Breaking Out of the Cocoon II

Unexpectedly, my husband found that I went to the meetings of the Church of Almighty God, and he told it to my father. One evening, when I was upstairs, I suddenly heard noises down in the yard. I opened the curtains and looked out, only to find that my father had burst into the yard angrily with four or five co-workers in his church, the sight of which brought me out in a cold sweat. My heart thudded, and I immediately knelt down on the floor and cried out to God for help, “O Almighty God! My father comes again to disturb me with some people in religion. I am timid and afraid. O God! You know I am of little stature. May You give me faith and courage….” Then God’s words suddenly occurred to me: “You should have My courage within you. Hold to the principles before your unbelieving relatives as well. But for My sake you should not yield to any force of darkness. Walk in the perfect way by My wisdom. Don’t let Satan’s schemes succeed. Lay your heart before Me as best you can, and I will comfort you and fill your heart with peace and joy” (“The Tenth Utterance” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). God’s words gave me strength. As I had God’s words in my heart, I was no longer timid and fearful. I thought, “No matter how they disturb me, I will never again let myself be fooled by Satan and deceived by them. It is heaven’s law and earth’s principle for me to believe in and follow God; no one has the right to interfere in it, not even my most loved ones.” So, I went downstairs composedly and greeted them. They all started speaking. A co-worker, looking with wonder at me, said, “Fangfang, I never expected that an intelligent person like you would believe in the Eastern Lightning. It is a false way! You’d better repent before the Lord Jesus….” I said with calmness, “You have never listened to the messages of the Eastern Lightning, nor have you ever read the words of Almighty God; how can you say that the way I put my faith in is a false way?” She said, “We don’t dare to read that book. It is terribly fascinating. If anyone reads it, he will be fascinated by it.” I said, “The words of Almighty God can convince people because they are God’s words and are the truth. Only God’s words have such authority and power.” But they spoke many blasphemies, and they also asked me to go to their leader to confess my sin and repent. They said that if I didn’t do so, I would be cast into hell and be judged. I said firmly, “I have attended the meetings of the Church of Almighty God and seen clearly that your defamation of it is totally groundless. There is no truth in your slander and rumor! If you cannot give proof, it shows that you are all liars, deceivers from Satan. Now the kingdom gospel of Almighty God has spread all over the China mainland, known to every household, and there are several millions of people who have accepted it. But there are also some people who hate the truth, and they have rejected the gospel. Isn’t it because of your disturbance that my youngest sister and I dared not believe in Almighty God anymore in the beginning? Aren’t we both safe and sound now? So you are telling lies and cheating people! Today I am dead set on believing in Almighty God. Don’t try to stop me since you refuse to believe. It is none of your business whether my soul will go to heaven or be cast into hell. Moreover, my fate is controlled by God’s hands, not determined by any man. Don’t come to disturb me anymore.” At that point, my father stood up and threatened me, saying, “If you insist on believing in Almighty God, I will break with you.”

When I heard such cruel words, I felt somewhat hurt, thinking, “You don’t seek or examine the true way, but listen to whatever your leader said. You choose to believe the rumors and lies made up by him rather than to believe me. You brought so many people to disturb and attack me and even said to break with me in front of them.” The more I thought about it, the sadder I felt. At that moment, these words of God came to my mind: “God created this world and brought man, a living being unto which He bestowed life, into it. In turn, man came to have parents and kin and was no longer alone. Ever since man first laid eyes on this material world, he was destined to exist within the ordination of God. It is the breath of life from God that supports each living being throughout his growth into adulthood. During this process, none believes that he lives and grows up under the care of God. Rather, man holds that he grows up under the love and care of his parents, and that his growth is governed by the instinct of life. This is because man knows not who bestowed life or from whence it came, much less how the instinct of life creates miracles” (“God Is the Source of Man’s Life” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). These words of God made me understand: Although my flesh was born of my parents, my life came from God. Had God not bestowed life upon me, my flesh would be an entity of corruption and a walking corpse. It is because of the care and keeping of God that I have survived until today; without God’s care and keeping, I would have long been devoured by Satan. Today I should repay God, not my parents. Although I have a physical relationship with my parents, we are incompatible in the spirit, for their essence is one of resistance to God. I should not join in their opposition to God, but should stand on God’s side. Even if my father disowns me, I should follow God to the end and stand firm in my testimony to God. So I said to my father, “Dad, in belief in God, I must obey God rather than man, and I can’t act by my emotion. If what you say corresponds to the truth and God’s will, I will obey you; if you want me to betray God, that’s impossible!” When they saw I was so determined, they shook their heads and stood up, and went away in dejection. Seeing the sorry figure they cut, I could not but shout for joy in my heart, “O God, You are so almighty! It is Your words that have given me the faith and courage to shame and defeat Satan thoroughly.”

