By Chen Hui, Hong Kong
Walking in the street, I saw a stall where the religious people were preaching the gospel and then couldn’t help but think of every moment when I was in the Age of Grace. At that time, I did the same service: Every morning from 09:00 to 10:45, I would set up a stall and preach the gospel; I didn’t go to work until I finished it. Though I didn’t understand many Bible verses then, I was willing to keep it up, because I had gained so much grace from the Lord and I could make up for my indebtedness to Him by doing that.
Time passed. Without my notice, the sister with whom I was coordinating investigated and accepted the work of Almighty God in the last days. At that point, I knew nothing about it. In the meanwhile, she introduced the sisters who believed in the Lord to me and took me to study the Bible and pray-read together with them. While listening to their fellowship, I felt that I had never heard such good preaching, so I was extremely excited inside and would like to share what I had understood with others immediately. In those days, my husband and I had a dispute over some family trifles and we quarreled so bitterly, so I felt very painful in my heart. When the sisters knew my preoccupation, they showed particular concern for me and often gave me assistance and support, which made me feel that it was not that I bore these pressure alone but that they could share in my worries; therefore I became more friendly with them.
In a meeting, they testified to me that the Lord Jesus has already come back, done His work of judgment and chastisement and brought the little scroll. When taking it from one of them, I thought: “I have believed in the Lord for ten years. If I take a wrong way, doesn’t it mean that I betray the Lord? Won’t my ten years of belief be in vain? But if I miss the Lord’s return, isn’t it that I refuse God’s salvation?” At this point, the words in Matthew 7:1-2 came into my mind: “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again.” The Lord’s words made me not dare to speak rashly for fear that I would offend the Lord. Seeing my look, a sister dictated a passage to me: “One day, old pastors will send telegrams seeking the water from the wellspring of living water. They’ll be elderly, yet still they will come to worship this man, whom they despised. In their mouths they will acknowledge and in their hearts they will be trusting—and is this not a sign and wonder? When the whole kingdom rejoices is the day of God’s glory, and whoever comes to you and receives God’s good news will be blessed by God, and these countries and these people will be blessed and cared for by God. The future direction will be thus: Those who gain the utterances from God’s mouth will have a path to walk on earth, and be they businessmen or scientists, or educators or industrialists, those who are without God’s words will have a hard time taking even a single step, and will be forced to seek the true way. This is what is meant by, ‘With the truth you’ll walk the entire world; without the truth, you’ll get nowhere.’” Through her fellowship, I felt these words were not simple. It said that, in the future all the people who didn’t accept the words would lose their way; even the old pastors who believed in the Lord had to come here to seek. I felt nobody was able to say something like this. Particularly, she fellowshiped: “The whole religious world has become desolate now because God has no longer worked in churches. Only Almighty God’s words are the ever-flowing wellspring of living water of life. Only by reading Almighty God’s words can we gain sustenance from them and have a way to follow in all things. This just fulfills the words in Amos 4:7, ‘And also I have withheld the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain on one city, and caused it not to rain on another city: one piece was rained on, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered,’ and 8:11, ‘Behold, the days come, said the Lord Jehovah, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of Jehovah.’” I pondered these words carefully and recalled that the past. Although I attended the meetings as usual, I didn’t receive the supply of life from the sermons and was indeed hungry and thirsty in the spirit. Though I set up a stall and preached the gospel every day, I felt that I was far away from the Lord, received no response from Him after praying, and had no illumination from my reading of the Bible. In fact, that I preached the gospel was all relying on my enthusiasm and conscience. Today through her communication, I came to understand something about the scripture of Amos 4:7. I thought: Is it true, as the scripture says, that God has no longer worked in our church so that we didn’t receive any supply?
After the meeting, she lent me the book The Scroll Opened by the Lamb, and then left my home. That evening, I sat in the sofa with the Bible in one hand and the book in the other hand. Seeing these two books, I was deeply uneasy inside, thinking: Which one should I read? Finally, I still chose to read the Bible. But when reading it, I couldn’t help but recall that these days all the sisters’ communications actually accorded with the Bible and even explained the Bible more thoroughly and clearly. So, at that time, I greatly desired to read the little scroll, but I was also afraid that doing this was betraying the Lord.
