A Clean Break With the Past

Eastern Lightning | A Clean Break With the Past

All of us in my family believe in the Lord Jesus, and while I’m just an ordinary believer my father is one of the church’s co-workers. In February 2004, I accepted Almighty God’s work of the last days, and soon after I preached the gospel of the kingdom to my youngest sister. I originally was going to bear witness to God’s work of the last days for my father by equipping myself with some of God’s words and truths. But to my surprise, when my father heard that I’d accepted Almighty God’s work of the last days he went into a frenzy trying to disrupt and prevent my doing so.

One evening, my father came over to my house in a huff and said to me: “I would never have believed that you would ignore my advice and the advice of the church leadership and start believing in Eastern Lightning! You better hurry up and go to the leader’s place and repent. Ask the Lord to absolve you of your sins.” I replied: “Dad, I’ve read a lot of Almighty God’s words and I really believe that they are the voice of God. Almighty God is the returned Lord Jesus, and I’m sure of my faith. The Age of Grace is already over, and now we are in the Age of Kingdom. God has come to do new work and to take us to the wedding feast of the Lamb. Doesn’t it say, ‘These are they which follow the Lamb wherever he goes’ (Revelation 14:4) in the Bible? In believing in Almighty God I’m following the footsteps of the Lamb….” But no matter what I said my father wasn’t interested in hearing any of it and insisted on taking me to see one of the church leaders. My husband also joined him in putting pressure on me. The look on my father’s face told me that he was thoroughly determined to bring me back into my original denomination. When I realized that emotions were running high, and the situation could get ugly, I couldn’t help but get a bit nervous. So I said a silent prayer to God and asked for protection and guidance. Things turned out as I’d expected: Without letting me say another thing, my father forced me into our car and my husband drove us all to the meeting place of our church. When I entered the building and saw 60 or 70 people waiting there—including my youngest sister, who had been taken there by her mother-in-law—I realized that they were all in cahoots and were going to gang up on the two of us. Everyone in the room was looking at my sister and I strangely, and some of them were pointing at us and whispering to each other. One of the church’s senior leaders walked over to us quickly and immediately began urging us to stop believing in Almighty God. Then he started to condemn and blaspheme God’s work of the last days without the slightest of misgivings. He even told a whole bunch of rumors, such as: “People who join Eastern Lightning never get out, or if they do escape they get their nose cut off and their eyes gouged out….” These falsehoods, and the leader’s encouragement, made my father and my sister’s mother-in-law even more annoyed and agitated, and they made us close our eyes while the leader said a prayer for us. I was very much opposed to what they were doing, and we didn’t say anything when the leader was praying for us. But the rumors the leader spread had already left a deep impression on me.

