Answer: Everyone that believes in the Lord knows the Pharisees resisted the Lord Jesus, but what was the root, the true essence of their resistance? You can say that in the 2,000 year history of religion, no one has figured out the answer to this question. Though the Lord Jesus’ cursing of the Pharisees was written in the New Testament, no one has been able to discern the Pharisees’ essence. When Almighty God arrives in the last days, He reveals the true answer to this question. Let’s read Almighty God’s words. Almighty God says, “Do you wish to know the root of why the Pharisees opposed Jesus? Do you wish to know the essence of the Pharisees? They were full of fantasies about the Messiah. What is more, they believed only that the Messiah would come, yet did not seek the life truth. And so, even today they still await the Messiah, for they have no knowledge of the way of life, and do not know what the way of truth is. How, say you, could such foolish, stubborn and ignorant people gain God’s blessing? How could they behold the Messiah? They opposed Jesus because they did not know the direction of the Holy Spirit’s work, because they did not know the way of truth spoken by Jesus, and, furthermore, because they did not understand the Messiah. And since they had never seen the Messiah and had never been in the company of the Messiah, they made the mistake of clinging in vain to the name of the Messiah while opposing the essence of the Messiah by any means possible. These Pharisees in essence were stubborn, arrogant, and did not obey the truth. The principle of their belief in God was: No matter how profound Your preaching, no matter how high Your authority, You are not Christ unless You are called the Messiah. Are these views not preposterous and ridiculous?” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. By the Time You Behold the Spiritual Body of Jesus, God Will Have Made Heaven and Earth Anew).

Almighty God says it very clearly. The root of the Pharisees’ resistance and condemnation of the Lord Jesus was that they did not revere God or search for the truth at all. Deep down, they were stubborn and arrogant; they did not obey the truth. The Pharisees defined God within their own conceptions and imaginings, within the literal words of the Bible. They kept the Messiah in name only. No matter how profound and correct the Lord Jesus’ preachings are, how His words are the truth, or how much authority or power His words have, because His name is not Messiah, the Pharisees opposed and condemned Him. Their principles of faith are exactly as Almighty God says, “No matter how profound Your preaching, no matter how high Your authority, You are not Christ unless You are called the Messiah”. Not only did the Pharisees not accept the truths expressed by the Lord Jesus, they tempted Him and tried to find fault with Him. For example, they tempted the Lord Jesus by asking what authority He used to perform miracles and purposely asked the Lord Jesus whether they could pay taxes to Caesar. They asked the Lord Jesus whether He was the Son of God, Christ, etc. The Lord Jesus struck back at their evil plans with truth and wisdom. The Pharisees had no strength to refute Him, yet they still did not search for the truth. They still fanatically resisted and condemned the Lord Jesus; they had the Lord Jesus arrested and demanded that He be nailed to the cross. It was just as the Lord Jesus said when He exposed them, “But now you seek to kill me, a man that has told you the truth, which I have heard of God… And if I say the truth, why do you not believe me?” (Jhn 8:40, 46). Therefore, we can see that the Pharisees, in nature and essence, were satanic demons, enemies of God that hated the truth! Brothers and sisters, what kind of people can hate and condemn Christ? The Pharisees’ story clearly demonstrates one fact: All who believe in God but do not love the truth, are weary of the truth and hate the truth do not know God. In addition, these people surely resist God and take Him as their enemy. Because Christ’s essence is the truth, the way, and the life, anyone who hates the truth also hates Christ. Many people that hate the truth seem good on the outside; they follow the rules of the Bible and do not seem like evil people at all, but when Christ comes to do His work, these satanic enemies of God will be completely exposed.

