Relevant Words of God:

The reason people resist God stems, on the one hand, from their corrupt dispositions; on the other hand, it’s because they do not know God and don’t understand the principles by which He works or what His intentions for people are. These two aspects, taken together, make up the history of man’s resistance to God. Those who have just come to believe in God resist Him because humans have a nature that resists God; for those who’ve believed in God for many years, they resist God because they do not know Him, and on top of that they have corrupt dispositions.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. All People Who Do Not Know God Are People Who Resist God

The work of God is always moving forward, and though the purpose of His work does not change, the method by which He works constantly changes; thus, those who follow God are constantly changing too. The more work God does, the more complete man’s knowledge of God is. Corresponding changes occur, too, in man’s disposition in the wake of God’s work. However, it is because the work of God is ever-changing that those who do not know the work of the Holy Spirit and those absurd people who do not know the truth become people who resist God. Not ever does the work of God conform to the notions of man, for His work is always new and never old, and never does He repeat old work, but rather does work He has never done before. As God does not repeat His work, and man invariably judges God’s current work by the work He did in the past, it has become exceedingly difficult for God to carry out each stage of work of the new age. Man has far too many difficulties! He is too conservative in his thinking! No one knows the work of God, yet everyone delimits it. When he leaves God, man loses life, truth, and God’s blessings, yet neither does he accept life nor truth, much less the greater blessings God bestows upon mankind. All people wish to gain God, yet do not tolerate any changes in God’s work. Those who do not accept God’s new work believe that the work of God is immutable, that it forever remains at a standstill. In their belief, all that is needed to receive eternal saving grace from God is to observe the law, and as long as they repent and confess their sins, the intentions of God will always be satisfied. They are of the opinion that God can only be the God under the law and the God who was nailed to the cross for man; it is their opinion, too, that God should not and cannot exceed the Bible. It is precisely these opinions that have shackled them firmly to the laws of old and nailed them to dead regulations. There are even more who believe that whatever the new work of God might be, it has to be substantiated by prophecies, and that in each stage of such work, all those who follow Him with a “true” heart must also be shown revelations; if not, such work could not be the work of God. It is already no easy task for man to come to know God. Taken in addition to man’s absurd heart and his rebellious nature of self-importance and conceit, it becomes all the more difficult for him to accept God’s new work. Man neither carefully investigates the new work of God, nor accepts it with humility; instead, he adopts an attitude of contempt toward it and awaits revelations and guidance from God. Are these not manifestations of man rebelling against and resisting God? How can such people gain God’s approval?

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. How Can Those Who Have Delimited God in Their Notions Receive His Revelations?

