God Didn’t Have the Heart to Let Me Fall Into the Underworld (Audio Essay)

How a Public Security Bureau Local Station Chief Was Conquered by God’s Words

Zhang Jun, Sichuan Province

Almighty God says: “Look back to the time of Noah’s ark: Mankind was deeply corrupt, had strayed from the blessing of God, was no longer cared for by God, and had lost the promises of God. They lived in darkness, without the light of God. Thus they became licentious by nature, abandoned themselves to hideous depravity. Such men could no longer receive the promise of God; they were unfit to witness the face of God, nor to hear the voice of God, for they had abandoned God, had cast aside all that He had bestowed upon them, and had forgotten the teachings of God. Their heart strayed farther and farther from God, and as it did, they became depraved beyond all reason and humanity, and became increasingly evil. Thus they came ever closer to death, and fell under the wrath and punishment of God. Only Noah worshiped God and shunned evil, and so he was able to hear the voice of God, and hear the instructions of God. He built the ark according to the instructions of God’s word, and assembled all manner of living creatures. And in this way, once everything had been prepared, God unleashed His destruction upon the world. Only Noah and the seven members of his family survived the destruction, for Noah worshiped Jehovah and shunned evil” (“God Presides Over the Fate of All Mankind” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). After reading this passage of God’s words I fell into a state of deep contemplation …

My parents are both Christians and I was baptized and made a follower of the Lord Jesus at an early age. At that time, my spirit was always turned toward brightness and goodness. When the Cultural Revolution hit China, my father was sent to a remote place in the mountains for “reform through labor,” and after that we never got any more news about him. My mother was classed as one of the “four bad elements,” and because she was also a Christian she was classed as a “counterrevolutionary.” I wasn’t able to escape the damage done to my family either: By the time I got to school age there wasn’t a school that was willing to accept the son of a “counterrevolutionary,” and when I got to working age there was no work unit that would take me on. It wasn’t until I was 20 years old that I finally got a job. I’d been oppressed for so long, and had eaten a bellyful of pain and suffering, so when I started work I resolved to work as hard as I could and rely only on myself. There were a few times when I had to really pull out all the stops, but eventually I rose from being an ordinary police officer to being a PSB local station chief.

At the time, I secretly congratulated myself on rising up the ranks, and I didn’t for a moment imagine that behind this good fortune there lay a terrifying darkness that was going to swallow me up. It was like a dark, formless pair of hands dragged me down into the depths of sin. To be honest, soon after becoming a police officer I began to feel that we were no different from bandits or thieves. Our job wasn’t to catch criminals or maintain law and order: It was make money on the side. We even secretly directed prostitutes to go and seduce men so that we could arrest them in the act and extort a fine from them. Whenever we arrested someone we would try to extort money from them through lying, cajoling, or swindling. We have countless examples of this kind of behavior, behavior that was rife throughout the police force. Nightclubs, dance halls, etc. all had to discreetly give us a few thousand yuan or more every month in “protection fees,” otherwise we’d make life difficult for them. We were ready to crack down hard on them at any time. The prostitutes who worked in these red light places were all pretty afraid of us and would not only throw themselves at us but would even give us cash. There was one single guy in our station who, under the pretext of being their boyfriend, managed to cheat money and sex from over 100 females. There wasn’t a single police officer that I knew who wasn’t involved with prostitutes and I too became so deeply ensnared in this world that I couldn’t extricate myself even though I wanted to.

As police officers we had many opportunities to make money, and all it ever took to get some cash was a bit of casual trickery. For example, if a construction company or agency wanted to build some houses we would let the local gangsters set up roadblocks by the construction sites. The builders would then naturally call us and we would show up to deceptively resolve the issue by removing the “hooligans.” The construction companies or agencies—who didn’t realize what we were up to—would of course then be very grateful to us and were happily willing to give us some cash every month. But this cash was just pocket money. What we really wanted to achieve by causing trouble for the businessmen was to get batches of free shares in their companies. To this end, we would first conduct some background checks on the boss of the targeted company, and then if he didn’t meet our demands we would make our move. For bosses who liked to womanize, we would send prostitutes to seduce them. Then we’d follow them to the motel or wherever to catch them in the act and then coerce them. For bosses who liked to gamble, we would make them pay big fines. If any of them didn’t cooperate then we would send in the gangsters to force them out of business and out of our territory. Ordinary citizens would often say things like “The cops and the robbers are just one big family” or “The cops and the gangsters are as close as fish and water” and what they say is right. When I first started doing these evil deeds I always felt uneasy at the thought of making dirty money through unjust means. But every time my colleagues roped me into it I felt powerless to refuse, and after a few years I felt that I didn’t have the slightest bit of remorse left in me. I was stuck in a dark hole and had no way to pull myself out, but I didn’t care as long as there was money to be made. It particularly pains me to remember the times when we forced ordinary citizens out of their homes so that they could be knocked down for redevelopment projects. Those cases were rotten to the core with deceit, fraud, and all manner of evil. Officials from the Land and Resources Bureau and local demolition units would join forces to cheat and bully local residents solely in order to make money. For example, land developers would count the number of houses in the area that they wanted to redevelop and then would give the local government an estimate of how much they could compensate local residents for demolishing their houses and relocating them. If the compensation was 1 million yuan per house, local government officials would work with the PSB officers to coerce the residents to accept the least compensation and then share out the greatest difference between themselves. Generally speaking, in such cases the local government would want to protect its image, and so wouldn’t deal with the residents face-to-face but would instead let the PSB deal with them. As for those residents who refused to accept the compensation offered to them, the police had a number of different ways of dealing with them. Some of them were forcibly detained. Some residents were given notice to leave, had their houses demolished, and received no compensation whatsoever. Some houses were designated as illegal structures that were not eligible for compensation. Some houses were just demolished immediately with backhoes. Some residents were given a little bit of money; others just received a promise of money but never got it. In short, we used every dirty trick in the book to cheat people out of their cash. I remember one time when we were out drinking with a PSB officer from another county. He boasted to us that they had once demolished a 3-storey house but only compensated the owner for 2 stories by claiming that the upper story was illegal. On demolition day, the owner refused to move out and made a big fuss, so the police called in their gangster friends, who—in front of a crowd of people—took out knives and slashed the owner’s Achilles’ tendons. It was a terrible thing to have to watch and a lot of people in the crowd took photos on their cell phones, phones which were immediately confiscated by the police officers present. Someone in the crowd also started shouting about the injustice being done to the homeowner but was politely invited to the police station for a chat and locked up once they got there. There was even an incident in a rural area where a homeowner refused to cooperate during a demolition and so the construction company boss talked it over with the police and then told the bulldozer driver to run over the homeowner. All the other farmers flew into a rage when they saw one of their neighbors crushed to death, and grabbed the bulldozer driver and started beating him. So the police rounded up the 20-30 farmers at the scene and took them all down to the PSB station. Once inside, the police beat the farmers and locked them up, and injected the particularly intransigent ones with a drug that stimulates the central nervous system. Those injected with this drug showed the same symptoms as someone suffering from concussion: They looked stunned and terrified and didn’t dare to speak. Faced with national law enforcement agencies like these ordinary people had no recourse to justice no matter who they appealed to. For citizens unfortunate enough to come up against the government or the PSB it was like throwing eggs at a rock. In fact, many of the formalities used in land expropriation and demolition cases were illegal. They all relied upon forced occupation of the land, forced demolitions and removals, and in many places out-of-date government policies were used as a pretext to cheat and cajole local residents in order to squeeze as much money out of them as possible. Another method was to expropriate more land than officially sanctioned. For example, the upper level government might give permission for 20 acres to be expropriated to build a bridge and then the local government would use illegal means to take another 40 acres. These 40 acres would then be split between local government officials, police officers, and local gangsters who would all sell the land to developers for huge profits. I even heard of one station chief who was able to make over 10 million yuan from selling a piece of illicitly-gained land!

