How are the wicked parts of the Pharisees manifested? First, let’s start our discussion with how the Pharisees treated God incarnate, and then you might understand a bit more. Speaking of God incarnate, we must first talk about what kind of family and background God incarnate was born into two thousand years ago. First of all, the Lord Jesus was not born into a wealthy family at all—His lineage was not so distinguished. His foster father, Joseph, was a carpenter, and His mother, Mary, was an ordinary believer. The identity and social status of His parents represent the family background into which the Lord Jesus was born, and it is clear that He was born into a common family. What does “common” mean? It refers to the ordinary masses, to an average household at the bottom rung of society, having nothing to do with noble families, not linked to a prominent status in the least, and certainly not aristocratic. Born into an ordinary family, with ordinary parents, lacking any illustrious social status or distinguished family background, it is clear that the background and family of the Lord Jesus’ birth were as ordinary as they come. Does the Bible record that the Lord Jesus received any special education? Did He receive an education from a seminary? Was He trained by a high priest? Did He read many books like Paul did? Did He have close contact or dealings with the social elite or the high priests of Judaism? No, He didn’t. Looking at the social status of the Lord Jesus’ birth family, it is clear that He would not have come into contact with the upper echelon of Jewish scribes and Pharisees; He was basically limited to living among ordinary Jews. Occasionally, He would go to the synagogue, and the people He encountered were all common folk. What does this show? As the Lord Jesus was growing up, before He formally took up His work, the background in which He was brought up remained unchanged. After the age of twelve, His household did not begin to prosper and He did not become wealthy, let alone have the chance to interact with people in the upper classes of social or religious circles, and He also did not get the opportunity to receive higher education during His upbringing. What message does this give to later generations? This ordinary and normal person, who was God incarnate, had neither the opportunity nor the conditions to receive higher education. He was the same as ordinary people, He lived in a common social environment, in an ordinary family, and nothing was special about Him. Precisely because of this, after hearing about the sermons and actions of the Lord Jesus, those scribes and Pharisees dared to stand up and openly judge, blaspheme, and condemn Him. What basis did they have for their condemnation? Undoubtedly, it was based on the laws and regulations of the Old Testament. First, the Lord Jesus led His disciples not to observe the Sabbath—He still worked on the Sabbath. In addition, He did not observe the laws and regulations and did not go to the temple, and when He encountered sinners, some people asked Him how to deal with them, but He did not handle them according to the law, instead showing them mercy. None of these aspects of the Lord Jesus’ actions conformed to the religious notions of the Pharisees. Because they did not love the truth and thus hated the Lord Jesus, they seized the pretext of the Lord Jesus violating the law to fervently condemn Him, and determined that He was to be put to death. If the Lord Jesus had been born into a prominent and distinguished family, if He had been highly educated, and if He had been on close terms with these scribes and Pharisees, then things at that time would not have gone for Him as they did later on—they might have changed. It was precisely because of His ordinariness, His normality, and the background of His birth that He was condemned by the Pharisees. What was their basis for condemning the Lord Jesus? It was those regulations and laws that they held on to, which they believed would never change for all of eternity. Pharisees held the theological theories that they grasped as knowledge and a tool with which to appraise and condemn people, even using it on the Lord Jesus. This is how the Lord Jesus was condemned. The way they appraised or treated a person never depended on the person’s essence, nor on whether what the person preached was the truth, and less still on the source of the words the person said—the way Pharisees appraised or condemned a person depended only on the regulations, words, and doctrine they grasped in the Old Testament of the Bible. Although the Pharisees knew in their hearts that what the Lord Jesus said and did was not a sin or a violation of the law, they still condemned Him, because the truths He expressed and the signs and wonders He performed made many people follow and praise Him. The Pharisees were increasingly hateful toward Him, and even wanted to remove Him from the picture. They did not recognize that the Lord Jesus was the Messiah who was to come, nor did they recognize that His words had the truth, less still that His work adhered to the truth. They judged the Lord Jesus to be speaking presumptuous words and driving out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons. That they could pin these sins on the Lord Jesus shows how much hatred they had for Him. Therefore, they worked fervently to deny that the Lord Jesus was sent by God, and that He was the Son of God, and that He was the Messiah. What they meant was, “Would god do things in this way? If god were incarnate, he would have been born into a family of formidable status. And he would have to accept tutelage from scribes and from the Pharisees. He would have to study the Scripture systematically, have a grasp of scriptural knowledge, and be equipped with all of the knowledge in the Scripture before being able to bear the name of ‘god incarnate.’” But the Lord Jesus was not equipped with this knowledge, so they condemned Him, saying, “Firstly, you are not thus qualified, so you cannot be god; secondly, without this scriptural knowledge you cannot do the work of god, much less can you be god; thirdly, you must not work outside the temple—you are not working in the temple now, but are always among the sinners, so the work you do is beyond the scope of the Scripture, which makes it even less possible that you are god.” Where did the basis of their condemnation come from? From the Scripture, from the mind of man, and from the theological education they had received. Because the Pharisees were swollen with notions, imaginings, and knowledge, they believed this knowledge to be right, to be the truth, to be a valid basis, and at no time could God contravene these things. Did they seek the truth? They did not. What did they seek? A supernatural god that appeared in the form of a spiritual body. Therefore, they determined the parameters for God’s work, denied His work, and judged whether God was right or wrong according to the notions, imaginings, and knowledge of man. And what was the end result of this? Not only did they condemn God’s work, they nailed God incarnate to the cross. This is what came of their using their notions, imaginings, and knowledge to assess God, and this is what is wicked about them.

