When antichrists are causing disturbances in the church, is that a good thing or a bad thing? (It’s bad.) In what way is it bad? Did God make a mistake? Did God not watch closely, and allow antichrists to infiltrate His house? (No.) Then what is going on? (God allows antichrists to infiltrate the church so that we grow in discernment, learn how to see through their nature essence, never let Satan fool us again, and are able to stand firm in our witness to God. This is God’s salvation for us.) We always speak of how wicked, vicious, and malicious Satan is, that Satan is averse to and hates the truth, but can you see this? Can you see what Satan does in the spiritual realm? How it speaks and acts, what its attitude toward the truth and God is, where its wickedness lies—you can see none of these things. So, no matter how we say that Satan is wicked, that it resists God, and that it is averse to the truth, in your mind, this is merely a statement. There is no true image to it. It is too hollow, and it is impractical; it cannot serve as a practical reference. But when one has come into contact with an antichrist, they see Satan’s wicked, vicious disposition and its essence of being averse to the truth a bit more clearly, and their understanding of Satan is a bit more incisive and practical. Without these real figures and examples for people to come into contact with and see, their so-called understanding of the truth would be indistinct, hollow, and impractical. But when people come into real contact with these antichrists and evil people, they can see how they do evil and resist God, and they can identify the nature essence of Satan. They see that these evil people and antichrists are Satan incarnate—that they are living Satans, living devils. Contact with antichrists and evil people can have such an effect. When Satan incarnates as an evil person or antichrist, the capabilities of its fleshly body are only so great, yet it can still do so many bad things, and cause so much trouble, and be so wicked and insidious in conduct and in deed. Therefore, the evil that Satan in the spiritual realm does must be a hundred or a thousand times greater than the sum of that done by all evil people and antichrists that live in the flesh. So, the lessons people learn by coming into contact with evil people and antichrists are of great help to them developing discernment and seeing the face of Satan clearly. They enable people to learn to discern what things are positive and what things are negative, what is loathed by God and what is pleasing to Him, what is the truth and what is fallacy, what is righteous and what is wicked, what exactly God hates and what exactly He loves, and which people God rejects and eliminates and which He approves of and gains. It is useless to try to understand these questions in terms of doctrines alone. One must experience many things, especially the misleading and disturbance of evil people and antichrists. It is not until one has true discernment that they can understand these many truths and come to a deeper and more practical understanding of what God requires and what He wants to gain. Doesn’t this lead to a greater understanding of God’s intentions? Can’t it make you surer that God is the truth and the One which is most lovely? (Yes.) God has people learn lessons and develop discernment in the course of experiencing things, and He is certainly training people, as well, while also revealing people of each sort. When some people encounter an evil person or an antichrist, they do not dare to expose or identify them, and they do not dare to come into contact with them. They are afraid, and just try to avoid them, as if they had seen a venomous snake. Such people are too spineless to learn lessons, and they will not develop discernment. Some people who encounter an evil person or an antichrist do not pay attention to learning lessons or gaining discernment; they let their hotheadedness guide their treatment of them, and when the time comes to expose and identify an antichrist, they cannot be of use or do anything practical. Some people see an antichrist doing a great deal of evil, and they feel averse toward it at heart, but they feel there is nothing at all that they can do about it, that their hands are tied. They are consequently toyed with arbitrarily by the antichrist, and they keep enduring this and resign themselves to it. They allow the antichrist to act recklessly and disturb the work of the church, and they do not report or expose them. They have failed in their responsibility and duty as humans. In short, when evil people and antichrists wreak havoc and do as they will, this reveals people of all sorts, and of course, it also serves to train those who pursue the truth and have a sense of justice, enabling them to grow in discernment and insight, learn something, and understand God’s intentions from this. Which of God’s intentions do they come to understand? They are made to see that God does not save antichrists, but simply uses them to render service, and that when antichrists are done rendering their service, God reveals and eliminates them, and ultimately punishes them, for they are evil people and of Satan. Those whom God saves are a group of people who, despite their corrupt dispositions, love positive things, and recognize that God is the truth, and submit to His sovereignty and arrangements, and who, having committed a transgression, are able to truly repent. These people can accept being pruned, being judged and chastised, and even more so they can approach it correctly when other people expose them or point out their issues. Those who, no matter how God works, can accept it and submit to it, and learn something from it—such is the group of people who truly follow God, experience His work, and are gained by Him.

