The Church of Almighty God |
Liu Jie
Shangqiu City, Henan Province
I turned my face outward and saw that my coffin and shroud were there
ready-made. When the moment I slipped my breath came, I would be put
into them. Despair and loneliness welled up in me all at once. “I’m
done! I’m done! I’m only in my forties. I’m very unwilling to die like
this!” I looked out the window to the blue sky, tears wetting my pillow…
Just at the moment I was at my last gasp and was dying, Almighty God
stretched out His loving hands to me and conquered me by His powerful
and authoritative words, so that I was revived in mind and body and
gained a new life. Facing God’s great grace, I bitterly hated myself for
grievous disobedience and great resistance. Thousands of words couldn’t
express my great indebtedness to God. Thank Almighty God for giving me
this opportunity to tell my personal experience of how I resisted God,
suffered God’s punishment, and received God’s salvation. I hope all
brothers and sisters will learn a lesson from it and not follow my
footsteps…
I was once a shepherding worker of the “Justification by Faith
Church.” As early as March of 1996, the upper leader told me, “Now there
is a heresy called the ‘Eastern Lightning.’ It preaches that the Lord
has already returned on the white cloud and expressed millions of words
and believers should no longer read the Bible. It’s a mafia, which has
guns, cannons, and torture instruments. And its members even commit
adultery…” Hearing this, I thought to myself, “A believer in God must
read the Bible. If a belief is beyond the Bible, it must be a heresy! I
will never believe in this evil way in any case!” From then on, I began
to be extremely hostile to the believers in Almighty God. I wildly
spread the leader’s words and sealed off every church I went, saying,
“In future, no one shall have contact with the people of the ‘Eastern
Lightning,’ or the consequences will be disastrous! …” The brothers and
sisters were very frightened after hearing my words. They dared not have
contact with the believers in Almighty God, so the spreading of God’s
gospel of the last days was greatly hindered in our area.
One day in early February 1999, I was invited by my neighbor to
listen to a message at his home. There, a brother talked about the
inside truth of God’s work in the Age of Law and in the Age of Grace. I
felt his preaching very good. But when he said that God had done a new
work in the last days and we should read God’s utterance of the last
days and no longer read the Bible, I suddenly remembered what the leader
said. I was shocked. “Isn’t it that I’m listening to the message of the
‘Eastern Lightning’?” Thinking of this, I shuddered all over and
hastened to leave. Soon, another brother came to preach God’s gospel of
the last days to me and asked me to listen to the tape of God’s word. I
got furious and said fiercely, “I will never accept your way! Go away!”
As I was saying this, I pushed him out of the door. I claimed cockily in
the church, “In future, if anyone comes to preach the ‘Eastern
Lightning’ to you, come and call me. Let me deal with them!” During that
period, I disturbed away five brothers and sisters who had accepted
Almighty God’s work. And I also swore before the Lord, “I will never
have anyone else in my church snatched away by the believers in Almighty
God.” After that, I resisted God more rampantly. I boarded in the
church and ran around sealing off the churches. I spread the rumors and
fallacies to deceive the believers and also said with reason, “You know
little about the Bible and have no discernment, so you will be fooled
and deceived unknowingly. We can look at Paul’s word in the Bible. He
said, ‘… if any man preach any other gospel to you than that you have
received, let him be accursed.’ (Galatians 1:9) The ‘Eastern Lightning’
says that we should no longer read the Bible. It’s precisely a heresy!
Will you listen to Paul or them?” All the believers declared themselves,
“We will listen to Paul, and never accept the ‘Eastern Lightning!’”
Just like this, I firmly controlled the brothers and sisters under my
power. In any church I went, no one accepted the new work. When I saw
the “fruit of my hard work,” I smiled proudly and then sealed off the
churches more recklessly. At that time, I didn’t know that I had long
offended God’s disposition but thought that I was a faithful servant of
the Lord.
It’s true that he who is unjust is doomed to destruction. In November
2001, I was sick suddenly. At first, I thought I caught a cold, but
unexpectedly, it got worse and worse. I went to many big or small
hospitals for treatment, but it was of no avail. In the end, the doctor
diagnosed that I had myocardial anoxia. So I prayed to the Lord
earnestly and asked Him to cure me. However, after I was injected with
intravenous drips and took much medicine for half a month, it not only
didn’t get better but became worse and worse. Facing this, the doctor
shook his head with resignation and didn’t want to exert his “care and
effort” on me. I had to return home and waited for the day of my death.
