Question 3: During testifying sessions, our fellowship on the topic “What is the truth? Only God can express the truth, while no famous person, great figure, or pastor can” is still quite shallow and broad. It lacks strength, and gospel prospects find it hard to understand. We’d like to seek some guidance: How can we fellowship this truth in a simpler, more relatable way so that gospel prospects can truly understand?
Answer:
When we talk about this topic, we usually say, “Only God can express the truth; Satan cannot express the truth.” This might sound clear to us, but now religious people and nonbelievers don’t know what the truth is. They don’t understand it, so when you say, “Only God can express the truth,” it feels like an empty theory to them—they just don’t get it, right? (Right.) To fellowship on this issue clearly, what should you clarify? First, you need to help them understand what the truth actually is. Once they understand what the truth is, they can then evaluate whether what Satan expresses is the truth or not, and ponder why what God expresses is the truth. That way, they’ll truly grasp what the truth is. If you don’t clearly fellowship on what the truth is and just jump straight to saying, “Only God can express the truth, Satan cannot, and famous people and great figures can’t either,” it’ll sound like an empty and vague theory to them, and they won’t be able to understand it. To them, it might sound like you’re saying, “Only oxen and horses can pull carts, but humans can’t.” They might respond, “Why can’t humans pull carts? Even though we’re not as strong as oxen and horses, we could still pull a small cart, right?” Therefore, if you don’t explain the reason clearly, they won’t understand and might even argue back. Isn’t that so?
What is the truth?
First, we need to understand that from all the words of God we’ve read, the requirements He sets for man—what He asks man to do, practice and live out—are these positive things? Are they the right path in life? Let’s start by fellowshipping on this. Simply put, God’s requirements for man are many.
In the Age of Grace, the Lord Jesus said: “Truly I say to you, Except you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Mat 18:3), and “Repent you: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mat 3:2).
He also asked people to be the light and the salt. In the Age of Kingdom, God’s requirements are even more. During the Age of Kingdom, Almighty God has expressed words requiring man to submit to God’s orchestrations and arrangements, practice the truth, follow His will, fear God and shun evil, see through Satan’s schemes, rebel against Satan, completely turn to God, sincerely submit to Him, love Him, and worship Him, etc. All these requirements from God call for people to walk the right path and live out the likeness of a true human being. Are these words and requirements positive things? (Yes.) They are all positive things. God’s requirements are embodied in what is positive. Furthermore, the most important aspect is that God expresses the truth to let us know what He has and is, His holiness, and His righteousness. Aren’t these even more positive? (Yes.)
These are deeper positive things, which are not easy for people to understand and are beyond the reach of those who do not understand the truth. God’s possessions and being, His holiness, His righteousness, and His essence are deeper truths. To understand these deeper truths, people need to experience God’s judgment and chastisement and His work. So, for religious people and nonbelievers, it’s already commendable if they can understand a little about what are positive things, what is the true way, and what benefits people; these things are the truth. Who can express these truths? Can corrupt humanity express them? (No.) Even the most commonly spoken words of God during the Age of Grace, as well as the relatively simple requirements in the Age of Kingdom, are beyond what corrupt humanity could speak. So what kind of words does corrupt humanity speak? Let’s look at some representative examples. First, let’s talk about the words spoken by famous people and great figures.
In Chinese history, the first famous and great figure is Laozi (Li Er), whose representative work is Tao Te Ching. Then there is Confucius, whose representative work is The Analects, a key work of Confucianism. Are the words in these books the truth? (No.) Not a single word is the truth. Why do we say that not a single word is the truth? Because none of what they said can lead people to the right path in life, and none of it teaches people how to live as human beings or how to walk the right path in life. Their words do not benefit people at all; instead, they have had a negative effect—a very significant and obvious negative effect. Take Laozi’s words, for example, like “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao” or “The Tao gives birth to one, one gives birth to two, two gives birth to three, and three gives birth to all things.” These are all nonsense—words without any foundation. Where did the heavens and earth and all things come from? God created them, but Laozi couldn’t explain this. Instead, he turned it into a kind of arithmetic, saying things like “one gives birth to two, two gives birth to three.”
