All those who have 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 Jehovah: 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? These questions were always lingering in my mind. To understand the truth, I fellowshiped 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, “When the Lord Jesus came, He used His practical actions to tell the people that God had departed the Age of Law and had begun new work, and that this new work did not require the observation of the Sabbath. God’s coming out from the confines of the Sabbath day was just a foretaste of His new work; the real and great work was still to come. When the Lord Jesus began His work, He had already left behind the ‘shackles’ of the Age of Law, and had broken through the regulations and principles of that age. In Him, there was no trace of anything related to the law; He had cast it off entirely and no longer observed it, and He no longer required mankind to observe it. So here you see the Lord Jesus went through the corn fields on the Sabbath, and that the Lord did not rest; He was outside working, and not resting. This action of His was a shock to people’s notions and it communicated to them that He no longer lived under the law, and that He had left the confines of the Sabbath and appeared before mankind and in their midst in a new image, with a new way of working. This action of His told people that He had brought with Him new work, work that began with emerging from being under the law, and departing from the Sabbath. When God carried out His new work, He no longer clung to the past, and He was no longer concerned about the regulations of the Age of Law. Neither was He affected by His work in the previous age, but instead worked on the Sabbath just as He did on every other day, and when His disciples were hungry on the Sabbath, they could pick ears of corn to eat. This was all very normal in God’s eyes. For God, it is permissible to have a new beginning for much of the new work He wants to do and the new words He wants to say. When He begins something new, He neither mentions His previous work nor continues to carry it out. Because God has His principles in His work, when He wants to begin new work, it is when He wants to bring mankind into a new stage of His work, and when His work will enter a higher phase. If people continue to act according to the old sayings or regulations or continue to hold fast to them, He will not remember or approve that. This is because He has already brought new work, and has entered a new phase of His work. When He initiates new work, He appears to mankind with a completely new image, from a completely new angle, and in a completely new way so that people can see different aspects of His disposition and what He has and is. This is one of His goals in His new work. God does not cling to old things or walk the well-trodden path; when He works and speaks, He is not as prohibitive as people imagine. In God, all is free and liberated, and there is no prohibition, no constraints—what He brings to mankind is freedom and liberation.” 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 of “breaking 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. Now, what was asked of man under the law when God was doing His work in Israel? It was no more than that man should keep the Sabbath and the laws of Jehovah. No one was to labor 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 on him. Those in the Age of Grace had to be baptized, and they were further asked to fast, break bread, drink wine, cover their heads and wash the feet of others for them. Now, these rules have been abolished, but greater demands are made of man, for the work of God grows ever deeper and the entry of man reaches ever higher. … The Holy Spirit works in accordance with the age, neither at random nor in conformity to set rules. The age has changed, and a new age necessarily brings with it new work. This is true of every stage of work, and so His work is never repeated” (“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 free man from living 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 footsteps. 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 man believes in God, he must closely follow the footsteps of God, step-by-step; he should ‘follow the Lamb wherever He goes.’ Only these are the people who seek the true way, only they are the ones who know the work of the Holy Spirit. People who slavishly follow letters and doctrines are those who have been eliminated by the work of the Holy Spirit. In each period of time, God will begin new work, and in each period, there will be a new beginning among man. If man only abides by the truths that ‘Jehovah is God’ and ‘Jesus is Christ,’ which are truths that only apply to their respective ages, then man will never keep up with the work of the Holy Spirit, and will forever be incapable of gaining the work of the Holy Spirit. Regardless of how God works, man follows without the slightest doubt, and he follows closely. In this way, how could man be eliminated by the Holy Spirit? Regardless of what God does, as long as man is certain that it is the work of the Holy Spirit, and cooperates in the work of the Holy Spirit without any misgivings, and tries to meet the requirements of God, then how could he be punished? The work of God has never ceased, His footsteps have never halted, and prior to the completion of His management work, He has always been busy, and never stops. But man is different: Having gained but a modicum of the Holy Spirit’s work, he treats it as if it will never change; having gained a little knowledge, he does not go forth to follow the footsteps of God’s newer work; having seen but a little of God’s work, he immediately prescribes God as a particular wooden figure, and believes that God will always remain in this form that he sees before him, that it was like this in the past and will always be thus in the future; having gained but a superficial knowledge, man is so proud that he forgets himself and begins to wantonly proclaim a disposition and a being of God that simply do not exist; and having become certain about one stage of the Holy Spirit’s work, no matter what kind of person it is that proclaims the new work of God, man does not accept it. These are people who cannot accept the new work of the Holy Spirit; they are too conservative, and incapable of accepting new things. Such people are those who believe in God but also reject God” (“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 footsteps.

Today, Almighty God is incarnated on earth again and has begun the Age of Kingdom. And He, aiming at men’s sinful nature, does the 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, what should we do? Will we still hold on to the practices in the Age of Grace and ultimately be eliminated by the Holy Spirit, or will we choose to catch up with the Lamb’s footsteps and receive the working of the Holy Spirit? I believe everyone has the answer within.