How God manifests His righteous disposition to mankind
Relevant Words of God:
In His final work of concluding the age, God’s disposition is one of chastisement and judgment, in which He reveals all that is unrighteous, in order to publicly judge all peoples, and to perfect those who love Him with a sincere heart. Only a disposition such as this can bring the age to an end. The last days have already arrived. All things in creation will be separated according to their kind, and divided into different categories based on their nature. This is the moment when God reveals humanity’s outcome and their destination. If people do not undergo chastisement and judgment, then there will be no way of exposing their disobedience and unrighteousness. Only through chastisement and judgment can the outcome of all creation be revealed. Man only shows his true colors when he is chastised and judged. Evil shall be put with evil, good with good, and all humanity shall be separated according to their kind. Through chastisement and judgment, the outcome of all creation will be revealed, so that the evil may be punished and the good rewarded, and all people become subject to the dominion of God. All this work must be achieved through righteous chastisement and judgment. Because man’s corruption has reached its peak and his disobedience become exceedingly severe, only God’s righteous disposition, one that is principally compounded of chastisement and judgment and is revealed during the last days, can fully transform and complete man. Only this disposition can expose evil and thus severely punish all the unrighteous. Therefore, a disposition such as this is imbued with the significance of the age, and the revelation and exhibition of His disposition is made manifest for the sake of the work of each new age. It is not that God reveals His disposition arbitrarily and without significance. Supposing that, in revealing the outcome of man during the last days, God were still to bestow upon man infinite compassion and love and continue to be loving toward him, not subjecting man to righteous judgment but rather showing him tolerance, patience, and forgiveness, and pardoning man no matter how grave his sins, without any jot of righteous judgment: when then would all of God’s management ever be brought to a close? When would a disposition such as this be able to lead people into mankind’s appropriate destination? Take, for example, a judge who is always loving, a judge with a kindly face and a gentle heart. He loves people irrespective of the crimes they may have committed, and he is loving to and forbearing with them whoever they may be. In that case, when will he ever be able to reach a just verdict? During the last days, only righteous judgment can separate man according to their kind and bring man into a new realm. In this way, the entire age is brought to an end through God’s righteous disposition of judgment and chastisement.
—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Vision of God’s Work (3)
God became flesh in the most backward and filthy place of all, and it is only in this way that God is able to clearly show the entirety of His holy and righteous disposition. And through what is His righteous disposition shown? It is shown when He judges man’s sins, when He judges Satan, when He abhors sin, and when He despises the enemies that oppose and rebel against Him. The words I speak today are to judge man’s sins, to judge man’s unrighteousness, to curse man’s disobedience. Man’s crookedness and deceitfulness, man’s words and deeds—all that is at odds with God’s will must be subjected to judgment, and man’s disobedience denounced as sin. His words revolve around the principles of judgment; He uses judgment of man’s unrighteousness, the curse of man’s rebelliousness, and exposure of man’s ugly faces to make manifest His own righteous disposition. Holiness is a representation of His righteous disposition, and in fact God’s holiness actually is His righteous disposition. Your corrupt dispositions are the context of today’s words—I use them to speak and to judge, and to carry out the work of conquest. This alone is the real work, and this alone fully makes God’s holiness shine. If there is no trace of a corrupt disposition in you, then God will not judge you, nor will He show you His righteous disposition. Since you have a corrupt disposition, God will not let you off, and it is through this that His holiness is shown. If God were to see that man’s filthiness and rebelliousness were too great but He did not speak or judge you, nor chastise you for your unrighteousness, then this would prove that He is not God, for He would have no hatred of sin; He would be just as filthy as man. Today, it is because of your filth that I judge you, and it is because of your corruption and rebelliousness that I chastise you. I am not flaunting My power to you or deliberately oppressing you; I do these things because you, who have been born in this land of filth, have been so severely contaminated by filth. You have simply lost your integrity and humanity and you have become like pigs born in the dirtiest corners of the world, and so it is because of this that you are judged and that I unleash My wrath upon you. It is precisely because of this judgment that you have been able to see that God is the righteous God, and that God is the holy God; it is precisely because of His holiness and His righteousness that He judges you and unleashes His wrath upon you. Because He can reveal His righteous disposition when He sees the rebelliousness of man, and because He can reveal His holiness when He sees the filth of man, this is enough to show that He is God Himself, who is holy and pristine, and yet lives in the land of filth. If a person wallows in the mire with others, and there is nothing holy about him, and he has no righteous disposition, then he is not qualified to judge man’s iniquity, nor is he fit to carry out the judgment of man. If a person were to judge another, would it not be as if they were slapping themselves in the face? How could people who are equally filthy as one another be qualified to judge those who are alike to them? Only the holy God Himself is able to judge the whole of filthy mankind. How could man judge man’s sins? How could man see the sins of man, and how could man be qualified to condemn these sins? If God were not qualified to judge the sins of man, then how could He be the righteous God Himself? When people’s corrupt dispositions are revealed, God speaks in order to judge people, and only then do people see that He is holy. As He judges and chastises man for his sins, all the while exposing the sins of man, no person or thing can escape this judgment; all that is filthy is judged by Him, and it is only thus that His disposition can be said to be righteous. If it were otherwise, how could it be said that you are foils in both name and fact?