On getting home, I could still hear those terrible rumors ringing in my ears and disturbing my peace of mind. I couldn’t even concentrate on God’s words. I thought about how I’d already been in contact with Sister Zhang of The Church of Almighty God for some time and how she was always decent and upstanding in speech and behavior. Sister Zhang also showed a lot of love in the way she fellowshiped with us, and was nothing like what the church leader had described. But even more crucial was that the words of Almighty God were the truth, and were full of authority and power. They were not things that any human being could express and so were probably the voice of God. So why were there so many scary rumors surrounding The Church of Almighty God? And so all night I tossed around in bed, unable to sleep as I thought first about the positive side of Almighty God and then the negative side, over and over again. The next day I felt dozy and listless—and troubled in a way that was hard to express—and I didn’t feel like doing anything. My youngest sister came over, and it soon became clear that she’d been unable to stand up to the attacks of the leader and her mother-in-law and had given up on believing in Almighty God and was now urging me to do the same. I said to her impatiently: “Sis, I know that you’re worried, and I’m also very confused and upset. But I’ve pondered over this problem a lot, and also prayed to the Lord for guidance, and so no matter what the leaders say there is one thing that we can be certain of and that is that the words of Almighty God could never be said by a human being. I am certain that these words are the voice of God. I’ve read The Scroll Opened by the Lamb many times, and this book unveils the mysteries of God’s six-thousand-year management plan. Reading the book taught me that God’s work of saving mankind is being done in 3 stages, and that the work of judgment with words of the last days is the work of thoroughly saving people. Only the work of judgment is able to make us truly shake off the shackles of our sinful nature and attain purification so that we may be raised up into the kingdom of heaven. The content of the book totally accords with the Lord’s prophecies in the Bible and also reveals many truths that are not in the Bible. Only God could know these truths and mysteries. So that’s why I’m so sure that the words of Almighty God are the voice of God and that Almighty God is the returned Lord Jesus that we’ve been looking forward to! Sis, our faith isn’t wrong. Whatever you do, don’t give up on the true way so easily!” After my youngest sister left, I felt very sad and thought: “Almighty God is obviously the returned Lord Jesus. It’s just so true and right. So why won’t the church leaders and our family let us believe in Him?” Just as I was thinking this my husband’s cell phone rang: It was my father, and he wanted me to go to his home immediately. I knew that my father was going to harass me again, so I said I didn’t want to go, but my husband grabbed me and put me in his car. When I got to the house I saw that my youngest sister and her mother-in-law were already there. On seeing me, my father’s face hardened and he said: “Last night the church leader prayed for atonement for your sins before the Lord Jesus. But neither of you are willing to confess your sins and repent. I’ve called you both here today so that you can say a prayer of total repentance before the Lord. And don’t go believing in Almighty God ever again….” On hearing all this, I became very vexed. I thought to myself: “By accepting Almighty God’s work of the last days I am following the footsteps of the Lamb and welcoming the Lord’s return. Where’s the sin in that? I’m not going to knowingly tell lies and talk nonsense.” Seeing that I wasn’t going to say the prayer of repentance, my father, mother and my sister’s mother-in-law surrounded me and launched a barrage of verbal attacks. They started slandering and blaspheming God, and hypothesizing about all those terrible rumors, in order to force me to “confess and repent.” Having all those rumors flying around my head and my family pressing in close to attack me made me feel short of breath, and I started to feel dizzy and physically weak. I thought to myself: “If they keep abusing me like this every day I won’t be able to make contact with the brothers and sisters nor will I be able to read God’s words properly. I don’t think I’ll be able to go down this particular path of faith in God….” At that moment, my parents and the mother-in-law grabbed hold of me and forced my sister and I to close our eyes and “repent.” Seeing just how aggressively they were behaving made me extremely upset, and I couldn’t stop the tears from welling up in my eyes. As I cried I prayed to the Lord: “Lord Jesus, I know that Almighty God is Your return, but at present I don’t have the courage to believe in You. I beg You to forgive me and pardon my sins …” When I got to this point I was sobbing so much that I couldn’t continue, and that’s how the prayer ended. After that, I suddenly felt very weak-minded and lacking in courage, and I couldn’t feel God’s presence at all. I felt very uneasy, and I said to my youngest sister: “Before that prayer of repentance I felt that I still had some strength, but after saying it I felt completely drained, as if the Holy Spirit has left me. Actually, believing in Almighty God is following the Lord and that prayer of repentance is a betrayal of the Lord.”

The struggle in my heart continued after I got home: I had read so many of Almighty God’s words and recognized that they were God’s utterances. I knew that Almighty God is the returned Lord Jesus and that not accepting that would be betraying God, which would lead not only to me not being saved but also to being condemned by God. But if I insisted on believing in Almighty God then the church leaders and my father would certainly continue harassing me and I’d never get a day of peace from now on. I really thought that I didn’t have the courage to persevere. My heart was a mess, I faced difficulties every way I turned, and I didn’t have a clue what to do. My head was buzzing, and I felt I was close to having a nervous breakdown. I wanted Sister Zhang to come over so that I could return the book to her and rid myself of the suffering that I’d brought into my life.

