Next, let’s talk about the problems of notions and imaginings in “letting go of the barriers between oneself and God and one’s hostility toward God,” which is the third item in “letting go” within the practice of how to pursue the truth. We just talked about some of people’s notions and imaginings about God’s work. Looking at it now, don’t people have some other notions and imaginings about God’s work? Will these notions and imaginings affect how people treat God’s work, how they experience God’s work, and how they understand and know God’s work? Among the various types of people who appear in the church, one type is evil people and antichrists. No matter what evil they did that caused them to be handled, and no matter what matters led the church to clear them out or expel them, there are always some people who have certain notions about God’s house cleansing away disbelievers, evil people, and antichrists, and these notions and imaginings are due to the fact that they have no understanding whatsoever of God’s work or God’s sovereignty. In people’s notions and imaginings, the church is the place where God works on earth, so the church is the most direct place for people to see God’s sovereignty, and it can also be said that it is the most direct and obvious place where God’s sovereignty is manifested. However, in this place, people often see some people, events, and things appear that are inconsistent with their notions. In people’s notions they think that, since the church is a place associated with God’s work, it should be a calm and tranquil place filled with friendliness and peace, love and tolerance, and joy and comfort. They believe that individuals like evil people and antichrists should never appear in the church, and that there shouldn’t be occurrences of evil people doing evil. And they think that under God’s sovereignty, there should of course be no occurrences of the truth principles being violated in the church, much less should there be lawless people or lawless things of any kind, or things that are inconsistent with human will, human feelings, and humanity. They believe that everything should be so peaceful, tranquil, pleasant, positive, optimistic, and uplifting in the church, and there shouldn’t even be any fighting, or any hideousness or ugly things happening that are inconsistent with the needs of humanity. These are all people’s notions. However, the facts are inconsistent with people’s notions and imaginings. Regardless of the period or work stage, in the church, there are always incidents occurring of some evil people and antichrists disturbing and disrupting the church’s work, causing certain aspects of the work of God’s house to be sabotaged, the order of the church’s work to be upset and disturbed, and other such things. When these things happen, people feel that it is unthinkable, and their hearts are filled with helplessness, incomprehension, and confusion, and they wonder, “Does God really exist? How exactly does God hold sovereignty over humankind and govern His church, govern His house? Does God really concern Himself with this or not? Where is God? Why is it that, when these lawless things happen and when evil people appear and cause a disturbance, no one steps forward to stop them, and God doesn’t come forward and stop them either? What exactly is going on here? Isn’t the church God’s house? Aren’t those who follow God His chosen people? Why doesn’t God watch over or protect His house? Why doesn’t God protect His chosen people so that they can live peacefully in a cocoon, in a haven?” These doubts and this incomprehension that people have are caused by people’s various notions, are they not? (Yes.) So, what are these notions mainly about? Aren’t they about God’s work and God’s sovereignty? Because such matters as evil people doing evil and causing disruptions and disturbances happen in the church, and because people do not understand these matters, it is difficult for them to see through to the origins of these matters and what the end result of them will be. Because people cannot see through to these things, they develop all sorts of ideas, and notions regarding God. Some people think, “God’s house should show love to evil people and antichrists. If God’s house doesn’t show them love, won’t it be the same as society? In society, there is always one group of people tormenting some other group of people, all for the sake of vying for power and influence. By clearing out and expelling evil people isn’t God’s house likewise tormenting people? It’s not that safe to stay in God’s house! If you really do encounter any turbulent situations, you might be wronged and cleared out, and no one will vindicate you! Where exactly is God? Why doesn’t God come out and say something or do something? Let us see your existence, let us see your almightiness, let us see your sovereignty with our own eyes, that way we will feel at ease, won’t we?” In the church, every time people experience some events that they find incomprehensible, feelings like unease and doubt arise in some of them, with some even wanting to avoid these events, and others falling into negativity; some in particular, having been misled and fooled by antichrists, give up on themselves, and some, having been misled and exploited by antichrists and having become their accomplices, even get isolated for self-reflection or cleared out by the church. At the same time as finding all these things incomprehensible, people also come to doubt the existence of God. This is because the main source of many people’s faith in God is their belief that God is sovereign over all things, over everything. That is, many people believe that God can hold sovereignty over everything, over all things, and over the fate of humankind, and so they believe in God’s existence, and in God’s identity and essence. However, these things happening around them cause them to doubt and waver in their belief in God’s sovereignty, and then they begin to doubt the fact that God holds sovereignty over everything, and their faith in God subsequently starts to waver too, and so this whole series of problems arises. People have all manner of notions and imaginings about God’s sovereignty, and these notions and imaginings definitely do not accord with the truth or with the facts, and are instead people’s fallacious interpretations or misunderstandings. So, next we will fellowship on how God holds sovereignty over all the people, events, and things around you that you can see and feel, what the principles are for God’s sovereignty over all of this, and what the purpose is that He intends to achieve.

