For the topic of mutual attacks and verbal spats that we just fellowshipped on, do you now understand the principles of discernment? Can you differentiate what situations constitute mutual attacks and verbal spats? Mutual attacks and verbal spats occur frequently among groups of people and they can often be observed. Mutual attacks primarily involve purposefully targeting somebody’s issues to personally attack them, judge them, condemn them, and even curse them, with the aim of exacting revenge, counterattacking, venting personal spite, and so on. In any case, mutual attacks and verbal spats are not about fellowshipping the truth, nor are they about practicing the truth, and they are certainly not a manifestation of harmonious cooperation. Instead, they are a manifestation of retaliating and striking against people due to hotheadedness and Satan’s corrupt disposition. The purpose of mutual attacks and verbal spats is absolutely not to fellowship the truth clearly, much less is it to argue in order to understand the truth. Rather, the purpose is to satisfy one’s own corrupt dispositions, ambitions, selfish desires, and fleshly preferences. Obviously, mutual attacks are not about fellowshipping the truth, and they certainly are not about helping and treating people with love; instead, they are one of Satan’s strategies and methods for tormenting, toying with, and fooling people. People live within corrupt dispositions and do not understand the truth. If they do not choose to practice the truth, it is very easy for them to get trapped by such snares and temptations, and within battles of mutual attacks and verbal spats. They argue until their faces turn red and even go on and on forever, all over a single word, phrase, or look, fighting for years to outdo each other, to the point of a lose-lose situation, over just one thing. As soon as they meet, they argue endlessly, and some even attack, curse, and condemn each other in computer chat groups. How severe this hatred has become! They have not cursed at each other enough during gatherings, they have not yet relieved their hatred, they have not achieved their purposes, and after they go home, the more they think about it, the angrier they become, and there they continue to curse each other. What kind of spirit is this? Is it worth promoting, is it worth advocating? (No.) What kind of “dauntless spirit” is this? This is a spirit of fearing nothing, it is a spirit of lawlessness, it is a consequence of Satan corrupting man. Of course, such behaviors and actions bring significant disturbances and losses to the life entry of these individuals, and they also cause disturbances and disruptions to church life. Therefore, when facing these situations, if leaders and workers find that two people are attacking each other and engaging in verbal spats, and swearing to fight to the end, they must quickly cleanse them away, and they must not tolerate them and they certainly must not indulge them. They must protect the other brothers and sisters and maintain normal church life, ensuring that each gathering achieves results, and not allow such individuals to occupy the time of the brothers and sisters for reading God’s words and fellowshipping the truth, disturbing normal church life. If it is discovered during gatherings that they are attacking each other and engaging in verbal spats, this must be promptly stopped and resolved. If it cannot be restricted, these people must be exposed and dissected immediately through a gathering, and they should be cleansed away. The church is a place for eating and drinking God’s words, for worshiping God; it is not a place for attacking each other or engaging in verbal spats to vent personal spite. Anyone who frequently disturbs church life, affecting the life entry of God’s chosen people, must be cleansed away. The church does not welcome such people, it does not allow disturbances from devils or the presence of evil people—cleanse these people away, and the problem will be resolved.

In the church, if it is discovered that some people are engaging in mutual attacks and verbal spats, then regardless of what their excuses and reasons are, and regardless of what the focus of their discussion is—whether it’s something that everyone cares about or not—so long as disruptions and disturbances are being caused to the church life, this issue must be resolved promptly and without holding back. If it is not possible to stop or restrict those involved, they should be cleansed away. This is the work that leaders and workers should do when faced with such situations. The main principle is not for you to abet these people’s bad behavior by tolerating them or indulge them, nor is it for you to act as “an upright official” adjudicating right and wrong for these people, seeing who is correct and who is incorrect, who is in the right and who is not, clearly distinguishing who is right from who is wrong, and then meting out equal punishment to both parties, or punishing the one that you deem guilty and rewarding the other—this is not the way to solve the problem. In handling this matter, you are not supposed to measure it against the law, much less are you supposed to measure and judge it against moral standards, but rather, you are supposed to measure and handle it according to the principles of the church’s work. With regard to both parties involved in mutual attacks, as long as they cause disruptions and disturbances to the church life, the church’s leaders and workers should take it as their bounden duty to stop and restrict them, or to isolate them or clear them out, rather than listening attentively to both sides recount what happened and talk about each of their reasons and excuses, and the intent, purpose, and root cause behind them attacking the other person and getting into the verbal spat—they’re not supposed to understand the whole story, instead they’re supposed to solve the problem, eliminating these disruptions and disturbances to the church life, and handling those who caused them. Suppose that leaders and workers smooth things over and take a “middle-of-the-road” approach, adopting a conciliatory policy toward both of the people who engaged in the mutual attacks, allowing them to wantonly cause disruptions and disturbances to the church life without intervening or handling it—they keep indulging these people. They just exhort and advise them each time, and aren’t able to thoroughly solve the problem. Such leaders and workers are derelict in their duties. If the problem of people engaging in mutual attacks and verbal spats arises in the church, causing serious disturbances and damage to the church life, thereby giving rise to resentment and repulsion in the majority of people, leaders and workers must act quickly, isolating or clearing out both parties according to the house of God’s work arrangements and principles for cleansing the church. They should not act as “upright officials” adjudicating the case for those involved and making judgments regarding these personal quarrels, they should not listen attentively to these people spouting putrid, long-winded nonsense to see who is right and who is wrong, who is correct and who is incorrect, and after judging these things, get more people to carry out discussions and fellowship on these things, leading more people to harbor repulsion and loathing in their hearts. This will waste time that people should be using to eat, drink, and fellowship God’s words. This is even more so a dereliction of duty by leaders and workers, and this principle of practice is incorrect. If the parties who have been restricted repent at some point, and no longer take up gathering time with their mutual attacks and verbal spats, then the isolation imposed on them can be lifted. If they have been cleared out as evil people, and someone claims that they have changed for the better, it’s necessary to see if they show actual manifestations of repentance, and to also seek the majority’s opinion on the matter. Even if they are accepted back, they must be closely monitored, and their speaking time must be strictly restricted, and later on they should be handled accordingly based on their manifestations. These are principles that church leaders and workers should understand and pay attention to. Of course, handling this matter cannot be based on subjective assumptions; there must be a nature of causing disruptions and disturbances to the mutual attacks of both parties. People should not be prohibited from speaking and isolated just because one of them momentarily said something that hurt the other, and that person then retaliated with their own comment. Handling people in that way is really not in line with the principles! Leaders and workers must grasp the principles properly, ensuring that the majority agree that their actions are in line with the principles, instead of running amok doing bad things or exaggerating the severity of the issue to the greatest extent possible. When it comes to this aspect of work, in one respect, the majority must learn to discern what constitutes an attack, and in another, church leaders and workers also need to know the principles that should be grasped and the responsibilities that should be fulfilled in performing this work.

4. Arbitrary Condemnations of People

There is another manifestation of mutual attacks. Some people know some spiritual terms, and they always use some in their speech, such as “devil,” “Satan,” “not practicing the truth,” “not loving the truth,” “Pharisee,” and so on—they use these terms to arbitrarily judge certain people. Doesn’t this have a bit of a nature of an attack to it? Previously, there was a person who wanted to curse at anyone who did not act according to his wishes when he interacted with the brothers and sisters. But he thought to himself: "Now that I believe in God, cursing at people seems indecent. It makes me seem out of keeping with saintly decorum. I can’t curse or use foul language, but if I don’t curse, I will feel unsettled, I’ll be unable to relieve my hatred—I’ll always want to curse at people. How should I curse at them, then?" So he invented a new term. Whoever offended him, hurt him through their actions, or did not listen to him, would be cursed by him like so: “Evil devil!” “You are an evil devil!” “So-and-so is an evil devil!” He added “evil” in front of the word “devil”—I had really never heard anyone use this phrase before. Isn’t it quite novel? The brothers and sisters were casually cursed by him as “evil devils”—who would feel comfortable hearing that? For example, if he asked a brother or a sister to pour him a cup of water, and that person was too busy and told him to do it himself, he would curse at them: “You evil devil!” If he returned from a gathering and saw that his meal was not yet prepared, he would become angry: “You evil devils, all of you are so lazy. I go out to do my duty, and I don’t even have a meal ready-made for me when I return!” Anyone who interacted with him could potentially be cursed as an “evil devil.” What kind of person is this? (An evil person.) How is he evil? In his eyes, anyone who offends him or does not conform to his wishes is an evil devil—He himself is not, but everyone else is. Does he have any basis for saying this? None at all; he just arbitrarily selected a word to curse people with that would allow him to relieve his hatred and vent his emotions. He believes that if he truly curses at someone, others will say he doesn’t seem like a believer in God, but he thinks that if he calls someone a devil, that’s not cursing, and it should seem reasonable to others, satisfying his own desires while leaving no room for others to find fault with him. This guy is pretty cunning and quite evil, he uses the most malicious language, a kind of language that leaves people no means of resistance, in order to take revenge on them and condemn them, and yet people cannot accuse him of cursing or speaking unreasonably. When faced with such a person, would most people avoid him or draw near to him? (They would avoid him.) Why? They can’t afford to provoke him, so they can only steer clear of him; this is what smart people would do.

