By Jingjing
In 2009, I came to Australia. At that time, a foreign aunt of the church nearby my home sent me a Bible and a gospel compact disk. She told me that I could pray to the Lord regardless of what difficulty I had and that the Lord would protect us. However, I seldom went to the church because of my busy work and lots of family affairs. At that moment, my son was twelve years old and was right in his rebellious phase. My husband often beat him and things became more and more serious. I could no longer stand it, so I, together with my son, left home. At the time, I took the Bible and the CD with me. Form then onward, whenever I had time, I would read the Bible and watch the gospel CD. Every time I saw the Lord Jesus was crucified for saving us, and read His words of exhortation and comfort, I was much moved and felt very warm in my heart. In 2014, I began to formally attend Bible study and worship service of the church. Gradually, I further understand that the Lord Jesus was nailed to the cross to save us sinners. I also hoped to be raptured into the kingdom of heaven when the Lord Jesus comes.
Thank the Lord for His preparation. In October 2015, in a Bible study meeting, I heard the good news of the Lord Jesus’ return. Through the sharing and testimony of the sister who spread the gospel to me, I knew: The Lord Jesus just did the work of redemption in the Age of Grace and He redeemed us out of sin through crucifixion. However, our root of sin still remains. We still live in a cycle of committing sins and confessing sins, and haven’t been purified. Thus we cannot be raptured into the kingdom of heaven. If we want to be purified and saved completely, we still need to accept and experience God’s work of removing sin in the last days, that is, the judgment work done by Almighty God in the last days. … What the sister said was really in accordance with the Bible and the facts, so I started to investigate the work of Almighty God. Gradually, in Almighty God’s words, I had some knowledge of His judgment work in the last days.
Additionally, through having meetings, reading God’s words and sharing experiences with the brothers and sisters in the Church of Almighty God, I saw that they paid much attention to practicing and experiencing God’s words. When revealing their corrupt dispositions, they would reflect on and know themselves according to God’s words. Moreover, they would practice being honest people, open their hearts in communication and help each other. When they met with problems and difficulties, they would seek God’s will, and seek the truth to solve them in God’s word. I thought there was the work of the Holy Spirit in such meetings; I felt great enjoyment. After a period of time, I was certain that Almighty God is the returned Lord Jesus. So I made a resolution to follow Almighty God properly!
However, where there is God’s work, there is Satan’s interference. In November 2016, on the Internet my son saw some adverse publicities of the Church of Almighty God from the CCP, and then he said to me, “Mom, the CCP says online that the believers in Almighty God abandon their families and children to spread the gospel. Don’t believe anymore. You’d better come back to the former church. …” I could not believe what he said, because I had never heard about that. Then, I said, “This is impossible. Almighty God’s word has unraveled all mysteries of His saving mankind, revealed the fact that we human have been corrupted by Satan, and told us how to live out the likeness of a true man. Only God Himself can unravel these mysteries, so I am sure that Almighty God is the returned Lord Jesus, and that the work of Almighty God in the last days is the true way. Besides, I have contacted with the brothers and sisters of the Church of Almighty God for so long a time. In my opinion, they’re not like what the rumors say on the Internet at all. Each of them treats others sincerely. At ordinary times, they will talk about their things at home. While performing their duties, they will look after their children. The only reason is that now is the last days. The work of Almighty God is the final stage of work of God’s salvation for mankind. God will end this age and separate all according to their kind. Whoever can’t accept His work of the last days will be destroyed by the great disasters. Therefore, in order to spread the gospel to more people, they put aside their families and fleshly comforts voluntarily, go out of the house and spread the gospel. This is what we should admire. You’d better calm down and investigate Almighty God’s work as well.” However, my son wouldn’t listen at all. He even joined hands together with my present boyfriend to threaten me and said that they two would leave me if I insisted on believing in Almighty God. (They both believed in Jesus.)
Their attitude put me into a dilemma. Since my marriage didn’t work out all along: My husband was violent and often beat our son, I had no choice but to escape from him with my son, and we depended on each other so that my son was my entirety. In addition, the breakup of my marriage hurt me deeply. It was not until I met my present boyfriend that I could gradually free myself from the pain. He was very kind to my son and me, and moreover, my son got on well with him. As soon as I thought that they would leave me, I felt painful in my heart. Without them, how could I live in the future? One side was my family, and the other was the true way. I really didn’t know which to choose. Should I persist in or give up my belief? I thought: If I insist on having faith in Almighty God, I will lose my family. If I give it up, I’ve betrayed God. Thinking of this, I felt so painful within. However, at the thought of the unfavorable situation of my life before, I gave in.