The Principles and Purpose of God’s Sovereignty Over Everything

The term “God’s sovereignty” covers a very broad range of content. Leaving aside the broader environment, when it comes to the church, the fact that God holds sovereignty over everything is real. God’s sovereignty isn’t an empty phrase, nor is it merely a phenomenon, but rather, there are actual examples of it, and actual results. So what are the principles of God’s sovereignty in the church? Let us first think about this: Does God have sovereignty over and arrange which people are accepted into the church? (Yes, He does.) This is not empty. Which people God’s gospel and God’s words come to, and which people are able to accept God’s work, and which people can enter the church—all of this is ordained by God. For now, let us not talk about the humanity of these people, and whether they are evil people; the fact that they are able to enter the church means that God ordained this. Is God’s ordination an aspect of God’s sovereignty? (Yes.) First of all, there is one thing we can be sure of, which is that every person’s entry into the church is ordained by God. The term “God’s ordination” sounds a bit abstract, so let’s just say “God has the final say, God guards the door.” God is the gate to the kingdom and also the gate to the church. God guards the door when it comes to what kind of people can officially become members of the church, of God’s house. Regardless of whether they are disbelievers or evil people who have made their way into the church, or good people who are interested in believing in God or who are able to accept the truth and follow God, if they join the church and become members of the church, then this is not something that can be decided by any person, it is due to God’s sovereignty, arrangements, and ordination. Regardless of whether they harbor certain ulterior motives or goals for believing in God, or what their humanity is like, or what their education level and social background are, it is God who decides that they can join the church and come before Him—it is God who guards the door. Can people guard the door properly? (No, they can’t.) People cannot decide this matter, it doesn’t depend on people’s will. For example, when you see that someone is shrewd and has status in society, you think, “It would be great if this person could come to God’s house to be a church leader. Our church lacks such people.” But God doesn’t want them; He doesn’t move them. When other people preach the gospel and fellowship God’s words to them, they don’t understand what they have heard. When they listen to anything else, they are able to grasp it; it’s only when they hear the words of God that they can’t, and are like idiots—can such people still enter the church? Although they are interested in gaining blessings, they aren’t able to quiet their hearts and cannot sit still when listening to God’s words and fellowship on the truth, and after listening to two or three sermons, they stop coming. Such people have no real faith, so will your good intentions toward them have any effect? Will you be able to bring them into the church? No. God has the final say on that. God says He doesn’t want such people, and no matter whether it be for rendering service or for playing some role, He doesn’t want them. So, even if you, with good intentions, drag them along, it will be useless, and in the end, they will still have to leave. They cannot possibly become members of the church; no matter who drags them along, it will be useless. This is a matter that cannot be decided by people; it is ordained by God, and God guards the door. Some people do not have social status, they are not important figures, and they are of average caliber and look unremarkable, but they are quite simple and forthright, and they are interested in matters of belief in God. No matter what difficulties they have, they are inseparable from God, and their enthusiasm is extremely great—this enthusiastic energy is something that the brothers and sisters are happy to see, and God is pleased to see it, too—and in fact, it is because they are moved by the Spirit of God that they are so enthusiastic. After they enter the church and see that the people in the church are all good people, eating and drinking the words of God and fellowshipping on the truth every day, they are extremely encouraged by this and feel that this is the right path of life, so they begin preaching the gospel and doing their duties and become followers of God. Who decides that they can believe in God? (God decides.) It is God who decides. They can only believe in God because God allows them to enter the church. If God didn’t work and move them, they wouldn’t be able to believe in God, and if they were forcibly dragged into the church, they would have to leave sooner or later. People have no faculty within their innate attributes for accepting the truth; the fact that they can love the truth and accept the truth proves that God works on them. If God works on them, they can become members of the church—this is a prerequisite for all kinds of people entering the church, the prerequisite being that God wants them. No matter what role they play in