How much of man’s work is the work of the Holy Spirit and how much is man’s experience? It may be said that to this day people still do not understand these questions, and the reason for that is they do not understand the principles of the Holy Spirit’s work. When I say “man’s work,” I am, of course, referring to the work of those who have the Holy Spirit’s work or those who are used by the Holy Spirit. I am not referring to work that originates from the will of man, but to the work of the apostles, workers, or ordinary brothers and sisters who come under the scope of the Holy Spirit’s work. Here, “man’s work” does not refer to the work of the incarnate God, but to the scope and principles of the work the Holy Spirit performs on people. While these principles are the principles and scope of the work of the Holy Spirit, they are not the same as the principles and scope of the work of God incarnate. The work of man has man’s essence and principles, and the work of God has God’s essence and principles.

The work in the stream of the Holy Spirit, whether it is God’s own work or the work of people being used, is the work of the Holy Spirit. The essence of God Himself is the Spirit, which can be called the Holy Spirit or the sevenfold intensified Spirit. All in all, They are the Spirit of God, though the Spirit of God has been called different names in different eras. Their essence is still one. Therefore, the work of God Himself is the work of the Holy Spirit, while the work of the incarnate God is nothing less than the Holy Spirit at work. The work of people who are used is also the work of the Holy Spirit. Yet the work of God is the complete expression of the Holy Spirit, and nothing less, whereas the work of people being used is mixed with many human things, and is not the direct expression of the Holy Spirit, let alone His complete expression. The work of the Holy Spirit is varied and not limited by any conditions. The Holy Spirit does different work on different people; it manifests different essences, and it differs by era, as well as by country. Of course, although the Holy Spirit works in many different ways and according to many kinds of principles, no matter how the work is done or on what kind of people, its essence is always different; all the work done on different people has its principles, and all of it can represent the essence of its objects. This is because the work of the Holy Spirit is quite specific in scope and quite measured. The work done in the incarnate flesh is not the same as the work conducted on people, and different work is done, too, on people with different calibers. Work done in the incarnate flesh is not done on people, and the same work that’s done on people is not done in the incarnate flesh. In brief, no matter how it is done, the work performed on different objects is never the same, and the principles by which He works differ in accordance with the states and natures of the different people on whom He works. The Holy Spirit works on different people based on their inherent essence and does not make demands on them that exceed that essence, nor does He do work on them that exceeds their inherent caliber. So, the work of the Holy Spirit on man allows people to see the essence of that work’s object. The inherent essence of man does not change; his inherent caliber is limited. The Holy Spirit uses people or works on them in accordance with their limited caliber, that they may gain something from it. When the Holy Spirit works on people being used, those people’s talents and inherent caliber are put into play, with nothing being held back. Their inherent caliber is put into play in service of the work. It may be said that He uses the parts of people that can be used in His work, in order to achieve results in that work. By contrast, work done in the incarnate flesh is the direct expression of the work of the Spirit and is unadulterated by the human mind and thoughts; neither man’s gifts, nor man’s experience, nor man’s innate condition can reach it. All the various kinds of work of the Holy Spirit are meant to benefit and edify man. However, some people can be perfected while others do not possess the conditions for perfection, which means they cannot be perfected and can hardly be saved, and though they may have had the work of the Holy Spirit, they are ultimately eliminated. This is to say that though the work of the Holy Spirit is to edify people, one cannot say that all those who have had the Holy Spirit’s work will be perfected completely, because the path many people follow in their pursuit is not the path to being perfected. They have only the unilateral work of the Holy Spirit, not subjective human cooperation nor correct human pursuit. Thus, the work of the Holy Spirit on these people comes to serve those who are being perfected. The work of the Holy Spirit cannot be seen directly by people, nor can it be touched directly by people themselves. It can only be expressed by those with the gift of work, which means that the work of the Holy Spirit is expressed through people and thereby provided to followers.

The work of the Holy Spirit is accomplished and completed through many types of people and many different conditions. Although the work of God incarnate can represent the work of an entire era, and can represent people’s entry in an entire era, work on the details of people’s entry still needs to be done by people who are used by the Holy Spirit, not by God incarnate. So, God’s work, or God’s own ministry, is the work of God’s incarnate flesh, which man cannot do in His stead. The work of the Holy Spirit is completed through many different types of people; no single person can achieve it entirely, and no single person can explain it completely. Those who lead the churches also cannot represent the work of the Holy Spirit completely; they can only do some leadership work. The work of the Holy Spirit can thus be divided into three parts: God’s own work, the work of people who are used, and the work on all those in the stream of the Holy Spirit. God’s own work is to lead the entire era; the work of those who are used is that of being sent or commissioned to lead all God’s followers after God has done His own work, and these are the ones who cooperate with God’s work; the work done by the Holy Spirit on those in the stream is to uphold all His own work, that is, to uphold His entire management and His testimony, while at once perfecting those who can be perfected. Together, these three parts are the complete work of the Holy Spirit, but without the work of God Himself, the management work would stagnate in its entirety. The work of God Himself involves the work of all of mankind, and it also represents the work of the entire era, which means that God’s own work represents every dynamic and trend of the work of the Holy Spirit, whereas the work of the apostles comes after God’s own work and continues it, and it does not lead the era, nor does it represent trends of the Holy Spirit’s work in a whole era. They only do the work man ought to do, which has nothing at all to do with the management work. The work God does Himself is a project within the management work. Man’s work is only the duty that people who are used perform, and it is unrelated to the management work. Despite the fact that they are both the work of the Holy Spirit, due to differences in identities and representations of the work, there are clear and essential differences between God’s own work and the work of man. Moreover, the Holy Spirit works to differing extents on objects with different identities. These are the principles and scope of the work of the Holy Spirit.

