Just as God has said: “Not a single person can grasp the root nor the purpose of My words,” if not for the guidance of the Spirit of God, and if not for the advent of His utterances, all people would perish under His chastisement. Why has God taken such a long time to test all people? And for as long as five months? This is precisely the focal point of our fellowship as well as a central point in God’s wisdom. We may postulate the following: Without this period of putting man on trial, and without God ruthlessly striking at, killing, and hacking away at the corrupt human race, if the building of the church had continued until today, then what would the result have been? So God gets straight to the point in the very first sentence, directly pointing out the desired effect of these several months’ work—it truly hits the nail on the head! This suffices to show the wisdom of God’s deeds over this period of several months: They have enabled everyone to learn, through trial, how to submit and how to expend themselves with sincerity, as well as how better to come to know God through painful refinement. The greater the despair people experience, the better they come to know themselves. And to tell the truth, the more they face the refinement of suffering, the more they come to know their own corruption, to the point of recognizing that they are unworthy even of rendering service for God, and that to render service is to be elevated by Him. And so, after this result has been achieved, when man has used up every part of himself, God directly utters the voice of mercy, without hiding anything away. It can readily be seen that God’s method of working, after these few months, takes today as its starting point; He has made this plain for everyone to see. Because, in the past, God often said: “It is not easy to come to be called God’s people,” He has fulfilled these words in the people who are referred to as service-doers, which suffices to show that God is faithful and infallible, that whatsoever God says will come true, in varying degrees, and that it is in no way empty talk.

When all people are filled with overwhelming grief and sorrow, words like these from God hit home, reviving them all in the midst of their hopelessness. In order to eliminate any doubt from people’s minds, God added the following: “Even though they are referred to as My people, this title is in no way secondary to being called My ‘sons.’” This suffices to show that only God is able to uphold His own authority, and once people have read this, they will believe even more firmly that, far from being a method of working, it is a fact. Going one step further, so that people’s visions may remain unclouded, everyone’s identity is made clear in His method of working. This suffices to show the wisdom of God. It enables people to better know that God observes their innermost hearts, and that all of their thoughts and actions are governed by Him, just like those of puppets. This is certain and beyond question.

Looking forward from the very beginning, God directly pointed out from the outset that the first step of His work, that of “purifying the church,” had already been concluded. From the statement: “The situation now is not what it once was, and My work has entered a new starting point,” one can see that God’s work has entered on a new starting point, immediately following upon which, He has indicated to us the blueprints for the next step of His work—once the building of the church is concluded, the life of the Age of Kingdom will begin, “for it is now no longer the time of church building, but rather the time in which the kingdom is successfully built.” Furthermore, He has stated that, as people are still on the earth, their assemblies will continue to be referred to as the church, in this way avoiding the realization of an unrealistic “kingdom” as everyone has imagined it. Next comes fellowship on the issue of visions.

Why is it that, even though it is now the time for kingdom building and the end of church building, all assemblies are still called the church? It has been said in the past that the church is the precursor to the kingdom, and without the church there can be no talk of the kingdom. The beginning of the Age of Kingdom is the beginning of God’s ministry in the flesh, and the Age of Kingdom is ushered in by God incarnate. What He brings is the Age of Kingdom, and not the official descent of the kingdom. It is not difficult to imagine: The people of God of whom I speak are the people of the Age of Kingdom, and not the people of the kingdom itself. Therefore, the assemblies on earth are still referred to as the church. This is not hard to understand. In the past, He acted within His normal humanity while not yet having been testified to as God Himself, and so the Age of Kingdom had not then begun among people; that is, as I have said, My Spirit had not yet officially begun to work in My incarnate flesh. Now that God Himself has been testified to, the kingdom is realized among people. This signifies that I will begin to work within My divinity, and so those human beings who can enjoy the words I speak and the deeds I work in My divinity will become known as My people of the Age of Kingdom. It is from this that “God’s people” came to be. In this stage, it is primarily My divinity that acts and speaks. Man simply cannot involve himself, nor can he disrupt My plan. Once God has reached a certain stage in His speaking, His name is testified to, and from this point His trial of mankind will commence. This is the summit of the wisdom in God’s work. It lays a firm foundation and sets down roots for the beginning of the next step as well as the end of the last step. This is something that no one, as a human being, could possibly have anticipated; it is the meeting point of the first and second parts of the time of judgment. Without those several months of refinement, My divinity would have had no way of working. Those months of refinement opened the way for the next step of My work. The cessation of these few months of work is a sign that the next phase of work is to be more profound. If one truly understands the words of God, then one may be able to grasp that He is using this period of several months to start the next step of His work, thereby enabling it to achieve even better results. There was the hindrance of My humanity, which placed obstacles to the next step of My work—this is why, through these few months of refinement through suffering, both sides are edified and have derived substantial benefit. Only now do all people begin to treasure My way of referring to them. Therefore, when God, with a turn of His writing brush, said He would no longer call people “service-doers” but rather “God’s people,” all of them were overcome with joy. This was man’s fatal flaw. It was precisely to get hold of this vital weakness of man that God spoke as He did.

