The Church Became Desolate

When I was in the second year of middle school, our substitute teacher preached the gospel of the Lord Jesus to us. The teacher said that just to redeem man from sin, the Lord Jesus was crucified and shed His precious blood. After I heard that, the great love of the Lord Jesus moved me to tears. I remembered when I was together with my classmates, they always bullied me and then I treated them in violence for my own protection. Thus, we all couldn’t feel the love between people. All I felt wasn’t sincerity but deception. In school, I lived in pain because I even had no one to speak of the words in my heart to. When seeing the Lord Jesus’ sincere and selfless love and His teaching people to love their neighbor as themselves and love one another, I accepted the Lord Jesus under the guidance of our teacher’s firm oath—sacrificing for God faithfully and I resolved to follow the Lord Jesus all my life.

After that, I frequently attended the fellowship of our school. When thinking I should testify for the Lord, I made up my mind to change the bad habit of treating my classmates in violence. Later, when being bullied again by them, I would show them my forbearance and patience according to the Lord Jesus’ teachings instead of fighting with them. Besides, I would learn to help my classmates around me and show love to people by my side. Gradually, the relationship between my classmates and me became more and more harmonious. They all said I seemed to be a changed man. I appreciated that it was the Lord Jesus’ love that changed me and His words that taught me how to be a man. Afterward, the pastor invited me to attend meetings at the church for seeing I positively believed in the Lord in school, and I accepted.

In the church, the pastor often said at meetings: “Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; so shall you be my disciples” (John 15:8). He taught us preaching the gospel was bearing fruit and the more we preached, the more fruit we would bear. Then we would lay up good deeds in heaven and surely receive the Lord’s blessing. Thinking of the love of the Lord and many blessings and benefits I got after believing in the Lord, I felt I should preach the gospel to more people. Thus, I preached actively and some of my classmates also received the Lord Jesus’ grace.

Several years later, I discovered that congregation numbers started to fall and that the sermons the pastor gave were outdated and repetitious without new light and unable to resolve problems and provide for the spiritual life needs of us. Also, I often lived in sin, failing to get along well with my classmates. After this, I felt guilty in my heart and knew I didn’t practice the Lord’s requirements. However, I could not control myself nor could I free myself from sin. All I did was just longing to be brought into the kingdom of heaven early by the Lord Jesus in my heart. And in this way, I could free from sin instantly to enter God’s kingdom, no longer living in anxiety.

Seeking Humbly, I Opened Up My Heart

Just when I longed for the Lord Jesus’ return eagerly, I got acquainted with a sister online, and some other brothers and sisters afterward. We got together to share the Bible and discussed how the Lord would return. One of the sisters read me some passages from the Bible: “But of that day and that hour knows no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father” (Mark 13:32). “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” (Matthew 24:27). “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20). She fellowshiped: “From the Bible we can see the return of the Lord will be ‘the coming of the Son of man.’ In other words, He will come through incarnation instead of descending with the clouds. If He comes with clouds and appears in His spiritual body, all of us will see His power and bow to the ground to welcome Him, and so, there’s no need for the Lord to knock. It’s only God incarnate as the Son of man who will knock.” When listening, I felt it was different from what our pastor said. I thought: Will the Lord not come with clouds? Why did they say the Lord will incarnate? What’s going on? The sister’s fellowship is very enlightening. If the Lord descends upon a white cloud, He needn’t knock; if He knocks, He should incarnate as the Son of man. What they communicated conforms with Bible. Then I go on listening a little more. However, when dimly hearing “The Word Appears in the Flesh,” “Almighty God” from their fellowship, I felt some resistance in my heart. The pastor once said some words of condemnation and blasphemy against Almighty God. Additionally, he asked us not to believe in Almighty God, and said whom they believe in was merely a man and that it contravened the prophecy of the Lord coming on a cloud. When thinking of these, I was unwilling to listen to them any longer for fear of being deceived. Then I told them, “I can’t understand very well. I won’t gather for now. I need to seek first.” They tried to persuade me to stay and said that if I had any questions, we could seek fellowship together. But I still refused them. After that, I didn’t gather together with them.

Afterward, I went on the internet to search for the information of The church of Almighty God. I found many negative rumors about The church of Almighty God. Again I asked the pastor and elder about Almighty God. Also, they said many words of condemnation and slanders against The church of Almighty God, and said the brothers and sisters from The church of Almighty God were no good. I was very confused in my heart and didn’t know who I should listen to. As a result, I quieted down and prayed to the Lord: “Lord, I’m consumed by difficulties: Both of the sisters from The church of Almighty God and the pastor seem to be correct. I don’t know whose words I should take. I am afraid of being deceived and even more afraid of losing Your salvation for a wrong choice. Lord, it’s almost seven years since I believed in You and I deeply believe that You are real. I am willing to let go of and deny my own conceptions first and entrust myself to Your hands. May you lead and guide me.” After I prayed, I thought about my interactions with the brothers and sisters of The church of Almighty God. I felt that all they fellowshiped was very enlightening and that they treated people with sincerity and love as well. Being with them, I felt as if we were family. They simply are not the way that the rumors on the internet and the pastor purported them to be. Do the pastor and elder truly know The church of Almighty God? They condemn and slander The church of Almighty God as well as distorting the facts in order to smear the brothers and sisters of The church of Almighty God. What they do doesn’t conform with the fact. I thought: I can’t simply believe the rumors from the internet and the pastor’s words. As for what The church of Almighty God is like, I will figure it out instead of acting recklessly. What if it happens Almighty God is the appearance of the Lord Jesus, won’t I become the one that refuses God? I must ask the brothers and sisters from The church of Almighty God for the sake of knowing the truth.

