Walk in God’s Ways: Fear God and Shun Evil
There is one word you should write down. I regard it as very important, because every day it appears in my heart so many times. Why do I say so? Because whenever I meet a person, hear a person’s story, or hear a person’s experience or testimony in believing in God, I measure by this word in my heart whether he is one God wants and one God likes. Then what is this word? You are all waiting for the answer anxiously. When this word is spoken out, you may feel very disappointed, because this word has been on the lips of some people for many years. But I never have it on my lips. I put it in my heart. What is this word? It is “Walk in God’s ways: Fear God and shun evil.” Isn’t it a very simple word? This word is simple, but with a person who truly has a deep understanding of it, he feels that this word carries a heavy weight and is very worthy to be practiced, and it is a word of life with the reality of the truth, a goal for a person who pursues to satisfy God to pursue all his life, and a way for a person who cares for God’s will to follow all his life. Then is this word a truth to you? Is it of such significance to you? Maybe some people are thinking and pondering, but some are doubting it: Is this word very important? Is it very important? Is it very necessary to emphasize this word like this? Some people may not like this word very much, because they think, “God’s ways are expressed in just this one word; isn’t this too simple? All the words spoken by God are summed up in just one word; isn’t God considered too small?” Is that so? Most of you may not quite understand the deep meaning of this word. Although you have written it down, you have no intention of putting it in your heart. You only write it down in your notebooks, and at your leisure, you may get it out to look at and ponder over it; that’s all. Some people even disdain to remember it, much less have the intention of using it. But why do I say this word? Regardless of what viewpoint you have or what you may think, I must say this word because it has a very great bearing on God’s deciding men’s outcomes. No matter how you understand it and how you treat it now, I still want to tell you: If you can practice this word well and can reach the standard of “fearing God and shunning evil,” you will surely be one to be left alive and surely be one who has a good outcome; if you cannot reach the standard of this word, then it can be said that your outcome is questionable. So I tell you this word in advance, with the purpose that you will know the true fact in your heart beforehand, knowing by what standard God measures you. Just now I have said that this word has a very great bearing on God’s saving men and deciding men’s outcomes. Where does this bearing lie? You want to know it very much. Let’s talk about it today.
God Tests by Various Trials Whether Men Fear God and Shun Evil
When God works among men in each age, he bestows on men some words and tells them some truths. These truths are the ways men should keep, the ways men should walk in, and the ways that enable men to fear God and shun evil, and they are also what men should practice and keep in their lives and in their life journey. This is the purpose of God’s expressing his words to men. Since these words are expressed by God, men should keep them. If one keeps them, he will have life. If one does not keep or practice them, and fails to live out these words of God in his life, then he is not practicing the truth; since he is not practicing the truth, he is not fearing God and shunning evil, and he cannot satisfy God; since he cannot satisfy God, he cannot receive God’s approval and so his outcome will come to naught. Then how does God decide men’s outcomes in his work? By what means does God decide men’s outcomes? You may not be clear if I do not speak about it, but when I tell you its process, probably you will be clear, because many people have experienced it.
In God’s work, from the beginning until now, God has given everyone, everyone who follows him, trials varying in degree: Some people have experienced the trial of being rejected by their families; some have experienced the trial of adverse environment; some have experienced the trial of being arrested and tormented by cruel tortures; some have experienced the trial of facing choices; and some have faced the trial of position or money. In a word, various kinds of trials have come upon everyone. Then why does God do so? Why does God treat everyone in this way? What result does he want to see? This is the main point I want to tell you: God wants to see whether a person is one who fears God and shuns evil. That is to say, when God tries you, when God causes you to encounter a circumstance, he wants to test whether you are fearing God and whether you are shunning evil. Suppose a person is entrusted with the duty of keeping the offering. This duty lets him come into contact with God’s offering. Then do you think this thing is arranged by God? This is beyond doubt! Whatever you encounter is arranged by God. When you encounter this thing, God is watching in secret to see what you will choose, what you will practice, and what you will think in your heart. This result is what God is most concerned about, because God wants to measure by this result whether you meet God’s standard in this trial. However, when man encounters something, he never thinks why this thing comes to him, what God’s required standard is, and what God wants to see or gain in him. When he encounters this thing, he just thinks to himself, “This thing comes to me. I must be careful and should not be negligent! No matter what, I cannot touch it, for it is God’s offering.” With such a simple thought, he thinks he has fulfilled his responsibility. Does this result of the trial satisfy God or fail to satisfy God? Tell me your opinions. (If a person has a heart of fearing God, when he encounters the thing of contacting the offering, he will think that it is something in which man is likely to offend God’s disposition. So he will surely be cautious in it.) What you say is somewhat relevant, but it is not very to the point. Walking in God’s ways is not to keep regulations outwardly; rather, it is that when you encounter this thing, you should first consider it a circumstance God arranges, a responsibility God gives to you, or a commission God entrusts to you, and that when this thing comes to you, you should even consider it as God’s trial of you. When it comes to you, you should have a criterion in your heart. You should think that this thing is from God, and think what you should do to fulfill your responsibility and be faithful to God and what you should do so as not to infuriate God and not to offend God’s disposition. Just now, we mentioned keeping the offering. This involves the offering and also involves your duty and your responsibility. This responsibility is unshirkable. However, is there temptation when this thing comes to you? There is temptation! Where does the temptation come from? It comes from satan and also comes from man’s evil, corrupt disposition. Since there is temptation, it involves the testimony man should stand. Standing the testimony is also your responsibility and duty. Some people say, “It is so small a thing. Is it necessary to make so great an issue of it?” Yes, it is necessary! This is because to walk in God’s ways, we should not let go anything that happens about or around us, even if it is a trifle. As long as it comes to us, whether we think it worthy of our attention or not, we should not let it go but regard it as God’s test of us. What do you think of such an attitude? If you have such an attitude, it proves a fact: Your heart fears God and your heart wants to shun evil. Since you have the desire to satisfy God, your practice will not be far from the standard of fearing God and shunning evil.