The phenomenon of someone being arbitrarily condemned, labeled, and tormented often occurs in every church. For example, some people harbor a prejudice against a certain leader or worker and, in order to get revenge, make comments about them behind their back, exposing and dissecting them under the guise of fellowshipping about the truth. The intent and purposes behind such actions are wrong. If one is really fellowshipping on the truth to give testimony for God and to benefit others, they should fellowship on their own true experiences, and bring benefit to others by dissecting and knowing themselves. Such practice yields better results, and God’s chosen people will approve of it. If one’s fellowship exposes, attacks, and belittles another person in an attempt to strike at or get revenge on them, then the intent of the fellowship is wrong, it is unjustified, loathed by God and not edifying to the brothers and sisters. If someone’s intent is to condemn others or to torment them, then they are an evil person and they are doing evil. All God’s chosen people should have discernment when it comes to evil people. If someone willfully strikes at, exposes, or belittles people, then they should be helped lovingly, fellowshipped with and dissected, or pruned. If they are unable to accept the truth, and stubbornly refuse to mend their ways, then this is a different matter entirely. When it comes to evil people who often arbitrarily condemn, label and torment others, they should be thoroughly exposed, so that everyone may learn to discern them, and then they should be restricted or expelled from the church. This is essential, as such people disturb the church life and the church work, and they are likely to mislead people and bring chaos upon the church. In particular, some evil people often attack and condemn others, solely to achieve their purpose of showing themselves off and making others look up to them. These evil people frequently use the opportunity of fellowshipping on the truth at gatherings to indirectly expose, dissect and suppress others. They even justify this by saying that they’re doing it to help people and to resolve problems present in the church, and use these pretexts as a cover by which to achieve their purposes. They are the kind of people who attack and torment others, and they are all clearly evil people. All those who attack and condemn people who pursue the truth are extremely vicious, and only those who expose and dissect evil people to safeguard the work of God’s house have a sense of justice and are approved of by God. Evil people are often very cunning in their evildoing; they are all skilled at using doctrine to come up with justifications for themselves and achieve their purpose of misleading others. If God’s chosen people do not have discernment of them and are unable to restrict these evil people, church life and the work of the church will be thrown into a complete mess—or even pandemonium. When evil people fellowship about problems and dissect them, they always have an intent and a purpose, and it’s always aimed at somebody. They are not dissecting or knowing themselves, nor opening up and laying themselves bare to resolve their own problems—rather, they are seizing the opportunity to expose, dissect, and attack others. They often take advantage of fellowshipping their self-knowledge to dissect and condemn others, and by means of fellowshipping God’s words and the truth, they expose, belittle, and vilify people. They especially feel repulsion and hatred toward those who pursue the truth, those who bear a burden for the work of the church, and those who often do their duties. Evil people will use all sorts of justifications and excuses to strike at these people’s motivation and prevent them from carrying out church work. Part of what they feel toward them is jealousy and hatred; another part is fear that these people, by rising up to do work, pose a threat to their fame and gain and status. So, they are anxious to try every possible way to warn, suppress, and restrict them, even going so far as to gather ammunition with which to frame them and distort the facts in order to condemn them. This reveals completely that the disposition of these evil people is one that hates the truth and positive things. They have special hatred for those who pursue the truth and love positive things, and for those who are rather guileless, decent, and upstanding. They may not say so, but this is the sort of mindset they have. So why do they specifically target pursuers of the truth, and decent and upstanding people, to expose, belittle, suppress, and exclude? This is clearly an attempt on their part to overthrow and strike down good people and those who pursue the truth, to trample them underfoot, so that they can control the church. Some people do not believe that this is so. To them, I ask one question: Why, when fellowshipping on the truth, do these evil people not expose or dissect themselves, and always target and expose others instead? Could it really be that they do not reveal corruption, or that they do not have corrupt dispositions? Certainly not. Why, then, do they insist on targeting others for exposure and dissection? What are they trying to achieve, exactly? This question calls for deep thought. One is doing as they should if they expose the evil deeds of evil people that disturb the church. But instead these people are exposing and tormenting good people, under the pretext of fellowshipping about the truth. What is their intent and purpose? Are they furious because they see that God saves good people? That is what it really is. God does not save evil people, so evil people hate God and good people—this is all quite natural. Evil people do not accept or pursue the truth; they cannot be saved themselves, yet they torment those good people who pursue the truth and can be saved. What is the problem here? If these people had knowledge of themselves and the truth, they could open up and fellowship, yet they are always targeting and provoking others—they always have a tendency to attack others—and they are always setting up those who pursue the truth as their imagined enemies. These are the hallmarks of