Relevant Words of God:

In each stage of God’s work there are also corresponding requirements of man. All those who are within the stream of the Holy Spirit are possessed of the presence and discipline of the Holy Spirit, and those who are not within the stream of the Holy Spirit are under the command of Satan, and without any of the work of the Holy Spirit. People who are in the stream of the Holy Spirit are those who accept the new work of God, and who cooperate in the new work of God. If those who are within this stream are incapable of cooperating, and unable to put into practice the truth required by God during this time, then they will be disciplined, and at worst will be forsaken by the Holy Spirit. Those who accept the new work of the Holy Spirit, will live within the stream of the Holy Spirit, and they will receive the care and protection of the Holy Spirit. Those who are willing to put the truth into practice are enlightened by the Holy Spirit, and those who are unwilling to put the truth into practice are disciplined by the Holy Spirit, and may even be punished. Regardless of what kind of person they are, provided that they are within the stream of the Holy Spirit, God will take responsibility for all those who accept His new work for the sake of His name. Those who glorify His name and are willing to put His words into practice will receive His blessings; those who rebel against Him and do not put His words into practice will receive His punishment. People who are in the stream of the Holy Spirit are those who accept the new work, and since they have accepted the new work, they should cooperate appropriately with God, and should not act as rebels who do not perform their duty. This is God’s only requirement of man. Not so for the people who do not accept the new work: They are outside the stream of the Holy Spirit, and the discipline and reproach of the Holy Spirit do not apply to them. All day, these people live within the flesh, they live within their minds, and all that they do is according to the doctrine produced by the analysis and research of their own brains. This is not what is required by the Holy Spirit’s new work, much less is it cooperation with God. Those who do not accept the new work of God are bereft of the presence of God, and, moreover, devoid of the blessings and protection of God. Most of their words and actions hold to the past requirements of the Holy Spirit’s work; they are doctrine, not truth. Such doctrine and regulation are sufficient to prove that the gathering together of these people is nothing but religion; they are not the chosen ones, or the objects of God’s work. The assembly of all those among them can only be called a grand congress of religion, and cannot be called a church. This is an unalterable fact. They do not have the Holy Spirit’s new work; what they do seems redolent of religion, what they live out seems replete with religion; they do not possess the presence and work of the Holy Spirit, much less are they eligible to receive the discipline or enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. These people are all lifeless corpses, and maggots that are devoid of spirituality. They have no knowledge of man’s rebelliousness and opposition, have no knowledge of all of man’s evildoing, much less do they know all of God’s work and God’s present intentions. They are all ignorant, base people, and they are scum that are unfit to be called believers! Nothing they do has any bearing on the management of God, much less can it impair God’s plans. Their words and actions are too disgusting, too pathetic, and simply unworthy of mention. Nothing done by those who are not within the stream of the Holy Spirit has anything to do with the new work of the Holy Spirit. Because of this, no matter what they do, they are without the discipline of the Holy Spirit, and, moreover, without the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. For they are all people who have no love for the truth, and who have been spurned by the Holy Spirit. They are called evildoers because they walk in the flesh and do whatever pleases them under the signboard of God. While God works, they are deliberately hostile to Him, and run in the opposite direction to Him. Man’s failure to cooperate with God is supremely rebellious in itself, so will not those people who deliberately run counter to God particularly receive their just retribution?

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. God’s Work and Man’s Practice

“But I say to you, That in this place is one greater than the temple. But if you had known what this means, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day” (Mat 12:6–8). What does the word “temple” refer to here? To put it simply, it refers to a magnificent, tall building, and in the Age of Law, the temple was a place for priests to worship God. When the Lord Jesus said “in this place is one greater than the temple,” who did “one” refer to? Clearly, the “one” is the Lord Jesus in the flesh, because only He was greater than the temple. What did those words tell people? They told people to come out of the temple—God had already left the temple and was no longer working in it, so people should seek God’s footsteps outside of the temple and follow His steps in His new work. When the Lord Jesus said this, there was a premise behind His words, which was that under the law, people had come to see the temple as something greater than God Himself. That is, people worshiped the temple rather than worshiping God, so the Lord Jesus warned them not to worship idols, but to instead worship God, for He is supreme. Thus, He said: “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.” It is evident that in the eyes of the Lord Jesus, most people living under the law no longer worshiped Jehovah, but were merely going through the motions of sacrificing, and the Lord Jesus determined that this constituted idol worship. These idol-worshipers saw the temple as something greater and higher than God. In their hearts there was only the temple, not God, and if they were to lose the temple, then they would lose their dwelling place. Without the temple they had nowhere to worship and could not carry out their sacrifices. Their so-called “dwelling place” is where they used the false pretense of worshiping Jehovah God in order to stay in the temple and carry out their own affairs. Their so-called “sacrificing” was just them carrying out their own personal shameful dealings under the guise of conducting their service in the temple. This was the reason people at that time saw the temple as greater than God. The Lord Jesus spoke these words as a warning to people, because they were using the temple as a front, and sacrifices as a cover for cheating people and cheating God. If you apply these words to the present, they are still equally valid and equally pertinent. Although people today have experienced different work of God than the people in the Age of Law experienced, their nature essence is the same.

