Gospel Testimonies | Perception of Life | Where Does This Voice Come From? (Audio Article)

 Gospel Testimonies  | Perception of Life | Where Does This Voice Come From? (Audio Article)

April 22, 2018

Shiyin, China

I was born in a religious family, and I have many relatives who are preachers. From the time I was young, I followed my parents in believing in the Lord. After I grew up, I addressed to the Lord in prayer: If I could find a husband who believed in the Lord, I would offer myself up together with him in service to the Lord. After I got married, my husband really did believe in the Lord, and in fact became a full time devoted preacher. In order for my husband to feel at ease in his work for the sake of the Lord, and to be able to fulfill his commitment in the presence of the Lord, I actively undertook the burdens of running a household. Although it was a little bit difficult and tiring, my heart was filled with joy and peace no matter how much suffering I endured because I had the Lord as my support.

After 1997, I discovered that my husband no longer had much light he used to have in his preaching. When I got him to do some housework, he would always make excuses about being busy with his preaching work, and would often become enraged with me because of a few little things. I was resentful of my husband’s behavior and was no longer as perfectly happy to do the housework as I had been before. The difficult burdens of household life and the darkness of my spirit caused me to live in agony, but there was no one who I could turn to tell what I was feeling. All I could do was come into the presence of God and pray in the dead of night when everyone was asleep, and ask the Lord to give me more faith and strength. At the same time, I yearned for the Lord to return quickly.

The Picture of The Church of Almighty God

One day in April of 2000, when I was arranging the clothes, I found my husband’s bag. I noticed that it was bulging, so I pulled open the zipper out of curiosity and saw that there were a Bible and a book of hymn inside. There was also a new book which was bound in an outer cover. I thought to myself: “How have I never seen this book before? It has to be some kind of reference book, or a book containing the experiences of some spiritual person. I have to read it, because it might be of some help to me.” Led along by my curiosity, I saw a title which read, “Those Who Are to Be Made Perfect Must Undergo Refinement.” “What a fresh and uncommon title!” I thought, “Judging by the title, refinement is not a bad thing! I am now in a state of refinement that is beyond my abilities, so I have to read carefully how he experiences refinement and thus I can find the way from within that.” At that, I began to read: “It used to be that people would all make their resolutions in front of God and say: ‘No matter who doesn’t love God, I must love Him.’ But now, you are faced with refinement. It is not in line with your notions, so you lose faith in God. Is this genuine love? You have read many times about the deeds of Job—have you forgotten about them? … When you face sufferings you must be able to not consider the flesh and not complain against God. When God hides Himself from you, you must be able to have the faith to follow Him, to maintain your previous love without allowing it to falter or disappear. No matter what God does, you must submit to His design, and be more willing to curse your own flesh than to complain against Him. When you are faced with trials you must satisfy God in spite of any reluctance to part with something you love, or bitter weeping. Only this can be called true love and faith. No matter what your actual stature is, you must first possess the will to suffer hardship as well as true faith, and you must have the will to forsake the flesh. You should be willing to personally endure hardships and suffer losses to your personal interests in order to satisfy God’s will. You must also have a heart of regretting yourself, that you weren’t able to satisfy God in the past, and be able to regret yourself now. Not a single one of these can be lacking and God will perfect you through these things. If you lack these conditions, you cannot be perfected” (“Those Who Are to Be Made Perfect Must Undergo Refinement” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). I was reading and crying at the same time, as the words were saying exactly my circumstances. Before I had resolved to dedicate myself and my husband to the Lord, and that I would be completely content to do so no matter how painful or exhausting it was. Now, however, because of difficulties at home and my husband’s lack of consideration, I always felt that I have been especially wronged, living in a state of undergoing refinement, and losing the faith and love I had once had. I was unable to maintain the resolution I had made in the presence of God, and would often cry alone in secret. I thought about how Job was able to stand witness to God in the midst of such a great and arduous trial, and not lose faith in God, and had even said, “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21). How could I have forgotten that? I then felt deeply regretful about all that I had done in the presence of God: Others would rather suffer hardships and lose out on their interests and yet still want to satisfy God. I had believed in the Lord for so many years, but had lost faith in the Lord. I complained to the Lord while enduring refinement, and where did I express any love for the Lord at all? With this in mind, I secretly made the inward determination, that I could no longer be as I had been before, that I should support my husband in the work he was doing for the Lord, and that it was right for me to suffer a bit of hardship.

The Picture of The Church of Almighty God

When I was thinking like this, all of a sudden I felt much better emotionally. I felt these words were very well spoken, and were able to get to the heart of my actual circumstances. I felt they were able to point out the way to me and cause faith and strength to unconsciously arise within me. I thought to myself: “Who was it who said these words? How was his knowledge so lofty? I have read some books written by well-known spiritual people, and although those books have been of benefit to some people, they were not written in as clear and elucidating a way as this book, nor one which possessed truth. Really, who was it who spoke these words?” I was drawn by this book to continue reading on, and the more I read the more I felt that these words were spoken so well. Each and every line spoke directly to my inmost heart. From these words I understood that no matter how great one’s suffering is, he must follow God to the very end. In the face of suffering, one must willingly submit to God. If one becomes weak in the face of trial, he should have faith, and rely on God to stand firm. The more I read, the more I felt illuminated in my heart and the more I had a way to put into practice. It was right then that my husband came home, and I asked him right away, “Where did you get this book?” My husband smiled and said, “I borrowed it from somebody, and I have to give it back to him soon.” I really wanted to keep reading the book, and I said, “I also want to read this book.” My husband said, smiling, “Then pray! God may make it so.”