This concludes our fellowship on the manifestations of how antichrists treat being pruned. Later, you can find some examples that you have personally seen or experienced, and dissect them and fellowship about them based on their essence, so that the brothers and sisters can gain discernment. What is the goal of them gaining discernment? It is to enable more people to reject antichrists, to obstruct and restrict their evil deeds in the church, and prevent them from causing disruptions and disturbances in the church and important places where people do duties, or causing any losses to the work of the church. This is called shackling antichrists and evil people. Although most antichrists have not publicly judged God or resisted God in the church, they surreptitiously commit a lot of evil. They disturb the church life, and they obstruct and disturb leaders and workers fellowshipping the truth and acting according to the principles. They make thoughtless remarks and arbitrary judgments about the work of God’s house. They even condemn the leaders and workers, mislead God’s chosen people, and cause disturbances to the work of the church, affecting the results of God’s chosen people doing their duties. This is the great evil of disturbing God’s work. God’s chosen people should all know that the evil antichrists do is a great evil, a reprehensible evil that is beyond redemption. Therefore, antichrists are always the objects of shackling and restriction in God’s house. Antichrists must be expelled from the church—this is in accordance with God’s intention. If antichrists are allowed to be willful and arbitrary in a church, to shout any slogans and arguments they wish to control and threaten, or mislead and misguide the brothers and sisters, and the leaders and workers ignore this and do not act, and do not dare to expose or restrict the antichrists for fear of offending them, and this causes the brothers and sisters of that church to be arbitrarily toyed with and disturbed by the antichrists, then the leaders of that church are people pleasers, they are trash who should be eliminated. If the leaders of a church have discernment of antichrists and evil people, and they enable God’s chosen people to stand up and expose them, and clear out the devils to protect the work of God’s house, then this will shame the devils and Satan, and it will also satisfy God’s intention. The leaders of this church are qualified leaders that possess the truth reality. If a church is suffering from the disturbance of an antichrist, and after being identified and rejected by the brothers and sisters, the antichrist frantically retaliates against, oppresses, and condemns the brothers and sisters, if the church leaders do nothing, turn a blind eye, and try not to offend anyone, then those leaders are false leaders. They are trash and should be eliminated. As a church leader, if one is not able to use the truth to solve problems, if they are not able to identify, limit, and sort out the antichrists, if they give the antichrists free rein to do as they wish in the church, to run amok, and if they are unable to protect God’s chosen ones from being misled, are unable to protect God’s chosen ones so that they can normally do their duty—and, moreover, are unable to maintain the normal progress of church work—then that leader is trash and should be eliminated. If the leaders of a church are afraid to expose, prune, limit, and take action against an antichrist because the antichrist is ferocious and cruel, and thus allow them to run wild in the church, becoming a tyrant, doing whatever they want, and paralyzing much of the work of the church, bringing it to a standstill, then the leaders of this church are also trash and should be eliminated. If, because they fear retaliation, the leaders of a church never have the courage to expose an antichrist, and never try to curb the antichrist’s evil deeds, leading to major obstruction, disturbance, and damage to the church life and to the life entry of the brothers and sisters, then the leaders of this church are also trash and should be eliminated. Would you endorse the continued leadership of such people? (No.) So, what should you do when you encounter leaders such as this? You should ask them, “The antichrists commit such great evil, they run wild in the church, they’re trying to take over—are you able to hold them in check? Do you have the courage to expose them? If you don’t dare to take action against them, you should resign. You should waste no time in stepping down. If you protect your own fleshly interests and hand the brothers and sisters over to the antichrists and evil people out of fear of the antichrists, then you should be cursed. You are not fit to be a leader—you are trash, you are a dead person!” Such false leaders should be exposed and dismissed. They do not do real work; faced with evil people, they do not protect the brothers and sisters, but bend their knees to evil people, and make concessions to them, and beg for mercy, dragging out an ignoble existence. Such leaders are trash. They are traitors, and they should be rejected.

