Just now, we fellowshipped about some issues related to spreading rumors within the church. Most people have heard some rumors from the Chinese Communist government and the religious community; we also fellowshipped just now about how to treat and handle these rumors. Once people understand the truth principles, they will no longer be misled or disturbed by the rumors. When someone appears in the church who spreads rumors, regardless of the manner or tone in which they spread whatever kinds of rumors, how should we approach it? Should we let it happen without intervening, or expose, dissect, and deal with that person? Which method is in line with the principles? There are some who say, “Isn’t there freedom of speech? Why not let that person speak? Just let them talk. After listening to the rumors, once everyone can discern them for what they are, they will no longer believe these devilish words, and the rumors will naturally collapse.” Others say, “It’s unacceptable for them to spread rumors and slander God. We can’t let them do things that slander God. We should teach them a lesson to wake them up. God has endured so much suffering to speak and work to save us, yet they are spreading rumors. They have no conscience! Only by cursing them can we allay our hatred; if we won’t deal with them, we’ll be letting God down.” Which way is good? These approaches are all no good. As we fellowshipped earlier, those who spread rumors are definitely not anything good, and such individuals need to be discerned. If they only occasionally spread rumors, they should be warned. If they consistently spread rumors, they must be exposed, dissected, and then cleared out of the church, so they can no longer mislead or harm people. Is it easy to deal with this matter? Would you handle it this way, or would you wait for the church leaders to give orders? Once it is discovered that someone is consistently spreading rumors, and that every time they come to a gathering they talk about these things, never read God’s words, never pray, don’t learn hymns, and even more so, they don’t share their experiential understanding of God’s words, and whenever anyone fellowships about God’s words and shares experiential testimony, they feel disgusted by it and averse to it, but feel no such aversion to the rumors of nonbelievers, and get very excited about them—once all this is discovered, why show any courtesy to such a person? It is clear that they are a servant of Satan who has infiltrated the church to disturb God’s chosen people from following God. Do you condone their disturbance? (No.) If you don’t condone it, then stand up and say, “So-and-so comes to the church and always spreads rumors, doesn’t read God’s words, and doesn’t share their experiential understanding of God’s words. They are a disbeliever and should be cleared out of the church. Does anyone have any objections?” If everyone says they have no objections and raises their hands in agreement, then that person should be cleared out. Isn’t it satisfying to deal with a rumormonger this way? (Yes.) This is how such people should be dealt with.

D. Discerning Several Kinds of Baseless Rumors That Misinterpret God’s Words and Judge God’s Work

Where do the types of rumors we just talked about come from? They come from the great red dragon, from the religious community, and from nonbelievers. Aside from rumors from the outside world, there are also some sayings and gossip about the inside of the church. There are even wholly untrue claims about God, God’s work, God’s day, and some of God’s words, as well as some mysteries involving God and His work, which people create based on their imaginings and notions, or based on the continual relaying of erroneous information and groundless speculation. And because people embellish such sayings, gossip, and claims, these rumors are formed. Once rumors are formed, some people who have a predilection for rumors become enthusiastic about the business of spreading them, treating the rumors as real and spreading them everywhere, describing them so vividly and thoroughly that some people who are unaware of the true state of affairs, and who do not understand the truth and are foolish and ignorant, are truly misled by these rumors. Once misled, are they affected and disturbed? (Yes.) These are also common issues that crop up in the church. Although these rumors pale in comparison to those that slander and attack God and God’s house—they neither slander nor blaspheme God—and although they do not cause any disturbances or damage to God’s work, they nevertheless affect some people’s life entry and should be stopped. For example, when some people hear some specious remarks, they believe them in their hearts and quickly spread them to those around them who are close to them. As the rumors circulate, the details become more numerous and complete, and eventually, the rumors start to seem like real events. Elements like time, place, and characters are all in place—such rumors meet the conditions for being able to be spread publicly, don’t they? What information is being spread? The rumormonger says, “There’s something important I must tell you about today. I’ll feel uncomfortable inside if I don’t; I won’t even be able to focus on reading God’s words. I am so excited about this matter. Now we who believe in God finally have hope!” When everyone hears that there is hope, they become interested and enthusiastic; this topic is very compelling. They say, “God’s work is going to be finished soon. Several signs that God previously prophesied regarding the end of His work have already appeared. For example, the state of the moon and sun, the situation in the East and the West, the number of God’s chosen people in each country, how many people are able to do their duties, and so on—these signs of the conclusion of God’s work are now before us. We need to prepare quickly!” Someone asks, “What should we prepare?” The rumormonger says, “We should prepare good deeds and prepare food, and quickly give all our savings as offerings to God, then we can secure a good destination.” They also say, “In such and such a year and month, on such and such a date, and at such and such a time, we need to gather at a specific place where God will be waiting for us to take us away. God said, ‘If you do not forsake everything, you are not worthy to be My disciple, and not worthy to be My follower.’ Now the day of God has finally come, and God’s words have been fulfilled. We must let go of all worldly things, not only our prospects and careers but also our families, relatives, and fleshly relationships. We must forsake all worldly entanglements; we’re going to meet with God!” Most people ask, “Is this true?” The rumormonger says, “Yes, I’ve sold my house and car and withdrawn my savings. If you don’t believe me, take a look at God’s words. In one chapter, decoding a certain sentence reveals an address, and in another chapter, decoding a certain passage reveals the year and month….” Hearing this, is there anyone who isn’t stirred? Is there anyone who can discern these words? Aren’t these things that people are very concerned about? Aren’t these things that people have long hoped for? Some people, after hearing this and then looking at God’s words and thinking that it really does match up, start considering a backup plan. Even though some people are skeptical inside, they still hope it is true, thinking, “Although the specified year and day are a bit far off, at least there is an exact date and time, so we have hope.” Even though they do not really believe it, they still pay a certain amount of attention to it. What does this attention indicate? It shows that people are easily influenced and perturbed by these things. Once this type of rumor starts spreading widely in the church, 80 to 90 percent of people will be extremely excited, and get a rush of emotions, thinking, “The day we have been hoping for is finally coming! God has heard our prayers! God loves us and has not abandoned us!” What would be the consequences of spreading such topics during gatherings? Would it affect everyone’s emotions? People would be unable to reject it, even if they wanted; every sentence of the rumor would strike at their hearts, making it impossible not to believe. People are most likely to believe these words; even if they are not one hundred percent sure, they still wish it were true, thinking, “Reflecting on how many hardships we have endured following God—being rejected by the world, hounded by the government, persecuted by the religious community, barely able to breathe, living in constant fear—when will these days end? Now, the day of God has finally arrived!” These thoughts make your heart surge: “We have expended so much of ourselves for God, our faith in following God is so resolute; that which we are hearing must be true. We should no longer wander and suffer in this world—we deserve to not do that!” When you have this thought, and you are so convinced and passionate about this rumor, do you still want to read God’s words? At this point, doesn’t reading any passage of God’s words seem superfluous? You feel: “Why is it that sharing experiential understanding of God’s words seems so unnecessary now? There is no need to pray to God anymore, right? The day of God has come, and we will soon meet God face to face, so wouldn’t praying to God now mean that we do not respect God? When living in the flesh, far from God, we needed to read God’s words to ease our longing. Now, we are about to transcend this world and will soon meet God in person, so there is no need to read God’s words. Nothing that we do now is as substantial as meeting God on that specific year, month, day, and time. What a wonderful thing it will be! Compared to meeting God on that day at that place, reading God’s words seems so insignificant.” You can’t concentrate on reading God’s words anymore. Your heart has become restless, yearning for that day to come right away! Isn’t this mood difficult to express? Such rumors are very appealing to popular tastes and can very easily spread within the church. One person spreads them to two, two tell ten, and the rumors spread more and more, from one church to two churches, from two churches to five, spreading wider and wider. What are the consequences? These rumors cause people to doubt God, distance themselves from God, forget God’s true love in saving humankind, forget the duty they should do, and forget the way they should follow. Instead, they single-mindedly pursue seeing God’s day arrive and seeing whether they can receive blessings. When that day actually comes and nothing happens, only then do people realize that believing in rumors has caused harm to their life. Can you then return to how you were before, comporting yourself in a well-behaved manner, holding to your duty, pursuing the truth with both feet on the ground, seeking the truth principles in all things, and comporting yourself and doing your duty according to God’s words? The time will have already passed and cannot be recovered. Who is to blame for this? Blame yourself for never having been someone who pursues the truth. You’ve had your head in the clouds and, as a result, have fallen for rumors.

