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God’s Judgment Is Our Only Path to Freedom From Sin

Hearing my question, Sister Susan smiled and shared more fellowship. “In fact, this is something that was prophesied in the Bible long ago. The Lord Jesus said, ‘I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will show you things to come’ (John 16:12–13). ‘He that rejects Me, and receives not My words, has one that judges him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day’ (John 12:48). In 1 Peter 4:17 it says, ‘For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God,’ and then in 1 Peter 1:5 it is written, ‘Who are kept by the power of God through faith to salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.’ These Bible verses show us that after accepting the Lord Jesus’ salvation, even though we’ve been freed from the condemnation and the bonds of the law, and we’re able to come before God to confess and repent at any time, our stature is still too small. If God had provided us with all the truths to change our dispositions so we could be cleansed and fully saved by God at the time the Lord Jesus was working, we would have been totally incapable of accepting or understanding it. This is why God has expressed all truths in the last days so that we may undergo dispositional change and be completely saved, and why He is doing the stage of work of judgment beginning with the house of God in order to judge and cleanse our satanic dispositions so that we can be completely gained by God and ultimately be brought into His kingdom.”

Sister Susan then said enthusiastically, “Sister, the truth is that the Lord Jesus, who we have been eagerly awaiting, has already returned. He is Christ of the last days, Almighty God, and He has already appeared and is working among us. He has come to judge and cleanse our corrupt dispositions, and to ultimately make us into people who truly obey and love God to bring us into God’s kingdom. If we only accept the Lord Jesus’ work of redemption but do not follow Almighty God’s work of judgment in the last days, we’ll never be freed of the bonds of sin and will not be able to achieve dispositional change. And even more, we won’t be qualified to enter God’s kingdom.”

Sister Susan’s fellowship made a lot of sense and I was in complete agreement. When I heard her say that the Lord Jesus had already returned and was doing the work of judging and cleansing mankind I felt particularly excited. At the same time, I realized that my husband and I were living in sin because we hadn’t yet accepted God’s work of judgment in the last days, but instead I just kept seeking out the pastor thinking that he had believed in the Lord for a long time so had to have greater understanding, so he should be able to resolve my problem. But to my surprise, the pastor himself was living in sin, so how could he fellowship the path to freedom from sin with me? I had been so foolish! Only Christ is the truth, the way, and the life, and only God can point out our path, our direction. As I thought through this, I felt like I had just caught hold of a lifeline—I was overflowing with joy and so thankful that the Lord had not cast me aside. I could finally escape from the shackles of sin and get away from a life of such pain! I hurried to ask Sister Susan how Almighty God carries out His work of judgment in the last days.

She then read another passage of Almighty God’s words for me. “In the last days, Christ uses a variety of truths to teach man, to expose the essence of man, and to dissect the words and deeds of man. These words comprise various truths, such as man’s duty, how man should obey God, how man should be loyal to God, how man ought to live out normal humanity, as well as the wisdom and the disposition of God, and so on. These words are all directed at the essence of man and his corrupt disposition. In particular, the words that expose how man spurns God are spoken in regard to how man is an embodiment of Satan, and an enemy force against God. In undertaking His work of judgment, God does not simply make clear the nature of man with a few words; He exposes, deals with, and prunes over the long term. These methods of exposure, dealing, and pruning cannot be substituted with ordinary words, but with the truth of which man is utterly bereft. Only methods such as these can be called judgment; only through judgment of this kind can man be subdued and thoroughly convinced into submission to God, and moreover gain true knowledge of God. What the work of judgment brings about is man’s understanding of the true face of God and the truth about his own rebelliousness. The work of judgment allows man to gain much understanding of the will of God, of the purpose of God’s work, and of the mysteries that are incomprehensible to him. It also allows man to recognize and know his corrupt substance and the roots of his corruption, as well as to discover the ugliness of man. These effects are all brought about by the work of judgment, for the substance of this work is actually the work of opening up the truth, the way, and the life of God to all those who have faith in Him. This work is the work of judgment done by God” (“Christ Does the Work of Judgment With the Truth” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).

After reading this Sister Susan continued her fellowship. “In the last days, God has expressed a variety of aspects of the truth in accordance with the needs of corrupt humanity, exposing and dissecting our satanic natures and dispositions. He has also expressed God’s own disposition so that we may understand it, and He’s pointed out the path to free ourselves from all sorts of corrupt dispositions and achieve full salvation. Through the judgment and chastisement of God’s words we can gradually gain true understanding of our corrupt natures and the truth of how we’ve been corrupted by Satan. We see how deeply we’ve been corrupted by Satan and that we’re full of arrogant, deceptive, tricky, selfish, and despicable satanic dispositions without a shred of a human likeness. Even though we believe in God and expend ourselves for Him we’re always thinking of the grace and blessings we can get from Him without any of the conscience or reason a human being should possess. When God’s work is not in line with our notions, when troubles befall our family or other undesirable things occur, we develop notions about God and judge His work. We completely lack hearts of reverence for God. Through revelations of the truth we develop genuine disgust for our own satanic natures while also gaining some true understanding of God’s righteous disposition and holy essence. We also know that we should seek to be honest people, unselfishly work and expend ourselves for God, and that we should stand in the position of a created being, submitting to God and obeying His arrangements whether or not His work and words are in line with our notions. Then over time we gain more and more understanding of God’s disposition, and we gain more and more clarity on our own corruption, deficiencies, and the path of practice we should enter into. Then a heart of reverence for God gradually develops within us and we begin to place importance on repenting, seeking the truth, and consciously forsaking the flesh and putting the truth into practice. By always experiencing the judgment and chastisement of God’s words, and practicing and entering into His words, our corrupt dispositions will change to varying degrees and we’ll gain some genuine reverence and obedience of God—we’ll start to have a bit of a human likeness. All the brothers and sisters who have experienced a few years of Almighty God’s judgment work of the last days have learned that we, corrupt humans, must accept God’s judgment work of the last days if we want to be cleansed. This is our only path to freedom from sin and being fully saved by God in our faith!”

