We haven’t yet finished dissecting the final part of the story “Who Do I Rely On?” that we just talked about. Once a person starts believing in God, they come before God to pray, seek God’s will, accept God’s enlightenment and illumination, accept God’s guidance, and listen to every word uttered from God’s own mouth. During this period, God uses clear words to tell people His will and everything they need to understand. God does not want you to understand doctrines and words, nor does He want you to learn theology. God does not use these words in order to educate you to be a well-behaved person, or a good person, or someone with yearnings and aspirations—God does not want you to be such a person. God wants to use His words to make you understand where people come from, how they should live, and what kind of way they should follow. However, after hearing these words, people think nothing of them, and still hold fast to their own views, and to their own wishes, and even hold fast to their own principles of comportment. For example, some people say: “I was born wanting to be a good person, and I don’t think I’m too far away from being a good person. I don’t do any bad things, I don’t harm or cheat people or take advantage of them, and I’ve become an even better person since I started believing in God. I always tell the truth, I deal with others in a genuine manner, and I obey God and the church’s arrangements when performing my duty—is that not enough?” Do many people have this kind of thinking? Can believers actually meet God’s requirements by relying on this way of thinking? There are many truths that God requires people to understand, and many lessons to be learned. In particular, truths regarding visions are truths that those who believe in God must possess and things that lay a foundation. If they do not even understand these truths, can they achieve salvation? If they only rely on imaginings and feel good about themselves, and do not pursue the truth, are they still qualified to accept God’s judgment and chastisement or His trials and refinement? Can they obtain God’s cleansing and be made perfect by Him? (No.) They surely cannot. The number of people in the church who do not pursue the truth may be more than half, or even more. When you consider this situation, would you think like this: “God has said so much, but people still don’t understand, so why doesn’t God enlighten these ignorant and foolish people? Why doesn’t God say something more, do some more work, and put more effort into them? Why doesn’t the Holy Spirit move them and discipline them so that these ignorant people are no longer ignorant, and the foolish people are no longer foolish? Why doesn’t God do this?” This is wrong. Has God not said enough? Many people say that God says too much, that He speaks in too much detail, and even that He is too repetitive. So, does anyone know why God must speak this way? It’s because people are too intransigent and rebellious, never accepting God’s words and not putting effort into the truth—God won’t force this kind of people. If people don’t accept God’s words, how does God treat them? God never does anything by force, this is the way He works. God has already said so many words that people can’t even read them all, so how can He force people? Why don’t people understand God’s painstaking intentions? The protagonist in the story, who experienced a lifetime of pain, also read God’s words and listened to His sermons, and even spent all her time performing her duty in the church, but in the end, she didn’t understand who exactly she could rely on, or how her wish came about and whether it could come true or not—there must be a problem in that case. In fact, from God’s point of view this is a very simple problem. You just need to change direction and move toward the direction God has given you and the path God has told you, and believe, accept, submit, and practice in a steadfast manner, without any doubts or misgivings. But people cannot do it. They hold on tightly to their own notions, imaginings and hopes, and the delusions concealed within their hearts. They even regard these things as their last straw to clutch at, or even worse, as the foundation on which they rely for their existence, putting aside God’s words and the direction God has given them and ignoring them. So how does God deal with this? If you do not recognize and accept the good things given to you, God takes them away. What has a person gained once these things are taken away? Nothing. Therefore, deep in her heart, this protagonist no longer knew the answers to the questions, “Is God really the One I can rely on? Who can I actually rely on? Who can I rely on to survive, to gain blessings, and to gain my future destination?” She had already become increasingly confused about these questions. In the end, what was the regret that remained deep in her heart? That she had no one to rely on, no one to trust. How tragic and miserable her life was! She was confused about what the significance of the Creator’s arrangements for people in this life is, she didn’t know. After she had gone through life this way, and had reached old age and still could not understand it all, or come to an accurate conclusion, or come up with an accurate direction and goal in life—when she could not gain any of this, what did God do about it? He drew a line under this person’s life. God had already done all that could have been done. God had arranged environments, enlightened and guided her, and even given her the motivation to carry on