the word appears in the flesh

770 Pages·2012·11.46 MB·English

CONTINUATION OF
WORD
THE
APPEARS IN THE FLESH
THE WAY TO KNOW GOD
PUBLISHEDBY
THECHURCHOFALMIGHTYGOD

PREFACE
Everyone should examine anew his life of believing in
God to see whether, in the pursuit of God, he has truly un­
derstood,trulycomprehended,andtrulycometoknowGod,
whether he truly knows what attitude God bears to the vari­
ous types of human beings, and whether he truly under­
stands what God is working upon him and how God defines
his every act. This God, who is by your side, guiding the dir­
ection of your progress, ordaining your destiny, and supply­
ing your needs—how much do you, in the final analysis,
understand and how much do you really know about Him?
Do you know what He works on you every single day? Do
you know the principles and purposes on which He bases
His every action? Do you know how He guides you? Do you
know the means by which He supplies you? Do you know
the methods with which He leads you? Do you know what
HewishestoobtainfromyouandwhatHewishestoachieve
in you? Do you know the attitude He takes to the multifari­
ous ways in which you behave? Do you know whether you
are a person beloved of Him? Do you know the origin of His
joy, anger, sorrow, and delight, the thoughts and ideas be­
hind them, and His essence? Do you know, ultimately, what
kind of God is this God that you believe in? Are these and
other questions of the sort something that you have never
understood or thought about? In pursuing your belief in
God, have you, through real appreciation and experience of
God’s words, cleared up your misunderstandings about
Him? Have you, after receiving God’s discipline and
chastening, arrived at genuine submission and caring? Have
you,inthemidstofGod’schastisementandjudgment,come
to know the rebelliousness and satanic nature of man and
gained a modicum of understanding about God’s holiness?
Have you, under the guidance and enlightenment of God’s
ii Preface
words,beguntohaveanewoutlookoflife?Haveyou,inthe
midst of the trial sent by God, felt His intolerance for man’s
offenses as well as what He requires of you and how He is
saving you? If you do not know what it is to misunderstand
God,orhowtoclearupthismisunderstanding,thenonecan
say that you have never entered into true communion with
God and have never understood God, or at least one can say
you have never wished to understand Him. If you do not
know what is God’s discipline and chastening, then you
surely do not know what are submission and caring, or at
least you have never truly submitted to or cared for God. If
you have never experienced God’s chastisement and judg­
ment, then you will surely not know what is His holiness,
and you will be even less clear as to what man’s rebellion is.
If you have never truly had a correct outlook on life, or a
correct aim in life, but are still in a state of perplexity and
indecision over your future path in life, even to the point of
being hesitant to go forward, then it is certain that you have
never truly received God’s enlightenment and guidance, and
one can also say that you have never truly been supplied or
replenished by God’s words. If you have not yet undergone
God’strial,thenitgoeswithoutsayingthatyouwillcertainly
not know what is God’s intolerance for man’s offenses, nor
would you understand what God ultimately requires of you,
and even less what, ultimately, is His work of managing and
saving man. No matter how many years a person has be­
lieved in God, if he has never experienced or perceived any­
thing in God’s words, then assuredly he is not walking the
path toward salvation, his faith in God is assuredly without
actual content, his knowledge of God too is assuredly zero,
anditgoeswithoutsayingthathehasnoideaatallwhatitis
torevereGod.
God’s possessions and being, God’s essence, God’s dis­
position—all has been made known in His words to human­
kind. When he experiences God’s words, man will in the
Preface iii
process of carrying them out come to understand the pur­
pose behind the words God speaks, and to understand the
wellspring and background of God’s words, and to under­
standandappreciatetheintendedeffectofGod’swords.For
humanity, these are all things that man must experience,
realize, and access in order to access truth and life, realize
God’s intentions, become transformed in his disposition,
and become able to submit to God’s sovereignty and ar­
rangements. At the same time that man experiences, real­
izes,andaccessesthesethings,hewillgraduallyhavegained
an understanding of God, and at this time he will also have
gained different degrees of knowledge about Him. This un­
derstanding and knowledge does not come out of something
man has imagined or composed, but rather from what he
appreciates, experiences, feels, and corroborates within
himself. Only after appreciating, experiencing, feeling, and
corroboratingthesethingsdoesman’sknowledgeofGodac­
quire content, only the knowledge that he obtains at this
time is actual, real, and accurate, and this process—of at­
taining genuine understanding and knowledge of God
through appreciating, experiencing, feeling, and corroborat­
ing His words—is no other than true communion between
man and God. In the midst of this kind of communion, man
comes truly to understand and comprehend God’s inten­
tions, comes truly to understand and know God’s posses­
sions and being, comes truly to understand and know God’s
essence, comes gradually to understand and know God’s
disposition, arrives at real certainty about, and a correct
definition of, the fact of God’s dominion over all creation,
and gains a substantive bearing on and knowledge of God’s
identity and position. In the midst of this kind of commu­
nion, man changes, step by step, his ideas about God, no
longer imagining Him out of thin air, or giving rein to his
own suspicions about Him, or misunderstanding Him, or
condemningHim,orpassingjudgmentonHim,ordoubting
iv Preface
Him. In consequence, man will have fewer debates with
God, he will have fewer conflicts with God, and there will be
fewer occasions on which he rebels against God. Conversely,
man’s caring for and submission to God will grow greater,
and his reverence for God will become more real as well as
more profound. In the midst of this kind of communion,
man will not only attain the provision of truth and the bap­
tism of life, but he will at the same time also attain true
knowledge of God. In the midst of this kind of communion,
man will not only be transformed in his disposition and re­
ceive salvation, but he will at the same time also garner the
true reverence and worship of a created being toward God.