Because there are always new developments in God’s work, there is work that becomes obsolete and old as new work arises. These different types of work, old and new, are not contradictory, but complementary; each stage follows from the last. Because there is new work, the old things must, of course, be eliminated. For example, some of the long-established practices and habitual sayings of man, coupled with man’s many years of experience and lessons learned, have formed all manner and form of notions in the mind of man. That God has yet to fully make His true face and inherent disposition known to man—in combination with the spread, taking place over many years, of traditional theories spanning from the past to the present—has been even more conducive to man forming such notions. It could be said that, over the course of man’s belief in God, the influence of various notions has led to the continual formation and evolution of all sorts of notional understandings of God in people, which has caused many religious figures who serve God to become His enemies. So, the stronger people’s religious notions are, the more they oppose God, and the more they are the enemies of God. The work of God is always new and never old—it never forms regulations; rather, it continually undergoes various degrees of change and renewal. God working in this way is an expression of His inherent disposition. It is also the inherent principle of God’s work, and one of the means of working by which God accomplishes His management. If God did not work in this way, man would not change or be able to know God, and Satan would not be defeated. Thus, in His work, changes continually occur that appear erratic, but which are actually periodic. The way in which man believes in God, however, is quite different. He clings to old, familiar regulations and systems, and the older they are, the more palatable they are to him. How could the foolish mind of man, a mind that is as intransigent as stone, accept so much unfathomable new work and words of God? Man dislikes the God who is always new and never old; he likes only the old God, who is long of tooth, white of hair, and unable to walk. Thus, because God and man each have their own “likes,” man has become the enemy of God. Many of these contradictions still exist even today, at a time when God has been doing new work for almost six thousand years. They are, then, beyond remedy. … God’s intention has always been for His work to be new and alive, not old and dead, and what He has man adhere to varies with the age and period, and is not everlasting and immutable. This is because He is a God who causes man to live and be new, rather than a devil who causes man to die and be old. Do you still not understand this? That you have notions about God and are incapable of letting them go is due to your failure to wrap your head around things—it’s not because there is too little sense within God’s work, nor is it because His work is inconsiderate toward man’s feelings, much less is it because God never attends to His proper work. You cannot let go of your notions because you are too lacking in submission, and because you have not the slightest likeness of a created being; it is not because God is making things difficult for you. You caused all of this, and it bears no relation at all to God; all suffering and disaster is created by man. God’s thoughts are always good: He does not wish to cause you to develop notions, but wishes for you to be renewed and undergo transformation as the ages pass. Yet you do not know what is good for you, and are always either scrutinizing or analyzing. It is not that God is making things difficult for you, but that you lack a heart of fear for God, and your rebelliousness is too great. A tiny created being, daring to take an insignificant bit of what God previously gave, and turn around and use it to attack God—is this not the rebellion of man? Humans, it is fair to say, are utterly unqualified to express their views before God, and less still are they qualified to parade around their worthless, stinking, rotten, archaic verbiage as they wish—to say nothing of those moldy notions. Are they not even more worthless?

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Only Those Who Know the Present Work of God May Serve God

Know that you resist God’s work, or use your own notions to measure the work of today, because you do not know the principles of God’s work, and because of your rash treatment of the work of the Holy Spirit. Your resistance to God and obstruction of the work of the Holy Spirit is caused by your notions and inherent arrogance. It is not because God’s work is wrong, but because you are naturally too rebellious. After finding their belief in God, some people cannot even say with certainty where man came from, yet they dare to make public speeches judging the rights and wrongs of the Holy Spirit’s work. They even lecture the apostles who have the Holy Spirit’s new work, passing comment and making insolent remarks; their humanity is too low, and there is not the slightest reason in them. Will the day not come when such people are spurned by the work of the Holy Spirit, and burned by the fires of hell? They do not know the work of God, but instead judge His work, and also try to instruct God how to work. How can such people who are devoid of reason know God? Man comes to know God during the process of seeking and experiencing; knowledge of God is not gained through the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit in the course of man making arbitrary judgments. The more accurate people’s knowledge of God becomes, the less they resist Him. In contrast, the less people know of God, the more likely they are to resist Him. Your notions, your old nature, and your humanity, character, and moral outlook are the capital with which you resist God, and the more corrupt your morals are, the viler your character is, and the baser your humanity is, the more you are the enemy of God. Those who are possessed of strong notions and who have a self-righteous disposition are even more in enmity of God incarnate; such people are the antichrists. If your notions are not rectified, then they will always be against God; you will never be compatible with God, and will always be apart from Him.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Knowing the Three Stages of God’s Work Is the Path to Knowing God