Judging from the Pharisees’ esteem of knowledge and scholarship, where does their wickedness lie? How is it manifested? How can we dig into and dissect the wicked nature of such people? The Pharisees’ reverence of knowledge and scholarship is known, and there’s no need to go into it in detail. So, what exactly is the wicked nature revealed here? How can we dissect and see through the wicked nature of such people? Someone speak up. (They use theoretical knowledge to oppose the essence of God; this is one of their manifestations of wickedness.) Opposition is an action, so why did they oppose? Opposition carries a bit of a vicious disposition, but you still haven’t touched on wickedness. Why did they oppose? Was it a matter of them liking or disliking Him? They disliked this kind of God, believing, “God should be in heaven, the third heaven at that, admired by all, unreachable by humans, inscrutable to them, the one that all of humanity, all created beings, and even all living things in the universe should look up to—that is god! Now god has come, but you were born in a carpenter’s home, your parents are just ordinary people, and you were even born in a stable. The background of your birth is not just ordinary, it’s a step below ordinary and below common—how could people accept this? If god really were to come, he couldn’t come like this!” Isn’t this how people delimit God? Everyone delimits God this way. Actually, deep down they also vaguely felt that the Lord Jesus was not an ordinary person, that what the Lord Jesus said was right, and that the several sins that people accused Him of did not actually match the facts. The Lord Jesus could heal the sick and cast out demons, and they could neither find any fault nor seize upon anything in the words and sermons that He spoke and delivered, but they still couldn’t accept it, and they still doubted in their hearts: “Is this really what god is like? God is so great in heaven, so if he becomes flesh and comes to earth, he should be even greater, admired by all people, passing among noble families, speaking eloquently, and never revealing so much as a single human flaw or weakness. Besides, he should first use his knowledge, his scholarship, and his skills to subdue the clergy in the temple. He should win these people over first; that would be god’s intention.” Regarding what the Lord Jesus did, they didn’t buy it, nor did they want to accept or acknowledge this fact. Not wanting to acknowledge this fact isn’t a big issue; deep inside them, they possessed something even more deadly: If such a person was god, then all of the clergy could be god, all of them were more like god than God Himself, and all were more qualified to be christ than the Lord Jesus was. Isn’t this troublesome? (Yes.) While they were condemning the Lord Jesus, they were also opposing and scorning every aspect of the background related to where God incarnate chose to be incarnated this time. We haven’t yet discussed where the wickedness of the Pharisees lies—let’s continue our fellowship.

