Know God’s Attitudes and Drop Various Misunderstandings of God
What kind of God is the God you believe in now? Have you thought about that? Does he feel hatred when he sees the wicked do evil? (Yes.) What attitude does he have when he sees a foolish person makes a mistake? (Being sorrowful.) What attitude does he have when he sees someone steals his offerings? (Hating.) You are all very clear about these, right? What attitude does God have when he sees a person muddles on in believing in God and does not pursue the truth at all? You are not very clear about this, right? The attitude of “muddling on” is not sinning, nor does it offend God. In man’s heart, he does not think that it should be a great wrong. Then what do you say God’s attitude is? (Ignoring.) “Ignoring,” then what is his inner attitude? He looks down on such a person and despises such a person! Toward him, God adopts a manner of cold treatment, which is laying him aside—not doing any work on him, such as giving inspiration, enlightenment, chastening, or discipline. This kind of person is not counted in God’s work. What is God’s attitude toward those who provoke his disposition and offend his administrative decrees? Extremely loathing! With those who provoke his disposition and yet do not repent, God feels extremely angry! “Angry” is only a feeling, a mood, and it cannot represent a definite attitude. However, such a feeling, such a mood, can bring upon those people an outcome, that is, being extremely loathed by God! Then what is the consequence of this “being extremely loathed”? God puts them aside and gives them no attention for the time being, and will settle with them “after the autumn harvest.” What is the implication of that? Will such people have an outcome? God has no intention of giving them an outcome! So isn’t it very normal that God ignores them now? (Yes.) What should such people be ready for now? They should be ready to take the pernicious consequence brought by the evil they have done and by their own actions. This is God’s declaration to such people. So now I clearly tell this kind of people not to cherish any illusion or harbor any wishful thinking. God will not tolerate man timelessly or bear with man’s transgressions and man’s disobedience timelessly. Some people may say, “I have seen several people of this kind. When they prayed, they were particularly moved by God, weeping in tears. At ordinary times, they are quite cheerful and seem to have God’s presence and God’s guidance.” Don’t say this rashly! “Weeping in tears” does not necessarily mean that they are moved by God or have God’s presence, much less can it be said that they have God’s guidance. Since they have infuriated God, could God still guide them? In a word, when God is determined to eliminate or give up a person, he already has no outcome. No matter how good he himself feels when praying and how great is his faith in God within, these are not important anymore. What is important is that God does not need such a faith and God has detested and rejected such a person. Besides, how to deal with him later is not important either. What is important is that the moment he infuriates God, his outcome is already decided. If God is determined not to save such a person, then he will leave him to be punished. This is God’s attitude.
God has the element of love in his substance, and he has mercy on everyone, but men all neglect and forget the point that he has dignity in his substance. He has love but it does not mean that man can offend him at will and yet he does not have any feeling or any response. He has mercy but it does not mean that he has no principles in treating man. God is living and exists truly and really. He is not a puppet or a certain object conceived by man. Since he exists, we should always listen attentively to his heart’s voice, pay attention to his attitudes, and know his feelings. Do not circumscribe God by man’s imaginations; do not impose on God what man thinks in his mind or what man hopes in his will and ask God to treat a person in man’s way and according to man’s imaginations. If you do so, you are infuriating God, you are tempting God’s fury, and you are challenging God’s dignity! So, after you know the seriousness of this matter, I advise every one of you present to be careful and cautious in doing things and be careful and cautious in speaking. In the matter of treating God, you must be doubly cautious and doubly careful! Before you know what God’s attitude is, do not speak rashly, do not do things recklessly, and do not stick labels indiscriminately, much less draw conclusions at will, but wait and seek. This is a manifestation of fearing God and shunning evil. If you can first live up to this and first have such an attitude, God will not blame you for being foolish, ignorant, and not sensible, but will remember you, guiding and inspiring you or tolerating your immatureness and ignorance, because you have such an attitude as fearing to offend God, respecting God’s will, and being willing to obey God. Otherwise, God will condemn you, discipline or even punish you, or give a conclusion about you due to your disdainful attitude toward God—passing judgment on God at will and guessing and defining God’s will as you please. The conclusion will probably have to do with your outcome. So I want to stress again and tell every one of you present to be careful and cautious in treating whatever is from God. Do not speak rashly; do not do things recklessly. Before you want to say anything, you should first think: Will I infuriate God if I do so? Will I be fearing God if I do so? Even if it is a simple thing, you should ponder and think it over and over in your heart. If you can truly practice according to such a principle in any place, in any thing, and at any time, and especially in the things you do not understand, you can also have such an attitude, then God will guide you at all times, so that you will have the way to go. No matter what manifestations you have, God can see them clearly and distinctly, and God will give an accurate and proper evaluation of these manifestations of yours. When you have experienced the final trial, God will sum up all your deeds together to decide your outcome. Such a decision will make everyone sincerely convinced. Here what I want to tell you is: What you practice, what you do, and what you think in your heart determine your destiny.