living when she was most in pain or when she faced desperate situations. God had enabled her to live to this point with the utmost love and support. And for what purpose? To make her turn herself around. What is the purpose of turning oneself around? To understand that there is no one you can rely on, and that you mustn’t rely on anyone, and that you mustn’t try to create a happy life on your own, and that you mustn’t give rise to any wishes, and that, except for the Creator, no one can orchestrate or wield control over your destiny, not even yourself. What is the choice that you should make? Come before the Creator without any words of complaints or prerequisites, listen to what He says, and follow His way. Whether it be pain or illness, this is all part of human life that must be experienced. When a line is about to be drawn under a person’s life and they don’t understand all of this, what else does God do? He no longer does anything, which also signifies that God has given up on them. Why does God no longer do anything? Because the person has always lived in their own notions, and lived in their own desires and persistence, and they have treated everything God has orchestrated with an intransigent, stubborn attitude, and a self-righteous, competitive attitude. Therefore, when a person’s life is about to end and they have passed step by step through these environments or processes that God has laid down, but their knowledge of the Creator has not changed at all, and they have no understanding whatsoever of the destiny of human life, then it is self-evident what their life amounts to, and the Creator will no longer interfere or do anything. This is the way in which God works.

What notions and imaginings arise in people as a result of God’s way of working? When some people see God eliminating others, notions arise in them and they say: “This person has experienced so much pain in their life, doesn’t the Creator take pity on them?” What does taking pity represent? (The giving of grace.) Can the giving of grace determine the person’s destiny? Can it change their destiny? Can it change their views? (No.) Therefore, no matter how many blessings, graces, and material pleasures the Creator bestows on a person, if these things cannot induce or help that person to understand God’s will, or to take the right path in life, and ultimately to take the path that God points out to people, and to understand what all the things that people experience in their life are, then all the work God has done on them will be in vain, and clearly a line will be drawn under the period of life in which that person believed in God. What notions tend to arise in people? “God is tolerant and patient, and His love is powerful and vast. Why can’t He love such a person?” How is God’s love manifested? Does God truly love that person or not? Has God’s love produced any results in that person? When there are no results, how is God’s love manifested? How is God’s disposition manifested? How does God go about His work? In fact, before God does anything, He has already chosen that person, worked on them, and put thought into preordaining their whole life and orchestrating it according to His way. God’s will is behind all of this. Is this not God’s love? (Yes.) This already is God’s love. As that person goes through each process in their life, God shows them mercy and care, protects them, gives them motivation, and lays down some environments, constantly protecting them in completing their mission in this life. During this process, no matter how persistent, stubborn, arrogant, or intransigent they are, God continually helps them to smoothly pass through their life according to God’s way, with the Creator’s love and magnanimity, and God’s responsibility. No matter how many perils and temptations they encounter in their life, or even how many times they feel desperate and want to commit suicide, God guides them through this life according to His way. Without God’s guidance, their life would surely not pass smoothly, because they would be beset by all kinds of enticement, temptation, or peril. So, this is all God’s love. In their notions, people think that God’s love should be free of such pain, tribulations, and such things that are contrary to their feelings. In fact, God is constantly bestowing mercy, grace, and blessings on people in a loving and tolerant way. In the end, He also expresses the truth with great patience and love, so that people understand the truth and gain life. He uses various methods to achieve results, guiding people step by step so that they understand human life and know how to live meaningfully. What is God’s purpose in doing His work this way? Speaking on a shallower level, His purpose is for people to be able to cast off all the pain that befalls them in life, as well as all the pain that they themselves cause; on a more profound level, God’s purpose is to make people live happily, to live out life as normal people, real people, and to live under the Creator’s guidance. However, everyone has freedom. God created free will and the faculty of thought for people. Later, people accepted many things from this world and this society, such as knowledge, traditional culture, social trends, family education, and so on. God has always loathed these things that come from Satan, and exposes them so that people know the absurdity and hypocrisy of these things, and their complete incompatibility with the truth. However, God never isolates people or keeps them away from these satanic things. Instead, He