—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. How the Effects of the Second Step of the Work of Conquest Are Achieved
What is the extent of your knowledge today? Your ideas, your thoughts, your behavior, your words and deeds—do all of these expressions not amount to a foil to God’s righteousness and holiness? Are your expressions not manifestations of the corrupt disposition revealed by God’s words? Your thoughts and ideas, your motivations, and the corruption that is revealed in you show the righteous disposition of God, as well as His holiness. God, too, was born in the land of filth, yet He remains unsullied by filth. He lives in the same filthy world as you, but He is possessed of reason and perception, and He despises the filth. You may not even be able to detect anything filthy in your words and deeds, but He can, and He points them out to you. Those old things of yours—your lack of cultivation, insight, and sense, and your backward ways of living—have now been brought into the light by today’s revelations; only by God coming to earth to work thus do people behold His holiness and righteous disposition. He judges and chastises you, causing you to gain understanding; sometimes, your demonic nature is manifested, and He points it out to you. He knows man’s essence like the back of His hand. He lives among you, He eats the same food as you, and He lives in the same environment—but even so, He knows more; He can expose you and see through the corrupt essence of humanity. There is nothing He despises more than man’s philosophies for living and crookedness and deceitfulness. He particularly abhors people’s fleshly interactions. He may not be familiar with man’s philosophies for living, but He can clearly see and expose the corrupt dispositions that people reveal. He works to speak and teach man through these things, He uses these things to judge people, and to make manifest His own righteous and holy disposition.
—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. How the Effects of the Second Step of the Work of Conquest Are Achieved
God’s intolerance of offense is His unique essence; God’s wrath is His unique disposition; God’s majesty is His unique essence. The principle behind God’s anger is the demonstration of His identity and status, which only He possesses. It goes without saying that this principle is also a symbol of the essence of the unique God Himself. God’s disposition is His own inherent essence, which is not changed at all by the passage of time, and nor is it altered by changes of geographical location. His inherent disposition is His intrinsic essence. Regardless of whom He carries out His work upon, His essence does not change, and neither does His righteous disposition. When one angers God, that which God sends forth is His inherent disposition; at this time the principle behind His anger does not change, nor do His unique identity and status. He does not grow angry because of a change in His essence or because different elements arise from His disposition, but because man’s opposition against Him offends His disposition. Man’s flagrant provocation of God is a severe challenge to God’s own identity and status. In God’s view, when man challenges Him, man is contesting Him and testing His anger. When man opposes God, when man contests God, when man continuously tests God’s anger—and it is at such times when sin runs rampant—God’s wrath will naturally reveal and present itself. Therefore, God’s expression of His wrath is a symbol that all evil forces will cease to exist, and it is a symbol that all hostile forces will be destroyed. This is the uniqueness of God’s righteous disposition, and of God’s wrath. When God’s dignity and holiness are challenged, when the forces of justice are obstructed and unseen by man, then God will send forth His wrath. Because of God’s essence, all those forces on earth which contest God, oppose Him and contend with Him, are evil, corrupt and unjust; they come from and belong to Satan. Because God is just and is of the light and flawlessly holy, thus all things evil, corrupt and belonging to Satan will vanish when God’s wrath is unleashed.