evil people. Those capable of such evil are the authentic devils and Satans, quintessential antichrists, who should be restricted, and if they do a great deal of evil, they must be handled promptly—expel them from the church. All those who strike at and exclude good people are rotten apples. Why do I call them rotten apples? Because they are likely to provoke unnecessary disputes and conflict in the church, causing the state of affairs there to grow graver and graver. They target one person one day and another the next, and they are always taking aim at others, at those who love and pursue the truth. This is liable to disturb church life and have repercussions on the normal eating and drinking of God’s words by God’s chosen people, as well as on their normal fellowshipping on the truth. These evil people often take advantage of living the church life to attack others in the name of fellowshipping about the truth. There is hostility in everything they say; they make provocative remarks to attack and condemn those who pursue the truth and those who expend themselves for God. What will be the consequences of this? It will disrupt and disturb the life of the church, and cause people to be uneasy in their hearts and unable to be quiet before God. In particular, the unscrupulous things these evil people say to condemn, strike at, and wound others can provoke resistance. This is not conducive to resolving problems; on the contrary, it foments fear and anxiety in the church and strains relationships between people, leading to tension developing between them and causing them to fall into strife. The behavior of these people not only impacts church life, but also gives rise to conflict in the church. It can even impact the work of the church as a whole and the spreading of the gospel. Therefore, leaders and workers need to warn this sort of person, and they also need to restrict and handle them. In one respect, brothers and sisters must put severe restrictions on these evil people that frequently attack and condemn others. In another respect, church leaders should promptly expose and stop those who arbitrarily strike at and condemn others, and if they remain incorrigible, clear them out of the church. Evil people must be prevented from disturbing the life of the church in gatherings, and at the same time, muddled people should be restricted from speaking in a way that impacts the church life. If an evil person doing evil is found, they must be exposed. They absolutely must not be allowed to act willfully, doing evil as they wish. This is necessary to maintain normal church life and ensure that God’s chosen people may gather, eat and drink of God’s words, and fellowship about the truth normally, allowing them to fulfill their duties normally. Only then can God’s will be carried out in the church, and only in this way can His chosen people understand the truth, enter reality, and gain God’s blessings. Have you discovered these kinds of evil people in the church? They always harbor an envious hatred toward good people, and they always target them. Today they dislike one good person, tomorrow another; they are capable of critiquing anyone and picking out a multitude of faults in them, and moreover, what they say sounds very well-founded and reasonable, and eventually they spark widespread outrage, becoming a scourge to the group. They disturb the church to the extent that people’s hearts are thrown into disarray, many people become negative and weak, no benefit or edification is gained from gatherings, and some even lose the desire to attend gatherings. Aren’t such evil people rotten apples? If they haven’t reached the level where they ought to be cleared out, they should be isolated or restricted. For example, during gatherings, assign them a secluded seat to prevent them from influencing others. If they insist on seeking opportunities to speak out and attack people, they should be restricted—prohibited from saying useless things. If it becomes impossible to restrict them and they are on the verge of erupting or resisting, they should be promptly cleared out. That is, when they are no longer willing to be restricted, and say, “On what basis are you restricting my speech? Why does everyone else get to speak for five minutes, and I only get one minute?”—when they constantly ask these questions, that means they are going to resist. When they are about to resist, aren’t they being defiant? Aren’t they trying to cause trouble, to stir up unrest? Are they not about to disturb the church life? They’re about to reveal who they really are; the time to handle them has arrived—they must be quickly cleansed away. Is this reasonable? Yes, it is. Ensuring that the majority can live a normal church life is truly not easy, with all sorts of evil people, evil spirits, filthy demons, and “special talents” looking to spoil things. Can we afford to not restrict them? Some “special talents” start belittling and attacking others as soon as they open their mouths—if you wear glasses or if you do not have much hair, they attack you; if you share your experiential testimony during gatherings or if you are proactive and responsible in doing your duties, they attack you and judge you; if you have faith in God during trials, if you are weak, or if you overcome family difficulties using your faith without complaining about God, they attack you. What does attack mean here? It means that no matter what others do, it never pleases these people; they always dislike it, they always look for faults that don’t exist, they always seek to accuse other people of things, and nothing other people do is ever right in their eyes. Even if you fellowship the truth and address issues according to the work arrangements of God’s house, they will nitpick and criticize, finding fault in everything you do. They deliberately cause trouble, and everyone is subject to their attacks. Every time a person like this appears in the church, you must handle them; if two of them appear, then you should handle them both. This is because the harm they cause to the church life is significant, they cause disruptions and disturbances to the work of the church, and the consequences of this are dire.