How to Prepare for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ

I then asked, “Why does the Lord have to return in the flesh to save man, rather than in a spiritual body?”

The brother replied, “Sister, let’s see what God says about this issue. Almighty God says: ‘The flesh of man has been most profoundly corrupted, and it has become something which opposes God, which even openly opposes and denies the existence of God. This corrupt flesh is simply too intractable, and nothing is more difficult to deal with or change than the corrupt disposition of the flesh. Satan comes into the flesh of man to stir up disturbance, and uses the flesh of man to disturb the work of God, and impair the plan of God, and thus man has become Satan, and the enemy of God. For man to be saved, he must first be conquered. It is because of this that God rises to the challenge and comes into the flesh to do the work He intends to do, and do battle with Satan. His aim is the salvation of mankind, who has been corrupted, and the defeat and annihilation of Satan, which rebels against Him. He defeats Satan through His work of conquering man, and simultaneously saves corrupt mankind. Thus, God solves two problems at once.’

“‘The work that is of greatest value to corrupt man is that which provides accurate words, clear goals to pursue, and which can be seen and touched. Only realistic work and timely guidance are suited to man’s tastes, and only real work can save man from his corrupt and depraved disposition. This can only be achieved by the incarnate God; only the incarnate God can save man from his formerly corrupt and depraved disposition.’

“‘If this work were done by the Spirit of God, then it would not be victory over Satan. The Spirit is inherently more exalted than mortal beings, and the Spirit of God is inherently holy, and triumphant over the flesh. If the Spirit did this work directly, He would not be able to judge all of man’s disobedience, and could not reveal all of man’s unrighteousness. For the work of judgment is also carried out through man’s conceptions of God, and man has never had any conceptions of the Spirit, and so the Spirit is incapable of better revealing the unrighteousness of man, much less of completely disclosing such unrighteousness. The incarnate God is the enemy of all those who do not know Him. Through judging man’s conceptions and opposition to Him, He discloses all the disobedience of mankind. The effects of His work in the flesh are more apparent than those of the work of the Spirit. And so, the judgment of all mankind is not carried out directly by the Spirit, but is the work of the incarnate God.’”

After reading God’s words, the brother gave fellowship, saying, “We can know from God’s words that we people in the last days have been corrupted to the extreme by Satan. Although our sins were forgiven by the Lord Jesus, our sinful nature still remains. Various corrupt satanic dispositions have been deeply rooted within us and have become our life. As a result, what we reveal every day is corrupt satanic dispositions such as arrogance and conceit, selfishness and despicableness, crookedness and deceit, evil and greed, and so on, and we often stray far from God and oppose God. We all become the embodiment of Satan. In order to wrest the deeply corrupt mankind from the clutches of Satan and save us, God has become flesh and expressed the truth to expose all of our corrupt satanic dispositions one by one, and meanwhile to tell us how Satan corrupts man and how God saves man, etc. This way, we can truly distinguish between good and evil and beauty and ugliness, recognize our own corruption, and develop discernment on Satan’s tricks and its various heresies and fallacies, so that we can rebel against Satan and completely turn to God. For example, when we encounter a situation that’s at odds with our ideas, and live in rebellion and resistance of God without knowing it, God’s word directly exposes and judges us, allowing us to see, in God’s word, our satanic corrupt dispositions; when we forsake and expend for God for our own personal gain and are self-righteous in so doing, God exposes our incorrect motivations and tells us what correct beliefs we must hold as followers of God; when we misunderstand God in trials and refinements and become negative and withdrawn, God’s word reminds us of the earnest intentions with which God tests and refines man, resolving our misunderstandings of God; and so on. All the brothers and sisters who have accepted God’s work of the last days have experienced that the incarnate God is constantly helping us so that we needn’t cast about and search. All we need to do is read more of Almighty God’s word to gain God’s feeding and watering. Contrarily, God’s spiritual body could not achieve nearly the same effect in His work. That’s because God’s Spirit is holy, and we who are of the flesh are unable to come into contact with God’s Spirit. Furthermore, after Satan’s corruption, we are filled with various corrupt satanic dispositions, and if we were to contact God’s Spirit, God must strike us down. Just as the Bible records, ‘And all the people saw the thunder, and the lightning, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off. And they said to Moses, Speak you with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die’ (Exodus 20:18–19). It can be seen that God incarnating to save mankind in the last days is tremendously meaningful. Since God incarnate uses human language to tell us all aspects of the truth for cleansing and saving man, we can receive God’s own shepherding, clearly understand God’s will and His demands of man, recognize our corrupt substance, and simultaneously gain some understanding of what He has and is, thus gradually becoming someone after His heart. From this we can see that God’s work is truly wise.