God becomes flesh as an ordinary person, which means God humbles Himself from a lofty image, identity, and position above all things to become a completely ordinary person. When He becomes an ordinary person, He does not choose to be born into a distinguished, wealthy family; the background of His birth is very common, even shabby. If we look at this matter from the perspective of an ordinary person, someone with conscience, rationality, and humanity, all that God does is worthy of people’s veneration and love. How should people treat it? (With veneration.) An ordinary and normal person who follows God should praise God’s loveliness for the fact that God humbles Himself from a lofty status into an extraordinarily ordinary person—God’s humility and hiddenness is too lovely! This is something that neither any corrupt person nor devils and Satans can achieve. Is this a positive or negative thing? (A positive thing.) What does this positive thing, this phenomenon, and this fact precisely illustrate? God’s humility and hiddenness, God’s loveliness and dearness. Another fact is that God loves people; God’s love is genuine, it isn’t false. God’s love is not empty speech, not a slogan, nor an illusion, but it is real and factual. God Himself becomes flesh and endures humanity’s misunderstandings, as well as their ridicule, slander, and blasphemy. He humbles Himself and becomes an ordinary person, not lofty in appearance, with no special talents and certainly no profound knowledge or scholarship—for what purpose? It is to approach the people He has chosen and intends to save with this identity and a human appearance that will be most easily accessible to them. Doesn’t all this that God does constitute the price that He paid? (Yes.) Can anyone else do this? No one can. For example, some women who particularly love beauty always wear makeup and do not go out without it. If you asked such a woman to go out plain-faced or to appear on stage without makeup, could she do it? She couldn’t. She hasn’t even been humiliated in this case; just going out without makeup is impossible for her, she can’t let go of even that bit of vanity, that bit of fleshly profit. Then what about God? When God humbles Himself to be born among the lowest of society as a most ordinary person, what does He give up? He gives up His dignity. Why is God able to give up His dignity? (In order to love and save people.) It is in order to love people and to save them, which reveals God’s disposition. So, how does this involve the loss of dignity? How should this matter be viewed? Some people say, “What dignity does God lose? Don’t You still have the identity of God even after becoming flesh? Don’t You still have people who follow and listen to Your preaching? Aren’t You still doing God’s own work—what dignity do You lose?” This “loss of dignity” includes several aspects. In one respect, God’s motivation for doing all this is for the sake of people, but can people understand it? Even the people who follow Him cannot understand it. What is there contained in this lack of understanding? There is misunderstanding, misinterpreting, and strange looks or looks of contempt from certain people. God is in the spiritual realm, in the midst of all things, and all humanity lies beneath the feet of God, but now that God has become flesh, it is equivalent to Him living in the same environment with people as equals. He has to face humanity’s ridicule, slander, misunderstanding, and sarcasm, as well as their notions, enmity, and judgment—these are what He has to face. While He is facing these things, do you think He has any dignity? According to God’s identity, He shouldn’t suffer these things, people shouldn’t treat God like this, and He shouldn’t put up with these things; these aren’t things God should put up with, but when God becomes flesh He has to accept them, He has to put up with all of this, and nothing is left out. Corrupt humanity can say many pleasant-sounding things to God in heaven, but they have no regard for God incarnate. They think, “God becoming flesh? You are so ordinary and normal, without anything exceptional; it seems you can’t do anything to me!” They dare to say anything! When it comes to their own profit or their reputation, they dare to utter any judgment or condemnation. Therefore, when God becomes flesh, although He has this status and enjoys this identity when He interacts with humans and lives together with corrupt humanity, at the same time He actually has to endure every kind of humiliation brought on Him by His identity. He loses all His dignity—this is the first thing God has to endure, facing all the confusion, misunderstanding, doubt, test, rebellion, judgment, duplicity, etc., that corrupt humanity acts out toward Him. He has to endure all this—that is His loss of dignity. What else? There is essentially no difference between the incarnation and the Spirit—is this correct? (Yes.) There is essentially no difference, but there is one aspect: The flesh can never replace the Spirit. That is, the flesh is limited in His many functions. For example, the Spirit can travel through space, is not affected by time, climate, or various environments, and is omnipresent, while the flesh is subject to these limitations. What loss has been made to God’s dignity? What’s the difficulty in this matter? God Himself has this ability, but because He is limited by the flesh, during the period of His work, He has to hold to the work of the flesh conscientiously, quietly, and obediently until the work is completed. During the time that God is working in the flesh, what people can see of God, and what they can comprehend of Him within their notions, is this flesh that their eyes can see. So, within their imaginations and notions, aren’t God’s greatness, omnipotence, wisdom, and even authority subject to certain limitations? (Yes.) To a large extent, those things are subject to certain limitations. What causes these limitations? (Being incarnate.) These limitations are caused by Him being incarnate. It can be said that being incarnate causes a kind