the church, in any case, God guards the door to His house. If He does not allow them to come in, then they are outside the door; if He allows them to come in, then they are inside the door. Therefore, becoming a member of the church is not such a simple matter. When it comes to specifically what principles serve as the basis for God accepting people, God, of course, has His own principles. We won’t fellowship on what kind of person God wants and what kind of person He doesn’t want—it’s very complicated. Why do I say that it’s complicated? God has a plan for who enters the church, what role they play during what period, and what duty they do or what important work they shoulder during what period, and in what period they conform to the work needs of God’s house and its personnel needs. God regulates and controls on a macroscopic and overall level, rather than just acting in the present moment—this is a very complicated matter, and cannot be explained clearly in a few words, so we will not get into the details. In short, whether a person can enter the gate to God’s house is not decided by any person; God holds sovereignty over this and arranges this. After entering God’s house, all kinds of people do all kinds of duties, play all kinds of roles, and walk all kinds of paths. All these various sorts of people have all manner of different manifestations, whether good or bad, positive or negative, proactive or passive—all of this is under God’s sovereignty and governance.

God’s sovereignty means that everything occurs and happens according to its natural course under His governance; no event occurs by chance, and the developments and changes that any event undergoes are not initiated or determined by any person—God holds sovereignty over all of this. Of course, the final result and characterization of any event are also based on the essence of that type of event and the essence of the types of people involved in it, and the basis for characterizing the event is entirely God’s words and God’s required principles. No type of event happens by chance, and the final result of any type of event is not decided by people. In fact, the beginning of any type of event that happens is arranged and given rise to by God. When God gives rise to a type of event, He arranges for a type of person to act in it, and that type of person might play the role of a service-doer or a foil, they might play a negative role, or they might play a positive role. But no matter what role they play, the beginning of all these things is arranged by God. There are two explanations of God making arrangements in this regard. One explanation is that God personally makes some positive arrangements and provides some positive direction and supervision, and has some positive figures initiate an event—this is one explanation of “God’s arrangements.” Another explanation is that God dispatches and sends a type of spirit to do certain things. These things are negative and wicked in people’s eyes, and so these negative and wicked characters are definitely negative figures, that is, the types of people whom God ordains from the outset to enter His house as foils and negative teaching materials. God gets them to play these roles, because with their nature essence, these are the only roles they can play, and He lets them perform to their hearts’ content and do what they ought to do as foils to their hearts’ content. Throughout the entire process, whether it be the manifestations of positive figures or those of negative figures, God’s principle in approaching and handling all these matters is to let them take their natural course. In viewing and dealing with these matters, the positive figures have some positive viewpoints, and some viewpoints that accord with humanity and the standard of conscience. Even though some of them reveal some corrupt dispositions—possessing some manifestations of being a people pleaser, or revealing some other corrupt dispositions—at the very least they hold to the conscience and reason of humanity, that is, they hold to the fundamental baseline for conducting oneself. And when it comes to the negative figures, God does not intervene in or guide anything that they do, but lets them follow their natural course; they also perform to their hearts’ content, and they expose their hideousness and do certain things to their hearts’ content. They successfully play the roles of the negative figures that God exposes, namely evil people and antichrists, enabling others to see vividly, in real life, what kind of people are devils, what kind of people are evil people, and what kind of people are antichrists, and exactly what the hideous countenances of the antichrists, evil people, Satans, and devils that God exposes are like. If these negative figures were not used as living teaching materials in real life, then in your mind, devils and Satans would forever be intangible, and would forever be just a guess or a picture. But now these living examples are placed right before your eyes, and these devils wearing human skin are living vividly before your very eyes, and their speech and conduct, their every word and action, their facial expressions, and even their tone of