In order to further fully convince all people, and in order to point out some people’s loyalty which is adulterated with impurities, God has further pointed out all the different kinds of human ugliness, thus fulfilling the words He has spoken, such as: “How many are sincere in loving Me? Who is not considering their own prospects? Who has never complained during their trials?” From these words, God enables everyone to recognize their own rebelliousness, and to recognize the fact that they are disloyal and unfilial, and thereby they come to see that God’s mercy and lovingkindness follow all of those who seek Him, every step of the way. This can be seen from the following words: “When some are on the brink of retreat, when all who, hoping for Me to change My manner of speaking, have lost hope, at that time I utter the voice of salvation, that all who sincerely love Me may yet return to My kingdom and still abide before My throne.” Here, the phrase “those who sincerely love Me” and the rhetorical question “How many sincerely love Me?” do not contradict one another. They illustrate how “sincerity” in this context contains impurities. It is not that God knows nothing; rather, it is precisely because God observes the innermost hearts of people that He uses words like “sincerity,” which is sarcasm aimed at the corrupt human race, to make everyone feel their indebtedness to God more deeply and reproach themselves more harshly, as well as recognize the fact that the grievances in their hearts come entirely from Satan. Everyone is surprised when they see a term like “loyalty,” thinking privately, “Many times I have complained and railed against Heaven and earth, and many times wanted to leave, but because I feared God’s administrative decrees I would deal anyhow with matters just to get them over with and go along with the crowd, waiting for God to deal with me, thinking that, if things turned out to be truly hopeless, it would still not be too late for me to back away slowly. But now God is calling us His loyal people. Can God really be a God who observes the innermost hearts of people?” It was to avoid this kind of misunderstanding that God pointed out the psychological states of various types of people only at the very end, causing everyone to transition from a state where they doubted inwardly while outwardly expressing delight into a state where they are convinced by heart, by word, and by sight. In this way, man’s impression of God’s word has deepened, as a natural consequence of which man has grown a little more frightened, a little more fearful, and has moreover gained a better understanding of God. Finally, to alleviate man’s worries, God said: “But, after all, the past is the past. Given that the present is already here, there is therefore no need to cling to yesterday anymore, or to take thought for the future anymore.” This type of tense, harmonious, and yet pithy manner of speaking has an even greater effect, making all who read His words see the light once more from the midst of the despair of the past, until they see God’s wisdom and deeds, gain the appellation of “God’s people,” eliminate the clouds of doubt in their hearts, and then come to know themselves from several kinds of psychological shifts. In these states there are continual ebbs and flows, with times of sorrow and grief, and times of happiness and joy. In this chapter God has sketched an image of all people so lifelike and vivid in every detail that it has arrived at the point of perfection. It is truly a state that man cannot achieve, something that truly exposes the secrets in the deepest recesses of the human heart. Could this be something that man has the capacity to do?

Immediately following this, and of even greater importance, is the passage below, which gives a direct revelation of God’s administrative decree to man, and which, moreover, is the most important part: “Being human, whoever goes against reality and does not do things according to My guidance will not come to a good end, but will only bring trouble upon themselves. Of everything in the universe, there is nothing in which I do not have the final say.” Isn’t this one of God’s administrative decrees? This suffices to show that examples of those who contravene this administrative decree are legion. Thus God goes a step further and urges everyone not to take thought for their own destiny, and that if one should wish to break away from God’s orchestration, the consequences would be dire beyond imagining. This then enables all those who have experienced enlightenment and illumination in these words to better understand God’s administrative decree as well as to understand that He is majestic and tolerates no offense, and thereby to become more seasoned and steady, as verdant as a pine weathered by wind and frost that stands defiant against the threat of the bitter cold, continuing to add to nature’s thriving green vitality. Most people, encountering this passage, once again feel as bewildered as if they had wandered into some sort of maze; this is because the content of God’s words changes relatively quickly, and so nine out of ten people enter into a labyrinth when they attempt to understand their own corrupt dispositions. So that the work may go more smoothly in the future, so that the doubts in all people’s hearts may be eliminated, and so that all may go one step further in their belief in God’s faithfulness, He emphasizes at the end of that passage: “Each and every one of those who sincerely love Me shall assuredly return before My throne.” Thus, the minds of all the people that have been in a working state for several months are, in an instant, relieved of a measure of sorrow. What is more, their hearts, which had been suspended in midair, return to what they had once been as though a heavy stone had dropped off onto the ground. No longer do they have to take thought for their fate; further, they believe that God will no longer speak empty words. Because people are self-righteous, there is not a single one who does not believe that their loyalty toward God is undivided; this is why God deliberately emphasizes “sincerely”—to achieve a better outcome. This is to pave the way and lay the foundation for the next step in His work.