Relevant Words of God:

Look at the leaders of each denomination—they are all arrogant and self-righteous, and their interpretations of the Bible are taken out of context and guided by their own notions and imaginings. They all rely on gifts and knowledge to do their work. If they could not preach at all, would people follow them? They do, after all, possess some knowledge and can preach some doctrines, or they know how to win others over and make use of some tricks. So they deceive people and bring people before themselves. Nominally, those people believe in God, but in reality, they follow these leaders. When they encounter someone preaching the true way, some of them say, “I have to consult my leader about matters of faith.” See how people even need the agreement and approval of others when it comes to believing in God and accepting the true way—is this not troublesome? What have those leaders become, then? Have they not become Pharisees, false shepherds, and antichrists? Have they not become stumbling blocks to people’s acceptance of the true way?

—The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Part Three

Those who don’t understand the purpose of God’s work are ones who resist God. This is even more the case for those who do understand the purpose of God’s work yet don’t pursue satisfying Him. There are those who read the Bible in grand churches and recite passages all day long, yet not one among them understands the purpose of God’s work, nor are there any among them who can know God—let alone any who can accord with God’s intentions. They are all worthless, vile people, who stand on high to lecture “God.” They are people who act under the banner of God yet deliberately resist God, who bear the label of believing in God while eating the flesh and drinking the blood of man. All such people are evil devils who devour human souls, head demons who deliberately disturb people from embarking on the right path, and stumbling blocks that obstruct people from seeking God. They may appear to be “physically robust,” but how are their followers to know that they are antichrists who lead people to resist God? How are their followers to know that they are living devils dedicated to devouring human souls? Those who believe themselves noble in God’s presence are the lowliest of all, while those who think themselves lowly are the most noble. And those who presume to know the work of God and who can proclaim His work to others without restraint as they set their eyes upon Him are the most ignorant of all. Such people have no testimony to God, and are all arrogant and conceited. Those who believe they know too little of God but who actually do have practical experience and practical knowledge of God are the ones most beloved by Him. Only such people truly have testimony and are truly capable of being perfected by God.

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

Since you believe in God, you must put faith in all of the words of God and in all of His work. Which is to say, since you believe in God, you must submit to Him. If you are unable to do this, then it makes no difference whether you believe or not. If you have believed in God for many years, and yet have never submitted to Him, and do not accept the entirety of His words, and instead ask that God submit to you and act according to your notions, then you are the most rebellious of all, you are a disbeliever. How could such people be able to submit to the work and words of God that do not conform to the notions of man? Most rebellious of all are those who intentionally refuse to yield to God and resist God. They are the enemies of God, the antichrists. They always harbor an attitude of hostility toward the new work of God; they never have the slightest inclination to submit, nor have they ever gladly submitted or humbled themselves. Before others, they are the ones who are the most self-important, and they never submit to anyone. Before God, they consider themselves the best at preaching “sermons,” and the most skillful in doing work on others. Never do they let go of the “treasures” in their possession; instead they treat them as family heirlooms to be worshipped and preached about to others, and they use them to lecture those dimwits who idolize them. There are indeed a certain number of people like this in the church. It can be said that they are “a dynasty of indomitable heroes,” generation after generation sojourning in the house of God. They take preaching “sermons” (doctrines) to be their highest duty. Year after year, generation after generation, they go about rigorously carrying out their “sacred and inviolable” duty. No one dares to touch them; not a single person dares to openly reproach them. They become “kings” in the house of God, running rampant as they tyrannize others from age to age. This pack of evil demons seeks to join hands to demolish My work; how can I allow these living devils to exist before My eyes? Even those who are only half submissive cannot carry on until the end, much less these tyrants without the slightest submission in their hearts! The work of God is not easily gained by man. Even using all the strength they have, people can only gain a portion of it, ultimately allowing them to be made perfect. What, then, of the descendants of the archangel, who seek to destroy the work of God? Do they not have even less hope of being gained by God?