voice, all appear vividly in your life, right in front of you, and are imprinted in your mind. This is not a bad thing for you. This kind of thing occurs repeatedly in the church. The first time it happens, you feel uneasy and think you need to pray to God. The second time it happens, you think, “I must learn to use the truth to protect myself, and next time I encounter this kind of person, I must avoid them,” and you begin to think about how to protect yourself and stay away from evil people. The third time this kind of person appears, you ponder, “Why do these people speak exactly like the great red dragon, like Satan? Aren’t the things they say misleading? Are they not evil people? It seems that God’s words have said that people who display these manifestations are antichrists. I must discern and expose them, I cannot be misled by them, and I must stay away from them.” By experiencing this kind of thing again and again, you obtain a clearer and more thorough understanding of discerning antichrists, evil people, Satans, and devils, and of what disruptions and disturbances are. Your understanding no longer stops at words and doctrines, and much less at images. Instead you are increasingly able to identify these things in real life, and at the same time, you are able to view these people using the truth, and to resolve these things that have happened using the truth. Of course, when these things happen, you are also constantly correcting your views and standpoints, thinking about exactly what standpoint you should adopt toward these people, what perspective you should regard them from, and what kind of relationship you should maintain with them. When you face these things, you will unconsciously ponder on these issues, constantly seek the truth to find the answers and draw conclusions, and ultimately gain something. During this process, all God does is provide people with the truth and enable them to understand the truth, whether it be fellowshipping on the truth or enabling people to understand the truth in the things that befall them—in sum, God does not nip this situation in the bud. If this thing must happen, and it is beneficial to the life entry of God’s chosen people and to the work of the church, then God will allow it to befall people, and He will not stop it, but will let it develop according to its natural course. God’s purpose in working this way is, in one regard, to eliminate people, and in another regard, to make people perfect. Of course, in eliminating people He definitely targets those who serve as foils and aren’t even worthy of rendering service, whereas in perfecting people, He targets His chosen ones—those of them who are willing to pursue the truth. There is a twofold significance to this. One significance is that through the performance they put on, evil people are revealed, eliminated, and cleared out of the church. The other is that, in the process of these evil people gradually putting on a performance and serving as foils, God’s chosen people are enabled to learn to discern, and to understand the truth in God’s words; in this way, God works the truth into people in a practical manner—that is, God allows all the various manifestations of the wicked essence of all the kinds of evil people, antichrists, Satans, and devils that He exposes to be displayed in people’s real lives, and this enables people to have a clear understanding and knowledge of various types of wicked, hideous, and negative figures, events, and things. Say, for example, that God tells you, “You cannot touch burning coals with your hands; your fingers will get burned and they will hurt.” You don’t know what burning coals look like, you don’t know what it feels like to touch them, and after He tells you this, what you understand is a doctrine. Some people then imagine that a burning coal is a ball or a long strip. And what is the color of burning coals like? What do they feel like to touch? What would the pain of touching them be like? You don’t know. Your impression of burning coals is merely a picture of what your mind is able to imagine, and it will never have anything to do with the real thing. So, one day, when God takes out a tray of burning coals and places it in front of you, you don’t recognize them, and you just feel that they seem pretty hot. You gingerly reach toward them with your hand, to see whether your fingers will feel hotter when you touch them. God says, “You can try it, but don’t touch them for too long, otherwise they will burn your skin.” Some people are foolish—they stretch out all five fingers and grab a coal, and their entire hand gets burned and blisters. Others are smart and cautious—they just reach out one finger and lightly touch a coal and recoil in less than a second, saying, “Ouch, it’s too hot! It really is burning!” Whether you use five fingers or one finger to touch it, in any case, what you touch is the real thing rather than an image or words, and for the rest of your life, you will never forget the feeling and experience of touching burning coals, and what burning coals mean to you. When you see burning coals again, you will tell others: “You can use them to keep warm, and to dry clothes and toast