What is the standard for having a conscience? How should you gauge whether a person has a conscience or not? (It depends on whether they have a sense of justice in their heart when they see evil people doing evil or see things that harm the interests of God’s house, and whether they are able to hate these things. If they have no awareness at all in their heart, then they have no conscience. Also, if someone has no awareness in their heart of the evil they have done, or of the things they have done that clearly violate the principles, such people too have no conscience.) If you have no conscience, then you are not human. In that case, will God still save you? If God won’t save you, will He still discipline you? Disciplining and chastening are a minimal part of God’s work. When I say “minimal,” I mean that God only uses these methods sparingly, but they are still a part of God’s work. If you don’t even have a conscience or reason, is there any use in God disciplining you? If you have no sense of justice, and you do not feel anything toward all that is wicked, all that goes against the truth, all that goes against moral justice, and even that which goes against your conscience, and you do not hate such things, and if you cannot stand on the side of God to defend the interests of God’s house, and you cannot stand up and say one thing in defense of the church’s work—not even a single fair statement—then you are not human. You are not human, and yet you extravagantly hope for God to discipline you. You really are elevating yourself and not regarding yourself as an outsider! There are some who say, “If someone is not one of God’s sheep but a wolf, then God will not discipline them. So if they are one of God’s sheep, will God discipline them?” Under special circumstances, God will occasionally discipline you and take responsibility for you. Even if you are numb and unaware, God will prompt you, discipline you, and reproach you. God’s work is done to the appropriate extent and leave it at that. Why does He work in this way? Because if you have a conscience, then when God reproaches you in this way, your conscience will quickly have awareness, and you will blame yourself and feel indebted to Him; you will feel remorseful, saddened, and anguished, and you will be able to turn yourself around and ultimately seek the truth principles and practice according to the truth—this is the result that God wants. If you have a sensitive conscience and understand many truths, and even if God does not discipline you, chasten you, or prompt you, you are still able to realize the problem, and your conscience still has awareness, and it feels reproached and reprimanded, then that is even better, and God’s discipline is not needed. Even if God doesn’t discipline you, your conscience is extremely sensitive and feels reprimanded, and you feel remorseful, saddened, indebted to God, and that you have wronged Him, let Him down, and left Him dissatisfied, and you are able to proactively seek the truth principles and act according to His requirements. This is the effect that the conscience of normal humanity exerts on people, and it is also the effect that it ought to exert on people. Therefore, whether a person is one of God’s sheep or not, and whether they can be saved or not, depends on whether they have normal humanity and a conscience. This is crucial and important. If you say that you understand a lot of truths, then when you yourself are rebellious, or you encounter evil people doing evil, do the truths you understand come into effect? Do they have the effect of supervising you, enlightening you, and making your conscience feel reproached and come into play? If you have no awareness of conscience, then you lack a conscience and normal humanity, and what you understand is doctrine rather than the truth. If you only understand doctrine, then you cannot put the truth into practice, and you are not one of those who will be saved. You understand this, right? (Yes.) Therefore, in God’s work, when it comes to some of the most fundamental ways in which God works, people should not delimit them based on their own notions and imaginings. Regardless of whether you have been disciplined, chastened, and punished by God, or have never been disciplined, chastened, or punished, this is no indication of how many truth principles you have understood, nor does it indicate that you are a person that God has chosen. It may be that you have believed in God for many years and been disciplined and chastened countless times, but you have never acted according to the truth principles—in that case, when you are not saved in the end, it will be all your own fault and exactly what you deserve. It may also be that you have rarely been disciplined and punished in your belief in God, but because of your conscience, you often feel reprimanded and reproached, and when you commit transgressions you feel remorseful and turn yourself around, and you’re able to seek the truth principles, practice the truth, and act according to the truth principles—in this case, you are one of those who will be saved. Have you understood? (Yes.) I mentioned two situations. What are they specifically? (One situation is when people have been disciplined and punished a lot, but in the end they still cannot act according to the truth principles and have not gained the truth, and so they are not saved, and this is all of their own doing. Another situation is when some people are able to use their conscience to restrain themselves without needing to be disciplined or chastened a lot by God, and whenever they violate the principles or reveal rebelliousness they feel reprimanded by their conscience, and can proactively seek the truth and act according to the truth principles, and, at the very least, they can do some positive things, and so they are among those who will be saved. God talked just now about these two situations.) Whether or not they can act according to the truth principles is the standard for evaluating these two types of people. Some people are unable to act according to the truth principles, and no matter how much doctrine they understand or how much they are disciplined and punished, they are not targets of salvation. Whereas, some other people are rarely disciplined and punished