His words are unverifiable, too vague, and impossible to explain logically. His words are similar to those of Darwin’s theory of evolution—too absurd! Evolution says that humans evolved from apes, that we came from animals. Historians, in particular, have found various animal fossils and claimed that these fossils were similar to certain parts of humans, so they believe humans evolved from these animals. This is complete nonsense. At first, Chinese people also said that humans evolved from apes, but now they don’t say that anymore. What do some people in China say now? They claim that Chinese people evolved from big rats—that’s what some archaeologists say. The more you hear this kind of talk, the more disgusting it sounds, the more off-topic it gets, and the more repulsive it feels. Isn’t that the case? (Yes.) In the end, people have believed these absurd theories for decades, centuries, or even thousands of years, but no results or conclusions have come of it. There’s not a shred of evidence to support such claims. So, these claims have had a confusing effect on people, misleading them for decades, centuries, or even thousands of years, with no results or proof to back them up. Would you say that people have been deceived and blinded? (Yes.)
People have been deceived, blinded, and misled. Do the words of today’s famous people and great figures align with the truth? (No.) They are even further from the truth. For example, what the Communist Party says is full of fallacies. Its words are all about making people believe in the Communist Party, listen to the Communist Party, and obey and follow it. It doesn’t allow people to believe in God. Isn’t this an open and blatant way of misleading people? (Yes.) The Communist Party blatantly misleads people and forces them to listen to its words and follow it. If you don’t listen to its words, don’t follow it, and insist on believing in God, it will arrest you, imprison you, and even torture you. If that doesn’t achieve its goal, it will try to make you disappear and torture you to death in prison. There was a Christian in mainland China named Ni Tuosheng. He was a remarkable person. The Communist government imprisoned him for 20 years because he believed in the Lord and preached the gospel. When he was 69, about to be released from prison, the Communist police said, “Ni Tuosheng is too gifted. If he writes a few more books, they will have a huge impact on the world and on those who believe in God. We can’t allow that, we must make him disappear.” So, in 1972, just one day before his release, Ni Tuosheng suddenly died in prison.
He was one day away from being released but died in prison. Before he died, he wrote his last words: “I die because of my faith in Jesus Christ.” He was persecuted to death in this way. This is how Satan and the devils relentlessly pursue and kill believers in God. Once they discover someone with talent, especially someone used by God, they feel they must eliminate them. If they don’t get rid of such a person, make them disappear, they can’t rest easy. They fear losing their power and worry that this person might overthrow them. So, the kingdoms and world belonging to Satan deeply hate God and those who believe in God. During the Age of Grace, the Lord Jesus came, and they nailed God to the cross. In the last days, Almighty God came, and they nailed God to the cross a second time.
Can you now distinguish between what is the truth and what is fallacy? All truth is expressed by God, and the truths He expresses are meant to guide people onto the right path—leading them to turn to God, submit to Him, and worship Him—so that humanity, created by God, can satisfy His intentions. It’s similar to when a person gets married and has children. What do they hope for their children? They want them to grow up and live out human likeness to bring honor to their ancestors. Isn’t that what they expect? (Yes.) If a child doesn’t like to study or do an honest day’s work from a young age, and only likes to eat, drink, and have fun, their parents will ignore them, seeing that they won’t amount to much when they grow up. Parents have hopes for their children, and God also has hopes for the humanity He created. However, God’s hopes differ from the hopes parents have for their children. God is the truth, and His hope is that people can accept the truth, worship Him, submit to Him, live according to His word, and follow His way and His will when they grow up.
Don’t you think God’s requirement is the most rightful one? (Yes.) What is the basis of God’s requirement for humanity? It is based on love. And how does this love come from? This love comes from the fact that humans were created by God. Since God created humanity, He must take responsibility for them and extend His love to them. Therefore, it is out of God’s love that He comes to save humanity. Even when God hands over humanity to Satan, there is His good intention in it. God uses this to save humanity, and through saving people, He manifests His glory and almightiness, so that people can see and understand what God has and is, achieving worshiping and submitting to Him. Moreover, through saving humanity, God defeats Satan, humiliates it, and ultimately casts it into the bottomless pit. This is meaningful. If humanity had never experienced the corruption of Satan, how could God express the truth? God’s expression of the truth would seem groundless.
