Fellowship From the Brother Above – July 15, 2025 (Part Four)

At the very least, what kind of humanity must a person possess to be used by the Holy Spirit? At the very least, they must have conscience and reason. If they lack conscience and reason, that’s a problem, namely that they will only exalt themselves, and not God. Is this not disrupting God’s work? No matter what corrupt disposition they may have, they must at least possess conscience, reason, and a certain caliber so that when the Holy Spirit enlightens them, they can understand, and once they understand, they can immediately accept and submit. Only such people are qualified for God’s use. If a person knows and understands that something is the work of the Holy Spirit, yet they still deliberately rebel against and reject it, then that person loses their qualification to be used by the Holy Spirit. Is this not the case? (It is.) Why is it that the Holy Spirit cannot work in many people? The main problem is that they cannot accept the truth. Even when the Holy Spirit enlightens them and they understand the truth, they do not accept or practice it. The Holy Spirit sees this and thinks, “I have enlightened and illuminated you, but you neither practiced what you understood nor even accepted it. As such, I can no longer enlighten you. It’s useless and futile to enlighten you.” And so, God gives up on such people. However, when they pray, their words sound pleasant: “O God, please enlighten and illuminate me, I will surely practice the truth.” What does the Holy Spirit say upon hearing this? “Your words sound pleasant, but how many times have I enlightened you, and yet you still do not practice? You are a hypocrite and a liar.” You see, that’s when things have gone bad. If the Holy Spirit detests you, He will no longer work in you. Therefore, whether a person can be used by God depends mainly on whether they have conscience and reason, and whether they can accept the truth. When the Holy Spirit chastens and disciplines you, if your conscience can perceive it and can function, and you can pray to God and repent, God will say, “You can accept the truth and submit to Me. You have humanity, and I will continue to work in you.” If you cannot do this, God has no way to work in you or use you. Furthermore, if you want the Holy Spirit to use you, there is another most fundamental requirement: You must align your heart with God’s. You must always ponder, “What are God’s requirements for people? How can I do my work better and more thoroughly to satisfy God’s heart? How can I cooperate with God’s work to meet the minimum requirements and leave no regrets in my wake?” You must always ponder these things, focus on striving to meet God’s intentions and requirements, and always carry this burden in your heart. If you do so, you will often have the work of the Holy Spirit, and you will not be far from being used by Him. Many people become negative and weak when they encounter even a little difficulty in their work and they are unwilling to strive to meet God’s requirements. Can such people be used or perfected by the Holy Spirit? (No.) How difficult can it really be for you to do church work overseas? Isn’t the difficulty involved in leading churches in mainland China greater than doing church work overseas? The difficulty in mainland China is several times greater. There isn’t much difficulty involved in working overseas. The main issues come about from family entanglements. For instance, some people have financial difficulties at home, so they must first maintain their family’s livelihood before they can do a bit of their duty. Others are constrained in their duty because of persecution and obstruction from an unbelieving husband or wife back home. For God’s chosen people overseas, aren’t these the only difficulties they face in their duty? But these are difficulties common to all corrupt humanity. Don’t God’s chosen people in China also face such difficulties? Furthermore, doing church work in China means facing the CCP’s frenzied suppression, arrests, and cruel persecution. You can’t do church work there if you are timid or if you are without wisdom or caution. You always have to do the work while risking danger. This is the greatest difficulty. Is this difficulty easy to face? (No, it isn’t.) But most of God’s chosen people in China can persist in their duties and experience God’s work in such a harsh environment. Tell me, if they can endure to the end and follow God to the journey’s end, isn’t this testimony? (It is.) In other countries around the world, there are brothers and sisters who become negative and weak after expending a little time on their duty. When their nonbelieving husband or wife stands in the way of their performance of their duty, they become negative and weak again. With a stature like that, if you believed in God in mainland China, you’d be in trouble, and you’d be incapable of accepting God’s commission. In the religious world, there is a hymn that goes something like this: “Oh Lord Jesus, please send me out. Here I am. I am willing to work for You, to preach the gospel, and to carry out Your will.” Is there such a hymn? (There is.) Religious people are always asking God to send them out, but what kind of person does God send out? What conditions must a person satisfy to be worthy of being sent out by God? Do religious people understand these things? (No.) When they say, “Oh God, please send me out. Here I am,” what do they mean by that? They are telling God, “O God, I’m in Taiwan, I’m in America, I’m in the UK—don’t forget to send me out.” Does God not know where you are? God is well aware of this, and He doesn’t need you to remind