Though the people in religion stopped coming to disturb me, my parents, instigated by their leader, often came to my home to persuade me, insisting that I should go to their leader and repent before him. One day, they came again. They attempted to mislead me with some Bible verses but failed. And then my mother wept uncontrollably, beseeching me to quickly go to their leader and repent before him. Looking at her tearful face, I felt distressed in my heart. “She lost her mother when she was three. Her stepmother ill-treated her, and she suffered a lot. Now she is getting old, but, instead of fulfilling my filial duty to her, I made her worry so much about me.” Thinking of this, I turned to my father and saw him looking at me with expectant eyes. My heart ached, and tears welled up in my eyes. But at that moment, these words of God occurred to my mind: “In every step of work that God does within people, externally it appears to be interactions between people, as if born of human arrangements, or from human interference. But behind the scenes, every step of work, and everything that happens, is a wager made by Satan before God, and requires people to stand firm in their testimony to God. Take when Job was tried, for example: Behind the scenes, Satan was making a bet with God, and what happened to Job was the deeds of men, and the interference of men. Behind every step that God does in you is Satan’s wager with God—behind it all is a battle” (“Only Loving God Is Truly Believing in God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). God’s words made me realize that on the surface I was confronted with my parents’ interference, but behind that was Satan’s wager with God in the spiritual realm: Satan attempted to deceive me using my emotions, to make me take pity on my parents, stand on their side, and obey them and thus deny and betray God. I must see through Satan’s trick, and should not grieve or disappoint God. I must stand on God’s side firmly and never betray God. So regardless of what they said and how hard they tried to persuade me, my heart remained unshaken. They had no choice but to leave in low spirits.

Afterward, as I didn’t go to my former leader to repent, he asked my father to announce to all the believers that I was expelled from the church, and he also told my parents to draw a clear line with me. Because of the interference of my former leader and my parents, my husband began to persecute me frenziedly. Every time after I came back home from performing my duty, he would curse or beat me, shut me out of the house, or break my electric scooter or my bicycle. Once he even sent me to the local police station. I was worn out and pined away with such tortures from him. The people of our village also ridiculed and slandered me. Faced with such adverse environments, I felt very weak within, thinking that believing in God was too difficult. I was at a loss how to walk the way ahead. Many a time I knelt down before God and prayed tearfully to ask Him to give me faith and strength.

Later, I saw these words of God: “The ‘overcomers’ that God speaks of are those, who, under the siege and influence of Satan, that is, under the forces of darkness, still stand witness and maintain their original faith and their loyalty to God. Regardless of anything else, your chaste heart remains steadfast before God, and your true love of God stays unchanging. This means that you stand witness before God, and you are the ‘overcomer’ of which God speaks. When God blesses you, you pursue well. When God does not bless you, you draw back. Is this chastity? Since you are certain this is the true way, you should walk to the end and keep your loyalty to God. Since you see that God has come to earth to personally perfect you, you should give your heart to Him completely. No matter what God does—He may give you a bad outcome in the end—you can still follow Him. This means that you have kept your chastity before God” (“You Ought to Maintain Your Devotion to God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).

From God’s words, I came to understand: In the last days, God will make a group of overcomers, and His followers therefore have to undergo many temptations both great and small from Satan. They have to actually experience the persecution from the CCP, the disturbance of the religious world, the rejection of their relatives, and the ridicule and insults of the worldly people. Those who can obey God and be faithful to God and do not betray God in any environment, who can stand firm in his testimony to God, will be the overcomers made by God. They will also be the ones who will receive God’s promises and survive the great disasters. Today God has arranged such environments in order to make me perfect and to see whether I will have a complaining heart, whether I have faith in God, and whether I am one who truly believes and obeys God. After I was clear about God’s will, I made a resolution before God: No matter what persecution or tribulation I may encounter, I will fulfill the duty of a creature to satisfy God. Although Satan frantically hindered and disturbed me, in an attempt to force me to deny and betray God, I prayed and looked to God at every time and equipped myself with God’s words every day. So God opened up a way out for me, which allowed me to see God’s almightiness and wondrous deeds. The more my husband persecuted me, the more God disciplined him. Later he didn’t dare to beat me or break my bike anymore. So my faith in God became greater.

One year later, I went to my youngest sister’s company with Sister Zhang to preach God’s work of the last days to her again, and she accepted it. When I saw her accepting the book of God’s word with both hands, I thought, “It is really difficult for God to save man!” At that moment, my tears streamed down my face uncontrollably, and I kept giving thanks and praises to God in my heart. In 2006, my youngest sister and I went to my younger sister to preach the gospel to her, and she also accepted it. After that, we brought several other relatives of ours to Almighty God as well. This allowed me to see that no matter how desperately the religious leaders try to hinder God’s work, it is to no avail. No force of Satan can halt God’s footsteps, and all God’s sheep will surely recognize His voice and return to Him. Just as Almighty God says: “The kingdom is expanding in humanity’s midst, it is forming in humanity’s midst, it is standing up in humanity’s midst; there is no force that can destroy My kingdom” (“The Nineteenth Utterance” of God’s Utterances to the Entire Universe in The Word Appears in the Flesh).