One day, when I was cooking, I was listening off and on to some hymn my husband had playing, “Who is not adoring? Who doesn’t long to see God? … God once shared joys and sorrows with man, and today He has been reunited with mankind, and shares tales of times gone by with him. After He walked out of Judea, people could find no trace of Him. They yearn to once more meet with God, little knowing that today they have again met with Him, and been reunited with Him. How could this not stir thoughts of yesterday? Two thousand years ago today, Simon Bar-Jonah, the descendant of the Jews, beheld Jesus the Savior, he ate at the same table as Him, and after following Him for many years felt a deeper affection for Him: He loved Him to the bottom of his heart, he loved the Lord Jesus profoundly. How about us today? Today God has been reunited with mankind, and shares tales of times gone by with him” (“Two Thousand Years of Longing” in Follow the Lamb and Sing New Songs). The lyrics of this hymn gave voice to my own thoughts and evoked my feeling of longing for the return of the Lord. I wept as I listened, and thought to myself: “Ever since I first believed in the Lord, I have thought of the Lord Jesus every day, and hoped that He might return more quickly so that I could share tales of times gone by with Him. These lyrics were so genuine and moving, and even more were able to express people’s longing for the Lord.” I then put down what I was working on and listened with full attention, hearing another hymn called “Seek Only a Heart That Loves God.” “I ask for nothing in my life but that my thoughts of love for God and my heart’s desire be accepted by God.” I thought, “Who wrote this hymn? How can his resolution be so great? This hymn is greatly motivating for me, and how pure is the heart that loves God as it says in the line, ‘ask for nothing in my life but that my thoughts of love for God!’” Before, when I believed in the Lord, I did not know to love the Lord, and just want to enjoy the grace, peace, and joy of the Lord. Today, this hymn greatly opened my worldview, and I saw the people who believe in God must love God, and they must not seek anything for themselves and only this kind of love can be pure. This hymn is well expressed. I then secretly resolved in my heart that I too wanted to pursue this goal, and that I would love the Lord no matter who didn’t love Him.

After reading the words in that book, as well as hearing those hymns, I then went to act in accord with those words. When my husband went out to work again and had no time to help with the housework, my heart wasn’t as distressed as it had been before. If the brothers and sisters had any flaws or mistakes in what they said, I could also forgive them for it, because I wanted to make God content. I wanted only to seek a heart that loves God like the hymn had sung about.

 In the blink of an eye, the time for planting the fields had come. One evening, my husband was tidying up and said to me, “Tomorrow, I will head out to work in a church in another area.” I said immediately, “Will you be able to come back after a few days?” He said, “I don’t know. I’ll try my best to come back earlier, so you don’t have to worry about the housework.” When I heard what he said, my face darkened, and I thought, “You say don’t worry about it, but how can I not worry? You’re going off without any idea of when you’ll be back, and the fields in other people’s houses have already been sown. Our field has not yet even been plowed, and if the seeds are planted late, in fall there won’t be a good harvest. When that time comes, what will we do? If only my husband would finish sowing his field and then go off to assist the brothers and sisters!” In the evening of that same day, I lay in my bed unable to sleep wracked by great turmoil in my heart: The last time my husband traveled for more than half a month before coming back, but then it hadn’t been the season for farm work. Now, the crucial time for farm work has arrived, and if he is gone for another half a month, what will I do? I might just have to get him to go find his co-worker to do the work and be done with it. But I thought about it again: “That won’t do, as the brothers and sisters are waiting for him to go assist them. If he doesn’t go, won’t that be an offense against the Lord?” In the state of being refined, I came into the presence of God and prayed: “Lord! It isn’t that I am unwilling for my husband to go and assist the brothers and sisters, just that it’s the right time when our household should be working the fields. In my heart, I am enduring quite an intense refining indeed, and I don’t know what to do. Lord! I ask for Your help, to safeguard my heart and not let me be disturbed by these things.” After I prayed, these words occurred very clearly to me in my mind: “No matter what your actual stature is, you must first possess the will to suffer hardship as well as true faith, and you must have the will to forsake the flesh. You should be willing to personally endure hardships and suffer losses to your personal interests in order to satisfy God’s will” (“Those Who Are to Be Made Perfect Must Undergo Refinement” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). These words instantly took hold of my heart, and brought a clarifying light to it: That’s right! If someone wants to satisfy the Lord, he must have the resolution to endure hardship and should rather suffer physically and endure losses in his interests in order to satisfy the will of God! These words gave me faith, and I thought: If the fields are planted a bit late, then so be it! However much we harvest is up to God, and the most important thing is my husband working for the Lord’s sake. With this in mind, I felt light and liberated in my heart, and before I knew it I had fallen asleep. On the morning of the next day, I said to my husband: “Be at ease and go work in the service of the Lord! Whenever you come back, it doesn’t matter. I submit to God’s arrangement.” When I thought about what I was doing was satisfying the Lord, I felt joy and steadiness in my heart.