Next we will fellowship on another point, that is, how the attitude of antichrists toward their prospects and destiny is exposed when they are pruned. Some antichrists that work in the house of God silently resolve to act scrupulously, to avoid making errors, being pruned, angering the Above or being caught by their leaders doing something bad, and they make sure to have an audience when they do good deeds. Yet, no matter how scrupulous they are, due to the fact that their motives and the path they take are incorrect, and because they speak and act only for the sake of fame, gain, and status and never seek the truth, they often violate principles, disrupt and disturb the church’s work, act as Satan’s lackeys and even often commit many transgressions. It is very common and very typical for such people to often violate principles and commit transgressions. So, of course, it is very difficult for them to avoid being pruned. They have seen that some antichrists have been revealed and eliminated because they have been sternly pruned. They have seen these things with their own eyes. Why do antichrists act so cautiously? One reason, for sure, is that they are afraid of being revealed and eliminated. They think, “I’ve got to be careful—after all, ‘Caution is the parent of safety’ and ‘The good have peaceful lives.’ I must follow these principles and remind myself at every moment to avoid doing wrong or getting into trouble, and I must suppress my corruption and intentions and not let anyone see them. As long as I don’t do wrong and can persevere to the very end, I will gain blessings, evade the disasters, and I will gain something in my belief in god!” They often urge themselves on, motivate and encourage themselves in this way. Deep down, they believe that if they do wrong, their chances of gaining blessings will diminish significantly. Is this not the calculation and belief that occupies the depths of their hearts? Putting aside whether this calculation or belief of antichrists is right or wrong, based on it, what will they be most worried about when being pruned? (Their prospects and destiny.) They associate being pruned with their prospects and destiny—this has to do with their wicked nature. They think to themselves: “Am I being pruned like this because I am going to be eliminated? Is it because I’m not wanted? Will god’s house stop me from doing this duty? Do I not seem trustworthy? Am I going to be replaced with someone better? If I am eliminated, can I still be blessed? Can I still enter the kingdom of heaven? It sounds like my performance hasn’t been very satisfactory, so I must be more careful in the future, and learn to be obedient and well-behaved, and not make any trouble. I must learn to be patient, and survive by keeping my head down. Every day when I do things, I must imagine that I’m walking on eggshells. I can’t let my guard down. Although I have carelessly given myself away this time and been pruned, their tone didn’t sound very strict. It looks like the problem is not very serious, it seems like I still have a chance—I can still escape the disasters and be blessed, so I should just humbly accept this. It’s not as if I’m going to be dismissed, let alone eliminated or expelled, so I can accept being pruned in this way.” Is this an attitude of accepting being pruned? Is this truly knowing one’s corrupt disposition? Is this really wanting to repent and turn over a new leaf? Is this being genuinely determined to act according to the principles? No, it is not. Then why do they act this way? Because of that glimmer of hope that they can evade the disasters and be blessed. As long as that glimmer of hope still exists, they cannot give themselves away, they cannot reveal their true selves, they cannot tell others what is in the depths of their hearts, and they cannot let others know about the resentment they harbor inside. They must hide these things, they must tuck their tails between their legs, and not allow others to see them for who they really are. Therefore, they do not change at all after being pruned, and they carry on doing things as they did before. So, what is the principle behind their actions? Simply to protect their own interests in everything. No matter what errors they make, they do not let others know; they must make everyone around them think that they are a perfect person without faults or defects, and that they never make mistakes. This is how they disguise themselves. After keeping up their disguises for a long time, they feel confident that they are more or less certain to elude the disasters, to be blessed, and to enter the kingdom of heaven. But because they frequently violate the principles in their actions, to their surprise they find themselves being pruned. Being pruned hurts them: “I’ve suffered so much; how can you prune me? Why has the great thing of receiving blessings not happened to me yet? Why is it still so far away from me? When will this suffering end?” And when they hear the words of pruning, they think, “If I am perfunctory again, and don’t pursue the truth, and willfully do evil things that disturb the work of god’s house, then I will be eliminated and expelled. Won’t I lose my prospects and destiny then? All the suffering I’ve undergone in these years of believing in god will all be in vain!” They repeatedly practice patience and self-restraint, and