Before we begin our gathering today, we’ll listen to a conversation. Two people are chatting. The first says: “If I were pruned, the brothers and sisters wouldn’t want to do their duties anymore.” The second says, “They wouldn’t want to do their duties? Big deal. If I were replaced, the brothers and sisters would grow negative and weak.” Seeing he’s been one-upped, the first says: “If I stopped believing, the brothers and sisters where I am would all follow me.” On hearing this, the second says, “Well, you’re a stronger presence than I am, then. Even so, if I were cleared out, lots of people in our church would stop believing. What do you think of that? I’m a stronger presence than you, aren’t I?” Do you understand what they’re saying in this conversation? What are the two of them competing over? (They’re competing over who’s more able to win people over, who’s more able to establish an independent kingdom; they’re seeing which of them is a bit wilier than the other.) They’re competing over who’s wilier, who’s more capable, who has the greater ability, and which of them has won more people over. Are they competing over which of them has more truth reality? Over which of them has more humanity? Over which of them understands the truth more? (No. They’re competing over which of them would have more people rush to their defense if they were replaced, or if they were cleared out.) What sort of ability is that, that they’re competing over? They’re competing over who has the greater capacity to control, ensnare, and mislead people. Take a guess: What sort of people are these two? (They’re both antichrists.) What are they? Are the both of them not a pair of evil people, of tyrants? (They are.) It’s plain to see that they’re a pair of evil people—they’re brazenly competing over which of them has the greater capacity to do evil, over who’s more able to mislead and control people, who’s more able to win people over, who’s better able to compete with God for His chosen people. Whichever of them can control more people, that’s whose capacity is greater. That’s what they’re competing over. Tell Me, are there antichrists who have such competitions? (There are.) Do they have them publicly, or do they vie with each other in secret? (In secret.) So, does the content of the conversation between the two in this story exist? Is it real? (It does, and it is.) Given that they vie with each other in secret, would they blatantly say these things? The vast majority of antichrists are cunning and wicked; they wouldn’t publicly or directly say that, so as not to give people ammunition against them. But this is how they think in secret, and indeed, it’s what they do. However they try to cover things, and hide things, and disguise themselves, their antichrist nature and malicious nature can’t be covered up. It’s all certain to be revealed. They may not say anything out loud, and there’s nothing obvious for others to hear, but they act without the least bit of concealment or ambiguity, without hiding or secrecy. They don’t go behind people’s backs, either, much less make any concessions. There’s no ambiguity or sloppiness whatsoever in their behaviors and actions to ensnare people, mislead them, control them, and establish an independent kingdom. They blatantly oppose God, and they blatantly ensnare people and mislead them. They’re hopeful that if they were to be pruned, many brothers and sisters would come to their defense, that they’d oppose God and His house, that they’d get negative and slack off, and not do their duties. That would delight them and fulfill their wish. If they’re replaced, they’re desperate for many people to grow negative, to speak up for them, and come to their defense, and give explanations and arguments on their behalf, behind the scenes. They’re desperate for people to give a tally of their merits, to defend their rightness—and even to judge and condemn the arrangements of God’s house, to go up against God secretly at heart, denying His righteousness, and denying that all He says and does is the truth, that they’re all positive things. And if they stop believing, they’re desperate for everyone to follow them in disbelief, to leave with them, to become their followers; they’re desperate for everyone to deny that God is the truth, and believe that they have the truth, that all they do is right, and that they can change people and save them. If they’re cleared out or expelled by the church for doing evil, they get desperate for many people to deny God’s existence and return to the world, where they’ll become people who don’t believe. That would delight them. It would restore balance in their heart, and be a release for them. These revelations of a satanic disposition, these behaviors, these essences, and even these intricate, detailed ideas and thoughts—whom do they speak to? Are these people true brothers and sisters? Do they have true faith in God? Do they truly submit to God? Do they have even the tiniest bit of fear of God? (No.) From this, it can be seen that antichrists are by essence inimical to God and they’re God’s enemies. Is this statement accurate? Is it the truth? (It’s accurate, and it’s the truth.) It’s one hundred percent how things are. The statement is the truth, not a bit short of it, because it’s a fact, a forever-unchanging fact. That is how antichrists think, and that’s what they do. All their actions and deeds are governed by their personal ambitions and desires, and governed and instigated by the nature of antichrists. Can people such as antichrists be saved, then? (No.) They’re inimical to God at every turn, at every turn inimical to the truth. Whoever, as they see it, does harm to their interests, whoever causes a loss to their reputation, depriving them of their desires and ambitions, of their hope of being blessed, they will rise up in resistance against them and be their enemies—no matter whether what they did was right or wrong. That’s the nature of antichrists. This is why no matter what wrong and evil things such people as antichrists have done, or what things they’ve done that go against the principles and the work arrangements of God’s house, they will not permit others to prune them, or to expose and handle them. As soon as these things are upon them, they won’t just fail to submit to them and accept them, or fail to acknowledge that what they’ve done was an evil deed—no, they’ll strike back, and try to restore their good name by any means necessary. By any means at their disposal, they’ll try to put their sins, their mistakes, on someone else’s head, and take none of the responsibility themselves. And beyond that: Their greatest wish is that people may be duped and misled into making excuses for their evil deeds and arguing in their defense, and that more people might stand up and speak on their behalf. This is what they’d most like to see.