Having committed these evil deeds that were totally devoid of all humanity (although for some of them I was more of a passive participant), I felt that I had become toxic, cruel, and heartless. The darkness was spreading through my heart and I was turning away from all that was bright and good. My family life went from bad to worse: My wife spent her days playing mahjong—winning or losing thousands of yuan daily and coming home late—no one was looking after the kids, and the housework wasn’t being done. My house was a mess and my relationship with my wife was a mess. We began to hate each other, frequently argued ferociously, and threatened to divorce each other on many occasions. In the end, we just let each other do what we wanted: My wife had her mahjong, I had my womanizing. I began to spend money like it was water, drinking and singing in the bars every night and always accompanied by women. My wife became like a stranger to me and our family life was a shadow of its former self. That was when I began to feel that although I was making loads of money my life was nothing but misery. I was like a zombie, incapable of rational thought and lacking a soul. I was allowing Satan to corrupt my flesh, and was living a cursed life.

But there was one thing that I never forgot, and that was that I was a Christian and that God shouldn’t be offended. About 10 years ago, the CCP issued an important edict that stated, in the main, that all believers in God were to be arrested and detained for 15 days under the offense of “disturbing public order.” In fact, the reason for arresting believers was to get money by fining them, and so we were ordered to only arrest those with money because no one would pay for the keep of poor believers while they were in detention. But every time a Christian was detained I stayed in the background because I knew that this was an offense to God and anyone who offended God would suffer His retribution. I personally saw many of the colleagues who detained and viciously beat other Christians go on to suffer God’s punishment. Some of them died very painful or tragic deaths.

But when faced with these dark forces I was powerless as an individual to resist or make any significant difference. All I could do was to go with the flow. In order to relieve some of the suffering in my spirit I started going to church regularly, but I discovered that the pastors in my church were no longer truly pious believers. In fact, they had all become just more corrupt officials: The chairman of the Committee of Three-Self Patriotic Movement sold off all of the houses belonging to the church and kept most of the money for himself; the head of the Administration for Religious Affairs, Li X, colluded with the chairman of the Committee of Three-Self Patriotic Movement (Wang XX) to use donations from believers as capital for their car dealer business and were dismissed from office after being discovered; the next chairman of the same committee, Hao XX, embezzled church money that was to be used for buying furniture and was also dismissed. Then there was Pastor Zhang, who used a house belonging to the church as collateral to borrow a large amount of money which he used to buy a car for himself and one for the head of the Administration for Religious Affairs. He also had a sexual relationship with a nun, and was eventually sentenced to 3 years in jail. But the head of the Administration for Religious Affairs tried to absolve him of responsibility by telling the churchgoers that “Pastor Zhang has gone to the U.S.A. to study for 3 years.” I saw that the religious community was as filthy as my world and I knew that every one of those fake pastors was eventually punished by God. It made me sick to know what was going on behind the dark curtain in these cases, and it was a shock for me to discover that corruption and darkness were rampant at every level of China’s society. I couldn’t find even a twinkle of light, and so lost all hope and became so depressed that I left the church.

In 2001, some friends from my hometown told me about Almighty God’s work of the last days, but at the time I was wildly arrogant and didn’t give them the respect or attention they deserved. During that period I was often transferred to other places as part of my job, but in every place I went to there was always someone there ready to share Almighty God’s work of the last days with me. However, I always refused to go further with it (which I now know was all part of God’s arrangements) because I simply didn’t believe that God has returned. It was not until 2005 when I learned that many of my mother’s church friends had accepted Almighty God’s work of the last days, that I began to have my first perception of the truth when I started to think: “Has God really returned?” Not long after, my wife also accepted Almighty God’s work of the last days, and when she shared the gospel with me I decided to read some of the books of God’s words to try and get to the bottom of it all. But at the meetings over the following months my heart was still full of doubts about God. I was also usually very tired from having to work overtime so I often dozed off during the meetings. As a result, even after a few months of meetings I still didn’t understand anything and so I decided to look for an excuse to get away from the church and continue making money.

I was planning to take up a position in Chongqing, and on hearing this one of the brothers urged me: “Whatever you do, don’t leave God. And don’t go chasing after illicit wealth, otherwise however much of it you make from now on you’ll lose it all!” I didn’t believe a word of what he said, and within a few days of arriving in Chongqing I had already made 30,000 yuan. At the same time, a colleague told me about a stolen car that was up for sale for just 28,000 yuan. We decided to catch the thief, but if the car was in good condition we would buy and resell it to make more money. The car was 90% new, and had a book value of over 300,000 yuan, so I decided there and then to buy it. I transferred 28,000 yuan into the bank account that the car thief indicated, but no sooner was the money in his account than he denied selling me the car. He said that I’d robbed him of his car, and even reported me to the police. So we all ended up in the police station, where the car thief received a thorough beating. But he still wouldn’t admit to his crime, and said he wanted to talk to his superior first. He made a call, and shortly after 8 burly, shaven-headed guys arrived at the station with all the documents to prove that the car was a taxi. We had no choice but to let the crook go. Later I came to feel that my illicit gains had indeed been taken away from me by God. I was a bit stunned, and thought: “This really is the true God!” After that incident, whenever I wasn’t working I would go to church gatherings. But I didn’t really have much life entry, as I still preferred to remain adrift in the world of wickedness. There was still no place for God in my heart, but fortunately God had not given up on my salvation.