by God or chastened and reproached by Him, but they are frequently able to reflect on themselves, and whenever they act in violation of the principles or reveal rebelliousness, they can feel the reprimanding and reproach of their conscience, and afterward they feel remorse and can proactively practice according to the truth principles. Although they are rarely disciplined or chastened by God, people of this type are nevertheless targets of salvation. The disciplining and punishment I refer to here have nothing to do with the judgment and chastisement of God’s words, they are simply what people think of as disciplining and punishment in their own notions and imaginings. In people’s notions and imaginings, they believe that if they are disciplined and punished frequently, then this means that they have experiential testimony, and that they are spiritual people. People also often link being disciplined and punished with the work of the Holy Spirit, and believe that they are connected to the stream of the Holy Spirit. There are some people who often say, “I didn’t do my duty well, and I was pruned once again. Now I have blisters on my mouth and I have fallen ill—this is God disciplining me.” Many people often fellowship about these experiences, but you should look at what their manifestations are whenever issues befall them—see whether they feel reprimanded by their conscience when they do something wrong, and whether they are able to stand up and uphold the truth principles and defend the interests of God’s house when they encounter evil people doing evil or when they encounter wicked things. If not, then these people have no conscience and they are not human! They say nice-sounding words, and speak so consummately about the many experiential testimonies they possess—it’s as if God has shown them so much grace, and done so much work on them and spoken so many words to them, and this seems to suggest that they have already attained salvation. However, in their everyday lives, whenever they encounter problems that relate to the principles, they never uphold the truth principles, and they always shrink back like a turtle hiding in its shell and evade the issue. And every time they are asked to speak and express their views and standpoint, they abstain, play dumb, and stay silent. They don’t uphold the truth principles at all, nor do they practice the truth. What people are these? They are hypocrites. When they are watering and helping others, they talk about spiritual theories in a very systematic and logical manner, and they go on for hours at a time, moving some people to tears, and yet they never practice the truth in their own actions—these are Pharisees. No matter how many pseudo-spiritual experiences and pseudo-spiritual doctrines they speak of, or however many empty words and exaggerated words they say, their conscience does not reproach them; and when it comes to any cardinal issues of right and wrong or matters of principle, they don’t stand on the side of the truth or uphold the truth principles, and their conscience does not reproach them at all, but afterward they can still shamelessly boast about how they defend the interests of God’s house, and they can still spout many nice-sounding doctrines—this is being hypocritical and lacking the awareness of conscience. They fail to practice the truth so many times, they violate the truth so many times, they deceive and mislead people so many times, yet their conscience does not reproach them at all, and they can still brazenly show themselves off—this is being devoid of humanity! They swagger around and bluff in this way all over the place, and they don’t even feel embarrassed; they do not practice the truth, and yet they still brag that they are spiritual people, that they are people who have been saved and made perfect by God, and who love God more than anyone else—this is lacking the awareness of conscience, and these are not people who have been saved. Can those who have been saved lack normal humanity and the awareness of conscience? Some people feel that they don’t like the truth that much, and whenever they encounter problems that involve the truth principles, or cardinal issues of right and wrong, they become people-pleasers, try to muddle through, and are never able to uphold the truth principles, and so they feel reproached in their hearts and often pray before God and feel indebted to Him. Although they are often weak and unable to break through this barrier, they know in their hearts that they have not upheld the truth or justice, and that they have not stood firm in their testimony for God, and that they are just people-pleasers, so they would feel too embarrassed to say that they have any testimony. This is because they have not upheld the truth principles and have no genuine experiential testimony, and they are impoverished and blind and have not met God’s requirements; they know this in their hearts, and their consciences often feel reprimanded for it, and they feel that they owe a debt to God and are saddened. There is still hope and leeway for these people to attain salvation. By contrast, there are those who outwardly appear to understand the truth very well, and to be able to water, provide for, and help people, but when they encounter problems that involve the truth principles, or cardinal issues of right and wrong, they never stand on the side of God and they never uphold the truth principles, and yet they brag about being spiritual people, people who love God, and people who are loyal to God. People of this kind are in great trouble. They do not dare to face reality, they do not dare to solve real problems, they do not dare to declare their position on major issues, and they do not dare to uphold the truth principles in an open and straightforward manner, but after the fact, they still shamelessly boast that they are spiritual people, and say that they love God the most and can best grasp God’s intentions. People of this kind have absolutely no awareness of conscience. Can a person who lacks the awareness of conscience uphold the truth principles? Do they dare to openly declare their position and stand on the side of God to deal with evil people? There’s no chance of that; it is very difficult for such people to practice the truth.