My husband came back after a few days, and I found that he seemed to have changed into another person. He helped me with the housework, and said to me: “You’re working too hard! These last few years have been difficult enough for you, doing everything both inside and outside of the house. I’m aware of this. Before, I would often go out to work, not helping share the burdens of housework with you. In the future, I will do more when I have time.” Hearing his words, I was very moved because my husband had never spoken like this before. I thought to myself: “Ever since my husband read that book, there has been a big transformation in him. Not only does he preach with great light, but his attitude toward me is different than it had been before. Reading the Bible hadn’t resulted in any such changes in him in the past, but after reading that book he had transformed so much in such a short time. It seems the words in this book really have the power to change people!” At the same time I sensed that the words in this book had been of great benefit to me. After reading it, I had faith and strength, and when I acted in accord with the words in that book, the dissatisfaction I felt with my husband went away. After my husband read this book, his attitude toward me also changed, and he understood how to be considerate of me and take care of me. All these changes made me even more think that the words in this book were really powerful and authoritative! But really, who was it who had written the words in this book? I had never found the answer to this.

One day, two months later, my husband said he wanted to take me with him to attend a gathering. I had a feeling that this gathering would be something very special, otherwise my husband wouldn’t take me with him to listen to it. I was filled with anticipation in my heart, and looked forward to seeing that book again. The following day, my husband and I, together with two sisters, were sitting happily in a vehicle on the way to a sister’s house. There were many brothers and sisters taking part in that gathering, among them a sister in her thirties who integrated the Bible and fellowshiped about many truths about God’s work in the last days to us. When I was listening to what the sister fellowshiped about, I felt a special kind of brightness in my heart, and I came to thoroughly understand many passages of the Bible and about God returning to do the work of judgment that I hadn’t understood before. I thought to myself, “How can she fellowship about this so well, and communicate the Bible so clearly? How does she have so much understanding?” Then, the sister, her face filled with a smile, said loudly to us, “I’ll tell brothers and sisters an excellent piece of information that will excite people’s hearts. The Lord Jesus for whom we have long yearned has returned incarnate among us to do His new work, to express the word and open up all the mysteries, to lay bare the three stages of God’s work and His six-thousand-year management plan, as well as the incarnation of God and the mysteries of the Bible. Today, the content of what I fellowship about all comes from the words that have been expressed by God.” The brothers and sisters and I who were sitting heard this great news, and finally understood why the sister had understood so much. It turns out it had all been told to her by the voice of the Lord who had returned. Now we too heard the voice of the Lord, and we all happily embraced each other, shed tears of excitement, and the whole place began to quiver with enthusiasm. I was so happy that I felt like jumping for joy, and thought: All along I have been hoping for the Lord Jesus to return a bit earlier. Two thousand years have passed, but now the Lord really has returned! While I am alive, I am able to welcome the Lord Jesus’s return, and for that I am truly blessed!

Soon, when the time came for us to disperse, the sisters gave each of us a book called Judgment Begins With the House of God. Holding onto the book of the word of God, I suddenly thought of that book from before. Could it be that it is this book? When I got back home, I impatiently asked my husband, “The book that I saw that day—is it the same word of God that the sister mentioned today?” My husband smiled and said, “It is.” At that time, it was like I was waking up from a dream. That voice comes from God after all, is the voice of the incarnation of the returned Lord Jesus, and is the voice of God! No wonder these words could be so moving to me, give me faith and strength, change my corrupt disposition, and take me out of suffering. Then, I blamed my husband, saying, “You have received the new work of God; why did you conceal it from me?” My husband said, “At the time I really wanted to tell you, but most of the people in your family are preachers in the church, and I was afraid that you might not understand when I explained it. I was afraid that your relatives would find out about it, and once they came out to disturb and hinder you, not only would this cause you to lose your opportunity to receive salvation, but also it would have made me become an evil person!” Hearing what my husband said, my misunderstanding of my husband vanished, and I was all the more thankful to God for saving me. I resolved to read this book well.

 Through reading the word of Almighty God, my parched spirit obtained nourishment and sustenance…. I never thought that I would be able to hear the word of the returned Lord with my own ears, to be raised up into the presence of God, to meet face-to-face with God, and I felt especially grateful to God for His love and salvation. After over 10 days, my husband and I together with the sisters who spread the gospel got together, and took the brothers and sisters of our church who had true faith in the Lord over to meet Almighty God. All honor and glory be unto God!