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A Lost Man Has Returned

A Lost Man Has Returned

Xieli    United States

In order to live a life of the greatest of the great, I came to U.S. to make my way. Although I suffered a lot over years, gradually I started up a company and possessed a car and a house, living an ideal “happy” life. Meanwhile, I made some friends. In the leisure time, we ate and drank and had fun together and we got along with each other well. I thought I had a group of buddies and close friends but it turned out that they were all fair-weather friends. They were unctuously, either adulating me or flattering me, without an honest word. In sorrow and distress, I even couldn’t find one to whom I could confide. Not only that, they sought every means to plot against me and cheat me out of my money. A friend swindled the money out of me by telling a lie that his mother in Mainland China was seriously ill and then vanished without a trace. A man who was from the same region with me falsely claiming to have an investment project tricked me out of my money. Even my intimate girlfriend also betrayed me and cheated me out of my hard-earned money which took me years to save up. The fickleness of the world made me disheartened and lose the faith in life, with empty, distressed and helpless feeling. Afterward, I often ate and drank and pursued pleasure to fill the emptiness in my heart. But the temporary comfort couldn’t solve my spiritual suffering.

In autumn of 2015, I met my wife by chance who had accepted Almighty God’s work in the last days. So, she began to preach the kingdom gospel to me. I said to her, “I’m too busy to believe in God. If you’re willing to believe, just do it. It’s enough for me to believe that there’s a God in my heart.” I held such a view until one day half a year later when my wife asked me to watch the video of the Church of Almighty God The Days of Noah Have Come with her. The pictures in the video shocked me. I saw that man is very small before the disaster and that the fleshly enjoyments and fame and position man pursues are worthless and are empty in the end. In this video, I saw Almighty God’s words, “However, I must tell you that in the time of Noah, men had been eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage to such a point that it was unbearable for God to witness, so He sent down a great flood to destroy mankind and left behind only Noah’s family of eight and all kinds of birds and beasts. In the last days, however, those kept by God are all those who have been loyal to Him until the end” (“Do You Know? God Has Done a Great Thing Among Men” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “Then look upon the present age: Such righteous men as Noah, who could worship God and shun evil, have ceased to exist. Yet God is still gracious toward this mankind, and absolves mankind during this final era. God seeks those who long for Him to appear. He seeks those who are able to hear His words, those who have not forgotten His commission and offer up their heart and body to Him. He seeks those who are as obedient as babes before Him, and do not resist Him” (“God Presides Over the Fate of All Mankind” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). I felt God’s urgent desire to save mankind in God’s words. I thought about the present age. No one loves positive things and thirsts for God’s coming. Man brims with selfishness, arrogance, deception and so on; man schemes against and outwits each other for fame and gain, desires lust and violates morals and ethics…. They are indeed more corrupt than people in Noah’s days. But God doesn’t destroy man directly because of their evil and corruption yet send down various disasters to warn them and gives them the opportunities to turn to Him. Actually, God is so tolerant and kind. I pondered God’s words and thought of the fact that the world is becoming more and more corrupt and evil and disasters are getting greater and greater. When God hurls forth His rage upon this evil mankind, position and money can’t save me. Only if I come before God will I be saved. Thinking of that, I seemed to wake up from the dream. If I lose the opportunity to be saved by God for the temporary fleshly enjoyments, won’t it be a pity? So, in May of 2016, I started to believe in Almighty God and attend meetings.

Not long after I believed in God, I happened to see the online rumors. Those words condemning and blaspheming Almighty God shocked me all at once: asking man to offer money, not observing the boundaries between men and women, etc.. As those words appeared to be precise, I couldn’t discern fact and fiction and fell into puzzlement and confusion. The enthusiasm to believe in God well was dampened by the rumors at once. At that time, I accidentally heard my mother-in-law telling my wife that she would offer money on the phone, which made me believe in the online rumors. Later, I tried to stop my mother-in-law from offering money, lest she be deceived. At the same time, I exhorted my wife not to continue her belief, for fear that she would be cheated. But, she didn’t listen to me but said to me firmly, “The fact is not as the rumors say. What you saw on the internet are rumors and false testimonies. …” She fellowshiped with me about God’s words but I couldn’t hear anything she said. Later, brothers and sisters came to my home but I wasn’t inclined to conversation with them. Those days, I lived in darkness and was on edge, fearing that my wife and her mother would be cheated, not eating well or sleeping soundly. One day, at the sight of my distress, my wife fellowshiped with me about God’s words again. She showed me some of Almighty God’s words, “What I desire is not man’s conceptions and thoughts, much less your money and belongings, but your heart. Do you understand? This is My will, and even more what I set out to gain” (“The Sixty-first Utterance” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). Immediately after that, she made me read some words in the Management Principles for the Church Life, “The Church doesn’t allow anyone to call on believers to give offerings by a special sermon about offerings or by any other reasons” (The Principles to Establish the Church and the Management Principles for the Church Life in Annals of the Fellowship and Arrangements of the Work of the Church (I)). She continued, “Believers in the Church all practice strictly according to the principles. Since I followed Almighty God, the Church has never required us to offer money. Not only that, the Church even delivers a variety of books and CDs to every true believer in God for free. Today, my mother wants to aid those brothers and sisters in difficulty with some money. It’s out of her willingness and no one forced her. Moreover, helping people in need is a good deed. Is there anything to be criticized?”