We’ll end our story here. You guessed right: Those two are antichrists, indeed. Only antichrists could have such a conversation, give voice to such things, and wish for such things. Normal, corrupt people may have a few such ideas from time to time, but when something truly does happen to them, they’ll come back before God to seek and to pray. Little by little, they’ll come to submit. All who are true believers, all who have conscience and reason, will have something of a God-fearing heart when they’re pruned or replaced. They will have something of an attitude of submission, a willingness to submit. They don’t wish to stand across from God, inimical to Him. This is how an ordinary person with a corrupt disposition should behave. An antichrist, however, possesses none of this. However many sermons they hear, they won’t let go of their desires, and they won’t let go of such ambitions of theirs as controlling people, winning them over, and misleading them. What’s more, those things won’t diminish at all; as time passes and circumstances change, their ambitions and desires will even grow ever worse, ever more inflated. This is the radical difference between the nature essence of antichrists and that of ordinary, corrupt people.

We’ve now finished our fellowship on item nine of the various manifestations of antichrists. This time, we’ll fellowship on item ten: They despise the truth, brazenly flout principles, and ignore the arrangements of God’s house. Despising the truth, brazenly flouting principles, ignoring the arrangements of God’s house—any one of these would be serious enough on its own, and none is a revelation of an ordinary, corrupt disposition. One can see in any of them that the essence of antichrists they encompass bears with it viciousness and wickedness. These are the two obvious and serious elements. In this instance, can arrogance, intransigence, and deceitfulness be used to describe the essence of antichrists? (No.) It would be difficult enough to get to the heart of these features of an antichrist’s essence with those descriptors. Only the two dispositions of viciousness and wickedness can be used to encapsulate the essence of antichrists.