lets people experience them and discern them for what they are, and therein gain correct experiences of life and correct understanding. When the whole process is over and God has done all that He ought to do, people gain as much as they are able to gain. So in this final stage, what notions arise in people? That God has abandoned someone, which makes people feel that God is inconsiderate of their feelings. At which point, people feel that the modicum of warm hope which that person was able to place in God has been shattered, and people feel that this is somewhat cruel. When people feel this sense of cruelty, their notions are also exposed. You want to be a good person and help that person to be saved. Is this useful? That person has believed in God for so many years without pursuing the truth at all and has gained nothing. You want to pity them and help them, but can you supply them with the truth? Can you bestow life on them? You simply cannot do that, so why do you have notions about God? The work that God does is fair and reasonable to everyone. If they personally do not accept the truth and do not submit to God’s work, how can you complain that God doesn’t save them? There are certainly quite a few notions of people here. People harbor so many notions about God’s work, such as: “Since God has done so much, why does He not fully accomplish this last stage? This doesn’t seem to be what God wants to do, nor should it be done by God. Since God has done such great work, He should let all those who believe in Him be saved. Only such an achievement would be the perfect result of God’s work. Why did God eliminate this person? This contradicts God’s love and mercy for people, and people are likely to misunderstand it! Why would God do things this way? Isn’t it slightly inconsiderate of people’s feelings?” This is just the way God’s righteous disposition is. This is the righteous disposition of God. Just experience it and one day you will understand.

What we just talked about just now relates to some of people’s notions and imaginings about God’s work. Some of them are people’s imaginings, and some are people’s demands on God, that is to say, people think that God should do this and God should do that. When God’s work does not conform to your notions and conflicts with your demands or imaginings, you will feel upset and sad, and think that “You are not my God, my God would not be like You are.” If God is not your God, then who is your God? When these things are not resolved, people often live within these states and notions, and in their minds they often adopt these notions and demands to measure God’s work, to judge whether they are doing things right or wrong, and to judge the correctness of the path they are taking—this will lead to trouble. You are following a path that has nothing to do with God’s requirements, so even if you apparently follow God and apparently listen to His sermons and His words, will the final result be to attain salvation? No. Therefore, in order to attain salvation through believing in God, it is not the case that by accepting God’s work and entering into church life, you are certain to be one person within God’s management work, and one of those whom God will save and perfect, and that this means you have already been saved, or that you are sure to be saved. This is not the case. This is just human notions and imaginings, and human reasoning and judgment.

You summarize—what are the human notions involved in this story I just told you? Once you’ve summarized them, just read them out. (God, we have summarized four notions: Firstly, people feel that if they have a wish and pursuits that are reasonable and that do not go too far, God should fulfill them. Secondly, people feel that if God has paid such a great price working on them and yet they still don’t understand, God should do some supernatural work to instantly enlighten them and let them know the right path in life, rather than making them suffer so much hardship in life, and making them grope around on their own and personally experience and put themselves through things. Thirdly, people have notions about God’s righteous disposition. They feel that if God has paid such a great price working on them, ultimately there must be an end result, which is that they must be gained by God. Fourthly, behind people’s belief in God there is something of a mentality of trying one’s luck.) Are there any more? Who can tell Me? (Another notion is that since God has been working all these years and has done such a big job, He should gain some more people, and that if He gains only a few people, it is not God’s work.) That’s five notions. Are there any more? (I’ve thought of one, which is that when people have some special experiences, such as being arrested and persecuted, and in the process have some genuine interactions with God and genuine testimony, they regard it as a kind of capital and think that because they have such experiential testimony, they can win God’s approval and so their chances of survival will be higher.) (Also, people think that the greater their work and the more of a price they pay, the more they will win God’s approval and the more likely they are to be saved.) In other words, people think that the chances of them winning God’s approval are based on how much of a price they pay, and that the two must be directly proportional, rather than inversely proportional or unrelated, and that they must be linked—this is a notion. That’s seven. What else? (There is another aspect, which is that