Picture of The Church of Almighty God

A few days later Sister Zhang came to the salon to lend her support. I was extremely nervous, as I was worried that my husband would see her and tell my father. As a result, I told her all that had happened over the last few days, without pausing for a breath. I then hurriedly took out the book of God’s words that I’d hidden under some boxes of goods and gave it to her. I told her: “Sister, my parents and husband are harassing me, and the leaders and brothers and sisters from my original denomination are hindering me so much that I feel battered and bruised. I can’t take it anymore, so please take this book away with you.” Sister Zhang looked at me, and with great sincerity said: “Sister, we have accepted God’s work of the last days, and so being on the receiving end of disruption and pressure from religious leaders and family shows that we are engaged in a spiritual battle! The Lord Jesus said: ‘Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. … And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household’ (Matthew 10:34, 46). From the Lord’s words we can see that God’s coming to earth to do the work of  will inevitably result in a spiritual battle. That’s because people who truly believe in God and love the truth will follow God when they hear God’s utterances. This will inevitably stir up the hatred of all those who hate the truth and resist God. As a result, the two sides—the positive, who belong to God, and the negative, who belong to Satan—will be revealed and each will be put with their own kind. This is God’s almightiness and wisdom! Think back to when the Lord Jesus first started doing His work, a lot of the ordinary Jewish people who heard the Lord Jesus’ utterances and witnessed His great abilities came to believe that the Lord Jesus was the coming Messiah and so followed Him. But all the Jewish priests and scribes and Pharisees, who saw the common folk moving away from them and toward the Lord Jesus, began to create and disseminate lots of rumors to deceive the common people. They said that the Lord Jesus relied on Beelzebub the king of demons to cast out demons, and that He loved to eat and drink wine. And when the Lord Jesus resurrected they bribed the Roman soldiers with cash to create and spread the rumor that the Lord Jesus’ body was stolen by His disciples. These were some of the ways they tried to prevent people from accepting the Lord Jesus’ salvation. And what happened in the end to all the Jews who believed what their religious leaders were saying and didn’t dare to follow the Lord Jesus? Not only did they lose the Lord’s salvation, they were also punished and cursed by God: Israel disappeared for nearly 2,000 years, and the Jews went into exile all over the world, where many of them were persecuted and killed. This was the terrible retribution that they suffered for crucifying the Lord and thus seriously offending God’s disposition. Today, God has become flesh once again to do His work, and history is now repeating itself. Today’s religious leaders are like the Pharisees of old: They see the reality of God coming to do the work of expressing truths and saving people, but because they don’t like the truth they deny and condemn God’s work of the last days. In order to protect their positions and livelihoods, they create rumors to resist and condemn God and use these rumors to deceive and control people. They even use and incite some unwitting people to put pressure on believers who have accepted the true way and use all manner of crazy methods to disrupt and prevent people from turning to Almighty God, thus ruining these people’s chance of salvation. Sister, we must be able to clearly see that this is a spiritual battle and see through Satan’s evil schemes….” After listening to Sister Zhang’s fellowshiping I had an epiphany: From ancient times until now the true way had always been persecuted and we really were in an ongoing spiritual battle! The leaders of my former denomination were creating rumors and condemning God’s work of the last days—and persecuted me and harassed me to stop me from believing in Almighty God—all because they hated the truth and were enemies of God. The fellowshiping helped me to understand why those things had happened to me, but I was still weak and too afraid to keep the book of God’s words. I knew that my father and the others would come to my house and kick up a fuss if I did, and would make family life difficult for me. Seeing that I was caught between a rock and a hard place, Sister Zhang gave me a phone number and said: “Sister, how about this—I’ll take the book of God’s words home with me and keep it safe for you. Whenever you feel like reading some of it, just call me and I’ll bring it right over.” I agreed, and accompanied Sister Zhang to the door. Just at that moment my husband came running over, and pointing at Sister Zhang shouted: “Take that book and leave, right now. And don’t come back again, otherwise I’ll give you a piece of my mind!” As I watched Sister Zhang walk away into the distance, I felt distressed in a way that was hard to describe.

