In recent times, disasters such as earthquakes, floods, swarms of locusts, fires, epidemics, and famines have continued to spread, and the scope of this spread has grown wider and wider. Of particular note is the novel coronavirus, a pestilence that has now made its way into every country on earth with many people dying as a result. When we see such disasters occurring so frequently, we become consumed with fear and feel at a loss, and all we can do is constantly call on the Lord for protection. Could the reason God allows disasters to happen simply be because He wishes for us to call on Him and ask Him for His protection? Just what is God’s intention? How can we obtain God’s protection when disasters strike? Today, let us discuss and explore this issue together so that we can understand God’s intention and find the path to receiving His protection.

In truth, God allows disasters to befall us to serve as reminders and warnings to us. But what is He warning us about? We all know that in this world nowadays, people have become more and more evil and corrupted. All live their lives indulging in gluttony, pleasure-seeking and carnal, sensual desires. People vie with one another in pursuit of profit and are full of lies and violence. They lost their dignity and integrity, their conscience and their sense long ago, and sometimes do not even acknowledge the existence of God, and only a few thirst for the truth and long for the true light to appear. Even those who do believe in the Lord also follow the trends of the world in pursuing money, fame and fortune; they covet the pleasures of the flesh and live in sin, unable to escape. People in this world today are as evil and corrupted as those in Noah’s time. The Lord Jesus once prophesied, “But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matthew 24:37). We know from the words of the Lord Jesus that by the time of the last days when man will have become as corrupted as he was in the time of Noah, the Lord will have already returned. But people have become too corrupted, with no one actively seeking God or His appearance and work, and even when they hear someone testifying to the Lord’s return, they still do not actively seek the truth or look into it further. By allowing these disasters to occur, God is sending us warnings to awaken our apathetic hearts so that we can clearly see that the prophecy of the coming of the Lord has already been fulfilled and that the Lord returned long ago. We should seek the appearance of God without delay. If we cannot welcome the Lord before the great tribulation comes, we will only be swept away by the great tribulation and punished.

The Lord Jesus also told us long ago, “And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom comes; go you out to meet him” (Matthew 25:6). “Seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7). This means that people will be preaching and testifying when the Lord has returned. Upon hearing the words “the bridegroom comes,” people must actively seek out and investigate the Lord’s return, for only by so doing may they welcome the return of the Lord. As of now, in the whole world, only The Church of Almighty God is testifying that the Lord Jesus has returned. He has expressed the truth and carries out the work of judgment beginning with the house of God, thereby fulfilling the prophecies of the Lord Jesus: “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will show you things to come” (John 16:12–13). “He that rejects Me, and receives not My words, has one that judges him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day” (John 12:48). And 1 Peter 4:17 says, “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God.” Almighty God carries out the work of judgment and chastisement on the basis of the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus. Though we may believe in the Lord and receive forgiveness for our sins, our sinful nature is still inside us. So, what we live out are arrogance and conceit, crookedness and slyness, selfishness and base behavior, evil and greed and other satanic dispositions. We constantly sin, and rebel against and resist God, unable to cast off the bonds of sin. Therefore, when the Lord Jesus returns in the last days, He will still have to carry out the work of judging and purifying man, completely ridding mankind of our sinful nature, saving us from the influence of Satan, saving us from disasters, and bringing us into the kingdom of God. As Almighty God says, “Though Jesus did much work among man, He only completed the redemption of all mankind and became man’s sin offering; He did not rid man of all his corrupt disposition. Fully saving man from the influence of Satan not only required Jesus to become the sin offering and bear the sins of man, but it also required God to do even greater work to rid man completely of his satanically corrupted disposition. And so, now that man has been forgiven of his sins, God has returned to the flesh to lead man into the new age, and begun the work of chastisement and judgment. This work has brought man into a higher realm. All those who submit under His dominion shall enjoy higher truth and receive greater blessings. They shall truly live in the light, and they shall gain the truth, the way, and the life.”