—This article  from  The Church of Almaighty God,   Gospel Testimonies 

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The Experience of Growth of a Christian Born in the 1990s

The Experience of Growth of a Christian Born in the 1990s

Wei Chen, Fujian Province

The Picture of The Church of Almighty God | The Experience of Growth of a Christian Born in the 1990s

I’m a Christian who was born in the 1990s. I was once a student in one of those famous schools that all parents want their kids to study at and will go to extreme lengths to get them in. In China, they are known as key schools, and I studied in one for 10 years. In China, parents have very high expectations of such schools, and rack their brains for ways to improve their children’s chances of going to these high-quality places of learning. They think that their kids will thus gain a first-class education that will put them head and shoulders above the rest and bring glory to their family and ancestors. In order to get me into a key school, my mother pulled out all the stops to develop relationships with the right people and also spent a considerable sum of money. But the schools run by the C.C.P. have already lost all their purity of purpose and have become dens of lies and falsehoods. The teachers and staff—who should have been upstanding models of fairness, humanity and morality—have become treacherous, cunning and immoral hypocrites who are cultivating batch after batch of similarly hypocritical students, the so-called “pillars of the nation.”

class room, the students are studying, Children's education, When talking about teachers in China, it’s common to use a line from an ancient poem to describe their diligence: “The silkworm doesn’t stop producing silk thread until it dies; the candle doesn’t stop dripping wax until it turns to ash.” But after 10 years in that school witnessing the actions and behaviors of my teachers, I feel that I have to repudiate this. I remember the second semester in my first year. The music teacher announced that our class had been selected for a music class inspection by some senior figures, and that we had to continually rehearse the content that she’d prepared for the inspection exactly as she wanted. During one of the rehearsals, one of the classmates was being a bit uncooperative and repeatedly failed to do what the teacher said. Suddenly, the classroom went very quiet, and when I looked up I saw the music teacher staring furiously at that classmate. She stood up with a crash, threw her musical textbook down onto the piano with all her strength, and strode angrily toward the classmate. She grabbed him and dragged him to the back of the classroom to stand against the wall as punishment. When we saw this, all 30 0r so of us became petrified, and immediately began to carefully do exactly what the teacher wanted so that we didn’t meet the same fate. Later on, our head teacher and the music teacher also had one-to-one talks with all of the naughty students to warn them to shape up. So when the senior officials came they saw a well-ordered classroom with a friendly and welcoming teacher who had a voice so soft it gave you goose bumps. It seemed that we students and the teachers had entered into an unspoken agreement to cooperate to achieve the common objective of seeing satisfied smiles on the faces of the senior officials. After the inspection was over, I got together with a few classmates. The question we all asked was: “Why has our teacher taught us how to deceive people?” When we reached the third year we were told that some people were coming to listen in on our math class. The math teacher told us: “In class tomorrow we’ll be doing the same stuff that we did a few days ago. So I hope you’ll all go home and revise it well.” After class, the teacher asked the class monitor and class cadres to join her in her office. The next day, the back row of seats in the classroom was all taken up by teachers and officials who had come to observe us. The class started, and the teacher asked the pre-arranged questions and allowed the class monitor and class cadres to answer. Their flawless answers brought a satisfied smile to the teacher’s face. This open class came to a successful conclusion after fooling the government officials all the way, and was definitely a case of “For every policy the senior leadership create the lower levels create one to deal with it.” Inspections and evaluations by the Bureau of Education always put the teachers on the defensive: They would make us memorize all the possible questions and answers and would repeatedly and sternly warn us. They’d say things like: “The Bureau of Education inspectors are coming today so you’ve all got to stay in this classroom. Stay in here and be good. If you mess up I’ll make sure you all suffer the consequences!” They even threatened to deduct points from our end-of-semester exam scores! We also had a full school assembly so that the teachers could lay down the law and drill into us everything we needed to remember. We were so well-trained that an inspector could have grabbed the most unruly kid in any class and asked them any relevant question and they would have got a concise and fluent answer guaranteed to bring a smile to their face. Even more ironic was the fact that the usually smelly toilets were cleaned and the trash heaps were tidied up. Then there was the time when the bell for class rang but my classmates kept on making a terrible din no matter how loudly the teacher banged on the desk. So the teacher shouted at us angrily: “You were all so good during the inspections, but now that they’re over you’ve gone back to being how you were originally.” When I heard this I had a quiet laugh to myself, as I thought that this was certainly an instance of “A strict teacher produces outstanding students!” Six years of elementary school life had helped our performing arts skills progress greatly: Whenever we heard that there was going to be an open class, or that some officials were coming to observe us, we all knew just how to work hand-in-glove with the teacher to put on a good show to fool them.