Some people usually take the things no one pays much attention to and no one mentions at ordinary times as trifles and as the things unrelated to practicing the truth. When encountering such a thing, they only think about it briefly and let it slip. Actually, when such a thing comes to you, it is just the time for you to learn the lesson of how to fear God and how to shun evil. And even more, you should know what God is doing when it comes to you. God is right at your side, watching your every word and deed and watching your behavior and the changing of your thoughts. This is God’s work. Some people say, “How come I have not felt that?” You have not felt that, because you have not taken the way of fearing God and shunning evil as the most important way to keep. Thus you have not felt the fine work God does on you according to your different thoughts and different manifestations. You are a careless person! What are great things? What are small things? With the things related to walking in God’s ways, there is no difference of great and small. Can you understand this? (Yes.) Among the things that come to men every day, to them some are great, while others are small. Men always regard great things as very important ones and consider them to be from God, but in the great things men always fall short of God’s will and cannot receive any revelation or any valuable practical knowledge, because their stature is small and their qualities are poor. As for the small things, however, men all ignore them and let them slip one by one. Thus they lose many opportunities for God to test them or try them before him. If you keep ignoring the people, matters, and things God arranges for you and the circumstances God arranges for you like this, what does it mean? It means that you forsake God’s perfecting of you and God’s guidance to you every day, even every moment. When God arranges a circumstance for you, he is watching in secret, searching your heart and searching your mind and thoughts, to see what you think and what you will do. If you are a careless person and you are a person who is never serious in God’s ways, in God’s word, or in the truth, then you will not pay heed or attention to what God wants to accomplish and what God’s requirements for you are in the circumstance he arranges for you, nor will you know what relationships the people, matters, and things you encounter have with the truth and God’s will. Thus, after many circumstances or many trials come upon you, as God sees no results in you, what will God do? After you encounter many trials, as your heart does not magnify God, and you have not taken seriously the circumstances God arranges for you and regarded them as God’s trials or God’s tests, but you have pushed away the opportunities bestowed on you by God one after another and let them slip time after time, isn’t this man’s great disobedience? (Yes.) Will God grieve for it? (Yes.) No, God won’t! Hearing me say so, you are shocked again: Hasn’t it been said before that God is always grieved? God will not be grieved? When will God be grieved? Anyway, God will not grieve over this thing. Then what is God’s attitude toward the above manifestations of man? When a man pushes away God’s trials and tests of him, when he avoids these, God only has one attitude toward him. What is the attitude? God detests and rejects such a person from his heart. This “detest and reject” has a twofold meaning. How do I explain it? The “detest” in it means loathing and hating very much. What does “reject” mean? To me, it means “give up.” You all know what “give up” means, don’t you? In a word, “detest and reject” is God’s final response and attitude toward a person who does such things, which means that God extremely loathes and detests him and so decides to give him up. This is God’s final decision about a person who never walks in God’s ways and who never fears God and shuns evil. Now have you seen the importance of the word I said just now?