In the fall, a colleague and I had to go to another place to track down some money that was part of a case we were handling. Even though I still hadn’t started pursuing the truth since believing in Almighty God, I kept myself away from temptations because I knew that promiscuity was one of the vices that God hated most. But my colleague insisted that we go for a massage and I was unable to resist the temptation. After getting our massages, it was still only 2pm and so we decided to go to a motel. My colleague called for 2 female escorts, students, to join us but before we started to do anything my phone rang. It was my wife: “You’ve just had a massage and now you go to a motel. You’re making a mistake and God’s going to punish you!” I was stunned—how could she possibly know? A whole series of doubts and suspicions arose in my mind, making me feel very uneasy. I told my colleague that I believed in God, and that God could see everything so I didn’t dare do anything with the girls. He didn’t believe me and grabbed my cell phone from me, and so was also given a stern warning by my wife. My colleague then said to me repeatedly: “Your God must really be God to be so amazing. That monitoring equipment that we police use only works when there is a tracking device in the suspect’s clothing. But here we are sitting naked in this motel, so it looks like the technology that your God has is far more advanced than what we use.” Later, when I came to make a phone call, I discovered that my phone had somehow called my wife by itself 3 hours before she called me. In other words, the whole time we were in the massage parlor and then the motel my wife was able to listen in on our conversations. But what really puzzled me was that my phone was set to automatically lock whenever I wasn’t using it. Could it have been God who made my phone make that call? I started to feel very uneasy and agreed with my colleague to send the 2 student escorts back. But those 2 girls refused to leave and wouldn’t leave us alone. Suddenly, the right side of my chest began to hurt and my colleague got a terrible ache in his upper forehead. We both felt that this was a bit of an inauspicious omen but we were still unable to resist the seductions of the 2 girls. After they had left, my colleague said: “We’ve got a few more days on the case around here. Why don’t we find a couple of girls to accompany us? I don’t think any harm will come of it.” My head was a muddle, so I just went along with him and he quickly found another 2 girls. Around 6pm the 4 of us hit the road, and while my colleague was driving I fell asleep. Twice I dreamed that the car didn’t have a steering wheel or brakes. Accordingly, my colleague had nearly crashed after setting off and then nearly drove off a cliff a little while later. I was in a state of panic and decided to take over the driving. It was when we were passing through a mountainous area of Guizhou and we came to a hairpin bend (with a big cliff ahead) that I suddenly had the feeling that it was just like the scene in my nightmare and that the car had no steering wheel or brakes. Suddenly there was a beam of light shining down on me and I saw that we were heading straight for the cliff edge. I turned the steering wheel abruptly and crashed the car into a boulder. The impact was violent and I was knocked unconscious. When I slowly regained consciousness I saw that there was a traffic cop sawing through the steering wheel, which had been pressing hard into the right side of my chest pinning me to the seat. When I was fully awake I became aware of the intense pain in the right side of my chest, so agonizing that I thought I was going to die every time I breathed. I lifted my head and saw that my colleague had been thrown from the car and was lying several meters in front of me across a big boulder. He was facing me, and I could see a big gash stretching all the way across his forehead and his face was covered with blood. I thought he was dead, and the whole scene made my flesh creep. I then turned my head and saw the 2 girls weltering in blood on the back seat. They weren’t moving either, and the fact that the cop was trying to save me made me think that they were probably dead, too. When they lifted me onto the stretcher I fell unconscious again, and the next time I came round it was lunchtime the following day. My wife was sitting by my side and I immediately asked her about the other 3. She told me that they were all still alive. I got very emotional and started crying. As I wept, I prayed to God: “Oh thank You, thank You, God! You saved me! If it weren’t for You I’d have died long ago! This is Your way of punishing me, and is also Your love. From now on, I won’t do any of those evil things again. I know I’ve been wrong!” At a later date, I read these words of God’s: “As you do not know how to lead a life or how to live, and you live in this licentious and sinful place and are licentious and filthy devils, He does not have the heart to let you become even more depraved; neither has He the heart to see you living in the filthy place like this, being trampled by Satan at will, or the heart to let you fall into Hades. He only wants to gain this group of you and thoroughly save you. This is the main purpose of doing the conquering work on you—it is just for salvation” (“The Inside Truth of the Conquering Work (4)” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). God’s words helped me to understand His intentions: Although the traffic accident at first sight appeared to be bad, it was clear that hidden in it was a big effort by God to save me. God had employed a very unusual method to save me from the brink of destruction and get me away from Satan’s probing, so that I could gain God’s care and protection. I could really feel the essence of God’s love and this was the event that made me be certain about God.

As time went by I began to learn more about God’s righteous disposition. In the past I had made a lot of money illicitly, which had provided me with a luxurious lifestyle and many material pleasures. But I had committed so many sins and crimes that I was living in a permanent state of anxiety and met one misfortune after another, either trouble at home or a variety of accidents and mishaps. I was virtually in a state of panic every day, and I knew that most of my colleagues were also prone to a variety of misfortunes. Around this time I read these words of God’s: “The Wicked Must Be Punished,” and that’s when I understood that God’s disposition cannot be offended by any man or woman. If we do something bad we will suffer retribution for it! From then on, I decided that I wouldn’t do anything that went against my conscience and I would only take my salary at work and make do with it. Although my income fell a lot, I felt much more at peace and at ease. At the time I did have a few worries about not making enough money and eventually falling into poverty. But experiences showed me time and again that everything is being controlled by God and that all we have to do is submit to Him sincerely and we’ll be well rewarded with His blessings. To be honest, after I stopped doing bad things the family finances were seriously affected. There was one time when my children needed 12,000 yuan to pay school fees. I was going to try and borrow the money from someone but I just couldn’t bring myself to ask, which left me deeply worried for a while. Who would have thought that early the next day one of the residents in my neighborhood would come knocking on my door, saying that her husband knew me and that she had a house that she’d been trying unsuccessfully to sell for some time. It turned out that the night before she’d had a dream, and that a person in the dream told her that I could help her to sell the house and I was the only person who could sell it. As a result, she said that I had to help her, no matter what! I couldn’t refuse, so I went out of our apartment block and found a nearby real estate agent and gave them all of the necessary details. By some strange coincidence, there just happened to be a potential buyer in the agent’s office at the time, and within 2 days the house was sold. The agent gave me 10,000 yuan commission and the neighbor another 2,000 yuan, which sorted out my kid’s tuition fees problem. By helping me resolve this urgent matter God showed me how He works. On another occasion, someone else asked for my help in selling a house, and as the house sold for a good price I was able to make tens of thousands yuan within a month or so. After experiencing God’s mysterious ways, I came to understand that as long as I abided by God’s demands He would always open up a way forward for me. Knowing that everything is being arranged by God’s hands allowed me to stop chasing after the shady money that was such a source of anxiety for me. I could also plainly see all of the blessings that God had bestowed on my family: After believing in God my wife was able to break her 10-year old addiction to gambling at mahjong, and her serious stomach illness and rheumatism both disappeared as if by magic leaving her looking and feeling many years younger; and I felt free and energized after I stopped doing evil deeds. Our relationship became gentle and harmonious. For the first time, I felt true joy.

After experiencing God’s love and salvation, while also enjoying a new-found spiritual peace and ease, I found that more and more light was reaching the deepest recesses of my heart. It was like I had rediscovered the faith and trust in God that I’d had as a child. I was no longer willing to commit any sin, and so, after much thought, I decided to quit my job and never go back to police work. But no sooner had I set my heart on leaving sin behind me than Satan began to test me again: My chief told me he wanted to promote me and promised to not only give me a pay rise but also allocate an Audi for me to drive. The thought of getting these perks got me excited again and I didn’t sleep a wink that night. So I prayed to God: “Oh God, I really don’t know whether to give up this job or not. I really like Audis. I’ve wanted one since I was a child.” Just as I was dithering like this I got an unexpected call from my wife: “How come you’re not home yet?” I told her the reason, and she replied: “You don’t want to give up that job? Then you’ll die in an Audi!” That’s when I realized that the sudden call from my wife was all part of God’s arrangements and so I decided there and then to quit my job. A month later, on May 12, 2008, the devastating First Great Sichuan Earthquake occurred. The day after the quake I got a call from the wife of a former subordinate: “You’ve got to get to Wenchuan as soon as you can. My husband’s died!” (He had been driving through Wenchuan, the epicenter of the quake, on his way to a meeting.) When I got there I saw that the Audi that my ex-colleague had been in had been crushed by a giant boulder, and that he and all the other passengers were dead. Only his wife had survived because she had gotten out of the car earlier to go to the toilet. When I saw the horrible way that my former colleague had died in that Audi I wept loudly, but I also gave a prayer of thanks to God: “Thank You, God, thank You for saving me again from the brink of death. You saved me again. I should have been one of those who died in that Audi!” Later on, his wife asked me: “Why did you quit? My husband was after your job for ages. You treated him well, but he just wanted to bring you down as soon as he could!” So I told her: “I quit because I now believe in Almighty God,” and also told her all things that had happened since I started believing in God. And so she too came to accept Almighty God, at a later date.

