Question: How do we know God’s will concerning our marriage and our occupation?

Answer: This is also a difficult question. Knowing God’s will depends on the lessons that we have learned before the Lord, the degree of our consecration, and the condition of our consecration. For example, our understanding of different things is dependent on our level of life, our human maturity. It is difficult for a five-year-old child to understand the things of one who is fifteen years old, and it is also not easy for a twenty-year-old man to understand the things of someone who is sixty years old. Our understanding depends entirely on our level of life. Today you may not know the Lord’s will, but as you grow in the divine life, you will be able to know His will concerning certain things. However, you will not know His will concerning many other things until you have further growth.

Therefore, to know God’s will is not a matter of methods but of the level of life. Some methods may be very useful to certain ones but useless to you and me, because we are short in our level of life. A microscope is very useful in the hands of a thirty-year-old doctor, but it is useless in the hands of a three or five-year-old child. A microscope is a good tool, but only someone who is trained and has a certain level of life knows how to use it. In the same way, only a person with some level of life is able to know God’s will. If we are immature in life and have a low degree of spirituality, it is difficult for us to know God’s will. Even if we know God’s will, our knowledge will be limited. In order to know God’s will, we need to consecrate ourselves to the Lord. We may be advanced in years, but if we are indifferent, having little understanding of spiritual matters and almost no heart for the service of the church, it will be difficult for us to know God’s will. To know God’s will requires us to turn our heart to God and stand on God’s side. The extent of our consecration is the extent of our knowing God’s will, and the condition of our consecration determines our ability to know God’s will.

If a person desires to know God’s will concerning his marriage, he needs to have an absolute consecration. If a young person is not consecrated absolutely in the matter of marriage, it will not be easy for him to know God’s will. If his consecration is not thorough, his choosing will be according to his preference. Simply speaking, if we desire to know God’s will, we must pursue the growth in life, and we need to have a thorough and renewed consecration at all times. We need to be able to say, “O Lord, I deny myself in this matter; I do not have my own preference.” At this point, we can practically know God’s will. Otherwise, regardless of the method we may use, we will be unable to know God’s will.

Question: Some brothers previously said that the believers will go to heaven, where God is. Now we hear that God dwells among us and that we will enter into God. If this is so, will we still go to God in heaven in the future? If you say that we will not, why does the Bible say that the Lord Jesus will return to take us?

Answer: Over the past one to two hundred years, many seeking ones have been raised up among God’s children. Among these people, some were too objective and some were too subjective. The objective ones emphasized doctrines and the objective prophecies, and the subjective ones stressed our experience of the Lord. Those who emphasized doctrines said that we have been saved, the Lord’s blood has washed away all our sins, He has borne all our responsibilities, and when the fullness of the times comes, He will come from heaven to take us there. They say that the Lord is presently building a dwelling place for us in heaven, and as soon as He finishes building this heavenly dwelling place, He will return to take us there. They use John 14 and 1 Thessalonians as the basis for this, saying that at the fullness of the times, we the saved ones will be taken to heaven. They say our condition does not matter, because as long as we have believed in the Lord Jesus, received His salvation, and are under the sprinkling of His precious blood we will be raptured when the time comes. This kind of speaking seems to be according to the Bible, yet it is too doctrinal and objective.

For this reason many people have been calculating the time and date of the return of the Lord Jesus. In particular, a group of believers of the Seventh-day Adventists said that the fullness of the times would transpire in a certain year, in a certain month, on a certain day, and at a certain time. For this reason, they bathed themselves and put on white garments, and some of them went to the rooftops waiting for the Lord Jesus to return. Many people did this for several days, yet the Lord still did not return. However, they justified themselves by saying that their calculation was not wrong, but that the Lord Jesus had merely stopped midway on His descent from heaven. They said that this could be compared to someone going from one city to another city but stopping in between. This was their explanation.

Others say, “Even though I am saved, I can live foolishly, because I know that the nation of Israel has not been restored, the holy temple has not been rebuilt, the image to the beast has not been erected (Rev. 13:14), Antichrist has not been manifested, and the last three and a half years of the seventh week have not come. Therefore, I can be foolish because the definite date of the Lord’s second return has not been determined. When I see the manifestation of Antichrist, I will no longer love the world and will focus on the Lord’s return.” What kind of talk is this? This comes from having merely empty and dead doctrines. Many books in Christianity discuss the Lord’s return, arguing whether the rapture is pre-tribulation or post-tribulation and whether the tribulation is great or small. Each book has its own interpretation. They also pay attention to the restoration of the nation of Israel and the signs on earth, but few people pay attention to the maturity of life.

We solemnly ask all God’s children not to pay attention to these interpretations. The Scriptures show that God’s work in us is subjective. About twenty years ago, as a young man, I met several fervent readers of the Bible who said that the Lord was coming at that time. They quoted the Lord Himself saying, “I come quickly” (Rev. 22:20). They asked me why I did not believe that the Lord was coming back then. I told them that I believe that the Lord will come back, but not right now. They asked me why I believed this, so I replied briefly that the rapture of the believers spoken of in the Bible can be compared to the reaping of a harvest. A harvest is not reaped according to time or month but when it is ripe. Revelation 14 shows that a small group of people will be taken up to God before the great tribulation because they are mature; they are the firstfruits to God (v. 4). However, many saints will remain on earth because they are not yet mature. Then Revelation 14:15-16 says that the harvest is ripe and ready to be reaped. Let us open our eyes and look at Christianity; how many mature ones can we find there? The Lord is the Lord of the harvest, and He will come back to reap the harvest on earth. But the harvest is still green, not golden in color; it is not ripe. How can the Lord come back now to reap the harvest? This cannot happen.

Twenty years have now passed by, and we are still telling God’s children that the church’s rapture at the Lord’s second coming is not a matter of time but a matter of the church being mature. If the church as the harvest is not mature, we cannot expect the Lord to come back at this time and rapture the church. We must see that the church’s rapture is a matter of maturity, and this maturity is the Lord working Himself into us. The Lord works Himself into us until we are mature; that is the time when the Lord will come back, and we will be raptured.