C. How Antichrists Treat the Humility and Hiddenness of Christ

How antichrists treat the normality and practicality of Christ manifests in many ways, and we have exposed some specific examples just now. We will conclude our fellowship on this aspect here. Regarding another aspect of Christ—His humility and hiddenness—antichrists still exhibit their unique disposition essence, and they possess the same essential manifestations and approaches as they do in their treatment of Christ’s normality and practicality. They still cannot accept these things from God, or accept them as positive things, instead they despise them, they even mock and condemn them, and then they deny them. It is a three-part series: First, they observe, then they condemn, and finally they deny. These are all habitual actions of antichrists; this is determined by the essence of antichrists. What is humility and hiddenness? It should not be hard to understand in literal terms—it means not liking to show off, not flaunting oneself, keeping a low profile, and remaining unknown. This touches on the disposition of God incarnate and the intrinsic personality of God. Based on appearances, it should not be difficult for people to notice: Christ has no ambition, He does not try to seize power, He has no desire for power, He does not cage people’s hearts, nor does He study mind-reading; Christ speaks simply, plainly, clearly, never using prying words or tricks to coax out people’s true thoughts. If people wish to say something, they may; if not, He does not force them. When Christ exposes people’s corrupt dispositions and various states, He speaks directly and clearly points them out; moreover, Christ’s way of handling things is very simple. Those who have interacted with Me should have this impression, saying, “You are quite straightforward, without any tactics for worldly dealings. Despite having status, You don’t seem to feel a sense of superiority in any group.” This statement is indeed accurate; I do not enjoy being in the limelight or increasing My fame in front of others. If I truly lacked this status and God had not testified to Me, My inherent personality is to stay at the back of crowds, not wishing to make Myself seen, not wanting others to know even if I have some special skills, for if people knew, they would follow Me around, which is troublesome and difficult to handle. So, no matter where I go, as soon as people start following Me around, I look for ways to send them away, discussing matters when necessary, and when it is not, quickly returning them to their proper places to do what they ought to be doing. To corrupted people, this is inconceivable, “We humans love You and support You so much! We are so infatuated with You! Why won’t You accept this affection of ours?” What is this talk? I have said what I should say to you, instructed what I must, so go do what you should be doing, don’t circle around Me, I don’t care for it. In people’s view, they think, “God, having done such great work, do You not often feel self-satisfied too? With so many followers, do You not always feel superior too? Do You not always wish to enjoy special treatment?” I say that I never have felt like that; I am never conscious of having so many followers, I don’t feel superior, and I have no sense of how high My standing is. Tell Me, how ecstatic would a normal person ordinarily be on a daily basis if they were in such a position? Wouldn’t they not know what to eat or wear? Wouldn’t they be floating in mid-air all day? Wouldn’t they always be hoping to have people following them around? (Yes.) In particular, those who possess some abilities would always find ways to hold meetings, to enjoy the feeling of attention and applause during speeches, thinking that it surpasses the joy of eating meat and drinking wine. I wonder, why don’t I feel that way? Why don’t I feel that it is good? Why don’t I care for that feeling? In the world’s music scene, those with a bit of talent, especially those who can sing and dance, are called goddesses, gods, music kings, music queens, and even fathers, mothers, and granddaddies. These are not good titles. Moreover, some people feel dissatisfied when they are called “Xiao^[a] Wang” or “Xiao Li,” thinking that it lowers their seniority, and so they seek ways to change their level of seniority, to get people to call them king or queen in the future. This is the corrupted human race. Some people, after coming to believe in God, say believers should not be as insolent as nonbelievers, that they should not be called god, king, or queen, that they must be low-key and humble. They believe that directly calling themselves Humble is a bit vulgar, that it’s not small or lowly enough, so they call themselves Tiny, Minuscule, Dust, Little, and some even Grain of Sand and Nanometer. They do not focus on the truth but ponder over vulgarity, with names like Little Weed, Sprout, and even Dirt, Mud, Dung, and so on. These names are each more unpleasant and lowlier than the last, but can they change anything? I see that people with these names are also very arrogant, bad, and some are even evil people. Those named thus not only have not become smaller or humbler but remain insolent, wicked, and malicious.