Faced with this gospel of the coming of the kingdom of heaven, how many people will actively seek out and investigate the true way? Many people are indifferent and persist in their obduracy. They do not seek out and investigate the appearance and work of God at all, nor do they focus on listening to the voice of God so as to welcome the return of the Lord. What is the problem in this? It shows that we humans do not love the truth; we just want to be raptured into the kingdom of heaven and receive blessings. We do not want to experience judgment and chastisement and yet we are full of all kinds of corrupt, satanic dispositions. So how can we be cleansed without experiencing God’s judgment and cleansing work in the last days? People still live in sin, resisting God and rebelling against God anytime, anywhere, and some even try to go all out to condemn and resist God’s appearance and work. Can such a person escape the great tribulation? God’s words say, “When humanity was full of corruption and disobedient toward God to a grievous extent, God had to destroy this humanity, because of His disposition and His essence, and in accordance with His principles. But because of God’s essence, He still pitied mankind, and even wanted to use various ways to redeem mankind so they could continue to live. Man, however, opposed God, continued to disobey God, and refused to accept God’s salvation; that is, refused to accept His good intentions. No matter how God called to them, reminded them, supplied them, helped them, or tolerated them, man did not understand or appreciate it, nor did they pay attention. In His pain, God still did not forget to grant man His maximum tolerance, waiting for man to reverse course. After He reached His limit, He did what He had to do without any hesitation. In other words, there was a specific time period and process from the moment God planned to destroy mankind to the start of His work in destroying mankind. This process existed for the purpose of enabling man to reverse course, and this was the last chance God gave to man. So what did God do in this period before destroying mankind? God did a significant amount of reminding and exhorting work.” “In the vast expanse of the world, oceans silting into fields, fields flooding into oceans, over and over. Except for He who rules over everything among all things, no one is able to lead and guide this human race. There is no mighty one to labor or make preparations for this human race, still less is there anyone who can lead this human race toward the destination of light and liberate it from earthly injustices. God laments the future of mankind, He grieves at the fall of mankind, and is pained that mankind is marching, step by step, toward decay and the path of no return. No one has ever given thought to which direction such a mankind that has broken the heart of God and renounced Him to seek the evil one might be headed. It is precisely for this reason why no one senses the wrath of God, why no one seeks a way to please God or tries to draw closer to God, and what is more, why no one seeks to comprehend God’s grief and pain. Even after hearing the voice of God, man continues on his own path, persists in straying from God, evading God’s grace and care, and shunning His truth, preferring to sell himself to Satan, the enemy of God. And who has given any thought—should man persist in his obduracy—to how God will act toward this humanity that has dismissed Him without a backward glance? No one knows that the reason for God’s repeated reminders and exhortations is because He has prepared in His hands a calamity like never before, one that will be unbearable to the flesh and soul of man. This calamity is not merely a punishment of the flesh, but also of the soul.”

We can understand from the words of God that God has the essence of holiness and loathes the sins of mankind. Since man is too corrupt, God has no other choice but to allow disasters to befall mankind; however, since God made man, He also cannot bear to see him being destroyed in this way, and therefore, before God brings about the great tribulation, He will give everyone the opportunity to accept His salvation in the last days. It is the same as when God let Noah preach the gospel, when over the course of more than a century, God gave man the opportunity to come to Him to receive His salvation, but because man could not understand God’s intention to save him at that time, he stubbornly opposed and resisted. Man did not accept God’s salvation and was finally destroyed in the flood. The same is true for the second coming of the Lord in the last days. Man has been given ample time, with Almighty God having worked for nearly 30 years since the year 1991. The Word Appears in the Flesh as expressed by Almighty God, as well as various gospel movies, comic sketches, choral works, and all kinds of testimonies of God’s chosen people who have undergone the transformation of their dispositions—all produced by the Church of Almighty God—have also been posted online, and are there for people from all over the world to use during their searches and investigations. God also makes use of people who preach to us and witness God’s work in the last days. This gospel of the coming of the kingdom of heaven has spread all over the world. How many people have actively sought and investigated the true way? How can such corrupt people who resist and reject God escape His wrath? As of now, God’s work in the last days is about to come to an end, and the great tribulation, the likes of which has not been seen for millennia, is imminent. As the Lord Jesus prophesied: “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matthew 24:21). The time that God has allowed for man is running out, and the door of grace will soon be closed. If man continues to reject and resist God, and refuses to accept God’s work in the last days, he will offend the dignity of God, he will cause God’s anger to grow, and he will be destroyed by God in the great tribulation, the likes of which has not been seen for millennia. Therefore, we now understand that God is allowing these disasters to occur as a means of warning us and reminding us. This shows us that God is merciful and cares for us, and that He has given us the chance to repent. All we can do is seize this crucial opportunity to seek and investigate God’s appearance and work in the last days, accept His work of judgment through words in the last days, and have our corrupt dispositions cleansed. When God sees our sincerity, He will bring us under His protection in the midst of the disasters.

Editor’s Note:

Having read this article, do you now understand what God’s intention is when disasters occur? Have you found the way to receiving God’s protection during the disasters? If you have any questions about welcoming the Lord’s return or the Lord’s judgment work in the last days, you can always contact us at any time on Messenger and we can discuss this together!

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