Item Nine: They Do Their Duty Only to Distinguish Themselves and Feed Their Own Interests and Ambitions; They Never Consider the Interests of God's House, and They Even Sell Out Those Interests, Trading Them for Personal Glory (Part Eight) Section Three
Because of their malicious nature, antichrists do not yield to anybody who pursues the truth. They look down on any leaders and workers who can do some real work, and even label all leaders and workers as false, as if only they themselves are correct, and all others are mistaken. No matter how the truth is fellowshipped to them, they will not accept being pruned at all and will still maintain their own views. If anyone who prunes them fails to completely convince them, they will not accept it. They think being pruned is useless and has nothing to do with the truth. This is their view. They always maintain their own views, so it is very hard for them to accept the truth, and at the same time, they judge and condemn those who prune them. What disposition do antichrists reveal in how they treat being pruned? Can you see what the antichrist’s nature essence is? One of the main strains in the nature of antichrists is viciousness. What does “viciousness” mean? It means that they have a particularly vile attitude regarding the truth—not only failing to submit to it, and not only refusing to accept it, but even condemning those who prune them. That is the vicious disposition of antichrists. Antichrists think that whoever accepts being pruned is vulnerable to bullying, and that people who are always pruning others are those who wish always to tease and bully people. So, an antichrist will resist whoever prunes them, and they will give that person a hard time. And whoever brings up an antichrist’s deficiencies or corruption, or fellowships with them about the truth and God’s intentions, or has them know themselves, they think that person is giving them a hard time and finds them displeasing. They hate that person from the bottom of their heart, and they will take revenge on them and make things hard for them. This is another manifestation of how antichrists treat being pruned which we will fellowship. They hate whoever prunes them and exposes them. This is a very obvious manifestation in antichrists. What sort of people are possessed of such a vicious disposition? Evil people. The fact is that antichrists are evil people. Therefore, it is only evil people and antichrists who are possessed of such a vicious disposition. When a vicious person is faced with any kind of well-intentioned exhortation, accusation, teaching or help, their attitude is not to be grateful or accept it humbly, but instead to become enraged from shame, and to feel extreme hostility, hatred, and to even retaliate. There are some who prune and expose an antichrist by saying, “You have recently been running wild, not acted according to principle, and consistently flaunted yourself while doing your duty. You have been working for the sake of status and making a complete mess of your duty. Have you done right by God? Why have you not sought the truth when doing your duty? Why have you not been acting according to principle? Why have you not accepted it when the brothers and sisters fellowship about the truth with you? Why have you ignored them? Why have you gone on doing as you please?” These several whys, these words that expose their expression of corruption—they get under their skin: “Why? There is no ‘why’—I do whatever I want! What gives you the right to prune me? Who are you to do that? I am willful; what can you do about it? Now that I’ve gotten to this age, nobody dares speak to me like this. Only I can speak this way to others; nobody else can speak to me like this. Who dares to lecture me? The person who can lecture me has not been born yet! Do you really think you can lecture me?” Hatred arises deep in their hearts, and they seek an opportunity for revenge. In their minds they are calculating: “Does this person pruning me have power in the church? If I retaliate against him, will anybody speak up for him? If I make him suffer, will the church deal with me? I have a solution. I won’t retaliate against him personally; I’ll do something in absolute secrecy. I will do something to his family to cause him suffering and embarrassment, that way I will be free of this resentment. I must get my revenge. I can’t let the matter drop now. I didn’t start believing in god so that I could get pushed around, and I didn’t come here to let people bully me as they wish; I came to gain blessings and enter the kingdom of heaven! People need their pride just as a tree needs its bark. People must have the spine to fight for their dignity. How dare you expose me. This is bullying! Now that you don’t treat me like an important figure, I’ll give you hell, and I’ll make you bear the consequences. Let’s fight it out, and see who’s fiercer!” Just a few simple words of exposure enrage antichrists and provoke such great hatred in them, causing them to go to such great lengths for revenge. Their vicious disposition is entirely laid bare. Of course, when they retaliate against another because of hatred, it is not because they have hatred toward or an old grudge against that person, but because that person has exposed their mistakes. This shows that the mere act of exposing an antichrist, regardless of who does so, and regardless of their relationship with the antichrist, can trigger their hatred and instigate their revenge. Regardless of who it is, whether they understand the truth, or whether they are a leader or worker or an ordinary member of God’s chosen people, as long as anyone exposes and prunes the antichrist, they will treat that person as an enemy. They will even openly say, “I’ll go hard on whoever prunes me. Whoever prunes me, exposes the skeletons in my closet, gets me expelled by the house of god, or robs me of my share of blessings, I’ll never leave them be. That’s how I am in the secular world: No one dares give me trouble. The person who dares to bother me hasn’t been born yet!” These are the type of ruthless words antichrists let out when they face being pruned. When they let out these ruthless words, it isn’t to