By Whom Man’s Outcome Is Decided
There is another most important thing, that is, your attitude toward God. This attitude is very important! This attitude decides whether you will eventually go to destruction or enter into the pleasant destination God has prepared for you. In the Age of the Kingdom, God has worked for more than twenty years. During these more than twenty years, in your hearts you all may be unclear about your manifestations, but in God’s heart he has been keeping a real, actual record for each one. From the time each one begins to follow him, hear his preachings, and understand more and more truths, to the time he performs his duty, God has a record of all his various manifestations of this period. During the course of his performing duty, when he encounters various circumstances and various trials, what his attitude is, what his various manifestations are, what he thinks of God in his heart, … of all these God has an account, a record. You may be very unclear about these things, but God is very clear about them, without any negligence. Because this matter has to do with each person’s outcome and has to do with each person’s destiny and future, and even more because all God’s painstaking effort and price are put in it, God dare not neglect in the least and does not allow any carelessness. God has been keeping such an account for man, an account of the course of man’s following God from beginning to end. What your attitude toward God is in this course will decide your destiny. Isn’t this very real? By now, don’t you think God is very righteous? Isn’t it very appropriate for God to do so? Do you still have any imagination about God? (No.) Then tell me, is man’s outcome decided by God or by man himself? (Decided by God.) By whom? (God.) You do not know again! Brothers and sisters from the church in Hong Kong answer first. By whom? (By man himself.) By man himself? So then, it has nothing to do with God? Someone from the church in South Korea, give your answer. (God decides man’s outcome according to his actions and behavior and according to the way he takes.) This word is very objective. Here is a fact I have to tell you: While God does the work of salvation, he sets a standard for man. This standard is that man can listen to God’s words and walk in God’s ways. By this standard man’s outcome is judged. If you practice according to this standard from God, then you will receive a good outcome; if you do not practice according to this standard, then you cannot receive a good outcome. So by whom do you say this outcome is decided? It is not decided by God alone, but by God and man together. Is that right? (Yes.) Why do I say so? Because God takes the initiative to do the work of saving man and prepare a pleasant destination for man, and man is the object of God’s work and this outcome or destination is prepared by God for man. Without the object of his work, God would not need to do this work. If God did not do this work, man would have no opportunity to be saved. Man is the object of salvation. The object of salvation is the passive party, but the attitude of this party decides whether God can fulfill his work of saving mankind. Without God’s guidance for you, you would not know the standard or have a goal. After you have the standard and goal, if you do not cooperate, not practicing or paying price, you still cannot receive it. So this outcome can neither do without God nor do without man. Now you know by whom man’s outcome is actually decided!
Man Likes to Circumscribe God by Experience
When we fellowship about the subject of knowing God, have you found a fact? Have you found that God now has a change in his attitude? Is God’s attitude toward mankind unchanging? Will God be patient like this forever and keep giving all his love and his mercy to man timelessly? This thing has to do with God’s substance again. Let’s come back to the question raised just now about the so-called prodigal sons’ return. After I asked that question, your answers are not very definite, which shows that you do not quite know the will of God. Once man knows that God loves him, he circumscribes God as the symbol of love: No matter what man does, no matter how man behaves, no matter how man treats God, and no matter how man disobeys, it does not matter, because God has love and God’s love is infinite and measureless; God has love, so he can bear with man; God has love, so he can have mercy on man, having mercy on man’s immaturity, on man’s ignorance, and on man’s disobedience. Is this really true? When having experienced God’s patience once or several times, some people take that as their capital of knowing God and think that God will be patient with them and have mercy on them forever. And in their whole life, they regard God’s patience with them as the standard for God’s treatment of them. Some others, after having received God’s tolerance for them once, circumscribe God as tolerance forever, which is timeless and unconditional and is even based on no principle at all. Are these views correct? Whenever you are asked about God’s substance and God’s disposition, you are at a loss. Seeing you are like this, I am really worried. You have heard much about the truth concerning God’s substance and much about the subject concerning God’s disposition, but in your mind these things, the truths of these aspects, are only theories and memories in letter. No one has ever realized or seen what God’s disposition is like in real life. So you all believe in a muddled way and believe blindly, and you even have a disdainful and disregarding attitude toward God. What does your such attitude toward God cause? It causes you to always circumscribe God. Once you know a little, you feel very content and feel that you have gained God’s everything, and then you circumscribe God and do not allow God to move. Once God does a new thing, you refuse to acknowledge that he is God. Consequently, when one day God says, “I no longer love man, I no longer have mercy on man, I no longer show any tolerance and patience to man, and I extremely loathe and detest man,” man resists such words from his heart, and some people even say, “You are no longer my God, and you are no longer the God I am to follow. Since you say such words, you are unqualified to be my God, and it is not necessary for me to follow you anymore. If you do not have mercy on me, give me love, or