If a person has the conscience of normal humanity, they will regulate their thoughts, words, and deeds. What does “regulate” mean? It means that, when your thoughts and behaviors stray outside the standard of normal humanity, your conscience will judge that it is wrong to think in that way and not good to do that thing, and so you will blush and feel uneasy and reproached. After having these feelings, your thoughts and behaviors will be restrained to a certain degree, and this certain degree of restraint will regulate your behavior and enable you to avoid doing things that clearly violate the truth principles, and things that go against your conscience and moral justice. But if you don’t have the standard of conscience, then when you do things, you won’t have any criterion by which to regulate and restrain your thoughts and behaviors, and so you will run wild, you will do whatever comes into your head, whatever you want, and whatever is beneficial and advantageous to yourself. Under these circumstances of you having no restraints whatsoever, your thoughts and behaviors will be greatly amplified. What does “greatly amplified” mean? There will be no regulation to them at all. It’ll be just like how it is when nonbelievers cheat people—they lack the awareness of conscience, and if they con you out of a thousand bucks, they won’t feel bad, and if they swindle you to the point that your family is ruined, they won’t feel bad either, and even if you get down on your knees and plead with them, they will take no notice of you. They truly are immensely evil people. Why is it that they can do such evil? It is because they have no awareness of conscience, or the restraint that a conscience provides, and so they can be so evil and become heinous sinners. Therefore, it is important to have the conscience of normal humanity. People are able to uphold the truth principles firstly under the condition that they have the awareness of conscience. Having the awareness of conscience and a sense of shame is what enables your behavior to be regulated and gives you the opportunity to embark on the path of seeking and practicing the truth. If you don’t have the awareness of conscience to regulate yourself, then you will not have the opportunity to embark on the path of pursuing the truth. Therefore, it is only upon the foundation of possessing the awareness of conscience that people can have the opportunity to be led onto the path of practicing the truth and upholding the truth principles—but even then, they merely have this opportunity. I say that they merely have this opportunity, because even if a person’s thoughts and behaviors are regulated by the awareness of conscience, they may still violate the truth principles or not act in accordance with them, taking a middle path, not upholding the truth principles but also not teaming up with evil people. That is to say, under the effect of conscience, fairly good people can practice the truth and uphold the truth principles, whereas people of slightly worse caliber can at least avoid being controlled or coerced by evil people, and avoid following them into evildoing—this is merely reaching the baseline that comes from the standard of conscience. Even though you have not practiced the truth, you haven’t done evil. A person like this can at least still be called a person with a conscience, and although they have not practiced the truth, they definitely will not do evil. This is the effect that conscience has on people. For those who love the truth, one of the most beneficial effects of conscience is that it has a chance of regulating their words and behaviors, and can lead them onto the path of practicing the truth and upholding the truth principles. Therefore, for people, conscience is a very important part of their humanity, and it is something that they cannot do without. So what does “conscience” mean? We will talk about that in detail later when we have the opportunity, but let’s just say something about it briefly today. Conscience refers to a person’s kindheartedness and sense of justice, which are the two most basic qualities. If you possess these two qualities, you are a person with a conscience; if you do not possess either of these two qualities, then you lack conscience. People who lack conscience do not have normal humanity, and not having normal humanity means that they have no sense of justice and are not kindhearted. What does “no sense of justice” mean? It means being crooked and wicked. What does “not kindhearted” mean? It means being malicious, vicious, and wicked. People who possess these dispositions are people with no humanity, and consequently they are capable of doing any kind of evil thing, because they do not have the conscience of normal humanity, nor the two essences of a sense of justice and kindheartedness that the conscience of normal humanity contains. They are shameless, extremely crooked, and especially vicious and malicious, so they are capable of doing any kind of evil thing. That is, no matter how wicked and malicious the things they do are, they feel nothing—they do not feel bad, and they do not feel reproached. Why are they capable of doing any kind of evil? It is because they are not kindhearted and they lack the essence