intimidate others, nor are they venting to protect themselves. They are truly capable of doing evil, and they will stoop to any means available to them. This is the vicious disposition of antichrists. When some leaders and workers encounter antichrists such as these, they don’t have the courage to expose them or take action against them, and the antichrists end up becoming even worse. Their evildoing becomes even more brazen, they keep trying to mislead and disturb people, and they wind up misleading and controlling the majority of them. This is what leads to disaster. When some antichrists find out that their evil deeds have been exposed or reported to the higher-ups by the brothers and sisters, they take revenge and hand them in to the great red dragon—they turn them in to Satan’s regime. This is a vicious disposition, is it not? And, given that the antichrists are so vicious, do they truly believe in God? Absolutely not. They are Satan’s minions, and they have come to disturb the church; they are demons that have wheedled their way into the house of God and do nothing but disrupt and undermine the work of God, and they oppose God. So, antichrists are the enemies of God and God’s chosen ones. Treating antichrist demons like the brothers and sisters would be a grave mistake; you’d have to be blind to do such a thing. If an antichrist is watered, fed, and supported as though they were a brother or sister, or if they are promoted and given an important role as though they were someone who pursues the truth, the leader is committing great evil. They are playing a part in the antichrist’s evil, and they should be eliminated. Such false leaders are the accomplices of the antichrists, and it is fair to say that they are themselves antichrists who should be cleared out and expelled.
When antichrists are pruned, their attitude is not one of acceptance and obedience. Instead, they are resistant and averse to it, which generates hatred. They hate deep in their hearts everybody who prunes them, everybody who reveals the skeletons in their closet and exposes their actual circumstances. To what extent do they hate you? They grind their teeth with hatred, wish that you would disappear from their sight, and feel that the two of you cannot coexist. If antichrists are like this with people, then can they accept God’s words which expose and condemn them? No, they can’t. Whoever exposes them, they will hate just for exposing them and being unfavorable to them and they will retaliate. They wish they could make the person who pruned them get out of their sight. They cannot stand to see this person doing well. If this person died or met with disaster, they would be happy; as long as this person is alive and still doing their duty in God’s house, and everything carries on as usual, they feel suffering, unease, and annoyance in their hearts. When they do not have a way to retaliate against somebody, they secretly curse them, or even pray for God to bring punishment and retribution upon that person, and for God to redress their grievances. Once antichrists have generated this hatred, this leads to a series of actions. These actions include retaliation and curses, and of course some other actions, such as framing, slandering and condemning others, which stem from hatred. If someone prunes them, they will undermine that person behind their back. When that person says something is right, they will say it is wrong. They will distort all the positive things that person does and make them negative, spreading these lies and causing disturbances behind their back. They will incite and draw in others who are ignorant and can’t see through things or discern for themselves, so that these people join their side and back them up. Clearly the person pruning them has not done anything bad, but they still want to pin some misdeeds on this person, so that everyone mistakenly believes they do these kinds of things, and then get everyone to come together to reject this person. Antichrists disturb church life in this way and disturb people in the performance of their duty. What is their goal? It is to give the person pruning them a hard time and make everybody abandon this person. There are also some antichrists who say: “You pruned me and gave me a hard time, so I’m not going to give you an easy time of it. I’ll give you a taste of what it’s like to be pruned and abandoned. However you treat me, I will treat you. If you don’t give me an easy time, don’t think that you’ll have an easy time either!” When antichrists do evil, some leaders and workers call on them for a chat, tell them they must repent, and read them God’s words to help and support them. Not only do they not accept it, but they also start rumors that the leader doesn’t do any real work and never uses God’s word to solve problems. In fact, the leader has just done such work, but they turn around and distort the facts and slander the person helping them. Is this not vicious? With their eyes wide open, these evil people and antichrists claim that positive things are negative, that their wrongdoings, mistakes, wicked deeds, and malicious acts are positive things that conform to the truth. However big a mistake they make while doing their duty, however much harm they cause to the work of the church, they do not acknowledge it or take it seriously at all. When they talk about it, they play it down and brush over it. The person pruning them because of this matter becomes a sinner in their eyes and becomes the target of criticism instead. Isn’t this calling white black? Some antichrists even make false countercharges when they are pruned by a leader or a worker, saying: “Whatever mistakes us brothers and sisters make are all caused by ignorance and by leaders and workers failing to do a good job. If the leaders and workers knew how to perform their work, gave us prompt reminders, and managed things well, then wouldn’t the losses to god’s house be reduced? Therefore, no matter what mistakes we make, the leaders and workers are entirely to blame and should assume the greatest responsibility.” Isn’t this making false counterclaims? These false counterclaims are calling white black and a form of retaliation.
