All those who read the Bible know that in the Age of Law, Jehovah God decreed laws and made an explicit stipulation for the Israelites: Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whoever does any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. (Exodus 31:15) We all know that observing the Sabbath is one of the laws Jehovah God decreed. God strictly required the Israelites to keep it; anyone who violated it would be condemned to death. Why did the Lord Jesus not observe the Sabbath, but gave sermons and preached the gospel of the kingdom of heaven everywhere, and healed the sick before the multitude in great meeting halls? Why did He even allow His disciples to pluck and eat ears of grain when they went through a wheatfield, hungry? Didn’t these acts seriously transgress the laws God Himself decreed? Why did He do that? What did He convey to people of that time through that? What was God’s will in it? Those questions were always lingering in my mind. To understand the truth, I fellowshipped with brothers and sisters in our church many times, but no one gave me an answer that conformed to the truth. It was not until I accepted the end-time work of Almighty God and read the book “Continuation of The Word Appears in the Flesh” that I understood the Lord Jesus’ exact intention in doing work on the Sabbath. Next, let’s read what Almighty God says about it.
Almighty God says, “The Lord Jesus came, and He told mankind by His practical act: God had come out of the Age of Law and begun a new work; this new work no longer required people to keep the Sabbath day; and ‘coming out of the Sabbath day’ was only a foretaste of God’s new work, and the real great work would go on. When the Lord Jesus began to work, He already went out of the ‘restriction’ of the Age of Law and broke the decrees and principles specified in the Age of Law. Anything related to the law did not have any trace in Him, and He discarded all of them and no longer kept them or required people to keep them. So, here you see that on the Sabbath day the Lord Jesus went through the corn, and the Lord did not have rest but worked outside, without a rest. His such an act countered man’s notions, telling people that He no longer lived under the law and He went out of the Sabbath day and appeared before people and appeared among people with a completely new image and in a new way of working. His such an act told people that He brought a new work, which began with going out of the law and out of the Sabbath day. When God did a new work, He would no longer cherish the old one or care about the decrees of the Age of Law, nor would He be affected by the work done in the former age; rather He worked on the Sabbath day all the same, and when His disciples were hungry, they could pluck the ears of corn and eat. All these were very normal in God’s eyes. With God, many works and words He aims to do and speak can have a new start. When He makes a new start, the old work He did before will no longer be mentioned or go on. This is because God works by His principles. When He wants to do a new work, that is, when He wants to bring people into the new stage of work, and when His work enters into a higher stage, if men continue to practice and keep the old sayings or decrees, God will not remember or approve it, because He has brought a new work and entered into a new working phase. When He brings a new work, He will appear to all people with a completely new image and in a completely new position and way, so that people can see His disposition and what He has and is in other different aspects. This is one of the purposes of His doing a new work. God does not hold on to old things or walk the old path. When He works and speaks, He does not, as man imagines, keep this or that prohibition. With God, everything is released and free, without any prohibition or restriction. What He brings to man are all freedom and release.” (from Continuation of The Word Appears in the Flesh) From God’s word, I know the reason why the Lord Jesus didn’t observe the Sabbath, but gave sermons and did work and even allowed His disciples to pluck and eat ears of grain on the Sabbath. All these acts told the people under the law this: God had come out of the law and started the work of a new age, and in this new stage of work people didn’t need to observe the Sabbath. It was not that the Lord Jesus didn’t know one needed to observe the Sabbath in the Age of Law, but that He did His work according to His plan and led mankind out of the “restriction” of the Age of Law and brought new ways of practice to them. Although the Lord Jesus’ acts “broke with established practice” were reproached by many people and even more were fiercely opposed and condemned by the elite in Judaism, He still did the new work to save man without any misgivings. At last, the work of the Age of Grace was spread to the ends of the earth. From that, I realize the work Almighty God does today is also like that. He breaks with established practice again, does the work He will do without any misgivings, expresses several million words to lead and supply man, reveals the mysteries man didn’t understand before, and brings man more knowledge about God’s work, God’s disposition, and what God has and is, and thereby takes man out of doctrines, notions and imaginations. Thus, man will be free and released.