Almighty God’s words and my wife’s fellowship made me suddenly think of the fellowship given by a sister: The Church of Almighty God doesn’t accept the offerings of the new believers. Whoever attempts to give offerings must pray for several times to make sure that it is truly voluntary and he will never regret it. Only those believers are allowed to offer money. The Church will absolutely not accept the unwilling offerings. Thinking of that, my heart was relieved somewhat, but my doubt hadn’t been fully dispelled. As I frowned, my wife knew what I thought and said, “Don’t believe in those rumors. In order to disturb and destroy God’s work of saving man, Satan can speak any kind of lies and give any kind of false testimonies…. God is a holy God and He loathes man’s evil most. Those with bad reputation and those not observing boundaries between men and women in the world will not be admitted into the Church. If believers commit adultery to shame God’s name, they will be cast into hell. God’s words have made it plain.” Then, she opened the book of God’s word and read those words, “Because of the pealing of seven thunders, many people kneel down to beg for mercy and forgiveness. However, it is not the Age of Grace but the time of wrath. I will not spare or forgive anyone who does evil (one committing adultery, one being not clean in money, one not keeping boundaries between men and women, one disrupting and destroying My management, one not understanding the spirit, one being occupied by an evil spirit, etc. other than God’s chosen people). I will cast them all into Hades and they will perish forever” (“The Ninety-fourth Utterance” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). Almighty God’s words with majesty and wrath awed me. I felt that God’s righteous, holy disposition which does not allow man’s offense and that God extremely hates those who commit adultery. At that point, some of my misgivings were removed naturally. Then, my wife fellowshiped, “In the Age of Law, God revealed His majestic and wrathful disposition to man. If man committed adultery at that time, they would be stoned to death. As God intends to destroy and end this evil and licentious age in the last days, He reveals His righteous and holy disposition to man and all the filth and evil will be burnt by His wrath. Before God sends down disasters to destroy this age, He uses His word to show His intention, what kind of people He likes, what kind of people He loathes, what kind of people will be destroyed, and what kind of people will remain. Today, God calls those who can be saved into His family and uses His word to judge and purify them. Meanwhile, in light of man’s corrupt disposition, He issues the administrative decrees for them to cling to. As for two members of the opposite sex working together, there’s a strict regulation in the administrative decrees.” Then, she opened the book of God’s word and read, “Man has corrupt disposition and, moreover, he is possessed of emotions. As such, it is absolutely prohibited for two members of the opposite sex to work together when serving God. Any who are discovered doing so will be expelled, without exception—and no one is exempt” (“The Ten Administrative Decrees That Must Be Obeyed by God’s Chosen People in the Age of Kingdom” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).

After my wife finished those words, I thought of the matter happened one day in the spring of 2016. It was before my formal investigation on Almighty God’s work in the last days. I drove to another state with my wife and a sister. On the midway, my wife got off the car due to something and the sister followed her off the car. At that time, the wind was blowing and it was freezing cold. The sister stood outside the car, stomping constantly to warm herself. I asked her to get into the car but she said with a smile, “It doesn’t matter. I want to stand outside for a while.” A long time later, my wife came back and only then did the sister get into the car with her. Seeing her shiver with cold, my wife said, “It’s so cold outside. Why did you not stay in the car?” She answered, “There’s an administrative decree in our Church that two members of the opposite sex are prohibited to work together. This is God’s requirement for all His chosen people. We should observe it strictly.” Her words deeply moved me, with the feeling that this group of people were different from worldly people. Thinking of that, I couldn’t help but pat my head. In retrospect, since I engaged with the brothers and sisters in the Church of Almighty God, I had seen that they kept boundaries between men and women, spoke in a dignified and decent way, and dealt with people with a strong sense of propriety. Those rumors betray themselves before the fact. At that moment, I felt ashamed. Actually, the online rumors were all fabricated slanders and blasphemies which were careless and out of nothing. But I even harbored doubts about Almighty God and His Church on account of them. I believed in them blindly and listened to hearsay. I was really muddle-headed! My wife continued her fellowship, “This is God’s protection to man that He issued such an administrative decree. As God knows that mankind is corrupted by Satan too deeply and has no ability to overcome sins, He uses it to constrain man and makes them avoid many temptations. This is God’s love.” I nodded involuntarily. In that way, the shackles in my heart were opened and I was released from doubt, distress and depression.

