C. How to Treat the Baseless Rumors of the CCP Government and the Religious World That Slander and Attack God

The Chinese Communist government and the religious community have fabricated many baseless rumors about God’s house, falsely claiming that the brothers and sisters force people to accept the gospel, and so on. How do you feel after hearing these rumors? (Angry, indignant.) These are rumors about you, and you feel indignant. To what extent are you indignant? Do you want to find the people fabricating the rumors and argue with them, even teach them a lesson? (Yes.) These rumors superficially target the church, but in fact, they involve every member of the church and each member’s reputation and integrity. After hearing them you feel indignant, saying, “We didn’t do that! We preach the gospel according to the truth principles. For those who do not want to believe in God, we never force them. Belief is voluntary. We never coerce anyone, much less do we harm or retaliate against people. On the contrary, those of us preaching the gospel have been savagely beaten by religious people and reported to the police by them, handed over to the great red dragon to be tormented; so many of us have been imprisoned, and quite a few have even been detained in private jails set up by religious people. We are the ones being wronged!” After hearing these rumors, you feel indignant and always want to argue with them. You have this reaction because these rumors directly attack and denigrate the church and God’s chosen people. How do you feel when you hear rumors that denigrate and judge God? These do not involve your personal interests or your integrity and dignity; they are rumors concerning God. For example, when you believed in Jesus before, some people said that Jesus was born of a virgin and had no father. How did you feel when you heard that? Did you want to argue with them? “It is God we believe in!” Then you thought it over: “Mary was a virgin, and Jesus was born of a virgin, conceived by the Holy Spirit. This is a fact, but nonbelievers speak about it crudely, and I don’t like to hear that!” At most you might have had such feelings, but in your heart, you still felt that the conception by the Holy Spirit strongly contradicted human notions. You could not believe in this matter because you believe in science; you do not believe in God’s almightiness from your heart, nor do you believe that everything God says and does is the truth, and then you will not go to refute the devilish words of the disbelievers. Because you do not possess the truth and do not understand the truth, at most, you find the rumors people talk about unpleasant to hear, and think people shouldn’t speak that way because these rumors involve your reputation; you think, “Nonbelievers are so disgusting and vile! They have the gall to use any filthy words; they truly are disbelievers! They truly are devils!” That’s all, and it’s the most you can achieve. Why do you feel triggered and find nonbelievers vile and disgusting after hearing them say such rumors? Because they involve your reputation; these rumors provoke your heart, making you feel disgraced, so they stir up your anger, and you stand up to say some positive words in refutation. Is such a refutation entirely standing on God’s side? Is it to defend God’s testimony? No, it is entirely to defend your own face and dignity. Why say this? Because you have not seen through to the essence of the problem; even more so, you do not understand God’s intentions or what God requires of you. What you understand and feel does not align with God’s intentions; it is just human impetuousness and human good behavior. Human good behavior does not represent the testimony you bear for God. You have not stood firm in your testimony; you are merely defending your face and dignity, you are refuting the rumors for the sake of easing your conscience a bit—you are not standing on God’s side to speak up for Him, nor are you using the truth or facts to refute the rumors and testify for God. You are not speaking up for God, and what you say certainly does not align with the truth; it only aligns with your fleshly interests—it’s just to make your heart feel less upset, and so that you won’t feel believing in the Lord Jesus is embarrassing. That is all. Therefore, when you hear someone attacking and condemning God, vilifying and judging God’s church, or even condemning you, you feel particularly indignant and want to argue and debate with them, to restore your reputation and clarify these matters. But does this mean you have stood firm in your testimony? It falls short of that; without understanding the truth, there is no testimony!