Now, have you known by what means God decides men’s outcomes? (By arranging various circumstances every day.) “Arranging various circumstances,” this is what man feels and contacts. Then what is God’s intention of doing so? It is that God wants to try everyone by different means, at different times, and in different places. What does God test by trying you? He tests if you are one who fears God and shuns evil in each thing you encounter, either something you hear, or something you see, or something you experience personally. Everyone will encounter such trials, as God is fair to everyone. Some people say, “I have also believed in God for several years, but why haven’t I encountered them?” You feel that you have not encountered them, because you have not at all taken seriously the circumstances God arranges for you and because you have not wanted to walk in God’s ways at all. So you have not had any feeling about God’s trials. Some say, “I have encountered several trials. However, as I did not know the exact ways of practice, even though I have carried out my practice, I do not know whether I have stood in the trials.” Those in such a state are not in the minority. Then what is the standard by which God measures a man? It is, as I said just now, whether what you do, what you think, and what you manifest are fearing God and shunning evil. By this God decides whether you are one who fears God and shuns evil. Isn’t this simple? It sounds simple, but is it simple to practice it? (No.) Why is it not simple? (Because people do not know God’s word and do not know how God perfects man, and so in the things they encounter, they do not know how to seek the truth to solve the problems. People have to experience various trials, refinings, chastisements, and judgments before they can have the reality of fearing God.) Although you say so, now to your feeling, it seems as if it is very easy for you to live up to “fearing God and shunning evil.” Why do I say so? Because so far you have heard many messages and received much watering of the reality of the truth, so that you have known theoretically and ideologically how to attain fearing God and shunning evil. This is very helpful to your practice of “fearing God and shunning evil” and makes you feel it very easy to attain it. However, why can no one attain it actually? It is because the substance of man’s nature does not fear God but likes evil. This is the real reason.
Not Fearing God and Shunning Evil Is Standing in Opposition to God
Here let’s first see: Where does the word “fear God and shun evil” come from? (The Book of Job.) Since we mention Job, let’s talk about Job. In the times of Job, did God do any work of saving and conquering man? No! Right? Then how much knowledge of God did Job have at that time? (Not much.) How is his knowledge of God in comparison with yours today? Why do you not dare to answer this question? Is it more than or less than your knowledge today? (Less.) This question is very easy to answer. Less! That is definite! Now you are face to face with God and face to face with God’s word. Your knowledge of God is much more than Job’s. Why do I mention this? Why do I say so? Here I want to illustrate a fact. Before I illustrate it, I want to ask you a question: Why is it that Job, with far less knowledge of God, could fear God and shun evil, but people of today cannot? (People have been deeply corrupted.) “People have been too deeply corrupted” is the surface of the problem. For my part, I will never view it this way. You always have on your lips the doctrines or letters you often say at ordinary times, the pet phrases, such as, “being deeply corrupted,” “disobeying God,” “not being faithful to God,” “not being obedient,” “not loving the truth,” … to explain the substance of any problem. This is a wrong way of practice. Explaining the problems of different nature with the same answer would naturally be suspected of blaspheming the truth and God. I do not like to hear such an answer. You think about it carefully! None of you has thought about it. However, for my part, I can see it every day and can feel it every day. So, while you are doing, I am watching. When you are doing, you cannot feel its substance, but when I am watching, I can see its substance and can also perceive its substance. Then what is its substance? Why can’t people of today fear God and shun evil? Your answer is far from enough to explain the substance of this problem or solve the substance of this problem. This is because there is a root, which you do not know. What is the root? I know you want to hear it very much. Then I will tell you the root of this problem.
