Eliminating My Misunderstandings of Judgment, I Welcomed the Lord’s Return（Part-1）
By Jinyi, United States
Hearing the Good News of the Lord’s Return at a Meeting
I began believing in the Lord in 2016, and went to meetings every week. Later, a new sister started coming to our meetings. After several meetings with her, I found that she could shine new light on many different scriptures in her talks. Everyone felt very well supplied by her, and I admired her very much. I thought, “She is so young, yet despite her age, her fellowship on the Bible is better than our pastor. How does she manage to read the Bible like that?” Curious, I asked her privately, “Your understanding of the Bible is impressive. How do you understand so much of it?” She said that she also attended another meeting where the brothers and sisters fellowshiped more clearly and understandably, and she invited me to come and listen, to which I happily agreed.
The next Sunday, she took me to the meeting she had told me about, and the brothers and sisters there warmly welcomed me. After sitting down, they told me that the Lord Jesus had returned as the incarnated Almighty God, both to express many truths and to do the work of judging and purifying mankind, which fulfils the biblical prophecies, “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God” (1 Peter 4:17). “The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day” (John 12:48). A sister also fellowshiped with me about God’s six-thousand-year management plan, how to discern the voice of God, the mystery of mankind’s destination, and many other aspects of the truth. Her fellowship was very detailed, I understood it very clearly, and I learned that there are indeed many mysteries involved in believing in God, so I decided to investigate The Church of Almighty God. After the meeting, my sister gave me a book of God’s word to take home and read.
Forming Misunderstandings of Judgment
After I returned home, I read Almighty God’s words in my free time, and after doing so, I felt that God’s words were very good, and I enjoyed them very much. One day, I read in Almighty God’s words that, “The work of the last days is to separate all according to their kind, to conclude the management plan of God, for the time is near and the day of God has come. God brings all who have entered His kingdom, that is, all those who have been loyal to Him to the end, into the age of God Himself. However, until the coming of the age of God Himself, the work that God shall do is not to observe the deeds of man or to inquire into the life of man, but to judge his rebellion, for God shall purify all those who come before His throne. All those who have followed the footsteps of God to this day are those who have come before the throne of God, and this being so, every single person who accepts God’s work in its final phase is the object of God’s purification. In other words, everyone who accepts God’s work in its final phase is the object of God’s judgment.” I thought to myself: The Lord Jesus has returned incarnate in the last days to do the final winnowing work, to separate all people according to their kind, which means that everyone who accepts the work of God in the last days must undergo His judgment. I couldn’t help but think that I was still capable of deceiving others with my words, of tricking others and being envious, of hating others when they hurt me, and that I still had many problems; I often lost my temper with my family, got angry with my coworkers, and so on. Today, I thought, the Lord has come to do the work of judgment, and if I were made to account for my past behaviors, wouldn’t I be condemned? How would I ever enter God’s kingdom? Thinking of this, I was very worried about myself. I felt that I couldn’t enter God’s kingdom, so I became very negative. Although I wanted to openly fellowship with my brothers and sisters and seek solutions, I was afraid that if my brothers and sisters knew who I really was, they would laugh at me and belittle me, so I chose escape, and stopped attending meetings.
My brothers and sisters, unaware of the truth, often invited me to meetings, but I always said I was busy with work or made other excuses. After a while, my brothers and sisters sent me a message and asked me when I was free, saying they could arrange meetings according to my schedule. Faced with the concern of my brothers and sisters, my closed heart was touched. I thought, “I’ve tried every means to refuse them, and even deliberately did not return messages, but they don’t make an issue of it, and continue to tolerate and be patient with me, and think of every possible way to solve the problem of me not coming to meetings. They often asked if I was experiencing difficulties, and their words revealed concern and support for me. Isn’t this true love? The sincere invitation of my brothers and sisters left me too embarrassed to refuse, so I began going to meetings again. The first few times, I couldn’t calm myself, because I thought, “I live in a state of sinning and confessing every day, and the moment God judges me, I will still be condemned, so listening at meetings is pointless.” But I never spoke that thought to my brothers and sisters. Instead, I tried to preserve my dignity and muddle through the meetings.