people think that if God wants them to understand the truth, He could enlighten them in order to make them understand, and that He shouldn’t test people, deprive them, or make them suffer, because God loves people, and making them suffer is not love.) This is a notion about God’s love. What other notions are there? (People think that it would be better if God gained everyone. Satan would be humiliated and God would also have gained humankind. But in fact, this is a selfish and despicable way for people to think, and it’s for their own sakes.) They have a perfect imagining of the results of God’s work. This is a notion. Besides that selfish and despicable aim of people, they believe that all of this which God does should have a beginning and an end, and that the outcome must be perfect, and accord with their desires, and be in line with their imaginings, and in line with their longing for beautiful things. However, when God’s work is finished, the facts are often not in line with people’s imaginings, and the outcome of all this may not be as perfect as people imagine. Of course, people don’t want to see that there won’t be many people remaining when God’s work is finished, just as in the Age of Law, when there were few believers like Job who feared God and shunned evil. People feel that the results of God’s work should not be like this, because God is almighty, and this is how they define God’s almightiness. This definition of God’s almightiness is itself a notion, a concept of perfectionism imagined by people, and has nothing to do with what God wants to do and the principles by which God does His work. What other notions are there? (When people believe in God, they don’t reflect on the path they are walking, nor how they can cast off corruption and attain salvation. Instead, they think that God is almighty and that, if God says He will make people change, they will change.) God tells people how to change, but people don’t put His words into practice, and they do not change themselves, and even constantly want to save themselves trouble and want God to change them. This is a kind of hollow imagining, and a kind of notion. Are there any more? (People think that someone who has suffered a lot and hit a lot of walls in their life should have a good outcome in the end, and that God should not give up on them. In the end, when this person is not gained by God and He wants to give up on them, people will adopt the perspective of a “good person” in looking at all these things that God has done, and feel that God’s actions are too inconsiderate of their feelings and too cruel.) What is the problem here? You only described some matters and some of your perceptual understandings, without mentioning that this is a problem of notions. What is people’s main notion here? People think that God saves a person based on how pitiful they are and how much they have suffered. People think that when God finally decides the person’s outcome, He should show His merciful heart, and His magnanimity, tolerance, love, and pity, because this person has suffered so much and their life is so pitiful. No matter whether the person understands the truth or not, and no matter how much they submit to God, people think that God should not consider those things, but that He should rather consider how pitiful the person is, and consider that they have suffered a lot of pain, and consider that they cling so tenaciously to their dream, and make an exception by allowing them to be saved—this is a notion of people. People have many “shoulds,” and use all these “shoulds” to determine what God should do and to define God’s actions. When the facts reveal that God has not done things this way, discord arises between people and God, and misunderstanding about God arises in people. So, is it only misunderstanding? People’s rebelliousness also arises out of this. These are the ills and consequences that notions bring to people.

The focus we are discussing is notions. Through the story we just spoke about, people can see that the protagonist used many notions to measure everything that God had orchestrated, and as a result of everything that happened to the protagonist and the way that God treated her, people develop many thoughts and demands on God—all of which are notions. Tell Me, what other notions do people have? (People think that since God has done such a big job, He should gain more people. But God says that if He can only gain a few people, then that is all He will gain, so people feel that God doesn’t like gaining that many people, and so they stop pursuing.) Notions impact people’s pursuit. A correction must be made here. It’s not that God doesn’t like gaining that many people, He does like it. There is a question here. When God ultimately determines people’s outcome, on what basis does God say that He will no longer work on them, and instead give up on them? God has a standard here, which is also a principle and a bottom line. If you have notions about this standard, principle, or bottom line, or cannot see it clearly, some conflicts with or imaginings about God will arise in you. Some people say, “God put so much effort into her and yet she didn’t change and didn’t let go of her wish, but even held fast to it, and didn’t come before God, so God gave up on her.” Is this the main reason He gave up on her? (No.) What, then, was the main reason? At the end of this story, when the protagonist grew old, although her appearance changed, and she aged as the years went by, and the times changed, what remained unchanged