Eastern Lightning, Almighty God, Christ of the last days, is the returned Lord Jesus who has appeared and done the work, and is the Light that saves man. This just fulfills what the Lord Jesus said in the Bible："Because as in a thunderstorm the bright light coming from the east is seen even in the west; so will be the coming of the Son of man.“ Matthew 24:27
How God Establishes Man’s Outcome and the Standard by Which He Establishes Man’s Outcome
Before you have any of your own views or conclusions, you should first understand God’s attitude toward you, what God is thinking, and then decide whether or not your own thinking is correct. God has never used units of Ftime to establish a person’s outcome, and He has never used the amount of suffering endured by someone to establish their outcome. Then what does God use as a standard for establishing man’s outcome? Using time units to establish a person’s outcome—this is what most conforms to people’s conceptions. And there are also those individuals who you often see, those who at one point devoted a lot, spent a lot, paid a lot, suffered a lot. These are ones who, in your views, can be saved by God. All that these people show, all that they live out, is precisely mankind’s conception of the standard by which God establishes the outcome of man. Regardless of what you believe, I won’t list out these examples one by one. In short, so long as it isn’t the standard of God’s own thinking, then it comes from man’s imagination, and it’s all man’s conception. What’s the consequence of blindly insisting on your own conception and imagination? Obviously, the consequence can only be God spurning you. This is because you always flaunt your qualifications before God, compete with God, and dispute with God, and you do not try to truly comprehend God’s thinking, nor do you try to comprehend God’s intentions and God’s attitude toward humanity. Proceeding like this is honoring yourself above all, not honoring God. You believe in yourself; you don’t believe in God. God doesn’t want this type of person, and God won’t save this type of person. If you can let go of this kind of viewpoint, and then rectify these incorrect viewpoints of the past; if you could proceed according to God’s demands; start practicing the way of fearing God and shunning evil from this point forward; manage to honor God as great in all things; don’t use your own personal fancies, viewpoints, or beliefs to define yourself, define God. And instead, you seek out God’s intentions in all respects, you achieve a realization and understanding of God’s attitude toward humanity, and you use God’s standard to satisfy God—that would be wonderful! This would mean you are about to embark on the way of fearing God and shunning evil.
How to Know God's Disposition and the Result of His Work (Part Three)
Since God doesn’t use how people think this way or that way, their ideas and viewpoints, as a standard to establish the outcome of man, then what kind of standard does He use? God uses trials to establish the outcome of man. There are two standards for using trials to establish man’s outcome: The first is the number of trials that people undergo, and the second is the people’s result in these trials. It is these two indicators that establish man’s outcome. Now we will elaborate on these two standards.
8. How a Son of Disobedience Was Conquered by the Almighty God
Sun Yongping
Datong City, Shanxi Province
Picture of The Church of Almighty God | How a Son of Disobedience Was Conquered by Almighty God
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.”
God's Utterance "How to Know God’s Disposition and the Result of His Work" (Part Five)
Man’s Fate Is Decided by His Attitude Toward God
God is a living God, and just as people perform differently in different situations, God’s attitude toward these performances differs because He is not a puppet, nor is He empty air. Getting to know God’s attitude is a worthy pursuit for mankind. People should learn how, by knowing God’s attitude, they can know God’s disposition and understand His heart bit by bit. When you come to understand God’s heart bit by bit, you won’t feel that fearing God and shunning evil is a difficult thing to accomplish. What’s more, when you understand God, it’s harder for you to make conclusions about Him. When you stop making conclusions about God, you’re less likely to offend Him, and unwittingly God will lead you to have a knowledge of Him, and thereby you will fear God in your heart. You will stop defining God using the doctrines, the letters, and the theories you’ve mastered. Rather, by always seeking out God’s intentions in all things, you will unconsciously become a person who is after God’s heart.
