E. People’s Notions and Imaginings About God’s Sovereignty and Arrangements

People believe that God’s work includes His orchestrations and arrangements. So what are God’s orchestrations and arrangements in people’s notions and imaginings? They’re a kind of manipulation, that is to say, God is secretly covering people in a big net, manipulating all their behaviors and the environments they are in, and monitoring everything they do. These are notions and imaginings that people have, are they not? (Yes.) Consequently, people begin to guard against and feel frightened of God in their hearts, and this is caused by their notions and imaginings about God’s orchestrations and arrangements. Them being frightened and guarded in this way is not true submission to and fear of God, but rather a form of rebelliousness and resistance. People think that God is omnipotent and omnipresent, and that no matter what they do it’s true that “when man acts, Heaven is watching.” They think that God is constantly watching over them and keeping an eye on them, with the purpose of restraining their hearts, their hands and feet, not giving them the freedom to choose, and forcing them to practice the truth, forcing them to change their thoughts and views, and forcing them to do things according to God’s wishes. These are all human notions. Strictly speaking, this is a kind of blasphemy against God. In fact, God has never intended to force, bind, or manipulate people. God never constrains or compels people, and even less does He force people. What God gives people is ample freedom—He allows people to choose the path that they should walk. Even if you are in God’s house, and even if you are predestined and chosen by God, you are free nonetheless. You can choose to reject God’s various requirements and arrangements, or you can choose to accept them; God gives you the opportunity to choose freely. But no matter what you choose, or how you act, or what your viewpoint is in handling a matter that you’re faced with, or what means and methods you ultimately use to resolve it, you must take responsibility for your actions. Your final outcome is not based on your personal judgments and definitions, and instead God is keeping a record on you. After God has expressed a great number of truths, and after people have heard this great number of truths, God will strictly measure the rights and wrongs of each person and determine the final outcome of each person based on what He has said, what He requires, and the principles that He has formulated for people. In this matter, God’s scrutiny, and God’s orchestrations and arrangements are not God manipulating people, or Him binding people—you are free. You do not need to be guarded against God, nor do you need to feel afraid or uneasy. You are a free person from start to finish. God gives you a free environment, a will to make free choices, and space to choose freely, allowing you to choose for yourself, and whatever outcome you end up with is entirely determined by the path you take. This is fair, is it not? (Yes.) If, ultimately, you are saved, and you are someone who submits to God and is compatible with God, and you are someone who is accepted by God, that is what you get because of your correct choices; if, ultimately, you are not saved, and you are not able to be compatible with God, and you are not gained by God, and you are not someone who is accepted by God, then that is also down to your own choices. Therefore, in His work, God gives people a lot of space to choose, and He also gives people absolute freedom. This is because God uses the truth to measure all people, events, and things, including people’s outcomes and destinations. People’s outcomes and destinations are likewise determined using the truth—this is the principle of God’s work, which never, ever changes. God will not accept you, show you grace, and allow you to be saved because you are frightened of Him, guarded against Him, and walk timidly and subserviently to the end of the road; nor will God allow you to be saved in the end because of any contributions you have made. In other words, there will be no exceptions where someone ends up with an outcome or a good destination that they do not deserve—whatever outcome each person ends up with is determined by the path they take. I’ll give you an example. Say God sets up an environment for you, and in this environment, what you ought to do is reflect on and know your own transgressions, and come to know your corrupt dispositions, fallacious thoughts and views, deficiencies and inadequacies, or some of your misunderstandings and complaints about God. You also ought to stop making excuses and offering weaselly arguments to defend yourself and instead be able to submit, seek the corresponding truths to change your present situation, and accept the truth into you and then act in accordance with the truth principles. In doing so you will achieve the desired effect. When similar things happen to you again, you will naturally practice according to the truth principles, and there will be no need for God to set up special environments to assist you. This is something that people can achieve, and if they can achieve it, God will not do any needless work. But when it comes to those who do not pursue the truth, God’s attitude is different. Some people