—The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God’s Work, God’s Disposition, and God Himself III

If someone who believes in God adheres to the truth as though it were a set of regulations, is their belief not liable to become an engagement in religious ritual? (It is.) Observing religious rituals is really no different from Christianity—those who do so are merely more advanced and have progressed further in terms of teaching and theory, and are a bit more elevated and advanced in their faith. That is all. If belief in God turns into religious belief, into a study of theology, into a set of regulations or rituals, has it not then turned into Christianity? There is a difference between new and old teachings, but if all you do is understand the truth as doctrine, and you do not know how to practice the truth, much less how to experience God’s work—and if, however many years you believe in God, however many hardships you undergo, however many good behaviors you have, what you have is nevertheless not a genuine understanding of the truth, and you have not gained the truth or entered the truth reality—then is your mode of belief not that of Christianity? Is that not the essence of Christianity? (Yes.) So, what views or states do you have in your actions or the performance of your duty that are similar to those of people in Christianity, or the same as theirs? (We adhere to regulations and equip ourselves with the words and doctrines.) Adherence to regulations, preaching the words and doctrines, regarding the truth as the words and doctrines—what else? (We focus on doing work, not life entry.) You focus only on exerting yourselves, not on gaining life or entering into the truth reality—what else? (We focus on the appearance of spirituality and good behavior.) You’ve said a bit now, so I’ll summarize: to pursue the appearance of good behavior, and to try mightily to wrap oneself in a veneer of spirituality, and to do things that people hold to be correct in their notions and imaginings, things that people tend to endorse—this is a pursuit of false spirituality. Such a person is a hypocrite who stands on their soapbox to preach the words and doctrines, who instructs others to do good deeds and to be good people, who poses as a spiritual person. Yet in their dealings with others and handling of matters, and their performance of their duty, they never seek the truth, but live by satanic dispositions. Whatever befalls them, they go by their own will, putting God off to the side. They never act according to the truth principles; they merely adhere to regulations. They do not understand the truth at all, nor do they understand God’s intentions, or the standards of His requirements for man, or what He will achieve by saving man. They never look seriously into these details of the truth or ask about them. All that these sayings and behaviors of man reveal is the stuff of hypocrisy. Having looked at the true states in such people’s hearts along with their outward behavior, one can be certain that they have nothing of the truth reality, that they are in fact hypocritical Pharisees, that they are disbelievers. If someone believes in God but does not pursue the truth, is their belief genuine? (No.) Can someone who believes in God for however many years, but who does not accept the truth at all, come to fear God and shun evil? (No.) They cannot achieve that. What, then, is the nature of the behavior of such people? What kind of path can they walk? (The path of the Pharisees.) With what do they spend their days equipping themselves? Is it not with words and doctrines? They spend their days arming themselves, dressing themselves up with words and doctrines to make themselves more like the Pharisees, more spiritual, more like people who serve God—just what is the nature of all these deeds? Is it worshiping God? Is it genuine faith in Him? (No, it isn’t.) So, what are they doing? They are deceiving God; they are just going through the steps of a process. They are waving the flag of faith and performing religious rites, attempting to deceive God in order to achieve their aim of being blessed. These people do not worship God at all. In the end, such a group of people will end up just like those within the chapels who supposedly serve God, who supposedly believe in and follow God.