God’s work is unseen and untouchable by mankind, but as far as God is concerned, the actions of each and every person, along with their attitude toward Him—these are not just perceptible by God, but visible as well. This is something that everyone should recognize and be clear about. You might be always asking yourself: “Does God know what I’m doing here? Does God know what I’m thinking about right now? Maybe He does, maybe He doesn’t.” If you adopt this kind of viewpoint, following and believing in God yet doubting His work and His existence, then sooner or later there will come a day when you anger Him, because you’re already teetering on the edge of a dangerous precipice. I’ve seen people who have believed in God for many years, but they still haven’t gained the reality of the truth, nor do they even understand God’s will. Their life stature doesn’t make any progress, adhering only to the shallowest of doctrine. This is because these people have never taken God’s word as their own life, and they have never faced up to and accepted His existence. Do you think that God sees such people and is filled with enjoyment? Do they comfort Him? In that case, it’s the method of people’s belief in God that decides their fate. Whether it’s the question of how you seek after God or how you treat God, it’s your own attitude that is the most important thing. Don’t neglect God like He is empty air in the back of your head. Always think of the God of your belief as a living God, a real God. He’s not up there in the third heaven with nothing to do. Rather, He’s constantly looking into everyone’s hearts, looking at what you’re up to, into every little word and every little deed, looking into how you behave and what your attitude toward God is. Whether you’re willing to give yourself to God or not, all of your behavior and your innermost thoughts and ideas are before God, being looked upon by Him. It’s according to your behavior, according to your deeds, and according to your attitude toward God, that His opinion of you, and His attitude toward you, is constantly changing. I’d like to offer some advice to those who would place themselves like a little baby in the hands of God, as if He should dote on you, as if He could never leave you, as if His attitude toward you is fixed and could never change: Quit dreaming! God is righteous in His treatment of each and every person. He approaches the work of mankind’s conquest and salvation earnestly. That’s His management. He treats every single person seriously, not like a pet to play with. God’s love for man is not the pampering or spoiling kind; His mercy and tolerance toward mankind is not indulgent or unmindful. On the contrary, God’s love for mankind is to cherish, to pity, and to respect life; His mercy and tolerance convey His expectations of man; His mercy and tolerance are what humanity needs to survive. God is alive, and God actually exists; His attitude toward mankind is principled, not a dogmatic rule at all, and it can change. His will for humanity is gradually changing and transforming with time, with circumstance, and with the attitude of each and every person. So you should be crystal clear on this, and understand that the essence of God is immutable, and His disposition will issue forth at different times, and in different contexts. You might not think that this is a serious issue, and you use your own personal conceptions to imagine how God should do things. But there are times when the total opposite of your viewpoint is true, and that by using your own personal conceptions to try and gauge God, you’ve already angered Him. This is because God doesn’t operate like you think He does, and God won’t treat this matter like you say He will. And so I remind you to be careful and prudent in your approach to everything around you, and learn how to follow the principle of walking in God’s way in all things—fearing God and shunning evil. You must develop a firm understanding on matters of God’s will and God’s attitude; find enlightened people to communicate it to you, and seek earnestly. Don’t view the God of your belief as a puppet—arbitrarily judging, arriving at arbitrary conclusions, not treating God with the respect He deserves. In the process of God’s salvation, when He defines your outcome, no matter if He grants you mercy, or tolerance, or judgment and chastisement, His attitude toward you is not fixed. It depends on your attitude toward God, and your understanding of God. Don’t let one passing aspect of your knowledge or understanding of God define Him in perpetuity. Don’t believe in a dead God; believe in a living one. Remember this! Though I’ve discussed some truths here, truths you needed to hear, in light of your present state and present stature, I won’t make any greater demands so as not to sap your enthusiasm. Doing so could fill your hearts with too much bleakness, and make you feel too much disappointment toward God. Instead I hope you can use the love of God in your hearts, and use an attitude that is respectful of God when walking the path ahead. Don’t muddle through the matter of how to treat the belief of God. Treat it as one of the biggest questions there is. Place it in your heart, put it into practice, connect it with real life—don’t just pay it lip service. For this is a matter of life and death, and it’s one that will determine your destiny. Don’t treat it like a joke, like a child’s game! After sharing these words with you today, I wonder what the harvest of understanding has been in your minds. Are there any questions you wish to ask about what I’ve said here today?