Antichrists have extremely vicious dispositions. If you try to prune them or expose them, they will hate you and sink their teeth into you as if they were venomous snakes. You won’t be able to swing or shake them off no matter how hard you try. When you encounter such antichrists, do you feel afraid? Some people do get scared and say, “I don’t dare prune them. They are so fierce, like venomous snakes, and if they wrap their coils around me, I’m finished.” What kind of people are these? They are too small of stature, they aren’t good for anything, they aren’t Christ’s good soldiers, and they cannot bear witness to God. So, what should you do when you encounter such antichrists? If they threaten you or try to take your life, would you be afraid? In such situations, you must quickly unite with your brothers and sisters and stand up, investigate, gather evidence, and expose the antichrist until they are cleared out of the church. This is thoroughly resolving the problem. When you discover an antichrist and clearly identify that they have the features of an evil person and are able to punish and retaliate against others, don’t wait for them to commit evil and gather evidence before you handle it. This is passive and will have already resulted in a few losses. It’s best, when antichrists show that they have the features of an evil person and reveal their sinister and malicious disposition, and they are about to act, to handle, address, clear out, and expel them. This is the most sensible approach. Some people fear retaliation from antichrists and they don’t dare to expose them. Isn’t this foolish? You are unable to safeguard the interests of God’s house, which inherently shows that you are disloyal to God. You’re afraid that an antichrist might find leverage to retaliate against you—what’s the problem? Could it be that you don’t trust in God’s righteousness? Don’t you know that the truth reigns in God’s house? Even if an antichrist manages to get hold of some issues of corruption in you and makes a fuss over it, you should not be afraid. In God’s house, problems are handled based on the truth principles. Making transgressions doesn’t mean that someone is an evil person. God’s house never handles someone because of a momentary revelation of corruption or occasional transgression. God’s house deals with those antichrists and evil people who consistently create disturbances and do evil, and who don’t accept even a smidgen of the truth. God’s house will never wrong a good person. It treats everyone fairly. Even if false leaders or antichrists wrongly accuse a good person, God’s house will vindicate them. The church will never clear out or handle a good person who can expose antichrists and has a sense of justice. People always fear that antichrists will find leverage to retaliate against them. But aren’t you afraid of offending God and incurring His spurning? If you’re afraid of an antichrist finding leverage to retaliate against you, why not seize the proof of that antichrist’s evil deeds to report and expose them? In doing so, you will earn the approval and support of God’s chosen people, and most importantly, God will remember your good deeds and acts of justice. So, why not do this? God’s chosen people should always bear God’s commission in mind. Cleansing evil people and antichrists away is the most crucial fight in the battle against Satan. If this fight is won, it will become an overcomer’s testimony. Battling against Satan and devils is an experiential testimony that God’s chosen people should have. It’s a truth reality that overcomers must possess. God has bestowed so much truth upon people, has led you for such a long time, and has provided so much for you, for the purpose of you bearing witness and safeguarding the work of the church. It turns out, when evil people and antichrists do evil deeds and disturb the work of the church, you become timid and withdraw, fleeing with your arms over your head—you are a good-for-nothing. You cannot overcome Satan, you have not borne witness, and God detests you. In this critical moment, you must stand up and wage war against Satan, expose the evil deeds of antichrists, condemn and curse them, giving them no place to hide and clearing them out of the church. Only this can be counted as gaining victory over Satan and ending its fate. You are one of God’s chosen people, a follower of God. You cannot be afraid of challenges; you must act according to the truth principles. This is what it means to be an overcomer. If you are afraid of challenges and make compromises because you fear retaliation from evil people or antichrists, then you are not a follower of God, and you are not one of God’s chosen people. You are a good-for-nothing, inferior even to service-doers. Some cowards might say, “Antichrists are so formidable; they’re capable of anything. What if they retaliate against me?” This is muddled talk. If you fear retaliation from antichrists, where is your faith in God? Hasn’t God protected you throughout so many years of your life? Aren’t antichrists also in God’s hands? If God does not permit it, what can they do to you? Moreover, no matter how evil antichrists may be, what are they really capable of? Isn’t it all too easy for God’s chosen people to unite and expose and handle them? So why be afraid of antichrists? Such people are good-for-nothings and are not worthy of following God. Go back home, raise your children, and live your life. In the face of antichrists