Question 3: No matter what, pastors and elders all preach based on the Bible. Isn’t explaining the Bible and making people hold on to the Bible exalting and bearing witness to the Lord? Is it wrong for pastors and elders to explain the Bible? How could you say they are hypocritical Pharisees?

Answer: To people, explaining the Bible should not be wrong, but at the same time as explaining the Bible, what they actually do are acts that resist God. What kind of people are these? Aren’t they hypocritical Pharisees? Aren’t they God-resisting antichrists? Why is explaining the Bible resisting God? Why is it condemning God? I find this so strange. Even communicating in this way there are still people who don’t understand and still think that explaining the Bible is exalting and bearing witness to God. The Jewish chief priests, scribes and Pharisees back then were all scripture scholars and experts who often explained the scriptures to people. If explaining the Bible is exalting and bearing witness to God, then why is it that when the Lord Jesus came to preach and work, they instead furiously resisted and condemned the Lord Jesus, and in the end colluded with the government to nail the Lord Jesus to the cross? Modern religious pastors and elders are all people who are familiar with the Bible and have explained the Bible for many years. If explaining the Bible is exalting and bearing witness to God, then why is it that when Almighty God came to express truths and perform His judgment work, they not only failed to seek and investigate, but instead resisted and condemned? What’s the problem here? Isn’t this a serious problem that all believers should reflect on? Furthermore, if religious leaders explaining the Bible is the same as exalting and bearing witness to God, then in the Age of Grace, why is it that the Lord Jesus did not work in the temple when He came? Why is it that Almighty God of the last days doesn’t work in the church when He came? It’s because religious leaders don’t exalt and bear witness to God at all and are all hypocritical, arrogant Pharisees. They are all antichrists who control religion and oppose God! How could they possibly allow God to exist or allow the religious world to have voices that bear witness to God?! If the incarnate Christ came into religion and worked and preached in the church, then He would surely be arrested and handed over to the ruling party and crucified. If people went to religious churches to bear witness to God, then they would surely be arrested and persecuted. As the Lord Jesus said, “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the middle of wolves. …(Mat 10:16) Can people still not see this fact clearly? Based on the fact of religious Pharisees’ resisting and condemning God, we should be able to see clearly whether or not exalting the Bible is bearing witness to God. Can people who truly exalt and bear witness to God resist God? Can they see God as their enemy? Additionally, we should all know that the Bible does not contain only God’s words but also many words of man. Therefore, exalting the Bible and exalting God are not the same thing. Upholding the Bible and upholding the Lord's commandments are not the same thing. When religious Pharisees explain the Bible, they only focus on explaining man’s words in the Bible, explaining Bible knowledge and theological theory, and preaching and bearing witness to man’s words, but do not focus on spreading and bearing witness to God’s words and the truth expressed by God in the Bible. Can this still be said to be exalting and bearing witness to God? Is this not resisting and betraying God? Therefore, all those who think explaining the Bible is exalting and bearing witness to God don’t understand spiritual matters and cannot see through the essence of the problem. They are all confused people, people who worship and blindly believe in and follow religious leaders. Is this not a fact?