—The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only With Fear of God Can One Tread Upon the Path of Salvation

Those Jewish Pharisees, head priests, and scribes of the Age of Law nominally believed in God, but they turned their backs on His way, and even crucified the incarnate God. Could their belief, then, have gained God’s approval? (No.) God had already designated them as people of the Jewish faith, as members of a religious group. And God likewise sees those today who believe in Jesus as members of a religious group, in that He does not acknowledge them as members of His church or as believers in Him. Why would God condemn the religious world so? Because all members of religious groups, especially the high-level leaders of various denominations, lack a God-fearing heart, nor are they followers of God’s will. They are all disbelievers. They do not believe in the incarnation, much less accept the truth. They never seek, ask after, examine, or accept God’s work in the last days or the truths He expresses, instead going straight to condemning and blaspheming the work of God’s incarnation in the last days. One can see clearly in this that they may nominally believe in God, but God does not acknowledge them as believers in Him; He says that they are evildoers, that none of what they do has the least relation to His work of salvation, that they are nonbelievers who are outside of His words. If you believe in God as you do now, will the day not come when you, too, are reduced to religious adherents? Belief in God from within religion cannot attain salvation—why is this, exactly? If you cannot tell why this is, it shows that you understand neither the truth nor God’s intentions in the least. The most tragic thing that can happen to belief in God is its reduction to religion and its being eliminated by God. This is an unimaginable thing to man, and those who do not understand the truth can never see this matter clearly. Tell Me, when a church has gradually turned into a religion in God’s eyes and become a denomination over the many long years since its inception, are the people in it objects for God’s salvation? Are they members of His family? (No.) They are not. What road is it they walk, these people who nominally believe in the true God, yet are thought by Him to be religious people? The road they walk is one on which they bear the banner of belief in God yet never follow His way; it is one on which they believe in Him yet do not worship Him, and even forsake Him; it is one on which they claim to believe in God yet resist Him, nominally believing in the name of God, in the true God, yet worshiping Satan and devils, and engaging in human operations, and establishing an independent, human kingdom. That is the road they walk. To look at the road they walk, it is apparent that they are a bunch of disbelievers, a gang of antichrists, a group of Satans and devils that set out explicitly to resist God and disrupt His work. That is the essence of the religious world. Does a group of such people have anything to do with God’s management plan for the salvation of man? (No.) Once believers in God, however many they may be, have their mode of faith defined by God as a denomination or a group, then they, too, are defined by God as those who cannot be saved. Why do I say this? A group without God’s work or guidance that does not submit to Him or worship Him at all may nominally believe in God, but it is the priests and elders of religion whom they follow and obey, and the priests and elders of religion are by their essence satanic and hypocritical. Therefore, what those people follow and obey are Satans and devils. In their hearts, they are practicing belief in God, but in fact, they are being manipulated by man, subject to human orchestrations and mastery. So, in essential terms, what they follow and obey is Satan, and devils, and forces of evil which resist God, and the enemies of God. Would God save a gang of people like this? (No.) Why not? Well, are such people capable of repentance? No; they will not repent. They engage in human operations and human enterprises under the banner of faith in God, running counter to God’s management plan for the salvation of man, with the ultimate outcome being that they will be spurned by God. It is impossible that God would save these people; they are incapable of repentance, and as they have been carried off by Satan, God hands them over to it. Does whether one’s faith in God might meet with His approval depend on its longevity of years? Does it depend on the sort of rituals one observes or the regulations one upholds? Does God look at human practices? Does He look at their numbers? (No.) What does He look at, then? When God has selected a group of people, on what basis does He measure whether they can be saved, whether He will save them? It is based on whether they can accept the truth; it is based on the road they walk. Though God may not have told man as many truths in the Age of Grace as He does now, and though they were not as specific, He was then still able to make man perfect, and there were still people who could be saved. So, if the people of the current age, who have heard so many truths and who understand God’s intentions, cannot follow His way or embark on the path of salvation, what will their outcome be in the end? Their final outcome will be the same as that of believers in Christianity and Judaism—like them, they will not be able to be saved. This is God’s righteous disposition. It does not matter how many sermons you have heard or how many truths you have understood—if you still follow man, if you still follow Satan, and you are not able to follow God’s way in the end, nor able to fear Him and shun evil, then such people are those whom God spurns. People in religion may be able to preach a great deal of biblical knowledge, and they may understand some spiritual doctrine, but they cannot submit to God’s work, or practice and experience His words, or worship Him truly, nor can they fear Him and shun evil. They are all hypocrites, not people who truly submit to God. In God’s eyes, such people are defined as belonging to a denomination, to a human group, to a human gang, as Satan’s lodging. Collectively, they are Satan’s gang, the kingdom of antichrists, and God spurns them entirely.

—The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only With Fear of God Can One Tread Upon the Path of Salvation