YOU SHOULD KNOW HOW THE WHOLE OF HUMANITY HAS DEVELOPED TO THE PRESENT DAY (PART ONE)

The entirety of the work over the 6,000 years has gradually changed along with the times. The shifts in this work have occurred according to the entire world’s circumstances. God’s management work has only gradually transformed according to the developmental trends of humanity as a whole; it was not already planned at the beginning of creation. Before the world was created, or right after it was created, Jehovah had not yet planned the first stage of work, that of law; the second stage of work, that of grace; or the third stage of work, that of conquering, in which He would first work among a group of people—some of the descendants of Moab, and from this He would conquer the entire universe. He did not speak these words after creating the world; He did not speak these words after Moab, let alone before Lot. All of His work was done spontaneously. This is exactly how His entire six-thousand-year management work has developed; by no means had He written out such a plan as Summary Chart for Humanity’s Development before creating the world. In God’s work, He directly expresses what He is; He does not rack His brains to formulate a plan. Of course, many prophets have spoken many prophecies, but it still cannot be said that God’s work has always been one of precise plan-making; the prophecies were made according to God’s actual work. All of His work is the most actual work. He carries out His work according to the development of the times, and He carries out His most actual work according to the changes of things. For Him, carrying out work is akin to administering medicine to an illness; He observes while doing His work; He works according to His observations. In every stage of His work, He is capable of expressing His ample wisdom and expressing His ample ability; He reveals His ample wisdom and ample authority according to the work of that particular age and allows any of those people brought back by Him during those ages to see His entire disposition. He supplies people’s needs and carries out the work He should do according to the work that must be done in each age; He supplies people’s needs according to the degree to which Satan has corrupted them. It was this way when Jehovah initially created Adam and Eve in order to allow them to manifest God upon the earth and to have God’s witnesses among the creation, but Eve sinned after being tempted by the snake; Adam did the same, and together in the garden they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And thus, Jehovah had additional work to perform among them. He saw their nakedness and covered their bodies with clothing made from animal hides. Following this, He said unto Adam, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree, of which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat of it: cursed is the ground for your sake … till you return to the ground; for out of it were you taken: for dust you are, and to dust shall you return.” To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in sorrow you shall bring forth children; and your desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you.” From then on He banished them from the Garden of Eden and made them live outside the garden, as modern man now does upon the earth. When God created man in the very beginning, He did not plan to let man be tempted by the snake after he had been created and then curse man and the snake. He did not actually have this kind of plan; it was simply the development of things that gave Him new work among His creation. After Jehovah carried out this work among Adam and Eve upon the earth, humanity continued to develop for several thousand years, until “Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented Jehovah that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart. … But Noah found grace in the eyes of Jehovah.” At this time Jehovah had more new work, for the humanity He created had become too sinful after being tempted by the snake. Given these circumstances, Jehovah selected Noah’s family from among these people and spared them, and carried out His work of destroying the world with a flood. Humanity has continued to develop in this manner to this very day, becoming increasingly corrupt, and when humanity’s development reaches its peak, it will also be humanity’s end. From the very beginning to the end of the world, the inside truth of His work has always been this way. It is the same as how man will be classed according to their kind; far from each and every person being predestined to the category they belong to at the very beginning, people are gradually categorized only after undergoing a process of development. In the end, anyone who cannot be saved entirely will be returned to his or her “ancestors.” None of God’s work among humanity was already prepared at the creation of the world; rather, it was the development of things that allowed God to perform His work step by step more realistically and practically among humanity. This is just like how Jehovah God did not create the snake in order to tempt the woman. It was not His specific plan, nor was it something that He had intentionally predestined; one could say that this was unexpected. It was thus because of this that Jehovah expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and vowed to never again create man. But God’s wisdom is only discovered by people upon this foundation, just like the point that I mentioned earlier: “My wisdom is exercised based on Satan’s plots.” No matter how corrupt humanity grew or how the snake tempted them, Jehovah still had His wisdom; therefore, He has been engaged in new work ever since He created the world, and none of the steps of this work have ever repeated. Satan has continuously carried out plots; humanity has been continuously corrupted by Satan, and Jehovah God has also continuously carried out His wise work. He has never failed, and He has never ceased His work from the creation of the world through now. After humanity was corrupted by Satan, He continuously worked among people to defeat His enemy who corrupts humanity. This battle will continue from the beginning until the world’s end. In doing all this work, He has not only allowed humanity, who has been corrupted by Satan, to receive His great salvation, but also allowed them to see His wisdom, almightiness and authority, and in the end He will let humanity see His righteous disposition—punishing the wicked and rewarding the good. He has battled Satan to this very day and has never been defeated, for He is a wise God, and His wisdom is exercised based on Satan’s plots. And so He not only makes everything in heaven submit to His authority; He also makes everything upon earth rest below His footstool, and not last of all, He makes those evildoers who invade and harass humanity fall within His chastisement. All the results of the work are brought about because of His wisdom. He had never revealed His wisdom before the existence of humanity, for He had no enemies in heaven, upon earth, or in the entire universe, and there were no dark forces that invaded anything among nature. After the archangel betrayed Him, He created humanity upon the earth, and it was because of humanity that He formally began His millennia-long war with Satan, the archangel, a war that grows more heated with every successive stage. His almightiness and wisdom are present in each of these stages. Only at this time can everything in heaven and earth see God’s wisdom, almightiness, and particularly God’s realness. He still carries out His work in this same realistic manner today; in addition, as He carries out His work He also reveals His wisdom and almightiness; He allows you to see the inside truth of each stage of work, to see exactly how to explain God’s almightiness, and particularly exactly how to explain God’s realness.