“What’s more, in the last days, God works as incarnate flesh in order better to judge, perfect and eliminate man. After being corrupted by Satan, we all become terribly arrogant, and have no regard for anyone else. We can even form all sorts of conceptions about the truth expressed by God incarnate, and can’t truly obey and accept it; we can also conceive of notions when we see that God incarnate appears common and normal on the outside. This way, our rebelliousness and resistance toward God will be fully exposed. As the reality reveals itself, the lovers of the truth, through reading God’s words of exposing all kinds of God-resisting behaviors of man and the truth of man’s corruption, will be conquered by God’s words, admitting that they are deeply corrupted by Satan. As a result, they will be willing to accept the judgment and chastisement of God’s words and experience God’s work, so that they will be able to gradually cast away the corrupt satanic disposition and achieve purification and salvation. On the contrary, the haters of the truth will stubbornly rebel against God and refuse to accept the judgment and chastisement of God’s words, and ultimately be laid bare and eliminated by God. If God were to appear to us in the form of His spiritual body, then nobody would dare to resist Him because we have no conceptions about His transcendent Spirit and feel afraid at the sight of His Spirit. Thus, all men, good or evil, would prostrate themselves before God, people’s rebelliousness, unrighteousness, and whether or not they truly believe would not be able to be exposed and the result of revealing men and sorting them according to their kind wouldn’t be achieved.”

After hearing this fellowship, I came to understand that God becomes flesh to do His work based on our needs. We were deeply corrupted by Satan; though we were redeemed by the Lord Jesus, we were still living in sin, and often disobeyed and opposed God. If God were really to appear in a spiritual body, we were so filthy that we would dare not draw near to God, and it would be more impossible to be raptured. At this moment, a passage from the Bible came to my mind: “Holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). Apparently, if God hadn’t been incarnated, we never would get near to God, and would be incapable of hearing God’s voice or knowing our corrupt satanic dispositions. Maybe before we obtained knowledge of ourselves and achieved change, we would be struck dead by God because of our resistance and rebellion, and thus we would simply be unable to be cleansed.

After that, the brother played for us a marvelous episode, The Necessity for God to Do His Work Through Incarnation, in the movie The Mystery of Godliness. After watching this video, I gained a better understanding of the meaning of God’s incarnation. Despite the fact that God’s incarnation in the last days seems normal and ordinary in outward appearance, despite His being the target of man’s conceptions, their denial, resistance, and rejection, the truth expressed by Him can give us timely provision, and the judgment work done by Him can save and perfect us—God working in this way is too practical! After understanding all this, I got rid of my guard against CAG, and determined to seek and investigate Almighty God’s work in earnest.

Following that, the brothers and sisters of CAG let us watch many videos and films, and communicated to us many aspects of the truth, such as how God does the work of judgment, the mystery of God’s name, how to discern the good servants from the evil servants. I had never heard such things in religion and they benefited me a lot. CAG indeed has the truth. God’s words released the confusion in my heart and completely conquered me. Two weeks later, Brother Wang, the two sisters and I all became certain that Almighty God is the return of the Lord Jesus. We felt excited and grateful, and continually offered up our thanks and praise to God.

Thinking back to when I had no understanding of God’s will and God’s work, I maintained the belief that the Lord would appear to work on a cloud in a spiritual body, and that any testimony about the Lord’s coming as incarnate was false, and therefore I kept guarding against God’s work in the last days. I was so silly! If not for God arranging for brothers and sisters to communicate with me time and again, I would definitely have missed the extremely rare opportunity to attain salvation because of clinging to my own conceptions and guarding against God’s work in the last days. I made up my mind to properly follow God, and meanwhile bring those brothers and sisters who long for the Lord’s return before God. All the glory be to Almighty God!