do not seek the truth or reflect on themselves when things befall them, but instead just keep being negative and griping, complaining about God and other people. Not only do they develop notions about God, but they also pass judgment on Him. If someone prunes them and exposes them, they will find excuses to justify themselves, and they may also become passive and slack off in their work, or even undermine things. Such people are beyond redemption, and they are those that God spurns. If you have some interest in the truth while believing in God, and you are willing to listen to sermons and strive toward the truth, and you have a bit of a positive attitude, then God will scrutinize your heart, and move you a little when you seek the truth, and then He will scrutinize whether you are able to practice the truth. But if you choose to be negative and slack off in your work, to make excuses and justify yourself, and to kick up a fuss all over the place, and do not choose to know yourself or to repent, what will God do and how will He deal with you? God will just quietly observe what changes occur. God will not move you, nor will He urge you to read His words and seek the truth. God will not get involved or intervene—He will let you put on a show to your heart’s content. When your conscience awakens and you think, “I shouldn’t have done this,” or you occasionally hear an experiential testimony that resembles your current situation and find out how that person acted, and then suddenly feel that what you did was inappropriate, irrational, and indecent, and there is a subtle pain in your heart, from that point onward, you will no longer be negative or weak, and you will be embarrassed to open your mouth to justify yourself, and your ideas or actions that disturb and undermine things will become fewer and fewer in number, and less and less severe. No matter how far this ultimately develops, in any case, it is all your own behavior. God is just secretly and silently watching, with the aim of finding evidence by which to ultimately assess you. Just like when the city of Nineveh was about to be destroyed, God merely sent Jonah to convey a message to the Ninevites. God did not move them to confess their sins, repent, or understand their own problems—He did not do these things. God only sent Jonah to convey the message, and at the same time secretly observed to see what series of responses and actions they undertook on hearing this notice, and to see what the plans of all the various people from the top to the bottom were, and what their attitudes were toward this notice from God. All He did was observe in secret. What does “observe” mean? It means that God is watching, like an onlooker, the process of how things develop and the direction in which things change, and He does not intervene in any way. Apart from getting Jonah to convey those few sentences, God did not do any additional work, nor did He do any work of exhorting people, and even more so, there were no additional words to be conveyed, only those few sentences that came from Jonah’s mouth. Of course, the principles of God’s work on the people of today remain unchanged—He still works in this way, and this is God’s attitude toward humankind from start to finish. Whether He wants to change someone or accomplish something in a person, God’s attitude, principles, and methods in His work do not change. Why is that? What God created is living people, created human beings with free will, and not machines or puppets. When God expresses the truth or wants to accomplish something, He often first sets up an environment to enable them to seek to grasp His intentions, and sometimes He will directly tell people what His intentions and requirements are; the rest depends on people making decisions based on their free will and the various conditions that they possess. This was God’s attitude toward the Ninevites, and His attitude toward the people whom He wants to save now remains unchanged. The principles of God’s work have not changed; God always works in this way, and the principles of His work on the human beings He created are always like this. After Jonah gave notice to the people of Nineveh, he went to find a place to cool off and he watched the people of the city from the sidelines to see what kind of shockwaves and activity would be stirred up among the Ninevites once God’s message had been conveyed from top to bottom of the city, and everyone had learned the news that God was going to destroy Nineveh—all he did was observe. Of course, this observation took time, and during this process, God was watching the changes in all these things. If things developed in a good direction, then of course God would be delighted; if things developed in a bad direction, He might grieve, but that would depend on the situation. God would grieve because human beings were created by God, and God grieves when human beings are facing destruction, or when a life is about to be lost. However, when faced with corrupt people being so numb and slow-witted, and so rebellious, God does not grieve. God will do what He should do according to His original plan, according to the ways in which He works, and according to the ways and principles with which He deals with created beings. There are no human feelings or emotions here, only the Creator’s