People might struggle to understand why God makes such demands, and it would be difficult for them to accept. Only after humanity has been corrupted by Satan can people understand the truth more easily and deeply when God expresses it. Why is that? This is because Satan serves as a foil, with the contrast of Satan’s fallacies, all kinds of Satan’s corruption and evil. With this foil rendering service, if people accept the truth, they will gain a true understanding of God, and they will see that God has requirements for humanity and God expresses the truth and saves humanity out of love. This is the most meaningful thing. Satan corrupts humanity, and humanity was not created by Satan, so what right does Satan have to take over humanity? What right does it have to deceive people and lead them to follow it? Isn’t this exactly being hostile to God? This is an act of resisting God.
Why does Satan want to corrupt the human race created by God? What relationship does humanity created by God have with Satan? None at all. It takes power and establishes its own kingdom on earth, and what relationship does it have with God’s chosen people? None. It has no relationship with God either. Why does Satan want to control humanity under its power? Why does it want to take over and control humanity? Why does it try to make people accept its heresies, fallacies, and devilish words? Satan’s goal is to make its corrupt disposition and its nature grow in the hearts of humanity, leading them to ultimately oppose God, become those who resist God, and be destroyed by Him. This is Satan’s aim. So God needs to carry out the work of salvation. Through it, God saves humanity, defeats Satan, humiliates it, and then condemns it, finally casting it into the bottomless pit, which is prepared for Satan. Originally, God cast Satan from heaven to earth. What does “earth” refer to? It means this planet, letting it stay here. However, it didn’t behave. When God created humanity on earth, Satan came to corrupt humanity. This time, God will defeat and condemn it again.
So, what will Satan’s outcome be? It should go to the bottomless pit, which is more severe than being on earth. The bottomless pit on earth is the lowest place, the darkest place for Satan. So how should people discern these things? Who is the truth, who is the savior of humanity, and who leads humanity to a place of light? Who corrupts humanity and leads them to darkness and eventual destruction? People need to discern these things. God leads and saves people, while Satan misleads and corrupts them. What heresies and fallacies does Satan use to mislead people? What does Satan say to make people stray from God and doubt Him? People will be able to discern, “Satan spreads atheism, saying there is no God and no savior in the world.” Anything that denies God, goes against the truth and God’s words, or clashes with God is a heresy or fallacy. Take a look at the words spoken by famous and great people in the world—don’t they resist God? Aren’t they contrary to God’s words? (Yes, they are.)
Why is it that no matter how we spread God’s word, many people still don’t accept it? It’s because humanity has been deeply corrupted by Satan. People’s hearts are filled with Satan’s heresies and fallacies, and atheistic views have taken root in their minds. This has given rise to a nature that resists God. That’s why it’s so difficult for us to testify about God to them—they just won’t listen. No matter how many days you fellowship the truth with them, they don’t have much of an impression of it! It’s very difficult for you to speak one truth that reaches their heart and get it to take root there. What a degree humanity has been corrupted by Satan. After listening to the words of fellowshipping about the truths for several days, they still don’t understand. No matter what you say or how you testify, they doubt God. They wonder, “Has God come? Is He God?
The pastors and elders say He’s just a person, so He can’t be God. It’s impossible for Him to be God.” No matter how you explain it, they keep doubting God and can’t accept it. What’s the problem here? This is the result of the various heresies and fallacies from Satan, right? (Yes.) When you explain it this way, they will know which words are the truth and which ones are not the truth, meant to mislead people. Once you’ve explained these matters clearly, and then read Almighty God’s words to them, they will hear that all the words are positive things—they teach people to believe in God, worship God, and submit to God. These words are great; they are the true way of life, the truth. When people can confirm that all the words expressed by God are the truth, you can then tell them, “The truth can only be expressed by God. Why can this person express the truth? It’s because God’s Spirit resides in Him; God’s Spirit has come upon Him. He is God’s incarnate flesh, He is God, and that’s why He can express the truth. The person who can express the truth is God.” Is this way of saying it alright? (Yes.)
Excerpt from 20241208 The Brother Above’s Answers to the Gospel Team’s Questions (Part One)
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Question 5: Recently, in some countries, there has been a significant spread of negative propaganda about our church. Especially when it comes to the topic of “China,” some prospects, upon hearing that God is working in China, have left the group and even blocked us. I want to seek advice: Is it possible to include some content at the beginning of the topic on “China” to block the way? What kind of content would hit the key points?