From the day God did his work, whom did God treat man as? God rescued man back and treated man as his family member, as the object of his work, and as the object to be conquered, saved, and perfected by him. This was God’s attitude toward man when he did his work at the beginning. However, what was man’s attitude toward God at that time? Man found God alien and treated him as a stranger. Man’s attitude toward God could be said to be perplexed, and he did not know how he should treat God. Anyway, he just treated God according to what he thought, and acted according to what he thought. Did man have his viewpoint about God? At the beginning, man did not have any viewpoint about God. His so-called viewpoint was his notion and imagination about God. He just accepted what fit his notion. As for what was discordant with his notion, outwardly he pretended to obey it, but in his heart he resisted and opposed it to the utmost. This was the relationship between man and God at the beginning: God treated man as his family member, but man treated God as a stranger. However, after God did the work for a period of time, man understood what God wanted to do, knew that he was the true God, and knew what man could receive from God. Then whom did man treat God as? He treated God as a life-saving straw, hoping to receive from God grace, blessing, and promise. Whom did God treat man as at the time? God treated man as the object to be conquered. God was to judge, test, and try man with his word. But at the time, to man, God was the one who could be used by him to achieve his own ends. Man saw that the truth God expressed could conquer and save man and that man had the opportunity to receive from God his desired things and desired destination, so man had a little bit of sincerity and was willing to follow this God. Later, man had some superficial and doctrinal knowledge about God and could be said to be more and more “familiar” with God and more and more “familiar” with the words God spoke, the messages God preached, the truth God expressed, and the work God did, so man mistakenly thought that he was no longer unfamiliar with God and had walked on the way of being compatible with God. By now, people have heard many messages of the truth and experienced many works of God, but disturbed and hindered by many factors and many situations, most fail to practice the truth and fail to satisfy God. They become more and more slack, have less and less faith, and feel more and more uncertain about their outcome, and they no longer dare to have any extravagant thought and no longer make an effort to seek progress but just follow and go forward step by step reluctantly. People being in such a state now, what is God’s attitude toward them? God only wants to inculcate these truths, his ways, in them and then arrange various circumstances to try them and use various means to try them, for the purpose that he will achieve the result “people can fear God and shun evil” by these words, these truths, and the works he does. What my eyes see is that most people just observe God’s words as doctrines, as letters, and as regulations. When doing things or speaking or encountering trials, they do not keep God’s ways as the ways they should keep. Especially when people encounter some great trials, I see none of them direct his practice toward “fearing God and shunning evil.” Therefore, God’s attitude toward man is extreme detestation and loathing! After God has tried man many times and even a hundred times, man still has no definite attitude to show his resolution—I am determined to fear God and shun evil! Since man does not have such a resolution or such a manifestation, now God’s attitude toward man is that he no longer shows mercy, tolerance, forbearance, or patience to man as before, but feels extremely disappointed in man. Who causes this “disappointment”? As for what attitude God has toward man, whom does it lie with? It lies with each one who follows God. In these many years of work, God has made many requirements of man and arranged many circumstances for man. However, no matter what man has practiced and no matter what attitude man has toward God, man just cannot direct his practice definitely toward the goal of “fearing God and shunning evil.” So I sum up one word by which to explain why people cannot walk in God’s ways—fear God and shun evil, which we have just talked about. What is the word? It is: God treats man as the object of his salvation and the object of his work, but man treats God as his enemy and his opposite. Now have you seen this clearly? What man’s attitude is, what God’s attitude is, and what the relationship between man and God is, these are very clear. No matter how many messages you have heard, the summaries you yourselves make, such as being faithful to God, obeying God, seeking the way to be compatible with God, spending your whole life for God, living for God…, these, in my eyes, do not mean that you are consciously walking in God’s ways—fearing God and shunning evil, but are only some channels for you to achieve your certain purposes. For these purposes, you are reluctantly keeping some regulations. However, it is exactly these regulations that cause man to be further away from the way of “fearing God and shunning evil” and to place God in opposition to man again.
The subject I talk about today is somewhat heavy. But anyway I still hope that you can live up to what I have just said to you in your future experience and future time. Do not treat God as air—feeling he exists when you need him and feeling he does not exist when you do not need him. When you have such knowledge in your subconscious, you have infuriated God. Some people may say, “I have not treated God as air. I pray to God all the time, and I satisfy God all the time. Whatever I do, I do it based on the scope and the principle and standard required by God, and not according to my own will.” Right, the way of your practice is right! But when you encounter things, what do you think? When you encounter things, what do you practice? Some people feel God exists when they make prayers and requests to God, but when they encounter things and their own will comes out and they want to act according to it, they treat God as air. At this time, God does not exist to them. People think that when they need God, he should exist, and that when they do not need God, he should not exist, and they can just practice according to their own will, doing whatever they want to do, and there is no need to seek God’s ways at all. Since people are in such a condition and in such a state now, aren’t they on the brink of danger? Some people say, “No matter whether I am on the brink of danger or not, anyway I have believed in God for so many years, and I believe that God should not forsake me, because God does not have the heart to forsake me.” Still some say, “I have believed in the Lord since I was in my mother’s womb. It has been forty to fifty years by now. In terms of time, I am most qualified to be saved by God, and I am most qualified to be left alive. During the forty to fifty years, I have left my family, given up my career, and given up my all, such as money, position, enjoyment, and family happiness. Many good foods I have not tasted, many enjoyable things I have not enjoyed, and many nice places I have not visited. I have even undergone the sufferings ordinary men cannot stand. If God cannot save me because of these, then I am treated too unjustly, and I cannot believe in such a God.” Aren’t there many people who have such thoughts? (Yes.) Then today I will let you know a fact: All who have such thoughts are lifting a rock only to drop on their own feet. This is because they have blinded their eyes with their own imaginations. It is exactly their imaginations and conclusions that have replaced God’s required standard for man and hindered them from receiving God’s true will, so that they are unable to feel the real existence of God, lose the opportunities to be perfected by God, and have no part or share in God’s promises.