principles and criteria in doing things. So in this regard, people should let go of their own notions and accurately grasp God’s attitude and methods for treating people, rather than using the narrow-mindedness of created humans to make speculations and conjectures about God’s thoughts and ideas. God works on you, setting up environments for you, and arranging people, events, and things to train you and enable you to practice, and He wants to work the truth into you—what is God’s original intention for doing things this way based on? It is based on the principle of respecting and cherishing life. This is not a feeling that the Creator has toward created human beings—God has no feelings. The principle of this original intention goes beyond the feelings of human fleshly kinship, and of course, it is not some kind of affection either—it arises due to the principle of cherishing and respecting life. Some people say: “Is this God’s breadth of mind? Is this His high level of being?” Do you think that is the case? (No.) You can use the terms “level of being” and “breadth of mind” to describe people, but don’t apply them to God. This is neither breadth of mind nor a level of being. In one respect, this can be said to be the loveliness of the Creator, and in another respect, it can also be said that this is a revelation of God’s identity and essence. God cherishes and respects the life of any created being, but on the basis of this cherishing and respecting, God does not compromise on His principles, and these principles are not of feelings or of the flesh. What are they of? They are principles of the truth, which belong to God alone. Think about it, if people have children, they dote on them excessively and have very deep feelings for them. They even wish that they could cradle their children in their arms and be with them all day long. God has no such feelings or affection toward humans. Because of their blood ties, people develop those kinds of feelings toward their children, and those kinds of feelings will make people lose their reason and principles. They are not natural or normal revelations of normal humanity, nor are they a manifestation of love. They are purely feelings and hotheadedness—they are feelings that arise out of blood ties. Feelings are not truths, and they are not what normal humanity should possess; they are negative things. God does not dote on or spoil humankind. What is God’s attitude toward humankind? God chose you, and is responsible for you, and works and pays a price upon you, and speaks words to supply you with the truth and life, based on the principle of cherishing the life of created humans and of respecting life. But the way God works is not as people imagine, that is, by seizing onto you tightly, or to use a more colloquial term, by shaking you down. It is not like that. God does not shake down people; He never compels people to do anything. In order to gain blessings, in their belief in God people always want to shake down God, and always want to force God into giving them blessings, and also want to latch onto God and shake Him down so that He lets them enter the kingdom of heaven. Is this not the case? (Yes.) God does not shake you down. It’s not good to use this colloquial term “shake you down,” but it is somewhat vivid and it’s easy for people to understand. God is not seizing onto you tightly—you are free. If you cherish all this work that God does on you because He respects, cherishes, and treasures your life, you should not choose to be guarded against, to harbor misunderstandings about, to feel resistant toward, or to reject God when He orchestrates and arranges any environment for you. Instead, you should do what a created being ought to do and display the attitude a created being ought to have toward the Creator—submission and acceptance. Isn’t this so? (Yes.) This aspect has now been fellowshipped clearly.

The way people approach God’s work has already exposed one of their notions and imaginings. What is this notion and imagining? People interpret God’s orchestrations and arrangements as Him manipulating and controlling them. Is this how God works? (No.) Deep in people’s hearts, they are indistinctly frightened of God. At the very mention of God, they feel that He is fearsome and not lovely. They believe that if you don’t listen to God’s words and submit to His orchestrations and arrangements, He will be angry with you until you listen to His words and submit to His orchestrations and arrangements, and that He will not give up until He makes you complete. Isn’t this a notion that people have? What do people imagine God to be? Don’t they imagine Him to be a dictator? They think that you must accept His rule, accept His policies, and be deferential to Him and do whatever He tells you to, and that you cannot talk about Him behind His back, and that you have to accept the environments He sets up for you, and that if you don’t accept, you will be punished and suffer retribution. Does God really do things this way? (No.) God respects you and takes responsibility for you. God cherishes the life of created human beings. People should not fail to recognize what’s good for them, or be unappreciative of His kindness. If you do appreciate God’s kindness, then you should accept the environments He sets up and accept them from Him. Even