For those who believe in God but do not understand the truth, a single rumor can lead them into a fathomless abyss and ruin them. What is meant by a fathomless abyss? Originally, you had a normal belief in God and had hope of being saved, but a single rumor has led you astray. Without realizing it, you’ve been misled by Satan, you’ve believed the devilish words spoken by Satan and you’ve followed it. You walk and pursue according to the path Satan has laid out for you, and the further you go, the darker your heart becomes, and the further you stray from God. When you have completely left and rejected God, you not only have doubts about God in your heart, but more seriously, you develop complaints about God and denial of God. When you reach this point, isn’t it the end of the road for you? Isn’t this the fathomless abyss? Is this something you want to see? When you reach this point, can you still attain salvation? No, and it is very difficult to turn back. Why? Because God has stopped working, the Holy Spirit has stopped working, and you are filled with darkness. A high wall has been erected between you and God. What is this wall? It is the notions, imaginings, and rumors that Satan has instilled in you, and personal desires. Your knowledge about the positive things, such as God’s identity, essence, status and so on, suddenly becomes blurred and even gradually disappears. This is very frightening. Isn’t this falling into the fathomless abyss? (Yes.) When you fall into this situation, can you still endure hardship and pay a price to do your duty? Can you still walk the path of pursuing the truth to attain salvation? I tell you, it is very difficult to turn back. This is being led astray! Just one rumor, if you are not careful for a moment and become misled, can have unimaginable results. Therefore, when such rumors about God’s work appear in the church, they should be promptly stopped and restricted. One must not fabricate things out of thin air, and one must not concoct all sorts of lies that people like to hear, in order to mislead them and lure them away from the right path. Even if people like these topics, what good does it do for one to focus on them in one’s heart and spread them? What benefit can be gained? Some people say, “That person can say whatever they want, since it’s their mouth. So, let them speak as they wish.” That depends on what is being said. If it is something that edifies people, it can be said and it can be spread—it can be spread in any way. But these rumors do not edify people in the slightest; they only mislead people and divert their attention, disturb their pursuit and make them stray from the right path, affect their relationship with God, affect their normal performance of their duty, and affect the normal order of the church’s work. Once people accept these rumors, it is like being trapped in a maze from which they cannot escape. So, when you hear these rumors, if someone tells them to you alone, you should reject them. If they speak them among others, you should not only reject them but also expose and dissect them—don’t let more people be misled. Especially in the case of those who have been believers for only one or two years, or two or three years, they still cannot see through matters of destination, meeting with God, and being raptured, they have not yet developed an interest in the truth, and have no path for pursuing the truth and pursuing dispositional change in their faith. In such situations, they are the most easily misled and influenced by these rumors, and once they’re misled, the consequences are unimaginable. It is like consuming poison; even if there is an antidote, hasn’t the damage to your body still been done? Even if you survive, can the suffering and damage to your body be ignored? Therefore, when faced with these rumors, you must discern and reject them, neither treating them as stories nor as real events. Some people are particularly interested in these rumors and disseminate and spread them everywhere, sharing them with others as if they were the truth. What is the nature of this? Isn’t this acting as servants of Satan? Such people should be pruned and warned. If they do not repent, they should be cleared out. If, at some point, they come to their senses and say, “It was wrong to spread rumors; I was acting as a servant of Satan, and I will never spread them again,” then they can be subjected to observation: If they repent and show good behavior, they can be provisionally accepted back into the church. If they relapse, they should then be cleansed away.