When I got into key high schools, both junior and senior, I discovered that the practice of faking things was even more prevalent and developed. Our physics classes were nearly all theory, with very few practical experiments involved. When the school inspectors were about to visit, our teacher told us to do all of the experiments in the few classes beforehand. But we all knew that we had to be ready for the inspection, so we didn’t actually do them but just went to the lab and waited for the teacher to read out the correct results, which we then copied down. The senior staff of our school was also always looking for ways to bring our school up to Grade 1 standard, because doing so would mean more recognition, better equipment and facilities—both hardware and software—and more funding from the government. But this was a challenging task that needed the teachers and students to work together closely to complete. In order to pass the inspection and evaluation, we began all the fakery again. A few of the strongest students in the class were sent to the office to get all of the boxes of reports, experiment material, tables and charts—all the stuff that we usually never heard of or looked at. Then the teacher wrote all of the standard answers and results up on the blackboard and we copied the information into the tables, charts, etc. Then we handed them over to the teachers (and then they were hidden away until the time of the next inspection.) After that, I went with a few classmates to the school canteen to buy something to eat for breakfast. One of classmates wanted a chicken leg, but the canteen staff told him: “Today’s inspection day, so we’re not allowed to sell cooked food.” We looked at each other in bemusement, because we’d never have thought that the canteen—which made piles of money through selling cooked food every day—would also have a rest day. Ha-ha! They really were putting on a good show of singing from the same song sheet as the school’s senior management! Eventually, the combined deceit of all of the staff and students ensured that the school was promoted from a provincial Grade 2 school to a provincial Grade 1 school. The senior staff was naturally delighted, and grinned from ear to ear all day long. When the news was excitedly announced at a special school assembly, the gathered students were also very happy to hear it, because we knew that if we hadn’t passed the inspection then we would have had to carry on wracking our brains to think of ways to trick the inspectors next time.

As a result of the diligent cultivation from an early age at the hands of our teachers—those “engineers of the human soul”—we matured into students well-prepared to pass exams. Our ability to fake things and deceive people also progressed nicely. In our school, the rules didn’t permit students to have girlfriends or boyfriends or smoke. So we got round this by continuing our teachers’ tradition of “For every policy the senior leadership create the lower levels create one to deal with it”—we didn’t hold hands or hug or smoke in public areas of the school but instead snuck into dark corners or waited until we were outside of the school gates before having our fun. Anyway, as long as we weren’t caught in the act then there wouldn’t be any evidence. Also, bullying and robbing other students of their money were common occurrences. And so I sunk lower and lower into this great vat of sin, learning all the time how to be two-faced and sly. In the eyes of most of my relatives and classmates I was a good boy: I didn’t have a girlfriend, nor did I drink or smoke. When guests came to our house, even though I just wanted to play computer games, I would instead bring up the learning Web site—a site I visited so infrequently that I’d almost forgotten my account details—on the screen in order to win the guests’ approval. It was only when I was totally sure that the guests wouldn’t come into my room again that I’d start browsing the Web and playing games. Whenever I was feeling upset or troubled, I’d call up a few of my close friends and we’d go to a bar near to my house to get completely drunk. Once we’d drowned our sorrows and maybe acted a bit crazy, we’d calculate what time each of our respective parents would go to bed so that we could sneak in without them smelling the alcohol on us. Then we’d stumble and weave back home and sleep the rest of the night away snoring loudly. I remember one time when I finished off half a bottle of 56° sorghum liquor in three swallows. Walking home I could barely control my arms and legs, but when I got to the door of my house I slapped my face a few times, steadied myself as best I could, took off my shoes as quickly as possible, covered my mouth with my hand, and walked straight into my room, locking the door behind me. In my room I was king of my own domain, and so no matter how hard my mother knocked on the door I didn’t open it. The next day before opening my bedroom door, I didn’t forget to open the window to let some fresh air in. When I could smell that there was no stench of alcohol in the air, I took my clothes—which did still have smell of liquor—out onto the balcony to soak them in water. And that’s how I got rid of all the evidence. Ha-ha!

religious world, religious desolation, God help me Occasionally, I would think about how the Lord Jesus had said that we must all be honest and always tell it as it really is. I was very dissatisfied with my various behaviors, and felt that I was totally phony and fake. I even felt that I wasn’t a real Christian, as I didn’t even have the courage to admit to my own faith in case I was mocked for claiming to be a Christian when my morals were so bad. Sometimes I’d pray and confess my sins, but my lifestyle didn’t change and I continued to feel lost, confused, and helpless. I knew that I wasn’t a good Christian, but I felt that the pastors and the deacons in the church all knew the Bible very well and could all discuss doctrines and teachings at length, so at least they were all good Christians, all apples of the Lord’s eye. But the reality once again struck back against my way of looking at things: It was during an election for church deacons, and as an impartial observer I was able to clearly witness just how absurd the whole process was. There were 13 deacons to begin with, and when the pastor announced the results of the election it turned out that the same 13 had been re-elected. There hadn’t even been any other candidates! I couldn’t help but shout out: “Cheats!” and then stormed angrily out of the church. I pondered over this event, but whichever way I thought about it I always came to the conclusion that religious elections were just as fake as the practice I had witnessed in school or the elections the local government held for village cadres. On another occasion, I was child minding for the pastor and struck up a conversation with her 7-year old daughter: “I bet your mother reads Bible stories to you pretty much every day.” She replied: “No, my mom said there’s no point in reading that stuff!” I was stunned, and asked her again, to make sure. But the little girl replied with certainty: “Mom doesn’t let me read the Bible and told me not to believe any of it. She said that only scientific knowledge has any use.” The truth left me dumbfounded: This pastor was a total hypocrite who was teaching her child to ignore Christian teachings! I would never have imagined that the senior figures in my church were all deceitful atheists who were just putting on a show to further their own interests. I was terribly disappointed in them, and vowed never to go to any church meetings again. I felt that listening to them preaching was no different from listening to those falsely just and righteous senior school staff who got up on the stage and tried to fool us with their trickery. At a later date, my mother became one of the church deacons, which gave me even more of an insider’s view of how this so-called holy, God-worshiping “temple” had developed in the same way as modern society. The pastor and deacons had formed factions, and of course there were lots of differing opinions, so the dozen or so of them were frequently quarreling until they were red in the face. They also had the habit of finding spurious reasons for spending the congregation’s donations on trips and dining out. They once announced, in all earnest, that they were going to give 500 yuan to poor families to subsidize their children’s school fees. In fact, the parents who applied for the subsidies were all close to the pastor and deacons on a daily basis. One of these “poor parents” actually owned a 3-storey house and had a monthly income of over 1,000 yuan. As for the parents who everyone actually knew to be living with hardship, not one of them got the subsidy. Through personally witnessing all this, I became extremely disappointed and didn’t know what to do about the whole situation. I felt that only the return of the Lord Jesus could put an end to these filthy and despicable affairs. I couldn’t help from calling out: “Lord, please, please, come soon!”