The work of man signifies his experience and his humanity. What man provides and the work he does represent him. Man’s insight, man’s reasoning, man’s logic, and his rich imagination are all included in his work. Man’s experience is particularly able to signify his work, and whatever man experiences will be reflected in his work. Man’s work can express his experience. When some people experience negatively, most of the language of their fellowship will consist of negative elements. If their experience for a period of time is positive and they have an especially clear path in the positive aspect, their fellowship will be very encouraging, and people can obtain positive provisions from them. If a worker becomes negative for a period of time, their fellowship will always carry negative elements. This kind of fellowship drags people down; people will unconsciously begin to feel downcast after their fellowship. The state of followers changes depending on that of the leader. Whatever a worker is like inside, that is what they express, and the work of the Holy Spirit often changes with man’s state. He works according to people’s experience and does not force them, but makes demands of people according to the normal course of their experience. This is to say that man’s fellowship differs from the word of God. When people fellowship, they fellowship about their individual insights and experience, expressing their insights and experience on the basis of God’s work. Their responsibility is to find out, after God works or speaks, what of it they ought to practice and enter into, and then to provide it to followers. Therefore, man’s work represents his entry and practice. Of course, such work is mixed with human lessons and experience or some human thoughts. However the Holy Spirit works, whether on man or in God incarnate, the workers always express what they are. Though it is the Holy Spirit who works, the work is founded on what man inherently is, because the Holy Spirit does not work without foundation. In other words, the Holy Spirit does not work based on nothing—He always works according to actual circumstances and real conditions. Only in this way can man’s disposition be transformed and his old notions and old thoughts be changed. What man expresses is what he sees, experiences, and can imagine; even if it is a doctrine or a notion, it’s something within the reach of his mind. Man’s work cannot exceed the scope of man’s experience, nor what man sees, nor what man can imagine or conceive, regardless of the size of that work. What God expresses is what He Himself is, and this is unattainable by man—that is, beyond the reach of man’s thinking. He expresses His work of leading all mankind, and this is unrelated to the details of human experience, but is concerned instead with His own management. What man expresses is his experience, while what God expresses is His being, which is His inherent disposition, beyond the reach of man. Man’s experience is his insight and knowledge acquired on the basis of God’s expression of His being. Such insight and knowledge are called man’s being, and are expressed on the basis of man’s inherent disposition and caliber—this is why they are called man’s being. Man is able to fellowship what he experiences and sees. No one can fellowship that which they have not experienced, have not seen, or their thinking cannot reach, those being things they do not have inside of them. If what man expresses is something he hasn’t experienced, it is his imagining or a doctrine. In short, there is no reality whatsoever in such words. Were you never to come into contact with the things of society, you would not be able to fellowship clearly the complex relationships of society. If you had no family, were others to talk about family issues, you would not understand most of what they said. So, what man fellowships and the work he does represent his inner being. If someone fellowshipped their understanding of chastisement and judgment, but you had no experience of it, you would dare not deny their knowledge, much less dare to be one hundred percent confident in it. This is because their fellowship is something that you have never experienced, something you have never known, and your mind cannot imagine it. From their knowledge, all you can gain is a path for undergoing chastisement and judgment in the future. But this path can only be one of doctrinal knowledge; it cannot take the place of your own understanding, much less your experience. Perhaps you think their understanding is quite correct, but in your own experience, you find it impracticable in many ways. Perhaps you feel some of their understanding is completely impracticable; you harbor notions about it at the time, and although you accept it, you only do so reluctantly. But in your own experience, the knowledge from which you derived notions becomes your way of practice, and the more you practice, the more you understand the true value and meaning of the words you heard. After having had your own experience, you can then talk about the knowledge you should have of what you experienced. In addition, you can also discern whose knowledge is real and practical and whose knowledge is based on doctrine and worthless. So, whether the knowledge you share accords with the truth depends more than anything on whether you have practical experience of it. Where there is truth in your experience, your knowledge will be practical and valuable. Through your experience, you can also gain discernment and insight, enhance your knowledge, and increase your wisdom and common sense about how you should conduct yourself. The knowledge shared by people who do not possess the truth is doctrine, no matter how lofty it may be. This type of person may well be very intelligent when it comes to matters of the flesh but has no discernment when it comes to spiritual matters. This is because such people have no experience at all of spiritual matters. These are people who are not