When you hear rumors that get spread in the outside world slandering and attacking God, whether they are attacking the God in heaven or the God incarnate on earth, how do you feel? Are you indifferent, or do you feel a bit of pain? Are you unable to stand it and not reconciled to it, or are you helpless? Some people, after hearing these rumors, think, “God is innocent; God didn’t do these things. Why is He being attacked and slandered by the world and the religious community like this? We must diligently expend ourselves and do our duties, and defend God’s name. When God’s great work is accomplished, the truth of everything will come to light, and all the peoples of the world will see that the God incarnate we believe in is the one true God, the God in heaven, and that this is not wrong at all!” Others think, “God has expressed so many truths, and these nonbelieving evil people and devils know full well that God’s words are the truth, yet they still slander and attack God. How long must God suffer?” Still others say, “People can say whatever they want; we pay them no mind. God has never refuted the rumors that slander against Him; He doesn’t respond to them. What can we, then, as miniscule human beings, do? Hasn’t God always been misunderstood, attacked, blasphemed, and rejected by humankind like this? God has no complaints whatsoever, and He still saves people. Let time reveal everything; God will bear His own testimony!” What is your viewpoint? Just now I mentioned being unyielding, indignant, not reconciled to it, helpless—which one do you feel? Which feeling is the most correct? How should these matters be treated in accordance with the truth principles? How do you feel when you hear these rumors? (Indignant.) Indignant, and then you want to write a condemnation to rail against these rumor-fabricators, these religious frauds and evil people of religion. Do you have such thoughts? You won’t feel it’s enough to just clench your fists in anger, right? Do you feel an impulse to do something about it? Or is it just empty indignation? (There’s also hatred and rejection.) Indignation, hatred, rejection—these are emotions that arise from mental activities, without specific words, behaviors, or actions; they’re just emotions, and of course they also represent certain attitudes. (Besides feeling indignation, sometimes we write articles or create programs to clarify the facts and expose that the essence of their actions is one of hatred for the truth and for God, so that people can see the true facts.) Will those people accept it after seeing the true facts? Even if they accept that what you say is correct and then make a fair comment, saying, “Your belief is correct; keep believing, we support you!” and the religious frauds feel ashamed and say, “Sorry, we were wrong, what we said was not factual; from now on, you believe in your way, and we’ll believe in ours,” would that make you feel at ease? Is this the only goal you’re aiming for? (We also want to testify to God so that those who are investigating the true way and who thirst for the truth can clearly discern right from wrong and accept the true way.) This is one path; this is a positive way of practice. Is just getting angry and hating useful? What is the reason for your anger and hatred? Why be angry and hateful? (God has become flesh to save people, which is the most righteous thing, but they spread rumors to judge and denigrate God. We feel very indignant, thinking that they are really inverting right and wrong and talking nonsense.) Do you think that humankind’s and the world’s rejection of God and their attitude toward God are only like this during the period of this incarnation of God? Humankind’s and the world’s attitude toward God has always been the same from beginning to end, always condemning, slandering, attacking, and blaspheming. Since God began His work until now, humankind’s attitude toward everything God has done, and toward God incarnate, has not changed. It was not only after God’s first incarnation that humankind began to attack and blaspheme God and concoct various rumors about God incarnate—this has all been happening since God began His work and since humankind first came into contact with God and His work, and has continued until now. And those who follow God have always had to endure denigration, attacks, judgments, blasphemy, various rumors, and more from Satan’s regimes and the religious antichrist forces against God and the church. Could it be that followers of God must endure these things? Some say, “We are so disgusted by these rumors because they completely twist the facts and invert right and wrong. We feel furious as soon as we hear them, and deep in our hearts we hate those who fabricate and spread rumors. Regardless of whether these rumors come from the religious community or from the devilish CCP government, we have only one attitude, and it is one of hatred and anger; and then we want to refute them and clarify everything.” Some even say, “We want to have a debate with these devils and antichrists so that we can shame Satan and make it humiliated!” Is this the viewpoint of most people? Is this viewpoint correct? If viewed from the perspective of normal humanity, it is reasonable. People should have some uprightness and the normal gamut of emotions; they should love and hate clearly, loving what should be loved and hating what should be hated. People with normal humanity should possess these qualities. But, is merely standing from the perspective of normal humanity enough to be in line with the truth principles? To put it more clearly, is this approach in line with God’s intentions? Or rather, is this an attitude and approach that God delights in? When I say this, most people might grasp something, thinking, “You said this is merely viewing things from the perspective of normal humanity. Judging from the implications of what You said, it’s evident that this approach is one of impetuousness, not in line with the truth principles, and not in line with God’s intentions.” What does it mean to be out of line with God’s intentions? It means that God does not desire people to act this way; God’s wishes and His required standards for people are not like this. If you act this way, although God does not condemn it, from His perspective, it does not mean you are following His will, and He does not acknowledge it. On the surface, it seems that you are acting with reason in doing these things, having both hatred and love, wanting to clarify these facts for God so that the whole world knows that God is God, that God is the God of all humankind, and that everyone should worship God and accept God’s salvation. On the surface, it seems that what you are doing is impeccable, reasonable, in line with the law, with humanity, with morality, and, even more so, in line with the tastes of all people. But have you asked God about this? Have you sought God? Have you found the principles of action that God requires of people from His words? What exactly are God’s intentions? Some people say, “There are so many of God’s words; it’s not easy to find God’s specific requirements for people in every matter.” Since you haven’t found God’s explicit words, you can look for clues from God’s attitude toward these kinds of rumors. Then can’t you determine what people’s attitude toward this matter should be and what the principles they should practice are based on God’s attitude toward this matter? (Yes.) So, let’s see what exactly God’s attitude toward this matter is.