We’ll go through these, one by one. They despise the truth—what does “despise” mean? (To look down on something.) (To belittle, disdain, and trivialize something.) (To think something’s beneath contempt.) The words you’re using all mean pretty much the same thing. To “despise” something means to disregard it, to look down on it, to trivialize, belittle, and disdain it. To put it generally, it means to resist something, to be repulsed by it, and to loathe it, from the pit of one’s heart, and not to accept it, and even to condemn it, too, along with hostile judgment and slander. How does this compare in degree to what you said? (It’s more detailed and specific.) It’s more specific and practical than what you said. Most of the definitions you offered were synonyms of “despise.” What I said is a further refinement of the essence of the action and behavior of “despising”; it’s a concrete, detailed description of the behavior and essence of despising the truth. It means that when someone despises the truth, then in what they do, in how they treat the truth in their daily life, and in the attitude they adopt at heart toward matters that involve the truth and positive things, people can see that their attitude toward the truth is this: unacceptance, resistance, and being averse to it—and even judgment, condemnation, and vilification of it. All these are the specific ways in which “despising the truth” manifests and is revealed—so specific as to include each aspect of such a person’s attitudes toward the truth and approaches to it: They’re repulsed by the truth, God’s words, and positive things. They resist them from the pit of their heart, and don’t accept them. When you tell them that something is God’s words, that it’s the truth, what will their attitude be? “God’s words, the truth—who cares! You use god’s words and the truth in place of everything. Isn’t there stuff besides god’s words in the lives we people live? We’ve read so many books, we’ve acquired so much education—was that all for nothing? People have brains and minds; they have the ability to think independently about problems. Basing everything in god’s words and truth—isn’t that a bit too dogmatic?” What will their attitude be when something happens to them, and you tell them they need to pray to God, and seek Him, and read His words? “Read god’s words? When something happens to us, it’s our own problem. What do man’s problems have to do with god? What do they have to do with the truth? Do you really think that everything’s there in god’s words, that they’re an encyclopedia? God’s words don’t necessarily mention everything. People’s problems are for people to handle, and specific problems require specific solutions. And if you can’t handle something, look it up on the internet, or consult with an expert about it. There are even college professors here in our church, and plenty of the brothers and sisters are college students. Can’t all of us together be a match for the truth?” As soon as you mention seeking God and seeking the truth, as soon as you say they must read God’s words, they get it in their heads to look down on you. They’re unwilling to practice like that; they’d find it too degrading and humiliating, and they think it would make them look incompetent. Is that not a form that despising something takes? This is an actual manifestation, an actual behavior, of despising the truth. People like this aren’t in the minority. They may listen often to sermons, and hold volumes of God’s words in their hands, and do duties in God’s house, but when something happens to them, and they’re told to seek the truth and read God’s words, they find it ludicrous, and feel averse toward it. They can’t accept it; they’re even repulsed by it. That’s why when something happens to them, they use human methods to resolve it, claiming: “Specific matters require specific solutions, and people’s issues are for people to resolve. There’s no need to look for god. God doesn’t have to take care of everything. Besides, there are some things that god can’t take care of. Those are our private affairs, which have nothing to do with god, and nothing to do with the truth. God shouldn’t interfere with our personal freedom, and he shouldn’t interfere with our private affairs. We have the right to make choices—and we have the right to choose how we live, how we comport ourselves, and how we speak. The truth and god’s words are for times of greatest need, for critical times, for times of greatest necessity, when something happens to someone that they can’t resolve, that they have no recourse against—that’s when they’re to bring out god’s words and read them a bit, for relief, to give them a bit of spiritual comfort. That’s more than enough.” It can be seen in this that the attitude such people as antichrists have toward the truth is clearly one that doesn’t acknowledge that the truth can be man’s life, or that God’s words are related to everything that happens to people in their real lives. And less still do they believe the fact that God holds everything of man’s in His hand.

Antichrists despise the truth; this covers a lot of ground. What does it mean to say that antichrists despise the truth? What’s the scope of that? We’ll break it into three items for dissection. It’ll be clearer to you that way. First, they despise God’s identity and essence. Do God’s identity and essence not signify the truth? (They do.) Next, they despise the flesh in which God is incarnate. Are the flesh in which God is incarnate and the work He does not the truth? (They are.) What remains is that they despise the words of God. The first is that they despise God’s identity and essence; the second may be shortened to say they despise Christ; and the third is that they despise the words of God. We’ll go on to dissect each of these on its own.