On Sundays, my son and boyfriend dragged me to the church service. I didn’t have any choice but to go with them. In every meeting, the pastors repeatedly preached the stale biblical knowledge, or preached that now was the last days and that we should make more preparations for ourselves, spread the gospel frequently and donate more, otherwise we would be forsaken by the Lord when He comes back. … Listening to such sermons, I was very distressed. The Lord Jesus has returned to flesh, expressed His word and begun to do the work of judging and purifying. But the pastors still preached the specious doctrines to deceive people, so that people all clung to these superficial practices and did not know how to investigate and accept God’s new work. Furthermore, to draw believers in, the church held a myriad of activities such as the contest of table tennis, the prize contest of reading the Bible, and so on. The believers talked about the worldly things and hardly talked about their spiritual situation when they got together. Compared with the Church of Almighty God, there was a world of difference. Each time I went to the church for worship, a day seemed like a year to me. How I wanted to have meetings with the brothers and sisters of the Church of Almighty God and hear them sharing their experiences! However, at the idea of the attitude of my son and boyfriend toward me, I shank back again.
To prevent me from contacting the sisters of the Church of Almighty God, my son blocked the sisters on my phone. The sister then sent messages to contact me. However, afraid of being discovered by my son, I didn’t dare to contact her. Afterward, she found my work place and waited outside to chat with me after my work. I told her my trouble. Then she comforted me and read God’s words for me, “The life of man and all of man’s activities are inseparable from God, and are all controlled by the hands of God, and it may even be said that no person can exist independently of God. None can deny this, for it is a fact” (“God’s Work and Man’s Practice”). “Without the supply of life from God, man loses the sense of value in living and loses the sense of purpose in life” (“God Is the Source of Man’s Life”). After reading, she fellowshiped with me, “Our breath is from God. We need God’s supply and salvation the most. Without God, we feel like a mere shell of a man, only being deceived and harmed by Satan. Nowadays, God has come to save us but Satan tries its best to disturb and damage God’s work. We must learn to depend on and look to God. We cannot lose confidence in Him.” Because of the limitation of time, she couldn’t fellowship too much with me. Before leaving, we made an appointment to have a good talk in the coffee shop when I was available. I was touched by her love and felt that God’s love was so great.
When we met again, I asked her, “Almighty God is the returned Lord Jesus and His work is the true way. But why have I suffered so great hindrance and disturbance since I believed in Almighty God?” She read two passages of God’s words to me, “In every step of work that God does within people, externally it appears to be interactions between people, as if born of human arrangements, or from human interference. But behind the scenes, every step of work, and everything that happens, is a wager made by Satan before God, and requires people to stand firm in their testimony to God. Take when Job was tried, for example: Behind the scenes, Satan was making a bet with God, and what happened to Job was the deeds of men, and the interference of men. Behind every step that God does in you is Satan’s wager with God—behind it all is a battle. …When God and Satan do battle in the spiritual realm, how should you satisfy God, and how should you stand firm in your testimony to Him? You should know that everything that happens to you is a great trial and the time when God needs you to bear testimony” (“Only Loving God Is Truly Believing in God”). “God intends to use a portion of evil spirits’ work to perfect a portion of man, so that these people can completely see through demons’ deeds, and allow everyone to understand their ancestors. Only then can humans completely break free, not only forsaking the posterity of the demons, but even more so their ancestors. … This is what God wants to achieve, and it is His final goal on earth for which He has done so much work; He aims to accomplish this in all of man. This is known as the maneuver of all things for God’s purpose” (“Interpretation of the Forty-first Utterance”). Then she fellowshiped, “Since ancient times, the true way has always been persecuted. In every stage of God’s work, there is Satan’s disturbance. Just like the time when the Lord Jesus came to do His work, the chief priests, scribes and Pharisees in the religious world deceived and shackled people and hindered them from following the Lord Jesus by various despicable means, so as to let all the people oppose and condemn the Lord Jesus, and not accept His salvation. In this way, they could consolidate their position and power in people’s hearts. Now when the Lord Jesus comes into flesh again to do His work, He is condemned and slandered by the religious world and the CCP satanic power. It is the satanic power that wildly condemns God’s work; rather, it rumors that we believers in Almighty God don’t want home. Isn’t it confusing right and wrong? All those who have accepted Almighty God’s work are willing to rush about to different places to spread the gospel and perform their duties, because they understand God’s earnest will to save human. While Satan confuses right and wrong, and makes varieties of malicious rumors to condemn and slander God’s work in the last days. It also builds a wall with negative public opinion around us and deceives our relatives and friends, so that they all believe the rumors and then oppose and obstruct our faith in God. However, if we only maintain our emotions and the relations with the unbelievers and if we are fully aware that it’s God’s work yet still choose to leave and give up the true way, won’t we fall into Satan’s cunning scheme? Satan uses our fatal weaknesses to attack us, and attempts to make us leave the true way and lose the opportunity to be saved by God. Yet, God wants us to have discernment through such an environment and to see through the evil substance of Satan’s forces that resist God, so that we can reject Satan and turn to God thoroughly. So we should see clearly the battle in the spiritual realm according to God’s word, look through Satan’s schemes, rely on God and stand testimony. Whether our families leave us is in God’s hand, for everything is determined by God.”