Back then, those Jewish Pharisees only focused on explaining Bible knowledge and doctrines, as well as engaging in religious rituals and observing religious rules and human traditions, but instead abandoned God’s commandments and veered off God’s way, such that when the Lord Jesus came, they furiously resisted, condemned the Lord Jesus and nailed Him to the cross. As a result, they were cursed and punished by God. Although today’s religious pastors and elders often explain the Bible and bear witness to the Bible to people, they do not pay attention to spreading and bearing witness to God’s word, or pay attention to preaching the Lord Jesus’ will and His requirements of man, and also rarely bear witness to the Lord Jesus’ divine substance and loveliness. They don’t guide people to practice and experience the Lord’s word, and moreover do not pay attention to how to uphold the Lord’s commandments and follow God’s will. They only focus on explaining and exalting the words of man in the Bible, asking others to treat man’s words in the Bible as God’s words and as the truth to practice and uphold. When they resolve problems it is also mostly based on man’s words in the Bible instead of God’s words in the Bible. They use man’s words in the Bible to reject and resist God’s words. On the issue of entry into the kingdom of heaven, for instance, the Lord Jesus clearly told people: “Not every one that said to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father which is in heaven(Mat 7:21). But pastors and elders instead put the words of the Lord Jesus aside and treat man’s words in the Bible as the truth and as the standard for man’s entry into the kingdom of heaven, teaching people that they only need to toil and work for the Lord to enter the kingdom of heaven. They use man’s words to replace God's words and reject God’s words, and as a result lead people astray. This is the most treacherous, malicious aspect of religious pastors’ and elders’ resistance of God! They interpret the Bible out of context, using man’s words in the Bible to resist and condemn Almighty God, and stopping at nothing to deceive, bind, and control believers, and block them from investigating and accepting Almighty God’s work of the last days, putting them all firmly under their own control. It’s just as Almighty God says, “Look at the leaders of each denomination—they are all arrogant and self-righteous, and their interpretations of the Bible lack context and are guided by their own imaginings. They all rely on gifts and erudition 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 on some doctrine, or they know how to win others over and make use of some artifice. They use these to bring people before themselves and deceive them. Nominally, those people believe in God, but in reality, they follow their leaders. When they encounter someone preaching the true way, some of them say, ‘We have to consult our leader about our faith.’ A human is the medium of their faith in God; is that not a problem? What have those leaders become, then? Have they not become Pharisees, false shepherds, antichrists, and stumbling blocks to people’s acceptance of the true way?(The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only to Pursue the Truth Is Truly to Believe in God). Based on these facts, how can we say that religious pastors and elders explaining the Bible is exalting and bearing witness to God? Are they not taking advantage of the opportunity of explaining the Bible to misinterpret the Bible and take things out of context to resist God? They have long become obstacles and stumbling blocks to people accepting the true way and returning to God, and are precisely the antichrists exposed by the work of Almighty God in the last days. Can people still not see this fact clearly?

According to people’s conceptions, explaining the Bible is the same as exalting and bearing witness to God, but from the Pharisees’ and religious leaders’ explaining of the Bible, we can see that this is not really the case. What religious Pharisees are exalting and bearing witness to is the Bible and not God. Their preaching is mainly explaining man’s words in the Bible and not God’s words. They use man’s words in the Bible to replace and resist God’s words, and take the words of man in the Bible out of context in order to resist and draw conclusions about God. The purpose of their explaining of the Bible is not to exalt and bear witness to God, but to deceive and control people and achieve their despicable purposes. Such explaining of the Bible is resisting God and doing evil! That is why, when God comes to work, they use the Bible to keep a tight grip on people making them blindly believe in the Bible and hold on to the Bible, taking them all on the road to resisting God. This shows that Pharisees’ and religious leaders’ explaining of the Bible is a means of resisting God. They are completely taking the words of man in the Bible out of context to resist and oppose God, to set up their own independent kingdom. Then how should one explain the Bible to be exalting and bearing witness to God? What the Bible records is God’s work and testimonies of God. Explaining the Bible means to exalt and bear witness to God in accordance with God’s words in the Bible and the truths in the Bible. It is to spread and bear witness to God’s words in the Bible. It is to communicate God’s intentions in accordance with God’s requirements and based on God’s words and communicate the truth in God’s words. It is to bring people testimonies of God’s work and His disposition, and to bear witness to God’s essence and His loveliness. It is to lead people to practice and experience God’s words, thus allowing them to achieve entry into the reality of Go’s words. It is to exalt the Lord Jesus and bear witness to Him in all things. Only by explaining the Bible in such ways is one exalting and bearing witness to God, being after God’s heart, and genuinely serving God. The words of man in the Bible can only be used as reference and supplement, and can never be compared to God’s words. Yet religious pastors and elders only care about explaining the words of man in the Bible. They treat the words of man in the Bible as God’s words, as the truth, using it as a guideline for their conduct and behavior, as the basis of the way they handle problems. But they rarely mention God’s words, and they use the words of man in the Bible to replace God’s words and leave God’s words behind. Is explaining the Bible like that bearing witness to God? Isn’t this just exalting and bearing witness to man? Additionally, when they explain the Bible they only focus on explaining theological theory, explaining characters, locations, and historical backgrounds in the Bible to show off. Isn’t this just deceiving and trapping people? Isn’t this making people worship and follow them? Back then, those hypocritical Pharisees took advantage of their opportunity of explaining the Bible to misinterpret the Bible in order to deceive and control people, and in the end they took believers on the road to following man and resisting God, and turned Judaism into a God-opposing independent kingdom. In the last days, religious pastors and elders are also taking advantage of explaining the Bible to make people blindly believe in and worship the Bible, and are using the Bible to replace God’s place in people’s hearts, unwittingly taking believers on the road to betraying the Lord’s word and resisting God, also turning the religious world into a God-opposing independent kingdom, a staunch bastion of resistance to God’s work. Isn’t explaining the Bible like they do resisting and blaspheming God? Isn’t this precisely the deception of the antichrist Pharisees in opposing God and setting up their own independent kingdom? How could it be said to be exalting and bearing witness to God? The cunningness of religious Pharisees in resisting God lies in using their opportunity to explain the Bible to misinterpret the Bible in order to deceive and control people. The Bible was originally a testimony of God. Based on man’s conceptions, they are always bearing witness to God no matter how they explain the Bible, yet the hypocritical Pharisees take advantage of this conception of man, doing their utmost in exalting and bearing witness to the Bible. They use the Bible to replace God and to resist God and deceive people. This makes people all blindly believe in and worship the Bible, and makes people worship and follow Bible scholars like them and thus betray God. This is Satan’s most treacherous, cunning deception to resist God and deceive people, and the aspect that is most difficult for people to see through and the easiest for them to be deceived with.

