As for the words “The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom,” how do you usually practice and experience them? (By submitting to all of God’s words and work.) This is a broad statement, a doctrine. It sounds right, but it’s a little empty. What will you do if you face something that goes against your notions, and you can’t submit? This is a realistic challenge. When this happens, how can these words achieve results and have an effect upon you, restraining your behavior and changing the principles and direction of your actions? For example, say that your stomach hurts and someone says, “Taking painkillers will stop the pain.” You know that this statement is correct, but how do you accept it and put it into practice? Do you take painkillers when your stomach hurts? When do you take them? Is it before or after meals? How many times a day do you take them? How many do you take at a time to stop the pain, and how many days should you take them to get results? Do you know these details? You can only understand these details through applying the statement “taking painkillers will stop the pain” to real life. If you don’t apply it, then no matter how you acknowledge, accept, or approve of this statement, it will only be a phrase of doctrine to you. But if you apply this statement to your real life, treat your ailment, and benefit from it, it will no longer be just an empty statement when you say it, but a practical one. When someone else faces a similar situation, you will be able to use your practical experience to help them. We just mentioned “The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom.” The phrase “the fear of Jehovah” is something that people must put into practice, and “the beginning of wisdom” is the result they gain by practicing the fear of Jehovah. That is, it is only when you’ve practiced the phrase “the fear of Jehovah” and applied it to your real life, and this phrase has helped you, and you’ve benefited from it, that you’ll be able to obtain the result of wisdom. Let’s talk first about how to practice this phrase “the fear of Jehovah.” This phrase touches on all the problems people face in their actual lives, such as their thoughts, ideas, and states, the difficulties they encounter, their notions and imaginings, their misconceptions about God, their suspicions and speculations about Him, as well as the perfunctoriness, trickery, self-righteousness, being a law unto themselves, that people often display in the process of doing their duties, and so on. So, how can you apply the phrase “the fear of God” so that you may change the principles of your actions and comportment? If you go through, experience, and know all of the details of this phrase, it will be a truth to you. If you’ve never gone through these details, and you only know and have heard of the phrase, then it will always be a doctrine to you. It will be a statement in a book, mere words, and not a truth. Why do I say that? It’s because this statement has never changed any of your intentions, your ideas, or your thoughts and views. It has never changed the principles you deal with the world and comport yourself by. It hasn’t changed the attitude you have when you do things or perform your duty, and it hasn’t reversed your state. You haven’t benefited in any way from it. You know all these famous sayings and you can say them, but you only understand the surface of them, and you have no practical experience of them. How is this different from the hypocritical Pharisees? Those pastors and elders of the religious world all focus on reciting and explaining famous chapters and passages of the Bible. Whoever recites the most is the most spiritual, the most admired by all, and the most prestigious and the highest of status. In their real lives, they actually see the world, mankind, and all kinds of humans the same way that worldly people do, and their views haven’t changed at all. This proves something: Those sections of the Bible that they recite haven’t become their lives in any way, they’re plainly just theories and religious doctrines to them, and haven’t changed their lives. If the path that you walk is the same as that of religious people, then you believe in Christianity and not God, and you aren’t experiencing God’s work. Some people who have believed in God for a short time admire those long-term believers who can speak about a lot of spiritual doctrines. When they see those long-term believers sitting down and speaking for two or three hours straight without issue, they start learning from them. They learn those spiritual terms and expressions, and they learn those long-term believers’ ways of speaking and behaving, and then they memorize some classic words of God. They keep this up until one day they finally think that they have something. When it comes time to gather, they start to drone on and on about high-sounding ideas, but if you listen closely, it’s all a lot of nonsense, empty talk, and words and doctrines. It’s clear that they are religious frauds who’ve deceived themselves and others. How tragic this is! Don’t go down that path. As soon as you embark upon it, you will be thoroughly destroyed, and then it’ll be hard to turn back, even if you wish to! If you treat those words and doctrines like they’re treasures and life, and you flaunt them wherever you go, then on top of your corrupt, satanic dispositions, you possess some spiritual theories and some hypocritical things. This isn’t just false, it’s absolutely disgusting. It’s shameless, and it is nauseating and horrible to look at. Right now, we refer to the denominations that followers of the Lord Jesus believe in as Christianity, classifying them as a religion and a religious group. This is because those people believe in God but don’t accept the truth, and they do not practice or experience God’s words, and instead they only hold to religious rituals and formalities, without changing their life dispositions at all. They aren’t people who pursue the truth, and they don’t pursue the truth, the way, and the life that come from God, instead they pursue biblical knowledge, they emulate the Pharisees, and they are hostile toward God. Consequently, this group of people is classified as Christianity. These people who believe in the Lord are all adherents of religion. They do not belong to God’s church, and they are not His sheep. Where does the term “Christianity” come from? It comes from the fact that its adherents pretend to be believers in Christ, they pretend to be spiritual, and they pretend that they’re following God, while they deny all the truths that Christ has expressed, they deny the work of the Holy Spirit, and they deny all of the positive things that come from God. They arm, package, and disguise themselves with things that God has said in the past. They use these things as capital, and employ them at every turn so that they can cheat their way into a meal ticket. Under the guise of believing in God, they dupe people at every turn, they contend with others over how well they can interpret the Bible and over their biblical knowledge, treating these things like glory and capital. They even want to obtain God’s blessings and rewards through trickery. This is the path of antichrists they walk that denies and condemns God incarnate, and it’s precisely because of the path that this group walks that it is classified in the end as Christianity and a religion. Let’s look at the term “Christianity” now—is this a good or a bad title? We can most certainly say that it’s not a good title. It’s a mark of shame and it’s not something proud or glorious.