of humanity; no matter what evil they do, they think it is justified and do not feel that it is evil. For example, if you are a person with the awareness of conscience, when you say something that curses at or attacks another person, you won’t be able to bear it. You will think, “I’ve said a few things to curse at them, and that’s enough. Cursing at people makes them feel really upset! I too would get upset if someone cursed at me like that, so now that I’ve said a few things to curse at them to relieve my hatred and let off some steam, I’ll leave it at that.” And so you will stop. But evil people don’t think like that. They think, “Cursing at you would be letting you off lightly. I’m also going to beat you, bring your family to ruin, and make your descendants suffer! Whatever evil or bad things I do to you are justified. As long as you get your comeuppance and I get to relieve my hatred, I’m willing to do anything!” They may not even curse at you, but just go straight ahead and do evil things to you and take revenge on you—this is what being evil is. This is what people without the awareness of conscience are like—they are capable of committing all kinds of evil.

Within the various notions and imaginings which people have about God’s work, the ones that people are aware of are mainly the notions they often talk about which relate to disciplining, chastening, and punishment. In one regard, we have fellowshipped on the notions and imaginings that arise in people within God’s work; in another regard, people should also know that God works on people in many and varied ways. Depending on the different ages in which He works, and depending on the different standards He requires of people, and of course depending on the different results that He wants to achieve in people through His work, and also depending on the different targets of His work and people’s different nature essences, God adopts different methods and works on people in many and varied ways. Disciplining, chastening, and punishment are only a small part of His work, and they are not the main methods that He uses in His work. Because in the third stage of His work God has expressed a great number of truths to provide for people and to achieve the result of saving them, the amount of disciplining, chastening, and even punishment work that He does on people is very small. Furthermore, depending on the different targets of His work, God also does these things in accordance with the corresponding principles, and His actions vary depending on the targets and the various different circumstances. As such, relatively speaking, He rarely disciplines, chastens, or punishes people. Therefore, people should stop holding onto their previous notions and imaginings about God’s work, and as God has expressed a great number of words and a great number of truths, they should not continue to depend on God disciplining, chastening, or punishing them, passively letting Him prod them to practice the truth and to enter into the truth reality—this is an idea that people shouldn’t have. The correct idea that people should have is that they must not passively depend on God’s disciplining, chastening, or punishing to make them understand His intentions or come before Him, and that they must instead be more positive and proactive in coming before God to seek out His intentions and the truth principles. No matter when, God’s words and the truth principles are the direction for you to move forward in, and they are the principles and paths that you should most uphold and practice in your daily life or on your path of existence, whereas God’s disciplining, chastening, or punishing are just ways of working that He displays in certain special situations and in circumstances where He deems it necessary. For people, they should not passively wait or passively request for this to happen, thinking, “May God discipline, chasten, and punish me so that I can come to love and practice the truth.” This approach is incorrect—God works according to people’s actual manifestations and the needs of their life. Some people hear that those who lack a conscience are beasts and cannot be saved, so they become anxious and think, “If I can’t be saved that’ll be really troublesome. Since I don’t have the awareness of conscience of normal humanity, I’d prefer for God to discipline and punish me as a substitute for the conscience of normal humanity.” Is this a good idea? As a created being, and as an ordinary member of the corrupted human race, if you really think that you are devoid of normal humanity and lack the conscience of normal humanity, you feel the pain of this deeply, and you hope that God’s disciplining, chastening, and punishment will not leave you, and that they will enable you to be transformed and ultimately survive—if you really have this kind of resolve, then that may be a good thing, and it is a ray of hope for your survival. But if you do not have that kind of resolve, then I say to you: You are in great danger if you do not have the awareness of conscience of normal humanity. Even if you have occasionally been on the receiving end of God’s disciplining, chastening, and punishment, that is something that He has granted to you. God does these things and uses