The first time that God became flesh to work on earth, His work was simple and brief, but it was an indispensable and important stage of work for the salvation of mankind. However, after the Lord Jesus was crucified, He came back to life and ascended to heaven, without appearing to mankind again. Why didn’t He appear to mankind again? This is the humility and hiddenness of God. According to normal human logic, God became flesh and suffered for thirty-three and a half years, enduring mankind’s rejection, slander, condemnation, abuse, and so on, and He should have returned among people to enjoy the fruits of His victory and glory after He was crucified and came back to life. He should have lived another thirty-three and a half years or even longer, enjoying mankind worshiping and looking up to Him, and the status and treatment He deserved. However, God did not do this. In this stage of the work, God came quietly and silently, without any ceremony, and unlike humans who seek to make their presence felt whenever they have a bit of ability, God would not want to proclaim to the world, “I am here, I am God Himself!” God did not utter a single word like this for Himself but was quietly born in a stable. Apart from the three wise men who came to worship God, the rest of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ was filled with hardships and suffering, which only ended with His crucifixion. God obtained glory and forgave man’s sins—this means that He performed a great deed for mankind because He helped people escape from sin and the sea of suffering, and He is the Redeemer of mankind. So, it stands to reason that God should have enjoyed mankind’s worship, admiration, and prostration. However, God departed quietly and silently, without making a sound. Over the past two thousand years, God’s work has always been expanding. The process of this expansion has been filled with hardship, bloodshed, and the condemnation and slander of all mankind. But, regardless of mankind’s attitude toward God, He has continued to express the truth and has never given up on His work of saving man. Moreover, during these two thousand years, God has never used clear words to declare Himself, to say that the Lord Jesus is His incarnate flesh, and that mankind should worship and accept Him. God just uses the simplest method, sending His servants to preach the gospel of the kingdom of heaven to all nations and places, allowing more people to repent, come before God, and accept His salvation, and thus obtain the forgiveness of their sins. God has never used any superfluous words to say that He is the coming Messiah; instead, He has proven through facts that all He has done is the work of God Himself, that the salvation of the Lord Jesus is God’s own salvation, that the Lord Jesus redeemed all mankind, and that He is God Himself. In the present incarnation, God came among people in the same manner and form. God’s coming in the flesh is a huge blessing for mankind, an incredibly rare opportunity, and even more so, it is the good fortune of mankind. But what does it mean for God Himself? It is the most painful thing. Can you understand this? The essence of God is God. God, who possesses God’s identity, inherently lacks arrogance, and instead He is faithful, holy, and righteous. By coming among mankind, He must face man’s various corrupt dispositions, meaning that all those people He wishes to save are those He hates and finds disgusting. God lacks an arrogant disposition, wickedness, and deceitfulness, He loves positive things, He is righteous and holy, but what He faces is precisely a group of humans that is opposite and inimical to His essence. What does God give the most? His love, patience, mercy, and tolerance. God’s love, mercy, and tolerance are His humility and hiddenness. Corrupt mankind thinks, “God does such great work, gains such great glory, and He is sovereign over so many things, so why doesn’t He announce or declare Himself?” For humans, this seems as easy as snapping their fingers; when they do a good deed they exaggerate it tenfold, when they do a little bit of good they inflate it by two or three times, infinitely magnifying it, and think that the more detail with which they do so, the better. But these things are not in God’s essence. Regardless of what God does, there’s none of man’s so-called “transactions” to it; God doesn’t want to solicit anything, He does not “seek remuneration” as humans call it. God does not have a desire for status, like corrupt mankind does, He does not say, “I am God; I do what I want, and no matter what I do, you must remember My goodness, you must take the things I do to heart and always commemorate Me.” God lacks precisely this kind of essence; He has no ambition, He does not have the arrogant disposition of corrupt mankind, and He doesn’t declare Himself. Some say, “If You don’t declare Yourself, how can people know You are God? How can they see that You have the status of God?” It’s unnecessary; this is what God’s essence can achieve. God possesses the essence of God; no matter how humble and hidden He is, how secretly He works, how He shows mercy and tolerance to mankind, the ultimate effect of His words, work, actions, and so forth on people is bound to be created humans accepting the sovereignty of the Creator, bowing down to and worshiping the Creator, and willingly submitting to the Creator’s sovereignty and arrangements. This is determined by God’s essence. And what antichrists cannot achieve is precisely this. They have ambitions and desires, as well as arrogant, vicious, and wicked dispositions, they lack the truth, and yet they still want to possess and control people, and to make people submit to and worship them. Judging based on the essence of antichrists, aren’t they wicked? Antichrists contend with God for His chosen people, will God contend with them? Does God have this essence? Does God obtain the worship and submission of created humans by contending for it? (No.) How does He obtain it? Created beings are made by God; only the Creator knows what mankind needs, should possess, and how mankind should live. For instance, say that a person creates a machine. Only its inventor knows its defects and flaws, and how to fix it, whoever attempts to make a counterfeit of the machine does not. Similarly, mankind was created by God; only God knows what people need, only God can save mankind, and only God can transform corrupted humans into true humans. God does all this not by His authority, not by self-declarations, self-justifications, or by suppressing, misleading, or controlling people; God does not use these means and methods, only Satan and antichrists do.