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Those Who Submit to God With a True Heart Shall Surely Be Gained by God

You are able to speak as many pieces of knowledge as there are grains of sand on a beach, yet none of it contains any practical path. Are you not trying to fool people by doing this? Are you not making an empty show, with no substance to back it up? All such behavior is harmful to people! The higher the theory and the more it is devoid of reality, the more it is incapable of taking people into reality. The higher the theory, the more it makes you rebel against and oppose God. Do not cosset spiritual theory—it has no use! Some people have been talking about spiritual theory for decades, and they have become great spiritual figures, but ultimately, they still fail to enter the truth reality. Because they have not practiced or experienced the words of God, they have no principles or path for practice. People like this are themselves without the truth reality, so how can they bring other people onto the right track of faith in God? They can only lead people astray. Is this not harming others and themselves? At the very least, you must be able to solve real problems that are right in front of you. That is to say, you must be able to practice and experience the words of God, and to put the truth into practice. Only this is submission to God. Only when you have life entry are you qualified to work for God, and only when you expend yourself for God sincerely can you be accepted by God. Don’t always make grand statements and talk of bombastic theory; this is not real. Pontificating on spiritual theory to make people admire you is not bearing witness to God, but rather flaunting yourself. It is of absolutely no benefit to people and does not edify them, and can easily lead to them worshiping spiritual theory and not focusing on practicing the truth—and is this not leading people astray? Carrying on like this will give rise to numerous empty theories, as well as to lots of regulations that will constrain and entrap people; it’s truly mortifying.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Focus More on Reality

The reason why the Pharisees are hypocritical, the reason they are wicked, is that they are averse to the truth but love knowledge, so they only study the Scriptures and pursue scriptural knowledge yet never accept the truth or God’s words. They do not pray to God when reading His words, nor do they seek or fellowship on the truth. Instead, they study God’s words, studying what God has said and done, thereby turning God’s words into a theory, a doctrine to teach to others, which is called scholarly study. Why do they engage in scholarly study? What are they studying? In their eyes, this is not God’s words or God’s expression, and even less so the truth. Rather, it is a type of scholarship, or one could even say it is theological knowledge. In their view, to propagate this knowledge, this scholarship, is to propagate God’s way, to propagate the gospel—this is what they call preaching, but all they preach is theological knowledge.

… Pharisees held the theological theories that they grasped as knowledge and a tool with which to appraise and condemn people, even using it on the Lord Jesus. This is how the Lord Jesus was condemned. The way they appraised or treated a person never depended on the person’s essence, nor on whether what the person preached was the truth, and less still on the source of the words the person said—the way Pharisees appraised or condemned a person depended only on the regulations, words, and doctrine they grasped in the Old Testament of the Bible. Although the Pharisees knew in their hearts that what the Lord Jesus said and did was not a sin or a violation of the law, they still condemned Him, because the truths He expressed and the signs and wonders He performed made many people follow and praise Him. The Pharisees were increasingly hateful toward Him, and even wanted to remove Him from the picture. They did not recognize that the Lord Jesus was the Messiah who was to come, nor did they recognize that His words had the truth, less still that His work was in accordance with the truth. They judged the Lord Jesus to be speaking presumptuous words and driving out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons. That they could pin these sins on the Lord Jesus shows how much hatred they had for Him. Therefore, they worked fervently to deny that the Lord Jesus was sent by God, and that He was the Son of God, and that He was the Messiah. What they meant was, “Would god do things in this way? If god were incarnate, he would have been born into a family of formidable status. And he would have to accept tutelage from scribes and from the Pharisees. He would have to study the Scriptures systematically, have a grasp of scriptural knowledge, and be equipped with all of the knowledge in the Scriptures before being able to bear the name of ‘god incarnate.’” But the Lord Jesus was not equipped with this knowledge, so they condemned Him, saying, “Firstly, you are not thus qualified, so you cannot be god; secondly, without this scriptural knowledge you cannot do the work of god, much less can you be god; thirdly, you must not work outside the temple—you are not working in the temple now, but are always among the sinners, so the work you do is beyond the scope of the Scriptures, which makes it even less possible that you are god.” Where did the basis of their condemnation come from? From the Scriptures, from the mind of man, and from the theological education they had received. Because the Pharisees were swollen with notions, imaginings, and knowledge, they believed this knowledge to be right, to be the truth, to be a valid basis, and at no time could God contravene these things. Did they seek the truth? They did not. What did they seek? A supernatural god that appeared in the form of a spiritual body. Therefore, they determined the parameters for God’s work, denied His work, and judged whether God was right or wrong according to the notions, imaginings, and knowledge of man. And what was the end result of this? Not only did they condemn God’s work, they nailed God incarnate to the cross.