After returning from the hospital, I felt it difficult to breathe. I
often had my head tilt back against the wall with my neck propped up. I
was suffocated so much that I often wheezed, with my mouth and eyes wide
open, beating my breast with my hands and kicking my legs. On several
occasions, I suffered so much that I even fainted. After only a month, I
was reduced to a skeleton. I lay in bed, unable to rise. In great
sorrow, I cried out to the Lord, “O Lord! Am I not faithful enough to
You? Didn’t I shepherd the brothers and sisters well? … O Lord! Now I’m
one who is unwelcome and whom the doctor refused to cure. I really
cannot bear it! …” I was deeply grieved and sobbed at that time. I
turned my face outward and saw that my coffin and shroud were there
ready-made. Despair and loneliness welled up in me all at once, and my
tears wet my pillow. Just at that moment, a voice suddenly rang in my
ears, “God can give you strength!” I was spurred all at once, surprised
and delighted, as if seeing the great light in the darkness. It gave me a
gleam of hope of survival. “Can it be that God hasn’t left me?” A surge
of strength within encouraged me to rise, but my body couldn’t move.
The next day, my younger brother (who had accepted the new work and
had tried to preach to me many times) came to see me. I gasped to him,
“Brother, I’m unwilling to die like this! You know, I have lived and
treated others according to my conscience. I have believed in the Lord
for more than twenty years, faithful in running around the churches and
shepherding the flock, but today I have such an end!” The more I said,
the more I felt grieved. “Who … who did … I offend?” “Brother, you
didn’t offend any man but God! The main dispositions God expresses in
the last days are not mercy and lovingkindness, but righteousness,
majesty, wrath, and curse, which are like the lion’s. Whoever offends
Him will die! Just think. These years, God has sent so many people to
preach His new work to you. However, you not only didn’t accept it but
hindered so many brothers and sisters from accepting the true way. How
many lives you have ruined! Isn’t such an end God’s punishment to you?
God’s intention, however, is still to save people to the utmost. If you
turn from your evil way and accept God’s salvation of the last days, God
may forgive you and you may be recovered!” His words woke me up from a
dream! I was nervous and frightened. “Is the ‘Eastern Lightning’ really
the true way? Is such punishment really the result of my resistance
against Almighty God? Otherwise, I, who faithfully defended the church
and took care of the flock, should have been approved by the Lord. How
come I have such an end?” At that moment, God enlightened me to remember
the scriptures, “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and
knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past
finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? or who has been his
counselor?” (Romans 11:33-34) “Right! God is wonderful and
unfathomable. How could I, a small man, restrict him at will? How could I
be his counselor?” Then I remembered the voice I had heard the day
before, “Only God can give you strength!” I was awakened, tears rolling
down my cheeks. I asked my brother in a broken voice, “Do I … I still
have an opportunity to believe … believe in Almighty God?” He took out
the book of God’s word and read these words to me: “ Regardless
of how man may have opposed God in the past, when man comes to
understand the purpose of God’s work and dedicates his efforts to
satisfying God, his former sins shall be wiped away clean by God. As
long as man seeks the truth…, God will not keep in mind what he has
done. …” (from “All Who Do Not Know God Are Those Who Oppose God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh) “When
men disobey Me, I cause them to know Me in their disobedience. In light
of humanity’s old nature and in light of My mercy, rather than putting
humans to death, I allow them to repent and make a fresh start. When men
suffer famine, I wrest them from death so long as they have one breath
left, preventing them from falling prey to Satan’s trickery.”
(from “The Fourteenth Utterance” of God’s Utterance to the Entire
Universe in The Word Appears in the Flesh) Listening to the words of God
silently, I truly saw God’s kind and merciful heart. “God really loves
man to the utmost!” A fire of my hope was ignited in my heart all at
once. I wiped away my tears and continued to listen to God’s word. To
solve my notion that “any belief that is beyond the Bible is a heresy,”
my brother read another passage of God’s word: “The Bible is a
history book. If during the Age of Grace you were to eat and drink the
Old Testament, practicing the requirements of the Old Testament age,
then Jesus would forsake you, condemn you. If you had tried to impose
the Old Testament on Jesus’ work, you would have been called a Pharisee.