if you do not accept the truths therein, do not understand the truth principles therein, and do not understand what you should practice or change, at the very least you should not be guarded against God or misunderstand Him—this is what you should achieve. Even if you don’t gain anything from these environments, don’t misconstrue God’s desires. God is not seeking to gain anything from you. You are just a tiny created being, what could God possibly seek to gain from you? Your life and everything you enjoy today were given to you by God, and so too was the little bit of doctrine you understand. Your free will, your caliber, your gifts, and your abilities and skills, both great and small, were all given to you by God. What is there for God to seek to gain from you? If God gains glory after He works the truth into you, making you submit to Him and fear Him, and you think that this is what God seeks to gain from you, then are you not judging Him by your own vile standards? This is blasphemy against God, is it not? (Yes.) What glory can God gain from people? In the end, it is people themselves who obtain tangible benefits. Before His work is completed, God has already gained glory, because God Himself is glorious—His truth and authority are evidence of Satan’s defeat, and they are the reality of all positive things. God Himself is glorious, so does He still need to gain a little bit of glory from a tiny created being like you? God does not seek to gain anything from people. If He seeks to gain anything, it is to enable people to ultimately meet His requirements according to His management plan, and once people attain salvation and are able to be compatible with God, He will then rest—because of the human race’s salvation, God will get to rest in return—this is what God seeks to gain. So, aren’t people the ones who obtain tangible benefits in the end? People will have gained the truth, they will no longer feel lost in life—they will have a direction and a path—and they will be compatible with God and no longer rebel against Him, they will no longer be taken captive by any evil force, they will be true created beings, and they will no longer face death—what a great honor that is! The ones who obtain the greatest tangible benefits are human beings, those who accept God’s work and God’s salvation. Has this aspect been fellowshipped clearly? What is people’s notion and imagining within this? (They interpret God’s orchestrations and arrangements as Him manipulating and controlling people.) If we didn’t fellowship about this, people would always have some thoughts and views in their minds that they couldn’t express or that hadn’t formed into a systematic theory. Although these things do not constrain them in doing their duties, or affect their daily lives in an obvious way, they severely affect their pursuit of truth, their attitude toward God, and their relationship with God. Therefore, these are things that people must let go of. Once this problem is resolved, you will have let go of a barrier between you and God, and one kind of obstacle on your path of pursuing the truth will have been removed, making it easier for you to pursue the truth. When real difficulties are resolved, the barriers and obstacles between you and God will be reduced, so you will be able to do your duty and practice the truth with much more ease. It’s just like going to a battlefield—do you think it is better to be carrying a light load or to be bearing a heavy burden when you go into battle? Which one is more comfortable? (To go into battle carrying a light load.) To go into battle with a light load, just carrying a weapon on your back is enough—it’s simple and easy that way. If on top of that, you carry pots and luggage, or cosmetics and fitness equipment, the burden will be too heavy; it will be painful to carry so many things into battle, and inconvenient to fight. These notions and imaginings are like different kinds of burdens that people carry around, and are troubles and encumbrances to them wherever they go. In short, from time to time these things will affect you and obstruct you from pursuing and practicing the truth. When there are no critical issues, it will seem like you don’t have any major problems. But once critical problems of principle do arise, you will have a barrier of these things separating you from God. When these things come out, you will feel that there is a problem in your relationship with God, that there is a conflict between you and God; your heart of belief in God will no longer be so pure, and you will have many difficulties. But when you let go of these things, you will feel great, your heart will be relaxed and liberated, and no longer constrained or bound. Although these things will flash up from time to time in your subconscious mind or your thoughts, you will have already basically resolved them, and when you do things again, you will feel much more at ease doing them and do so much more simply. Although these notions and imaginings may still have a subtle effect in the depths of your mind, at the very least you will have clearly discerned in your subjective will that they are not positive things, so subjectively you will let them go and not be affected by them. In this way, you will have basically let go of and resolved this barrier between you and God.