God’s words say, “Look back to the time of Noah’s ark: Mankind was deeply corrupt, had strayed from the blessing of God, was no longer cared for by God, and had lost the promises of God. They lived in darkness, without the light of God. Thus they became licentious by nature, abandoned themselves to hideous depravity. Such men could no longer receive the promise of God; they were unfit to witness the face of God, nor to hear the voice of God, for they had abandoned God, had cast aside all that He had bestowed upon them, and had forgotten the teachings of God. Their heart strayed farther and farther from God, and as it did, they became depraved beyond all reason and humanity, and became increasingly evil. Thus they came ever closer to death, and fell under the wrath and punishment of God” (“God Presides Over the Fate of All Mankind” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). I was very moved by God’s words. I recalled how becoming an officer in the CCP administration was like falling into a great vat of sin, sinking deeper with every step. I remembered all my fraudulent ways of making money, how I used my position to enrich myself, the high life and the fine meals, and how debased and debauched I became. I was living a subhuman existence, and it was all because I had moved far away from God and was associating with evil demons. My predicament had totally been a result of associating with Satan and demons, and if God hadn’t saved me my fate would have been the same as those people who betrayed God in the time of Noah—God’s wrath and punishment would have befallen me and I would have died like my colleague! Nowadays, God has been incarnated in human form to express truths in order to cleanse and save people. He has come to awaken our hearts and spirits, to help us to leave sin behind and gain His care and protection. God’s work is extremely practical and His love is extremely real. When I turned back to God and began to live my life according to His words God not only saved me from sin and blessed me, He also saved my life! This is what made me understand what God meant when He said: “Only Noah worshiped God and shunned evil, and so he was able to hear the voice of God, and hear the instructions of God. He built the ark according to the instructions of God’s word, and assembled all manner of living creatures. And in this way, once everything had been prepared, God unleashed His destruction upon the world. Only Noah and the seven members of his family survived the destruction, for Noah worshiped Jehovah and shunned evil.” God is telling us that Noah gained God’s blessings and survived because he listened to God, he did everything according to God’s words, he worshiped God, and he stayed far away from evil. We, in these modern times, must also conduct our lives according to God’s words. No matter how bad or corrupt we were before, as long as we can accept truths, truly repent, and implement God’s words, then we too shall gain God’s salvation and grace. I’m sure that anyone who hears how God worked on me will be able to understand that God pulls out all the stops when it comes to saving people and that He won’t let a single innocent soul fall into the underworld!

For my brothers-in-arms in the all-reaching PSB police force I want you all to know that the words above all come directly from my heart. I know that you have all had many bitter experiences that you find hard to talk about, and that you have to do many things that you don’t want to, but whatever you do don’t be fooled by the CCP and fight against Almighty God any longer. I urge you all to give yourselves some space to back off otherwise you will find yourselves on the road to damnation. As soon as someone does anything that offends God then they are beyond redemption forever because blaspheming or resisting God is a sin that cannot be forgiven in this life or in the afterlife! Just like Ren Changxia, a police chief in the province of Henan who used her position to violently clamp down on The Church of Almighty God and arrest its members: She died a terrible death in a traffic accident. This completely confirms what Almighty God has said: “The Wicked Must Be Punished.” “He who defies the work of God shall be sent to hell.” How can ordinary mortals fight against God?! Also, my own experience should be enough to tell you that God doesn’t keep score of our transgressions, so as long as you give up your evil ways and start doing good, repent before God and return to Him, then you too can enjoy peace and happiness!

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Zheng Yi: A Chinese Christian. During his work in America, he investigated The Church of Almighty God online and accepted Almighty God’s work in the last days. Three years later, he returned to China, and passed on the gospel of the kingdom of Almighty God to his sister, Zheng Rui.

     

Zheng Weiguo: Zheng Yi’s father, the minister of the United Front Work Department in a city of China. He practiced red re-education of his children at home, strongly opposed them believing in Almighty God and tried to stop it.

Script

Zheng Weiguo: Yi, Rui, it seems that you still don’t understand the state’s policy. If you merely know the provision for freedom of belief in the constitution, does it mean that you understand the Communist Party? I have been working at the United Front for so many years. I have already seen it clearly. What the CCP hates most is the appearance of God and His work. The government has long condemned Christianity as a cult, and the Bible as a cultist book, of which countless copies have been burned. The CCP government is determined to completely ban all home churches. When you believed in Jesus in the past, I was opposed to it. And now you have believed in Almighty God, I absolutely will not allow it! Do you know what Almighty God is about? They witness that Almighty God is the Lord Jesus appearing to work, the appearance of Christ the Savior in the last days who even has expressed the book The Word Appears in the Flesh with more than a million words. If it spreads out, the consequence is unimaginable! The Communist Party and Christ the Savior are mortal enemies. Can the CCP not stop at nothing to suppress and arrest those Christians? Do you know? The CCP has long designated those who believe in Eastern Lightning as the state’s most wanted criminal. Whoever they seize will be severely punished without mercy. No one can even pay for their release through the back door. This is not a joke! To be honest with you, in order to completely eradicate The Church of Almighty God these years, the Central Government has issued numerous secret documents, and repeatedly suppressed and cracked down on Eastern Lightning. We have also been holding meetings all day studying on how to suppress and ban Eastern Lightning. As for Eastern Lightning, the attitude of the central leadership is very clear, that is, “Troops won’t be withdrawn until the ban is done.” Therefore, I absolutely forbid you to believe in Almighty God. Did you hear that?

Zheng Yi: Dad, since you know that Eastern Lightning witnesses for the Lord Jesus’ return and God’s appearance and work in the last days to preach and witness for all the truth expressed by the Savior for the salvation of mankind, then surely you know how terrible it is for the CCP government to suppress, arrest and convict Eastern Lightning like that. It is a monstrous sin to resist God and act perversely against Heaven. After studying it, I learned that Eastern Lightning has completely fulfilled the prophecy of the Lord Jesus: “For as the lightning comes out of the east, and shines even to the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matthew 24:27). What Eastern Lightning witnesses is the appearance and work of the Son of man. Dad, Mom, you haven’t read the word expressed by Almighty God, so you don’t understand what Eastern Lightning is about. If you want to understand Eastern Lightning, you have to read the word of Almighty God to see if it is the truth, the utterance of God’s Spirit speaking to mankind, and God’s appearance and work in the last days. It is most important to study these. Now the CCP government has launched an overwhelming people’s war against Eastern Lightning. Eastern Lightning is only the Church of Christ in the last days. It is neither a country nor a race. Is it necessary for the CCP government to wage this people’s war against Eastern Lightning? The CCP even proclaimed, “Troops won’t be withdrawn until the ban is done.” This CCP’s hostility to God is bound to be cursed and punished by God!