Do people not believe it was fated before creation that Judas would sell Jesus? Actually, the Holy Spirit had planned this according to reality at the time. It had just so happened that there was someone by the name of Judas who would always embezzle funds. He was thus chosen to play this role and to be of service in this way. This is a true example of making use of local resources. Jesus was unaware of this at first; He only knew once Judas had been revealed later. If someone else had been able to play this role, then someone else would have done this rather than Judas. That which was predestined was in fact done contemporaneously by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit’s work is always done spontaneously; anytime He plans His work, the Holy Spirit will carry it out. Why do I always say that the work of the Holy Spirit is realistic? That it is always new and never old, and always the most fresh? God’s work was not already planned when the world was created; this is not at all what happened! Every step of work attains its proper effect for its respective time, and they do not interfere with one another. There are many occasions in which the plans in your mind are simply no match for the Holy Spirit’s latest work. His work is not as simple as people’s reasoning, nor is it as complex as people’s imaginations; it consists of supplying people at any time and any place according to their current needs. No one is clearer as to people’s substance as He, and it is precisely for this reason that nothing is able to suit people’s realistic needs as well as His work does. Therefore, from a human perspective, His work was planned several millennia in advance. As He works among you now, according to your situation, He is also doing work and speaking at any time and any place. When people are in a situation, He speaks those words that are precisely what they need within. It is like the first step of His work of the times of chastisement. After the times of chastisement, people exhibited certain behavior, they acted rebelliously in certain ways, certain positive situations emerged, certain negative situations also emerged, and the upper bounds of this negativity reached a certain level. God conducted His work based on all these things, and thus seized upon these to attain a much better effect for His work. He is simply carrying out His supplying work among people in accordance with their current situations. He carries out every step of His work according to people’s actual situations. All of creation is in His hands; could He not know them? In light of people’s circumstances, God carries out the next step of work that should be done, at any time and place. By no means was this work planned thousands of years beforehand; this is a human conception! He works as He observes the effects of His work, and His work continuously deepens and develops; as He observes the results of His work, He carries out the next step of His work. He uses many things to transition gradually and to make His new work visible to people over time. This kind of work is able to supply people’s needs, for God knows people all too well. This is how He carries out His work from heaven. Likewise, God incarnate does His work in the same way, planning according to reality and working among humanity. None of His work was planned before the world was created, nor was it meticulously planned beforehand. 2,000 years after the world was created, Jehovah saw that humanity had become so corrupt that He used the mouth of the prophet Isaiah to prophesy that after the Age of Law ended, He would carry out His work of redeeming humanity in the Age of Grace. This was Jehovah’s plan, of course, but this plan was also made according to the circumstances He observed at the time; He certainly did not think of it immediately after creating Adam. Isaiah merely prophesied, but Jehovah did not immediately make preparations for this during the Age of Law; rather, He set about this work at the start of the Age of Grace, when the messenger appeared in Joseph’s dream and enlightened him, telling him that God would become flesh, and thus His work of incarnation began. God did not, as people imagine, prepare for His work of incarnation after creating the world; this was only decided according to the degree of humanity’s development and the status of His war with Satan.