Having had this kind of communion, man’s faith in God will
no longer be a blank sheet of paper, or a promise offered up
inlipservice,oraformofblindpursuitandidolization;only
with this kind of communion will man’s life grow toward
maturity day by day, and only now will his disposition
gradually become transformed, and his faith in God will,
step by step, pass from a vague and uncertain belief into
genuine submission and caring, into real reverence; man
will also, in his pursuit of God, gradually progress from a
passive to an active stance, from one who is acted upon into
one who takes positive action; only with this kind of com­
munion will man arrive at true understanding and compre­
hensionofGod,attrueknowledgeofGod.Becausethegreat
majority of people have never entered into true communion
with God, their knowledge of God stops at the level of the­
ory, at the level of letters and doctrines. That is to say, the
great majority of people, no matter how many years they
have believed in God, are as far as knowing God is con­
cernedstillinthesameplacewheretheystarted,stuckatthe
foundation of traditional forms of homage, with their trap­
pings of legendary color and feudal superstition. That man’s
knowledge of God should be stalled at its starting point
means that it is practically non­existent. Apart from man’s
Preface v
affirmation of God’s position and identity, man’s faith in
God is still in a state of vague uncertainty. This being so,
howmuchcanmanhaveoftruereverenceforGod?
No matter how firmly you believe in His existence, this
cannot take the place of your knowledge of God, nor of your
reverenceforGod.Nomatterhowmuchyouhaveenjoyedof
His blessings and His grace, this cannot take the place of
your knowledge of God. No matter how willing and eager
you are to consecrate your all and expend your all for His
sake, this cannot take the place of your knowledge of God.
Or perhaps you have grown so familiar with the words He
hasspokenthatyouknowthembyheartandcanrattlethem
off backward; even so, this cannot take the place of your
knowledgeofGod.Howeverintentmanmaybeonfollowing
God, if he has never had genuine communion with God, or
had a genuine experience of God’s words, then his know­
ledge of God would be no more than a sheer blank or an
endless reverie; for all that you may have “brushed
shoulders” with God in passing, or met Him face to face,
your knowledge of God would still be zero, and your rever­
enceforGodnomorethananemptycatchwordoranideal.
Many people hold up God’s words to read day by day,
even to the point of carefully committing to memory all the
classicpassagesthereinastheirmostprizedpossession,and
moreover preach God’s words everywhere, supplying and
aiding others by means of His words. They think that to do
this is to bear witness to God, to bear witness to His words,
that to do this is to follow God’s way; they think that to do
this is to live by God’s words, that to do this is to bring His
wordsintotheiractuallives,thatdoingthiswillenablethem
to receive God’s commendation, and to be saved and perfec­
ted. But, even as they preach the words of God, they never
comply with God’s words in practice, or try to bring them­
selves in line with what is revealed in God’s words. Rather,
they use God’s words to gain the adoration and trust of oth­
vi Preface
ers by trickery, to enter into management on their own, and
to embezzle and steal God’s glory. They hope, vainly, to use
the opportunity afforded by spreading God’s words to be
awarded God’s working and His commendation. How many
years have gone by, but not only have these people been in­
capable of earning God’s commendation in the process of
preaching God’s words, and not only have they been incap­
able of discovering the way that they should follow in the
processofbearingwitnesstoGod’swords,andnotonlyhave
they not aided or supplied themselves in the process of sup­
plying and aiding others by means of God’s words, and not
onlyhavetheybeenincapableofknowingGod,orawakening
in themselves genuine reverence for God, in the process of
doing all these things; but, on the contrary, their misunder­
standingsaboutGodgroweverdeeper,theirmistrustofHim
ever graver, and their imaginings about Him ever more hy­
perbolic. Supplied and guided by their theories about God’s
words, they appear as if completely in their element, as if
plying their skills with effortless ease, as if they have found
their purpose in life, their mission, and as if they have won
new life and been saved, as if, with God’s words rolling
crisply off the tongue in recital, they have gained access to
the truth, grasped God’s intentions, and discovered the path
to knowing God, as if, in the process of preaching God’s
words, they often come face to face with God. Also, they are
often “moved” to bouts of weeping, and, often led by the
“God”inGod’swords,theyappeartobeceaselesslygrasping
atHisearnestsolicitudeandkindintention,andatthesame
time to have grasped God’s salvation of man and His man­
agement,tohavecometoknowHisessence,andtohaveun­
derstood His righteous disposition. Based on this
foundation, they seem to believe even more firmly in God’s
existence, to be more cognizant of His exalted state, and to
feel even more deeply His grandeur and transcendence.