Zheng Rui (A Christian): Dad, my brother is right. Recalling God’s appearance and work in history, all those people, races or nations that resisted God were cursed and destroyed by God. For instance, three thousand years ago, the Pharaoh of Egypt was killed because he was punished for resisting God. After the Lord Jesus appeared to work, the Roman Empire was destroyed by God’s great plague for resisting Him and brutally persecuting His chosen people. The CCP will surely be destroyed by the catastrophe cast down by God for resisting Christ in the last days. Father, you have studied religion for many years, you certainly are aware of these things, right? How do you feel about the CCP’s resistance of Almighty God?

Zheng Weiguo: Actually, we have seen it from early on that Eastern Lightning is not an ordinary religion. They have witnessed the Lord Jesus’ return, that is, Christ the Savior in the last days has arrived in the world in person to save mankind. If the government allows The Church of Almighty God to continue to preach the gospel and testify for God, it won’t take too many years for countless people to accept Almighty God. You know that the CCP is an atheist party that is antagonistic to theism. The war between the CCP and those who believe in God is a war in the ideological realm. It is a mortal struggle. How could the CCP allow God’s appearance and work? How could it allow the church’s existence? So the CCP government adopted the policy to suppress and ban religious beliefs by eliminating and banning all religions in order to build an atheist domain within China. This is the only way the CCP can perpetuate its rule in China! So, since it took power, the CCP has always suppressed and banned religious beliefs. During this period, so many Christians have been arrested and imprisoned, so many Christian families have been shattered. Some Christians even died in prison. We know this is true. Why are there more and more people believing in God? The main reason is The Word Appears in the Flesh has been spreading so fast. A lot of people from various factions accepted Almighty God because they had read The Word Appears in the Flesh. The power of this book is awesome! It is now spreading and expanding in the world. This has become a headache for the central leadership. The central leaders won’t have a good night’s sleep until The Church of Almighty God is banned. Yi, Rui, you have to understand this, if the CCP has the audacity to designate orthodox religions such as Christianity and Catholicism as cults, how can it be lenient to Eastern Lightning? In recent years, the Central Government has also designated Eastern Lightning as a cult and the target for focused attack and banning. When you believe in Eastern Lightning, aren’t you ramming your chests against the muzzles? Are you being smart or stupid?

Mu Xinping (Zheng Weiguo’s wife): Yi, Rui, I heard your dad say this long ago. Now that the CCP is doing its utmost to suppress and ban The Church of Almighty God, and also mobilizing the media to generate massive public opinions in an all-out effort to condemn The Church of Almighty God. Even some Three-Self churches have been banned and other churches demolished. It appears that the CCP is determined to eradicate all religious beliefs! I also heard your dad say that many believers of The Church of Almighty God had been arrested. The CCP intends to send the believers of The Church of Almighty God to their death. If you believe in Almighty God, you will be arrested sooner or later. It will not only ruin your future, it may even endanger your lives! Yi, Rui, in this matter you have to listen to your dad. You cannot believe in Almighty God!

Zheng Rui: Mom and Dad, we all know that since the CCP took power, it has begun to persecute religious beliefs by insanely suppressing Christianity and Catholicism, and arresting and killing many Christians. For so many years, the CCP’s suppression of religious beliefs has been intensifying. It has incurred God’s curses for a long time. Look at the incessant natural disasters and misfortunes in China. It is the CCP’s resistance to God and acts against Heaven that have brought so many disasters upon the Chinese people. After the CCP took power, China has been plagued by so many natural disasters and misfortunes. Why doesn’t the CCP reflect upon itself? When confronted with natural disasters, ancient emperors even made proclamations of remorse! The CCP is far less advanced than the ancient emperors! It does not take into account the will of Heaven and the people. It even brazenly condemns Christianity and Catholicism as cults. What’s most detestable is that the CCP has even designated the Holy Bible as a cultist book. Why does the CCP treat God, the word and work of God as evil? This only shows that the CCP is too evil!

Zheng Yi: That’s completely correct! Dad, Mom, I have heard it for a long time that the founder of the Communist Party was the Satanist Karl Marx. Satanism is the worst cult. Why is the CCP so evil? This is directly related to the communists’ belief and worship of Marx. The CCP is a group of atheist demons expressly hostile to God! What is its basis for convicting orthodox religion? What is its basis for designating the Holy Bible as a cultist book? What is its basis for condemning Eastern Lightning as a cult? Was it based on Marxist-Leninist atheism and the Communist Manifesto? Why does the CCP so frantically condemn God’s work in the last days? Why does it launch such an overarching search-and-arrest operation against Christ in the last days and His followers? Why does it still mobilize media campaign to generate rumors, defamation and conviction of Almighty God’s appearance and work? Isn’t it courting death? It is digging its own grave by resisting God. The Bible tells of such a fact. When King Herod heard about the birth of the King of Israel in Bethlehem, he ordered the slaughter of all baby boys under the age of two in town. He would never allow Christ to rule on earth. The reason why the CCP so ruthlessly suppresses and bans The Church of Almighty God, hunts down Christ and exterminates all His followers is also because it is most fearful of Christ taking power on earth, most fearful of mankind accepting the truth expressed by Almighty God. Dad, does the Communist Party really have no idea that the work of Christ’s appearance is the work of God’s Spirit and the advent of the Creator in the world to save humanity? Does the CCP know what it is up against? Does it feel that the disasters in China are not big enough? Isn’t the CCP imperiling the country and its citizenry by resisting God like this?

Zheng Weiguo: Yi, why does the CCP designate Christianity as a cult? Why does the CCP designate the Bible as a cultist book? You should be clear about that. The Bible preaches and testifies about God’s appearance and work. For thousands of years, it is because of the influences of the Bible that there have been more and more people believing in God. As long as there is Christianity and the Bible, Marxist-Leninist atheism and evolutionism certainly cannot stand. That’s why the CCP sees Christianity as hostile forces. It naturally designates the Bible as a cultist book. In particular, the testimony of Eastern Lightning that the Lord Jesus has returned is the most terrifying thing for the CCP. The CCP and Christ the Savior are mortal enemies. Can it not do its utmost to suppress religious beliefs and ban house churches? The frequent meetings of the Central Committee and release of secret documents prove that the rapid development of religious beliefs has brought a crisis of governance to the Communist Party. The Central Committee reiterated in particular that CCP members and state officials are absolutely forbidden to believe in God. Do not forget the education of the CCP: The children of CCP members must believe in Marxism-Leninism and Mao Tse-tung’s Thought. Believing in God is absolutely forbidden. Believing in God is a betrayal of the CCP! The children of CCP members must obey the Party, follow the Party and always belong to the CCP! Do you know? Since the preaching and witnessing of The Word Appears in the Flesh as expressed by Almighty God, the CCP has been on full alert, fearing that The Word Appears in the Flesh would spread all over the world. So the government went all out to suppress and arrest Eastern Lightning, aiming at completely banning The Church of Almighty God. No matter how you put it, the CCP is now in power. As long as the Communist Party exists, you cannot believe in God. Actually, I am not in favor of the CCP’s persecution of religious beliefs, but there is nothing I can do. I am a member of the Communist Party whose livelihood comes from the CCP. I have to obey the Party. If I were not a CCP official, what would our family live on? Don’t all these things that we enjoy today come from the CCP? You cannot forget this.