I’m so grateful to our Lord for taking pity on me and listening to my pleas. After about 2 months, one of the brothers came to my home. At the time, I was the only one at home, and out of politeness I sat with him for a while, chatting about this and that. But during our chat the brother bore witness to Almighty God’s work of the last days for me. He said that the Lord Jesus has already returned and is called Almighty God, and that He is already expressing truths to do His work of judgment starting with God’s house in the last days. The brother also said that Almighty God is going to save mankind, which has been deeply corrupted and harmed by Satan, from its sins, free mankind from Satan’s influence and take us into His kingdom, thus ending this evil age. The more I listened, the more extraordinary and stranger it seemed. I had believed in the Lord Jesus for all these years but had never heard any of this. In particular, the parts where the brother dissected the various evil phenomena now prevalent in society, schools, and religious circles and revealed their substance and true situation were all issues that I had long puzzled over. I ended up fellowshiping about all of the things that I’d seen and heard over many years with the brother. I expressed my bemusement over why schools—that were supposed to be places of innocent learning—had become dens of lies, and why churches—that were supposed to be holy places—had become dens of fakery and in-fighting. Moreover, I wanted to be an honest person, as the Lord Jesus demanded, but it was just a pipe dream, as every day my life was lived from behind a mask. With regard to my puzzlement, the brother read some passages of God’s words to me: “Satan corrupts people through the education and influence of the national governments and the famous and great. Their lies and nonsense have become man’s life and nature. ‘Everyone for himself and the devil take the hindmost’ is a well-known satanic saying that has been instilled into everyone and become the human life. There are some other words of life philosophy that are also like this” (“How to Know Man’s Nature” in Records of Christ’s Talks). “Cruel, brutal mankind! The conniving and intrigue, the jostling with each other, the scramble for reputation and fortune, the mutual slaughter—when will it ever end? God has spoken hundreds of thousands of words, yet no one has come to their senses. They act for the sake of their families, and sons and daughters, for their careers, prospects, status, vanity, and money, for the sake of clothes, for food and the flesh—whose actions are truly for the sake of God? Even among those whose actions are for the sake of God, there are but few who know God. How many do not act for the sake of their own interests? How many do not oppress and discriminate against others for the sake of maintaining their own status? Thus, God has been forcibly condemned to death innumerable times, countless barbaric judges have condemned God and once more nailed Him to the cross. How many can be called righteous because they truly act for the sake of God?” (“The Wicked Must Be Punished” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “Why do people engage in such deceit? To achieve their own aims, and to achieve the objectives they desire. And so they adopt certain methods, which shows that they are not upstanding, and that they are not honest. At such times, people’s insidiousness and cunning is revealed, or else their maliciousness and ignobility. With these things, you feel that it is especially hard to be honest; without them, you would feel that being honest is easy. The greatest obstacles to being honest are people’s insidiousness, their deceitfulness, their maliciousness, and their ignoble motivations” (“To Be Honest, You Should Lay Yourself Open to Others” in Records of Christ’s Talks). After reading these words of God the brother continued to fellowship more with me and that was when I had a sudden flash of realization: The root of all of our problems is that Satan has power over mankind and is corrupting us! Satan the Devil has filled us with poisonous ideas such as “Everyone for himself and the devil take the hindmost,” “Money is first,” and “Power is above all else.” These poisons have taken root in the deepest recesses of our hearts and have become our lives; these concepts control our every word and action. So regardless of whether people are in a school or in a religious community, they will be unable to stop themselves from furthering their own interests, and will compete and struggle against others to do so. When the pastors put up a sign saying: “Work for the Lord and serve His flock,” they still intend to fill their own pockets, and when the school hangs up a banner with the slogan “Impart knowledge and educate students to benefit the nation and the people,” it’s all just a charade. In fact, teachers use the slogan “Be diligent and industrious to serve as role models for others” as a cover to grab as much for themselves as they can. I’ve even heard of teachers losing all their humanity and humiliating or viciously beating students in order to further their own interests. This sort of thing is now so common that it’s no longer news. Satan the Devil uses power and money to control our hearts and spirits, which causes us to become more and more evil and sinister. In order to get what we want we will stop at nothing, and as our treacherous and cunning methods get more accomplished the profit they bring gets bigger and bigger. As a result, we just get more evil and corrupt and become capable of committing the most heinous of sins. It is just like the Chinese saying, “If the upper beams aren’t straight the lower beams will be crooked too”: Under the evil governance of the CCP all government officials are embezzling large amounts of money, and so senior staff and teachers in China’s schools naturally copy them as best they can. Concepts such as morality and justice get cast to one side and the word “profit” takes center stage, and that’s how schools become a microcosm of the evil society that they exist in. And once the eyes and ears of the students have been exposed to this evil contamination they will naturally become more and more evil themselves, just like blotting paper soaking up black ink. Some examples of this include students flirting with each other in the dark corners of the school and students smoking and getting really drunk in bars. I also saw young lovers hugging and holding hands in public places, and these days it’s even common for elementary school students to have a boyfriend or girlfriend. Some students will deceive their parents or make life difficult for them in order to get more pocket money, and there have even been cases of children attacking their parents with knives after being refused of more money. Heaven knows how many parents have spent every dollar they have and pulled out all the stops in order to send their innocent little darlings to a high-quality school, only to see them not only not learn much or develop good characters but actually become more debased and evil and eventually turn into accomplished cheats or even murderers. People are always complaining that students are getting worse by the year, but this is the rotten fruit of the CCP’s rule. The brother also told me that the Age of Grace was when the Lord Jesus was doing the work of redemption—forgiving mankind’s sins—which isn’t the same as the work of the last days to judge, cleanse and transform mankind’s corrupt disposition. In other words, although believers in the Lord can gain redemption for their sins, their sinful nature is still firmly rooted inside of them, and they still cannot help but be corrupted by Satan to do evil and resist God. Such people live in a vicious cycle of committing sins in the daytime and admitting to their sins at night: Even the pastors are unable to extricate themselves from their sinful ways. For the last days, God expresses truths and does the work of judging and purifying mankind through His incarnation in order to thoroughly cleanse and transform mankind’s satanic disposition and resolve the issue of the source of their tendency to sin, so that they can be completely saved from Satan’s domain and be able to live in the light. As I listened to the brother talking it was like dark clouds were dispersing to reveal a clear blue sky: All of the doubts and bemusement of many years disappeared and I there and then accepted the gospel of the last days of Almighty God.