So, I started to attend meetings again. When I think about this experience, I have palpitations. These rumors are really harmful. Once man is swayed by them, they will be in distress and darkness. What makes me feel very puzzled about is that: Why are these rumors on the Church of Almighty God put on the website since it is so good? Thus, in a meeting, I opened my heart to my brothers and sisters and told them my thought to seek the truth. They had me watch the gospel movie shot by the Church Break Through the Snare. It resolved all my doubts. What’s more, I had a clearer understanding after the fellowship by my brothers and sisters. It’s Satan’s constant ploy to use rumors to disturb and destroy God’s work. When the Lord Jesus worked, to control God’s people forever, the Jewish religious leaders—the chief priests, scribes and Pharisees crafted many rumors about the Lord Jesus. They blasphemed and framed the Lord Jesus, by saying that He drove out demons by the prince of the devils and that He perverted the nation and forbade to give tribute to Caesar. They gave a false testimony that His body was stolen by His disciples and He was not resurrected, and so on. If there had been the internet, I think those religious leaders would upload the rumors and false testimonies about the Lord Jesus to the internet to judge, attack, condemn and blaspheme Him. Rumor is the great hindrance to man’s acceptance of the true way. Deceived by the rumors, the Israelites didn’t acknowledge that the Lord Jesus is Messiah and thus lost God’s salvation. Today, in the Age of Kingdom, Almighty God comes to do the work of judging and purifying man with the word. The Chinese government and the religious pastors and elders acted as Satan’s tools. For the purpose of caging and controlling man, they unrestrainedly created rumors and gave false testimonies on the Church of Almighty God to smear it. Satan is too evil and contemptible!

Following that, my brothers and sisters read God’s words for me, “On earth, all manner of evil spirits are endlessly on the prowl for a place to rest, are ceaselessly searching for the corpses of men to eat up” (“The Tenth Utterance” of God’s Utterances to the Entire Universe in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “Satan is constantly devouring the knowledge that men hold of Me in their hearts, and constantly, with teeth bared and claws unsheathed, engaged in the last throes of its death struggle. Do you wish to be captured by its deceitful stratagems at this moment? Do you wish, at the moment that the last phase of My work is completed, to cut off your own life?” (“The Sixth Utterance” of God’s Utterances to the Entire Universe in The Word Appears in the Flesh). Almighty God’s words tell us the truth of the spiritual war. It turns out that these rumors are Satan’s schemes to devour man. If man believes in those rumors, they will eventually lose the opportunity to be saved by God and will perish and be destroyed with Satan. Thank God for His leadership. The Church’s gospel movie and my brothers and sisters’ fellowship and help caused me to see Satan’s evilness and contemptibleness more clearly. Then, I was enlightened and was at ease within. I set up my mind to follow Almighty God and walk the way to salvation. After following Almighty God, I get the true freedom and release. As I experience more, I see that there’s plenty of love and help among brothers and sisters, and that everyone pursues to be an honest person according to Almighty God’s requirements and doesn’t need to worry or fear that they will be fixed, cheated, and harmed. I have felt the true happiness in the Church of Almighty God, which is the life I have always desired.

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God’s Love Melted My Hardened Heart II

God’s Love Melted My Hardened Heart II

The next day after I had just finished my breakfast, Sister Deng came again. I felt assured that was the Lord’s preparation. I said to her, “Yesterday I considered what you had fellowshiped for a long time. I feel it is well-founded, but I still cannot come around. I always believe this: I have already received the judgment of the Lord by confessing all my sins in my life; I have emptied myself before the Lord, and I’m no longer of sin; and when the Lord returns, I can be taken to the kingdom of heaven directly. So I think that there is no need for God to come again to do the work of judgment.”

Hearing that, Sister Deng said with a smile, “Sister, let us read two verses first. The Lord Jesus said: ‘I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come’ (John 16:12-13). ‘For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God’ (1 Peter 4:17). From these two verses, we can see that in the last days, God will come again to express the truth and do the work of judgment. The Lord Jesus only did the redemptive work, that is, redeeming man from sin through the salvation of His crucifixion so that man was qualified to come before God. Meanwhile, through His teachings, He enabled man to gain a little superficial knowledge of himself, but that didn’t involve the change of man’s life disposition. So, if man wants to be cleansed, he must accept the work of judgment and purification by the word of Almighty God—Christ of the last days.” Having said that, she took out from her bag a book entitled Judgment Begins With the House of God. “Let us see what Almighty God says about it,” she said. Then she began to read: “The sins of man could be forgiven through the sin offering, but man has been unable to resolve the issue of just how he can no longer sin and how his sinful nature can be cast away completely and be transformed. The sins of man were forgiven because of the work of God’s crucifixion, but man continued to live in the old, corrupt satanic disposition. As such, man must be completely saved from the corrupt satanic disposition so that the sinful nature of man is completely cast away and never again develops, thus allowing the disposition of man to be changed. This requires man to understand the path of growth in life, the way of life, and the way to change his disposition. It also needs man to act in accordance with this path so that the disposition of man can gradually be changed and he can live under the shining of the light, and that he can do all things in accord with the will of God, cast away the corrupt satanic disposition, and break free from Satan’s influence of darkness, thereby emerging fully from sin. Only then will man receive complete salvation. … Therefore, after that stage was complete, there is still the work of judgment and chastisement. This stage makes man pure through the word so as to give man a path to follow. … This stage is more meaningful than the previous one and more fruitful as well, for now it is the word that directly supplies life for man and enables the disposition of man to be completely renewed; it is a stage of work more thorough. Therefore, the incarnation in the last days has completed the significance of God’s incarnation and completely finished God’s management plan for the salvation of man” (“The Mystery of the Incarnation (4)” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). After reading these words, Sister Deng fellowshiped, “Almighty God tells us plainly that the Lord Jesus only did the redemptive work in the Age of Grace but didn’t do the work of eradicating the root of man’s sin. The effect that stage of work has achieved on man is nothing but enabling man to receive Jesus’ salvation and confess his sin and repent. But because the root of sin is still within man, unremoved, man can continually sin. For example, when people interact together, they can intrigue against each other, struggle for fame and gain, and have jealous disputes with each other; some can pursue evil worldly trends, living in sins; some can blame God and betray God when encountering tribulations and trials; sometimes people can pass judgment on God and disobey God once God’s work is not in line with their notions; and so on. Since we still have so much corruption, how can we enter into the kingdom of God? The Lord Jesus once said, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, Whoever commits sin is the servant of sin. And the servant stays not in the house for ever: but the Son stays ever’ (John 8:34-35). As God is holy, He won’t permit those who are impure to enter into His kingdom; this is a heavenly law, and no one can break it. This shows us that it is not enough for people to only accept the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus and be forgiven of their sins. They have to accept the work of Almighty God in the last days—the work of judgment and purification by the word, because only those who have been judged and purified personally by Almighty God are qualified to be taken into God’s kingdom.” Then Sister Deng read me another two passages of Almighty God’s word concerning God’s work of judgment in the last days and fellowshiped much with me about them.