Him. Since you haven’t been sent out by God, why don’t you ask yourself, “Can I follow God’s way? Can I preach the gospel and gain people? Can I shoulder the work God has commissioned me with, without being constrained by any person, event, or thing? How much truth must I possess, and what stature must I have to be worthy of God sending me out to do the work?” Have you ever thought about these questions? If God commissions you with a duty, can you persevere through every setback? Can you reach the point where you won’t give up your duty no matter what kind of persecution and tribulation you encounter? Do you have this faith? Wherever you go to do your duty, if you see that the living conditions are not as good as your own home, you feel aggrieved and want to go home. When you go to preach the gospel and feel yourself hit a wall or stumble, you think that preaching the gospel is not easy, and you also want to go home. With a stature like yours, can God send you out to do the work? Are you worthy? (No.) You ask God to send you out, but have you equipped yourself with the truth? Has your stature grown? Can you refute Satan’s fallacies? Can you bear clear testimony to God’s work? (No.) You can’t do any of these things, yet you still ask God to send you out. Are you worthy of this? Isn’t this just big talk from a child? (Yes.) So why do religious people always act like children talking big? (They don’t know themselves and they lack reason.) They don’t know their own measure and they lack self-awareness. Are we being excessive by saying this about them? (No.) Then if you truly have a heart to expend yourself for God, what should you prepare? (We should equip ourselves with the truth.) You must also have the will to suffer! It’s not acceptable to shrink back when you encounter difficulties. No matter how great the difficulty you face, you should give your all to your duty and be devoted unto death to complete God’s commission. If you don’t have an indomitable spirit and still want to be sent out by God, then you’re a dreaming fool. After being arrested by the CCP and tortured for a day, some people signed the Three Statements. Would you say such a person can be sent out by God? (No.) You must have resolve. Even if the CCP’s police forces shatter your bones, you must still bear testimony for God, choosing to die rather than betray Him. You can’t do without this resolve. Have you seen the movie My Belated Testimony? (Yes.) After the protagonist was arrested for the second time, how was it that he had the courage to refute and strike back at Satan in the way that he did? (He had prepared himself with the truth and seen through death. When he was arrested for the second time, he had the resolve to die in order to stand firm in his testimony for God.) He went through ten years of preparation and during those ten years, he constantly reflected on and came to know where he had failed and what truths he lacked. He also kept praying to God and equipping himself with the truth. Finally, he saw through the matter of death, understood it, and resolved to lay down his life to bear testimony for God to repay His love. That’s how he dared to refute and strike back at Satan when he was arrested again. This was the result he achieved after ten years of equipping himself with the truth. Without this, would he have dared to say the things he did? Would he have had the courage he did? (No.) So, if you want to be sent out by God to preach the gospel, you must properly equip yourself with the truth! You currently lack far too much truth and you can’t solve even a small difficulty you encounter. When you encounter antichrists and devils spreading fallacies to mislead people, you don’t know how to dissect or refute them. A single piece of negative propaganda can knock you down, leaving you speechless and slinking away in dejection. With a stature like yours, you still dare to ask to be sent out by God? Of course, it’s a good thing that you are willing to be sent out by God. It’s good for a person to have such resolve. But you don’t have the stature to shoulder the work. God wants to use more people to work for Him, but how many can be fit for His use? Can you be fit for God’s use? Do you have an indomitable spirit? Can you forsake everything? You can’t even forsake your spouse that obstructs your faith! What kind of stature is that? You can love your spouse, children, and parents for a lifetime, but you just can’t love God. With such a small stature, you still dare to ask God to send you out? Is this not utterly arrogant and ignorant? (It is.) When religious people sing this hymn, they are all fired up and seem to have great resolve, but do they understand the truth? Can they bear testimony to God? Can they discern Satan? Can they refute Satan’s fallacies? Can they resolve people’s notions and difficulties? They haven’t prepared any of these things, and they have no stature at all, yet they shamelessly proclaim, “Oh God, here I am, please send me out.” You are not worthy of being sent out by God. And what about some of the other hymns in the religious world? “Oh God, please hear my voice.” God has expressed so much truth, but have you listened? You don’t seek to listen to God’s voice yourself, yet you ask God to listen to yours. Is this not utterly shameless? Do you think religious people are absurd? (Yes.) The hymns religious people sing, the things they say, their mantras, and the things they hold to are all absurd and ridiculous, and not the least bit practical. Do you think people in the religious world have any caliber? (No.) They have no caliber whatsoever and they fall short of the truth. To put it harshly, they are nothing.

