Having Seen Through the Tricks of Satan, I Had a Firmer Will to Love God

Zhuiqiu United States

In September of 2016, I accepted Almighty God’s work of the last days in America. Through reading the words of Almighty God, I was certain that He is the returned Lord Jesus. I had desperately longed for the Lord’s coming for many years, and at last my longing was fulfilled, so my heart was full of joy. When I knew that the words expressed by Almighty God have revealed the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, disclosed the real meaning of the prophecies in Revelation, and shown man the way to be purified and saved, I felt that there were too many truths I didn’t understand. I was eager to read every piece of God’s words, and always felt that there was not enough time.

Whenever I finished my work, I wanted to sit down and read God’s words quietly to understand more truths. But every time I held the book of God’s word, I would feel drowsy after having read only a few sentences. I tried to stay awake and read on, but somehow I felt that my mind was muddled and couldn’t take in anything, as if some stupefying drug had been infused into it. In the beginning, I thought that my drowsiness was due to the tiredness from working in the day and my bad night’s sleep. But after thinking about it seriously, I felt puzzled, “That is not the reason! I did the same work and also stayed up late before, but I never felt so drowsy. Moreover, I feel so sleepy not only when I read God’s words, but even when I listen to the sermons communicated from the above.” Just when I was perplexed, a sister read me a few passages of God’s words: “On earth, all manner of evil spirits are endlessly on the prowl for a place to rest, are ceaselessly searching for the corpses of men to eat up” (“The Tenth Utterance” of God’s Utterances to the Entire Universe). “God works, God cares for a person, looks upon a person, and Satan dogs His every step. Whoever God favors, Satan also watches, trailing along behind. If God wants this person, Satan would do everything in its power to obstruct God, using various evil ways to tempt, harass and wreck the work God does in order to achieve its hidden objective. What is its objective? It does not want God to have anyone; it wants all those that God wants, to possess them, control them, to take charge of them so they worship it …” (“God Himself, the Unique IV”). Then the sister fellowshiped, “As a matter of fact, it is the trickery of Satan that causes you to feel drowsy whenever you read God’s words. For whenever God wants to save a person, there is a battle in the spiritual realm: God wants to save this person, but Satan is unwilling to let him go, and it will try various means to hinder him from coming before God. For example, it will cause him to feel sleepy whenever he reads God’s words, and sometimes will make him sick. These seemingly natural things are actually tricks with which Satan hinders him from believing in God and even tricks with which it causes him to doubt God. So we should pray to God so as to overcome Satan’s harassment by relying on God’s guidance.” At her words, I thought, “Now I know it is Satan’s trickery that has caused me to feel so sleepy these days when I read God’s words or listen to the sermons. Satan is really too wicked! I must rebel against it by relying on God.” So, when I felt like dozing again while reading God’s words, I prayed to God in my heart, “O Almighty God! I want to quiet my heart before You and read Your words, but Satan harasses me, always causing me to feel sleepy and hindering me from drawing near to You. May God curse Satan so that it will not harass me anymore.” After the prayer, my mind was clear for a while. But after I read no more than a few lines, I felt drowsy again. I called upon God again and again in my heart, but Satan still harassed me intensely. When I took notes while listening to the sermon, I felt so sleepy that I could not even hold the pen and just fell asleep. But as soon as I stopped reading God’s words or listening to the sermon, my mind became clear immediately. I felt very weak because of this, and I thought, “Satan is too hateful. Why does it keep worrying me? God has given me so good an opportunity to pursue the truth, but I always feel sleepy because of Satan’s harassment. What shall I do now?”

