Since people were corrupted by satan, they have become the corrupt human beings who are hostile to God and are of Satan. The corrupt human beings often resist, attack, and blaspheme God, so they will certainly be destroyed by God if they do not truly repent and receive salvation. God’s end-time work is to end this evil and licentious age. God will no longer allow the corrupt human beings who are hostile to him and are of satan to continue living on earth. Therefore, God is incarnated in the end time and does the work of completely conquering and saving people at this stage. Whether people can be saved and brought into the kingdom age simply depends on how they experience God’s conquering and saving work in the end time. If they can truly pursue the truth and accept the truth, they will be made complete and saved by God.

What does it mean to be saved by God? Most people have notions about this matter. They think that as long as they sincerely believe in God and do not leave or rebel against God, they will be saved by God and left alive when the disasters come someday. This is what it means to be saved by God in the eyes of most people. In fact, to be truly saved is by no means like this. From God’s work, we see that the very purpose of God’s judging and chastising people is to enable them to overcome satan and transcend sin. Mankind himself has no power to overcome satan and has no way to transcend sin, so corrupt mankind needs to be saved by God incarnate. Since Jesus did the work of atonement, people’s sins have been forgiven, but the root of people’s sins has not been removed. So, people have not been completely saved by God. It is just as God says that Jesus’ saving people from the cross only accomplished the redemptive work and only fulfilled half of the work of salvation. So, God is incarnated the second time and judges and chastises people with his word, working into them all the truths they need, so that they will gain the transformation of their life nature and truly know God and obey God. Only then will God’s entire management plan be accomplished. At that time, mankind will have gained many truths from God and had God’s word as his life. From then on, mankind will have the ability to overcome satan and transcend sin, and satan will have no way to deceive or corrupt this mankind again who has equipped himself with the truth. All mankind will live by the word of God, truly obey and worship God, and have the true human life. This is what it means to be truly saved. Being saved by God is achieved through pursuing and gaining the truth. If people have not gained the truth, then they are certainly still living under satan’s power and being bound by their corrupt flesh, often committing sins and living in sin; just as in the Age of the Grace, although people’s sins had been forgiven, they still often committed sins, disobeying and resisting God. And they lived a life of repeatedly committing sins, confessing them, committing sins again, and confessing them again. This is the state that people have not been saved by God but only have had their sins forgiven. From people’s state of repeatedly committing sins after confessing them, it can be seen that human beings have been corrupted by satan to the extent that they have completely lost the likeness of a normal man and become unclean spirits and satans, always committing sins but being unable to practice the truth. Have people, who are living in sin and unable to free themselves from it, been saved by God? If they had, there would be no need for the Lord to come again to do the work of judging and chastising people. In the end time, we are experiencing God’s conquering and saving work, but how can we be said to have been saved if we still often resist and disobey God, treat God with perfunctoriness and deceit and cheat God in performing our duty, even to the extent that we cannot stop performing our duty perfunctorily and deceitfully, coveting money, doing evil deeds, or causing demolition and disturbance, and like the reincarnations of unclean spirits and evil spirits, we always do dishonest things and have no normal humanity at all? The purpose of God’s doing the work in the end time is to transform people’s nature, so that they will no longer commit sins but live by God’s word, completely overcome satan, and transcend sin. Only this is the result that God’s work will finally achieve. We, having experienced God’s end-time work for several years, are still far from achieving the result God requires. So how can we say that we have already been saved? To be saved is by no means as simple as people have imagined. People have to experience God’s word step by step, closely follow God’s work step by step, and finally gain the truth and the transformation of their nature so that they themselves can overcome satan and transcend sin by the truth. People themselves can live by God’s word and completely obey God; this is what it means to truly overcome satan and transcend sin. Only if one can achieve this result in experiencing God’s work does it mean he has truly been saved by God. Now no one has met the standard of being saved that God requires except he who has made perfect by God. When some special trials come, everyone can fall, for man may still one hundred percent betray God. So people should not experience God’s work according to their imaginations, thinking that as long as they can follow God to the end and in no case rebel against God, they will be saved with one hundred percent certainty. Actually, to be truly saved by God, people have to experience all the steps of God’s end-time work, and none of the steps or links can be missed. As the saying goes, “Ninety li is only half of a hundred-li journey.” Especially God’s work of trying and refining in the last several years is the most crucial step, and it is even more indispensable. If a person, whoever he is, only experiences half of God’s work, then all that he has achieved will be spoiled. Take a hen hatching eggs for example; it takes twenty-one days before the new lives break out of the eggs. If the period is shortened by a few days, none of the eggs will hatch out. Here, the length of time is very important. In experiencing God’s work, we must follow God to the end and experience all the steps of God’s end-time work before our salvation is ensured. Missing a single step will result in failure of our salvation. So now no one can say that he has been made complete and saved by God.