show me tolerance, I will not follow you any further. Only if you tolerate me timelessly and are patient with me all the time for me to see that you are love, you are patience, and you are tolerance, will I follow you and have faith to follow to the end. This is because only if you show patience and mercy to me can my disobedience and my transgression be forgiven and pardoned timelessly, and can I sin anytime and anywhere, confess my sin and be forgiven anytime and anywhere, and infuriate you anytime and anywhere, while you should not have any critical view or conclusion about me.” Although in everyone’s heart, you may not subjectively and consciously give such thoughts to this issue, yet when you treat God as a tool through which you can be forgiven of sins and as an object you can use to gain a pleasant destination, you already place the living God in opposition to yourself and treat him as your enemy unconsciously. This is what my eyes have seen. Although you repeatedly say, “I believe in God,” “I pursue the truth,” “I want to be transformed in my disposition,” “I want to break away from the influence of darkness,” “I want to satisfy God,” “I want to obey God,” “I want to be faithful to God and perform my duty well,” … no matter how pleasant to the ear your words are, how many theories you have, and how magnificent and high-sounding they are, actually many of you, following to this day, have learned to circumscribe God with the regulations, doctrines, and theories you have grasped, and have naturally placed God in opposition to yourselves. You have grasped the letters and grasped the doctrines, but you have not truly entered into the reality of the truth, so it is very hard for you to draw near to God, know God, and understand God. This is a very sad thing!
In a video I saw such a scene: Several sisters are holding up a book of The Word Appears in the Flesh and holding it up very high. They are raising the book in the center and above their heads. Although this was a picture, what I saw was not a picture, but rather it made me think of the fact that in everyone’s heart, what he exalts is not God’s word but the book of God’s word. This is a very sad thing. Such doing is not exalting God at all, because you do not know God. Even in a very obvious and very small matter, you have notions within. When I asked you and when I am serious with you, you gave answers based on imagination and guesswork, and some even asked in reply with a doubting tone. From this, I know more clearly in my heart that what you believe in is not the true God. After you have read God’s word for so many years, you again circumscribe God with God’s word, God’s work, and more doctrines. And you never try to know about God and ponder God’s will, and never try to know such issues as what God’s attitude toward man actually is, what God’s heart thinks, what God is sorrowful for, what God is angry for, why God detests and rejects man, and so on. More people think that God is always silent, because God is only watching man’s various manifestations, with no attitude or opinion. Some people even think that God is silent because God approves tacitly, that God is silent because God is waiting, or that God is silent because God has no attitude and because God’s attitudes have all been told in the book and have all been expressed to man, and there is no need to tell man repeatedly and from time to time. Though God is silent, God has his attitude, his viewpoint, and his required standard for man. Even though man does not try to know him or seek him, his attitude is very definite. As for the thing that some people who had followed God very zealously in those days forsook God and now want to come back, you do not even know what is God’s viewpoint on it and what is God’s attitude toward it. Isn’t this a very sad thing? Actually this is a very shallow thing. If you truly understand God’s heart, you should have known what attitude he has toward such people and should not have answered ambiguously. Since you do not know it, let me tell you.
God’s Attitude Toward Those Who Ran Away from God’s Work
In every place there are some people of this kind: After they had been certain about God’s way, they left quietly for various reasons. They left without saying good-bye and went to do what they wanted to do at their own will. Let’s not discuss for the moment why they left. Let’s first see what God’s attitude is toward such people. It is very definite! From the very moment they left, in God’s eyes, their life of believing in God was over. It was not they who put an end to it, but God who put an end to it for them. Their leaving God meant that they rejected God already and did not want God anymore, and meant that they no longer accepted God’s salvation for them. Since they no longer wanted God, could God still want them? Moreover, when they had such an attitude and such a thought and were determined to leave God, they already provoked God’s disposition, even though they did not point at God and yell abuse in a towering rage, even though they did not have any excessive or wicked behavior, and even though they thought to themselves, “If one day I have enough fun outside or when I still need God, I will come back; or when God calls me, I will come back,” or they said, “When I get hurt outside, or when I see the outside world is too dark and too evil and I do not want to go with the current, I will come back to God.” Even though they planned in their hearts they would come back some day, and even though they left themselves a way out, they did not know that no matter what they thought and what they planned, it was only their own wishful thinking. Their biggest mistake was that they did not find out what God’s heart felt when they wanted to leave. From the very moment they were determined to leave God, God gave them up completely, and God already decided their outcome in his heart. What is their outcome? Such people are classified as mice and will perish together with them. So, man often sees such a thing: After a person has rejected God, he, however, goes unpunished. God has his principles in doing things. Certain things man can see; certain things God only decides in his heart, so man cannot see the results of these things. What man’s eyes see does not amount to the side of reality, but the side man has not seen is precisely the real thought and decision in God’s heart.