—The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique II
When God sends forth His rage, evil forces are checked and evil things are destroyed, while just and positive things come to enjoy God’s care and protection and are allowed to continue. God sends forth His wrath because unjust, negative and evil things obstruct, disturb or destroy the normal activity and development of just and positive things. The goal of God’s anger is not to safeguard His own status and identity, but to safeguard the existence of just, positive, beautiful and good things, to safeguard the laws and order of humanity’s normal survival. This is the root cause of God’s wrath. God’s rage is a very proper, natural and true revelation of His disposition. There are no ulterior motives in His rage, and nor is there deceit or plotting, let alone the desires, craftiness, malice, violence, evil or any of corrupt humanity’s other shared traits. Before God sends forth His rage, He has already perceived the essence of every matter quite clearly and completely, and He has already formulated accurate, clear definitions and conclusions. Thus, God’s objective in everything He does is crystal-clear, as is His attitude. He is not muddle-headed, blind, impulsive, or careless, and He is certainly not unprincipled. This is the practical aspect of God’s wrath, and it is because of this practical aspect of God’s wrath that humanity has attained its normal existence. Without God’s wrath, humanity would descend into abnormal living conditions and all things just, beautiful and good would be destroyed and cease to exist. Without God’s wrath, the laws and rules of existence for created beings would be broken or even utterly subverted. Since the creation of man, God has continuously used His righteous disposition to safeguard and sustain humanity’s normal existence. Because His righteous disposition contains wrath and majesty, all evil people, things and objects, and all things that disturb and damage humanity’s normal existence, are punished, controlled and destroyed as a result of His wrath. Over the past several millennia, God has continuously used His righteous disposition to strike down and destroy all kinds of unclean and evil spirits which oppose God and act as Satan’s accomplices and lackeys in God’s work of managing humanity. Thus, God’s work of the salvation of man has always advanced according to His plan. This is to say that because of the existence of God’s wrath, the most righteous causes of men have never been destroyed.
—The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique II
God’s treatment of the whole of humanity, foolish and ignorant as humanity is, is primarily based on mercy and tolerance. His wrath, on the other hand, is kept concealed for the vast majority of time and in the vast majority of events, and it is unknown to man. As a result, it is difficult for man to see God express His wrath, and it is also difficult to understand His wrath. As such, man makes light of God’s wrath. When man faces God’s final work and step of tolerance and forgiveness for man—that is, when God’s final instance of mercy and His final warning comes upon mankind—if people still use the same methods to oppose God and do not make any effort to repent, to mend their ways and accept His mercy, then God will no longer bestow His tolerance and patience upon them. On the contrary, God will retract His mercy at this time. Following this, He will only send forth His wrath. He can express His wrath in different ways, just as He can use different methods to punish and destroy people.
God’s use of fire to destroy the city of Sodom is His swiftest method of utterly annihilating a humanity or any other thing. Burning the people of Sodom destroyed more than their physical bodies; it destroyed the entirety of their spirits, their souls and their bodies, ensuring that the people inside the city would cease to exist in both the material world and the world that is invisible to man. This is one way in which God reveals and expresses His wrath. This manner of revelation and expression is one aspect of the essence of God’s wrath, just as it is naturally also a revelation of the essence of God’s righteous disposition. When God sends forth His wrath, He ceases to reveal any mercy or lovingkindness, nor does He display any more of His tolerance or patience; there is no person, thing or reason that can persuade Him to continue to be patient, to give His mercy again, to bestow His tolerance once more. In place of these things, without a moment’s hesitation, God sends forth His wrath and majesty, doing what He desires. He will do these things in a swift and clean manner in accordance with His own wishes. This is the way in which God sends forth His wrath and majesty, which man must not offend, and it is also an expression of one aspect of His righteous disposition. When people witness God showing concern and love toward man, they are unable to detect His wrath, see His majesty or feel His intolerance toward offense. These things have always led people to believe that God’s righteous disposition is one solely of mercy, tolerance and love. However, when one sees God destroy a city or detest a humanity, His rage in the destruction of man and His majesty allow people to glimpse the other side of His righteous disposition. This is God’s intolerance to offense. God’s disposition that tolerates no offense surpasses the imagination of any created being, and among the non-created beings, none is capable of interfering with it or affecting it; even less can it be impersonated or imitated. Thus, this aspect of God’s disposition is the one that humanity should know the most. Only God Himself has this kind of disposition, and only God Himself is possessed of this kind of disposition. God is possessed of this kind of righteous disposition because He detests wickedness, darkness, rebelliousness and Satan’s evil acts—corrupting and devouring mankind—because He detests all acts of sin in opposition to Him and because of His holy and undefiled essence. It is because of this that He will not suffer any of the created or non-created beings to openly oppose or contest Him. Even an individual to whom He had once shown mercy or whom He had chosen, need only provoke His disposition and transgress His principles of patience and tolerance, and God will unleash and reveal His righteous disposition that tolerates no offense without the least bit of mercy or hesitation.
