Shenjie
A frog lived in a dry well all the year round. One day, the frog looked up to the mouth of the well and saw a big turtle looking into the well. Immediately it became excited and showed its room to the turtle. However, the turtle told it that the world outside its well was wide and colorful. Not until that moment did it realize that how narrow its own vision was.
Although this is a short story, it is sobering and arouses our reflection. The little frog lived in the dry well all year round, short-sighted and stuffy. As it only saw the world of its well, it could not see the immenseness of the sea. Today, in the last days, every believer in the Lord Jesus is looking forward to His return. However, when the Lord Jesus has come as promised and carried out a new stage of work outside the Bible, some believers cleave to their views of staying where they believe and refuse God’s work of the last days, like the shortsighted little frog who remained in the dry well.
God says: “The work of God has never ceased, His footsteps have never halted, and prior to the completion of His work of management, He has always been busy, and never stops. But man is different: Having gained but a modicum of the Holy Spirit’s work, he treats it as if it will never change; having gained a little knowledge, he does not go forth to follow the footsteps of God’s newer work; having seen but a bit of God’s work, he immediately prescribes God as a particular wooden figure, and believes that God will always remain in this form that he sees before him, that it was like this in the past and will always be thus in the future; having gained but a superficial knowledge, man is so proud that he forgets himself and begins to wantonly proclaim the disposition and being of God that simply do not exist; and having fastened upon one stage of the Holy Spirit’s work, no matter what kind of person it is that proclaims the new work of God, man does not accept it. These are people who cannot accept the new work of the Holy Spirit; they are too conservative, and incapable of accepting new things. Such people are those who believe in God but also reject God. … God’s work does not abide by doctrine, and even though it is His own work, still God does not cling to it. That which should be denied is denied, that which should be eliminated is eliminated. Yet man places himself in enmity of God by holding onto but one small part of the work of God’s management. Is this not the absurdity of man? Is this not the ignorance of man?” (“God’s Work and Man’s Practice”). From God’s words, we can see that God has been doing His new work since He began to save man, and never stops. To save man, God has done three stages of work in all, that is, the Age of Law, the Age of Grace, and the Age of Kingdom. In different ages, God has expressed His different dispositions with different names and done three different stages of work to save man according to His management plan and man’s needs. For each of us believers, only if we closely keep up with God’s footsteps and follow wherever God’s work is can we conform to His will. If we just keep one stage of God’s work and hold on to the view that we should stay where we believe, how can we follow the new work of God? Such a belief not only cannot be approved by God, but is against God, and we will be eliminated by God at last.
In the last days, the Lord Jesus has returned to carry out a new stage of work of judging and purifying man with the word in the Age of Kingdom, which is a newer and higher stage of work following the Age of Grace. Just as the prophecies in the Bible: God will carry out the work of reaping and uniting all denominations as one in the last days. All denominations and sects will be under the dominion of God eventually. The Lord Jesus also said: “Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather you together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn” (Matthew 13:30). “And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd” (John 10:16). It has been predicted in Isaiah 2: 2-4: “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it. And many people shall go and say, Come you, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; … And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people.” In the Age of Grace, the Lord Jesus scattered the seeds of the kingdom of heaven around the world, which means all denominations and sects of today. Now, as the wheat has already been mature, God will reap the wheat from the farmland and store them in the barn quickly. That is to say, in the last days, God will do the work of reaping and uniting. And He will gather the brothers and sisters who believe in Him with true hearts from different denominations and sects before His throne to accept His shepherding. On the contrary, if we still stay in our denomination, not going out to seek and investigate God’s work of the last days, we will be tares which are weeded.
God Says: “If you only try to hold on to the past, only try to keep things as they are by standing still, and do not try to change the status quo and discard history, then will you not always be against God? The steps of God’s work are vast and mighty, like surging waves and rolling thunders—yet you sit and passively await destruction, sticking to your folly and doing nothing. In this way, how can you be considered someone who follows in the footsteps of the Lamb? How can you justify the God that you hold on to as a God who is always new and never old?” (“Only Christ of the Last Days Can Give Man the Way of Eternal Life” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). God is the truth, the way, and the life. He is also the source of living water of life. Only if we follow His new work can we get the supply of living water of life that flows from His throne. Today, God’s work of the last days has been spread to all nations and all lands through the Internet. From all lands of the world, more and more people who yearn for the return of the Lord Jesus have heard the voice of God and turned to God after seeking and investigating on the internet. The Church of Almighty God has been established in several dozens of major countries and regions in the world. There appears a gratifying scene of all people streaming to this mountain. Hearing the new work of God, whether we choose to put aside our notions to seek and investigate or still insist on our opinions and sit and passively await destruction, it depends on ourselves.