enlightened in spiritual matters and do not have spiritual understanding. Regardless of what aspect of knowledge you might talk about, as long as it is your being, then it is your personal experience, your real knowledge. What people who speak only of doctrine—those being people who possess neither the truth nor reality—discuss can also be called their being, because they have arrived at their doctrine only through deep contemplation and it is the result of their deep rumination. Yet it is only doctrine, nothing more than an imagining! The experiences of all types of people represent the things within them. Anyone without any spiritual experience cannot speak of knowledge of the truth, nor of correct knowledge about various spiritual things. What man expresses is what he is inside—this is certain. If one wishes to have knowledge of spiritual things and knowledge of the truth, one must have practical experience. If you cannot speak clearly about common sense in human life, how much less will you be able to talk about spiritual things? Those who can lead churches, supply people with life, and be apostles to the people must have practical experience; they must have a correct understanding of spiritual things and a correct comprehension and experience of the truth. Only such people are qualified to be workers or apostles who lead the churches. Otherwise, they can only follow as the least and cannot lead, much less be apostles who supply people with life. This is because the function of apostles is not to rush about or to fight; it is to do the work of ministering life and leading others in transforming their dispositions. It’s the function served by those who accept the commission and shoulder a heavy responsibility, one that not just anyone can shoulder. This kind of work can only be undertaken by those with life being, that is, those who have experience of the truth. It cannot be undertaken by merely anyone who can forsake things, who can rush about, or who is willing to expend themselves; people who have no experience of the truth, who have not been pruned or judged, are unable to do this type of work. People with no experience, who are people without reality, are unable to see reality clearly because they themselves are without this kind of being. So, this type of person is not only unable to do leadership work, but, if they remain without the truth for a long while, they are to be eliminated. The insight you share can stand as proof of the hardships you have experienced in life, the things for which you are chastised, and the issues for which you have been judged. This is also true of trials: Where one is refined, where one is weak—these are the areas in which one has experience, in which one has a path. For example, if someone suffers frustrations in marriage, they will often fellowship, “Thank God, praise God, I must satisfy God’s intentions and offer up my entire life, and I must place the major matter of my life entirely in God’s hands. I am willing to pledge my whole life to God.” All the things within man can be represented through fellowship. The pace of a person’s speech, whether they speak loudly or quietly—such matters are not matters of experience and cannot represent what they have and are. These things can only tell whether a person’s personality is good or bad, or whether their nature is good or bad, but they cannot be equated with whether someone has experience. The ability to express oneself when speaking, or the skill or speed of speech, is just a matter of practice and cannot replace one’s experience. When you fellowship your individual experiences, you fellowship that which you find important and all the things within you. My speech represents My being, but what I say is beyond the reach of man. What I say is not that which man experiences, and it is not something that man can see; it is also not something that man can come into contact with, but is what I am. Some people acknowledge only that what I fellowship is what I have experienced, but they do not acknowledge that it is the direct expression of the Spirit. Of course, what I say is what I have experienced. It is I who have done the 6,000-year management work. I have experienced everything from the beginning of the creation of mankind until now; how would I be unable to discuss that? When it comes to man’s nature, I have seen clearly; I observed it long ago. How would I be unable to talk clearly about it? Since I have seen the substance of man clearly, I am qualified to chastise man and judge him, because all of man came from Me but has been corrupted by Satan. Of course, I am also qualified to assess the work I have done. Although this work is not done by My flesh, it is the direct expression of the Spirit, and this is what I have and what I am. Therefore, I am qualified to express it and to do the work I ought to do. What people say is what they have experienced. It is what they have seen, what their minds can reach, and what their senses can detect. That is what they can fellowship. The words spoken by God’s incarnate flesh are the direct expression of the Spirit and they express the work that has been done by the Spirit, which the flesh has not experienced or seen, yet He still expresses His being, for the essence of the flesh is the Spirit, and He expresses the work of the Spirit. It is work already done by the Spirit, though it is beyond the reach of the flesh. After incarnation, through the expression of the flesh, He enables people to know God’s being and allows people to see God’s disposition and the work that He has done. The work of man gives people greater clarity about what they should enter into and what they should understand; it involves leading people to understand and experience the truth. Man’s work is to sustain people; God’s work is to open up new paths and new eras for mankind, and to reveal to people that which is not known by mortals, enabling them to know His disposition. God’s work is to lead all of mankind.