Those Who Ran Away from God’s Work Are Ones Who Have Forsaken the True Way
So, why can God give such people so severe a punishment? Why does God have such great wrath toward them? We should first know that God’s disposition is majesty and wrath. He is not a sheep for man to slaughter at will, much less a puppet for man to manipulate at will, nor is he air for man to breathe in and out. If you truly believe in God’s existence, you should have a heart of fearing God, and you should know that God’s substance is not to be infuriated. This “infuriating” may result from a word, or a thought, or an evil behavior, or a very mild behavior, a behavior that is acceptable according to man’s view and man’s morality and ethics, or a doctrine, a theory. However, once you infuriate God, you will have no more opportunity, and your last day will come. This is a very terrible thing! If you do not know that God is not to be offended, you cannot possibly dread God, and you may often offend God; if you do not know how to fear God, you cannot possibly fear God, and you will not know how to set about walking in God’s ways—fearing God and shunning evil. Once you have a realization in your heart and can realize that God is not to be offended, you will know what to do to fear God and shun evil.
As for entering into walking in the way of fearing God and shunning evil, you do not have to know many truths, experience many trials, or experience many disciplines before you can achieve it; rather it depends on what the substance of your heart is toward God and what attitude you have toward God in your heart. Man’s substance and man’s subjective attitude are very important and crucial. As for those people who rejected and left God, their disdainful attitude toward God and their heart of hating the truth have provoked God’s disposition. So in God’s eyes, they can never be forgiven. They had known the existence of God, heard the news that God has come, and even experienced the new work God does. They did not leave in the condition of being deceived, nor in the state of being hazy, much less in the condition of being compelled; rather it was in the condition of being conscious and clearheaded that they voluntarily chose to leave God. Their leaving is not going astray or being lost, so in God’s eyes, they are not the lambs lost from the flock, much less the prodigal sons who lost their way. They left without fear of anything; such a condition, such a state, provoked God’s disposition, and it was this “provoking” that brought them an irremediable outcome. Isn’t such an outcome very terrible? Therefore, if man does not know God, he can offend God! This is in no way a small thing! If one does not take God’s attitude seriously and even thinks that God is looking forward to his return, because he is the little lost lamb of God and God is still waiting for him to change his mind, then he is not far from the day of being punished. Not only will he not be received by God, but he provokes God’s disposition the second time. This is a more terrible thing! His disdainful attitude toward God has offended God’s administrative decrees, so will God receive him? In God’s heart the principle for this thing is that if one, even after being certain of the true way, rejects and leaves God in the condition of being conscious and clearheaded, under such a background God will close the way for him to be saved, and from then on the gate to the kingdom will be shut to him. When he comes back again to knock at the door, God will not open it for him again, and he will be shut out forever. Some of you may have read the story about Moses in the Bible. After God anointed and appointed Moses, due to Moses’ various manifestations and for various reasons, the two hundred and fifty leaders showed their refusal to submit. Whom did they refuse to submit to? It was not Moses that they refused to submit to; they refused to submit to God’s arrangement, refusing to submit to the thing God did. They said such a word as this: “You take too much on you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them….” Is this word very grievous in man’s eyes? No! At least its literal meaning is not grievous. Legally speaking, it is nothing serious, because on the surface it contains no opposing word or phrase, much less does it have the meaning of blasphemy. It is only an ordinary word. However, why could such a word provoke God into so great anger? This was because their word was not directed at a man but at God, and the disposition and attitude they expressed through their word precisely provoked God’s disposition and offended God’s disposition that is not to be offended. In the end they had the outcome as known by us. As for those who have forsaken God, what is their viewpoint? What is their attitude? The reason why their viewpoint and attitude can bring upon themselves such punishment of God is that they chose to betray God when having clearly known he is God. Therefore, they are completely deprived of the opportunity of being saved. Just as the Bible says, “For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins.” Now you are very clear about this thing, aren’t you?