And so today, if you eat and drink and practice the Old and New
Testaments, then the God of today will condemn you; you cannot keep pace
with the work of the Holy Spirit today. If you eat the Old and New
Testaments, then you are one outside the stream of the Holy Spirit. In
Jesus’ day, He led the Jews and all those who followed Him according to
the work of the Holy Spirit in Him. He did not look to the Bible for
evidence, but spoke as His work dictated. He did not concern Himself
with what the Bible said, did not lead His followers down a path found
in the Bible. From the very beginning, He preached the way of
repentance, and the word ‘repentance’ was not mentioned at all in all
the prophecies in the Old Testament. Not only did He not follow the
Bible, He brought forth a new path and did a new work. He did not make
reference to the Bible when He preached, and the miracles He
worked—healing the sick, casting out demons—had never been performed by
men during the Age of Law. No one in the Age of Law did the work He did,
taught those lessons, had that authority. He simply did His new work,
though many people condemned Him, even crucified Him, by using the
Bible. His work went beyond the Old Testament; if that had not been the
case, why would they have nailed Him to the cross? Was it not because
His teachings, His power to cure the sick and cast out demons, had never
been recorded in the Old Testament? The work of Jesus was to bring
forth a new path; He did not deliberately set out to ‘wage war’ against
the Bible or abolish the Old Testament, but simply performed His
ministry, bringing the new work to those who thirsted for Him and sought
Him out. He was not trying to explain the Old Testament or defend its
work. Carrying on the Age of Law was not His goal, for He did not care
in the least whether His work was grounded in the Bible, but simply did
the job that He needed to do. So He did not attempt to explain the Old
Testament prophecies, did not base His work on words spoken in the Old
Testament Age of Law. He did not concern Himself with what the Old
Testament said, whether it accorded with His own work, did not care how
other people saw His work or condemned His work. He simply kept on doing
the job He needed to do, though many people condemned Him, invoking the
words of the Old Testament prophets. In people’s eyes His work was not
based on a shred of evidence, and in many ways it ran counter to what
was recorded in the Bible. Were they not grossly in the wrong? Must
God’s work obey any rules? Does He need to follow the words of prophets?
Which is greater, the Bible or God? Why must God’s work be in line with
the Bible? Is it really not within His right to stand above the Bible?
Can He not depart from it and do other work? Why did Jesus and His
disciples not observe the Sabbath? If He was to observe the Sabbath, to
practice the commandments of the Old Testament, then why, after His
coming, did He not observe the Sabbath, but washed others’ feet and
covered His head, broke bread and drank wine? Were these commandments
mentioned in the Old Testament? If Jesus was to adhere to the Old
Testament, why did He break these rules? You must know which came first,
God, or the Bible? As He is the Lord of the Sabbath, can’t He also be
the Lord of the Bible?” (from “Concerning the Bible (1)” in The
Word Appears in the Flesh) After hearing these words, I was more
brightened in my heart. “In the past, I restricted God within the Bible
and thought that belief in God shouldn’t be beyond the Bible and if it’s
beyond the Bible, it must be a heresy. I didn’t know that God’s work
always advances forward and the Bible is only the record of the first
two stages of God’s work. In the last days, God brings a new work of
judging and purifying man according to man’s need. How can this new and
peculiar work be recorded in the Bible? No wonder that the Lord said, ‘Search
the scriptures; for in them you think you have eternal life: and they
are they which testify of me. And you will not come to me, that you
might have life.’ (John 5:39-40)” God also enlightened me to
associate these words with the Pharisees at that time. “They held fast
to the Old Testament and crucified Jesus and in the end suffered God’s
punishment and curses. Haven’t I crucified God again by holding fast to
the Bible and frenziedly resisting God’s new work? Haven’t I acted as a
Pharisee of the present age?”
Holding the book of God’s word in hands, I couldn’t help shedding
tears again. I really hated myself for being so arrogant and ignorant.