We often fellowship in this way on the topic of pursuing the truth. Can you feel the importance of pursuing the truth? When you saw people around you whom you are acquainted with being handled by the church, with some even being cleared out or expelled, did you have any thoughts about it? Did you draw any experience or lessons from it? What are the main problems with those who were moved to B groups and those who were cleared out? (When I saw some people around me that I am acquainted with being transferred to B groups or being cleared out, it stirred up my heart and mind. Although they have believed in God for many years, they really do not pursue the truth, and if I, too, don’t pursue the truth and don’t seek the truth whenever things befall me, I will ultimately be eliminated like them.) Do you know what the principles of God’s house were for handling these people? Did God’s house clear them out just because they are of bad humanity and don’t pursue the truth, and because it finds them displeasing? (No.) Then, is it the case that all those who were not handled have no problems with their humanity, that they all love the truth, pursue the truth, and can submit to the truth, and love and fear God? Is that the case? (No.) Were those people cleared out or moved to B groups by God’s house merely because they do not love the truth and are averse to it? Were they handled because they are of bad humanity and totally refuse to accept the truth, or because of their poor appearance or some temporary transgression? Is this the principle by which God’s house handles people? (No.) Is it because someone does not pursue the truth that God’s house handles them, disqualifies them from doing a duty, and sends them away? (No.) So why did it handle and send away these people? (Because they didn’t act according to the truth principles and they disrupted and disturbed the church’s work, causing serious losses to the work of God’s house.) Was this the main reason? (Yes.) What other reasons were there? Has anyone ever been sent away for constantly lying? (No.) Has anyone ever been sent away because they don’t love the truth and are averse to the truth? Has anyone ever been sent away because they are disloyal in doing their duty? (No.) Do you think it’s a pity that these people were sent away? Were any of them being wronged? (No.) Absolutely none of them were being wronged. According to the evil deeds these people committed, they deserve to die eighteen times when they go to the spiritual realm, and they all must be punished—dying and then coming back to life, and being punished again, and dying again, and coming back to life again, and being punished again, and dying again—they deserve to die eighteen times in total. They committed many evil deeds and their sins are heinous! Why were these people handled and expelled, then? It is because not handling them was not an option—they were not doing their duties, they were causing disruptions and disturbances, and they were sabotaging things! Some even think that these people were handled because they love to lie and are of bad humanity, or because they vie for status and power and are disloyal in doing their duties; other muddled people say that it’s because they don’t love the truth and don’t pursue the truth. So, do you love the truth? Do all those who have not been sent away love the truth and pursue the truth? (No.) None of these are facts. In all actuality, these people were handled and expelled because in the process of doing their duties, they played the role of causing disruptions and disturbances and sabotaging things, they did things that Satan and devils and the great red dragon want to do but are unable to, seriously violating the administrative decrees of God’s house and gravely angering God. They were only sent away because not sending them away was just not an option. It’s not that God’s house is unloving and harsh toward people, and it’s not that God doesn’t give people chances. Rather, it’s that those people went too far in their actions, causing disruptions and disturbances, and the losses they caused to the church’s work were too great. They weren’t doing their duties, and they were not even laboring; they were causing disruptions and disturbances, and they were doing evil. None of God’s chosen ones like having people like this in the church. If you say something derisive or tell a lie in the church, it is just your personal behavior, it is just that you don’t love the truth and don’t pursue the truth, and as long as it doesn’t cause a disruption or disturbance, no one will handle you; if sometimes you are somewhat perfunctory in doing your duty, but most of the time you are effective, then as long as you don’t cause a disruption or disturbance, God’s house will give you the opportunity to stay and do a duty, treating you according to the principles. However, these people caused disruptions and disturbances. They recklessly committed misdeeds, and they violated principles in every regard, causing great turmoil; all aspects of the church’s work were sabotaged, and the fruits of the duties done by many of the brothers and sisters went completely to waste. The consequences of their disruptions and disturbances are very serious, and it will take countless others countless hours to redress them, so these people had to be sent away! Only in this way was it possible to protect the brothers and sisters so that they could do their duties normally and achieve good results. Only by clearing out these evil people and antichrists was it possible to create a suitable working and living environment for the brothers and sisters. If these evil people and antichrists remained in the church, they would only be a scourge, and there would be a foul and turbid atmosphere and chaos wherever they went. Nothing they did even met the standard of laboring. All they did was disturb, sabotage, and demolish. Everything they did was in order to disrupt and disturb the church’s work and church life. Are they not servants of Satan? Can such people remain in the church? They are not ordinary corrupt humans, but servants of Satan! What did these