RIGHT AND WRONG BRINGING IN DEATH
The Bible only tells us that life is light. It never says that right and wrong are light. On the contrary, right and wrong always bring in death. To touch right and wrong is to touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Everyone knows that darkness is death. The opposite of good and evil is life. The darkest person is the one who is not transparent, one who is living in death. What brings us into darkness? It is good and evil that brings us into darkness. What we need to do today is to touch life, because life is light. If we touch good and evil, they will bring in death.
CRITICISMS BRINGING IN THE POISON OF DEATH
Perhaps you think that this is a very small matter, but I do not consider this as a small matter. Whenever you criticize someone, you fall into darkness. All God’s children agree that criticizing others is sin. You have to realize that not only is criticizing others sin, but it is something that will lead you into something else; it will lead you into good and evil, and right and wrong. It will bring the shadow of death into your being. When we have sin, we need forgiveness. But when we have poison, we need healing. For you to criticize someone is a sin. However, criticism not only brings you into sin; it brings you into contact with the poison of death. This is why we have to be delivered from good and evil, right and wrong, and darkness and death, so that we can become a transparent person in life.
BEING DELIVERED FROM THE STANDARDS
OF RIGHT AND WRONG, AND GOOD AND EVIL
Many years ago, I was afraid of criticizing others. Once I criticized others, I felt that I had sinned, and I would go and confess my sins. Now also I dare not criticize others. But now I do not criticize because I am afraid that I would come in contact with right and wrong; I am afraid that the poison of good and evil will come into me once more. Today, in order to maintain ourselves transparent before God, we have to be delivered from right and wrong. Years ago, when I did not criticize others, I was doing it to keep myself clean. It was like a child who would not drink the water from the gutter because he did not want to be punished by his father. But now I am different. In the analogy of the boy, I am not doing it now, not for fear of punishment, but for fear of the poison in the water. Once a person argues, he is touching right and wrong. All those who argue may be very "clean," but they are not transparent within. A person can be very right, yet remain very dark within. He is not living, and he is not transparent. Immoral things surely bring us into darkness. But moral things bring us into darkness even more. It is true that the publican was condemned before God, but the Pharisee was altogether blind before God (Luke 18:9-14). A person may have nothing wrong, and he may be right in everything. Yet he is blind, and does not have the light or the sight. Why is this so? It is because he is too good, too clean, and too right; he is a person who lives in right and wrong. As such, he is blinded, and he does not have the light. He is not transparent.
EXERCISING THE SPIRIT TO ALLOW THE INNER MAN
TO BE STRENGTHENED
Today, just as we condemn the world and evil, in the same way we have to condemn our mind, emotion, will, and the right and wrong. Education promotes these four things. Yet God is calling us out of these things, and He is teaching us to conduct ourselves in the spirit. We should learn to conduct ourselves not according to these four things.
This is the reason in Ephesians the apostle told us to be strengthened into our inner man (Eph. 3:16). God wants the spirit within us to be renewed, nourished, cleansed, and strengthened. Whenever we come across something, the first thing we have to do is not to exercise our mind, our emotion, or our will. Whenever we come across something, we have to learn to foster our spirit and exercise our spirit. God’s salvation has transferred us from darkness into light, so that we would become those who live in our spirit. When we stop exercising our mind and our emotion, and when our will becomes softened, our spirit will grow and will rise in stature. We are most worried about those who have a strong mind or a strong will but a weak spirit, or those who are rich in emotion but poor in their spirit, or those who are morally strong but spiritually weak. We should be a person who is strong in our inner man. If we are such a person, we will be transparent.
(Messages Given During the Resumption of Watchman Nee's Ministry (2 volume set), Chapter 79, by Watchman Nee/Witness Lee)