I. Despising God’s Identity and Essence

We’ll first fellowship on the sort of attitude antichrists have toward God’s identity and essence, which will demonstrate that they despise the truth in this regard. What is an antichrist’s attitude toward God’s identity and His essence? What do they think about those things? How do they define them? How do they regard them? What is entailed in God’s essence? God’s righteous disposition, His almightiness, His holiness, and His uniqueness. As to the fact that His identity is the Creator, that He is sovereign over the fate of all mankind, do antichrists acknowledge it to be so? (No.) How does their not acknowledging that manifest, specifically? (Antichrists won’t accept the people, events, and things that come upon them every day from God; instead, they’ll just over-analyze those issues, and address them with human notions and imaginings.) They’ll address them with human notions and imaginings? The first half of what you said was right: When something happens to an antichrist, they will only over-analyze the issue. The second half, though, where you said that they’ll address things with human notions and imaginings—those are behaviors that ordinary, corrupt people do. What we’re fellowshipping about and exposing here is that antichrists despise the truth and the fact that God’s sovereignty over mankind’s fate. To find evidence for that, you have to find relevant methods and behaviors of antichrists. In point of fact, antichrists do acknowledge, with their words, that “man was made by god, and man’s fate is in god’s hands, so people should submit to god’s dominion”—but is that how they accept it when things happen to them? Those words they speak are quite nice and correct, but that’s not how they practice when something happens to them. It’s their approach and their attitude toward things when something happens to them that reveal the words they say to be catchphrases, not true knowledge. When things happen to them, what sort of views, what thoughts, statements, and attitudes do they have that prove that they have the essence of an antichrist? When something befalls an antichrist, can they accept this fact as their first reaction? To calm down and submit before God, and to accept the environment that God has laid out, whether good or bad, and whether it benefits them or not—is that the sort of attitude they have? Obviously, they have no such attitude. Their first consideration when something happens to them is how it affects their interests and position; then, they scheme up ways to break free of it, to find an exit route, to evade it. Not wishing to take responsibility for the thing, they obliquely look for reasoning and excuses; they use human methods to resolve it, and they use their brains to analyze and address the issue. They’ll even push responsibility off onto others, complaining that this person’s wrong and that one doesn’t do as they’re told, regretting as they do that they were careless and negligent to begin with, that things were as they were to begin with. They obviously have a resistant, evasive, refusing, and unaccepting attitude toward the circumstances that come their way, the circumstances that God orchestrates. Their first reaction to those circumstances is to fight their arrival; their second is to use human methods to smooth them over, to weather the storm by human means, and even to use human means to cover up the facts, and to cover up the losses they incur to the work of the church and the life entry of the brothers and sisters. They put all their mental energies toward using human means to cover up and hide away their evil deeds. They don’t acknowledge the nature of the bad things they’ve done, or which truth principles they violated, even instructing those around them: “Don’t let this stuff get out. Let none of us say anything; no one else can know.” Not only do they not submit and refuse to accept these circumstances—they’ll also strike back, tricking and withholding, trying to cover up what the facts really are, in hopes of making the mountain back into a molehill, to trivialize it, so as not to let their superior leaders or God know about it. This is how antichrists handle things that befall them. Is their way of handling things consistent with the catchphrases they shout? Between the catchphrases they shout and their attitude when things happen to them, which is a revelation of their nature essence? (Their attitude when things befall them.) So, what is that attitude, exactly? Do they have an attitude of submission? Do they have such an attitude that would humbly accept God’s discipline and pruning of them? Do they have a willingness to submit to God’s sovereignty? Are their attitude and genuine behaviors those of true belief that no matter what happens to them, God is the One who holds sovereignty over all that is man’s? (No.) Not in the least. What is their attitude, then? It’s quite evident: They mean to refuse things, to cover things up, and to deceive; they mean to oppose to the end, and not let God act or be sovereign. They think they have the capability and capacity to set everything right. On their turf, no one may intervene in their work or manage them—they must be the greatest. Does the god they believe in still exist in that moment, then? Not anymore—he’s now an empty shell. So, what is their faith in that moment? It’s vague and hollow, and it carries deceit in it. They don’t have genuine faith.