buns, but you must never touch them with your hands. You will get burned and blistered if you touch them.” People may say: “So what will happen if I get burned and blistered?” And you will reply: “At the very least, you won’t be able to hold things with your hands, and it will also be inconvenient for you to eat and even more inconvenient for you to do physical work.” This is speaking from experience, is it not? After that profound experience, the burning sensation of hot coals will be deeply etched into your memory, and so you won’t readily touch burning coals ever again. God holds sovereignty over all things and arranges all kinds of things to happen to people so that they can learn lessons and benefit from them, and so that the truths and words that He provides to people can be truly worked into them, and thus God’s words and truths are no longer doctrines, slogans, or regulations in people’s hearts, but become their life, and the principles and criteria which they depend on for survival, and are a part of their life—in this way, God’s work will have achieved its effect.

When it comes to the matter of God’s sovereignty, what people should see is that God arranges the beginning of an event, then guides and leads the course of its development; as for what the result of the event is in the end, what those who pursue the truth gain from it and how much they gain, where this event and the people and things involved in it end up, and how they are finally arranged, these are also determined by God, of course—this is a principle of God’s sovereignty over all things. God only predetermines the beginning, process, and result of each event, and He allows the entire event to develop freely in the direction He has set, the purpose being to make everything conform to the natural patterns, or to let everything exert its function without undergoing any distortion or any processing, so as to achieve the effect that God intends to achieve. Isn’t this so? (Yes.) For example, when God arranges for an event to start and occur, He then begins to observe the attitudes of the people who come into contact with this event, and what their views toward it are—whether they view it in an attentive manner or aren’t interested in paying mind to it, and whether they engage in it with their heart or reject, resist, and avoid it—God is observing the manifestations of the various types of people. So, does God intervene in the manifestations of the various types of people? God does not intervene. God gives you the right to choose freely. You can attach great importance to this event and be very earnest about it, or you can adopt an attitude of disregarding it and being indifferent to it, and of course, you can also adopt an attitude of abstaining, avoiding it, and not participating in it—God just silently observes. But the emergence and occurrence of the whole event is initiated by God. This is the initial step of God’s sovereignty over an event. When this event begins to develop, as for which people participate in it, which people get involved in it, and in which direction the event develops once they have gotten involved in it, of course it is God who maneuvers and arranges all of these people, so that the event develops in the direction and with the effect that God wants. In the same way, when this event gets out into the open and the whole affair develops to a climax, God is still watching the attitudes, manifestations, opinions, and views of the various types of people. He is watching whether you really take this event to heart, whether you are extremely serious, rigorous, and earnest with regard to this event, or whether you are indifferent toward it, ignore it, and are incredibly numb toward it, or adopt an attitude of avoidance and repulsion toward it. He is watching to see whether you are someone who loves the truth, and whether you are someone who is earnest when it comes to God’s words, God’s requirements, and the truth. In the process of development of the whole event, your attitude becomes increasingly apparent, and God will see with increasing clarity your attitude toward the truth, your attitude toward the environments He sets up, and He will also clearly see your attitude toward pursuing the truth. When the whole event develops to its end and has its inevitable result, God is still watching what you have gained from the whole event, what you are thinking in your mind, and what you are calculating. He is looking at whether you are only focused on gaining experience and drawing lessons from this event in order to protect yourself—being a people pleaser—or whether you do things according to the truth principles and are no longer muddled like you were before. God will also look at what your attitude toward this event is, whether you keep silent and don’t express any views, standing aloof from anything that does not affect you personally, or whether in encountering this event you not only lack a pure comprehension, but instead your misunderstandings and complaints about God have also become more severe, and you have developed even more notions and imaginings about Him, even to the point of wanting to avoid it. Various types of people have different