There is one word you should write down. I regard it as very important, because every day it appears in my heart so many times. Why do I say so? Because whenever I meet a person, hear a person’s story, or hear a person’s experience or testimony in believing in God, I measure by this word in my heart whether he is one God wants and one God likes. Then what is this word? You are all waiting for the answer anxiously. When this word is spoken out, you may feel very disappointed, because this word has been on the lips of some people for many years. But I never have it on my lips. I put it in my heart. What is this word? It is “Walk in God’s ways: Fear God and shun evil.” Isn’t it a very simple word? This word is simple, but with a person who truly has a deep understanding of it, he feels that this word carries a heavy weight and is very worthy to be practiced, and it is a word of life with the reality of the truth, a goal for a person who pursues to satisfy God to pursue all his life, and a way for a person who cares for God’s will to follow all his life. Then is this word a truth to you? Is it of such significance to you? Maybe some people are thinking and pondering, but some are doubting it: Is this word very important? Is it very important? Is it very necessary to emphasize this word like this? Some people may not like this word very much, because they think, “God’s ways are expressed in just this one word; isn’t this too simple? All the words spoken by God are summed up in just one word; isn’t God considered too small?” Is that so? Most of you may not quite understand the deep meaning of this word. Although you have written it down, you have no intention of putting it in your heart. You only write it down in your notebooks, and at your leisure, you may get it out to look at and ponder over it; that’s all. Some people even disdain to remember it, much less have the intention of using it. But why do I say this word? Regardless of what viewpoint you have or what you may think, I must say this word because it has a very great bearing on God’s deciding men’s outcomes. No matter how you understand it and how you treat it now, I still want to tell you: If you can practice this word well and can reach the standard of “fearing God and shunning evil,” you will surely be one to be left alive and surely be one who has a good outcome; if you cannot reach the standard of this word, then it can be said that your outcome is questionable. So I tell you this word in advance, with the purpose that you will know the true fact in your heart beforehand, knowing by what standard God measures you. Just now I have said that this word has a very great bearing on God’s saving men and deciding men’s outcomes. Where does this bearing lie? You want to know it very much. Let’s talk about it today.
God Tests by Various Trials Whether Men Fear God and Shun Evil
When God works among men in each age, he bestows on men some words and tells them some truths. These truths are the ways men should keep, the ways men should walk in, and the ways that enable men to fear God and shun evil, and they are also what men should practice and keep in their lives and in their life journey. This is the purpose of God’s expressing his words to men. Since these words are expressed by God, men should keep them. If one keeps them, he will have life. If one does not keep or practice them, and fails to live out these words of God in his life, then he is not practicing the truth; since he is not practicing the truth, he is not fearing God and shunning evil, and he cannot satisfy God; since he cannot satisfy God, he cannot receive God’s approval and so his outcome will come to naught. Then how does God decide men’s outcomes in his work? By what means does God decide men’s outcomes? You may not be clear if I do not speak about it, but when I tell you its process, probably you will be clear, because many people have experienced it.
In God’s work, from the beginning until now, God has given everyone, everyone who follows him, trials varying in degree: Some people have experienced the trial of being rejected by their families; some have experienced the trial of adverse environment; some have experienced the trial of being arrested and tormented by cruel tortures; some have experienced the trial of facing choices; and some have faced the trial of position or money. In a word, various kinds of trials have come upon everyone. Then why does God do so? Why does God treat everyone in this way? What result does he want to see? This is the main point I want to tell you: God wants to see whether a person is one who fears God and shuns evil. That is to say, when God tries you, when God causes you to encounter a circumstance, he wants to test whether you are fearing God and whether you are shunning evil. Suppose a person is entrusted with the duty of keeping the offering. This duty lets him come into contact with God’s offering. Then do you think this thing is arranged by God? This is beyond doubt! Whatever you encounter is arranged by God. When you encounter this thing, God is watching in secret to see what you will choose, what you will practice, and what you will think in your heart. This result is what God is most concerned about, because God wants to measure by this result whether you meet God’s standard in this trial. However, when man encounters something, he never thinks why this thing comes to him, what God’s required standard is, and what God wants to see or gain in him. When he encounters this thing, he just thinks to himself, “This thing comes to me. I must be careful and should not be negligent! No matter what, I cannot touch it, for it is God’s offering.” With such a simple thought, he thinks he has fulfilled his responsibility. Does this result of the trial satisfy God or fail to satisfy God? Tell me your opinions. (If a person has a heart of fearing God, when he encounters the thing of contacting the offering, he will think that it is something in which man is likely to offend God’s disposition. So he will surely be cautious in it.) What you say is somewhat relevant, but it is not very to the point. Walking in God’s ways is not to keep regulations outwardly; rather, it is that when you encounter this thing, you should first consider it a circumstance God arranges, a responsibility God gives to you, or a commission God entrusts to you, and that when this thing comes to you, you should even consider it as God’s trial of you. When it comes to you, you should have a criterion in your heart. You should think that this thing is from God, and think what you should do to fulfill your responsibility and be faithful to God and what you should do so as not to infuriate God and not to offend God’s disposition. Just now, we mentioned keeping the offering. This involves the offering and also involves your duty and your responsibility. This responsibility is unshirkable. However, is there temptation when this thing comes to you? There is temptation! Where does the temptation come from? It comes from satan and also comes from man’s evil, corrupt disposition. Since there is temptation, it involves the testimony man should stand. Standing the testimony is also your responsibility and duty. Some people say, “It is so small a thing. Is it necessary to make so great an issue of it?” Yes, it is necessary! This is because to walk in God’s ways, we should not let go anything that happens about or around us, even if it is a trifle. As long as it comes to us, whether we think it worthy of our attention or not, we should not let it go but regard it as God’s test of us. What do you think of such an attitude? If you have such an attitude, it proves a fact: Your heart fears God and your heart wants to shun evil. Since you have the desire to satisfy God, your practice will not be far from the standard of fearing God and shunning evil.