One day later, I took the initiative to gather together with the brothers and sisters from The church of Almighty God. I sought fellowship with the sisters: “You testify that Almighty God is the appearance of the Lord Jesus and that the Lord won’t come on a cloud but by becoming flesh. Is there any evidence in the Bible?” Patiently, a sister read me some verses from the Bible: “Be you therefore ready also: for the Son of man comes at an hour when you think not” (Luke 12:40). “For as the lightning, that lightens out of the one part under heaven, shines to the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day. But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation” (Luke 17:24–25). The sister fellowshiped: “From these verses we can see that the day and hour of the Lord’s coming aren’t known by anyone, not even by the incarnate Son of man. Only after the incarnate God’s beginning His ministry formally will He publicly stand as testament to His identity and His work that He will do. It’s just like the Lord Jesus. He didn’t know He was God when being young. Not until He began His ministry at the age of 29 did He know that He was Christ. Similarly, today we all don’t know the Lord Jesus has returned in flesh coming among people. We can only know it when the Holy Spirit sends forth His voice to testify that God has become flesh again and done the work of the new age. In addition, these verses mention ‘suffer many things’ and ‘the Son of man.’ So, that’s further proof that the Lord Jesus will come again through incarnation. If He comes in a spiritual body, it can in no way be considered as ‘suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation.’ Besides, the spiritual body can’t be called the Son of man. Only the incarnate God can be called the Son of man or Christ.”

After hearing the sister’s fellowship, I thought she was right: It’s only God incarnate as the Son of man who will suffer many hardships and be rejected by this generation. If He were to come in His spiritual body, who would dare to reject and resist Him? Then He wouldn’t have to suffer many hardships. In the past I have seen “the Son of man” in the Bible many times, yet I still can’t understand mysteries within it. If God didn’t reveal the mystery, then who would know it? In the past I didn’t understand the Bible or know God, and consequently, I confined the return of the Lord within the limits of my own conceptions and imagination. I would really be in the dark because of the rumors from the internet and the pastor, but that I sought immediately. Apparently, I’d better know more about God’s work of the last days.

The Mystery of the Incarnation

Then, the sister asked me, “Brother, do you know what the incarnation is?” Hearing this question, I didn’t know how to answer for no one had ever asked me this question and I also had never thought about it. Then I sought fellowship with the sister and she read me two passages from God: “The ‘incarnation’ is God’s appearance in the flesh; God works among created mankind in the image of the flesh. So for God to be incarnated, He must first be flesh, flesh with normal humanity; this is the most basic prerequisite. In fact, the implication of God’s incarnation is that God lives and works in the flesh, that God in His very essence becomes flesh, becomes a man.” “The Christ with normal humanity is a flesh in which the Spirit is realized, and is possessed of normal humanity, normal sense, and human thought. ‘Being realized’ means God becoming man, the Spirit becoming flesh; to put it more plainly, it is when God Himself inhabits a flesh with normal humanity, and through it expresses His divine work—this is what it means to be realized, or incarnated.” She said: “The incarnation is God’s spirit clothed in flesh, that is, God becomes a person working and speaking among man. This flesh possesses normal humanity, but also possesses complete divinity. Though the incarnate God seems ordinary and normal on the outside, He is able to do the work of God Himself, express the voice of God and guide and save mankind. Because He has a complete divinity, the incarnate God is unlike any one of created men, and He is the flesh in which God’s spirit materialized and Christ as well.” After hearing God’s words and the sister’s fellowship, I understood that the meaning of incarnation is that God becomes a person and comes to earth to do the work of saving mankind. The incarnation has normal humanity and complete divinity. And He is the incarnate God, or Christ.