All the work of the Holy Spirit is performed to benefit people. It is all done to edify people; there is no work that does not benefit people. No matter whether the truth is deep or shallow, and no matter the caliber of those who accept the truth, whatever the Holy Spirit does, it benefits people. But the work of the Holy Spirit cannot be done directly; it must be expressed through the people who cooperate with Him. Only thus can the work of the Holy Spirit bear its fruit. Of course, when the Holy Spirit works directly, it is not adulterated at all; but when the Holy Spirit works through man, it becomes very tainted and is not the original work of the Holy Spirit. This being so, the truth changes to differing degrees. Followers do not receive the original intention of the Holy Spirit but a combination of the work of the Holy Spirit and the experience and knowledge of man. The part of what followers receive that is the work of the Holy Spirit is correct, whereas the experience and the knowledge of man they receive vary because the workers are different. Workers with the enlightenment and guidance of the Holy Spirit will go on to have experiences based on this enlightenment and guidance. Within these experiences are combined man’s mind and experience, as well as the being of humanity, and afterward, they gain the knowledge or insight they should have. This is man’s way of practice after experiencing the truth. This way of practice is never exactly the same, because people’s experiences differ; the things people experience also differ. Thus, the same enlightenment of the Holy Spirit results in different knowledge and practice, because those who receive the enlightenment are different. Some people have minor deviations in their practice, some have major ones, and others practice completely wrong. This is because people differ in their comprehension ability and also because their inherent calibers differ. Some people have one sort of understanding after hearing a sermon, and some people have another after hearing a truth. Some people have a slight deviation in their understanding, while some do not understand the real meaning of the truth at all. Therefore, one’s understanding dictates how one will lead others; this is exactly true, because one’s work is simply an expression of one’s being. People led by those who have a correct understanding of the truth will also have a correct understanding of the truth. Even if there are people with absurd understanding, there are very few of them, and not everyone will be like this. If one has an absurd understanding of the truth, those who follow them will undoubtedly also be distorted, and these people will be absurd types in every sense of the word. The degree to which followers understand the truth largely depends on the workers. Of course, the truth from God is correct and without error, and it is absolutely reliable. The workers, however, are not completely correct and cannot be said to be completely reliable. If workers have a very practical way to put the truth into practice, then followers will also have a way to practice. If workers do not have a way to practice the truth but have only doctrine, then followers will have no reality. The caliber and nature of followers are determined by birth and are not associated with workers, but the extent to which followers comprehend the truth and their knowledge of God depends on the workers (this is only so for some people). Whatever a worker is like, so will the followers they lead be. What a worker expresses is their own being, without reservation. The demands they make of those who follow them are what they themselves are willing or able to achieve. Most workers make demands of their followers based on what they themselves do, despite there being much their followers cannot achieve at all—and that which one cannot achieve becomes an obstacle to one’s entry.

The deviations in the work of those who have undergone pruning, judgment and chastisement are much smaller, and the expression of their work is much more accurate. Those who rely on their naturalness to work have quite major deviations. The work of unperfected people expresses too much of their own naturalness, which poses a tremendous obstacle to the work of the Holy Spirit. However good a person’s caliber, they must also undergo pruning and judgment before they can do the work of God’s commission. If they have not undergone such judgment, their work, no matter how well done, cannot accord with the principles of the truth and is always a product of their own naturalness and human goodness. The work of those who have undergone pruning and judgment is much more accurate than the work of those who have not been pruned and judged. Those who have not undergone judgment express nothing but human flesh and thoughts, mingled with much human intelligence and innate talent. This is not man’s accurate expression of God’s work. Those who follow such people are brought before them by their innate caliber. Because they express too much of the insight and experience of man, which are almost disconnected from God’s original intention and deviate too far from it, the work of this type of person cannot bring people before God, but brings them rather before man. So, those who have not undergone judgment and chastisement are unqualified to carry out the work of God’s commission. The work of an up-to-standard worker can bring people to the right way and help them enter more deeply into the truth. Their work can bring people before God. In addition, the work they do can vary from individual to individual and is not bound by regulations, allowing people liberation and freedom, gradual growth in life, and to progressively have more profound entry into the truth. The work of a worker who is not up to standard falls far short. Their work is foolish. They can only bring people into regulations, and what they demand of people does not vary from individual to individual; they do not work according to people’s actual needs. In this type of work, there are too many regulations and too many doctrines, and it cannot bring people into reality, nor into normal practice of growth in life. It can only enable people to adhere to a few worthless regulations. Such guidance leads people astray. They lead you to become like them, bringing you into what they have and are. For followers to discern whether leaders are up to standard, the key is to look at the path they lead others onto and the results of their work, and to see whether followers receive principles in accordance with the truth, and whether they receive ways of practice suitable for their transformation. You should have discernment toward the different work of different types of people; you should not be a muddled follower. This bears on the matter of people’s entry. If you are unable to discern which person’s leadership has a path and which does not, you will easily be misled. All of this has a direct bearing on your own life. There is too much naturalness in the work of unperfected people; it is mixed with too much of human will. Their being is naturalness—what they are born with. It is not life after having been pruned or reality after having been transformed. How can such a person support those who are pursuing life? The life that man originally has is his innate intelligence or talent. This kind of intelligence or talent is quite far from God’s exact demands for man. If a person has not been perfected and their corrupt dispositions have not been pruned, there will be a wide gap between what they express and the truth; what they express will be mixed with vague things, such as their imaginings and one-sided experience. Moreover, no matter what they do, people feel there is no overall goal and no truth that’s suitable for all people to enter into. Most of what is demanded of people is beyond their ability, as if they were fish being forced to live on land. This is the work of human will. Man’s corrupt dispositions, his thoughts, and his notions pervade all parts of his body. Man is not born with the instinct to practice the truth, nor does he have the instinct to understand the truth directly. Add to that man’s corrupt dispositions—when this kind of natural person works, does it not cause disruptions? But a person who has been perfected has experience of the truth that people should understand, and knowledge of their corrupt dispositions. The vague and impractical things in their work gradually diminish, the human adulterations become fewer, and their work and service come ever closer to the standards required by God. Thus, their work has entered the truth reality and it has also become realistic. The thoughts in man’s mind in particular block the work of the Holy Spirit. Man has a rich imagination and reasonable logic, and he has had long experience handling affairs. If these aspects of man do not undergo pruning and correction, they are all obstacles to work. Therefore, man’s work cannot achieve the greatest degree of accuracy, especially the work of unperfected people.