Let’s take a look at Almighty God’s words: “There are those who read the Bible in grand churches and recite it all day long, yet not one among them understands the purpose of God’s work. Not one among them is able to know God; still less can any one among them accord with God’s will. They are all worthless, vile people, each standing on high to lecture God. They willfully oppose God even as they carry His banner. Claiming faith in God, still they eat the flesh and drink the blood of man. All such people are devils that devour the soul of man, head demons that deliberately get in the way of those trying to step onto the right path, and stumbling blocks impeding those who seek God. They may appear of ‘sound constitution,’ but how are their followers to know that they are none other than antichrists who lead people to stand against God? How are their followers to know that they are living devils dedicated to the devouring of human souls?(The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. All People Who Do Not Know God Are People Who Oppose God). “Most rebellious of all are those who intentionally defy and resist God. They are the enemies of God, the antichrists. Theirs is always 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. They exalt themselves before others and never submit to anyone. Before God, they consider themselves the best at preaching the word, and the most skillful in working on others. Never do they discard the ‘treasures’ in their possession, but treat them as family heirlooms for worship, for preaching about to others, and they use them to lecture those fools who idolize them. There are indeed a certain number of people like this in the church. It can be said that they are ‘indomitable heroes,’ generation after generation sojourning in the house of God. They take preaching the word (doctrine) to be their highest duty. Year after year, generation after generation, they go about vigorously enforcing their ‘sacred and inviolable’ duty. None dare touch them; not a single person dares openly reproach them. They become ‘kings’ in the house of God, running rampant as they tyrannize others from age to age. This pack of demons seeks to join hands and demolish My work; how can I allow these living devils to exist before My eyes?(The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Those Who Obey God With a True Heart Shall Surely Be Gained by God). Evidently, even though religious pastors and elders often explain the Bible, they are not people who understand the truth and know God. They are precisely the hypocritical Pharisees. They are false shepherds and workers who deceive, control, bind and harm people. They lead people to deny Christ, condemn Christ, to the extent of even resisting and opposing God, making them all into Satan’s accomplices and puppets. Anyone with eyes can see that this is the case.

—The movie script of Break Through the Snare

Previous: Question 2: Pastors and elders often read the scriptures and preach to people, pray for brothers and sisters, have love for believers and ask people to hold on to the Bible. If we say they are hypocritical Pharisees, most believers will not be able to see through or distinguish. Then please communicate to us in more detail.

Next: Question 4: Religious pastors and elders often explain the words of man in the Bible, especially the words of Paul, rather than spread the words of the Lord or discuss the intentions of the Lord Jesus. This is a fact. But there is still something I don’t understand. Isn’t all scripture inspired by God? Isn’t everything in the Bible the word of God? Why do you have to distinguish the words of man and the words of God in the Bible so clearly? Aren’t all the words of man in the Bible inspired by God?

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