—The Word, Vol. 4. Exposing Antichrists. Item Seven: They Are Wicked, Insidious, and Deceitful (Part Three)

Many people hold up God’s words to read day by day, even to the point of carefully committing to memory all the essential passages therein as their most prized possession, and moreover preach God’s words everywhere, providing and aiding others with God’s words. They think that to do this is to bear witness to God, to bear witness to His words, that to do this is to follow God’s way; they think that to do this is to live by God’s words, that to do this is to bring His words into their actual lives, that doing this will enable them to receive God’s approval, and to be saved and perfected. But, even as they preach the words of God, they never comply with God’s words in practice, or try to match themselves up against what is exposed in God’s words. Rather, they use God’s words to trick others into idolizing and trusting them, to engage in their own enterprise, and to fraudulently obtain and steal God’s glory. They hope, vainly, to exploit the opportunity afforded by propagating God’s words so as to obtain God’s work and His approval. How many years have gone by, but not only have these people been incapable of earning God’s approval in the process of “preaching God’s words,” and not only have they been incapable of discovering the way that they should follow in the process of “bearing witness to God’s words,” and not only have they not aided or provided for themselves in the process of “aiding and providing others with God’s words,” and not only have they been incapable of knowing God, or developing in themselves genuine fear of God, in the process of doing all these things; but, on the contrary, their misunderstandings about God grow ever deeper, their suspicion of Him ever graver, and their imaginings about Him ever more hyperbolic. Supplied and guided by their theories about God’s words, they appear as if completely in their element, as if plying their skills with effortless ease, as if they have found their goal in life, their mission, and as if they have won new life and been saved, as if, with God’s words rolling crisply off their tongue in recital, they have gained the truth, grasped God’s intentions, and discovered the path to knowing God, as if, in the process of preaching God’s words, they often have come face to face with God. Also, they are often “moved” to bouts of weeping, and, often led by the “God” in God’s words, they appear to be ceaselessly grasping at His painstaking intentions, and at the same time to have grasped God’s salvation of man and His management, to have come to know His essence, and to have understood His righteous disposition. Based on this foundation, they seem to believe even more firmly in God’s existence, to be more cognizant of His honorableness, and to feel even more deeply His greatness and transcendence. Steeped in superficial knowledge of God’s words, it would appear that their faith has grown, their resolve to endure suffering has strengthened, and their knowledge of God has deepened. Little do they know that, until they actually experience God’s words, all their knowledge of God and their ideas about Him come out of their own wishful imaginings and conjecture. Their faith would not hold up under any kind of test from God, their so-called spirituality and stature would simply not hold up under God’s trial or inspection, their resolution is but a castle built upon the sand, and their so-called knowledge of God no more than a figment of their imagination. In fact, these people, who have, as it were, put a lot of effort into God’s words, have never ever realized what is real faith, what is real submission, what is real consideration, or what is real knowledge of God. They take theories, imaginings, knowledge, gifts, traditions, superstitions, and even the moral values of mankind, and make them into “capital” and “weaponry” for believing in God and following Him, even making them into the foundations of their belief in God and their following Him. At the same time, they also take this capital and weaponry and make them into magic talismans for knowing God, and for facing and dealing with God’s inspections, trials, chastisement, and judgment. In the end, what they garner still consists of nothing more than conclusions about God that are steeped in religious connotation, in feudal superstition, and in all that is mythical, grotesque, and enigmatic. Their way of knowing and defining God is stamped in the same mold as that of people who believe only in Heaven Above, or the Old Man in the Sky, while God’s practicality, His essence, His disposition, His possessions and being, and so forth—all that relates to the real God Himself—are things that their knowledge has failed to grasp, from which their knowledge is completely divorced, and even as far apart as the north and south poles. In this way, although these people live under the “provision and nourishment” of God’s words, they are nevertheless unable to truly embark upon the way of fearing God and shunning evil. The true reason for this is that they have never become acquainted with God, neither have they ever had genuine contact or communion with Him, and so it is impossible for them to arrive at mutual understanding with God, or to develop in themselves genuine belief in, following of, or worship for God. That they should thus regard God’s words, that they should thus regard God—this perspective and attitude has doomed them to return empty-handed from their endeavors, has doomed them to never be able to embark upon the way of fearing God and shunning evil. The goal and direction of their pursuit signifies that they are God’s enemies through eternity, and that they will never be able to receive salvation.

—The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. Preface