—The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique II
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.
—The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique II
When God had a change of heart toward the people of Nineveh, were His mercy and tolerance a false front? Of course not! Then what has been shown by the transition between these two aspects of God’s disposition in the course of God dealing with this one situation? God’s disposition is a complete whole—it is not at all divided. Regardless of whether He is expressing anger or mercy and tolerance toward people, these are all expressions of His righteous disposition. God’s disposition is vital and vividly apparent, and He changes His thoughts and attitudes according to the way things develop. The transformation of His attitude toward the Ninevites tells humanity that He has His own thoughts and ideas; He is not a robot or a clay figure, but the living God Himself. He could be angry with the people of Nineveh, just as He could forgive their pasts because of their attitudes. He could decide to bring misfortune upon the Ninevites, and He could also change His decision because of their repentance. People like to rigidly apply rules, and to use such rules to delimit and define God, just as they like to use formulas to attempt to understand God’s disposition. Therefore, as far as the domain of human thought is concerned, God does not think, nor does He have any essential ideas. But in reality, God’s thoughts are in a state of constant transformation according to changes in things and in environments. While these thoughts are transforming, different aspects of God’s essence are revealed. During this process of transformation, at the precise moment when God has a change of heart, what He shows to mankind is the real existence of His life, and that His righteous disposition is full of dynamic vitality. At the same time, God uses His own true revelations to prove to mankind the truth of the existence of His wrath, His mercy, His lovingkindness, and His tolerance. His essence will be revealed at any time and any place in accordance with how things develop. He possesses a lion’s wrath and a mother’s mercy and tolerance. His righteous disposition allows no questioning, violation, change, or distortion by any person. Among all matters and all things, God’s righteous disposition—that is, God’s wrath and God’s mercy—can be revealed at any time and any place. He gives vital expression to these aspects in every corner of all creation, and He implements them with vitality in every passing moment. God’s righteous disposition is not limited by time or space; in other words, God’s righteous disposition is not mechanically expressed or revealed according to the constraints of time or space, but rather with perfect ease and in all times and places. When you see God have a change of heart and cease to express His wrath and refrain from destroying the city of Nineveh, can you say that God is only merciful and loving? Can you say that God’s wrath consists of empty words? When God rages with fierce wrath and retracts His mercy, can you say that He feels no true love toward humanity? This fierce wrath is expressed by God in response to people’s evil acts; His wrath is not flawed. God’s heart is moved in response to people’s repentance, and it is this repentance that brings about His change of heart. When He feels moved, when He has a change of heart, and when He shows His mercy and tolerance toward man, all of these are utterly without flaw; they are clean, pure, unblemished and unadulterated. God’s tolerance is exactly that: tolerance, just as His mercy is nothing other than mercy. His disposition reveals wrath or mercy and tolerance in accordance with man’s repentance and the variations in man’s conduct. No matter what He reveals and expresses, it is all pure and direct; its essence is distinct from that of anything in creation. When God expresses the principles underlying His actions, they are free from any flaws or blemishes, and so are His thoughts, His ideas, and every single decision He makes and every single action He takes. Since God has thus decided and since He has thus acted, so does He complete His undertakings. The results of His undertakings are correct and faultless precisely because their source is flawless and unblemished. God’s wrath is flawless. Likewise, God’s mercy and tolerance—which are possessed by none among all of creation—are holy and flawless, and can withstand thoughtful deliberation and experience.
Through your understanding of the story of Nineveh, do you now see the other side of the essence of God’s righteous disposition? Do you see the other side of God’s unique righteous disposition? Does anyone among humanity possess this kind of disposition? Does anyone possess this kind of wrath, the wrath of God? Does anyone possess mercy and tolerance such as that which is possessed by God? Who among creation can summon forth such great wrath and decide to destroy or bring disaster upon mankind? And who is qualified to bestow mercy on man, to tolerate and pardon, and thereby change one’s prior decision to destroy man? The Creator expresses His righteous disposition through His own unique methods and principles, and He is not subject to the control or restrictions imposed by any people, events or things. With His unique disposition, no one is able to change His thoughts and ideas, nor is anyone able to persuade Him and change any of His decisions. The entirety of the behavior and thoughts that exist in all of creation exist under the judgment of His righteous disposition. No one can control whether He exercises wrath or mercy; only the essence of the Creator—or in other words, the Creator’s righteous disposition—can decide this. Such is the unique nature of the Creator’s righteous disposition!