in their hearts they say, “I must endure this! I must endure it! If I do not endure it, all the suffering and injustice I have undergone will be wasted. I have to keep persevering. If I persevere until the very end, I will be saved! If anyone says something unpleasant to me, I’ll just pretend I haven’t heard them. I’ll act as though they aren’t talking about me, but about somebody else.” But no matter how they listen, they still feel that it means they have no destination. They still feel that by being pruned this time they are being condemned; they feel hopeless, unable to see the light of day, with no tomorrow and no future. At this moment, can these evil people and antichrists remain patient? (No, they can’t. They see their hopes of being blessed shattered, so they can’t remain patient.) Are they merely unable to remain patient? Won’t they take action? (Yes, they will.) What actions might they take? (They may spread negativity, and mislead some brothers and sisters who lack discernment into taking their side, coming to their defense and complaining about their grievances.) Correct, once they feel hopeless, they will take action. They will think: “You’re not training me or putting me in important positions anymore, and you also want to eliminate me. If I can’t be blessed then don’t even think about being blessed yourself! If this place won’t keep me, there’s a place for me out there, but if I leave I’m dragging two more people down with me. You’ve been unkind toward me, so I’ll do wrong to you! Didn’t you want to eliminate me? You’ll pay for saying that!” They will take the gloves off and start clamoring, and their nature essence of hating the truth will be exposed. Then their enthusiasm, their forsaking, their expenditures, and their suffering and price-paying will all disappear as their hopes of being blessed are shattered. At that time, people will be able to see that their original enthusiasm for expending themselves for God and their suffering and price-paying were all false and just a sham.

Once antichrists are replaced or eliminated, they take the gloves off and complain without restraint, and their demonic side is exposed. What demonic side is exposed? In the past, they absolutely did not perform their duties in order to pursue the truth and attain salvation, but to gain blessings, and now they tell the truth about this and reveal the real situation. They say: “If I weren’t trying to get into the kingdom of heaven or gain blessings and great glory later, would I have mixed with you people who are lower than dung? Are you worthy of my presence? You don’t train me or promote me, and you want to eliminate me. One day I’ll show you that there’ll be a price to pay for you eliminating me, and the consequences that you’ll suffer because of it!” Antichrists disseminate these ideas, and these devilish words slip out of them. Once they have taken the gloves off, their malicious nature and vicious disposition are exposed, and they start to spread notions. They also start to rope in those who are new believers, who are of relatively small stature and lack discernment, who do not pursue the truth, and who are often negative and weak, and they also rope in those who are consistently perfunctory in their duties and who do not truly believe in God. As they said themselves, “If you eliminate me, I will have to drag several others down with me!” Hasn’t their satanic nature been laid bare? Would normal people do this? Generally, people with corrupt dispositions just feel sad and hurt when they are dismissed, believing themselves to be hopeless, but their consciences make them think: “This is our fault, we haven’t fulfilled our duties. In the future I will strive to do better, and as for how God treats me and what determinations He makes about me, that’s God’s business. People have no right to make demands of God. Aren’t God’s actions based on people’s manifestations? If one walks the wrong path then they ought to be disciplined and chastened, this goes without saying. Right now, the sad thing is that I have poor caliber and cannot satisfy the intentions of God, and that I do not understand the truth principles and act arbitrarily and willfully based on my corrupt dispositions. I deserve to be eliminated, but I hope I’ll have the chance to make up for it in the future!” People with a little conscience will walk a path like this. They choose to consider the issue in this way, and in the end, they also choose to resolve the issue in this way. Of course, there are not many elements of practicing the truth within this, but because these people have consciences, they won’t go as far as resisting God, blaspheming against God, or opposing God. But antichrists are not the same. Because they have a vicious nature, they are innately antagonistic toward God. When their prospects and destiny are threatened or taken away, when they cannot see any chances to live, what they choose to do is to spread notions, to judge the work of God, and to get the disbelievers who are in league with them to disturb the work of God’s house alongside them. They even refuse to take responsibility for any of their past misdeeds and transgressions, as well as any losses they have caused to the work or property of God’s house. When God’s house handles them and eliminates them, they say one sentence that is most often spoken