After hearing her fellowship, I was suddenly enlightened and understood: All the things that happened to me are actually battles in the spiritual realm. God wants to save me, while Satan deceives me by every possible means and uses my family to obstruct and disturb my belief in God. God hopes that I can see through Satan’s schemes and stand testimony for God, and He does not want me to lose the chance to be saved. This is His will. At this time, I felt ashamed and humiliated. I saw my stature was too small; when confronting a little setback, I betrayed God and narrowly departed from the true way. However, I vividly experienced God’s salvation to me. Through such environment, I recognized my deficiencies and inadequacies. Meanwhile, in the two short months, I truly felt that I couldn’t leave God. If I left God and lost His supply, even though I owned harmonious family and comfort material life, I would feel empty and painful within. After I knew God’s will, I prayed to God and asked Him to lead me to walk the way ahead, so that I could free from the restriction of my families and continue to follow Him unflinchingly. After prayer, I felt quite calm in my heart.
From then on, I continued to have meetings. In the beginning, I was very afraid. On my way to the meetings, Satan gave me thoughts constantly so I feared that my family would find I went out for meetings. These thoughts made me upset. I immediately prayed to God in my heart and asked God to give me confidence and strength to overcome Satan’s harm and bondage. I thought of God’s words, “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. If man has timid and fearful thoughts, they are being fooled by Satan. It fears that we will cross the bridge of faith to enter into God. Satan devises every way possible to send us its thoughts, we should always pray that the light of God will shine on us, and we must always rely on God to purify us from Satan’s poison. We shall always be practicing in our spirits to come close to God. We shall let God have dominion over our whole being” (“The Sixth Utterance”). With the enlightenment and illumination of God’s words, I felt more peaceful. Thank God! Under the leadership of God’s word, gradually, I was no longer so afraid and could have meetings with the brothers and sisters normally.
Time flied! My son would soon have a vacation for two weeks. In that case, he would stay at home every day. I began to be enshackled again and was worried I couldn’t go out to have meetings. Thereby, I told the sister that I wanted to suspend my meetings for two weeks. She said to me, “Everything that occurs to us is a battle in the spiritual realm. At such times, we should have confidence in and loyalty to God. God’s word says, ‘… only with loyalty can you mount a countercharge against the devil’s cunning’. If we have faith, we will see God’s wondrous deed. God’s wisdom is always exercised based on Satan’s scheme. Let’s pray to God sincerely and see how He guides us.” Her fellowship made me have some confidence again. Then I prayed to God, “Oh, God! I would like to continue to have meetings. May You make a way out for me. May You guide me. …” After my prayer, I saw God is really faithful. God’s work is so marvelous. Two days before my meetings, my son told me that he would have lessons at school during the holiday. It happened to be the time when I had meetings. Hearing his word, I was indeed pleased. Really thank God! For me there was much difficulty, but nothing is difficult for God. What God wanted was my heart to obey Him and cooperate with Him.
Nowadays, this experience is still deeply engraved on my heart. I appreciated God’s almightiness and wisdom, and realized God’s thoughtful intentions of His salvation for me in His work. To save me from the influence of Satan, God arranged the environments practically, so as to make me see through Satan’s schemes and substance of corrupting and devouring people. Meantime, He enlightened and led me to learn to seek the truth and depend on Him in difficulties. When I practiced like this, He gave me confidence and courage to break through the influence of darkness, making me truly see that Almighty God is the only one true God who presides over all things and controls everything! On this account, I was more certain about Almighty God’s work in the last days. I am ready to pursue the truth hard and follow Him to the very end forever. Amen!