Through analyzing and understanding the transformation of God’s attitude toward the people of Nineveh, are you able to use the word “unique” to describe the mercy found within God’s righteous disposition? We previously said that God’s wrath is one aspect of the essence of His unique righteous disposition. Now I shall define two aspects—God’s wrath and God’s mercy—as His righteous disposition. God’s righteous disposition is holy; it does not tolerate being offended or questioned; it is something possessed by none among created or non-created beings. It is both unique and exclusive to God. This is to say that God’s wrath is holy and unoffendable. In the same way, the other aspect of God’s righteous disposition—God’s mercy—is holy and cannot be offended. None of the created or non-created beings can replace or represent God in His actions, nor could anyone have replaced or represented Him in the destruction of Sodom or the salvation of Nineveh. This is the true expression of God’s unique righteous disposition.
—The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique II
The mercy and tolerance of God do indeed exist, but God’s holiness and righteousness when He unleashes His wrath also show man the side of God that brooks no offense. When man is fully capable of obeying the commands of God and acts in accordance with God’s requirements, God is abundant in His mercy toward man; when man has been filled with corruption, hatred and enmity for Him, God is profoundly angry. To what extent is He profoundly angry? His wrath will last until God no longer sees man’s resistance and evil deeds, until they are no longer before His eyes. Only then will God’s anger disappear. In other words, no matter who the person is, if their heart has become distant from God and turned away from God, never to return, then regardless of how, to all appearances or in terms of their subjective desires, they wish to worship and follow and obey God in their body or in their thinking, God’s wrath will be unleashed without cease. It will be such that when God deeply unleashes His anger, having given man ample opportunities, once it is unleashed there will be no way of taking it back, and He will never again be merciful and tolerant of such a mankind. This is one side of God’s disposition that tolerates no offense. … He is tolerant and merciful toward things that are kind and beautiful and good; toward things that are evil, sinful, and wicked, He is profoundly wrathful, such that He is unceasing in His wrath. These are the two principal and most prominent aspects of God’s disposition, and, moreover, they have been revealed by God from beginning to end: abundant mercy and profound wrath.
—The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God’s Work, God’s Disposition, and God Himself II
People say that God is a righteous God, and that as long as man follows Him to the very end, He will surely be impartial toward man, for He is most righteous. If man follows Him to the very end, could He cast man aside? I am impartial toward all men, and judge all men with My righteous disposition, yet there are suitable conditions to the requirements I make of man, and that which I require must be accomplished by all men, regardless of who they are. I care not how your qualifications are, or how long you have held them; I care only whether you walk in My way, and whether or not you love and thirst for the truth. If you lack the truth, and instead bring shame upon My name, and do not act according to My way, merely following without care or concern, then at that time I will strike you down and punish you for your evil, and what will you have to say then? Will you be able to say that God is not righteous? Today, if you have complied with the words I have spoken, then you are the kind of person whom I approve. You say you have always suffered whilst following God, that you have followed Him through thick and thin, and have shared with Him the good times and the bad, but you have not lived out the words spoken by God; you wish only to run about for God and expend yourself for God each day, and have never thought to live out a life of meaning. You also say, “In any case, I believe God is righteous. I have suffered for Him, run around for Him, and devoted myself for Him, and I have worked hard despite not receiving any recognition; He is sure to remember me.” It is true that God is righteous, yet this righteousness is untainted by any impurities: It contains no human will, and it is not tainted by the flesh, or by human transactions. All who are rebellious and in opposition, all who are not in compliance with His way, will be punished; none is forgiven, and none is spared! Some people say, “Today I run around for You; when the end comes, can You give me a little blessing?” So I ask you, “Have you complied with My words?” The righteousness that you speak of is based on a transaction. You think only that I am righteous and impartial toward all men, and that all those who follow Me to the very end are sure to be saved and gain My blessings. There is inner meaning to My words that “all those who follow Me to the very end are sure to be saved”: Those who follow Me to the very end are the ones who will be fully gained by Me, they are those who, after being conquered by Me, seek the truth and are made perfect. What conditions have you achieved? You have only achieved following Me to the very end, but what else? Have you complied