What kind of God is the God you believe in now? Have you thought about that? Does he feel hatred when he sees the wicked do evil? (Yes.) What attitude does he have when he sees a foolish person makes a mistake? (Being sorrowful.) What attitude does he have when he sees someone steals his offerings? (Hating.) You are all very clear about these, right? What attitude does God have when he sees a person muddles on in believing in God and does not pursue the truth at all? You are not very clear about this, right? The attitude of “muddling on” is not sinning, nor does it offend God. In man’s heart, he does not think that it should be a great wrong. Then what do you say God’s attitude is? (Ignoring.) “Ignoring,” then what is his inner attitude? He looks down on such a person and despises such a person! Toward him, God adopts a manner of cold treatment, which is laying him aside—not doing any work on him, such as giving inspiration, enlightenment, chastening, or discipline. This kind of person is not counted in God’s work. What is God’s attitude toward those who provoke his disposition and offend his administrative decrees? Extremely loathing! With those who provoke his disposition and yet do not repent, God feels extremely angry! “Angry” is only a feeling, a mood, and it cannot represent a definite attitude. However, such a feeling, such a mood, can bring upon those people an outcome, that is, being extremely loathed by God! Then what is the consequence of this “being extremely loathed”? God puts them aside and gives them no attention for the time being, and will settle with them “after the autumn harvest.” What is the implication of that? Will such people have an outcome? God has no intention of giving them an outcome! So isn’t it very normal that God ignores them now? (Yes.) What should such people be ready for now? They should be ready to take the pernicious consequence brought by the evil they have done and by their own actions. This is God’s declaration to such people. So now I clearly tell this kind of people not to cherish any illusion or harbor any wishful thinking. God will not tolerate man timelessly or bear with man’s transgressions and man’s disobedience timelessly. Some people may say, “I have seen several people of this kind. When they prayed, they were particularly moved by God, weeping in tears. At ordinary times, they are quite cheerful and seem to have God’s presence and God’s guidance.” Don’t say this rashly! “Weeping in tears” does not necessarily mean that they are moved by God or have God’s presence, much less can it be said that they have God’s guidance. Since they have infuriated God, could God still guide them? In a word, when God is determined to eliminate or give up a person, he already has no outcome. No matter how good he himself feels when praying and how great is his faith in God within, these are not important anymore. What is important is that God does not need such a faith and God has detested and rejected such a person. Besides, how to deal with him later is not important either. What is important is that the moment he infuriates God, his outcome is already decided. If God is determined not to save such a person, then he will leave him to be punished. This is God’s attitude.
God has the element of love in his substance, and he has mercy on everyone, but men all neglect and forget the point that he has dignity in his substance. He has love but it does not mean that man can offend him at will and yet he does not have any feeling or any response. He has mercy but it does not mean that he has no principles in treating man. God is living and exists truly and really. He is not a puppet or a certain object conceived by man. Since he exists, we should always listen attentively to his heart’s voice, pay attention to his attitudes, and know his feelings. Do not circumscribe God by man’s imaginations; do not impose on God what man thinks in his mind or what man hopes in his will and ask God to treat a person in man’s way and according to man’s imaginations. If you do so, you are infuriating God, you are tempting God’s fury, and you are challenging God’s dignity! So, after you know the seriousness of this matter, I advise every one of you present to be careful and cautious in doing things and be careful and cautious in speaking. In the matter of treating God, you must be doubly cautious and doubly careful! Before you know what God’s attitude is, do not speak rashly, do not do things recklessly, and do not stick labels indiscriminately, much less draw conclusions at will, but wait and seek. This is a manifestation of fearing God and shunning evil. If you can first live up to this and first have such an attitude, God will not blame you for being foolish, ignorant, and not sensible, but will remember you, guiding and inspiring you or tolerating your immatureness and ignorance, because you have such an attitude as fearing to offend God, respecting God’s will, and being willing to obey God. Otherwise, God will condemn you, discipline or even punish you, or give a conclusion about you due to your disdainful attitude toward God—passing judgment on God at will and guessing and defining God’s will as you please. The conclusion will probably have to do with your outcome. So I want to stress again and tell every one of you present to be careful and cautious in treating whatever is from God. Do not speak rashly; do not do things recklessly. Before you want to say anything, you should first think: Will I infuriate God if I do so? Will I be fearing God if I do so? Even if it is a simple thing, you should ponder and think it over and over in your heart. If you can truly practice according to such a principle in any place, in any thing, and at any time, and especially in the things you do not understand, you can also have such an attitude, then God will guide you at all times, so that you will have the way to go. No matter what manifestations you have, God can see them clearly and distinctly, and God will give an accurate and proper evaluation of these manifestations of yours. When you have experienced the final trial, God will sum up all your deeds together to decide your outcome. Such a decision will make everyone sincerely convinced. Here what I want to tell you is: What you practice, what you do, and what you think in your heart determine your destiny.