The work of man stays within a range and is limited. One person can only do work of a certain phase and cannot do the work of the entire era—otherwise, they would lead people into regulations. The work of man can only apply to a particular time or phase. This is because man’s experience has its scope. One cannot compare the work of man with the work of God. Man’s ways of practice and his knowledge of the truth are all applicable to a particular scope. You cannot say that the path man treads is completely the intention of the Holy Spirit, because man can only be enlightened by the Holy Spirit, and cannot be completely filled with the Holy Spirit. The things man can experience are all within the scope of normal humanity and cannot exceed the range of thoughts in the normal human mind. All those who can live out the truth reality experience within this range. When they experience the truth, it is always an experience of normal human life under the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit; it is not a way of experiencing that goes beyond the bounds of normal human life. They experience the truth enlightened by the Holy Spirit on the foundation of living their human lives. Moreover, this truth varies from person to person, and its depth is related to the state of the person. One can only say that the path they walk is the normal human life of someone pursuing the truth, and it may be called the path walked by a normal person enlightened by the Holy Spirit. One cannot say that the path they walk is the path the Holy Spirit takes. In normal human experience, because people who pursue are not the same, the work of the Holy Spirit is also not the same. In addition, because the environments people experience and the ranges of their experience are not the same, and because of the admixture of their mind and thoughts, their experience is mixed to different degrees. Each person understands a truth according to their different, individual conditions. Their understanding of the real meaning of the truth is not complete and is only one or several aspects of it. The scope of the truth man experiences differs from person to person in line with each person’s conditions. In this way, the knowledge of the same truth, as expressed by different people, is not the same. This is to say, man’s experience is always limited—it cannot completely represent the intentions of the Holy Spirit. The work of man cannot be regarded as the work of God, even if what is expressed by man corresponds very closely to God’s intentions, and even if the experience of man is very close to the perfecting work that the Holy Spirit intends to do. Man can only be God’s servant, doing the work that God entrusts to him. Man can only express knowledge enlightened by the Holy Spirit and truths obtained from his personal experiences. Man does not have the qualifications or meet the conditions for being the outlet of the Holy Spirit. He is not entitled to say that his work is the work of God. People have their own principles for working, and everyone has different experiences and possesses varying conditions. Man’s work includes all his experiences under the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. These experiences can only represent man’s being and do not represent the being of God or the intentions of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the path man walks cannot be said to be the path walked by the Holy Spirit, because the work of man cannot represent the work of God, and man’s work and man’s experience are not entirely the intentions of the Holy Spirit. Man’s work is susceptible to falling into regulations, and the method of his work is easily confined to a limited scope, and is unable to lead people to a free way. Most followers live within a limited scope, and their way of experiencing is also limited in its scope. Man’s experience is always limited; the method of his work is also limited to a few types and cannot be compared with the work of the Holy Spirit or the work of God Himself. This is because man’s experience, after all, is limited. However God does His work, it is unbound by regulations; however it is done, it is not limited to a single method. There are no regulations whatsoever to God’s work—all His work is released and free. No matter how much time man spends following Him, he cannot distill any laws that govern God’s ways of working. Although His work is extremely principled, it is always done in new ways and always has new developments, and it is beyond man’s reach. In a single period, God may have several different types of work and different ways of leading people, making it so people always have new entries and changes. You cannot grasp the laws of His work because He is always working in new ways, and only thus do followers of God not become bound by regulations. The work of God Himself always avoids people’s notions and counters them. Only those who follow and pursue Him with a true heart can have their dispositions transformed and be able to live freely, not constrained by any regulations or restricted by any religious notions. The work of man makes demands of people based on his own experience and what he himself can achieve. These required standards are limited within a certain scope, and the methods of practice are also very limited. Followers thus unconsciously live within this limited scope; as time passes, these things become regulations and rituals. If the work of one period is led by someone who has not undergone God’s personal perfecting and not received judgment, their followers will all become religionists and experts in resisting God. Therefore, if someone is an up-to-standard leader, that person must have undergone judgment and accepted being perfected. Those who have not undergone judgment, even though they may have the work of the Holy Spirit, express only vague and impractical things. If they lead people for a long time, they will steer them toward vague and supernatural regulations. The work that God performs does not accord with the flesh of man. It does not accord with man’s thoughts, but counters man’s notions; it is not tainted with vague religious colorings. The results of God’s work are not possessed by those who have not been perfected by Him; they are beyond the reach of man’s thinking.