was her wish, and these almost blurred delusions of hers. So what made her keep holding onto such a wish? (An intransigent, rebellious disposition.) That’s right, it was the fact that she didn’t love the truth, didn’t pursue the truth, didn’t accept God’s words, and didn’t practice the truth that caused such a result. Her corrupt dispositions of arrogance, intransigence, and stubbornness made her keep holding onto her own wish and ideals, and stopped her from letting go of her ideals. What caused this? It was caused by her corrupt dispositions. So, whenever God sees a person reaching the end of the road, and their disposition is still intransigent, arrogant and stubborn, what does this mean? In the course of God’s work, although this person appears from the outside to be following God and performing their duty, they do not practice and experience God’s words in everything they do, and in essence they do not have life entry at all. So, do people like this truly accept and submit to God’s work? (No.) That’s right. This results in them finally being abandoned by God. They went through their whole life’s path, and although during life they came before God and comprehended that it was the Creator who orchestrated all of this, and that it is the Creator who arranges people’s destiny, during the period in which they followed God and listened to God’s words, their intransigent, arrogant, and stubborn disposition did not change at all, even at the very end, so this result is self-evident. This is God’s final standard—God’s principle—for giving up on someone. No matter what views people have, or what assessments they make about this principle and this standard of God, He will not be influenced by people and He will do whatever He ought to do. If you don’t engage with this person and don’t understand what this person’s innermost essence is and what their disposition is, but only consider their appearance, you will never understand the principle and root of God’s actions, and you will make judgments about God’s actions and His verdict with regard to this person. Let Me ask you, why would God mete out this kind of treatment to such a pitiful person, someone who has experienced all kinds of pain in life, someone who has experienced a lifetime of pain? Why would God give up on them? This result is something that no one wants to see, but it is indeed a fact and it really exists. What is the reason why God treats them like this? If God had worked on such a person for another ten years, would that person change, judging by their pursuit, their disposition, and the path they take? (No.) If He had worked on them for another 50 years and let them live a little longer, would they change? (No.) Why wouldn’t they change? (Their nature essence determines that they are not someone who pursues the truth, so no matter how many more years they believe in God, they will not change.) Who can say it in a more specific way? (The path they are taking is wrong, it’s not the path of pursuing the truth. This means that no matter how many years they believe in God, it will be pointless. Even if they believe in God for 10 or 20 more years, the path they take and the direction of their life will not change.) That’s exactly how it is. They have notions and imaginings inside them. They don’t pursue the truth, or pursue understanding of the truth, or pursue entry into the truth. All they pursue is the appearance of continually following, but the essence remains entirely unchanged. They believe in God for 10 or 20 years without pursuing the truth, or for 30 or 50 years and still don’t pursue the truth, and what they ultimately reveal and live out never changes. This is determined by their nature essence, and this is just the kind of disposition they have. It has never changed, and their notions and imaginings of God have never changed. So, does God have principles for dealing with such a person like that? Very much so. People always pretend to be good people, thinking how tolerant and great they are. But is your tolerance as great as God’s tolerance? Is your love as great as God’s love? (No.) So what is God’s tolerance? How can you tell that God is tolerant and loving? God uses various ways that are beneficial to people to bring them before Him, to get them to listen to His words and understand His words, and to get them to walk through life and practice in the way He requires. But that person doesn’t accept, and holds fast to their own views right to the very end. So does God give up on them during the course of their experience of life? (No.) God does not give up. In every stage of their life, in everything He does for them and everything He requires them to experience, God takes His responsibility seriously right to the very end. What is God’s purpose in taking responsibility right to the very end? To be able to see a good result, to be able to see a result that is satisfactory and agreeable to the person, so that they can enjoy the true happiness they wish for—this is God’s tolerance. But what is the result that God sees in the end? Does God see the result that He wants to see in the end? (No.) He doesn’t see it, there is already no hope in sight. What does it signify when God sees no hope? It means that God no longer has any hope in this person. In the words of humankind, He is despairing. If there is a glimmer of hope, then God will not give up. This is God’s tolerance and God’s love. God practically exerts His tolerance and love on people, rather than just saying hollow words. In the end, what God sees in this