By Whom Man’s Outcome Is Decided
There is another most important thing, that is, your attitude toward God. This attitude is very important! This attitude decides whether you will eventually go to destruction or enter into the pleasant destination God has prepared for you. In the Age of the Kingdom, God has worked for more than twenty years. During these more than twenty years, in your hearts you all may be unclear about your manifestations, but in God’s heart he has been keeping a real, actual record for each one. From the time each one begins to follow him, hear his preachings, and understand more and more truths, to the time he performs his duty, God has a record of all his various manifestations of this period. During the course of his performing duty, when he encounters various circumstances and various trials, what his attitude is, what his various manifestations are, what he thinks of God in his heart, … of all these God has an account, a record. You may be very unclear about these things, but God is very clear about them, without any negligence. Because this matter has to do with each person’s outcome and has to do with each person’s destiny and future, and even more because all God’s painstaking effort and price are put in it, God dare not neglect in the least and does not allow any carelessness. God has been keeping such an account for man, an account of the course of man’s following God from beginning to end. What your attitude toward God is in this course will decide your destiny. Isn’t this very real? By now, don’t you think God is very righteous? Isn’t it very appropriate for God to do so? Do you still have any imagination about God? (No.) Then tell me, is man’s outcome decided by God or by man himself? (Decided by God.) By whom? (God.) You do not know again! Brothers and sisters from the church in Hong Kong answer first. By whom? (By man himself.) By man himself? So then, it has nothing to do with God? Someone from the church in South Korea, give your answer. (God decides man’s outcome according to his actions and behavior and according to the way he takes.) This word is very objective. Here is a fact I have to tell you: While God does the work of salvation, he sets a standard for man. This standard is that man can listen to God’s words and walk in God’s ways. By this standard man’s outcome is judged. If you practice according to this standard from God, then you will receive a good outcome; if you do not practice according to this standard, then you cannot receive a good outcome. So by whom do you say this outcome is decided? It is not decided by God alone, but by God and man together. Is that right? (Yes.) Why do I say so? Because God takes the initiative to do the work of saving man and prepare a pleasant destination for man, and man is the object of God’s work and this outcome or destination is prepared by God for man. Without the object of his work, God would not need to do this work. If God did not do this work, man would have no opportunity to be saved. Man is the object of salvation. The object of salvation is the passive party, but the attitude of this party decides whether God can fulfill his work of saving mankind. Without God’s guidance for you, you would not know the standard or have a goal. After you have the standard and goal, if you do not cooperate, not practicing or paying price, you still cannot receive it. So this outcome can neither do without God nor do without man. Now you know by whom man’s outcome is actually decided!
Man Likes to Circumscribe God by Experience
When we fellowship about the subject of knowing God, have you found a fact? Have you found that God now has a change in his attitude? Is God’s attitude toward mankind unchanging? Will God be patient like this forever and keep giving all his love and his mercy to man timelessly? This thing has to do with God’s substance again. Let’s come back to the question raised just now about the so-called prodigal sons’ return. After I asked that question, your answers are not very definite, which shows that you do not quite know the will of God. Once man knows that God loves him, he circumscribes God as the symbol of love: No matter what man does, no matter how man behaves, no matter how man treats God, and no matter how man disobeys, it does not matter, because God has love and God’s love is infinite and measureless; God has love, so he can bear with man; God has love, so he can have mercy on man, having mercy on man’s immaturity, on man’s ignorance, and on man’s disobedience. Is this really true? When having experienced God’s patience once or several times, some people take that as their capital of knowing God and think that God will be patient with them and have mercy on them forever. And in their whole life, they regard God’s patience with them as the standard for God’s treatment of them. Some others, after having received God’s tolerance for them once, circumscribe God as tolerance forever, which is timeless and unconditional and is even based on no principle at all. Are these views correct? Whenever you are asked about God’s substance and God’s disposition, you are at a loss. Seeing you are like this, I am really worried. You have heard much about the truth concerning God’s substance and much about the subject concerning God’s disposition, but in your mind these things, the truths of these aspects, are only theories and memories in letter. No one has ever realized or seen what God’s disposition is like in real life. So you all believe in a muddled way and believe blindly, and you even have a disdainful and disregarding attitude toward God. What does your such attitude toward God cause? It causes you to always circumscribe God. Once you know a little, you feel very content and feel that you have gained God’s everything, and then you circumscribe God and do not allow God to move. Once God does a new thing, you refuse to acknowledge that he is God. Consequently, when one day God says, “I no longer love man, I no longer have mercy on man, I no longer show any tolerance and patience to man, and I extremely loathe and detest man,” man resists such words from his heart, and some people even say, “You are no longer my God, and you are no longer the God I am to follow. Since you say such words, you are unqualified to be my God, and it is not necessary for me to follow you anymore. If you do not have mercy on me, give me love, or