disturbing the work of the church and harming God’s chosen people, how should God’s chosen people respond to their evil deeds? How should those who follow God stand firm in their witness? How should they fight against the forces of Satan and antichrists? Whether you submit and are loyal to God or sit on the sidelines and betray God will be fully revealed when antichrists disturb, do evil, and oppose God. If you are not someone who submits to God and is loyal to Him, then you are someone who betrays Him. There is no other option. Some muddled individuals and those lacking discernment choose to take a middle-of-the-road stance and become fence-sitters. In God’s eyes, these people lack loyalty to God and are betrayers of Him. Some muddled individuals, because of their cowardice, are afraid of antichrists’ punishment, and in their hearts they incessantly ask, “What am I going to do?” This is not the question you should be asking. What should you do? (Fulfill our own duties, fully expose the evil deeds of antichrists, enable our brothers and sisters to learn how to practice discernment, and reject the antichrists. We shouldn’t concern ourselves with our own safety. The most important thing for us to consider is how to fulfill our duty when evil people disturb the work of the church.) What if it affects your family? (We should unhesitatingly fulfill our duty. We shouldn’t discard our duty or fail to stand firm in our testimony because of affectionate concerns for our family’s safety.) Right. First of all, you must stand firm in your witness and fight against the antichrists and evil people to the end, making it so that they have no place to stand in God’s house. If they are willing to labor, let them do so according to rules, and do whatever they are able to do. If they are unwilling to labor, then everybody must unite together and expel them so that they cannot disrupt, disturb, or ruin the work of the church in the house of God. This is the first thing you should do and the witness you should stand firm in. Furthermore, you need to understand that your family and your life are all in God’s hands, and Satan doesn’t dare to act rashly. God has said: “Without God’s permission, it is difficult for Satan to touch even a drop of water or grain of sand upon the land; without God’s permission, Satan is not even free to move the ants about upon the land, let alone mankind, who was created by God.” To what extent are you able to believe in these words? Fighting against antichrists and evil people reveals the size of your faith. If you have a genuine belief in God, then you have true faith. If you only have a little belief in God, and that belief is vague and hollow, then you don’t have true faith. If you don’t believe that God can be sovereign over all this and that Satan is under God’s dominion, and you still fear antichrists and evil people, can tolerate them committing evil in the church, their disturbing and ruining the work of the church, and can make compromises with Satan or beg for its mercy in order to protect yourself, not daring to stand up and fight them, and you have become a deserter, a people pleaser, and a bystander, then you lack a genuine belief in God. Your belief in God becomes a question mark, which makes your belief terribly pitiful! When you see antichrists and evil people causing disturbances and disruptions in God’s house but remain indifferent; when you betray the interests of God’s house and of His chosen people in order to protect your own life, your family, and all your own interests, then you become a traitor, a Judas. This is plain and clear. We often fellowship about and dissect antichrists and evil people, discussing how to discern and recognize them, all for the purpose of fellowshipping clearly about the truth, and of giving people discernment against evil people and antichrists, so that they can expose them. In this way, God’s chosen people will no longer be misled or disturbed by antichrists, and they can break free from Satan’s influence and bondage. However, some people still have philosophies for worldly dealings in their hearts. They don’t try to discern evil people and antichrists; instead, they play the role of people pleasers. They don’t fight against antichrists, don’t set clear boundaries with them, and choose a watered-down, middle-of-the-road approach to safeguard their own interests. They let these devils—these evil people and antichrists—remain in God’s house, inviting peril by nurturing devils. They allow these devils to rampantly disturb the work of the church and the brothers and sisters from doing their duties. What role do such people play? They become a shield for antichrists and accomplices to them. Although you may not do the same things as antichrists or commit the same evil deeds, you have a share in their evil deeds—you are condemned. You tolerate and shelter antichrists, allowing them to wreak havoc around you without taking any action or doing anything. Don’t you have a share in the evil of antichrists? This is why some false leaders and people pleasers become accomplices to antichrists. Anyone who witnesses antichrists disturbing the work of the church but does not expose them or set clear boundaries with them becomes a lackey and accomplice to them. They lack submission and loyalty to God. In the critical moments of battle between God and Satan, they stand on Satan’s side, protecting the antichrists and betraying God. Such people are detestable to God.