person is that their corrupt disposition has not changed, their stubbornness still persists, and their wish remains at the bottom of their heart. Although the person wants to be blessed, when they come before God, they let go of nothing. Instead, they hold on to this paltry wish for their entire lifetime, and cling to it for their entire lifetime, and grasp it tightly for their entire lifetime. On the surface, the person delivers themselves over to God, and delivers their life and all their relatives to God. But what is the reality? They want to be in charge themselves, in charge of the people around them, in charge of their relatives, and in charge of themselves, and additionally they want them to rely on each other—they don’t really deliver all of this over to God at all. No matter which way you look at it, the path which this person takes is not that of following God’s way, nor is it that of consciously meeting God’s requirements. They do not take the path of following God’s way at all. They have suffered so much and experienced so many extraordinary things in their life, but it still hasn’t made them abandon the beautiful and happy picture of life which they have drawn, nor has it made them reflect in any way. What kind of person is this? People like this are too intransigent. If people don’t pursue the truth and don’t follow the right path in life, then this is the final result. In the end, what God did was already all that He could possibly have done. It has already exceeded people’s imaginings and gone beyond what they can reach. God has given people too much. According to people’s corruption, their disposition, and their attitude toward God, they don’t deserve these things, and don’t deserve these blessings. But does God give up? God does a lot of work before giving up. God unstintingly bestows His love, His mercy, and His grace and blessings on them. But after they have received these things from God, what is their attitude in return? They still avoid Him and stay away from Him, and often inwardly doubt Him, guard against Him, conflict with Him, and give up. Why does the person constantly want to rely on others to create a happy life? They can’t bring themselves to believe in God. They don’t believe that God can lead people onto the right path and make them happy. They always feel that their own path is right. If God could have helped them and led them to fulfill their goals according to the path they have chosen and according to their requirements, they would have accepted and submitted. However, God expresses the truth to make people return to Him, so that they can accept the truth and live out a meaningful life, and this is at odds with the person’s notions. Therefore, they want to go their own way and live their own life. They think that they just have to rely on themselves and on others, and that they can’t achieve their goals by relying on God. Because people don’t understand God’s will and only hold onto their own notions, they stray further and further away from God. Only those who see that God is the truth, the way, and the life, and who see that people are corrupt in the extreme and in need of God’s salvation, and who see that only everything that God does is the truth, and that it is all for the sake of saving humankind from Satan’s influence and bringing humankind to a beautiful destination—only such people can look up to God, rely on Him, follow Him to the end, and never leave Him.

What we just fellowshipped on was God’s attitude toward a person, and also the various ways in which God works among people and on people. If people develop notions about these things, they should often examine, reflect, understand, and then turn themselves around. What is the purpose of turning oneself around? If people realize that these are notions and imaginings, and realize how God actually does things, are they still likely to develop some even more wrong and distorted notions about God? It’s still possible, because people are rebellious and have active thoughts, so they are likely to develop all sorts of different notions about God. One notion gives rise to another, which in turn gives rise to others, and all sorts of notions constantly emerge. At the same time that they are developing notions about God, people are continually misunderstanding Him, as well as reflecting, and then continually understanding the truth, and in this process they gradually come to know God. What is the reason why people cannot achieve knowledge of God? They don’t know what notions are, and don’t recognize the notions within themselves, nor do they reflect on their notions, or ever let go of them. They only focus on holding onto them, and never make the effort to learn or understand how God works, or what the essence of God’s work is. In this way, in addition to people’s corrupt dispositions, yet another thing comes between God and people that also affects people’s salvation. Therefore, while dealing with their own corrupt dispositions, people need to gain a finer and more detailed understanding of what human notions are. What is the purpose of understanding and resolving human notions? Is it to let go of them? It is so that people can enter the truth reality as quickly as possible, understand what exactly it is that God wants people to enter, and understand how God does things. If God did things in the way you imagine, could God’s work on you be effective? No, it couldn’t. For example, there are some things that God never enlightens you about. Instead, He stipulates in explicit terms how