Work in the mind of man is too easy for man to achieve. Pastors and leaders in the religious world, for example, rely on their gifts and positions to do their work. People who follow them for a long time will be infected by their gifts and influenced by some of their being. They focus on people’s gifts, abilities and knowledge, and they pay attention to supernatural things and many profound, unrealistic doctrines (of course, these profound doctrines are unattainable). They do not focus on changes in people’s dispositions, but rather on training people’s preaching and working abilities, and on improving their biblical knowledge and spiritual theories. They do not focus on how much people understand the truth or how much their life dispositions change, and they do not concern themselves at all with people’s corrupt essence, much less do they try to become familiar with the normal and abnormal states that people have. They do not counter people’s notions, nor do they expose their notions, much less do they prune people for their deficiencies or corruptions. Most who follow them serve with their gifts, and all they release is religious notions and theological theories, which are out of touch with reality and which simply cannot help them gain life. In fact, the essence of their work is cultivating talented individuals, cultivating a person with nothing into an exceptional seminary graduate who later goes on to work and lead. Can you grasp the laws in God’s six thousand years of work? There are many regulations and restrictions in the work that man does, and the human brain is too dogmatic. What man expresses, therefore, is knowledge and realizations that are within the scope of his experience. Man is unable to express anything apart from this. Man’s experiences or knowledge do not arise from his innate gifts or his instinct; they arise because of God’s guidance and direct shepherding. Man has only the faculty to accept this shepherding and no faculty that can express directly what divinity is. Man is unable to be the source; he can only be a vessel that accepts water from the source. This is the human instinct, the faculty that one should have as a human being. If a person loses the faculty that accepts God’s word and loses the human instinct, that person also loses what is most precious, and loses the duty of created man. If a person has no knowledge or experience of God’s word or His work, that person loses their duty, the duty they should perform as a created being, and loses the dignity of a created being. It is God’s instinct to express what divinity is, whether it is expressed in the flesh or directly by the Spirit; this is God’s ministry. Man expresses his own experiences or knowledge (that is, expresses what he is) during God’s work or afterward; this is man’s instinct and man’s duty, and it is what man should achieve. Although what man expresses falls far short of what God expresses, and is filled with many regulations, man must fulfill the duty he should fulfill and do what he must do. Man should do everything humanly possible to fulfill his duty, and he should not have even the slightest reservation.

After working for years, man will conclude the experience, as well as the wisdom and rules of his many years of work. One who has worked for a long time knows how to sense the movement of the work of the Holy Spirit; they know when the Holy Spirit is working and when He is not; they know how to fellowship when they have a burden; and they are aware of the normal state of the Holy Spirit’s work and the normal state of people’s growth in life. Such is a person who has worked for years and knows the work of the Holy Spirit. Those who have worked for a long time are experienced in speaking and do so unhurriedly; even when they have nothing to say, they are composed. Inside, they can continue praying to seek the work of the Holy Spirit. They are experienced in working. A person who has worked for a long time, who has much experience and has learned many lessons, has much inside that obstructs the work of the Holy Spirit; this is a defect of their long-term work. A person who has just started working is unadulterated by human lessons or experience and is particularly at a loss about how the Holy Spirit works. However, during the course of work, they gradually learn to sense how the Holy Spirit works and become aware of what to do in order to obtain the Holy Spirit’s work, what to do in order to strike exactly at others’ core, and other such common knowledge that those who work should possess. Over time, they come to know such wisdom and common knowledge of working like the back of their hand, and seem to use it easily when working. However, when the Holy Spirit changes the way He works, they still adhere to their old knowledge of work and old rules of work and know very little about the new dynamics of the work. Their many years of work, as well as the ample presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit they’ve had, provide them with ever more lessons on work and ever more work experience. Such things cause them to develop within their inner state a self-confidence that is not prideful. In other words, they are quite pleased with their own work and content with the common knowledge they have obtained about the work of the Holy Spirit. In particular, having obtained or come to appreciate those things others lack gives them even more confidence in themselves. It seems to them that the work of the Holy Spirit within them can never be extinguished, while others do not qualify for this special treatment, and that only people of their kind, who have worked for years and whose use is of considerable value, are qualified to enjoy it. These things become a great hindrance to their accepting the new work of the Holy Spirit. Even if they can accept the new work, they cannot do so overnight. They are sure to go through several twists and turns before accepting it. This situation can only be reversed gradually, after their old notions are pruned and their old disposition is judged. Without going through these steps, they do not let go and easily accept new statements and work that are not in harmony with their old notions. This is the most difficult thing to deal with in man, and it is not easy to change. If, as a worker, they can both achieve an understanding of the Holy Spirit’s work and arrive at a