The rumors about God’s work are not limited to these. People use their imaginings and notions, as well as their minds, to analyze and scrutinize; they scrutinize God’s words and various prophecies, as well as various disasters, signs, and occurrences in society and the world, even relying on their dreams to freely remark upon God’s work—they fabricate many rumors. Many people do not regularly read God’s words, or regularly put effort into the truth, much less do they regularly put effort into seeking principles in doing their duties. Instead, they ponder questions like, “How did God’s appearance and work begin? Who started it all? What role did people play? What events occurred?” They scrutinize these external phenomena, and the church’s administrative structure, personnel, and so on. After all this scrutinizing, they summarize it all and come up with some so-called rules or phenomena and spread them in the church as if they were the truth. When spreading them, they describe them in a vivid and thorough manner, and those without discernment might even think they are discussing God’s work. However, those with discernment think, “Aren’t you spouting nonsense and releasing heresies and fallacies? Aren’t you judging God’s work? This isn’t sharing understanding and experiences—it’s unrelated to the truth. This is fabricating rumors and must be stopped immediately; otherwise, some people will be misled!” These fallacies and heresies, which qualify as rumors, do not align with the truth and disturb people’s understanding of the truth. When the act of spreading rumors appears in the church, it should be promptly stopped.

There are also some rumors that amount to devilish words judging God’s work. For example, regarding whom God loves, whom He saves, and whom He makes perfect, some people, applying their own petty cleverness, observe and summarize, saying, “Those in the world who are capable, and those who have served as officials, and those who have been department heads or CEOs in enterprises, when they come to God’s house, directly become leaders or immediately take charge of general affairs and finances. These people are the ones God makes perfect.” Isn’t this fabricating rumors? This is indeed fabricating rumors. What is a rumor? It is talking irresponsibly, making blind judgments, and drawing unfounded conclusions, in a manner that is out of line with the facts; these words are all rumors. Other people say, “So-and-so made an offering of tens of thousands of yuan. Their faith is great, they can enter the kingdom.” This causes those without money to become negative and feel distressed; they say, “Although I have also made quite a few offerings, it doesn’t add up to as much as what they offered in one go. Does this mean I cannot be saved and made perfect? Does God not want someone like me?” Others who fabricate rumors then say, “The rich cannot enter the kingdom; God wants the poor.” Those poor people then become happy: “Although I haven’t offered much money, I can still enter the kingdom, while the rich are left out.” Whatever those who fabricate rumors say, it influences the poor people one way or the other; they cannot see through the fact that it’s all just rumors and devilish words. Why is this? It is because they do not understand the truth and lack discernment, so they are constantly misled. Both those who fabricate rumors and those who spread them are all devils. No matter how much they say, you don’t know which words are true and which are false, where exactly these words come from, what exactly their motives are in spreading these words, and what goals they hope to achieve. If someone cannot see through these things and blindly accept and spread the rumors, doesn’t that make them a fool? Isn’t a fool also called a scoundrel? Although this word is inelegant, I find it quite fitting. Why is it fitting? Because such people speak irresponsibly. They casually spread rumors, recklessly drawing conclusions and fabricating rumors based on certain phenomena, and then casually spreading these rumors and describing them plausibly as if they were real events—as a result it affects and disturbs some people. They do not read God’s words or understand the truth; they spend their days spreading rumors and talking nonsense in the church. Today, they see someone making a lot of offerings and say that person can be saved. Tomorrow, they see someone who has been imprisoned and didn’t become a Judas, and they say, “That person is of one heart with God. They can enter the kingdom and have a good destination. In the future, they will govern twenty cities in God’s house; we mere foot soldiers cannot compare with them.” Isn’t this devilish talk? Aren’t these rumors? (Yes.) Regardless of the motives and goals of the people who say these words, won’t such words affect and disturb some people? Some people have had little faith, and when they hear these rumors and devilish words, they start to ponder: “Can I be saved? Does God delight in me?” In their hearts they think about these things all day, wavering and worrying about them. Because of the baseless nonsense of those who fabricate rumors, they feel they have no hope of being saved, so they come before God and pray: “Don’t You love me, God? I have forsaken so much