The brother then read another passage of God’s words: “The vast and hazy world has made many of you, unflinching and dauntless in filling the different roles of this world. It has formed many ‘warriors’ that do not fear death at all. More than that, it has created batches of desensitized and paralyzed humans who do not understand the purpose of their creation.” “Mankind, who left the supply of life from the Almighty, does not know why they exist, and yet fears death. There is no support, no help, but mankind is still reluctant to close their eyes, braving it all, drags out an ignoble existence in this world in bodies without the consciousness of souls. You live like such, with no hope; he exists like such, with no aim. There is only the Holy One in the legend who will come to save those who moan in suffering and long desperately for His arrival. This belief cannot be realized so far in the people who are unconscious. However, the people still yearn for it so. The Almighty has mercy on these people who suffer deeply. At the same time, He is fed up with these people who have no consciousness, because He has to wait too long for the answer from humans. He desires to seek, seek your heart and your spirit. He wants to bring you food and water and to awaken you, so you are no longer thirsty, no longer hungry. When you are weary and when you begin to feel the desolation of this world, do not be perplexed, do not cry. Almighty God, the Watcher, will embrace your arrival any time” (“The Sighing of the Almighty” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). I was very moved by these words. In the past, in my confusion and pain, I had shed many bitter tears, but no one had ever been able to so clearly penetrate the secrets in my heart with their words or describe the true state of my heart and mind. And there had certainly been no one to tell me how to walk the path of my life in the future. But a few short sentences of Almighty God’s words were able to fully express what was hidden deep in my heart, and, more importantly, were able to show me a way forward. Now I not only know that the source of mankind’s degeneracy and corruption is because mankind has moved away from God’s life sustenance and fallen under the domain of Satan, but I also know that God always hopes that we—people who have been tricked and harmed by Satan—can return to Him as soon as possible and receive His salvation. God’s words brought me illumination and hope, and brought an end to many years of living in darkness. From then on, I started to devour God’s words and to participate enthusiastically in church life. I began to hate those dimly-lit bars where I used to get falling down drunk, and gave up drinking for good. Whenever my drinking buddies tried to get me to go out with them I’d find a good reason not to go. If I couldn’t think of an excuse, I would go with them, but not a drop of liquor ever passed my lips again. I watched them drink bottle after bottle, and when they were totally loaded they started acting crazy as usual. Out of the blue, I felt an unexplainable sadness. I felt that they were truly pitiful and I remembered that I too once behaved like that, getting drunk time and time again in order to numb myself and temporarily forget my worries and the emptiness inside of me. But drinking just caused the suffering and emptiness to last even longer. Now that I have something that I can really rely on, my heart feels full and joyous, and I’m truly grateful for Almighty God’s immense salvation!