Since the beginning of humankind’s encounter with God’s work, people have complained about and been dissatisfied with God, even secretly uttering many repugnant words of suspicion, doubt, and rejection, among others, toward God. There’re also the various rumors from the ruling party and the religious community, which absolutely do not align with the facts nor conform to the truth. What are these words to God? Whether they are suspicions, misunderstandings, or complaints, they are filled with attacks, slanders, and blasphemies against God, and they do not reflect the slightest bit of a God-fearing heart; it has been this way right from the start. There are always some in the church who do not love the truth. These are the disbelievers, who doubt God’s words and the truth, exhibiting such an attitude toward God. Even more so for those nonbelievers and atheistic ruling parties, those humans averse to the truth—their attitude toward God needs no explanation; they unscrupulously attack and judge, saying whatever they want. In particular, those Pharisees in the religious community even more so take the opportunity to wantonly judge and condemn. All these comments are not positive, and they certainly are not objective and accurate. What is the essence of these comments, then? To God, these words are not merely statements or viewpoints, but rather denigration, attacks, slanders, and blasphemies against Him. Why do I say “to God”? Because God measures all of this most accurately, we can only add a prefix. Throughout history, humankind’s attitude toward God has been like this; people’s words that attack and insult God have been far too many, with not a single word being well-intentioned. Even today, what your ears hear and your eyes see is the same. From the beginning, the entirety of humankind’s attitude toward God has not changed. How does God deal with these matters? Does God have the conditions or the capability to convene a global religious congress to defend Himself, to clarify the actual facts of His work, to justify Himself to humankind? Has God done this? No, God remains silent, He does not clarify the entire situation, nor does He ever defend or justify Himself. However, for those who attack God in a particularly vile manner, God has administered some punishment, letting some facts befall them. As for the public’s attacks, slanders, and blasphemies, what is God’s attitude? How does God handle this? He ignores it; He does what needs to be done, He does it in the way it should be done, selecting whom He ought to select, guiding whom He ought to guide. The entire world is orderly in God’s hands; He has never disrupted or changed His plans because of human attacks, slanders, or blasphemies. When Satan’s evil forces suppress and arrest God’s chosen people, no matter how frenzied, God has never changed His plans or His mind. His thoughts and ideas remain wholly unchanged; He just continues as always to carry out the work He intends to do, managing His humankind. For God, these attacks, slanders, and blasphemies have never posed any interference; God pays them no mind. Why doesn’t God justify or defend Himself? For God, these things are entirely normal. Humanity is humanity, and Satan is Satan. It’s very normal for humans, who do not understand the truth or the real facts, to do such things. Does this affect the steps of God’s work? It does not. God possesses great power; He holds sovereignty over all. All things and everything operate methodically within God’s words, within God’s thoughts, and under God’s sovereignty; no matter what humankind says or does, it cannot impact God’s work in any way—this is what a God with divine essence is capable of doing. God acts when the time comes, fulfilling His plans without the slightest discrepancy, and no one can change this. Human remarks and any human attacks on or slander of God, whether they are intentional attempts to obstruct and destroy God’s work or unintentional disturbances to and dismantling of God’s work, have never achieved their intended goals. Why? This is God’s authority; this confirms that God’s authority is unique, irreplaceable by any force, and unsurpassed by any force. This is a fact. God has this authority and this power, God has His true identity, and no force can change anything, so why should God bother with people’s minor attacks and slanders? To God, no matter how many important figures or how great a power among humankind try to interfere with, slander, attack, or blaspheme Him, it cannot disturb God’s work in the slightest. Rather, these actions only serve to highlight God’s righteous disposition and almightiness. The disturbances by Satan’s evil forces are merely a minor episode in the course of human history. What can hold sovereignty over all of humankind, influence all of humankind, and transform all of humankind are God’s work, God’s plan, and God’s great power and authority. This is the fact. Conversely, does God need to bother with people’s denigration, attacks, slanders, and blasphemies against Him? No. Because God has authority, for God, His statement, “I mean what I say, what I say shall be done, and what I do shall last forever,” will always come true; it is coming true and being fulfilled every day. This is God’s authority. Some people ask, “Is this God’s confidence, His faith?” You are mistaken! Humans have confidence, humans need faith, but God does not. Why? Because God has authority and power, and no matter how humankind slanders or condemns Him, no matter how Satan’s hostile forces disturb and sabotage, nothing will change. Therefore, God does not need to eliminate the hostile forces among corrupt humankind that attack, slander, and blaspheme Him before carrying out His work. Under what circumstances does God work? Under what circumstances does He achieve victory? Under what circumstances does He accomplish His work? It is done amid the cacophony of the attacks, slanders, and blasphemies of all humankind and all hostile forces; it is in such an environment and backdrop that He accomplishes His work. Is this not a demonstration of God’s great power? Is this not God’s authority? (It is.) Who can deny this fact? Do you dare not acknowledge this is the fact?