Thanks be to God! After hearing Almighty God’s words and Sister Susan’s fellowship, my heart really brightened. I saw that God utters words to judge our corruption so that we can understand our own corrupt dispositions—it’s so practical! I had believed in the Lord for many years but had never been able to escape the bonds of sin; I had been living in so much pain, but I had finally found a path! I came before God and made a heartfelt prayer to Him, willing to focus on experiencing the judgment of His words in my life from that point forward so that my corrupt disposition could be cleansed and transformed someday soon.

In the days that followed, I read the words expressed by Almighty God, plus watched gospel films and listened to hymns by The Church of Almighty God every day on The Church of Almighty God app. I also started regularly attending gatherings with other brothers and sisters, sharing fellowship on Almighty God’s words. I could feel the guidance of the Holy Spirit—I had a great deal of spiritual enjoyment. By reading God’s words I understood how Satan corrupts mankind, how God works to save mankind, and I gained some understanding of the essence of people’s resistance to God and betrayal of Him. Almighty God’s words really possess authority and power and reveal all of our corruption and internal thinking. No human being could say these words; this is because only God can deeply scrutinize our hearts and minds. I became certain from the heart that Almighty God is the returned Lord Jesus!

Harmony at Home After Practicing God’s Words

Getting home around 11:00 p.m. one evening after work, I saw that my husband was playing video games again. Anger welled up within me and I thought, “I’m working so hard, but you’ve got it easy, just sitting around playing video games at home all day!” I wanted to give him a piece of my mind, but just as it was on the tip of my tongue I suddenly thought of a passage of God’s words I had read a couple of days before. “Once a man has status, he will often find it difficult to control his mood, and so he will enjoy seizing upon instances to express his dissatisfaction and vent his emotions; he will often flare up into rage for no apparent reason, so as to reveal his ability and let others know that his status and identity are different from those of ordinary people. Of course, corrupt people without any status will also frequently lose control. Their anger is frequently caused by damage to their individual benefits. In order to protect their own status and dignity, corrupt mankind will frequently vent their emotions and reveal their arrogant nature. Man will flare up in anger and vent his emotions in order to defend the existence of sin, and these actions are the ways with which man expresses his dissatisfaction” (“God Himself, the Unique II” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). God’s words very incisively revealed my corrupt disposition; I realized that wanting to lose my cool and scold my husband when I saw he wasn’t behaving the way I wanted him to was entirely caused by my own arrogant nature. My husband and I are both corrupt people, so I shouldn’t scold him as if I stand above him. My temper is something that reveals my satanic disposition; it’s a way for me to air my grievances, and it’s a negative thing. I shouldn’t let my corrupt disposition dictate my actions as I had before, otherwise it could never be changed. As I reflected on myself, I gradually became calmer and didn’t take out my anger on my husband again.

That experience showed me just how necessary God’s work of judgment in the last days is! If it weren’t for the revelations and judgment of God’s words we would never recognize our own corrupt dispositions, and no matter how tolerant, patient, or restrained we were it would just be superficial action that could never resolve the underlying issue of sinfulness. Only now that I’ve really experienced the judgment of God’s words have I seen how serious my arrogant disposition is. It’s something deep within my soul, and only by undergoing judgment and chastisement can it be cleansed and transformed.

After a period of time I started to gain a shallow understanding of my corrupt disposition. I no longer relied on my corrupt disposition in my interactions with my husband, always focusing my gaze on him. When I encountered those sorts of situations I would first quiet myself and pray to God, seeking His guidance and searching for a path from God’s words to consciously forsake the flesh and put the truth into practice. One day my husband said to me out of the blue, “You’ve really changed! Since believing in Almighty God you’re like a different person. You’re not as easily upset anymore; you just talk things out whenever there’s an issue.” Within my heart I gave thanks to God over and over again—I knew that this had been achieved in me through the judgment and chastisement of God’s words. Even more surprising for me was that my husband took the initiative to look into Almighty God’s work of the last days, and he accepted it. Later on he realized from God’s words that video games came from an evil trend given rise to by Satan, that it’s one way Satan lures and corrupts human beings; he gained some understanding of the essence of online games and the harm they do. Through praying, leaning on God, and reading God’s words, he gradually came to feel that playing games was an empty, boring pursuit, and he was no longer lost in them like he had been before.

God’s words are the principle for all our interactions now. When something doesn’t go well we find a path to resolve it in God’s words, and our home is finally filled with the sounds of laughter and joy. Even though the transformation I’ve achieved through the judgment and chastisement of God’s words is still limited, through my experiences I’ve truly felt that the only way to cleanse and transform a corrupt disposition is through the judgment and chastisement of God’s words. God’s work of judgment in the last days is entirely necessary for us to be cleansed and be fully saved. Now that I’ve finally found the path to being purified I have such calm and peace in my heart. I give thanks to God!

from The Church of Almighty God