Zheng Yi: Dad, from what you said today, it seems that you understand everything the CCP does. But do you believe in retribution? If you follow the example of the CCP to do evil and harm the believers of God, you are committing a deadly sin that will certainly beget retributions. Dad, the CCP is an atheist party, a satanic regime against God. It has never acknowledged the existence of God. What qualifications does it have to decide which church is the true way or a cult? All things in heaven and earth including mankind were created by God. God is the Creator. Only the Creator of the entire universe has supreme authority. Only God is the truth, and His appearance and work is the true way. Almighty God is the incarnation of God, the appearance of Christ the Savior in the last days who has come to express the truth for the judgment and salvation of mankind. Not only does the CCP refuse to acknowledge and accept the appearance and work of Almighty God, it even resists and condemns Almighty God. Isn’t it an extremely perverse and reactionary act? The CCP has resisted God and committed countless sins. It is a satanic regime that detests the truth and resists God most. What is a cult after all? It should be explained that any political party or group that resists and acts against God is a cult. Any organization of evil spirits and demons that deludes and corrupts mankind is a cult. Any party or organization that advocates materialism, evolutionism and fallacies against the truth expressed by God is a cult. Dad, you should be clear which is a cult after all. The CCP’s ideological theories are cultist fallacies. Everything the CCP does is resistant and utmost reactionary against God. The CCP is the real evil party and cult!

Zheng Rui: Dad, Mom, the incarnate Almighty God has come to the world in the last days to express the truth for the cleansing and salvation of mankind. It is akin to true light in the sky that illuminates the dark world to let man see that light and righteousness have descended on earth. Why has the CCP been frantically resisting and condemning the appearance and work of Almighty God, Christ of the last days? Why has it done its utmost to exterminate Christ and ban The Church of Almighty God? This is indeed perversity against Heaven and an extremely reactionary act! Why is it that the more positive something is, the more truth something possesses, the more the CCP will crack down on and condemn it, and the CCP won’t stop until it is completely banned? Isn’t the CCP so spooky! Isn’t the CCP genuinely an evil party and a cult? Dad, Mom, The Church of Almighty God follows Christ and witnesses His appearance and work and preaches all the truths expressed by Almighty God. Their actions are perfectly justified. The CCP so lunatically resists God, and so brutally arrests and persecutes those who follow and witness for Christ, how can it not be cursed by God? How can it not bring interminable perils to the Chinese people? All the catastrophes that have befallen China were directly related to the CCP’s resistance to God. Dad, Mom, can you accept what we say?

Zheng Weiguo: I admit that in the years that the Communist Party has been in power, it has done more than a few bad things. Now that the Communist Party is no longer a savior in the hearts of ordinary people. Nor is it the red sun or dear father and mother. This is very clear in my heart. In any case, the CCP still holds power in China. It is a revolutionary party that is capable of doing anything if necessary. If you believe in Almighty God, you may be arrested at any time or even in danger of losing your lives. Therefore, I will never allow you to believe in Almighty God for your sake. As the saying goes, “A wise man submits to circumstances.” You can’t ram your chest against the muzzle. Do you understand what I mean? I made it clear to you today. Communist education only permits beliefs in Marxism-Leninism and Mao Tse-tung’s Thought. Believing in God is absolutely forbidden! Children of Communist Party members can only listen to the Party and go along with the Party. They can never accept, follow and witness for Christ! Children of Communist Party members must always believe in the Communist Party for endless generations!

from the movie script of Red Re-Education at Home

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📖 Eastern Lightning -Almighty God’s Work Has Caused Us to Walk the Same Path as Husband and Wife

Almighty God’s Work Has Caused Us to Walk the Same Path as Husband and Wife

Liu Xue, Henan Province

Eastern Lightning -Almighty God’s Work Has Caused Us to Walk the Same Path as Husband and Wife

In 1991, since we were enduring the hardships of family conflict, my husband and I believed in the Lord Jesus together. From then on, we no longer quarreled. We read the Bible and attended gatherings together very zealously. Not long afterward, my husband left the Three-Self Church and switched over to the Stream of Recovery. In regards to the matter of my husband switching denominations, I did not mind. I believed that as long as we believed in one God, it did not matter which denomination we belonged to.

In 1995, my husband started to persuade me by every possible means to enter the Stream of Recovery. If I did not go, he would not be happy. Afterward, he once again allowed the leaders and fellow workers to come and persuade me. However, I was unable to accept the doctrines that they were teaching and I remained a member of the Three-Self Church. Since our doctrines of faith were not the same, my husband and I no longer spoke the same language and we started to grow distant. When my husband brought fellow workers from the Stream of Recovery upstairs to host gatherings, I did not participate. When my brothers and sisters from the Three-Self Church came to our place to attend gatherings, my husband did not join. In our daily lives, I sold glass frames and my husband produced art layouts. We worked on our own businesses, kept our own accounts and earned our own money. I cooked my own food and ate it myself, and so did my husband. It was as if there were two separate families in our household. In the spring of 1997, I moved elsewhere and I told my 11-year-old son, “From now on, your father is not allowed to come into the house. If someone asks about your father, you must tell them that he is dead!” I suffered a lot due to the fact that the churches my husband and I attended were incompatible. At this time, I discovered that the elders and leaders of the Three-Self Church that had believed for decades were in fact the same as common people. In public, they mocked and satirized each other, formed gangs and fomented dispute and jealousy. In light of this situation, all I could do was come before the Lord with tears in my eyes and pray, “Lord! Why is it that those who believe in You must separate into so many different denominations? Moreover, even those that are in the same denomination cannot coexist together. Why is this the case? Lord! When can all these denominations unite? When will my husband and I reunite and serve You with one heart? …” Afterward, in order to search for the way of unification, I visited other denominations such as the Justification by Faith Church, the Born Again Church, the Eternal Salvation Church, and the Praise Church. The result was that I saw that at the same time as each denomination boasted about being the denomination that was most in accordance with God’s intentions, its own members were clearly fighting and competing and excluding each other. After I visited these denominations, not only was I unable to find the way of unification, on the contrary, I lost the faith that I originally had. In the dead of the night, when I reflected on the few years that I believed in God and this situation, I shed silent tears and my heart felt intense despair and pain. I did not know where my path was taking me.