to do them, and you just need to go and do them. But you always wait for God to move and enlighten you, and as a result, this waiting delays the work, you don’t fulfill your duty properly, and you end up getting replaced. What caused this? (Notions.) Looking at it now, do people’s notions affect their entry? (Yes.) To what extent do they affect it? At the very least, they affect people’s understanding of the truth and their entry into reality; at worst, they affect people’s correct choices and easily lead them to take the wrong path. People are most likely to misunderstand God when they have notions. For example, God prunes, judges, and chastises them entirely in order to achieve positive results, so that people gain a better understanding of themselves and truly repent. However, people think that God is intentionally standing against them, and that He deliberately wants to reveal and eliminate them. No matter what God says or does, they always think the worst of Him, and believe that God has no love for them, and that they even treat those who practice the truth as fools. God shows people the right path and allows them to practice the truth and live in the light, but they choose instead to live in the darkness according to satanic philosophies and satanic logic. Thus, the path they are walking is not the path of salvation. If you insist on going against God, are you not straying further and further away from God’s work? As you stray further and further away from the path of salvation, you will be utterly eliminated. There is a saying in the Bible: “Fools die for want of wisdom” (Proverbs 10:21). Is death serious? In the context of the last days, dying is not serious, but perishing is serious. Dying doesn’t mean perishing, whereas perishing necessarily means not having an outcome—being dead forever. In the past, it was said that people could die from foolishness. But nowadays, foolishness isn’t a big deal. Who doesn’t do foolish things? Dying isn’t a big deal either, because dying doesn’t necessarily mean perishing. So, why do people perish? People perish because of their stubbornness and obstinacy, which is much more serious than dying from foolishness, because there is no outcome. Why do I say that stubbornness and obstinacy can lead to people perishing? This relates to the issue of the path that people take. What kind of disposition is stubbornness? Intransigence. Having an intransigent disposition is very troublesome. Sometimes people don’t understand and just want to do things this way, whereas sometimes they understand but still want to do things this way, without following God’s requirements. In addition, obstinacy is also a kind of disposition—that is to say, imperviousness to reason—and it involves arrogance and viciousness. If these two dispositions do not change, they may eventually cause a person to perish. Is this a simple matter? Can you apply it to yourself? You should understand what arrogant and vicious dispositions can lead people to do. Everything that people do, no matter who they are, is done in front of God, the Creator, and God will pass verdicts on people according to His righteous disposition. So, for people with arrogant and vicious dispositions, what are the consequences of the things they do? Why could it be said that these are irreversible consequences? You should all understand that, right? Okay then, we will say no more about the notions involved in this story.

Regarding people’s notions of God’s work, can you think whether there are any others that we haven’t talked about? Are the notions you have heard today the only ones people have regarding God’s work? If we talk about judgment, chastisement, trials, refinement, pruning, as well as revealing and perfecting people, what content does that relate to? What kind of people does God prune, judge, and chastise? What kind of people face trials and refinement? In doing these jobs and using these ways to work on people, God has a principle and a scope, which are based on people’s stature, their pursuit, their humanity, and the degree to which they understand the truth—I won’t talk in detail about this today. In summary, God prunes and disciplines people, judges and chastises them, and subjects them to trials and refinement—God works on people according to these several steps. The principle of God’s work on people and which step the work is done to are based on a person’s stature. This term “stature” may seem somewhat empty to you all. It is mainly measured based on the degree to which a person understands the truth, whether the relationship between the person and God is normal, and also based on the extent to which the person submits to God. If we make a distinction based on this, have most people now faced judgment, chastisement, trials and refinement? For some people it may be still early for these steps, they can see them but cannot attain them, while for other people, such a sight is somewhat frightening. In short, these ways are the steps that God takes to save people and make them perfect, and God determines these several steps based on accurate definitions of all of a person’s various aspects. None of the work that God does on people is arbitrary. God does His work in a step-by-step and principled manner. He looks at your pursuit and your humanity, as well as your perceptiveness, and the attitude by which you deal with all kinds of people, events, and things in your daily life, and so on. Based on these things, He determines how to work on people and how to guide them. God needs a period of