with My words? You have accomplished one of My five requirements, yet you have no intention of accomplishing the remaining four. You have simply found the simplest, easiest path, and pursued it with an attitude of just hoping to get lucky. Toward such a person as you My righteous disposition is one of chastisement and judgment, it is one of righteous retribution, and it is the righteous punishment of all evildoers; all those who do not walk in My way will surely be punished, even if they follow to the very end. This is the righteousness of God. When this righteous disposition is expressed in the punishment of man, man will be dumbfounded, and feel regret that, whilst following God, he did not walk in His way. “At that time, I only suffered a little whilst following God, but did not walk in the way of God. What excuses are there? There is no option but to be chastised!” Yet in his mind he is thinking, “Anyway, I have followed to the very end, so even if You chastise me, it can’t be too severe a chastisement, and after exacting this chastisement You will still want me. I know You are righteous, and will not treat me that way forever. After all, I’m not like those who will be wiped out; those who are to be wiped out will receive a heavy chastisement, whereas my chastisement will be lighter.” Righteous disposition is not as you say. It is not the case that those who are good at confessing their sins are dealt with leniently. Righteousness is holiness, and is a disposition that is intolerant of offense by man, and all that is filthy and has not changed is the target of God’s disgust. God’s righteous disposition is not law, but administrative decree: It is administrative decree within the kingdom, and this administrative decree is the righteous punishment of anyone who does not possess the truth and has not changed, and there is no margin for salvation. For when each man is classified according to kind, the good will be rewarded and the evil will be punished. It is when the destination of man will be made clear; it is the time that the work of salvation will come to an end, after which, the work of saving man will no longer be done, and retribution will be brought upon every one of those who commit evil.
—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Experiences of Peter: His Knowledge of Chastisement and Judgment
Do you understand now what is judgment and what is truth? If you do, then I exhort you to submit obediently to being judged, otherwise you shall never have the opportunity to be commended by God or to be brought by Him into His kingdom. Those who only accept judgment but can never be purified, that is, those who flee amidst the work of judgment, shall forever be detested and rejected by God. Their sins are more numerous, and more grievous, than those of the Pharisees, for they have betrayed God and are rebels against God. Such people who are not worthy even to do service shall receive more severe punishment, a punishment that is, moreover, everlasting. God shall not spare any traitor who once evinced loyalty with words but then betrayed Him. People such as these shall receive retribution through punishment of the spirit, soul, and body. Is this not precisely a revelation of the righteous disposition of God? Is this not God’s purpose in judging man, and revealing him? God consigns all who perform all kinds of wicked deeds during the time of judgment to a place infested with evil spirits, and lets these evil spirits destroy their fleshly bodies as they wish, and those people’s bodies emit the stench of corpses. Such is their fitting retribution. God writes down in their record books each and every one of the sins of those disloyal false believers, false apostles, and false workers; then, when the time is right, He casts them amidst the unclean spirits, letting these unclean spirits defile their entire bodies at will, so that they may never be reincarnated and never again see the light. Those hypocrites who do service for a time but are incapable of remaining loyal to the end are numbered by God among the wicked, so that they fall into cahoots with the wicked and become part of their disorderly rabble; in the end, God shall annihilate them. God casts aside and takes no notice of those who have never been loyal to Christ or have never contributed anything of their strength, and at the changing of the age He shall annihilate them all. They shall no longer exist on earth, much less gain passage into the kingdom of God. Those who have never been sincere to God, but are forced by circumstance into dealing with Him perfunctorily, are numbered among those who do service for His people. Only a small number of such people will survive, while the majority shall perish along with those who render service that is not up to standard. Ultimately, God shall bring into His kingdom all those who are of the same mind as God, the people and the sons of God, and those predestined by God to be priests. They will be the distillation of God’s work. As for those who cannot be classed in any of the categories set by God, they shall be numbered among the unbelievers—and you can surely imagine what their outcome shall be. I have already said to you all that I should say; the road that you select is your choice alone. What you should understand is this: The work of God never waits for any that cannot keep pace with Him, and the righteous disposition of God shows no mercy to any man.