Thus, I prayed to the Lord, “Oh, Lord! If my behavior is in line with Your will, I beg You to lead me; if not, I also beg You to help me differentiate.” After praying, I made up my mind to have a look and thought if there was something wrong, I would give it back to them. However, the more I read, the more it was confirmed to me that this book was just the scroll to be opened in the last days prophesied in Revelation because here I found the answers to the questions which had ever bothered me. Below these were what I had gained:
Firstly, I read the words concerning the aspect of God’s gender.
When picking up the book, I thought of what people often said in the church: “If some say God has come back or say Christ is female, you shouldn’t believe it.” Since the Lord Jesus Christ was male, I approved of this word from my heart. This conception had long been kept within my heart. At that time, I saw these two passages, “Back then, when Jesus came, He was male, but this time He is female. From this, you can see that God created both male and female for the sake of His work, and with Him there is no distinction of gender. When His Spirit comes, He can take on any kind of flesh at will and that flesh can represent Him. Whether male or female, it can represent God as long as it is His incarnate flesh. If Jesus had appeared as a female when He came, in other words, if an infant girl, and not a boy, had been conceived by the Holy Spirit, that stage of work would have been completed all the same. If such had been the case, then the present stage of work would have to be completed by a male instead, but the work would be completed all the same. The work done in either stage is equally significant; neither stage of work is repeated nor conflicts with the other. … With God there is no distinction of gender. He does His work as He wishes and in doing His work He is not subject to any restrictions, but is especially free. However, every stage of work has its own practical significance.” “The initial redemptive work was only the beginning of the work of incarnation; the flesh who does the conquering work will complete the entire work of incarnation. In gender, one is male and the other female; in this the meaning of God’s incarnation has been completed. It dispels man’s misconceptions of God: God can become both male and female, and the incarnate God is in essence genderless. God made both man and woman, and He does not differentiate between the genders.” After reading God’s words, I came to understand God does not have a gender. Just as Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” These passages allowed me to understand we shouldn’t use the gender to constrain God because God created both male and female. The Lord Jesus as a male completed the work of crucifixion; in the last days God as a female completes the work. This is done in order to let us know God more completely. There was a very profound meaning in this. This was what I had never understood before.
Then I read the truth about the mystery of the Trinity.
The title of another passage of God’s words “Does the Trinity Exist?” attracted me because there was a question all along in my heart: “What is the Holy Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit exactly?” I had heard the pastor tell us: “The Father is Jehovah, the Son is Jesus, and the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit that the Lord bestowed upon us after He ascended….” But in my heart the knowledge of it was still half-baked. So, I read the content of this passage, “It was only after the truth of Jesus become flesh came to be that man realized this: It is not only the Father in heaven, but also the Son, and even the Spirit. This is the conventional notion man holds, that there is a God such as this in heaven: a Trinity that is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all in one. All mankind has these notions: God is one God, but comprises three parts, what all those grievously entrenched in conventional notions deem to be the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Only those three parts made one is all of God. Without the Holy Father, God would not be whole. Similarly, neither would God be whole without the Son or the Holy Spirit. In their notions, they believe that neither the Father alone nor the Son alone can be deemed God. Only the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit together can be deemed God Himself. Now, all religious believers, including each and every follower among you, hold this belief. Yet, as for whether this belief is correct, none can explain, for you are always in a fog of confusion about the matters of God Himself. … Let Me tell you that, in truth, the Trinity does not exist anywhere in this universe. God has no Father and no Son, much less is there the concept of an instrument jointly used by the Father and the Son: the Holy Spirit. All of this is the greatest fallacy and simply does not exist in this world! Yet even such a fallacy has its origin and is not entirely without basis, for your minds are not so simple, and your thoughts are not without reason. Rather, they are quite appropriate and ingenious, so much so that they are impregnable even to any Satan. The pity is that these thoughts are all fallacies and simply do not exist! You have not seen the real truth at all; you are merely making conjectures and conceptions, then fabricating it all into a story to deceitfully gain others’ trust and to gain dominance over those most foolish of men without wit or reason, so that they believe in your great and renowned ‘expert teachings.’ Is this truth?”