conclusion regarding its dynamics, and they’re able to not be restricted by their experiences of work and to accept new work in light of old work, then they are a wise person and an up-to-standard worker. People are often like this: They work for several years without being able to derive experiences from their work, or, after deriving experience and wisdom from their work, they are hindered from accepting the new work and cannot properly understand or correctly treat the old and new work. People really are difficult to handle! Most of you are like this. Those who have experienced years of the Holy Spirit’s work find it hard to accept the new work, and they are always full of notions that they cannot set aside, while a person who has just started working lacks common knowledge about work and does not even know how to handle some of the simplest matters. You people are really difficult! Those with a bit of seniority are so haughty and conceited that they have forgotten where they came from. They always look down on younger people, yet they are unable to accept the new work and to let go of the notions they have collected and kept over the years. Although those young, ignorant people are able to accept a little of the Holy Spirit’s new work and are somewhat enthusiastic, they always become muddled and do not know what to do when problems arise. They are enthusiastic but too ignorant. They have only a little knowledge of the Holy Spirit’s work yet are unable to use it in their lives; it is just entirely useless doctrine. There are too many people like you; how many are fit for use? How many are there who can submit to the enlightenment and illumination of the Holy Spirit and manage to accord with God’s intentions? It seems those of you who have been followers until now have been very submissive, but, in fact, you have not given up your notions; you are still seeking in the Bible, believing in vagueness, or wandering in notions. There is no one who investigates today’s practical work carefully or goes deeply into it. You are accepting today’s way with your old notions. What can you gain with such a belief? It could be said that in you are hidden many notions that have not been revealed, and that you are simply making a supreme effort to hide them, without revealing them easily. You do not accept the new work sincerely, and you do not plan to give up your old notions; you have too many philosophies for worldly dealings, and they are too strong. You do not give up your old notions and you deal with the new work reluctantly. Your hearts are too sinister, and you simply do not take each step of the new work to heart. Can such wastrels as you do the work of widely preaching the gospel? Are you able to shoulder the work of spreading it to the entire universe? These practices of yours are exactly what’s stopping you from transforming your disposition and knowing God. If you continue thus, you are bound to be eliminated.

You must know how to differentiate God’s work from the work of man. What can you see in the work of man? There are many elements of man’s experience in his work; what man expresses is what he is. In doing His work, God also expresses what He is, but His being is different from man’s. Man’s being represents man’s experience and life (what man experiences or encounters in his life, or the philosophies for worldly dealings he has), and people living in different environments express different beings. Whether you have experiences of society and how you actually live in your family and experience within it can be seen in what you express, whereas you cannot see in the work of God incarnate whether He has social experiences. He knows the substance of man inside and out, and can expose the various practices of all kinds of people. Even more so, He can expose the corrupt dispositions and the rebellious behavior of humans. He does not live among the people of the world, but He is aware of the nature of mortals and all the corruptions of the people of the world. This is His being. Though He does not deal with the world, He knows all the rules of dealing with the world, because He understands human nature fully. He knows about the Spirit’s work that man’s eyes cannot see and man’s ears cannot hear, both of today and of the past. This includes wisdom that is not a philosophy for worldly dealings and wonders that are hard for people to fathom. This is His being, open to people and also hidden from people. What He expresses is not the being of an extraordinary person, but the inherent attributes and being of the Spirit. He does not travel the world but knows everything of it. He contacts the “anthropoids” who have no knowledge or insight, but He expresses words that are higher than knowledge and above those of great figures. He lives within a group of obtuse and numb people who are without humanity, and who do not understand human life or the norms of humanity, but He can ask mankind to live out normal humanity, at the same time exposing the base and low humanity of mankind. All this is His being, higher than the being of any flesh-and-blood person. There is no need for Him to go through the extra step of experiencing a complicated, cumbersome, and sordid social life to do the work He needs to do and expose the substance of corrupt mankind thoroughly. A sordid social life could not “cultivate” His flesh. His work and words only expose man’s rebelliousness and do not provide man with experience and lessons for dealing with the world. He does not need to investigate society or man’s family when He supplies man with life. Exposing and judging man is not an expression of the experiences of His flesh; it is His exposure of man’s unrighteousness after having long known man’s rebelliousness and hating mankind’s corruption. All the work He does reveals His disposition to man and expresses His being. Only He can do this work; it is not something a flesh-and-blood person could achieve. From His work, man cannot tell what kind of person He is. Man is also unable to classify Him as a created person on the basis of His work. His being also makes Him unclassifiable as a created person. Man can only consider Him a non-human, but does not know in which category to put Him, so man is forced to list Him in the category of “God.” It is not unreasonable for man to do so, for He has done much work among people that man is unable to do.