Is the fellowship we just had helpful for you in preaching the gospel and doing your duty? (Yes.) Is it also able to resolve your problems? (Yes.) So, I solved this first problem in this way. Do you understand? (Yes.) Remember this: The main way to get closer to potential gospel recipients is to speak from the heart, discuss topics that everyone cares about, and use the truth to resolve the issues they are concerned about. If you practice this way, people will be willing to engage with you, to talk and communicate with you. Do you understand? (Yes.) You may understand this principle of practice, but will it work if you understand too little truth? (No.) You still have to equip yourself with the truth before you can put it into practice. If you don’t equip yourself with the truth, then just knowing this principle and path of practice is all for nothing, and you won’t be able to walk this path.

Question 2: The spread of the gospel has been slow in some countries recently. I feel very heavy-hearted, as if I couldn’t shoulder God’s commission. How should I correctly approach the difficulties I am having in my duty so that I can persist without being negative and weak? How can I find a practical and effective path to improve the results of the gospel work?

Answer: This is a good question, and in fact, it’s also a very simple one. What is the key to achieving results in preaching the gospel? As long as people understand the truth, they can preach the gospel and testify to God’s work. Without understanding the truth, they can’t preach the gospel. Isn’t that right? (Yes.) Then the root of the problem has been found: People don’t understand the truth. If you want to solve this problem, you must help people understand the truth. You need to fellowship more with brothers and sisters on the truths of preaching the gospel. Fellowship on the truths of preaching the gospel in your gathering today, and fellowship on them again tomorrow. You must clearly fellowship on the notions and issues religious people will confront them with as they preach the gospel, and then you must fellowship on how to testify to God’s work. Explain clearly how to fellowship on key aspects of the truth, such as the work of judgment and the incarnation. Then, train brothers and sisters every day, having them practice with each other, with one asking questions and the other answering. Once everyone can answer these questions with ease, they can go out and practice preaching the gospel. Do you know how to train them in this way? (Yes.) This is just like training soldiers: New recruits must be taught what they will encounter in battle and what methods they need to use to win. This is how you can train them. If you don’t train them and just say, “Go preach the gospel, and be energetic! We must be devoted in our expenditure for God,” you won’t achieve any results. They will say, “I don’t have the truth, so I don’t know how to fellowship. When people ask questions, I have no idea how to answer them. That’s why I’m not getting any results no matter how I preach the gospel.” Is this matter easy to solve? You should collect the issues from the religious world that need to be addressed in the course of preaching the gospel. In fact, there are no more than ten or twenty such issues. And there are only about ten or twenty truths related to the testifying of God’s work. If you fellowship on all of these with the brothers and sisters until they understand and can all fellowship on them, then they can go out and preach the gospel. During the process, they might encounter a few special problems that they haven’t yet come to understand or weren’t prepared for. In that case, they can learn and equip themselves with the truth as they go, and then continue preaching once they’re ready. If you train brothers and sisters in this way, they will gradually become able to resolve most of the issues religious people have. As the number of unresolved issues decreases, the results of preaching the gospel will get better and better. Is this not all achieved by seeking the truth and using the truth to solve problems? It’s like when you are first trying to find a partner. Initially you lack experience and don’t know how to interact with potential partners, and so you strike out a few times. Later, after learning some things and practicing your speaking skills, you become more articulate. The other person sees you have some talent and takes a liking to you. If you then say a few more things they like to hear, they will come to like you and become willing to marry you. Preaching the gospel is similar to finding a partner. If you truly have the truth, you can draw potential gospel recipients in just by having a casual chat with them. You can say, “Do you know how to believe in the Lord so that you can welcome Him?” They might say, “Our pastor told us to stay faithful to our beliefs wherever we are. As long as we watch and wait and pray a lot every day, God won’t abandon us!” You can ask them, “Is what your pastor said accurate?” They’ll say, “How could what they said be wrong?” Then you can tell them, “What did the Lord Jesus say? What the Lord Jesus said is quite different from what your pastor said.” Then find a couple of passages of the Lord Jesus’ words to read to them. When they hear these passages, they’ll say, “Wow, what the Lord Jesus said is right. What our pastor said doesn’t accord with the Lord Jesus’ words. So that’s what welcoming the Lord is all about!” Then they’ll see the light. So, is it good to chat with