Although these topics are a bit new, and a bit removed from your views and what you usually pursue and pay attention to, I think that after they’ve been communicated for a period of time, you’ll develop a common understanding of everything I’ve said here. As these are new topics, topics that you’ve never considered before, I hope that they won’t add to your burden. I speak these words today not to frighten you, nor do I try to deal with you; rather, My aim is to help you understand the truth of the fact. After all, there is a distance between mankind and God: Though man believes in God, he has never understood God; he has never known God’s attitude. Man has also never been enthusiastic in his concern for God’s attitude. Rather, he has believed blindly, he has proceeded blindly, and he has been careless in his knowledge and understanding of God. So I feel compelled to clear up these issues for you, and help you understand just what kind of God this God you believe in is; what He is thinking; what His attitude is in His treatment of different kinds of people; how far you are from fulfilling His requirements; and the disparity between your actions and the standard He demands. The goal in your knowing this is to give you a yardstick in your hearts with which to measure against and know what kind of harvest the road you’re on has led to, what you haven’t obtained on this road, and what areas you simply haven’t got involved in. When you’re communicating amongst yourselves, you usually speak on a few commonly-discussed topics; the scope is narrow, and the content is very shallow. There is a distance, a gap, between that which you discuss and God’s intentions, between your discussions and the scope and standard of God’s demands. Proceeding like this over time will make you deviate further and further from God’s way. You are just taking existing words from God and turning them into objects of worship, into ritual and regulation. That’s all this is! In fact, God simply has no place in your hearts, and God has never obtained your hearts. Some people think that to know God is very difficult—this is the truth. It’s difficult! If people are asked to do their duty and get things done on the outside, if they are asked to work hard, then people will think that believing in God is very easy, because all of this falls within the scope of man’s abilities. Yet the moment the topic shifts toward the areas of God’s intentions and God’s attitude toward man, then things get a lot more difficult so far as everyone is concerned. That’s because this involves people’s understanding of the truth and their entry into reality; of course there’s a degree of difficulty! But after you get through the first door, after you start entering into it, it gradually gets easier and easier.
Yu Congguang preaches the gospel for the Church of Almighty God. While preaching the gospel, he was pursued by the Chinese Communist government. He fled to the mountains, where he received help from Zheng Xun, a co-worker of the local house church. When they first met each other, they felt like they had already known each other for a long time. Zheng Xun took Yu Congguang to the thatched shack where he and his co-workers gathered. There, a debate unfolded among Zheng Xun and his co-workers over whether or not a believer in God should obey those in power. Yu Congguang gave fellowship in light of this issue and dispelled their confusion. Yu Congguang's fellowship was extremely helpful to them, and they all began to seek out and study Almighty God's work of the last days. However, when Elder Sun from the local church learned that Yu Congguang was a witness from the Church of Almighty God, he did everything he possibly could to seal off the church and prevent the followers from seeking out the true way. Sun went door-to-door looking for Yu Congguang, and even mobilized the followers to report Yu to the police and arrest him …
Eastern Lightning - Gospel Movie | What Is True Faith in God? | "Faith in God"
In the face of the hunting and persecution from the CCP government and Elder Sun, Yu Congguang earnestly prayed to and relied on God, resolving to bring to God those in the local house church who truly believed in God and who sought and studied the true way. After several setbacks, Yu Congguang, Zheng Xun and others had no choice but to gather together among the reeds, in the basement, or in the cave for fellowship about Almighty God’s word. … Because Zheng Xun and several others investigated the Eastern Lightning, Elder Sun regarded them as foes, and the church split up into two groups. Faced with this situation, Zheng Xun and his co-workers felt pain and confusion. Yu Congguang fellowshiped with them about the words of Almighty God directing at their puzzlement, and he also expounded on what is faith in God and what kind of faith will be approved by God. At last, Zheng Xun and the others understood the truth, and their puzzlement, difficulties, and deviations in their belief in the Lord were resolved. All of them got liberated in their heart, and sighed that after years of belief, they finally realized the true meaning of faith in God. …