of trouble to God Himself. Of course, the word “trouble” is a bit imprecise to use here, but it is appropriate to say it this way—it can only be said this way. Does this trouble have a certain impact on people’s understanding of God and on people’s true association and interaction with God in order to love and submit to God? (Yes.) It does have a certain effect. As long as a person has seen God’s flesh, as long as they have had dealings with God’s flesh, as long as they have heard God’s flesh speak, it is possible that in their lifetime, God’s image, God’s wisdom, God’s essence and God’s disposition will forever remain in what they recognize, see, and understand in this flesh. This is unfair to God. Isn’t this the case? (Yes, it is.) It’s unfair to God. So why does God still do this? Because only by means of God becoming flesh can the best results of God’s purifying and saving people be achieved—God chooses this path. God becomes flesh and lives face-to-face among people, allowing people to hear His words, see His every move, and see His disposition, even His personality, and His joys and sorrows. Even though this disposition and these joys and sorrows can develop notions when people witness them, affecting people’s comprehension of God’s essence, and limiting people’s comprehension, God would rather be misunderstood by people and still choose this method by which to achieve the best results of saving people. Therefore, from the point of view of people’s understanding of God’s original face, and God’s true identity, status, and essence, He has sacrificed His dignity. Couldn’t this be said? That is from this point of view. Ponder it carefully: In the various aspects of what God has paid and done, according to people’s understanding, is there anything equivalent to those theories and slogans of the Pharisees and antichrists? There are none. For example, when the Pharisees said, “God is honorable,” how did they understand this honorableness? How should God’s honorableness be realized in their eyes? It’s just that He is lofty. Isn’t it a doctrine that “God is honorable, god is so honorable”? (Yes.) What do they believe is the honorableness of God? It is that if God came to the world, He would have a prominent position, top-notch knowledge and talent, top-notch ability, first-rate eloquence, and a first-rate and choice appearance. What is that honorableness they believed in? It is what people can see. Isn’t this kind of honorableness something Satan does? (Yes.) God doesn’t do that! Look at what kind of people God selected for these chosen people of God, and look at what kind of people are the outstanding elites of Satan’s world. By contrasting them in this way, you’ll know what kind of person God saves and what kind of person cannot be saved. Those who are particularly arrogant, self-righteous, gifted, and talented are the least likely to accept the truth. Their speech is full of knowledge, extremely eloquent, and makes people worship and admire them, but their weak point is not accepting the truth, and they are averse to the truth and hate it, which determines that they will take the path of destruction. Then again, none of God’s chosen people have any special gifts or talents, but they can accept the truth, submit to God, give up their fame, gain, and status to follow God, and are willing to do their duty. These are the kinds of people who are saved by God. Who do the nonbelievers worship? They all worship high-level intellectuals and people with prominent family status. Regarding gifts, specialties, and family status, we do not have any of these—we are the same. What do you think of this? God doesn’t do such things—is it that simple? Why didn’t God arrange it this way? God’s intention is in this. It is all too easy for God to arrange in what family a person is born, and what knowledge they can learn. Can God act in this way? (Yes.) He can indeed! Then why didn’t God arrange for us to be born into wealthy, prominent families? This is the loveliness of God, this is the revelation of the essence of God, and only those who understand the truth can see through this matter. After God becomes flesh, no matter how great people’s notions may be, how great the difficulties God encounters in His work, how great the obstacles He faces, how great the ridicule and slander He receives, and no matter how much of His dignity is lost after He becomes flesh in this way, does He care? He doesn’t care. So, what does He care about? If you can understand this point, then you really know that God is lovely. What does God care about? What is God’s painstaking intention in paying this price and putting forth such a great effort? What exactly did He do it for? (For this group whom God chose to be able to understand God better, to have better contact with God through His incarnate flesh, and then to have a true understanding of God.) Have an understanding of God—so is this still pretty beneficial to God? Did God pay so much for this one goal? Yes or no? Did God painstakingly work for 6,000 years just to make people understand God? Tell Me, after God created people, after humanity distanced themselves from God and followed Satan, and every human being started spending their lives like a living demon—who is the happiest? (Satan.) Who is the victim? (People.) Then who is the saddest? (God.) Are you the saddest? (No.) In reality, no one can see through these things. Nobody knows these things themselves: They accept whatever they live to become. When you ask them to practice the truth, they don’t think this can do any good. They persistently live by their notions and imaginings, and have always rebelled against God. The saddest and most heartbroken one is actually God. God created humanity; do you think that God cares about the immediate state of human existence, or whether their life is good or not? (He cares.) God is the most concerned, and maybe the people involved don’t feel it, and don’t actually understand it themselves. Living in this world, humanity was like this a hundred years ago, and now it is still like this, multiplying