The work God does is not representative of the experience of His flesh; the work man does is representative of his experience. Everyone talks about their personal experience. God can express the truth directly, while man can only express relevant experiences after having experienced certain truths. God’s work has no regulations and is not subject to time or geographical constraints. He can express what He is at any time and in any place. He works as He pleases. Man’s work has conditions and context; without them, he would be unable to work and unable to express his knowledge of God or his experience of the truth. Whether something is the work of God Himself or the work of man, you’ll know the difference as long as you compare the two. If there is no work done by God Himself and there is only the work of man, you will simply know that these people’s teachings are high, beyond the capacity of anyone else, and that their tones of speaking, their principles in handling things, and their experienced and steady manner in working are beyond the reach of others. You all admire these people of good caliber and lofty knowledge, but you cannot see from God’s work and words how high His humanity is. Instead, He is ordinary, and, when working, He is normal and practical yet also immeasurable by mortals, which therefore makes people develop a kind of heart of fear. In one’s work, their experience might be particularly advanced, or their imagination and reasoning might be particularly advanced, and their humanity might be particularly good; these things can only gain people’s admiration, but not arouse their fear and fright. People all admire those with work capability, who have particularly deep experience, and who can practice the truth, but such people can never elicit fear, only admiration and envy. But people who have experienced God’s work do not admire God; instead, they feel His work is beyond human reach and is unfathomable to man, that it is fresh and wonderful. When people experience God’s work, what they first come to know of Him is that He is unfathomable, wise, and wonderful, and they naturally start to fear Him; they feel that the work He does is mysterious, and beyond the ken of man’s mind. People want only to be able to meet His requirements, to satisfy His intentions; they do not wish to exceed Him, because the work He does goes beyond man’s thinking and imagination and could not be done by man in His stead. Even man himself does not know his own inadequacies, yet God has forged a new path and has come to bring man into a newer and more beautiful world, and so mankind has made new progress and has had a new start. What people feel for God is not admiration, or rather, is not only admiration. Their deepest experience is fear and love; their feeling is that God is indeed wonderful. He does work that man is unable to do and says things that man is unable to say. People who have experienced God’s work always have an indescribable feeling. People of deep enough experience can understand the love of God; they can feel His loveliness, that His work is so wise, so wonderful, and thereby is infinite power generated among them. It is not fright or occasional love and respect, but a deep sense of God’s mercy for man and tolerance of him. However, people who have experienced His chastisement and judgment sense His majesty and that He tolerates no offense. Even people who have experienced much of His work are unable to fathom Him; all who truly fear Him know that His work is not in line with people’s notions but always runs counter to their notions. He does not need people to admire Him wholly or present the appearance of submission to Him; rather, they should achieve true fear and true submission. In so much of His work, anyone with true experience develops a heart of fear for Him, which is higher than admiration. People have seen His disposition due to His work of chastisement and judgment, and they therefore have hearts of fear for Him. God is meant to be feared and submitted to, because His being and His disposition are not the same as those of a created being and are above those of a created being. God is self-existent and everlasting, He is a non-created being, and only God is worthy of fear and submission; man is not qualified for this. So, all who have experienced His work and truly known Him develop hearts of fear for Him. However, those who do not let go of their notions about Him—those who simply do not regard Him as God—are totally devoid of God-fearing hearts, and though they follow Him, they are not conquered; they are rebellious people by nature. What He means to achieve by working thus is for all created beings to have hearts of fear for the Creator, worship Him, and surrender to His dominion unconditionally. This is the final result that all His work is meant to achieve. If people who have experienced such work do not have hearts of fear for God, even slightly, and if their past rebelliousness does not change at all, then they are sure to be eliminated. If a person’s attitude toward God is only to admire Him or to show Him respect from a distance, and not to love Him in the slightest, then this is the result at which a person without a God-loving heart has arrived, and that person lacks the conditions to be perfected. If so much work is unable to obtain a person’s true love, then that person has not gained God and does not genuinely pursue the truth. A person who does not love God does not love the truth and thus cannot gain God, much less receive God’s approval. Such people, however they experience the work of the Holy Spirit, and however they experience judgment, are unable to have a God-fearing heart. These are people whose nature is unchangeable and who have extremely odious dispositions. All who do not have a God-fearing heart are to be eliminated, to be objects of punishment, and to be punished just like those who do evil, to suffer even more than those who have done unrighteous things.