SteepedinthesuperficialknowledgeofGod’swords,itwould
Preface vii
appear that their faith has grown, their resolve to endure
suffering hasstrengthened,andtheirknowledgeofGodhas
deepened.Littledotheyknowthat,untiltheyactuallyexper­
ienceGod’swords,alltheirknowledgeofGodandtheirideas
about Him come out of their own wishful imagination and
conjecture. Their faith would not hold up under any kind of
test from God, their so­called spirituality and stature would
simplynotholdupunderGod’strialorinspection,theirres­
olutionisbutacastlebuiltuponthesand,andtheirso­called
knowledge of God too no more than a figment of their ima­
gination.Infact,thesepeople,whohave,asitwere,putalot
of effort into God’s words, have never ever realized what is
real faith, what is real submission, what is real caring, or
what is real knowledge of God. They take theory, imagina­
tion, knowledge, gift, tradition, superstition, and even the
moral values of humanity, and make them into “investment
capital” and “military arms” for believing in God and pursu­
ingHim,evenmakingthemintothefoundationsoftheirbe­
lief in God and their pursuit of Him. At the same time, they
also take this capital and weaponry and make them into a
magic talisman for knowing God, for meeting and contend­
ingwithGod’sinspection,trial,chastisement,andjudgment.
In the end, what they garner still consists of nothing more
than conclusions about God that are steeped in religious
connotation, in feudal superstition, and in all that is ro­
mantic, grotesque, and enigmatic, and their way of knowing
and defining God is stamped in the same mold as that of
peoplewhobelieveonlyinHeavenAbove,ortheOldManin
the Sky, while God’s realness, His essence, His disposition,
His possessions and being, and so forth, all that has to do
withtherealGodHimself, arethingsthattheir knowinghas
failed to grasp, is completely irrelevant to and even poles
apart from. In this way, although they live under the provi­
sion and nourishment of God’s words, they are nevertheless
unable truly to tread the path of fearing God and shunning
viii Preface
evil. The true reason for this is that they have never become
acquainted with God, neither have they ever had genuine
contact or communion with Him, and so it is impossible for
them to arrive at mutual understanding with God, or to
awaken in themselves genuine belief in, pursuit of, or wor­
shipforGod.ThattheyshouldthusregardGod’swords,that
they should thus regard God—this perspective and attitude
has doomed them to return empty­handed from their en­
deavors, has doomed them never in all eternity to be able to
treadthepathoffearingGodandshunningevil.Thegoalfor
which they are aiming, and the direction in which they are
going,signifiesthattheyareGod’senemiesthrougheternity,
and that through eternity they will never be able to receive
salvation.
If, in the case of a man who has followed God for many
years and enjoyed the provision of His words for many
years, his definition of God be, in its essence, the same as
that of someone who prostrates himself in homage before
idols, then this would signify that this man has not attained
to the reality of God’s words. Looking into the cause of this,
one sees that he has simply not entered into the reality of
God’s words, and for this reason the reality, the truth, the
intentions, and the demands upon humanity, all of which
inhere in God’s words, have nothing whatsoever to do with
him. That is to say, no matter how hard such a man may
work on the surface meaning of God’s words, all is futile:
Because what he pursues is mere words, therefore what he
getswillalsoofnecessitybemerewords.Whetherthewords
spoken by God are, in outward appearance, plain or ab­
struse, they are all truths indispensable to man as he enters
into life; they are the fount of living waters that enables him
to survive in both spirit and flesh. They provide what man
needs to stay alive; the dogma and creed for conducting his
daily life; the path, goal, and direction through which he
must pass in order to receive salvation; every truth that he