When nothing has happened to an antichrist, they’ll pretend to listen to sermons, read God’s words, and learn hymns. They’ll participate in church life and proactively participate in all the church’s work projects, often saying: “We believe in god, so we have to believe in his sovereignty, and submit to his sovereignty. Everything is in god’s hands, and all he does is good.” Moreover, they’ll often instruct others: “People shouldn’t insist on taking action in their own way. When something happens, they should pray to god, because everything is in his hands.” They shout these catchphrases quite loftily, and their attitude seems quite determined and absolute—but they fall short of expectations in that when something does befall them, the facts as they are, what they genuinely reveal exposes their true stature and their essence, utterly and completely. It exposes them not to believe in the fact of the Creator’s identity and essence, nor in the fact that He is sovereign over all. They’re unwilling to accept these facts, much less acknowledge them. Direr still, they don’t just fail to acknowledge or accept them, but stubbornly remain oppositional to the end. When something happens to them, they’re aggrieved, if not by one thing, then by another. They don’t come before God in a well-behaved and submissive way to seek His desires and His intentions; they don’t submissively come before God, and submit to His sovereignty and arrangements, and accept His orchestrations and sovereignty; and they don’t submissively accept His discipline. Instead, they wish to smooth the thing over with human techniques and schemes, with human means—to quash the thing, to pull the wool over others and over God. They believe that by smoothing the matter over, they’ll effectively have put it to rest—that by smoothing it over, their faults and their corrupt disposition will be covered up, and no one will know of them, or be able to detect anything amiss with the antichrist, or pursue the matter any further. They’ll have accomplished something huge, and then, they’ll be settled. Judging by an antichrist’s words and behaviors, and their deeds and acts, when something happens to them, as well as the essence of their behavior and performance, they’re stubbornly resistant to God’s sovereignty. They’ll obstinately fight it to the end. Whatever they’ve done wrong, they won’t permit God to prune them, or lay out environments with which to discipline them, much less will they permit Him to reveal and expose them. As soon as they’re exposed, as soon as the cat’s out of the bag, they panic, and grow flustered and exasperated; they’ll even turn the tables and preemptively sling accusations, saying that God failed to protect them, that He didn’t bless them, that He’s unfair—why else, when the same things happened to them and someone else, would God not reveal the other person, only them? Why else, when the same things happened, would God not discipline the other person, only them? They’ll even say, “Seeing as god’s not righteous, I’ll have to protect myself with human methods, my own methods.” They believe that god can’t discipline and expose them when they’ve done something wrong, but must cover up for them, giving them the go-ahead at every turn, the easy way out, indulging their every wrongdoing. They believe that that’s what god would do. If God reveals them, and doesn’t treat them with special favor when things happen to them, and doesn’t give them special vision or leadership, they feel that such a God isn’t lovely, that He’s unfit to hold sovereignty over their fate. So, when something happens to them, they don’t want to submit to God and accept all that comes from Him as a created being; instead, they want God to serve them, to give them a leg up in all things, and even not to rebuke or discipline them for any of the transgressions they commit, or for any corruption, rebelliousness, or resistance they reveal. It can be seen in every behavior and manifestation of an antichrist that they don’t have true faith in God. That so-called true faith of theirs is just an attempt to rake in benefits and gain advantages. They don’t submit to God’s orchestrations, but would orchestrate God, wishing to exploit Him into doing all things for them and opening doors for them. They don’t accept God’s sovereignty and arrangements, or His salvation, as a corrupt created being. Instead, they feel that they’re extending God an extraordinary favor by believing in Him, and that God should remember it, and protect them, and unconditionally bless them, and forgive them, no matter what bad thing they’ve done, giving them a special pardon. The sort of people who are antichrists are truly evil. They have no shame at all. They don’t even know the sort of thing they are or who they are, so when something happens to them, they unabashedly offer justifications and excuses, and plead and press their case, and pass the buck, and hide the facts. They oppose God to the end, for fear that if they’re revealed and people see through them, they’ll no longer have status or prestige. Their faith in God stops with their mouth; they expend nothing, and they don’t genuinely submit, much less do they come anywhere near acceptance. Therefore, with regard to the fact of God’s identity, it can be seen in an antichrist’s essence that they are against it at the pit of their heart—they’re unwilling to let God hold sovereignty over their fate and orchestrate all that’s theirs. They don’t want to let God be sovereign—whom would they like to be sovereign? They’d like to have the final say themselves, which implicitly means letting Satan manipulate things, and letting a corrupt disposition and Satan’s corrupt essence be their life, and reign as king in their heart. That’s how it goes. And as for the essence of God—how does an antichrist treat that? An antichrist harbors doubts about the elements that God’s essence includes. They don’t believe; they doubt; they even have notions about all those elements, along with condemnation. At times, they even use their imaginings, knowledge, and brain to analyze and interpret those elements. Some stupid people even believe that their interpretations are quite good, spiritual, legitimate, and practical. That’s more disgusting still.