When the sister knew my state, she encouraged and comforted me patiently, and she also read me these words of Almighty God: “In the eyes of God, Satan is inferior to the lilies on the mountain, to the birds flying in the air, to the fish in the sea, and to the maggots on the earth. Its role among all things is to serve all things, and work for mankind, and serve God’s work and His plan of management. Regardless of how malicious its nature, and how evil its substance, the only thing it can do is to dutifully abide by its function: being of service to God, and providing a counterpoint to God. Such is the essence and position of Satan. Its substance is unconnected to life, unconnected to power, unconnected to authority; it is merely a plaything in God’s hands, just a machine in service to God!” (“God Himself, the Unique I”). “Right! God is almighty, and Satan is merely a plaything in God’s hands. Regardless of how fierce it is, it cannot surpass God’s authority,” I said in my heart. “Satan, I am not afraid of you, for I have God with me.” The sister continued to fellowship with me, “Without God’s permission, Satan doesn’t dare to touch one of our hairs. As long as we believe in God’s authority and cross over this threshold, Satan will withdraw, for it sees there is nothing it can do on us. Now is the time that God wants to make our faith perfect.” She also showed me Born Again, a video about the life experience of a sister from the Church of Almighty God. The sister in the video was a new believer, and she, when reading God’s words in the beginning, faced the same problem as mine—feeling drowsy whenever reading God’s words. But she overcame Satan after she prayed to God many times. Later, when she read God’s words or had the meetings, she was invigorated. Through reading God’s words and watching the video about the experience of the sister, I regained faith. While reading God’s words, when I felt sleepy again, I would sit on a small stool instead of on the deck chair. I would also constantly pray to God in my heart and ask God to curse Satan. After I practiced this for some time by relying on God, I really saw God’s guidance. Before, I would doze off when I had just read one third of a piece of God’s word or listened to one third of the preaching, but later I could stay awake until I read or heard two thirds. Naturally, I achieved more progress in life than before.

My state changed a little for the better, and I had some faith, but Satan still didn’t let me go. Whenever I had a notion about some words of God or whenever I couldn’t understand some words of God and wanted to ponder over them, my mind would become unclear again. It would not become clear until the problem in my heart was solved through the sister’s fellowship. I was fooled by Satan like this many times, and I really hated it from my heart. A sister who had meetings with me had not believed in the Lord Jesus before and had only followed Almighty God for a few months, but her mind was very clear every time when we listened to the sermons. When I saw this, I thought, “I believed in the Lord for many years and should have a more solid foundation than she, but why am I so sleepy?” I began to suspect myself, “Is it because I did some bad things in the past life and so I cannot be saved and God does not want me anymore? Besides, if this continues, when can I understand the truth?” The sister perceived my state, and she fellowshiped about many words of God with me, one passage of which says: “God allowed Satan to tempt Job, but imposed a restriction on Satan: Satan was permitted to take all of Job’s property, but it could not lay a finger on him. What does this mean? It means that God did not give Job completely to Satan then. Satan could tempt Job by whatever means it wanted, but it could not hurt Job himself, not even one hair on his head, because everything of man is controlled by God, whether man lives or dies is decided by God, and Satan does not have such license” (“God’s Work, God’s Disposition, and God Himself II”). The sister also told me a true story: The husband of a sister is able to see demons. In a meeting, he saw two little demons harass those weak in spirit. He noticed one of the little demons fan an elderly sister with a fan, and the other little demon beside her say, “Sleep! Sleep!” Then, the elderly sister fell into a sound sleep. In the next meeting, the sister told the elderly sister what her husband had seen. When the elderly sister knew why she had slept in the meetings, she prayed to God and asked God to curse Satan. At that time, the sister’s husband saw that the two little demons began to fight, and he also heard them say that the Almighty God we believe in was so powerful. Through the story, I realized that the battle in the spiritual realm was indeed very fierce, and that it was not that God didn’t save me but that Satan wanted to devour me. The hateful Satan seizes every opportunity and resorts to any means to estrange man from God and make man misunderstand God. If the sister had not fellowshiped with me, I would not have seen through Satan’s sinister motive and would have even lost faith in God. What’s more, from God’s words I saw this: God handed Job over to Satan, but God commanded Satan not to harm the life of Job, and Satan didn’t dare to disobey God’s command. It is thus clear that whether I can be saved or not is not up to Satan but is ruled by God. At that time I saw through Satan’s trickery completely and had a true faith in God. From then on, while reading God’s words, once I felt like sleeping, I would pray to God immediately. If it didn’t work, I would stand up and read or listen to them. Later, the sisters all said that I had not slept in the last few meetings but had listened very intently. I was very happy that after many struggles, at last I overcame the harassment of Satan by relying on God. I was really very grateful to God!

