Gui Yan
Langfang City, Hebei Province
I was once a co-worker in the Praise Church. I remember that when I had just believed in the Lord, a preacher said, “Our generation is the most blessed and can be raptured alive to meet the Lord in the air. The Lord is right at the door now….” Since then, I had been expecting the day of the Lord’s coming. I made a resolution before the Lord that I would wait for Him until His coming. Year after year went by, but the Lord had yet to come. Gradually, our heart grew ever more distant from God, and we were all in a slack, dozy, or lethargic condition in our spirit. At that time, I heard someone spread the news that “God has become flesh in China.” Just when I wanted to see whether it was true, our leader said, “It is a heresy, a cult. If you accept it, you will not have good days. Upon hearing his words, I thought: I will not allow the heresy to take me away. I must stand witness to the Lord.
One day, my uncle came to visit me. He was over sixty and lived in a city far from my home. As soon as he walked in the door, he said to me gladly, “God has become flesh in China!” Just because of this word, I began to oppose him within. Then, I told him every word of our leader’s. When he was about to leave, I said impatiently to him, “You are in your sixties, and you should enjoy yourself at home instead of coming so far to visit us. Don’t come anymore. I don’t have time to listen to you.” But my uncle kept coming, once, twice…. I, however, was not moved in the least by his persistence. Every time he came, I forced him to leave by saying many unpleasant words. One time when he came again, he took out the Bible and asked me several questions, which left me at a loss for a reply. I thought to myself, “How come he has known so many things within these few days?” After a while, two preachers, my co-workers, came to my home, and he began to fellowship with them. I thought that the preachers would certainly be able to answer the questions he raised, but they were rendered speechless by his questions now and again during the fellowship. In the end, to my surprise, they flew into a rage from shame, and they even rebuked him in a fierce manner, “You are a believer of the ‘Eastern Lightning.’ Don’t talk nonsense here anymore….” At that time, I extremely worried that they would clash because I knew that my uncle had a bad temper and usually couldn’t be wronged a little. But surprisingly, he didn’t get angry and still fellowshiped with them calmly, saying, “Sisters, the truth cannot be obtained through quarreling. …” Seeing all that, I thought, “My uncle is so patient. He wasn’t like this before. How come he has changed so much?”
Several days later, my uncle came again and brought along a brother. I kept praying in my heart, “O Lord, false Christs and the deceivers will appear in the last days. Please keep me from deviating from the right way.” Then I ignored them and began to do my housework. My uncle said, “I beg you. What do you want me to do to you to make you listen? You have normal thinking, and you can discern for yourself whether it’s right or wrong. If you still don’t believe it after listening, I will definitely not force you….” His words made me feel very uneasy, for he was my elder after all. I thought, “I will just give a perfunctory hearing to what they say. As soon as they finish their words, I will ask them to leave right away. Anyway, I will not take in any of their words.” Then I said to them impatiently, “Okay. You can talk. But leave immediately after you finish your words.” They talked the whole afternoon, but I didn’t even give them a sip of water to drink. I treated them coldly and replied to them in an indifferent manner, but the brother kept fellowshiping with me patiently. As I was resistant to them in my heart, I didn’t take in any word of theirs. At nightfall, when I was about to drive them away, my husband came back from his work. They then began to fellowship with him. After dinner, I went to the church and told the brothers and sisters never to receive any strangers and not to believe the followers of the “Eastern Lightning” in particular. And I warned them over and over with our leader’s words lest they forget them. After giving the “binding lesson” that evening, I went back home. As I stepped into the compound, I heard the laughter of the brother and my family (my mother-in-law, my husband, and my younger brother). Seeing their expressions on entering the room, I thought, “It’s finished. They must have been deceived by them.” I then went directly into my room without speaking a word to them. The next day, my husband didn’t go to work, and the brother continued to fellowship with them. My child got sick that day, so I asked my husband to get the motor vehicle out and take the child to a doctor. Since it had been kept in the chicken shed for a long time, it was covered with chicken droppings. Seeing that, my husband was displeased and said, “So dirty. I won’t do that!” The brother came up at once and said, “Brother, it’s urgent to take the child to a doctor. I’ll clean the vehicle for you.” As he said that, he went to get water and a broom. The brother was from city and neatly dressed, but he quickly rolled up his sleeves and took the basin and broom and began to clean the vehicle. He first swept away the droppings in the carriage and on the board, and then used the broom to brush them with water little by little. He brushed the board first and then the carriage. He did it very carefully. The water with chicken droppings splashed on his clean clothes from time to time, but he didn’t care about that at all as if he hadn’t seen it. After a short while, the dirty and stinky carriage and board became clean. My husband just stood there watching speechlessly all along. I was deeply touched by what the brother had done, and my locked heart was opened. I pondered, “Since the brother came to my home, I have worn a long face and never