After listening, I was excited and said, “Almighty God’s words are very practical. My condition is indeed as His words say. I confess and repent to the Lord every day, but I still commit sins in spite of myself. It turns out that the Lord Jesus only did the redemptive work in the Age of Grace. Though people were forgiven of their sins by believing in the Lord, their sinful nature was not resolved and thus they still often sin and resist God involuntarily. God’s work of judgment and chastisement in the last days is to cleanse people with the truth so that they will be totally set free from the bondage of sin and gain the truth and life. Almighty God’s work of judging and purifying man with the word is really practical. I must investigate it carefully.”

When Sister Deng left, she gave me the book Judgment Begins With the House of God, and I was thrilled to bits with it. During the following few days, I read many pieces of Almighty God’s word: “The Mystery of the Incarnation (4),” “Christ Does the Work of Judgment With the Truth,” “The Age of Kingdom Is the Age of Word,” “How Does the Second Step of the Conquering Work Achieve the Results,” “Concerning Appellations and Identity,” and so on. God’s words resolved my notions completely, and I was fully convinced that the words expressed by Almighty God are exactly the way of God’s judgment in the last days. The more I read them, the more I felt I was too foolish and absurd. I came to realize that facing God’s work of the last days, what I had displayed was all the ugliness of arrogance and conceit. Had it not been for God’s mercy on me, I would not have heard His words of judgment. I confessed to God time and again. And I recalled how God had paid price for me and how I had resisted His work: In order to bring me before Him, God sent the brothers and sisters to preach the gospel to me time and again. But the stubborn and rebellious I, living in my notions and imaginations, rejected God’s work of the last days. Especially when I saw the book Judgment Begins With the House of God, I didn’t even allow the sister to speak anything about God’s new work, asserting that I had received the judgment and didn’t need God to come again to do any work of judgment and purification. Then I thought of Pastor Zhang, who had got sore boils all over and died tragically, and Sister Cui, who was in the terminal stage of cancer. And I suddenly realized why they had had such tragic outcomes: When God’s salvation of the last days came upon him, Pastor Zhang not only refused to investigate it but sealed off the church, threatening those believers who wanted to investigate the true way and preventing them from returning to Almighty God; when the brothers and sisters of the Church of Almighty God preached Almighty God’s work of the last days to Sister Cui, instead of seeking, she wantonly slandered it and even told her husband and son to drive them off. Their suffering such disasters has revealed God’s righteousness. At that time, I remembered this verse in Revelation: “And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues” (Revelation 18:4). I felt God was calling me to immediately turn back from the path of resistance to God and keep pace with God’s new work and accept His work of judging and purifying man, so that I wouldn’t end up being punished for resisting God. God’s love for me was inexpressibly great!

At that moment, I was extremely remorseful, tears streaming down my face. I hated myself: I am too blind to know God, and have always been stubborn and opinionated and living in my own notions and imaginations, so that I rejected the brothers and sisters who preached the gospel to me. Also, I have hindered many brothers and sisters from investigating God’s salvation of the last days. I should have been punished by God according to my rebellious deeds. When I thought of that, my heart wrenched, and I prostrated myself before Almighty God and prayed, “O Almighty God, I am too ignorant and have truly wounded Your heart. I hate myself for being too foolish to see Your deeds and thus having resisted You. But You didn’t forsake me and still gave me an opportunity to return to Your family. I don’t know what I can do to repay You; I only hope to go all out to bring those true believers in the Lord before You to receive Your salvation, so as to make up for my transgressions.” The next day, with the book of Almighty God’s word—Judgment Begins With the House of God, I went to the homes of those true believers in the Lord in my former church to preach the gospel to them, sincerely repenting to God and repaying His love through practical actions.

The End.