time in which to observe a person. He doesn’t come to a hasty verdict based on one or two things—God is never that rash in each of the things He does on any person. Some people say, “I’m afraid of that way in which God put Job to the test. If ever that actually happened to me, I wouldn’t be able to bear witness for God. What if God really did deprive me of everything like that? What would I do?” Don’t worry, God will never work on you so arbitrarily, you needn’t be afraid. Why needn’t you be afraid? Before being afraid, you must first convince yourself with a fact, and consider your stature. Do you have Job’s faith, Job’s submission, and Job’s fear of God? Do you have Job’s degree of loyalty and absoluteness in following God’s way? Take the measure of these things, and if you have none of them, then you can rest assured that God will not subject you to trials and refinement, because your stature does not measure up and falls far short. People also have some notions and imaginings—as well as suspicion, fright, or avoidance and guardedness—about God’s trials and refinement. Once people have gained a thorough understanding of these things and of how God works, their notions of God’s work will gradually disappear, and they will focus on pursuing the truth and putting effort into God’s words. The purpose of Him saying these words is to achieve this aim. In following God, you must understand how God works and saves people. If you are truly a person who pursues the truth, then go and do things according to God’s requirements. Don’t look at God through colored lenses, and don’t use your own petty mind to fathom the mind of God. You must understand what exactly the principles of God’s work are, what the principles by which God treats people are, to what extent God works on a person, and what God’s standard of measurement is. Once you understand these things, what should you do next? What God wants to see is not that you give up your pursuit of the truth, nor does He want to see the attitude of someone who writes themselves off as a lost cause. He wants to see that once you comprehend all these true facts, you can go and pursue the truth in a more steadfast, bold and assured manner, recognizing clearly that God is a righteous God. When you come to the end of the road, as long as you have reached the standard God has set for you, and you are on the road to salvation, God will not give up on you. As regards people’s notions about judgment, chastisement, trials, refinement, and pruning, I will talk briefly about these now. There are still a great many detailed aspects, too many to explain clearly in this short talk. It would be necessary to give some examples of how people manifest and reveal these notions in daily life, and it would also be necessary to tell some brief stories and incorporate a few simple characters and plots, so that you could understand or interpret people’s notions through these real-life examples, and so that you could realize that these things are notions that are discordant with reality, and completely at odds with the principles and standards of God. God does not even do that, so why do you keep thinking and speculating blindly? If you constantly live in your own notions and imaginings, you will never, ever follow the path of pursuing the truth according to God’s requirements, and you will always be far away from God’s requirements. If you go on like this, you will have no path to practice and you will always be subject to constraints. Wherever you go, you will hit a wall at every turn, leaving you at a loss as to what to do, and nothing will go smoothly in the slightest. As a result, in the end you will not even be entitled to receive God’s judgment and chastisement. How lamentable that would be!

When it comes to believing in God, no one has been earnest with you before. Now is the time to be earnest, because this is the critical juncture! Time is running out, so don’t treat faith in God as something to play around with. God has resolved to make people complete and to save people, and He wants to complete this work thoroughly. How does He go about doing it thoroughly? By telling people all aspects of the truth, so that they can clearly comprehend it and not go astray. God will discipline you when you go astray. If you often stray onto your own path, God will continue disciplining you until you return to the right path. In the end, if God has done all He can and you still haven’t met God’s requirements, who else is there to blame? You can only blame yourself. At that time, all that is left for people to do is to beat their breasts and cry bitterly. What is the most important thing when it comes to people’s understanding of the truth? They must accept the truth and, after accepting it, be able to seek the truth and link it to their daily life. Only in this way can people gradually achieve a genuine understanding of the truth. When you listen to sermons and gain an understanding of their literal meaning, you think that you understand—this is not really understanding the truth. It is only an understanding of doctrine. Once you understand that when listening, you must link it in real life to your own state and your own entry, so that you can get to know yourself and be able to practice the truth. Only that means you enter into the truth reality. If you don’t practice this way, the truth has nothing to do with you, God’s words have nothing to do with you, and so God has nothing to do with you. If you don’t practice the truth, you will gain nothing!

October 11, 2018