Let’s read another passage of God’s word, “What is asked of man this day is unlike that in the past and even more unlike that asked of man in the Age of Law. And what was asked of man under the law when work was done in Israel? They were asked for no more than to keep the Sabbath and the laws of Jehovah. None were to work on the Sabbath or transgress the laws of Jehovah. But it is not so now. On the Sabbath, man works, gathers and prays as usual, and no restrictions are imposed. Those in the Age of Grace had to be baptized; not only that, they were asked to fast, break bread, drink wine, cover their heads and wash their feet. Now, these rules have been abolished and greater demands are made of man, for the work of God continuously deepens and the entering of man reaches ever higher. ... The Holy Spirit works in accordance with the age, not just at will or according to set rules. The age has changed, and He must bring new work in the new age. This is true of every stage of work, and so His work is never repeated.” (from “The Mystery of the Incarnation (4)” in The Word Appears in the Flesh) From God’s word, I see that God’s work is never repeated but deepens continuously and rises higher with each step. And God’s requirements for man also rise continuously, which helps man no longer live in old doctrines. And I also see that every stage of God’s work is meaningful for us. Although they don’t conform to human notions, all of them are for man to know God and to go out of doctrines and follow God’s footprints. Isn’t it the implied meaning of the Lord Jesus’ coming out of the temple and doing work on the Sabbath? Almighty God says, “Since one believes in God, he should closely follow God’s every footstep and should ‘follow the Lamb wherever He goes.’ Only such a person is one who truly seeks the true way and one who knows the work of the Holy Spirit. Those who rigidly observe letters and doctrines are all the ones eliminated by the work of the Holy Spirit. In each age God will carry out a new work, and in each age He will make a new start among men. If one only holds on to such truths as, ‘Jehovah is God’ or ‘Jesus is Christ,’ which are only applicable in one age, he will never be able to keep up with the work of the Holy Spirit and will never receive the work of the Holy Spirit. No matter what work God does, if one follows it without any doubt and follows it closely, then how could he be eliminated by the Holy Spirit? No matter what work God does, if one cooperates with the Holy Spirit’s work and tries to meet God’s requirements without any misgiving when he knows for certain that it is the work of the Holy Spirit, then how could he be punished? God’s work never stops, and His footsteps never stop either. Before He has accomplished the management work, He is always busy and never stops His footsteps. Men, however, are different: After they receive a little work of the Holy Spirit, they take it as something never-changing; after they gain a little knowledge, they do not go forward to ‘trace’ God’s newer work; after they see a little work of God, they rashly circumscribe God as a fixed wooden image, thinking that God is forever in the image they have seen, being so in the past and forever so in the future; after they gain a little superficial knowledge, they are so pleased with themselves and begin to wildly preach about the non-existent disposition and being of God; after they have confirmed one stage of work of the Holy Spirit, regardless of who preaches God’s new work, they will not accept it. These people are all ones who cannot accept the new work of the Holy Spirit and ones who are too conservative and unable to accept new things. They are all ones who believe in God but reject God.” (from “God’s Work and Man’s Practice” in The Word Appears in the Flesh) No matter how God does His work, we should put our notions aside and keep pace with God; otherwise, we’ll lose the work of the Holy Spirit and ultimately be eliminated. This is like the chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees in the Age of Grace when the Lord Jesus did work. Because they saw Jesus didn’t do work in the temple and broke the law, they resisted and condemned Him, with the result that they were cursed and eliminated by God. What God hopes is that we won’t use the old doctrines to judge and define God’s work in the new age. We should be a person who simply obeys the new work of the Holy Spirit, and only in this way will we be blessed by God and live in God’s light. When the Lord Jesus came out of the temple and did work on the Sabbath, He not only brought the new age, but also had a requirement for all His followers: Keep up with the Lamb’s footprints.
Today, Almighty God is incarnated on earth again and begins the Age of Kingdom. And He, aiming at men’s sinful nature, does a work of “judgment beginning with the house of God” to solve men’s satanic nature completely so that they can be real created beings and return before God. Faced with God’s work that doesn’t conform to man’s notions, how should we choose? Will we still hold on to the practices in the Age of Grace and be ultimately eliminated by the Holy Spirit, or will we choose to catch up with the Lamb’s footprints and receive the working of the Holy Spirit? I believe everyone has the answer within.
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