At first I thought that handing the book of God’s words back to Sister Zhang would mean that my father would stop harassing me and that the tranquil life I once had would resume. In fact, things turned out just the opposite: Not only didn’t I find peace in my heart, I actually felt an inexplicable emptiness there. I was lackluster in whatever I did, and the words of Almighty God and the hymns of God’s words kept finding their way into my head at all times of day and night. The scenes of the church leader berating me and my father and the others harassing and attacking me also kept on flashing before my eyes. I was suffering badly, and I felt as if I’d fallen into a deep abyss from which I couldn’t climb out. I couldn’t eat or sleep properly and I felt stressed out, as if my head was about to explode. In the midst of all this pain, I knelt and beseeched God: “Oh God, Creator of heavens and earth and all living things, I’m in a lot of pain and confusion. I know that Almighty God is the returned Lord Jesus, but my stature is small and whenever I think about the disruptions and attacks from my father I get too afraid to follow You, God. God, I’m stuck at a crossroads, unable to make a decision. I don’t know what to do, so please guide me and lead me….” During the prayer, for some unknown reason I suddenly started to think of these words of Almighty God: “You shouldn’t be afraid of this and that. No matter how many difficulties and dangers you face, you shall remain steady before Me; do not be obstructed by anything, so that My will can be carried out. … Be not afraid; with My support, who could ever block the road? Remember this! Remember!” (“The Tenth Utterance” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). God’s words gave me a burst of strength that was enough to change my timid heart into a steely one. Yes! With God as my shield what on earth was there to be afraid of? Since I’ve already determined that this is the true way, then I shouldn’t be restricted by any person, event, or object. I should break through the forces of darkness and follow God with an unwavering determination. As a true believer in God, if I’m not even able to admit to God’s existence when confronted with the hostile forces of Satan then what kind of a believer am I? Aren’t I just surrendering to Satan and betraying God? I then remembered how, during her fellowshiping, Sister Zhang had told me that the harassment from my family and the church leaders was all part of a spiritual battle, and that if I chose to stand with them I was falling into Satan’s cunning trap. That would mean that I’d totally lose any chance of being saved and entering the kingdom of heaven. I then thought about the spiritual suffering that I’d gone through since Sister Zhang had taken the book of God’s words back, and I felt that I couldn’t not have God in my life and that leaving God was even more painful than being abandoned by my family and my former church. So I picked up the phone and called Sister Zhang, and arranged a place to meet her so that I could get the book of God’s words back.

After that, whenever my husband was not at home I’d take the opportunity to sate my hunger by reading God’s words and singing the hymns. The more I read the words the more I enjoyed them; the more I sang the hymns, the more relaxed and at ease I felt. My original confidence was restored, and all my pain and troubles vanished like the morning mist. I felt intimately that God’s words could be life sustenance for me, and that I could do without anything except God. Three months later Sister Zhang took me to The Church of Almighty God to attend meetings.

What I didn’t expect was that my husband would find out about my attending meetings and would tell my father. One evening, I was upstairs when I suddenly heard a great commotion down in the yard. I opened the curtains and broke into a cold sweat when I saw my father and 4 or 5 of his church co-workers rushing in looking like they were ready for trouble. My heart started pounding, and I quickly knelt down and called out to God: “Almighty God, my father has brought those church guys to harass me again and I’m really afraid. Oh God, You know that my stature is small, so please give me confidence and courage….” Then these words of God came to me out of nowhere: “You must have My courage within you and you must have principles when facing relatives who do not believe. But for My sake, you must also not yield to any of the dark forces. Rely on My wisdom to walk the perfect way; do not allow the conspiracies of Satan to take hold. Put all your efforts into placing your heart before Me and I shall comfort you and give you peace and happiness in your heart” (“The Tenth Utterance” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). God’s words gave me extra confidence and courage, and I was no longer timid and afraid. I thought: “No matter how much they harass me I’m not going to fall into Satan’s trap again and be deceived by them. I was created by God. Having faith in God and following God are right and proper, and nobody has the right to interfere, not even the people closest to me.” Consequently, I was able to go downstairs and greet my father and his co-workers in a calm manner. As soon as they saw me they all started talking at once. One of the female co-workers had a look of “loving concern” on her face as she said: “Fangfang, you’re such a smart person, so how come you can’t understand how we feel. We all have your best interests at heart. Don’t be so stubborn. Hurry back to the Lord and repent, OK?” Very calmly I replied: “Sister, none of you have listened to the sermons of Eastern Lightning, neither have you read the words of Almighty God. I urge you all to investigate it properly and not just blindly condemn and resist Almighty God. All you need to do is read the words of Almighty God and then you’ll know whether or not Almighty God is the returned Lord Jesus.” She replied: “We don’t dare to read that book because the content really is too appealing. It’s so easy to get sucked into it.” I said: “It’s exactly because what Almighty God expresses are all truths and is the voice of God that it has the power to persuade people. Only God’s words have this kind of authority and power. The reason why people are attracted to God’s words is that they can understand truths and gain life sustenance from reading them. Who would leave the wellspring of living water of life after finding it?!” They had no reply to that, but just said a lot of stuff that blasphemed God and tried to scare me by saying I would be judged in hell if I didn’t “repent.” With a steely tone of voice I said: “You slandered The Church of Almighty God by saying ‘People who join Eastern Lightning never get out, or if they do escape they get their nose cut off and their eyes gouged out….’ There’s no substantial evidence for that, it’s all rumors and malicious slander! If you can’t produce factual evidence then you’re a bunch of liars who are just out to deceive people. Almighty God’s kingdom gospel has already been spread far and wide throughout China, and every household has now heard the good news. There are at least a few million members of The Church of Almighty God now. Of course, when the gospel is being transmitted there are always some people that hate the truth who don’t accept it. But have you ever seen a single one who has had their nose cut off or their eyes gouged out? If there had been even one, the media would have immediately reported it and it would have become a national sensation. My sister and I are being purposefully harassed by you lot so that we give up our belief. But we appear to be fine, don’t we? You’re telling lies in order to deceive people. Now that I believe in Almighty God I’m choosing the true path and following God’s footsteps. I’ve done nothing wrong, so I don’t have anything to repent. My faith in Almighty God will never waver, so if you don’t want to believe that’s fine, but at least don’t prevent me from believing. As for what will happen to me, whatever people say doesn’t count because the fate of every single person is in God’s hands. Only by keeping pace with God’s work and accepting God’s work of the last days will people have a good final destination. So don’t come and disturb me again.” No sooner were the words out of my mouth than my father stood up quickly and abruptly, and in an aggressive tone of voice issued this threat: “If you keep on believing in Almighty God then I’ll no longer consider you to be my daughter!”