“I believed in God but didn’t know God. I not only shut the door on God
many times, but firmly controlled so many innocent souls under my power
by unscrupulous means and drew away those brothers and sisters who had
accepted the true way. I became Satan’s accomplice and confederate, a
wolf in sheep’s clothing, and a leading demon who eats man’s flesh and
drinks man’s blood under the banner of believing in God! According to my
evil deeds, I really should deserve ten thousand deaths, and even death
cannot atone for my crimes! Such punishment of God today is exactly
God’s righteousness, and it’s what I should deserve! Even if I am cursed
to die at once, it will be justified! This fulfills the words in
Revelation 22:12, which says, ‘And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.’”
Thinking of this, I felt more grieved and sobbed wildly before God, “O
Almighty God! Thank You for not treating me according to my evil deeds
so that I, a great sinner, can listen to Your voice of salvation. This
is really Your exceptional grace and uplifting. I’m ashamed to face the
brothers and sisters who preached the gospel to me many times, and I
have no face to come before You. Even if I am cut into pieces, it won’t
atone for the monstrous crimes I have committed. O God! I don’t desire
to survive but wish to love You as long as I live! …” During the next
few days, I ate and drank God’s word thirstily. God’s word resolved all
the questions I hadn’t understood before, and I felt more and more
brightened in my heart. From God’s words, I realized that Paul said
those words in Galatians 1:9 because the church of Galatia was disturbed
by the preachers of the law, and they weren’t directed at the people of
the last days. But I mistakenly matched them with God’s new work. I was
really ignorant to the extreme!
God’s word is a sovereign remedy that cures all diseases. Not only my
spiritual disease was cured, but my physical pain was also gradually
relieved. On February 2, 2002, I could get out of the bed and walk
around. After a week, I was miraculously recovered. Those unbelieving
neighbors said in a surprised voice, “It’s really a miracle! It must be
that the God you believe in has cured your disease!” I once again tasted
that Almighty God saves man and doesn’t strike man! I fell down before
God many times and prayed, “O God! It’s Your great love that pulled me, a
goner, back from the brink of death and gave me a second life, so I
have an opportunity to make a fresh start. Facing Your great and
immeasurable love, I’m willing to devote all the rest of my life to
cooperating with You actively in Your gospel work. Even if I may lay
down my life, I will bring the brothers and sisters who are still
groping in the darkness back to Your precious throne as early as
possible, to repay Your great love and make up for my crimes!”
After I came to Almighty God’s family, in fellowship meetings, I saw
the brothers and sisters sit orderly, the brothers on one side and the
sisters on the other. They all behaved decently and spoke properly and
by principles. Sometimes they sang hymns and praised God, and sometimes
they held the book of God’s word in hands and fellowshipped about the
truths, such as how to preach the gospel to save people, how to perform
duty faithfully, how to pursue to have their disposition transformed to
satisfy God, and so on. Later, I saw that in Article 4 of the Ten
Administrative Decrees of Almighty God, it is stipulated: “Man
has corrupt disposition and even more has emotion. So, in the service in
coordination, two people of different sexes are forbidden to coordinate
alone. If discovered, they shall be expelled, no matter who they are.”
How can God, who is holy and jealous, tolerate the filthy ones staying
in His church? As to the words that it was a mafia, it has torture
instruments, guns, and cannons, and so on, they were all baseless lies
made up from nothing! At that time, I was fully clear that all that the
leaders spread about the “Eastern Lightning” was purely deceptive lies
and was done by Satan, which was attack, blasphemy, and smear against
the true way! I regretted more bitterly that I had blindly believed the
leaders’ words for the lack of discernment and trapped so many brothers
and sisters by spreading the lies. However, from it I saw more clearly
the leaders’ sinister intention of preserving their own position by
deceiving people through calling white black under the banner of
defending the true way.
Dear brothers and sisters! What is written above is my real
experience, the experience of a man resurrected from the dead. I hope it
will be helpful to you in seeking and accepting the true way. And I
wish you not to be like me who turned round only after suffering
punishment! Here I testify with my life: Almighty God is the only true
God! He is the returned Lord Jesus in the last days!
Recommendation:The Church of Almighty God was founded by Almighty God personally
Recommendation:The Church of Almighty God was founded by Almighty God personally
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.