I am thankful that God noticed how painfully I was struggling in the dark. One night, my husband suddenly came to find me. He was even smiling as he was talking to me. However, my anger toward him had not subsided at all. I persistently told him to leave. When he saw that I was getting angry, he stopped talking to me. The next night, he calmly told me, “Even though we both have turned toward the Lord, all these years, all along, we have adhered to our own separate doctrines and have been unable to unite. The situation has been in this kind of a deadlock all along and our days have been spent fighting this cold war. It is all because we do not understand God’s intentions. When Jesus came to do His redemption work on earth, there was only one denomination. Why is it that, 2000 years later, there are so many different denominations? Moreover, each denomination claims that their beliefs are the most correct and in accordance with the Lord’s intentions. They all believe that when the Lord returns, He will descend upon their own denomination first. If it really happened according to people’s imaginations: When the Lord returned, He would first descend upon a certain denomination, isn’t this unfair toward other people?” What my husband was saying was completely beyond what I had anticipated. I never thought my husband could speak so objectively about such a realistic and penetrating problem. Wasn’t this exactly the riddle that I had been struggling with for so many years? I was captivated by what he had to say. He continued to elaborate, “Actually, all those under the Lord Jesus’ name, regardless of which denomination, they all look upon Jesus’ salvation of the cross. They all put into practice baptism, breaking bread, humbleness, patience, tolerance, love…. The paths that they walk were all started by Jesus. This is all true. However, because the founders of each denomination viewed the Bible differently and their understanding and acceptance was different, the doctrines that they drew up differ only on minor points. Some emphasize the truth of justification by faith alone, while others stress the teaching of ‘once saved always saved.’ Some advocate praising God through drum and dance while others focus on rebirth, confession and repentance. Furthermore, others say to submit to authority and others focus on adhering to the laws and decrees…. There are all sorts of doctrines. Actually, much of each denomination’s teachings originate from man’s imaginations and notions. Their teachings interpret the Bible out of context and they only work within that denomination. They are basically unable to win over the brothers and sisters in other denominations. That is why the members of each and every denomination say that what they adhere to is the truth but they are unable to do the work of unification. This is because the founders and leaders of each denomination are man and not God. Only God Himself can do the work of unification.” I was won over by what my husband said. This was the pure and unadulterated truth. I could not help but ask, “How will God do the work of unification?” My husband happily replied, “Right now, it is already the last days. God has already returned in the flesh and spoken. He has clearly expressed His intentions to mankind. Moreover, He has opened up the secret of His 6,000-year management plan for mankind. He wants to bring all the brothers and sisters from each and every denomination that genuinely believe in Him and thirst for the truth before Him. All the brothers and sisters who have heard God of the last days speak out will leave their different denominations and unite with God. This is the unification work of God of the last days and it fulfills the following words from the Bible, ‘That in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him’ (Eph 1:10). ‘And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd’ (Jhn 10:16). The unification work of God of the last days also fulfills the predictions of the prophet from the Book of Isaiah: ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it. … And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more’ (Isa 2:2, 4). Presently, God’s work of the last days has already caused many brothers and sisters from different denominations to come together. I have also started following Almighty God’s work of the last days. I have returned this time specifically to tell you this good news.”

The Picutre of The Church of Almighty God

As we continued talking, my husband took a book out and said, “These are the words that came out of Almighty God’s mouth, let’s read them together!” So, we began to read God’s words together, “Regardless of what religion you belong to, ultimately you will all submit under the dominion of God. Only God Himself can carry out this work; it cannot be done by any religious head. There are several major religions in the world, and each has its own head, or leader, and the followers are spread across different countries and regions all over the world; every country, be it large or small, has different religions within it. However, regardless of how many religions there are across the world, all people within the universe ultimately exist under the guidance of one God, and their existence is not guided by religious heads or leaders. Which is to say that mankind is not guided by a particular religious head or leader; instead the whole of mankind is led by the Creator, who created the heavens and earth, and all things, and also created mankind—and this is a fact. Although the world has several major religions, regardless of how great they are, they all exist under the dominion of the Creator, and none of them can exceed the scope of this dominion. The development of mankind, social progress, the development of natural sciences—each is inseparable from the arrangements of the Creator, and this work is not something that can be done by a particular religious head. Religious heads are merely the leaders of a particular religion, and cannot represent God, or the One who created the heavens and earth and all things. Religious heads can lead all those within the entire religion, but cannot command all creatures beneath the heavens—this is a universally acknowledged fact. Religious heads are mere leaders, and cannot stand equal to God (the Creator). All things are in the hands of the Creator, and in the end they will all return to the hands of the Creator. Mankind was originally made by God, and regardless of the religion, every person will return under the dominion of God—this is inevitable” (“Knowing the Three Stages of God’s Work Is the Path to Knowing God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). I silently listened to God’s words. A warm feeling rushed into my heart. This really was God’s voice. Jesus really had returned. I prayed silently, “Almighty God, You really do know what man needs. I desire unity. Certainly, my husband and I have not been able to unite, let alone all the different denominations. Only You can do the work of unification. Nobody can substitute You. God! You are truly lovable! From now on, all the brothers and sisters from each and every denomination will submit under Your dominion and live in harmony. There will no longer be any estrangement and disputes…. I have waited so long for this day.” Seeing how happy my husband was at this time, my bellyful of complaints vanished like smoke in the air. When I thought of the attitude I treated him with, I started feeling very remorseful. All these years, he had suffered, yet he did not haggle with me. He still told the good news of God’s work of the last days to me. I emotionally told my son, “From now on, do not blame your father anymore. I must also accept God’s new work.” When he heard what I had to say, my son smiled. My husband and I smiled at each other knowingly.

From then on, it was like my husband was a different person. He was happy throughout the entire day. Each time brothers and sisters came to our house, he would take the initiative to go buy groceries and cook. We would frequently pray together, read God’s words together and communicate our understanding of God’s words with each other. He even taught me to sing some new songs. Through reading God’s words, I understood some truths and I understood that God’s intention is to save people to the greatest extent possible. As a result, my husband and I joined the ranks of those who spread and bore witness to the good news of God of the last days. There was one time when my husband was riding a bicycle and bringing me along to spread the gospel to one of the elders of the Three-Self Church. That elder said in a very surprised tone, “It seems like this really is God’s unification work, otherwise you basically would not be sitting on his bicycle.” In the end, that elder also accepted God’s work of the last days. Nowadays, in this family of The Church of Almighty God, there are brothers and sisters from all sorts of denominations such as the Stream of Recovery, the Justification by Faith Church, the Praise Church, the Way of Life Church, the Eternal Salvation Church, the Seventh-day Adventist Church and the Three Grades of Servants Church. They have abandoned their past conceptions and prejudices and together, they eat, drink and enjoy God’s words. Everyone uses other’s strengths to make up for their own weaknesses and they all harmoniously coexist. Everyone cooperatively fulfills duties and there are shared ambitions and goals. They all work hard in seeking the truth and seeking an understanding of God so that they can become people who obey and worship God. When I see my brothers and sisters experience the work of God together, my heart is unspeakably happy. It is God’s unification work that has caused my husband and me to reconcile and reunite and allowed brothers and sisters from all sorts of denominations that previously differed in opinions and had no contact with one another to gather together in one place. Thank Almighty God! I wish that all honor returns to Almighty God!