people do? They squandered God’s offerings and gave them to nonbelievers unconditionally—they were extremely generous in giving money to nonbelievers, forcing it on them even when they didn’t ask for it. When they asked nonbelievers to do some work and the nonbelievers said one hundred dollars would be enough, they insisted on paying three hundred, and when the nonbelievers asked for three hundred dollars, they insisted on paying five hundred, even giving the nonbelievers additional bonuses after they had finished paying their wages. No matter how many offerings were to be spent, they would not ask the Above about it, and instead just make the decision on their own. No matter what work they did, they did not perform it according to the work arrangements of God’s house, or according to the principles given by God’s house, and of course, they certainly did not perform it according to the truth principles. They just followed their own desires and did it however they pleased, without defending the interests of God’s house at all. They would rather defend nonbelievers than the interests of God’s house, and they squandered God’s offerings everywhere. Was that money they had earned? They didn’t hold back at all when it came to giving bonuses and gifts to nonbelievers, and no one was allowed to disagree with them, and they rebuked anyone who did disagree with them. Do you think that people like this are people who believe in God and follow God? They are dregs, aren’t they? Should people like this be cleared out? (Yes.) What other evils did these people commit? In preaching the gospel they reported false numbers to deceive God’s house, and ruthlessly tormented and suppressed anyone who didn’t report false numbers. They forced others to report false numbers, giving them no option but to do so. What manner of people are these? Are they even people? If you say that they are merely of bad humanity, do not love the truth, and do not pursue the truth, does this statement hold water? Isn’t it nonsense? (Yes.) Not only do they not love the truth and not pursue the truth, but they do not even possess normal humanity, never mind loving and pursuing the truth—devils are what they are! You see this clearly now, right? (Yes.) What is the nature of these people? (The nature of devils.) They have the nature of devils. After being cleared out, these people were defiant, and even felt wronged, saying “I am innocent, I didn’t do that!” The facts were right before their eyes, but they refused to own up to it and even stubbornly clung to their excuses and remained defiant to the end; doesn’t this prove that it was right to clear them out? What will be the consequences if these kinds of people are not cleared out? Will they repent? Even if you give them the opportunity to continue doing a duty and only prune them, can they repent and change for the better? (No, they can’t.) There is absolutely no way they could repent. What nature essence is this? What kind of people cannot repent, and do not repent even when faced with the facts? (Devils.) Devils, people with the essence of Satan, evil spirits, and unclean spirits will not repent; no matter how you fellowship on the truth, they will not repent. They don’t even acknowledge the facts of their evildoing, so can they accept the truth and come to know themselves? They absolutely will not do that! If they could acknowledge the facts of their evildoing, they would have a chance of accepting the truth, but they do not even admit the facts, and do not acknowledge or accept the nature of their deeds—such people cannot possibly repent. They’re just like the Sodomites—if you told the Sodomites, “If you don’t repent, God will destroy this city,” would they accept it? What would be their attitude after hearing these words? They would act as if they hadn’t heard them and continue to do things according to their own preferences, doing whatever they liked, without repenting at all. Therefore, their final outcome was that of being destroyed. As for these people who caused disruptions and disturbances in the church, God gave them opportunities and yet they did not cherish them or repent, and they insisted on opposing God to the end. These people have no conscience or reason—are they worthy of pity? (No, they are not.) Is there anyone who has defended these people that are unworthy of pity? Is there anyone who admires them, feeling that they have suffered and paid a price for many years, and that they have worked extremely hard and extremely diligently, and that some of them have pretty good caliber, and possess great work capability and leadership skills, and that it is a pity that they were sent away? Is it a pity? (No, it isn’t.) It isn’t a pity, which means that it was right to send them away. Just observe and see whether these people can accept the truth and what path they are walking. If people even cause disruptions or disturbances while doing their duties, they are the dregs of mankind! It is only right that created beings do their duties, and no matter what that duty is, they must fulfill their responsibility. Even if their performance of their duty falls short of being up to standard, at the very least they should not cause disruptions and disturbances! Causing disruptions and disturbances is something that Satan does; it should not be something that corrupt humans do. Corrupt humans have been corrupted by Satan and they cannot help but resist God; however, people with normal humanity, conscience, and reason would not intentionally cause disruptions and disturbances while doing their duties. This is because their conscience and reason restrain them, and so they will not disrupt, disturb, or sabotage the work of God’s house in the process of doing their duty. Even if one cannot do their duty in a way that is up to standard, it is passable to do it to an average standard, and this at least meets the standard of conscience and reason. However, these people cannot even meet this standard, so in the end they can only end up at this point—being cleared out or expelled from God’s house because of their many evil deeds. These are the dregs of mankind!