When antichrists encounter being pruned, they often show great resistance, and then they start to try their best to argue for themselves, and use sophistry and eloquence to mislead people. This is quite common. The manifestation of antichrists refusing to accept the truth completely exposes their satanic nature of hating and being averse to the truth. They belong purely to Satan’s kind. No matter what antichrists do, their disposition and essence are laid bare. Especially in the house of God, everything they do goes against the truth, is condemned by God, and is an evil deed that resists God, and all of these things that they do fully confirm that the antichrists are Satan and demons. Therefore, they are definitely not happy and certainly unwilling when it comes to accepting being pruned, but in addition to resistance and opposition, they also hate pruning, hate those who prune them, and hate those who expose their nature essence and who expose their evil deeds. Antichrists think that whoever exposes them is simply giving them a hard time, so they compete and fight with anyone who exposes them. Due to this kind of nature of antichrists, they will never be kind to anyone who prunes them, nor will they tolerate or put up with anyone who does so, much less will they feel gratitude or praise anyone who does so. On the contrary, if anyone prunes them and makes them lose dignity and face, they will harbor hatred for this person in their hearts, and will want to find an opportunity to take revenge on them. What hatred they have for others! This is what they think, and they will say openly in front of others, “Today you have pruned me, well, now our feud is written in stone. You go your way, and I’ll go mine, but I swear I’ll get my revenge! If you confess your fault to me, bow your head to me, or kneel down and beg me, I will forgive you, otherwise I will never let this go!” No matter what antichrists say or do, they never see anyone’s kind pruning of them or anyone’s sincere help as the arrival of God’s love and salvation. Instead, they see it as a sign of humiliation, and as the moment when they were most shamed. This shows that antichrists do not accept the truth at all, that their disposition is one of being averse to and hating the truth. Have you ever met any evil people or antichrists who retaliated against others because they were pruned? (Yes.) How did they retaliate? Was their method of retaliation terrible? (Yes, it was terrible. I once met an antichrist who did some evil deeds in the church, and then after the church leader exposed his behavior, he began to spread rumors in the church, saying how this leader didn’t do any real work, and how he spoke words and doctrines to get people to come before him. Afterward, when we went to expose this antichrist, at first he was able to disguise himself, but when we continued exposing him, he threatened us, saying, “Behind my house is a police station, they often come to my house.” His meaning was that if we exposed him again, he would report us to the police. His viciousness was revealed.) (I once encountered an antichrist. A sister had written a letter reporting him, and when he saw this letter, it just so happened that a dangerous situation had arisen in the place where this sister lived, so he gathered all the main co-workers of the church and said, “Why did a dangerous situation suddenly arise where this sister lives after she wrote a letter reporting me? God certainly doesn’t do useless work; perhaps he is going to reveal somebody!” He then said some inflammatory things which led everyone to point the finger at the sister, believing that there was a problem with her. In the end this sister was dismissed and sent away, and her letter was set aside and not dealt with. Afterward, we compared what the antichrist had said from beginning to end and discovered that he had said different things to each of us. We saw that he had been terribly sinister and deceitful. Finally, we distinguished him through fellowshipping, and the matter was dealt with justly.) Now it is confirmed that all antichrists are evil people, and as long as evil people wield power, they are all antichrists.
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