But Satan was so hateful that it used another means to harass me, attempting to wreck the relationship between me and God. Because I wanted to have more time to read God’s words, I employed a woman older than I to work in my shop. But right after that, I suddenly had a cold, and my nose was stopped up, which made me extremely uncomfortable. Because in the meetings the sister had often fellowshiped with me about the spiritual battle and I had experienced the harassment of Satan before, I pondered in my heart, “What are the chances? Could this also be Satan’s harassment? I thought that I would lose no time in reading God’s words when there was someone working in my shop, but sickness suddenly comes upon me. This is because Satan wants to hinder me from reading God’s words. It harasses me with sickness in order to make me unable to quiet my heart before God and distant from God.” In the meeting, I told the matter to the sister. She read me these words of Almighty God: “Almighty God is an all-powerful physician! To dwell in sickness is to be sick, but to dwell in the spirit is to be well. … Faith is like a single log bridge, those who cling abjectly to life will have difficulty in crossing it, but those who are ready to sacrifice themselves can pass over without worry” (“The Sixth Utterance” of Utterances and Testimonies of Christ in the Beginning). After listening to God’s words, my heart brightened considerably. “Satan uses sickness to harass me, trying to hinder me from reading God’s words carefully. But God is almighty; why don’t I rely on and look to God?” When I thought of this, I prayed to God,

 

“O God! I am really willing to satisfy You, and I also want to read Your words carefully, but my nose is stuffed up, and I feel very tired and uncomfortable. I also feel very weak in my heart. O God, please help me.” I kept praying in my heart, and suddenly I felt I could breathe freely with my nose. So I could calm down and read God’s words. My heart was filled with great joy, and I felt that God was so wondrous!

One night, I remember, I felt very tired and wanted to sleep very much, but my nose was stuffed up and I felt so suffocated that I couldn’t fall asleep. So I prayed to God, “O God! I have to work tomorrow, and I also want to set aside some time to read Your words. But now I feel so uncomfortable that I cannot fall asleep. If I cannot have a good sleep, I will have no strength to read Your words tomorrow. May You curse Satan so that it will not harass and harm me anymore.” After the prayer, I fell asleep unknowingly. It was a small matter, but from this experience I felt that God was right by my side, and that He knew what I said and did and my thoughts and ideas. God mainly wanted to see whether I had a true faith in Him and whether I truly relied on and looked to Him. As long as I prayed to God with a true heart, Satan would have no way to harass me. After I experienced this, I felt great enjoyment in my heart. A few days later, when the sister asked me whether I was all right then, I suddenly realized that my sickness had been actually healed without my knowing it. I told her my experiences, and she was happy for me. She said, “All matters that involve testifying about God aren’t divided into big or small ones. It is most precious if we can see through Satan’s trickery from each and every little experience in our daily life and stand firm in our testimony to God and can feel God’s existence in our experiences.”

Now, I have some knowledge of these words of God: “Faith is like a single log bridge, those who cling abjectly to life will have difficulty in crossing it, but those who are ready to sacrifice themselves can pass over without worry.” I feel that our faith is really very important, and that we can only see God’s deeds from within our faith. Although I have yet to gain a deeper knowledge of God’s words, through these experiences I have fully believed that every word of God is the truth and is positive. God’s words have shown me the way of practice and brought considerable benefits to me. A sister asked me, “What have you gained through believing in Almighty God?” I said, “Although I haven’t understood much of God’s word, I have had a feeling of assurance and satisfaction during these six months since I accepted Almighty God, for I know that God is with me and I can depend on Him regardless of what I encounter, and that no matter by what means Satan may harass me, as long as I rely on God sincerely, God will lead me to overcome Satan with His words. I thank God for giving me the opportunity to experience His work. I will treasure it, and I will strive to love God and never stop!”