Some people usually take the things no one pays much attention to and no one mentions at ordinary times as trifles and as the things unrelated to practicing the truth. When encountering such a thing, they only think about it briefly and let it slip. Actually, when such a thing comes to you, it is just the time for you to learn the lesson of how to fear God and how to shun evil. And even more, you should know what God is doing when it comes to you. God is right at your side, watching your every word and deed and watching your behavior and the changing of your thoughts. This is God’s work. Some people say, “How come I have not felt that?” You have not felt that, because you have not taken the way of fearing God and shunning evil as the most important way to keep. Thus you have not felt the fine work God does on you according to your different thoughts and different manifestations. You are a careless person! What are great things? What are small things? With the things related to walking in God’s ways, there is no difference of great and small. Can you understand this? (Yes.) Among the things that come to men every day, to them some are great, while others are small. Men always regard great things as very important ones and consider them to be from God, but in the great things men always fall short of God’s will and cannot receive any revelation or any valuable practical knowledge, because their stature is small and their qualities are poor. As for the small things, however, men all ignore them and let them slip one by one. Thus they lose many opportunities for God to test them or try them before him. If you keep ignoring the people, matters, and things God arranges for you and the circumstances God arranges for you like this, what does it mean? It means that you forsake God’s perfecting of you and God’s guidance to you every day, even every moment. When God arranges a circumstance for you, he is watching in secret, searching your heart and searching your mind and thoughts, to see what you think and what you will do. If you are a careless person and you are a person who is never serious in God’s ways, in God’s word, or in the truth, then you will not pay heed or attention to what God wants to accomplish and what God’s requirements for you are in the circumstance he arranges for you, nor will you know what relationships the people, matters, and things you encounter have with the truth and God’s will. Thus, after many circumstances or many trials come upon you, as God sees no results in you, what will God do? After you encounter many trials, as your heart does not magnify God, and you have not taken seriously the circumstances God arranges for you and regarded them as God’s trials or God’s tests, but you have pushed away the opportunities bestowed on you by God one after another and let them slip time after time, isn’t this man’s great disobedience? (Yes.) Will God grieve for it? (Yes.) No, God won’t! Hearing me say so, you are shocked again: Hasn’t it been said before that God is always grieved? God will not be grieved? When will God be grieved? Anyway, God will not grieve over this thing. Then what is God’s attitude toward the above manifestations of man? When a man pushes away God’s trials and tests of him, when he avoids these, God only has one attitude toward him. What is the attitude? God detests and rejects such a person from his heart. This “detest and reject” has a twofold meaning. How do I explain it? The “detest” in it means loathing and hating very much. What does “reject” mean? To me, it means “give up.” You all know what “give up” means, don’t you? In a word, “detest and reject” is God’s final response and attitude toward a person who does such things, which means that God extremely loathes and detests him and so decides to give him up. This is God’s final decision about a person who never walks in God’s ways and who never fears God and shuns evil. Now have you seen the importance of the word I said just now?