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Lies and Truths I

Lies and Truths I

Lyu Liang

Speaking of lies, all believers in God know they come from the devil. The Lord Jesus disclosed in the Bible, “He was a murderer from the beginning, and stayed not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44). The Lord Jesus told us clearly that the devil spoke lies and also murdered with lies from the beginning. It was because of believing the devil’s lies that mankind’s ancestors Adam and Eve sinned and were thus driven from the Garden of Eden by God, losing their happy life. From then on, death came upon mankind. Therefore, lies, which originate from Satan, are negative things and Satan’s tools for deceiving and corrupting mankind. In the real world, lies are extremely harmful. They can bring man to ruin, and can also trigger a slaughter and a war, so that rivers of blood flow and people are plunged into an abyss of misery.

In the first century A.D, in order to restrict and stop the spread of Christianity in Rome, Nero, the tyrant of ancient Rome, not only fabricated the rumors that Christians were sociopaths with political designs, but also framed Christians for the crime of burning the city of Rome, instigating the populace to hate them. Immediately, scores of Christians were arrested and bloodily slaughtered by the government. Some were nailed onto the pillars as candles, some were torn alive to pieces by wild beasts in the Colosseum. However, the ignorant Romans strongly supported and cheered loudly for the government’s atrocities of massacring Christians, becoming accomplices in the tyrant’s crimes. During World War II, in order to snatch Jewish assets and exterminate Jews, Hitler fabricated rumors wantonly, saying that the Jews had stolen all money from Germans, and he had films shot on the themes of Jews, in which tens of thousands of mice ran out of the Jews’ houses. Then the Nazi Party took the Jews into the hospital to have blood tests, and “the scientific statistics” proved the Jews were transmitters of Salmonella Typhi, Escherichia coli, etc. With those “conclusive evidences,” they drew the conclusion that the Jews were the dregs of humanity and exterminating them was the only solution. The reason why Hitler slaughtered the Jews was not only “adequate,” but also “irrefutable.” The overwhelming propaganda made the Germans take each and every lie from the government as true, and respond to and participate in the Holocaust positively. As a result, six million Jews ultimately died under the Nazis’ butcher knives. Obviously, when a national government makes up lies, which are extensively publicized and spread by state media afterward, then what they bring upon mankind are inevitably tremendous disasters.

Recently, some netizens found that the English version of Wikipedia, a world-renowned website, reproduced numerous rumors of slander, condemnation and smear of the Church of Almighty God by the CCP government, some of which were particularly appalling. For instance, in 2010, a member of the Church murdered a pupil, leaving a lightning-like mark on one of the victim’s feet. In 2012, a man called Ming Yongjun (Min Yongjun) said that he stabbed an old woman and 23 students of a school in Henan Province at the instigation of the Church’s prophecy of the last days. In August of 2013, a member of the branch Churches in Shanxi gouged a boy’s eyes out because the boy’s family intended to leave the religion. On May 28, 2014, six people who claimed to be members of the Eastern Lightning attacked and killed a woman in a McDonald’s restaurant in Zhaoyuan, Shandong, China. … These bloodcurdling rumors have deceived many people who are ignorant of the facts. As they believe the CCP government’s rumors, they have some misunderstanding of the Church of Almighty God, and furthermore, dare not investigate or accept Almighty God’s kingdom gospel although they clearly know Almighty God’s word is the truth and God’s voice. As for these people, if you tell them that they are fooled by the CCP government, and are deceived and cheated by its lies, then they will shake their heads and say, “How can it be possible that the Chinese government, a national government, openly fabricates rumors to frame and discredit the Church of Almighty God and cheat the people of the world?” From their perspective, it seems that every information and every news the CCP releases is true and reliable. But is this really the fact? All those who have some knowledge of the CCP government are clear that the greatest skill of it is making up lies, fabricating rumors, framing and discrediting others, and it has always been pursuing the fallacy that a lie repeated ten thousand times becomes the truth. From the time the CCP was founded until now, it has never changed its characteristic and essence of telling lies. It beautifies and builds up itself by making up lies and then repeating them, portraying itself as the great savior of the Chinese people, so that people all kneel and worship it. It also deceives and cheats people by telling lies, inciting the common people to hatred, thus achieving its purpose of attacking and eliminating dissidents. It can be said that the CCP is the government which is best at telling lies in the world, and is also the one that is most capable of using lies to deceive and murder people.

The CCP Beautifies Itself and Eliminates Dissidents Through Lies

Open the history of the CCP. Every page of it seems to be glorious and bright, as if telling its greatness, glory and correctness. Yet, provided that you collate it with historical facts, then you will find that the history of the CCP is nothing but lies, and none of it conforms to historical facts.