On hearing my father’s threat to end our relationship I couldn’t help but feel a bit sad. I thought: “Almighty God’s expression of truths is actually what the Spirit says to the churches. But you don’t listen and instead listen to the rumors and lies spread by the church leaders. How could you be like them in hating me for believing in Almighty God, and even be willing to end our relationship?” The more I thought about it, the sadder I became, but then I suddenly thought of a passage of God’s words: “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 believe that man lives and grows up under the care of God. Rather, they hold that man 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). God’s words helped me to understand that even though my physical body came from my parents, the source of my life is God. Without God’s gift of life my body would just rot away, and the fact that I’m alive today is all down to God’s care and protection, otherwise I would long have been swallowed up by Satan. God is the source of my life, not my parents, and I can break any relationship except the one with God. My parents are not only not interested in seeking or investigating the Lord’s return, they are also 100% behind the church leaders in slandering and blaspheming God’s work and trying to force me to betray God. This proves that, in substance, they are resistant to God and that they are enemies of God, but I’m not going to become tainted by them and resist God. I’m going to stand by God’s side, and even if my parents break their relationship with me I’ll still follow God until the end. I will stand firm and bear witness for God. So I said to my father: “Dad, when it comes to faith in God, I obey God, not people, and I’m not swayed by emotions, either. If what you said matched the truth and God’s intentions then I would listen to you. But if you tell me to betray God I’ll absolutely never go through with it!” When they saw how unyielding my attitude was they all shook their heads, stood up, and left, looking dejected. At that moment, I felt that I had won a victory and I couldn’t help but praise and thank God silently: “Almighty God, You really are almighty. It was Your words that gave me confidence and courage, and brought this thorough and humiliating defeat to Satan.”

Although the people from the religious community didn’t come to bother me again, the church leaders still continued to incite my folks to harass me. Every few days they would come over to my house to urge me to change my mind, and they always insisted that I go over to the leader’s place to “repent.” One day, my folks came over and my father tried to use a passage from the Bible to deceive me while my mother stood to one side and tearfully pleaded with me to go to the leader’s place to “repent.” It really upset me to see my mother so sad. I thought about how she had lost her mother at the age of 3 and was then abused by her stepmother. She had suffered a lot in her life and was now getting on in years, and I hadn’t been a very filial daughter, especially in the way I was making her worry now. Then I looked at my father’s pale face and graying hair, and that made me even sadder, to the point where I struggled to hold back the tears. Just as I was at my most vulnerable I thought of a passage of God’s words: “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 helped me to understand that on the surface it seemed as if my parents were harassing me, but in the spiritual realm it was Satan making a bet with God. It was like when Job was being tested by God, and his wife, who served as a servant of Satan, said to him: “Do you still retain your integrity? curse God, and die” (Job 2:9). But Job had fear and reverence for God and stayed away from evil, so he scolded his wife, calling her an ignorant and stubborn woman, and did not sin in anything he said. He bore witness for God in front of Satan, and in Jehovah God’s eyes he was a complete man. Now it was me who was being harassed by my parents, who had believed all of the silly nonsense that the pastors and elders were saying. This was one of Satan’s temptations, because Satan knew that I cared a lot about them and was taking the opportunity to get involved. Satan attempted to use my empathy for my parents to make me deny and betray God, which shows just how sneaky and cunning Satan is! But I wasn’t going to give Satan the satisfaction of seeing its schemes come to fruition. I wasn’t going to disappoint and sadden God, so I resolved to stand by God’s side. Following that, whatever my parents said, however they urged me, my heart did not budge an inch. Seeing that I was totally unmoved, my parents left, looking very dejected.