Now, have you known by what means God decides men’s outcomes? (By arranging various circumstances every day.) “Arranging various circumstances,” this is what man feels and contacts. Then what is God’s intention of doing so? It is that God wants to try everyone by different means, at different times, and in different places. What does God test by trying you? He tests if you are one who fears God and shuns evil in each thing you encounter, either something you hear, or something you see, or something you experience personally. Everyone will encounter such trials, as God is fair to everyone. Some people say, “I have also believed in God for several years, but why haven’t I encountered them?” You feel that you have not encountered them, because you have not at all taken seriously the circumstances God arranges for you and because you have not wanted to walk in God’s ways at all. So you have not had any feeling about God’s trials. Some say, “I have encountered several trials. However, as I did not know the exact ways of practice, even though I have carried out my practice, I do not know whether I have stood in the trials.” Those in such a state are not in the minority. Then what is the standard by which God measures a man? It is, as I said just now, whether what you do, what you think, and what you manifest are fearing God and shunning evil. By this God decides whether you are one who fears God and shuns evil. Isn’t this simple? It sounds simple, but is it simple to practice it? (No.) Why is it not simple? (Because people do not know God’s word and do not know how God perfects man, and so in the things they encounter, they do not know how to seek the truth to solve the problems. People have to experience various trials, refinings, chastisements, and judgments before they can have the reality of fearing God.) Although you say so, now to your feeling, it seems as if it is very easy for you to live up to “fearing God and shunning evil.” Why do I say so? Because so far you have heard many messages and received much watering of the reality of the truth, so that you have known theoretically and ideologically how to attain fearing God and shunning evil. This is very helpful to your practice of “fearing God and shunning evil” and makes you feel it very easy to attain it. However, why can no one attain it actually? It is because the substance of man’s nature does not fear God but likes evil. This is the real reason.
Not Fearing God and Shunning Evil Is Standing in Opposition to God
Here let’s first see: Where does the word “fear God and shun evil” come from? (The Book of Job.) Since we mention Job, let’s talk about Job. In the times of Job, did God do any work of saving and conquering man? No! Right? Then how much knowledge of God did Job have at that time? (Not much.) How is his knowledge of God in comparison with yours today? Why do you not dare to answer this question? Is it more than or less than your knowledge today? (Less.) This question is very easy to answer. Less! That is definite! Now you are face to face with God and face to face with God’s word. Your knowledge of God is much more than Job’s. Why do I mention this? Why do I say so? Here I want to illustrate a fact. Before I illustrate it, I want to ask you a question: Why is it that Job, with far less knowledge of God, could fear God and shun evil, but people of today cannot? (People have been deeply corrupted.) “People have been too deeply corrupted” is the surface of the problem. For my part, I will never view it this way. You always have on your lips the doctrines or letters you often say at ordinary times, the pet phrases, such as, “being deeply corrupted,” “disobeying God,” “not being faithful to God,” “not being obedient,” “not loving the truth,” … to explain the substance of any problem. This is a wrong way of practice. Explaining the problems of different nature with the same answer would naturally be suspected of blaspheming the truth and God. I do not like to hear such an answer. You think about it carefully! None of you has thought about it. However, for my part, I can see it every day and can feel it every day. So, while you are doing, I am watching. When you are doing, you cannot feel its substance, but when I am watching, I can see its substance and can also perceive its substance. Then what is its substance? Why can’t people of today fear God and shun evil? Your answer is far from enough to explain the substance of this problem or solve the substance of this problem. This is because there is a root, which you do not know. What is the root? I know you want to hear it very much. Then I will tell you the root of this problem.