When God comes into flesh, His Spirit descends upon a man; in other words, the Spirit of God wears a flesh. He does His work upon the earth, and rather than bringing with Him several restricted steps, this work is utterly unlimited. The work that the Holy Spirit does in the flesh is still determined by the effects of His work, and He uses these things to determine the length of time for which He will do work while in the flesh. The Holy Spirit directly reveals each step of His work; He examines His work as He goes along; it is nothing so supernatural as to stretch the limits of human imagination. This is like Jehovah’s work in creating the heavens and earth and all things; He simultaneously planned and worked. He separated the light from the darkness, and morning and evening came into being—this took one day. On the second day He created the sky, which also took one day, and then He created the earth, seas and the things that populated them, also taking another day. This went on through the sixth day, when God created man and let him manage all the things upon the earth, until the seventh day, when He had finished creating all things, and rested. God blessed the seventh day and designated it as a holy day. He decided upon this holy day after He had created all things, not before creating them. This work was also carried out spontaneously; before creating all things, He did not decide to create the world in six days and rest on the seventh; the facts are not at all like this. He did not say this, nor did He plan it. By no means did He say that the creation of all things would be completed on the sixth day and that He would rest on the seventh; rather, He created according to what seemed good to Him. Once He had finished creating everything, it was already the sixth day. If it had been the fifth day when He finished creating everything, He would have thus designated the sixth day as a holy day; however, He finished creating everything on the sixth day, and thus the seventh day became a holy day, which has been promulgated to this very day. Therefore, His current work is carried out in this same way. He speaks and supplies your needs in accordance with your circumstances. That is, the Spirit speaks and works according to people’s circumstances; the Spirit keeps watch over all and works at any time and place. That which I do, say, place upon you and bestow upon you is, without exception, that which you need. That is why I say that none of My work is separate from reality; it is all real, for you all know that “God’s Spirit keeps watch over all.” If this had all been decided ahead of time, would it not have been too cut-and-dried? You think that God worked out six whole millennia and then predestined humanity as being rebellious, resistant, sly and crafty, as having the flesh, corrupt satanic disposition, lust of the eyes, and their own indulgence. This was not predestined, but rather due to Satan’s corruption. Some will say, “Was Satan not also within God’s grasp? God had predestined that Satan would corrupt man in this manner, and after that He carried out His work among man.” Would God actually predestine Satan to corrupt humanity? He is only too eager to allow humanity to live normal human lives; would He harass the lives of humanity? Then wouldn’t defeating Satan and saving humanity be a futile effort? How could humanity’s rebelliousness be predestined? It was due to Satan’s harassment in actuality; how could it be predestined by God? The Satan within God’s grasp that you understand and the Satan within God’s grasp that I speak of are very different. According to your statements that “God is almighty, and Satan is within His hands,” Satan would not betray Him. Have you not said that God is almighty? Your knowledge is too abstract and is out of line with reality; it does not hold water and does not work! God is almighty; this is not false at all. The archangel betrayed God because God initially gave it a portion of authority. Of course, this was an unexpected event, like Eve succumbing to the snake’s temptation. However, no matter how Satan carries out its betrayal, unlike God it is not almighty. As you have said, Satan is mighty; no matter what it does, God’s authority always defeats it. This is the true meaning behind the saying “God is almighty, and Satan is within His hands.” Therefore, His war with Satan must be carried out one step at a time; furthermore, He plans His work in response to Satan’s ruses. That is to say, in accordance with the ages, He saves people and reveals His wisdom and almightiness. Likewise, the work in the last days was not predestined before the Age of Grace; it was not predestined in an orderly manner like this one: First, make man’s external disposition change; second, make man receive His chastisement and trials; third, make man experience death; fourth, make man experience the times of loving God and express the resolution of a created being; fifth, make man see God’s will and know God completely, then complete man. He did not plan these all things during the Age of Grace; rather, He began planning them in the present age. Satan is at work, as is God. Satan expresses its corrupt disposition, whereas God speaks directly and reveals some substantive things. This is the work being done today, and this same kind of working principle was used long ago, after the world was created.

Excerpted from The Word Appears in the Flesh

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