Eliminating My Misunderstandings of Judgment
This continued until one day when my sister fellowshiped on aspects of the truth regarding judgment, and my notions about it were finally eliminated. Sister Yang fellowshiped, “Almighty God expresses the truth in the last days to do the work of judging and purifying people to bring us into the kingdom of God. But some people still may not understand God’s will, and believe that God judges and chastises people to condemn them, so they refuse to accept God’s work of judgment in the last days. For man, is it the salvation from God or condemnation by God that He has returned incarnate in the last days to do the work of judgment? Many people can’t see this issue clearly. So, let’s look at what Almighty God said about this.” After listening to Sister Yang, I suddenly felt better, and I thought, “Today’s topic of fellowship is exactly what I need! I am one of the many people Sister Yang is talking about. I don’t know if God’s work of judgment is to condemn or save people.” So, I listened more seriously.
Another sister then read a passage of Almighty God’s words, “All that He does is true love for you; He has no ill intention. It is because of your sins that He judges you, so that you will examine yourselves and receive this tremendous salvation. All this is done to work man. From beginning to end, God has been doing His utmost to save man, and He is certainly not willing to completely destroy the men He created with His own hands. Now He has come among you to work; isn’t this even more salvation? If He hated you, would He still do work of such magnitude to personally lead you? Why should He suffer so? God does not hate you or have any ill intention toward you. You should know that God’s love is the truest love. It is only because of people’s disobedience that He has to save them through judgment; otherwise, they would not be saved.” “Today God judges you, and chastises you, and condemns you, but know that your condemnation is so that you might know yourself. Condemnation, curse, judgment, chastisement — these are all 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 needs of His work, that He works in accordance with His plan for man’s salvation, and that He is the righteous God who loves man, and saves man, and who judges and chastises man. … God has not come to kill, or destroy, but to judge, curse, chastise, and save.”
Sister Yang said, “From the words of Almighty God, we can clearly see that the purpose of God’s work of judgment in the last days is not to condemn us for our sins, it is not to punish us, but to awaken our hearts, to let us know the truth of how deeply we are corrupted by Satan, to tell us that God’s disposition is righteous, holy, and brooks no offense, and to save us by helping us escape our corrupt state, so that we are able to live out a true human likeness, and attain God’s salvation. Today all of humanity lives under the power of Satan, becoming ever more evil and corrupt. They pursue food, drink and pleasure all day long, live in sin without repentance, and enjoy the pleasures of sin. Even those in the religious world follow evil worldly trends, and what they live out is no different than the Gentiles. None today yearn for the truth or look forward to God’s appearance. God has appeared and begun to work in the last days and the truths He has expressed have been published on the Internet, but how many can proactively seek and investigate? People are indifferent, ignore it, and even condemn and resist God’s return. It is obvious that we have been corrupted to the utmost by Satan, that there is no love for the truth in our hearts, that we prefer evil, and can even resist God. If God does not express the truth or do the work of judgment in the last days, we will never reflect and come to know ourselves, we will still think that the Lord is merciful and loving, that we will be forgiven by the Lord no matter how many sins we commit, and that we will enter the kingdom of heaven when the Lord returns. The truth is that God is righteous and holy, so how could God bring those who resist Him into the kingdom? We can only see the truth of our corruption when we experience God’s judgment, only this way can we achieve change in our life disposition, and genuinely obey and fear God, and only then are we qualified to enter God’s kingdom. We can see that God’s work of judgment is a work of great love and salvation for man. Only those who hate the truth and refuse to accept the judgment and purification of Almighty God’s words will be revealed and eliminated.”
When I heard this, the anxiety in my heart was greatly eased. It turns out that God judges people not to condemn, but to save them! We live in a state of sinning and confessing every day, and we always rebel against God against our will. We are indeed corrupted deeply by Satan, and we cannot escape bondage of sin by ourselves. We truly need to undergo God’s work of judgment to be saved. If not for my sister’s fellowship that day, I would misunderstand God’s will and believe that God’s work of judgment is to condemn us. Thanks be to God, I finally understood the meaning of God’s work of judgment in the last days!
To be continue…
Source from: find the shepherd.