show me tolerance, I will not follow you any further. Only if you tolerate me timelessly and are patient with me all the time for me to see that you are love, you are patience, and you are tolerance, will I follow you and have faith to follow to the end. This is because only if you show patience and mercy to me can my disobedience and my transgression be forgiven and pardoned timelessly, and can I sin anytime and anywhere, confess my sin and be forgiven anytime and anywhere, and infuriate you anytime and anywhere, while you should not have any critical view or conclusion about me.” Although in everyone’s heart, you may not subjectively and consciously give such thoughts to this issue, yet when you treat God as a tool through which you can be forgiven of sins and as an object you can use to gain a pleasant destination, you already place the living God in opposition to yourself and treat him as your enemy unconsciously. This is what my eyes have seen. Although you repeatedly say, “I believe in God,” “I pursue the truth,” “I want to be transformed in my disposition,” “I want to break away from the influence of darkness,” “I want to satisfy God,” “I want to obey God,” “I want to be faithful to God and perform my duty well,” … no matter how pleasant to the ear your words are, how many theories you have, and how magnificent and high-sounding they are, actually many of you, following to this day, have learned to circumscribe God with the regulations, doctrines, and theories you have grasped, and have naturally placed God in opposition to yourselves. You have grasped the letters and grasped the doctrines, but you have not truly entered into the reality of the truth, so it is very hard for you to draw near to God, know God, and understand God. This is a very sad thing!
In a video I saw such a scene: Several sisters are holding up a book of The Word Appears in the Flesh and holding it up very high. They are raising the book in the center and above their heads. Although this was a picture, what I saw was not a picture, but rather it made me think of the fact that in everyone’s heart, what he exalts is not God’s word but the book of God’s word. This is a very sad thing. Such doing is not exalting God at all, because you do not know God. Even in a very obvious and very small matter, you have notions within. When I asked you and when I am serious with you, you gave answers based on imagination and guesswork, and some even asked in reply with a doubting tone. From this, I know more clearly in my heart that what you believe in is not the true God. After you have read God’s word for so many years, you again circumscribe God with God’s word, God’s work, and more doctrines. And you never try to know about God and ponder God’s will, and never try to know such issues as what God’s attitude toward man actually is, what God’s heart thinks, what God is sorrowful for, what God is angry for, why God detests and rejects man, and so on. More people think that God is always silent, because God is only watching man’s various manifestations, with no attitude or opinion. Some people even think that God is silent because God approves tacitly, that God is silent because God is waiting, or that God is silent because God has no attitude and because God’s attitudes have all been told in the book and have all been expressed to man, and there is no need to tell man repeatedly and from time to time. Though God is silent, God has his attitude, his viewpoint, and his required standard for man. Even though man does not try to know him or seek him, his attitude is very definite. As for the thing that some people who had followed God very zealously in those days forsook God and now want to come back, you do not even know what is God’s viewpoint on it and what is God’s attitude toward it. Isn’t this a very sad thing? Actually this is a very shallow thing. If you truly understand God’s heart, you should have known what attitude he has toward such people and should not have answered ambiguously. Since you do not know it, let me tell you.
God’s Attitude Toward Those Who Ran Away from God’s Work
In every place there are some people of this kind: After they had been certain about God’s way, they left quietly for various reasons. They left without saying good-bye and went to do what they wanted to do at their own will. Let’s not discuss for the moment why they left. Let’s first see what God’s attitude is toward such people. It is very definite! From the very moment they left, in God’s eyes, their life of believing in God was over. It was not they who put an end to it, but God who put an end to it for them. Their leaving God meant that they rejected God already and did not want God anymore, and meant that they no longer accepted God’s salvation for them. Since they no longer wanted God, could God still want them? Moreover, when they had such an attitude and such a thought and were determined to leave God, they already provoked God’s disposition, even though they did not point at God and yell abuse in a towering rage, even though they did not have any excessive or wicked behavior, and even though they thought to themselves, “If one day I have enough fun outside or when I still need God, I will come back; or when God calls me, I will come back,” or they said, “When I get hurt outside, or when I see the outside world is too dark and too evil and I do not want to go with the current, I will come back to God.” Even though they planned in their hearts they would come back some day, and even though they left themselves a way out, they did not know that no matter what they thought and what they planned, it was only their own wishful thinking. Their biggest mistake was that they did not find out what God’s heart felt when they wanted to leave. From the very moment they were determined to leave God, God gave them up completely, and God already decided their outcome in his heart. What is their outcome? Such people are classified as mice and will perish together with them. So, man often sees such a thing: After a person has rejected God, he, however, goes unpunished. God has his principles in doing things. Certain things man can see; certain things God only decides in his heart, so man cannot see the results of these things. What man’s eyes see does not amount to the side of reality, but the side man has not seen is precisely the real thought and decision in God’s heart.