generation after generation, and living like this generation after generation, some people doing well, some poor—life is full of ups and downs. Generation after generation people arrive, wear different clothes, eat the same food, but the social structure and systems change little by little; people unwittingly arrive at the present—are they aware? They are not aware. So, who is the most aware? (God.) It is God who cares most about this matter. One of the things God doesn’t forget is how the people whom He has created live, what the current state of people’s lives is, whether they are living well, what people eat and wear, what their future will be like, and what people think about every day in their hearts. If all people think about every day is evil, all about how to change and go against the laws of nature, how to fight against Heaven, how to follow the evil trend of the world, does God look at this and feel good about it? (No, He doesn’t.) So, God doesn’t feel good and that’s it? Doesn’t He have to do something about it? (Yes, He does.) He has to find a way to make these people live well, to let them understand the principles of conducting oneself, let them know to worship God, to submit to all the laws of nature, to God’s orchestration and arrangement, so that people can live with human likeness, and God will be relieved. Even if God leaves these people, they can still live in such an environment normally, without suffering anything from Satan—this is God’s intention. When Satan sees that people can submit to God and live out human likeness, it is completely disgraced and fails, so it completely abandons these people and never pays attention to them again. So, who does Satan care about? It only cares about those who believe in God but do not pursue the truth, those who do not read God’s words and do not pray to God, those who do their duty half-heartedly, and those who always want to find someone to get married and start a family and career with. It wants to seduce these people, to mislead them into distancing themselves from God, not doing their duty, and betraying God, till they are eliminated by Him—then it is thoroughly happy. The more you don’t pursue the truth, the happier it becomes, the more you pursue fame, gain, and status, and the more you are perfunctory in doing your duty, the happier it becomes. If you distance yourself and betray God, it becomes even happier—isn’t this the mentality of Satan? Isn’t the mentality of antichrists like this? Those of Satan’s ilk all have this mentality. They want to seduce anyone who they see doesn’t earnestly believe in God, anyone who pays attention to learning knowledge and pursuing fame, gain, and status, and anyone who doesn’t attend to their proper task in doing their duty. When they meet people like this, they share a common language with them, they have a lot to say when they’re together, and they speak their minds freely, without scruples. How does God feel when He sees these people not pursuing the truth? He feels anxious! Therefore, what is the cause of all this price God has paid? It is because of His concern, care and worry for humanity. God carries these concerns, cares, and worries about people in His heart, and because God possesses such an attitude toward people, His work is then produced step by step. No matter whether in people’s eyes God is humble and hidden, He truly loves people, He is faithful, or He is great, God believes that all these costs are worth it and can be rewarded. What does this reward mean? It means that the things He worries about in His heart will not happen again, and the people He is concerned about in His heart can live according to His intentions, to the way and the direction He has taught and guided them along, and these people will no longer be corrupted by Satan—they will no longer live in suffering, and God’s worries will disappear and God will be relieved. So, regarding all of what God has done—no matter what His primary motivation is, no matter how big or small His plan is—aren’t these all something positive? (Yes, they are.) These are all positive things. Regardless of whether the way God works is inconspicuous to people, whether it is worth mentioning or not, regardless of how people pass judgment on the way God works to judge and save people, judging from all the things God has done and all the price He can pay, is God not worthy of praise? (Yes, He is.) So, is God great or small? (He is great.) So great! No one among mankind can pay such a price. Some people say that “Maternal love is the greatest among mankind.” Is maternal love as great as this? Generally, after children have lived their own lives independently, their mothers just don’t fuss over them as long as they can get by. In fact, they can’t fuss over their children even if they want to. So how does God treat this humanity? For how many thousands of years has He endured it? God has endured it for six thousand years and has not given up even now. Just for that little bit of worry and concern, God paid such a great price. What does such a huge price look like in the eyes of the Pharisees and those antichrists? It is condemned by them, judged by them, even blasphemed by them. From this point of view, aren’t those antichrists wicked in nature? (Yes, they are.) God has done such praiseworthy things, and God’s essence and what He has and is are so worthy of people’s praise. Not only do they not praise Him, but they even use various excuses and theories to condemn and judge Him, and even refuse to acknowledge that He is Christ. Aren’t these people hateful? (Yes, they are.) Aren’t they wicked? Judging from their wicked behavior, don’t they worship knowledge and learning? Don’t they worship power and status? (Yes, they do.) The more positive things there are, the more worthy of people’s praise, remembrance, and dissemination, the more they will be condemned by antichrists. This is one revelation of the wicked nature of antichrists. It must be said that the degree of antichrists’ wickedness is beyond most people with corrupt dispositions.