After so much fellowship, what is your understanding of God’s humility and hiddenness? What is God’s humility and hiddenness? Is hiddenness the deliberate concealment of His identity, the intentional hiding of His essence and true circumstances? (No.) Is humility something feigned in an artificial way? Is it self-restraint? Is it pretense? (No.) Some people say, “You are God incarnate, how can someone of such noble status wear such ordinary clothes?” I say I am just an ordinary person, living an ordinary life; everything about Me is ordinary, so why can’t I wear ordinary clothes? Some say, “You are Christ, the incarnate God. Your status is noble—don’t belittle Yourself.” I say, what belittling? I don’t overrate or belittle Myself; I am who I am, I do what I should do, and I say what I should say—what’s wrong with that? Neither overrating nor belittling is correct; overrating is arrogance, belittling is pretense and deceit. Some say, “The incarnate God should have the demeanor of a celebrity, and Your speech and behavior should be elegant. Look at the hairstyles, outfits, and makeup of those powerful women in society, those are the people of status, those are the ones who people think highly of!” I say, what is status? What does it matter if people look up to Me? I don’t care for it; if you look up to Me, I find this disgusting and nauseating. You absolutely must not look up to Me. Others say, “Look at those female entrepreneurs in society, they dress so nobly and elegantly. At one glance, you can see that they are powerful, elite figures—why don’t You learn from them?” Why should I learn something I don’t like? I wear clothes that match My age, why should I pretend? Why should I learn from others? I am Me, who am I pretending for? Isn’t that deception? Tell Me, what kind of likeness, appearance, speech, and behavior should God incarnate have to match His identity? Do you have standards for this? You must have, otherwise, you wouldn’t view Christ in such a way. I have My standards—do My standards go beyond the scope of the truth principles? (No.) Why do some people always have notions about whatever I wear or eat, constantly summarizing and passing verdicts on Me—isn’t that disgusting? Why do they see Me this way? In their eyes, whatever Christ does is wrong, it is all negative, there’s always something fishy going on with it. How wicked they must be! Judging from this series of different identities, different perspectives of God—from the essence of the Spirit of God and God Himself, to the humanity of the incarnate God—there is no arrogance or any of Satan’s ambitions and desires within God’s essence, and even less so is there man’s so-called drive for status. Aside from His own essence, the most prominent feature of what God possesses, from God’s Spirit to His incarnate flesh, is His humility and hiddenness. This humility is not feigned, this hiddenness is not deliberate evasion; this is God’s essence, this is God Himself. Whether God is in the spiritual realm or incarnated as a human, His essence does not change. If someone cannot see that the incarnate Christ possesses the essence of God based on this, what kind of person are they? They lack spiritual understanding, they are a disbeliever. If they look at God’s essence of humility and hiddenness, people think: “God doesn’t seem to have such great authority. Saying that God is almighty doesn’t seem very credible, it’s safer to say God is mighty. Since He doesn’t have such great authority, how can He hold sovereignty over mankind? Since He never displays God’s status and identity, can He defeat Satan? God is said to have wisdom—can wisdom decide everything? Which is greater, wisdom or almightiness? Can wisdom sway almightiness? Can wisdom influence almightiness?” People ponder on this but cannot see through to it or understand it. Some people harbor some doubts in their hearts, and then they gradually digest them, continuously seeking and trying to understand this matter through their experiences, and they unknowingly gain some perceptual knowledge. Only antichrists, after doubting all these aspects of God’s essence, all these manifestations, and all of His actions, not only fail to understand that this is God’s humility and hiddenness, that this is what’s lovable about God, but on the contrary acquire more doubts about God and more severe condemnations of God. They doubt God’s sovereignty over everything, they doubt that God can defeat Satan, they doubt that God can save mankind, they doubt that God’s six-thousand-year management plan can be successfully completed, and even more so, they doubt the fact that God will reveal Himself to all people with His glorification. After doubting these things, what do they do? They deny these things. So, antichrists say, “Christ’s humility and hiddenness mean nothing, they are not worthy of praise or extolment, and they are not god’s essence. Such humility and hiddenness are not things that god possesses; christ’s humility and hiddenness are manifestations of his impotence. In the world, as long as someone has a bit of status, they are crowned king, marquis, or emperor. Christ has established his kingdom and has so many followers, and at the same time the expansion of the gospel work is flourishing—doesn’t that mean christ’s power is increasing? But judging based on his actions, he doesn’t intend to increase his power, or to possess such power. It’s as if he doesn’t have the ability to possess this power, to possess christ’s kingdom. Can I gain blessings by following him, then? Can I become the master of the next age? Can I rule over all nations and peoples? Can he destroy this old world, this corrupt mankind? Looking at christ’s ordinary appearance, how can he accomplish great things?” Such doubts always arise in the hearts of antichrists. Christ’s humility and hiddenness are things that all corrupted humans, especially antichrists, are unable to accept, approve of, or see; antichrists take God’s humility and hiddenness as evidence for their doubts about God’s identity and essence, as evidence and leverage for denying God’s authority, thus denying God’s identity and essence, and the essence of Christ. After denying Christ’s essence, antichrists start to act against God’s chosen people within their jurisdiction, without mercy, without leniency, and without fear, and at the same time, they do not deny or doubt their own abilities, skills, or ambitions in the slightest. Within their sphere of influence, within the sphere where they can act, antichrists stretch out their claws, controlling those they can control, and misleading those they can mislead; they throw Christ and God completely out of consideration, thoroughly breaking with God, Christ, and God’s house.