for You. When will I be able to satisfy You?” They have a bellyful of grievances. Nothing has happened, so where do these grievances come from? They are caused by those rumors—these individuals have been poisoned and have fallen. They do not feel any remorse or guilt for whatever corrupt dispositions they reveal or whatever transgressions they have committed, never crying because of this—not even a single tear—but when they hear those who fabricate rumors say that people like them have no hope of being saved, they immediately feel distressed. Have they not been affected? They have been affected and disturbed. These people are immature in stature, do not understand the truth, and are very foolish. Those who fabricate rumors see such people as easy to toy with and so fabricate some rumors to dupe them. Today, they say you have hope of being saved, and you are happy; tomorrow, they say you have no hope of being saved, and you cry and feel distressed. Why do you listen to them? Why are you always constrained by them? Do they have the final say? At most, they are just buffoons. Even their fate is in God’s hands, so what qualifications do they have to evaluate others? What qualifications do they have to say who can and cannot be saved, or what kind of people can and cannot be made perfect? Do they understand the truth? Which of their words aligns with God’s intentions and God’s words? Not one of their words aligns with God’s words, so why do you believe them? Why are you disturbed by them? Isn’t this caused by foolishness? (Yes.) Whether this is because of foolishness and ignorance or because your stature is too small and you don’t understand the truth, in any case, those who spread rumors in the church are the most detestable. They should be discerned, exposed, and then restricted or cleared out.

Some people say, “Look at So-and-so, with those well-proportioned features of his; he was chosen to be a church leader. So-and-so thrives in society, everyone who sees her likes her; after she has come to believe in God, the brothers and sisters also like her, and God likes her too.” Is there a single correct statement in these words? (No.) Why? (They don’t conform to the truth.) Correct, these words don’t conform to the truth, they’re all devilish talk. Some say, “So-and-so’s family is rich, has good living conditions, and they are knowledgeable. So, in God’s house, they handle finances and general affairs. They are useful and can take on this duty. This is God’s ordination.” Does adding “God’s ordination” make this statement conform to the truth? Is this not devilish talk? Such devilish talk is collectively called rumors. Any irresponsible statements that do not conform to facts, that contradict the facts ordained by God, are reckless words and arbitrary conclusions; such statements are all rumors. Why characterize them as rumors? Because these statements, once released, will disturb and damage some people’s normal mindset and pursuit goals, they are characterized as rumors. According to God’s words, God only says that people’s birthplace, family background, appearance, level of education, and so on are ordained by God; He has never told people that the appearance, social background, or inherent conditions of any category of people are conditions for being blessed. The only standard God requires of people is that they be able to pursue the truth and achieve submission to God. This is the most important. If God’s words do not explicitly state something, and it is merely the product of people’s subjective imaginations or their speculations, such statements are also considered rumors. People always want to judge whether someone can be blessed through their observations and understanding, and additionally based on their own notions and imaginings. Then, they release these fallacies to influence others’ pursuit of the truth, arbitrarily deciding who can be saved and who cannot, who are the people of God, and who are laborers. These are all rumors. Regarding rumors, we can also call them devilish words. Regardless of what kind of rumors or devilish words appear, the church leaders should promptly come forward to stop and restrict them; of course, if any brothers and sisters have discernment, they should also step forward to dissect and discern where the rumors come from and what their nature is. When these brothers and sisters gain an understanding of these things, they can stand up to refute and dispute these rumors, and also restrict those spreading the rumors, collectively railing against them. How should they do this? By openly denouncing those people in front of everyone: “What you are saying is all rumors and devilish talk, it does not conform to God’s words, nor does it conform to our needs. If you continue to spread rumors despite the admonitions, we will clear you out, leaving you with no opportunity to fabricate rumors and cause disturbances in the church!” How is this practice? (Good.) Doing it like this conforms to the truth principles. If you fellowship your personal experiential understandings, saying things that edify people, then however you speak is fine. You can use any words you like, whether formal or colloquial language; it’s all permissible. The only thing you may not do is spread rumors.