Do you wish to know the root of why the Pharisees opposed Jesus? Do you wish to know the essence of the Pharisees? They were full of fantasies about the Messiah. What is more, they believed only that the Messiah would come, yet did not pursue the life truth. And so, even today they still await the Messiah, for they have no knowledge of the way of life, and do not know what the way of truth is. How, say you, could such foolish, stubborn and ignorant people gain God’s blessing? Could they behold the Messiah? They opposed Jesus because they did not know the direction of the Holy Spirit’s work, because they did not know the way of truth spoken by Jesus, and, even more so, because they did not understand the Messiah. And since they had never seen the Messiah and had never associated with the Messiah, they made the mistake of clinging to the mere name of the Messiah while opposing the essence of the Messiah by any means possible. These Pharisees in essence were stubborn, arrogant, and did not obey the truth. The principle of their belief in God was: No matter how profound your preaching, no matter how high your authority, you are not Christ unless you are called the Messiah. Is this belief not preposterous and ridiculous? I ask you further: Is it not extremely easy for you to commit the mistakes of the Pharisees of that time, given that you have not the slightest understanding of Jesus? Are you able to discern the way of truth? Can you truly guarantee that you will not oppose Christ? Are you able to follow the work of the Holy Spirit? If you do not know whether you will oppose Christ, then I say that you are already living on the brink of death. Those who do not know the Messiah are all capable of committing acts of opposing Jesus, of rejecting Jesus, of slandering Him. People who do not understand Jesus are all capable of rejecting Him and reviling Him. Even more so, they are capable of seeing the return of Jesus as the misleading of Satan, and the majority of these people shall condemn Jesus returned to flesh. Does not all of this make you afraid? What you face shall be blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, the ripping up of the words of the Holy Spirit to the churches, and the spurning of all the words expressed by Jesus. What can you gain from Jesus if you are so befuddled? How can you understand the work that Jesus does when He returns to flesh on a white cloud, if you obstinately refuse to come to your senses? I tell you this: People who do not accept the truth, yet blindly await the arrival of Jesus upon white clouds, are surely those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, and they are surely the category that shall perish. You merely wish for the grace of Jesus, and merely want to enjoy the blissful realm of heaven, yet you have never obeyed the words spoken by Jesus, and have never accepted the truth expressed by Jesus when He returns to flesh. What will you hold up in exchange for the fact of Jesus’ return upon a white cloud? Is it the sincerity in which you repeatedly commit sins, and then speak your confession, over and over? What will you offer in sacrifice to Jesus who returns upon a white cloud? Is it the capital of the many years of work with which you exalt yourselves? What will you hold up to make the returned Jesus trust you? Is it that arrogant nature of yours, which does not submit to any truth?

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. By the Time You Behold the Spiritual Body of Jesus, God Will Have Made Heaven and Earth Anew

The root cause of man’s opposition and rebelliousness against God is his corruption by Satan. Because of Satan’s corruption, man’s conscience has grown numb, he is morally corrupt, his thoughts are degenerate, and he has a backward mental outlook. Before he was corrupted by Satan, man originally submitted to God and submitted to His words after hearing them. He was originally of sound reason and conscience, and of normal humanity. After man was corrupted by Satan, his original reason, conscience, and humanity all grew numb and were spoiled by Satan. Thus, he has lost his submission and love toward God. Man’s reason has become abnormal, his disposition has become the same as that of a beast, and his rebelliousness against God is ever increasing and growing more grievous. Yet man still neither knows nor understands this, and merely opposes and rebels persistently. The revelations of man’s disposition are the expressions of his reason, insight, and conscience. Because his reason and insight are unsound, and his conscience has grown supremely numb, his disposition is rebellious against God. …

The revelation of man’s corrupt disposition has its root in nothing more than man’s numb conscience, his malicious nature, and his unsound reason; if man’s conscience and reason are able to become normal again, then he will become someone fit for use before God. It is simply because man’s conscience has always been numb, and because man’s reason has never been sound and is growing ever more numb, that man’s acts of rebelliousness against God are multiplying, such that he even nailed Jesus to the cross and shuts his door on God’s incarnate flesh in the last days, and condemns God’s flesh, and sees God’s flesh as lowly. If man had but a little humanity, he would not be so cruel in his treatment of God’s incarnate flesh; if he had but a little reason, he would not be so vicious in his treatment of God’s incarnate flesh; if he had but a little conscience, he would not “give thanks” to God incarnate in this way. Man lives in the era of God become flesh, yet doesn’t thank God for giving him such a good opportunity, and instead curses the coming of God, or completely ignores the fact of God’s incarnation, appearing to be against it and averse to it. Regardless of how man treats the coming of God, God has always been doing His work, without ever tiring of it—even though man has not been the slightest bit welcoming toward Him, and keeps making requests of Him. Man’s disposition has become supremely malicious, his reason has grown supremely numb, and his conscience has been completely trampled by the evil one and long ago ceased to be the original conscience of man.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. To Remain Unchanged in Disposition Is to Be in Enmity to God