What’s the main thing you should understand when you pursue life entry? You ought to find what God’s requirements of people are, and how people should experience His work, within all the words that God has spoken—no matter what topic they are on. You should compare your conduct and your ways of handling things, your thoughts and views, and the different states and manifestations you possess when things befall you in your life against God’s words of exposure and judgment. More importantly, you should reflect on yourself and understand yourself, and seek the truth to ascertain the principles of practice. You should find the path of practice through this, learn how to satisfy God’s will while doing your duty, comport yourself wholly according to His requirements, and be an honest person, and a person who practices the truth. Don’t do things like tricking people by speaking about words and doctrines and religious theories. Don’t pose as a spiritual person, and don’t be a hypocrite. You must focus on accepting and practicing the truth, and on using God’s words to compare your states and examine them, and then change the erroneous viewpoints and attitudes with which you treat every sort of situation. Ultimately, you must come to possess a God-fearing heart in every situation, and no longer act rashly, follow your own ideas, do things according to your desires, or live within corrupt dispositions. Instead, all your actions and words must be based on God’s words and on the truth. In this way, you will gradually develop a God-fearing heart. A God-fearing heart arises while one is pursuing the truth; it does not come from restraint. All restraint gives rise to is a kind of behavior; it is a sort of surface-level limitation. A true God-fearing heart is achieved by constantly accepting the judgment and chastisement of God’s words and accepting being pruned while experiencing His work. When people see the true face of their own corruption, they will know the preciousness of the truth, and they will be able to strive toward the truth. The revelations of their corrupt dispositions will grow fewer and fewer, and they’ll be able to live before God normally, eating and drinking of God’s words every day, and doing their duties as created beings. A God-fearing heart and a heart of submission to God arise through this process. All who constantly seek the truth to resolve problems while doing their duties are those with God-fearing hearts. All who have received discipline and experienced being pruned a lot know what it is to fear God. When their corruption is revealed, they not only feel trepidation and dread in their hearts, they can also feel God’s wrath and His majesty. In this situation, fear naturally arises from their hearts. Do you all have any experiential understanding of these things now? (A little.) This needs to deepen gradually. Don’t be satisfied with only a little experiential understanding. You’re in a suitable environment right now, you are listening to a lot of sermons, going to a lot of gatherings, reading a lot of God’s words, and you possess an environment in which to do your duty and all other sorts of conditions. You think that you have fear for God, so your faith has grown, but if you were put into a different environment, would you be able to keep up your current state? Can the truths that you understand now change your perspective on things or your outlook on life and values? If the truths that you understand can’t accomplish these things, then you don’t truly understand the truth. When God’s words become the truths that you understand and your life, then you will have life entry, and you will have entered into the truth reality. This means that practicing the truth will become something you do on your own initiative, you’ll feel that you should innately do things like this. Doing things according to the truth will become natural for you; it will become regular, like a natural revelation. This means that God’s words will have become your life. If you always take the wrong path when you’re faced with something and you always have to self-reflect and have someone help and support you in order for you to get on the right path, then this doesn’t even come close, and you have no stature at all. If no one is there to help and support you, there’s no telling how far you’ll fall as soon as your surrounding environment changes drastically. You may come to deny and betray God in a single night, you may leave God and return back to Satan’s arms overnight. In other words, before you obtain the truth, and before the truth becomes your life, you’re still in danger! It’s not like possessing a bit of faith, being willing to expend yourself, and having a bit of resolve or good aspirations right now prove that you have life. These things are just surface phenomena; this is just wishful thinking. Before your relationship with God improves, you must equip yourself with the truth. You must be able to experience God’s work and some trials and refinement. When true faith in God arises within you, you’ll have true prayer and true fellowship with Him. You’ll be able to tell God what’s in your heart, and when you face something, you’ll feel that you can rely on Him alone and that no one else will do. This is when your relationship with God will be normal. When you have true faith in God, no matter where He puts you, and even if you can’t attend a gathering for several years, your faith in God will remain completely unchanged, just like Job’s. Even though you won’t be attending gatherings and there’ll be no one to preach you sermons, God’s way and God’s words will be in your heart. You won’t leave God, and you’ll be clear about how He leads you each day. You won’t deny God when you encounter His trials, and you’ll even see His deeds in them. At that time, you will be able to be independent. You’re not there yet, you still have many notions and imaginings and adulterations. There are still some disguised things within your actions and the performance of your duty. There’s too much of your own will. You’re still in a period of pretending, you’re still striving to be a spiritual person, to preach spiritual doctrines, and to equip yourselves more with spiritual phrases, terms, and theories. You’re still striving to be a Pharisee and a falsely spiritual person. You’re still seeking to walk down this kind of path and you’re still on this kind of wrong track. This is so far from a person who truly fears God and shuns evil! So then, you must do your best to pursue the truth and experience more judgment, chastisement, trials, and refinement. Only then can these shams, disguises, and abnormal mentalities be completely removed. When these corruptions are cleansed, the relationship between you and God naturally becomes normal.