The Pharisees’ evil resistance and condemnation of the Lord Jesus completely exposes their demonic essence: They hate the truth and resist God. that when the Lord Jesus preached and did His work, He expressed many truths, displayed many miracles and gave people abundant grace. The Lord Jesus’ work shook the foundations of Judaism and shocked the Jewish state. Many people followed the Lord Jesus. The Pharisees knew that if the Lord Jesus continued to do His work, all of the faithful in Judaism would follow Him; Judaism would fall, and their positions and meal-tickets would disappear. Therefore, they decided to kill the Lord Jesus. Just as the Bible says, “Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man does many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation. … Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death” (John 11:47, 48, 53). To protect their status and meal-tickets, the Pharisees colluded with the Roman government to crucify the Lord Jesus on the cross. They said, “His blood be on us, and on our children” (Matthew 27:25). As you can see, the Pharisees hated the truth and hated Christ. They reached the point where they no longer wished to co-exist with Christ long ago! They would rather forsake their sin offering than not crucify the Lord Jesus; they would rather commit monstrous sins, resist God and offend God and have their sons and grandsons cursed than not nail the Lord Jesus to the cross, He who expresses the truth of redemption for mankind. That is the genuine, satanic, truth-hating nature and substance of the Pharisees. that when the Lord Jesus was nailed to the cross, the sun became dark, the earth shook and the curtain of the temple split open. After the Lord Jesus was resurrected, He appeared before men once again. After people learned these facts, they repented for their sins and turned to the Lord Jesus. As for the Pharisees? Not only did they not repent, but they became even more antagonistic enemies of the Lord Jesus. They paid off soldiers to bear false witness and say the Lord Jesus had not been resurrected. When the apostles spread the gospel of the Lord Jesus, the Pharisees fanatically captured and persecuted them. They wanted to ban the Lord Jesus’ work to obtain their ambitions of permanently controlling the religious community. The Pharisees believed in God in name only. In reality, they hated the truth and resisted God. The essence of their resistance and condemnation of the Lord Jesus was as follows: They were trying to compete with God and size Him up; they were fighting against God. The arrogance of their resistance and hatred of the Lord Jesus completely exposed their ambitions and exposed their evil, satanic face. Plus, it exposed their demonic antichrist nature: a refusal to repent, a frenzied hatred of the truth and a hatred of God. Isn’t that how the pastors and elders of the religious community treat Almighty God? If we could clearly see how the pastors and elders resist and condemn Almighty God, we would definitely know that the Pharisees resisted and condemned the Lord Jesus in the same way.

2,000 years ago, the Jewish chief priests, scribes and Pharisees nailed the Lord Jesus to the cross. 2,000 years later, the religious leaders have caused history to repeat itself by nailing God to the cross again! We have all seen that Almighty God carries out the work of judgment beginning with God’s house in the last days. He expresses truths that cleanse and save humanity. He uncovers all the mysteries of God’s management plan. He judges and exposes humanity’s satanic nature that resists and betrays God. He shows them His righteous disposition which cannot be offended. Almighty God’s words are the truth. They have authority and power and fully convince us. These truths cleanse and save humanity. Then what about the pastors and elders nowadays? They don’t care how Almighty God’s words are the truth, how much authority and power His words have, how they can cleanse and save man. They still stubbornly maintain their fallacy: “Whoever does not descend on a cloud and raise me up into the kingdom of heaven is not the return of the Lord Jesus.” They frantically resist and condemn Almighty God. They keep the Lord Jesus in name only, yet fanatically resist and condemn Almighty God. Is that any different from when the Pharisees kept the name of Messiah but resisted and condemned the Lord Jesus? Is their essence not the same as that of the Pharisees: stubborn, arrogant, disobeys the truth, hates the truth? They only believe in a vague God up in heaven, and they deny, resist and condemn Christ incarnate; they are irreconcilable rivals with Christ. Aren’t they just antichrists denying, condemning and resisting Christ? The Bible says, “as you have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time” (1Jn 2:18). “For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist” (2Jn 1:7). Therefore, all who do not acknowledge God incarnate are antichrists. All who resist and condemn Christ are antichrists. Therefore, the Jewish Pharisees were exposed as antichrists by the Lord Jesus’ work. The pastors and elders in the last days are all antichrists that are exposed by Almighty God’s work. God incarnate’s work really does expose people! Everything Christ expresses in the last days is the truth. Not only does He expose the wise and foolish virgins, He exposes all kinds of antichrists and non-believers. This is a truth that no one can deny!