spoken a good word to him, but he has never cared about that. Instead, he has always treated us with sincerity. For what has he done so? If now I were asked to preach the gospel for the Lord Jesus with such great love, to bear such sufferings, I don’t think I could do that.” From the brother’s living out, I saw in him a particularly valuable attribute—love. I was deeply moved by this love, and I started to have a good opinion of them rather than feel disgusted with them. In the afternoon, I could fellowship with them calmly. After hearing what they fellowshiped about, I felt it was quite reasonable. But I still had some misgivings within: I have believed in the Lord for so many years. Will I be deceived by the heresy before the Lord’s coming? But then I thought: If it is indeed the new work God does but I refuse to accept it, then won’t I become an opponent of God? In such a dilemma, I did not know what to do and not dare to make a rash choice. Perplexed, I could not find the direction. At night, lying in bed, I recalled what the brother had said: “Without holiness man cannot see the Lord. Now we still commit sins and then make confession in a constant cycle. So will the Lord take us when He comes one day?” In recalling, I thought, “I am also fully aware that I have yet to repent deeply, and I am still a sinner. But the preacher said, ‘The Lord’s precious blood has cleansed us of our sins. When the Lord comes, our physical bodies will be transformed into spiritual ones, and we will be raptured directly.’ Will it really be so easy as that? Will man really be able to float up into the sky like the Monkey King? The Bible says that the Lord will judge the live and the dead when He comes, and the dead will be resurrected and judged too. Then, till when will the judgment last? Besides, the leader said that only our church has the work of the Holy Spirit. Then why has the church become so desolate?” These questions kept appearing in my mind and became mysteries to me.
Three days later, before I had yet to decide what to choose, my uncle and the brother came with a book of Almighty God’s word. And they also brought a young sister along. That was the first time I saw the book of Almighty God’s word. When the brother placed the book in front of me, I was in a quandary: If I read it, I might be inescapably caught in it; if I don’t, I won’t know the mysteries in it…. I struggled within for quite a while. In the end, I thought, “If this book can clear up the doubts in my mind and convince me completely, I’ll believe.” The brother seemed to have read my mind, and he said, “Sister, read it yourself.” I turned to the first page and read these words in the “Preface”: “Though many people believe in God, few understand what faith in God means, and what they must do to be after God’s heart. This is because, though people are familiar with the word ‘God’ and phrases such as ‘the work of God,’ they do not know God, much less do they know His work. No wonder, then, that all those who do not know God are possessed of a muddled belief. People do not take belief in God seriously because believing in God is too unfamiliar, too strange for them. In this way, they fall short of the demands of God. In other words, if people do not know God, do not know His work, then they are not fit for God’s use, much less can they fulfill the desire of God. ‘Belief in God’ means believing that there is a God; this is the simplest concept of faith in God. What’s more, believing that there is a God is not the same as truly believing in God; rather, it is a kind of simple faith with strong religious overtones. True faith in God means experiencing the words and work of God based on a belief that God holds sovereignty over all things. So you shall be freed of your corrupt disposition, shall fulfill the desire of God, and shall come to know God. Only through such a journey can you be said to believe in God. Yet people often see belief in God as something very simple and frivolous. The belief of such people is meaningless and shall never gain the approval of God, because they tread the wrong path. Today, there are still those who believe in God in letters, in hollow doctrines. They are unaware that their belief in God has no substance, and that they are unable to gain the approval of God, and they still pray for peace and sufficient grace from God. We should stop and ask ourselves: Could believing in God really be the easiest thing on earth? Does believing in God mean nothing more than receiving much grace from God? Can people who believe in God but do not know Him, and believe in God yet oppose Him, really fulfill the desire of God?” (from The Word Appears in the Flesh) Every word of Almighty God touched my heart. Before, when my relative said to me, “Though you have believed in God for years, I think you are possessed of a muddled belief,” I wasn’t convinced, thinking, “What do you know? I’m a co-worker in our church. I preach to others every day. Could I be possessed of a muddled belief?” But that day, after reading Almighty God’s words, I sincerely acknowledged that I had indeed been possessed of a muddled belief before, for throughout the years of my belief in the Lord, I had only known to ask for grace and peace from Him but never known to practice and experience His words or sought the truth from them. I had not experienced the work of the Lord at all or gained any true knowledge of Him. Wasn’t I possessed of a muddled belief? Then I read “Concerning Appellations and Identity,” in which Almighty God says: “You only know that Jesus shall descend during the last days, but how exactly will He descend? A sinner such as you, who has just been redeemed, and has not been changed, or been perfected by God, can you be after God’s heart? For you, you who are still of your old self, it is true that you were saved by Jesus, and that you are not counted as sinners because of the salvation of God, but this does not prove