by antichrists. What is it? (If this place won’t keep me, there’s a place for me out there.) Isn’t this another devilish sentence? This is something that a person with normal humanity, a sense of shame, and a conscience could not say. We call them devilish words. These are various manifestations of the vicious dispositions that antichrists reveal when they are pruned and feel that their status and reputation are in danger, that their status and prestige are being threatened, and especially that they’re about to be deprived of their prospects and destiny; at the same time as this, their disbeliever essence is exposed. In reality, God’s house prunes people entirely because they act willfully and arbitrarily in the performance of their duties, thus disrupting and disturbing the work of God’s house, and do not reflect or repent—only then does God’s house prune them. In this situation, does them being pruned mean that they’re being eliminated? (No, it doesn’t.) Absolutely not, people should accept this in a positive manner. In this context, any pruning, whether it be by God or man, whether it comes from leaders and workers or brothers and sisters, is not malicious, and it is advantageous for the work of the church. Being able to prune a person when they have acted willfully and arbitrarily and disturbed the work of God’s house, is a just and positive thing. This is something that upstanding people and those who love the truth should do. But when people who are pruned because they have committed transgressions do not accept it and defy it instead, producing hatred and a retaliatory mindset, this is improper and wicked. So many people perform duties in God’s house—who among them has not experienced being pruned? How many people have become negative and defiant because they were pruned, or have even attempted suicide, feeling that they would not be blessed and that they were hopeless, and have therefore wanted to give up their duty, to be rude and throw tantrums, and have begun to hate others, and even wanted to retaliate against them? There really are not many people like that. Only evil people can do such things. Only evil people can regard being pruned as being treated incorrectly by hotheaded people. Of course, all the pruning which God’s house speaks of is proper, it is all done for the work of the church and individuals’ life entry. It is a positive thing that is in accordance with God’s intention, and entirely in line with God’s word. When antichrists are pruned, they always try to defend their reputation, status, and dignity, linking it to their own interests, and especially linking it to their prospects and destiny. If being pruned is unfavorable to their reputation, status, and dignity, they cannot accept it. If they are pruned severely, and not only does it destroy their reputation, status, and dignity, it also threatens their prospects and destiny, they are even less able to accept it. In short, regardless of who prunes them, antichrists are unable to accept it from God, unable to reflect and know themselves, to learn lessons from being pruned, to achieve true repentance, or to achieve better performance of their duties. Instead, they have conflict in their hearts and adopt an attitude of defiance and refusal to accept it. This is the attitude of antichrists toward being pruned, and it also represents their attitude toward the truth.

When it comes to being pruned, what is the very least that people should know? Being pruned must be experienced to adequately do one’s duty—it is indispensable. It is something that people must face on a daily basis and often experience in order to attain salvation in their faith in God. No one can be apart from being pruned. Is pruning someone something that involves their prospects and destiny? (No.) So what is pruning someone done for? Is it done in order to condemn them? (No, it’s done in order to help people understand the truth and do their duty according to principles.) That’s right. That’s the most correct understanding of it. Pruning someone is a kind of discipline, a kind of chastening, and naturally it’s also a form of helping and remedying people. Being pruned allows you to alter your incorrect pursuit in time. It allows you to promptly recognize the problems you currently have, and allows you to recognize the corrupt dispositions you reveal in time. No matter what, being pruned helps you recognize your mistakes and do your duties according to principles, it saves you from causing deviations and going astray in time, and it prevents you from causing catastrophes. Is this not the greatest aid to people, their greatest remedy? Those with a conscience and reason should be able to treat being pruned correctly. Why can antichrists not accept being pruned? Because they think being pruned comes from man and not from God. They think that whoever prunes them is making life difficult for them and punishing them. Judging from the mentality of antichrists, they refuse to accept being pruned primarily because they do not accept the truth. They cannot learn lessons from being pruned, and they aren’t able to know themselves or seek the truth. This is the source of them not accepting being pruned. There exists such a big problem in their hearts, which confirms that the nature essence of antichrists is averse to the truth and hostile to the truth.

May 2, 2020