That Day the Sky Was Especially Clear and Sunny (Part 2)

By Tian Ying, China

I mulled over the sister’s words and felt that what she said made a lot of sense, so I sat there listening quietly. The sister continued talking: “The word of Almighty God has already opened up the mystery of ‘being saved’ and ‘attaining full salvation,’ so let’s take a look at the word of Almighty God and see what He has to say about this. Almighty God says: ‘At the time Jesus’ work was the redemption of all mankind. The sins of all who believed in Him were forgiven; as long as you believed in Him, He would redeem you; if you believed in Him, you were no longer a sinner, you were relieved of your sins. This is what it meant to be saved, and to be justified by faith. Yet in those who believed, there remained that which was rebellious and opposed God, and which still had to be slowly removed. Salvation did not mean man had been completely gained by Jesus, but that man was no longer of sin, that he had been forgiven his sins: Provided you believed, you would never more be of sin’ (‘The Vision of God’s Work (2)’ in The Word Appears in the Flesh). ‘Before man was redeemed, many of Satan’s poisons had already been planted within him and, after thousands of years of being corrupted by Satan, he has within him an established nature that resists God. Therefore, when man has been redeemed, it is nothing more than a case of redemption in which man is bought at a high price, but the poisonous nature within him has not been eliminated. Man that is so defiled must undergo a change before becoming worthy to serve God. By means of this work of judgment and chastisement, man will fully come to know the filthy and corrupt substance within his own self, and he will be able to change completely and become clean. Only in this way can man become worthy to return before the throne of God. … For all that man may have been redeemed and forgiven of his sins, it can only be considered as God not remembering the transgressions of man and not treating man in accordance with his transgressions. However, when man, who lives in a body of flesh, has not been set free from sin, he can only continue to sin, endlessly revealing his corrupt satanic disposition. This is the life that man leads, an endless cycle of sinning and being forgiven. The majority of men sin in the day only to confess in the evening. This way, even if the sin offering is forever effective for man, it will not be able to save man from sin. Only half the work of salvation has been completed, for man still has a corrupt disposition. … running deeper than sin, it is something planted by Satan and deeply rooted within man. It is not easy for man to become aware of his sins; he has no way of recognizing his own deeply rooted nature, and must rely on judgment by the word in order to achieve this result. Only thus can man gradually be changed from this point onward’ (‘The Mystery of the Incarnation (4)’ in The Word Appears in the Flesh). ‘You only know that Jesus shall descend during the last days, but how exactly will He descend? A sinner such as you, who has just been redeemed, and has not been changed, or been perfected by God, can you be after God’s heart? For you, you who are still of your old self, it is true that you were saved by Jesus, and that you are not counted as a sinner because of the salvation of God, but this does not prove that you are not sinful, and are not impure. How can you be saintly if you have not been changed? Within, you are beset by impurity, selfish and mean, yet you still wish to descend with Jesus—you should be so lucky! You have missed a step in your belief in God: You have merely been redeemed, but have not been changed. For you to be after God’s heart, God must personally do the work of changing and cleansing you; if you are only redeemed, you will be incapable of attaining sanctity. In this way you will be unqualified to share in the good blessings of God, for you have missed out a step in God’s work of managing man, which is the key step of changing and perfecting. And so you, a sinner who has just been redeemed, are incapable of directly inheriting God’s inheritance’” (“Concerning Appellations and Identity” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).

The sister continued fellowshiping: “From the word of Almighty God we can see that every stage of work carried out by God is carried out in accordance with the needs of the corrupt human race. At the end of the Age of Law, man no longer had the strength to struggle free from the binds of sin due to the temptations and corruption of Satan. Man had offended the laws of Jehovah and was confronted with the dangers of being stoned to death and burned by the fires of heaven. God loves the human race. He incarnated Himself to become the likeness of sinful flesh, and He was nailed to the cross to save man from sin. So, as long as we believe in the Lord Jesus then we will be saved. The Lord no longer remembers our sins. We can come directly before God and pray to Him, and enjoy the abundance of grace bestowed by Him. But although we have been saved, that does not prove that we are without sin. We, the human race, have been corrupted by Satan for thousands of years. Satan’s poison has taken root deep inside of us, it has become our life; it has become our nature. We are controlled by our satanic natures, including conceit and arrogance, deception and crookedness, selfishness and contempt, and greed and evil. We are still able to often lie, deceive and sin in resistance to God. This is the root of our cyclical life of constantly committing sins and then confessing them. So, God, based on the needs of the corrupt human race and God’s management plan for saving the human race, has come to carry out a new stage of work in the last days to judge and chastise man in order to cleanse him and change his corrupt disposition, so that in the end the men who have attained salvation and who have been perfected may enter into God’s kingdom. If we still now hold on to the notion that ‘to be saved once is to be saved forever,’ then we are refusing to accept God’s work of judgment in the last days. If that’s the case, then the poison of Satan that is in our blood will never be cleansed, and we will never be able to attain God’s salvation, not to even mention being brought into the kingdom of heaven. These consequences are very serious. So, now, in these last days, only by walking away from the Age of Grace and accepting Almighty God’s judgment work of the last days, will man be thoroughly cleansed, attain God’s salvation and go to a good destination.”