The religious leaders in the last days and the Jewish chief priests, scribes and Pharisees, the essence and roots of their resistance to God are the same. The ways that the pastors and elders resist God are even worse than those of the chief priests, scribes and Pharisees. Ever since Almighty God started doing His work of judgment from God’s house, all people of every denomination were raptured before God’s throne, as long as they love the truth and long for God’s appearance. The pastors and elders stop at nothing to resist and condemn Almighty God, all in an attempt to constrain the faithful and stabilize their positions and livelihoods. They spread rumors, bear false witness and blaspheme Almighty God; they seal off the church and strictly forbid believers from studying Almighty God’s work in the last days. They threaten, scare, ridicule and beat brothers and sisters who spread the gospel of the kingdom. They even collude with the devilish CCP to capture and persecute them, leaving hundreds of thousands of brothers and sisters without a home to return to. At least a hundred thousand people have been brutally tortured by the CCP. Many have even been killed… The pastors and elders’ resistance of Almighty God is even more fanatical than the Pharisees’ resistance of the Lord Jesus was. Their evil deeds in resistance to God are numerous. Almighty God judged and cursed them long ago. Almighty God says, “How many among them seek the truth and follow righteousness? They are all beasts, no better than pigs and dogs, at the head of a gang of stinking flies, wagging their heads in smug self-congratulation and stirring up all kinds of trouble,^[1] in the middle of a dung heap. They believe that their king of hell is the greatest king of all, little knowing that they themselves are no more than stinking flies. … With green wings upon their backs (this refers to their claiming to believe in God), they are full of themselves and boast everywhere of their own beauty and allure, while they secretly fling the impurities on their own bodies onto man. Furthermore, they are exceedingly pleased with themselves, as if they can use a pair of rainbow-colored wings to conceal their own impurities, and by these means they bring their oppression to bear on the existence of the true God (this refers to what goes on behind the scenes in the religious world). How would man know that, as enchantingly beautiful as the wings of a fly may be, the fly itself is after all no more than a tiny creature, with a belly full of filth and a body covered with germs? On the strength of the pigs and dogs they have for parents, they run amok across the land (this refers to the way in which the religious officials who persecute God rely on the strong backing of the government of the nation to rebel against the true God and the truth), unrestrained in their savagery. It is as if the ghosts of the Jewish Pharisees have returned along with God to the nation of the great red dragon, back to their old nest. They have begun yet another round of persecution, picking up their work of several thousand years ago. This group of degenerates is sure to perish on earth in the end!” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Work and Entry (7)). The words expressed by Almighty God were publicly shared via newspapers, TV and the Internet a long time ago. All different types of gospel movies and videos have already been posted on the Internet to openly bear witness of God’s manifestation and work to the whole world. This has caused a big ripple among the religious community and humanity in general. The pastors and elders in the religious community have already seen the growing trend: The words of Almighty God are conquering those of the religious community and humanity in general. No person and no force can stop it. They have become irritable and are frantically resisting and condemning Almighty God. They are trying to outlaw Almighty God’s work in the last days and achieve their wildest dreams: eternal control over the religious community and eternal hegemony over God’s chosen people. These facts are enough to prove that the religious pastors and elders in the last days are the reappearance of the Pharisees! They are the antichrist demons that work as hard as they can to disturb and destroy God’s work and swear to the death to be enemies of God! Their numerous evil deeds have already provoked God’s disposition. How can they escape God’s righteous judgment and punishment?

—the movie script of The City Will Be Overthrown

Footnotes:

1. “Stirring up all kinds of trouble” refers to how people who are demonic run riot, obstructing and opposing the work of God.