Take the Long March for example, which plays an important role in the history of the CCP, and is also boasted by the CCP as the great pioneering work of indomitably breaking through the encirclement campaign of Nationalist forces and marching north to resist Japanese aggression. But actually, the Long March was merely a great group escape for the sake of the CCP’s self-preservation, and was also called “fleeing hither and thither” or “fleeing westward” by the Nationalist forces. This has been proved in the historical textbook of Beijing Normal University, which was chiefly edited by Bai Shouyi, the professor of the university. (It is written in the book: At 8 p.m. on October 21, 1934, after the failure of the 5th counter-encirclement campaign, the central Red Army broke through southward. But immediately, it is written in the following pages of the book that at 8 p.m. on October 21, 1934, the central Red Army solemnly declared to begin the Long March and march north to resist Japanese aggression.) In addition, after fleeing to Shaanxi and Gansu in 1935, the CCP convened the Central Politburo Conference in the Russian Concession in Gansu on September 12, during which Mao Zedong said, “We will give up the policy of occupying Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu. We decide to open up an international line through guerrilla warfare, and come to the region which is close to the Soviet Union to create bases via the northeastern Gansu and northern Shaanxi….” “If we can’t keep a foothold in Ningxia, then we can pass through the desert by car to Outer Mongolia for the sake of leaving these revolutionary seeds.” Thus it can be seen that the so-called Long March is, in fact, its embarrassed history of the great escape of ten thousand miles. However, through the CCP’s made-up lies, publicity and elaborate packaging, it has become a great anti-Japanese feat, which has deceived the Chinese people for seven decades.

There were “ten struggles between the lines” in the history of the CCP, and each of them was, with no exception, carried out centering around the struggle for authority. Yet the CCP prettified them as its error-correcting mechanisms and the progressiveness of the Party. Then what on earth is the truth of the facts? We might as well give two examples, through which we can know the answers. Among the so-called “ten struggles between the lines,” the ninth “Liu Shaoqi Bourgeois Headquarters” and the tenth “Lin Biao Anti-revolution Group” drew the most attention of the world.

Liu Shaoqi, the former president of the People’s Republic of China, was supported and approved by some personages inside and outside the Party because he advocated developing economy and improving the people’s livelihood. Whereas, Mao Zedong, the Party leader, felt keenly that his dominant position was threatened. Then in order to eliminate dissidents, Mao stirred up people to rebellion, planning and launching the world-shaking Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Soon, Liu Shaoqi was changed from a state president to a great traitor, a great mole and a public thief, and was “perfectly justifiably” killed by the Party finally. Lin Biao, an ever-victorious general who once swept away the millions of enemy troops, was the former Defense Minister of the People’s Republic of China, and the established successor according to the Party Constitution. However, after failing in the inner-party struggles, through the propaganda of the state media, Lin became a schemer and careerist overnight who was beaten and went over to the enemy, and betrayed the Party as well as his country. Ultimately, he ended up with the saying that his death from the plane crash would not expiate his sins. But in fact, Lin Biao had already been shot dead before the air crash. That he betrayed his country and defected to the enemy and died in the air crash was merely a pretense fabricated by the CCP to conceal the ugly fact of scrambling for power and position and killing one another within the Party.

People once counted that in the history of the CCP, there were over 110 lies that were similar to the above-mentioned ones which confounded black with white and distorted the truth. It does show that the history of the CCP is absolutely a history of lies.

Since the CCP was founded, whether in the struggles outside the Party or inside the Party, and in whether the repression of student movements and persecution of religious beliefs or the suppression of ethnic minorities and dissenters, it was all through fabricating rumors and telling lies that the CCP has achieved its purpose of suppressing, murdering, and safeguarding its dictatorial rule. It has been a fact obvious to all.

The world-shaking “June Fourth Incident” was originally a movement that students protested against the corruption of the government and advocated democracy and freedom, but the CCP government organized some special intelligence agents to sneak into the procession of students to beat, smash, and loot everywhere, and even burn military vehicles and kill soldiers. Later the CCP imputed the crimes to the students. When “the evidence was certain,” the CCTV Evening News as well as the major domestic media began to report and propagandize it overwhelmingly at once, exposing the “outrages” of the undergraduates. Soon after, Li Peng, Premier of the State Council, publicly labeled this student movement as a riot. After that, the extremely tragic and world-shaking massacre of the century happened, and thousands of lives of young students vanished on that night.

On March 14, 2008, in Lhasa, Tibet, over three hundred monks of Zhaibung Temple paraded, chanting the slogan “freedom of religion belief,” and then they were arrested and beaten by military police of the CCP, which gave rise to Tibetan large-scale protests. Then after driving the foreign journalists out of the region, the CCP military police disguised themselves as Tibetans to beat, smash, loot, and burn the shops owned by the Han and Hui people. They even killed the Hans and imputed the crime to the Tibetans. Soon, the pictures of the Tibetans’ killing people, which were exclusive to the state media, were speedily and continuously rebroadcast in every major media. After the rumors were accepted by the public, the CCP changed immediately into “the power of justice” of “keeping the social order,” while the Tibetans became “rioters” and thus suffered the large-scale bloody suppression from the CCP.

Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany Goebbels said, “The mission of newspapers is to transmit the ruler’s will to the ruled and thus make them regard the hell as heaven.” “The only one purpose of propaganda is to conquer the masses.” “The propaganda is based on the fundamental principle that the effective arguments should be repeated constantly and the lies should be spread continually and dressed up to be credible.” The CCP’s purposes, means, and principles of propaganda overly coincide with the Nazis’. It has turned out that the atheistic CCP government is the maker of lies and the source of evil, hence everything said by the CCP government as well as its state media is nothing but lies and is not trustworthy at all. Similarly, such information reproduced and published in whatever media or websites is not worth believing either.

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