people like that? (Yes.) If they still have many notions, you can use their notions as examples. You can say, “Some believers have this idea. Do you think it’s right?” When they hear this, they’ll think, “Oh, that’s exactly what I think.” Then you can say, “Do you know what’s wrong with this idea? Does it accord with the words of the Lord Jesus? Does it accord with the truth?” If you fellowship this clearly with them, their problem will be resolved, and they might even say, “You have a deeper understanding of the truth. You truly practice your faith in the Lord well. I’ll follow your lead. Please tell me more.” Isn’t this how you achieve results? I used to chat with people who believed in Jesus just like this, and they became willing to listen to my fellowship. Tell me, given the small stature of religious people, is it easy for us to say a few things that make them willing to listen? (Yes, it is.) It’s very easy! In your heart, you must know that they are poor, pitiful, and blind. They don’t understand a single bit of the truth that you understand. Even the pastors of the religious world don’t understand. They are nothing, and they have no truth whatsoever. Once you are certain of this, even if they speak some fallacies and distorted reasoning, it will be very easy for you to refute them. If you understand some truth, you can refute them. It’s that easy. So, you should identify the truths that must be fellowshipped and the problems that must be resolved for preaching the gospel, and have everyone equip themselves with them. Once everyone has spent two or three months equipping themselves with these truths and they can answer these questions fluently, then they can go out and preach the gospel. This way, there will be far fewer difficulties. And once they’ve gained one or two people and gotten a taste of success, they’ll know much better how to go about preaching the gospel. If new problems are encountered during the process of preaching the gospel, can’t everyone just seek the truth to resolve them then? If you carry out the gospel work this way, do you still need to worry about not getting good results? Remember, whether you are preaching the gospel or doing church work, if you want to do your duty effectively, you need to constantly equip yourself with the truth and seek the truth, and at the same time, you need to fellowship on the truth more with brothers and sisters. If fellowshipping with them once or twice isn’t enough, then do it several more times. Take, for example, fellowshipping on the truth of knowing oneself. If people don’t fully grasp it after two or three gatherings, what if we fellowship on it with them ten times? Will that be effective? (Yes.) If ten times isn’t enough, then we’ll fellowship twenty or thirty times, until the result is finally achieved. If I were fellowshipping with people on this truth of knowing oneself and didn’t achieve any results, what do you think I would do? I would point out to each person the specific problems they need to recognize in themselves and see if they could come to know themselves. Then I would find some experiential testimonies and movies about knowing oneself, so that they could learn how to know themselves by watching them. I have many methods to help people enter into this aspect of the truth. I simply don’t believe this problem can’t be solved. Do you think guiding God’s chosen people this way would still fail to achieve results? (No, it would achieve results.) When it comes to leading the church, I’ve got plenty of methods. For example, to do the church work well, I had books of God’s words, hymnbooks, books of experiential testimonies, and summaries of various aspects of the truth all printed out, so that each person had a copy of everything. I’ve also held gatherings with you every day to fellowship on the truth. If I train you like this, I don’t believe I can’t train you well in the space of six months to a year. When I was traveling among the churches in mainland China, I would stay and hold gatherings in each church for several months. After listening to what I had to say, brothers and sisters would be all stirred up. Even the most laid-back people would be burning with eagerness, and they were all anxious to pursue the truth and do their duty. Even the most negative people were no longer negative and were willing to expend themselves for God. You see, after I held gatherings with them for a few months, all their problems were solved. So, is solving problems difficult? (It’s not difficult if we understand the truth.) Pursuing the truth can solve any problem. So what should you do if you’re not getting results in preaching the gospel? (Practice fellowshipping on the truth more.) God’s house has books specifically for preaching the gospel, which explain things such as how to resolve the notions and issues of religious people, and how to resolve the problems of negative propaganda. The answers to these problems are all in these books. You should take out these books and have everyone read them every day. After reading them, they should memorize them and quiz each other. Once everyone can answer these questions with ease, they can go out and preach the gospel. You should train brothers and sisters to preach the gospel this way. If training them like this for one month isn’t enough, then train them for two or three months, and if that’s still not enough, train them for six months. I simply don’t believe you won’t achieve results by doing this. Wouldn’t you say that this is the case? (Yes.)