At a later date, the church leader let my father stand in front of all of the members of their church and announce that I had been expelled from the church. The leader also made my parents stay away from me. As a result of the harassment from the church leader and my folks, my husband began to frantically persecute me. Every time I returned home from fulfilling my duties he would either beat me or shout abuse at me, and sometimes he even locked me out of our home. He would damage my electric scooter or my bicycle, and one time he even took me to a police station. I was brutalized by him to the point of physical and psychological exhaustion, and our neighbors in the village also began to mock and slander me. Faced with this situation, my psychological weakness began to make me feel that faith in God was too unbearable. I didn’t know how to proceed, and so I often knelt before God and prayed and wept, begging God to give me confidence and strength. And then on one occasion, I read these words of God: “Those who God refers to as overcomers are those who are still able to stand witness, maintain their confidence, and their devotion to God when under the influence of Satan and under siege by Satan, that is, when within the forces of darkness. If you are still able to maintain a heart of purity and your genuine love for God no matter what, you stand witness in front of God, and this is what God refers to as being an overcomer. If your pursuit is excellent when God blesses you, but you retreat without His blessings, is this purity? Since you are certain that this way is true, you must follow it until the end; you must maintain your devotion to God. Since you have seen that God Himself has come to the earth to perfect you, you should give your heart entirely to Him. No matter what He does, even if He determines an unfavorable outcome for you at the very end, you can still follow Him” (“You Ought to Maintain Your Devotion to God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). From God’s words I came to understand that during the last days God will make a group of overcomers and will allow Satan to tempt people. No matter whether it’s the CCP’s oppression, the harassment from the religious community, abandonment by relatives, or the mockery and insults received from the general public, we believers must realistically undergo these trials because only those believers who can obey and stay loyal and bear witness to God in any situation are overcomers who have been completed by God. God has arranged these difficult situations in order to perfect me, to see if I really believe and trust in Him and have obedience and loyalty to Him. After understanding God’s intentions, I went before God and made this pledge: No matter what difficulties or oppression I face I will always follow God with determination, I will always fulfill my duties as one of God’s creatures in order to satisfy God, and I will bear victorious testimonies for God in front of Satan. After that, although my husband was just as frenzied in the way he continued to harass and disturb me, I still prayed to God frequently, looked up to God, equipped myself with God’s words every day and so didn’t feel that I was suffering. God also opened up a way out for me: My husband was punished by God on a number of occasions for flying into frenzies and bullying me, and after that he didn’t dare to beat me or smash up my bicycle again. Through experiencing this, I saw God’s almightiness and sovereignty and His wonderful deeds. I saw that there isn’t any dark force that can surpass God’s authority and ability, and I personally experienced the fact that all we need to do is rely completely on God and face difficulties using God’s words then God will open up a way forward for us and lead us in overcoming Satan’s influence of darkness. After experiencing all of the persecution and suffering, although my physical body had suffered a little I still felt that I’d gained so much. My confidence in God got greater and greater, which is God’s blessing for me. Thank You, Almighty God!

A year later I went with Sister Zhang to my youngest sister’s workplace and bore witness to God’s work of the last days for her. My sister accepted it, and when I saw her take the book of God’s words I had a deep realization about just how difficult it is for a person to be saved by God. God is immensely practical when it comes to saving people. I couldn’t stop tears of gratitude from rolling down my face, and my heart soared with thanks and praise for God! In 2006, my youngest sister and I teamed up and convinced our other sister of the gospel of the kingdom, and following that, we were able to bring some of our other relatives before Almighty God, too. Through this I was able to see that regardless of how frantic religious leaders get in creating falsehoods and disturbing and harassing true believers, the gospel of God’s kingdom will spread, and no one can stop it. God’s lambs will always hear God’s voice and return before God’s throne. 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).

Source From: Eastern Lightning | A Clean Break With the Past

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