“Since all people say that God is the only one true God, then there is a single God, divisible at will by none! God is only one Spirit, and only one person; and that is the Spirit of God. … The Spirit within Jesus, the Spirit in heaven, and the Spirit of Jehovah are all one. It can be called the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the sevenfold intensified Spirit, and the all-inclusive Spirit. The Spirit of God alone can carry out much work. He is able to create the world and destroy it by flooding the earth; He can redeem all mankind, and moreover, conquer and destroy all mankind. This work is all carried out by God Himself and cannot have been done by any other of the persons of God in His stead. His Spirit can be called by the name of Jehovah and Jesus, as well as the Almighty. He is the Lord, and Christ. He can also become the Son of man. He is in the heavens and also on the earth; He is on high above the universes and among the multitude. He is the only Master of the heavens and earth!” After reading these words, I felt they were by no means spoken by man. There were full of mysteries in them. They had unraveled the question in my heart. I felt I was truly ignorant: When praying, I would call the Lord, Abba, Father, God, the Holy Spirit, the one true God, and also the Trinity. This showed that I had confused them and separated God. Now this passage of God’s words made me completely understand that God is the one true God from the creation of the world until today and that there is only one God. The so-called concept of the Trinity was all conjured up by notions in the mind of man.
I was deeply attracted by these words and continued reading.
From them I also saw the explanation of Eastern Lightning; in fact, it refers to God Himself. God’s work in the last days just fulfills what Matthew 24:27 said: “For as the lightning comes out of the east, and shines even to the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” I also read the fellowship about the difference between God’s work and man’s work. I could never get to know this aspect of the truth from my church or the small group Bible studies. Nobody could exactly explain that, while it told me. However, I was still in doubt, and thus I took a careful and cautious approach to the subject of the return of the Lord and attended the meetings at the two churches. This lasted for three months.
In my seeking, God led me to make the final choice.
Until one day, on my way to the church, I prayed to God in my heart: “O Lord! Is Almighty God really Your coming? I beg You to teach me to differentiate” Then God arranged a situation for me. That day, I sat on a seat which was in the front row and opposite the pulpit. The preacher was introduced as the dean of the theological school of the Baptist Church. During his preaching, he told us about one of his dreams which he dreamed when he was young: He saw a flock of sheep that were very small and weak, and that grew up gradually and became enormously fat. And then he raised his hands, pointed toward all the sisters and brothers and said, “Look, now I’m shepherding so many sheep and you are all enormously fat….” Hearing this, I got so angry that I wanted to reason with him, “We are the Lord’s sheep, not yours!” But on that occasion, I had to calm myself down. I thought of what John 10:11-13 said, “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep, and flees: and the wolf catches them, and scatters the sheep. The hireling flees, because he is an hireling, and cares not for the sheep.” The Lord is our good shepherd. It is God who cares for and shepherds us all the time. However, the preacher said we were his sheep. Wasn’t it that he spoke in the place of the Lord? If he had had the Holy Spirit’s work, he would have never dared to do that because it was in resistance to God. When I attended meetings and read God’s words with the sisters from The Church of Almighty God, what they fellowshiped about was how to know God and bear witness to God, and how they knew their own corruption in daily life through reflecting on God’s words, and then cast aside their own imaginations, notions and corrupt dispositions and escaped from them. Attending gatherings at The Church Almighty God made me have more and more knowledge of God’s work and know God better and better. I was certain that this was the guidance of the Holy Spirit’s work. By contrast, the pastor and preacher in my previous church only told us how much they had suffered; the preacher even said the believers were his sheep; what’s more, during their preaching they often talked about their traveling to some tourist attractions and how to apply the psychology to getting along with others. As for my questions, they couldn’t solve them at all. Couldn’t it be obviously seen which church had the work of the Holy Spirit? Thus, the doubt inside me was thoroughly dispelled. I became completely certain that there is the work of the Holy Spirit in The Church of Almighty God and that Almighty God is the Lord Jesus appearing to work in the last days.
Thinking back to what I had experienced, I really thanked Almighty God. Thanks to His protection for me along the journey, I had my notions and questions resolved through seeking and gradually confirmed that Almighty God’s words are the truth. From this, I saw that God has been guiding and enlightening me all the time so that I was unlikely to lose the chance to investigate the true way because of my notions and foolishness and could keep up with the footsteps of God. Glory be to Almighty God!
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