these methods to prompt you and warn you, so that you will do less evil and receive less punishment. God has saved your pride enough; you should be grateful to God for Him making an exception by showing you this grace, instead of not knowing what’s good for you. In normal situations, God will not do any work or use any ways of working on someone who lacks the conscience and reason of humanity. If you have received disciplining, chastening, or punishment from God, no matter which it is, whether it be mild or somewhat more severe, then you should be grateful to God for all of it. To put it in the colloquial words of man, this is God having some regard for you and raising you up. God absolutely does not look upon you with hostility or condemn you, so you should accept it from God. If you really have the chance to receive God’s discipline, chastening, or punishment beyond the provision of the truth, then it proves that God still treats you as a created being and a member of the corrupted human race. You should thank God, understand this correctly, and submit to God’s disciplining, chastening, or punishment. You should not harbor a hostile attitude toward God because of it, nor should you rebel even more against God because of it. No matter what kind of discipline you have received, or how severe the punishment you have received is, you should submit to God and thank Him without delay, thanking Him for prompting and warning you, and for giving you this chance, and for letting you have the opportunity to receive all this from God. This also proves that you still have a relationship with God and that this tie has not been completely severed. In God’s work of managing humankind, and in the process of Him saving people, God still has you in His heart; at the very least, God still sees you—when He sees your rebelliousness and your corruption, He is still willing to discipline you, chasten you, and punish you. This proves that He has not completely given up on you; for you, this is fortunate, and it is also good news. Therefore, even if you are subjected to a bit of painful disciplining or chastening, you should come before God without delay. The purpose of coming before God is not for you to bow down before Him, nor is it to make you feel that God is frightening or fearsome. Instead, you ought to understand what you should do in order to please God, what you should do so that God will no longer be angry with you, and what you should do so that His anger will be dispelled. At the very least, you should do your best, within the scope of what your caliber can achieve, to practice the truth principles that God has told you, and you should not make God angry with you again. If God gets angry with you time and time again, and you continue to be extremely numb, and you still stiffen your neck and intransigently view God with hostility and fight against Him to the very end, then in the end what you will inevitably be met with is God giving up on you. The time when God no longer disciplines, chastens, or punishes you, is the time when God has given up on you. And once God gives up on you, He will stop prompting you, and He will remove you from His sight, moving you to a place outside of the church, to a place far from the center of His work; at the very least, He will make it so that He cannot see you during His period of work—God will not want to see you anymore. If you commit evil to this extent and reach this point, then there is no hope of you being saved. Have you understood? (Yes.)

Today’s fellowship related to the topic of letting go of the barriers between oneself and God and one’s hostility toward God. Whether it be exposing people’s notions and imaginings about God, or exposing their attitudes toward God, or fellowshipping about exactly how and in what ways God performs His work on people, in any case, what all of this ultimately tells people is that: The correct viewpoint which they most ought to hold toward God’s work is to accept and submit to God’s judgment and chastisement, and to accept God’s words and each truth principle that He provides to them, rather than straying from God. Whenever they do anything, they should seek the truth principles and practice according to them, and pursue entry into the truth reality, instead of putting effort into their outward behavior, or into outwardly suffering hardship and paying a price, and certainly instead of getting caught up in their notions and imaginings and making a big fuss over them. When all is said and done, no matter what your notions and imaginings about God are, the result that God’s work is intended to achieve is to work His words and the truth into people, and to enable them to have truth principles to abide by and to uphold these truth principles in everything they encounter during their daily lives and on their path of existence—this is the intended result of God’s work. The ultimate result that God’s work achieves is that the truth becomes people’s reality and people’s life, rather than Him accomplishing all of this according to their notions and imaginings. You understand this, right? We have more or less fellowshipped enough on these topics, have we not? (Yes.) Then here ends our fellowship for today. Goodbye!

July 8, 2023