The Experience of Growth of a Christian Born in the 1990s What makes me even more grateful is that Almighty God not only relieved me of my spiritual emptiness but also led me away from all the filth and contamination. Every time I met up with the brothers and sisters I always felt totally liberated, because among them there is no fakery, no bravado, no empty talk, and neither is there any deception or suppression. The brothers and sisters seek to be honest people who are always ready to say what is on their minds because they know that the more honest they are the more God will approve of them and grant His blessings and the more they are liked by others. After seeing how each one of the brothers and sisters was living in a simple, open and liberated way, I decided to rebel against my own ego and vanity and tell one of the sisters about how I’d been under the influence of evil trends and fashions and just how degenerate and useless I’d become. The sister not only didn’t look askance of me but even told me about all of her own transgressions and the process of how God had saved her. And she was someone who I’d only known for fewer than 10 days! With my good friends who I’d known for years I rarely heard anything that really came from the heart, but here at The Church of Almighty God everyone is like this—everyone is making honesty into a practice. God’s house is a place of purity and piety that is completely different than the outside world! In the church there is no differentiating between high and low, rich and poor, or automatic seniority of the more qualified over the less qualified. The speech and actions of all of the church members is in accordance with God’s words, and these words are the rules and standards by which they behave. In God’s house I saw the true future and the true destination, and I started to hate my dry and monotonous school life where I was learning nothing of value and was just becoming more and more treacherous and cunning. In a society where good educational qualifications mean a bright future, I firmly and resolutely decided to abandon my schooling and to plan instead how I was going to remake myself. A lot of people didn’t understand my decision, and some even called me a fool who was destroying his own future. My relatives and classmates didn’t understand either, and when our pastor—the one who was full of fake kindness and fairness—heard the news that my mother and I had accepted Eastern Lightning, she spouted: “You’re both wrong! You’re both putting your faith in a person! Eastern Lightning has already been designated an evil cult by the government! If you keep on believing in it, you’ll be abandoned by the Lord. You’d be wise to study hard while you’re still young….” But I knew that I was absolutely on the right path, and I never regretted my decision because I knew that I have no future worth mentioning in a school that is full of lies and fakery. In fact, staying in such a place will only bring about the complete annihilation of my conscience and the loss of my humanity. Furthermore, how could those pastors and elders in the religious community, who don’t have a bit of the reality of truth and are tainted with the filth and corruption of the world, clearly understand my spiritual decision?

In The Church of Almighty God I have personally experienced how the truth and Christ rule in God’s house. Whoever practices truths gains respect and support, while those who promote dishonest practices or do evil are stonewalled, and if they don’t repent after being warned a few times then they are expelled. Because I have been too deeply corrupted by Satan and love status and prestige too much, during the period when I was a church leader I used my power to protect and fortify my position by attacking and taking revenge on a sister who disagreed with me. It got to the point where I demanded that she be expelled, and if she weren’t then I would leave, and anybody who tried to fellowship with me became my enemy. Even after multiple attempts by the brothers and sisters to support me and help me, I still stubbornly insisted that I was in the right. In the end, the sister wasn’t expelled and I was stripped of my leadership position for not accepting truths and not treating people fairly. This was God’s righteousness in action, and was also an example of God’s love and salvation. Even more so, it clearly showed me that God’s house and the outside world are very different: In God’s house it is truth and righteousness that rule, and they treat everyone equally and fairly. After I was removed from the leadership position, my corruption led me to misunderstand and complain about God, and I even considered betraying God and going back to my old life of uncontrolled drinking and debauchery with my school pals. But God didn’t give up on my salvation, and the enlightenment of God’s words and the fellowshiping of the brothers and sisters were able to pull me back from the brink of danger once again. Although I’m now just an ordinary believer in The Church of Almighty God, here I know what it means to be a real human and I understand that if people leave God then they will inevitably be trampled on and harmed by Satan. Almighty God allowed me to find true direction in life, and it was God that saved me from the dark and evil trends of this material world. I have no way of expressing the depth of God’s love and compassion, but can only dedicate the rest of my life to Him by pursuing truths and fulfilling my duties to repay His love!

Source The Internet

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The Church of Almighty God | The Bitter Fruit of Arrogance

The Bitter Fruit of Arrogance

Hu Qing     Suzhou City, Anhui Province

Picture of The Church of Almighty God | The Bitter Fruit of Arrogance

When I saw God’s words saying: “Those of you who serve as leaders always want to have greater ingenuity, to be head and shoulders above the rest, to find new tricks so that God can see how great a leader you really are. … You always want to show off; isn’t this precisely the revelation of an arrogant nature?” (“Without the Truth It Is Easy to Offend God” in Records of Christ’s Talks), I thought to myself: Who has such nerve to try to find ingenious new tricks? Who doesn’t know that God’s disposition does not tolerate man’s offense? I certainly wouldn’t dare! I personally believed that I had a heart of reverence for God, and in my work I didn’t dare to try to find tricks. However, it was only in God’s revelation of the facts that I realized that trying to find new tricks wasn’t what someone dares or doesn’t dare to do—it is entirely determined by an arrogant nature.

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