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📚Almighty God’s Word Made Me Become Subject Before God

Zhang Mingqi

Nanyang City, Henan Province

I was formerly a mid-level leader of the Stream of Recovery. Since I was called in the Lord in 1985, I had been in the stream of the Lord’s recovery. I always believed that the Bible was a book of life, in which every word was breathed by God, and that God’s good and kind intention for mankind over six thousand years had been fully revealed to us in it. So, I regarded the Bible as my lifeblood and very much adored Brother Lee who had brought us the “higher vision.” I always believed that God had already unlocked all the mysteries in the sixty-six books of the Bible through Brother Lee and that all the mysteries and the essence of the Bible had already been revealed to us. When the antichrists would make the covenant, when the temple would be rebuilt, when the Lord would return, and where and when the Lord would take us up, all these had been told to us. So we only needed to attend meetings, be obedient, and wait to be taken up to reign and rule when the revelations were fulfilled. Therefore, I paid much attention to reading Brother Lee’s messages. I also shepherded the brothers and sisters in the area where I ministered according to the methods of Brother Lee. Honestly speaking, at that time, I only wished that I could be full of the words from the messages of Brother Lee either when I preached or when I fellowshipped, for Brother Lee once said that he was the Lord’s recorder and that we should all become his recorders. It could be said that the brothers and sisters under me and I worshipped Brother Lee’s messages as we worshipped God. We read his messages at usual times, shared his messages at the meetings, and followed the prescribed routine in his messages waiting for God’s return. I condemned anything different from the “vision revealed” by Brother Lee as a “heresy” and would not accept it at all.

Almighty God’s Word Made Me Become Subject Before God

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I was formerly a leader of the Justification by Faith Church in the city of Guichi. Before I accepted Almighty God’s work of the last days, I, like all brothers and sisters, had been eagerly expecting the Lord Jesus’ coming again. But because of the constant “warnings” from the senior leader above and the biblical verse that there will surely appear many false Christs in the last days, I became one who resisted and condemned God’s work of the last days. Thinking of these, I feel very guilty. Now, I will tell brothers and sisters my personal experience, hoping that brothers and sisters will learn a lesson from it and come back to God’s family soon.

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I was self-employed. Mainly I sold all kinds of textiles, and I also made clothes for my customers part-time. After a few years, my business became more and more popular, and people around me were all very envious. Later, a neighboring household opened the same kind of shop as mine and became my competitor. Naturally, the business in my shop was affected. The popular proverb says two of a trade never agree, but my peer was not just anyone, but my most trusted pupil, Xiaochen.

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📚That Day the Sky Was Especially Clear and Sunny (Part 3) -Testimonies of Returning to God | Eastern Lightning

Tian Ying

After returning home, I kept thinking over the fellowship made by the sister, and I thought to myself: That little sister today was so loving, she really was nothing like what the pastor said she was. Also, what she was saying really was true, it’s all in the Bible. It really was ill-founded of me before when I believed that “to be saved once is to be saved forever.” I thought back on all the years I have believed in God and realized that I was constantly living in circumstances where I would commit sins and then plead guilty for them, but all along I couldn’t solve this, and I personally went through a lot of suffering. This really is not the way to attain God’s praise. It seems that if I want to attain salvation and enter into the kingdom of heaven, then I really do have to receive all the work carried out in the Lord Jesus’ return that judges and cleanses man. So then, what really is Almighty God’s work of judgment in the last days? How does Almighty God’s work of judgment cleanse and change man? … As I was thinking these things over I was flipping through the Bible until I saw a passage where the Lord Jesus says: “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” (Jhn 16:12-13). I also saw the Bible say: “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God” (1Pe 4:17). “He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit said to the churches” (Rev 2:29). When I read this it felt like I had finally awoken from a dream: As it turns out the Lord Jesus had long ago prophesied that in the last days God would express more of the truth and carry out a new stage of work. Wouldn’t this be Almighty God coming to carry out the work of judging and cleansing man? Alas! If the pastor didn’t come in and disturb me today I would have been able to listen more carefully about the way of Almighty God. Before I had always listened to the words of pastors and elders, but I had never had the heart to seek out Almighty God’s work in the last days, I just listened to whatever it was the pastors and elders talked about. It wasn’t until today that I recognized that this was the biggest mistake I had made in my faith in the Lord! Those of us who believe in the Lord must actively seek out God’s footsteps, only in this way will we be conforming to God’s will. Today I saw that the pastor’s actions simply do not conform to God’s will. I can no longer just blindly listen to what they have to say, I must seek out and investigate the way of Almighty God.

That Day the Sky Was Especially Clear and Sunny (Part 3) | Eastern Lightning

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From Almighty God’s Word, I Have Found My Life Direction | Testimonies of Returning to God

From Almighty God’s Word, I Have Found My Life Direction

Novo    Philippines

        My name is Novo, I am a Filipino. Since I was little, I believed in God with my mother. I went to church with my brothers and sisters to listen to sermons. Even though I had believed in the Lord for many years, I felt that I was like an unbeliever. Within my heart, I would think about how to earn more money and live a better life all day long. Furthermore, I would frequently go out and drink with friends. Once I had extra money, I would go out and gamble. Even though I knew that what I was doing was bad and I would frequently pray to God saying that I would change these bad habits of mine, I basically never put it into practice. In this way, I became increasingly degenerated. I did not pray sincerely to God. Each week, I would only pray a few simple prayers in a perfunctory way. Sometimes, I felt very desperate because I knew that when the Lord returned, He would judge everybody’s actions. He would then decide whether each person would go to heaven or go to hell. I felt that I was a degenerate and that God would not forgive me. Afterward, I married and had kids. All I thought about was my wife and my children. When it came to my faith, I pushed it to the back of my mind. In order to provide a better future for my children and to achieve my desires to become rich, I decided to leave the country to find work. As a result, I came to Taiwan. Even after I found work, I still had not changed my past lifestyle. During my leisure time, I would still go out to drink and sing with my colleagues. I was living the life of an unbeliever.

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The Church of Almighty God - How a Son of Disobedience Was Conquered by the Almighty God

Sun Yongping

Datong City, Shanxi Province

I am Sun Yongping, formerly a co-worker of a house church. Because I was single, without family burdens, and was willing to pursue to make progress, the church paid special attention to training me. So I often had chances to work and study in other places. In recent years, every time I went to work out of town, I came back loaded with rumors about “the Eastern Lightning.” Unconsciously, I was deeply poisoned. Especially after I read a book called Refute the Cult the Eastern Lightning, I was more encouraged to resist the Almighty God. Without verification or investigation, I had a strong aversion and hostility to this “way” that I knew nothing about. So, I joined others in rebuking and refuting “the Eastern Lightning,” and even mobilized all the brothers and sisters to curse “the Eastern Lightning” in their daily prayers. Meanwhile, I also heard the rumors say, “The means of ‘the Eastern Lightning’ is extremely cruel. If you do not accept what they preach, they will use violence on you, such as gouging out your eyes, cutting off your nose, or cutting off your ears. Besides, they will seduce you with beauty or buy you off with money. And as long as you accept their ‘way,’ they will give you whatever you lack. …” Soon those rumors were spread everywhere. The entire religious world accepted them to be true. And I felt more hatred, hostility, and fear toward this “way.” All day long I lived in dread, fearing that I might “lose my footing” and fall into the “trap” of “the Eastern Lightning.”

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