—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Christ Does the Work of Judgment With the Truth
All will be accomplished by My words; no man may partake, and no man can do the work that I will carry out. I will wipe clean the air of all lands and eradicate all trace of the demons on earth. I have already begun, and I will commence the first step of My work of chastisement in the dwelling place of the great red dragon. Thus it can be seen that My chastisement has befallen the entire universe, and that the great red dragon and all kinds of unclean spirits will be powerless to escape My chastisement, for I look upon all lands. When My work on earth is completed, that is, when the era of judgment comes to an end, I will formally chastise the great red dragon. My people will surely see My righteous chastisement of the great red dragon, will surely pour forth praise because of My righteousness, and will surely forever extol My holy name because of My righteousness. Hence you will formally perform your duty, and will formally praise Me throughout the lands, forever and ever!
When the era of judgment reaches its peak, I will not hasten to conclude My work, but will integrate into it the evidence of the era of chastisement and allow this evidence to be seen by all My people; in this will be borne greater fruit. This evidence is the means by which I chastise the great red dragon, and I will cause My people to behold it with their own eyes so that they will know more of My disposition. The time when My people enjoy Me is when the great red dragon is chastised. Causing the people of the great red dragon to rise up and revolt against it is My plan, and this is the method by which I make perfect My people, and it is a great opportunity for all My people to grow in life. … Today, I advance together with man into the era of chastisement, going forth with him side by side. I am doing My work, which is to say, I strike down My rod among man and it falls upon that which is rebellious in man. In the eyes of man, My rod seems to have special powers: It comes upon all those who are My enemies and does not easily spare them; among all who oppose Me, the rod performs its inherent function; all those who are in My hands perform their duty according to My intention, and never have they defied My wishes or changed their substance. As a result, the waters will roar, the mountains will topple, the great rivers will disintegrate, man will be ever given to change, the sun will grow dim, the moon will darken, man will have no more days of living in peace, there will be no more times of tranquility upon the land, the heavens will never again remain calm and quiet, and will endure no longer. All things will be renewed and will recover their original appearance. All households upon earth will be torn apart, and all nations on earth will be rent asunder; gone will be the days of reunions between husband and wife, no more will mother and son meet again, never again will there be the coming together of father and daughter. All that used to be on earth will be smashed by Me.
—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. God’s Words to the Entire Universe, Chapter 28
My mercy is expressed toward those who love Me and deny themselves. The punishment visited upon the wicked, meanwhile, is precisely proof of My righteous disposition and, even more, testimony to My wrath. When disaster comes, all who oppose Me will weep as they fall victim to famine and plague. Those who have committed all manner of wickedness, but who have followed Me for many years, will not escape paying for their sins; they too, will be plunged into disaster, the like of which has seldom been seen throughout millions of years, and they will live in a constant state of panic and fear. And those of My followers who have shown loyalty to Me will rejoice and applaud My might. They will experience ineffable contentment and live amid joy such as I have never before bestowed upon mankind. For I treasure the good deeds of man and abhor their evil deeds. Since I first began to lead mankind, I have been eagerly hoping to gain a group of people who are of the same mind with Me. Those who are not of the same mind with Me, meanwhile, I never forget; I always loathe them in My heart, awaiting the chance to bring retribution upon them, which I shall relish to see. Now My day has finally come, and I need no longer wait!
My final work is not only for the sake of punishing man, but also for the sake of arranging the destination of man. Moreover, it is so that all people may acknowledge My deeds and actions. I want each and every person to see that all I have done is right, and that all I have done is an expression of My disposition. It is not man’s doing, much less nature, that brought forth mankind, but I, who nourish every living being in creation. Without My existence, mankind will only perish and suffer the scourge of calamity. No human being will ever again see the beauteous sun and moon, or the verdant world; mankind shall encounter only the frigid night and the inexorable valley of the shadow of death. I am mankind’s only salvation. I am mankind’s only hope and, even more, I am He on whom the existence of all mankind rests. Without Me, mankind will immediately come to a standstill. Without Me, mankind will suffer catastrophe and be trampled underfoot by all manner of ghosts, though no one takes heed of Me. I have done work that can be done by no other, and hope only that man can repay Me with some good deeds. Though but a few have been able to repay Me, I will still conclude My journey in the human world and begin the next step of My unfolding work, because all My rushing to and fro in man’s midst these many years has been fruitful, and I am very pleased. What I care about is not the number of people, but rather their good deeds. In any case, I hope that you prepare a sufficiency of good deeds for your own destination. Then will I be satisfied; otherwise, none of you can escape the disaster that will befall you. The disaster originates with Me and is of course orchestrated by Me. If you cannot appear as good in My eyes, then you will not escape suffering the disaster.
—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Prepare Sufficient Good Deeds for Your Destination
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