From the day God did his work, whom did God treat man as? God rescued man back and treated man as his family member, as the object of his work, and as the object to be conquered, saved, and perfected by him. This was God’s attitude toward man when he did his work at the beginning. However, what was man’s attitude toward God at that time? Man found God alien and treated him as a stranger. Man’s attitude toward God could be said to be perplexed, and he did not know how he should treat God. Anyway, he just treated God according to what he thought, and acted according to what he thought. Did man have his viewpoint about God? At the beginning, man did not have any viewpoint about God. His so-called viewpoint was his notion and imagination about God. He just accepted what fit his notion. As for what was discordant with his notion, outwardly he pretended to obey it, but in his heart he resisted and opposed it to the utmost. This was the relationship between man and God at the beginning: God treated man as his family member, but man treated God as a stranger. However, after God did the work for a period of time, man understood what God wanted to do, knew that he was the true God, and knew what man could receive from God. Then whom did man treat God as? He treated God as a life-saving straw, hoping to receive from God grace, blessing, and promise. Whom did God treat man as at the time? God treated man as the object to be conquered. God was to judge, test, and try man with his word. But at the time, to man, God was the one who could be used by him to achieve his own ends. Man saw that the truth God expressed could conquer and save man and that man had the opportunity to receive from God his desired things and desired destination, so man had a little bit of sincerity and was willing to follow this God. Later, man had some superficial and doctrinal knowledge about God and could be said to be more and more “familiar” with God and more and more “familiar” with the words God spoke, the messages God preached, the truth God expressed, and the work God did, so man mistakenly thought that he was no longer unfamiliar with God and had walked on the way of being compatible with God. By now, people have heard many messages of the truth and experienced many works of God, but disturbed and hindered by many factors and many situations, most fail to practice the truth and fail to satisfy God. They become more and more slack, have less and less faith, and feel more and more uncertain about their outcome, and they no longer dare to have any extravagant thought and no longer make an effort to seek progress but just follow and go forward step by step reluctantly. People being in such a state now, what is God’s attitude toward them? God only wants to inculcate these truths, his ways, in them and then arrange various circumstances to try them and use various means to try them, for the purpose that he will achieve the result “people can fear God and shun evil” by these words, these truths, and the works he does. What my eyes see is that most people just observe God’s words as doctrines, as letters, and as regulations. When doing things or speaking or encountering trials, they do not keep God’s ways as the ways they should keep. Especially when people encounter some great trials, I see none of them direct his practice toward “fearing God and shunning evil.” Therefore, God’s attitude toward man is extreme detestation and loathing! After God has tried man many times and even a hundred times, man still has no definite attitude to show his resolution—I am determined to fear God and shun evil! Since man does not have such a resolution or such a manifestation, now God’s attitude toward man is that he no longer shows mercy, tolerance, forbearance, or patience to man as before, but feels extremely disappointed in man. Who causes this “disappointment”? As for what attitude God has toward man, whom does it lie with? It lies with each one who follows God. In these many years of work, God has made many requirements of man and arranged many circumstances for man. However, no matter what man has practiced and no matter what attitude man has toward God, man just cannot direct his practice definitely toward the goal of “fearing God and shunning evil.” So I sum up one word by which to explain why people cannot walk in God’s ways—fear God and shun evil, which we have just talked about. What is the word? It is: God treats man as the object of his salvation and the object of his work, but man treats God as his enemy and his opposite. Now have you seen this clearly? What man’s attitude is, what God’s attitude is, and what the relationship between man and God is, these are very clear. No matter how many messages you have heard, the summaries you yourselves make, such as being faithful to God, obeying God, seeking the way to be compatible with God, spending your whole life for God, living for God…, these, in my eyes, do not mean that you are consciously walking in God’s ways—fearing God and shunning evil, but are only some channels for you to achieve your certain purposes. For these purposes, you are reluctantly keeping some regulations. However, it is exactly these regulations that cause man to be further away from the way of “fearing God and shunning evil” and to place God in opposition to man again.
The subject I talk about today is somewhat heavy. But anyway I still hope that you can live up to what I have just said to you in your future experience and future time. Do not treat God as air—feeling he exists when you need him and feeling he does not exist when you do not need him. When you have such knowledge in your subconscious, you have infuriated God. Some people may say, “I have not treated God as air. I pray to God all the time, and I satisfy God all the time. Whatever I do, I do it based on the scope and the principle and standard required by God, and not according to my own will.” Right, the way of your practice is right! But when you encounter things, what do you think? When you encounter things, what do you practice? Some people feel God exists when they make prayers and requests to God, but when they encounter things and their own will comes out and they want to act according to it, they treat God as air. At this time, God does not exist to them. People think that when they need God, he should exist, and that when they do not need God, he should not exist, and they can just practice according to their own will, doing whatever they want to do, and there is no need to seek God’s ways at all. Since people are in such a condition and in such a state now, aren’t they on the brink of danger? Some people say, “No matter whether I am on the brink of danger or not, anyway I have believed in God for so many years, and I believe that God should not forsake me, because God does not have the heart to forsake me.” Still some say, “I have believed in the Lord since I was in my mother’s womb. It has been forty to fifty years by now. In terms of time, I am most qualified to be saved by God, and I am most qualified to be left alive. During the forty to fifty years, I have left my family, given up my career, and given up my all, such as money, position, enjoyment, and family happiness. Many good foods I have not tasted, many enjoyable things I have not enjoyed, and many nice places I have not visited. I have even undergone the sufferings ordinary men cannot stand. If God cannot save me because of these, then I am treated too unjustly, and I cannot believe in such a God.” Aren’t there many people who have such thoughts? (Yes.) Then today I will let you know a fact: All who have such thoughts are lifting a rock only to drop on their own feet. This is because they have blinded their eyes with their own imaginations. It is exactly their imaginations and conclusions that have replaced God’s required standard for man and hindered them from receiving God’s true will, so that they are unable to feel the real existence of God, lose the opportunities to be perfected by God, and have no part or share in God’s promises.