that you are not sinful, and are not impure. How can you be saintly if you have not been changed? Within, you are beset by impurity, selfish and mean, yet you still wish to descend with Jesus—you should be so lucky! You have missed a step in your belief in God: You have merely been redeemed, but have not been changed. For you to be after God’s heart, God must personally do the work of changing and cleansing you; if you are only redeemed, you will be incapable of attaining sanctity. In this way you will be unqualified to share in the good blessings of God, for you have missed out a step in God’s work of managing man, which is the key step of changing and perfecting. And so you, a sinner who has just been redeemed, are incapable of directly inheriting God’s inheritance.” (from The Word Appears in the Flesh) Only then did I understand this: We believers in Jesus have only been forgiven of our sins, but our sinful nature hasn’t been cast away, because the Lord Jesus did only the work of redemption, and He didn’t do the work of cleansing and changing man. If man wants to be cleansed, he must accept the work of judgment in the last days done by Almighty God. Otherwise, he will never be able to cast aside his corrupt disposition and be saved and will never be qualified to enter the kingdom of heaven. Before, we have believed that when the Lord comes, our physical bodies will be transformed into spiritual bodies, and we will be taken up into the air to meet the Lord and enjoy the wonderful blessings with Him. It is purely man’s imagination and conception and is far too unrealistic. Later, I read a few more pieces of God’s word and found the answers to the questions I hadn’t understood before. From that day on, the young sister stayed at my home and helped me in eating and drinking God’s word. As my child was young, she did most of our housework. She was busy as a bee every day, helping me wash clothes and cook meals. Sometimes she even washed my panties. I thought then to myself, “Our leader said that if we accept their way, they will control us, and we won’t have good days. But what I’ve seen in reality are different things. Whenever I was in bad mood, the young sister was anxious to help me out. She fellowshiped with me in one way or another until I was in a good state. Only then would she have a breezy smile on her face. Sometimes when I quarreled with my husband, she tried to talk us around, now persuading me, now persuading him, until we made it up. … In our church, however, there is no love. There is jealousy and strife among the co-workers, and they scramble for power and position; the brothers and sisters are cold to one another in manner. From the words and deeds of the brothers and sisters who believe in Almighty God, I feel a very real and pure love in them. I can’t find any fault in their living out or in what they have preached. I feel that it is the true way.” In the several days that followed, I cooperated with the brothers and sisters and brought many brothers and sisters in our village to Almighty God.
One day, while the young sister was eating and drinking God’s word with us, several of my former co-workers rushed in my house aggressively. After they entered the room, without saying a word, two of them, who were our leaders, grabbed the sister’s hair, pressed her to the ground, and started to beat her. While punching her, they hurled abuse at her, “You say God has come. Let me have a look. …” They spoke many words intolerable to the ear. The young sister’s clothes were torn and her hair was disheveled. She was powerless to resist their blows, and just said, “Aunty, aunty, don’t hit me, please. Let’s calm down and talk…” Before she had finished her words, one of the leaders shouted, “Who will listen to you? You such a wretched girl! I must send you to the police station today!” I really couldn’t bear it anymore, so I gave that leader a strong pull, but accidentally pulled her to the ground. To my surprise, she said fiercely, “Well! You! How dare you hit me? …” Seeing that, I was dumbfounded. I really couldn’t believe that these two before me were the leaders I had admired, and even less could I believe that they, who had always held the Bible in their hand and preached the sermon of loving enemies and being humble and patient on the pulpit, could lose all their usual “gentleness” and do such a cruel action. At that moment, I was completely disillusioned with them and asked myself, “Where is the reality of their love for their enemies?” When I recalled the words and deeds of the brothers and sisters in Almighty God, whom I had contacted during that period of time, I felt I was very impressed with them. They were totally different from what the rumors had said about them. After that event, I was more certain about the work of Almighty God, for I had seen in my actual experiences that only the believers in Almighty God can live out true love and only Almighty God has true love.
Dear brothers and sisters, the rumors describe the believers in Almighty God as demons, but the most prominent characteristic I have seen in them is love. In Matthew 7:17-18, the Lord Jesus said: “Even so every good tree brings forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.” We should know that God is love, where there is God, there is love, and Satan never has love. Those who don’t have the work of God may disguise themselves as very good ones at usual times, but they will show their true colors under proper circumstances. We should be of clear and sober mind and discern carefully. Only thus will we not reject the true way and miss the opportunity to be saved! Thank Almighty God for saving me. He sent His messengers to move me with love so that I firmly believed that He is the only true God. Without such love, I would still remain in darkness. Brothers and sisters, my experiences witness this: Only Almighty God has true love!
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