Those Who Ran Away from God’s Work Are Ones Who Have Forsaken the True Way
So, why can God give such people so severe a punishment? Why does God have such great wrath toward them? We should first know that God’s disposition is majesty and wrath. He is not a sheep for man to slaughter at will, much less a puppet for man to manipulate at will, nor is he air for man to breathe in and out. If you truly believe in God’s existence, you should have a heart of fearing God, and you should know that God’s substance is not to be infuriated. This “infuriating” may result from a word, or a thought, or an evil behavior, or a very mild behavior, a behavior that is acceptable according to man’s view and man’s morality and ethics, or a doctrine, a theory. However, once you infuriate God, you will have no more opportunity, and your last day will come. This is a very terrible thing! If you do not know that God is not to be offended, you cannot possibly dread God, and you may often offend God; if you do not know how to fear God, you cannot possibly fear God, and you will not know how to set about walking in God’s ways—fearing God and shunning evil. Once you have a realization in your heart and can realize that God is not to be offended, you will know what to do to fear God and shun evil.
As for entering into walking in the way of fearing God and shunning evil, you do not have to know many truths, experience many trials, or experience many disciplines before you can achieve it; rather it depends on what the substance of your heart is toward God and what attitude you have toward God in your heart. Man’s substance and man’s subjective attitude are very important and crucial. As for those people who rejected and left God, their disdainful attitude toward God and their heart of hating the truth have provoked God’s disposition. So in God’s eyes, they can never be forgiven. They had known the existence of God, heard the news that God has come, and even experienced the new work God does. They did not leave in the condition of being deceived, nor in the state of being hazy, much less in the condition of being compelled; rather it was in the condition of being conscious and clearheaded that they voluntarily chose to leave God. Their leaving is not going astray or being lost, so in God’s eyes, they are not the lambs lost from the flock, much less the prodigal sons who lost their way. They left without fear of anything; such a condition, such a state, provoked God’s disposition, and it was this “provoking” that brought them an irremediable outcome. Isn’t such an outcome very terrible? Therefore, if man does not know God, he can offend God! This is in no way a small thing! If one does not take God’s attitude seriously and even thinks that God is looking forward to his return, because he is the little lost lamb of God and God is still waiting for him to change his mind, then he is not far from the day of being punished. Not only will he not be received by God, but he provokes God’s disposition the second time. This is a more terrible thing! His disdainful attitude toward God has offended God’s administrative decrees, so will God receive him? In God’s heart the principle for this thing is that if one, even after being certain of the true way, rejects and leaves God in the condition of being conscious and clearheaded, under such a background God will close the way for him to be saved, and from then on the gate to the kingdom will be shut to him. When he comes back again to knock at the door, God will not open it for him again, and he will be shut out forever. Some of you may have read the story about Moses in the Bible. After God anointed and appointed Moses, due to Moses’ various manifestations and for various reasons, the two hundred and fifty leaders showed their refusal to submit. Whom did they refuse to submit to? It was not Moses that they refused to submit to; they refused to submit to God’s arrangement, refusing to submit to the thing God did. They said such a word as this: “You take too much on you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them….” Is this word very grievous in man’s eyes? No! At least its literal meaning is not grievous. Legally speaking, it is nothing serious, because on the surface it contains no opposing word or phrase, much less does it have the meaning of blasphemy. It is only an ordinary word. However, why could such a word provoke God into so great anger? This was because their word was not directed at a man but at God, and the disposition and attitude they expressed through their word precisely provoked God’s disposition and offended God’s disposition that is not to be offended. In the end they had the outcome as known by us. As for those who have forsaken God, what is their viewpoint? What is their attitude? The reason why their viewpoint and attitude can bring upon themselves such punishment of God is that they chose to betray God when having clearly known he is God. Therefore, they are completely deprived of the opportunity of being saved. Just as the Bible says, “For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins.” Now you are very clear about this thing, aren’t you?