To be saved by God refers mainly to the result that God’s work will achieve in the end. It means that God works people to the extent that they are able to overcome satan and transcend sin, but by no means what people have imagined and expected: As long as they do not leave God, they will surely be saved by God when disasters come. To gain a true understanding of the meaning of being saved by God, people need to know the purpose of God’s work and have to give up their imaginations which are filled with religious notions about God’s salvation. It is very important for them to be fully clear about what results God’s end-time work will achieve. And they must also be clear that to be truly saved by God, they have to experience God’s work in a down-to-earth manner and pursue the truth with all-out efforts, thereby gaining all the truths that God requires man to possess and the true knowledge of God that man should have. This is the final result of God’s work. If any of you wants to know whether you have been saved, you should first measure whether you have gained the truth, and whether you have had the ability to overcome satan and transcend sin. If you still often commit sins and resist and disobey God time and again, this is sufficient to prove that you have not gained the truth and not truly been saved by God. Whether a person has gained the truth is not dependent on how much he can communicate about his experiences and knowledge of God’s word, but on whether what he does meets God’s requirements and conforms with God’s intention, that is, whether he has entered into the reality that God requires man to enter into. If one has entered into it and lived out the reality of God’s word, he is a person who has gained the truth. One day when God begins to test the quality of each man’s work, those who have gained the truth and have had the reality will be able to uphold testimony in various kinds of trials and will fully measure up to standard. Only such people can receive God’s keeping and blessing and be brought into the next age. If those who have not entered into reality so far can keep on pursuing, they still have a hope of being saved; if they still fail to enter into reality in the end, they will be in trouble and will definitely be eliminated. Some people, who have believed in God for over ten or twenty years, are expelled and eliminated by God’s family for doing all kinds of evil; in this case, they completely lose the chance to be saved. Such people cannot even toil faithfully or toil to the end. They are certainly bad and will only end up being punished. It can be seen that if a believer in God does not pursue the truth, there will be no hope for him to be saved. God is righteous. All those who do not pursue the truth will be eliminated in the end, no matter how many years they have believed in God or how senior they are. And those among them who do all kinds of evil will have to be punished; they will not receive salvation but suffer punishment, though they believe in God. So, to be saved by God is not a simple matter. If one has not followed God to the end, it will be too early for him to say that he has been saved by God. If he is not a person who pursues the truth, he is not qualified to say anything about whether he has been saved. If he has believed in God for years but still has not entered into the reality of God’s word and has not gained any truth or the slightest transformation of his corrupt nature, then he is certainly one to be eliminated, and there will be no hope for him to be saved at all.

Of all the believers in God, only a small portion are the ones who pursue the truth, surely many will be eliminated as the result of not pursuing the truth, and surely some will be punished for doing all kinds of evil. Of the people who will be left alive, one portion are those who will be saved because of their pursuing the truth, the other portion are those who will survive because of their toiling faithfully to the end and thus being regarded as “faithful toilers.” The rest are those who will perish or be destroyed after being thoroughly eliminated. Each portion constitutes one third or so. This is what will be fulfilled according to God’s word. So, do not think that you will surely be saved as you remain in God’s family today. In fact, everyone is very clear about what kind of people will be saved and what kind of people will be eliminated; they know it very well in their heart. Those who still hold religious notions and imaginations about it even now are the most foolish ones. This time God does his work to end the age. In the Age of the Grace, people could believe in God in whatever way they pleased, and no one would interfere in it. But it is not so in the final age. As for who among mankind should be left alive and who should perish or be destroyed, God will thoroughly settle it to end the age. If one does not pursue the truth, he will only be deceived and fooled by himself. Only those who pursue and gain the truth are the ones saved by God. So it is more realistic to say that your salvation rests on you yourself rather than on God! If you do not pursue the truth, the Holy Spirit will not work on you and God will not pay attention to you; if you pursue the truth, the Holy Spirit will work on you and God will be gracious to you. The kingdom of heaven is taken by forcefully pursuing the truth, so whether you can be saved mainly depends on your own efforts. You have to pursue the truth in a down-to-earth manner, truly pay the price, forsake your flesh and practice the truth, and actively cooperate with the work of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, you have to endure various kinds of sufferings, tribulations, and refining. Only by doing so can you receive the working of the Holy Spirit and the care and keeping of God. If you yourself do not pay the price and are unable to endure sufferings, then you will gain nothing and your salvation will be out of the question. To be saved is just so realistic and practical. Do not hold any religious notions or imaginations about it. Only those who pursue the truth will be truly saved and able to receive God’s care and keeping when they truly gain the truth and have enough testimonies of victory at the end of their experiencing God’s work. To end the age, God will first make complete those who pursue the truth and then send disasters to destroy the world. Those who are saved by God will receive refining in the disasters and thus be purified, and they will be left alive in the end. Those who fail to gain the truth, however, will collapse when the trials of the natural disasters come upon them, and they will die in the disasters; this is what will happen to those who do not pursue the truth.