thoughts and views when all kinds of events play out, and God is observing and recording all of them. In any given year, on any given day, and at any given hour, minute, or second, what you are thinking, what you are saying, what you are calculating, what you are planning, what aspect of the truths you come to understand, what your attitude is when someone fellowships about some aspect of the truth, whether you resist and are averse to it and don’t want to listen to it, or plan to make your escape—God scrutinizes all these things. There are also some people who never have any attitude toward the people, events, and things that appear in the church, God’s house, or around them, who are numb and dull-witted like dummies. They just cling tightly to their own views, thinking: “As long as I don’t do evil and don’t cause disruptions or disturbances, or judge others, and I don’t make any comments or have any attitude or views when I encounter any people, events, or things, and I just act like a robot and do my duty well and labor well in a rule-abiding manner, that’s enough.” This, too, is a kind of thought and view. Of course, God will also observe and record this type of thought and view. The purpose behind God holding sovereignty over all things and events and over every specific thing that happens around people is to set up environments for people and to provide them with living teaching materials, so that in the face of all sorts of things, the various types of people show their truest side, and show their truest thoughts and views, and their truest attitude toward God and the truth. These attitudes that people have are manifested entirely in a state of freedom and liberty. God never intervenes, interferes, or manipulates, He just allows the various types of people to express their thoughts, views, and attitudes to their hearts’ content and according to their natural course, and ultimately reveals and treats the various types of people according to their manifestations. Who is included within “the various types of people”? What arrangements does God make for the various types of people? God enables those who love the truth to gain the truth; He enables those who are not interested in the truth but are willing to labor to settle down to do so; as for those who are repulsed by and averse to the truth, He reveals their attitude of being averse to the truth, but if they can settle down to render service or are suitable for rendering service, God will select these better ones and entitle them to render service, whereas if they are not suitable for rendering service, or they are averse to the truth to the extent that they may cause disruptions and disturbances, God will clear them out when the time and occasion are right. All of this work that God does is inconsistent with people’s notions, is it not? (Yes.) Can people see God’s tolerance and loveliness in all this? (From these things, we can see that through this practical work, God leads people to experience, and behind all this work is God’s love for man.) Within this work are God’s painstaking intentions, the wisdom of His work, and His responsible attitude toward the human beings He intends to save. There is one other aspect, which is that God’s possessions and being are not things that human beings have. God is extremely rigorous and earnest in everything He does, and never careless. Particularly when it comes to the matter of people gaining the truth, He is extremely rigorous and earnest; in order to take responsibility for people’s lives and people’s outcomes, God must act like this. Of course, for God, this is exactly what His essence and His possessions and being are like. No matter what attitude you have toward your life, and toward your outcome and destination, whether it be a serious and rigorous attitude or a perfunctory attitude, in any case, for God, since He has selected you and since He provides you with the truth and wants to save you, He will fully grasp your every word and action, and your attitudes in everything, and He will ultimately determine your outcome based on all your attitudes. And on the basis of all your attitudes, He will look at whether you will ultimately be someone who gains the truth, and someone who will be able to submit to God and be compatible with Him. It may be that you have never been earnest about the matter of God saving people, have never pondered it carefully, and don’t know how God saves people. However, as the Creator who holds sovereignty over created human beings, He is not muddled and confused like humans are; He does the work of saving humankind in a serious manner. He created you and selected you. He promised people that He would thoroughly save them, so He will accomplish this work and will be responsible to the end. Therefore, there are real manifestations and actual work content in God’s accomplishment of His work and assumption of responsibility to the end. This is how God works, and this is His sincere and earnest attitude. God won’t be perfunctory with you, or fob you off with some slogan, and God’s work in particular better reflects the real price God pays in order to save people, and His responsible attitude toward people.