonsense that the great red dragon spouts? Can the great red dragon have faith in God’s word? Does the great red dragon accept the truth? When the Lord Jesus came to spread His word and work, preaching as much as He did, how did the Pharisees, high priests and scribes not believe that He was speaking God’s word? They didn’t believe, nor did God’s believers—is this not fact? From our perspective we see that the Lord Jesus preached so much and expressed so much truth, but what is recorded in the Bible is just the tip of the iceberg, just a drop in the barrel. Why do I say it’s just the tip of the iceberg? In the Bible, one of the apostles says, “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written” (John 21:25). He says the world could not contain them. He does not mean by this that there is literally not enough space on earth to contain all the written records of God’s works, what he means is that the world would not tolerate Him. Those monstrous beasts that apprehended the Lord Jesus wanted to harm Him and His followers were even further entrapped. If the Lord Jesus’ word had been printed into book form and circulated during that time, it would have sent the whole world into upheaval, because humanity is far too evil. Is this not how it is? However, in point of fact, if all of the Lord Jesus’ words from the Bible were to be spoken as a regular sermon, how long would this sermon last? Such a sermon would last only two to three hours. However, it says very clearly in the Bible that the Lord Jesus preached for over three years, over three whole years! If He were to preach for an hour every day, how many hours would He have preached in three years? If we were to calculate based on these figures, then the corpus of Lord Jesus’ teachings must have been very large indeed—at least a million words, correct? Now, the Lord Jesus spoke at such great lengths and yet the Jews did not accept Him. They did not recognize the Lord Jesus’ word as the voice of God, and failed to see that this was the work of God. The word and work of the Lord Jesus could not have come from a normal person. The Lord Jesus’ miracle works, especially, could not even have been performed by the prophets. Were any of the miracles performed by the prophets as great as those performed by the Lord Jesus? Not a single one was as great. The miracles which the Lord Jesus performed were done with the authority of God, they stemmed from God’s might; especially raising the dead back to life, how truly awesome! As soon as people saw this they knew He was God, that God had come. The Lord Jesus fed five-thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish. It just so happened that on that day there were five thousand people, but if there had been one hundred thousand people He also would have fed them just the same. Only God would be capable of this, right? Has any evil spirit in all of recorded history performed such a miracle? If Satan or any other came, none would be able to perform such miracles. So you see, we see it as a great shame that the Israelite chief priests and scribes didn’t believe that the Lord Jesus was God even after He had expressed so much truth and performed so many miracles, but from this we can conclude the following fact: In all of mankind, including those that believe in God, there are only very few that hear the word as God’s voice and know it as the truth. Is this fair to say? Actually, when many of our new believers raise questions, I often tell them to read Almighty God’s word, because the answers can all be found in God’s word. If you are to read Almighty God’s word, all of your questions would gradually be resolved. However, it won’t happen overnight. The words of Almighty God are very clear and very thorough. If I were to use my own words, you wouldn’t believe me. So, I tell you, I understand these things according to God’s word—I’m not speaking without basis, or off the top of my head—what I say to you has its basis in God’s word.