What are we primarily fellowshipping on when it comes to this item about how antichrists treat Christ’s humility and hiddenness? God’s humility and hiddenness—which people ought to understand—are the most advantageous conditions in the eyes of antichrists for doing whatever they want and establishing an independent kingdom in God’s house. God is hidden in the flesh, and this stage of work in the last days differs in form from that of the Age of Grace. Although God does not perform miracles and wonders in this stage, He has spoken far more words, countless more words. No matter how God works, as long as He is incarnate, tremendous humiliation comes along with Him performing His work. Only a God like this, who possesses a divine essence, can truly humble and hide Himself to become an ordinary person to do His work, because He possesses the essence of humility and hiddenness. By contrast, Satan is absolutely incapable of this. What kind of flesh would Satan wear to do work among humans? First, it would have an imposing appearance, and it would be vicious, deceitful, and wicked; then, it must master various strategies and techniques to toy with and manipulate people, along with various deceitful tricks, it must be ruthless and malicious enough. It must constantly make itself seen among people, and get itself into the limelight everywhere, for fear that someone might not know it, and it must always try to increase its fame and promote itself. When people finally call it king or emperor, it will be satisfied. What God does is exactly the opposite of what Satan does. God keeps exercising patience and hiding, and while He does this, He works His words and His life into people using the mercy and lovingkindness of the Creator, so that people can understand the truth, be saved, and become true created beings with normal humanity and a normal human life. Although what God does is priceless to mankind, God considers it His own responsibility. So, He personally became flesh, and tirelessly provides for, helps, supports, enlightens, and illuminates people like a mother or a father. Of course, He also chastises, judges, chastens, and disciplines people, watching them change day by day, live a normal church life day by day, and grow in life day by day. Thus, all that God does is the reality of positive things. Among mankind, humans praise the prices paid by God, His great power, and His glory, but in God’s words, when has He ever told people: “I have done this and that for mankind, I have sacrificed so much; people must praise and extol Me”? Does God have such demands for mankind? No. This is God Himself. God has never used conditions to make exchanges with people, saying, “I have placed Christ among you, you must treat Him well, listen to His words, submit to Him, and follow Him. Do not cause disturbances or disruptions, do whatever He tells you to do, how He tells you to do it, and when everything is accomplished, you will all be credited.” Has God ever said such a thing? Is this God’s intention? No. On the contrary, it is antichrists who are always trying to use various means to seduce, constrain, control, and master everything about people, to make people leave God to come before themselves. It is antichrists who proclaim and announce everywhere whenever they do some small deed. Antichrists not only cannot understand, accept, praise, or extol God’s humility and hiddenness, instead they also despise and blaspheme these things. This is determined by the disposition essence of antichrists.

Today, we’ve fellowshipped on the three manifestations of how antichrists deny the essence of Christ. Let’s conclude our fellowship on this here. Do you have any questions? (No.) Alright, goodbye!

November 21, 2020

Footnotes:

a. Chinese speakers put “Xiao” before the surname of a person who is younger than themselves.