But I was not quite clear on what the pastor said: “Belief in Almighty God is belief in a human.” Then, I continued to ask the sister, and she read me some more of God’s words: “The incarnate God is called Christ, and Christ is the flesh donned by the Spirit of God. This flesh is unlike any man that is of the flesh. This difference is because Christ is not of flesh and blood; He is the incarnation of the Spirit. He has both a normal humanity and a complete divinity. His divinity is not possessed by any man. His normal humanity sustains all His normal activities in the flesh, while His divinity carries out the work of God Himself.” “Because He is a man with the essence of God, He is above all created humans, above any man who can perform God’s work. And so, among all those with a human shell like His, among all those who possess humanity, only He is the incarnate God Himself—all others are created humans. Though they all have humanity, created humans have nothing but humanity, while God incarnate is different: In His flesh He not only has humanity but, more importantly, divinity. His humanity can be seen in the outer appearance of His flesh and in His everyday life, but His divinity is difficult to perceive. Because His divinity is expressed only when He has humanity, and is not as supernatural as people imagine it to be, it is extremely difficult for people to see. Even today, people have the utmost difficulty fathoming the true essence of the incarnate God. Even after I have spoken about it at such length, I expect it is still a mystery to most of you. In fact, this issue is very simple: Since God becomes flesh, His essence is a combination of humanity and divinity. This combination is called God Himself, God Himself on earth.” “The flesh worn by the Spirit of God is God’s own flesh. The Spirit of God is supreme; He is almighty, holy, and righteous. Likewise, His flesh is also supreme, almighty, holy, and righteous. Such a flesh can only do that which is righteous and beneficial to mankind, that which is holy, glorious, and mighty; He is incapable of doing anything that violates the truth, that violates morality and justice, and much less is He capable of anything that would betray God’s Spirit. The Spirit of God is holy, and thus His flesh is incorruptible by Satan; His flesh is of a different essence than the flesh of man. For it is man, not God, who is corrupted by Satan; Satan could not possibly corrupt the flesh of God. Thus, despite the fact that man and Christ dwell within the same space, it is only man who is possessed, used, and entrapped by Satan. By contrast, Christ is eternally impervious to Satan’s corruption, because Satan will never be capable of ascending to the highest place, and will never be able to draw near to God.”

The sister told me: “The incarnate God has an ordinary and normal appearance but He has a complete divinity. That is to say, the incarnate Christ possesses God’s inherent disposition and substance, including God’s holiness and righteousness, almightiness and wisdom, authority and power, and all that God has and is, and so on. From His appearance alone, Christ is just an ordinary and normal person, but there are substantive differences between Him and all created men. Created man has only humanity, without the slightest trace of divine substance; Christ, however, not only has normal humanity, more importantly, He has complete divinity and God’s substance. Therefore, He can express all truths in God’s identity, express God’s disposition and all that God has and is, and bring the truth, the way and the life to man. None of created men is capable of such feats. Because Christ has complete divinity, He can directly express God’s word, not just convey God’s word. He can express truth anytime and anywhere to supply, water, shepherd and guide all mankind; because Christ has complete divinity, and possesses the identity and substance of God, we can say that the Lord Jesus and Almighty God are God’s incarnation and practical God Himself. Just as the Lord Jesus seemed no different from other ordinary people on the outside, but what He said was full of authority and power. Just as the signs and wonders He performed—feeding five thousand with five loaves of bread and two fish, calming the wind and sea and resurrecting Lazarus—were unable to be done by ordinary people. From God’s work, we can see that the Lord Jesus isn’t an ordinary man but God himself. So, we should know God from His words and work, and can’t know Him just by looking at His physical appearance. The Pharisees only looked at the Lord Jesus’ appearance, saying, ‘Is that not a Nazarene, the son of a carpenter?’ This is because the Lord Jesus’ flesh was too ordinary and normal, which flew in the face of all of man’s conceptions and imaginations. The Pharisees didn’t know the Lord Jesus’ divine substance, so they fanatically condemned the Lord Jesus’ words and work, and even crucified Him at last, committing a heinous crime. Nowadays, confronted with Almighty God’s work of judgment in the last days, religious pastors and elders not only don’t search or investigate but also condemn and blaspheme the work of Almighty God. Don’t they treat Almighty God as an ordinary man? Are their actions any different from the Pharisees before?”

When I heard it, I thought what the sister communed was very clear and understandable. I said: “There is no difference. The pastors and elders judge and condemn Almighty God’s work in the last days without searching and investigating. They are resisting God! If we believe the words of the pastors and elders and don’t search or investigate the work of Almighty God like them, then we lack good judgment and also are resisting God. The words expressed by Almighty God indeed have authority and power. No man can speak these words. If God had not said these, then who would have been able to express these truths? I almost believed what my pastor and elder said and falsely thought that believing in Almighty God is believing in a human. I am too foolish.” The sister said happily: “So, you should carefully seek Almighty God’s work in the last days so as not to miss the chance to meet the Lord.” I nodded gravely.

Hearing God’s Voice and Welcoming the Lord’s Appearance

The sister continued reading me another passage of God’s words: “‘He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’ Have you now heard the words of the Holy Spirit? The words of God have come upon you. Do you hear them? God does the work of words in the last days, and such words are those of the Holy Spirit, for God is the Holy Spirit and can also become flesh; therefore, the words of the Holy Spirit, as spoken of in the past, are the words of God incarnate today. There are many absurd people who believe that since it is the Holy Spirit talking, His voice should speak from the heavens for people to hear. Anyone who thinks this way does not know the work of God. In truth, the utterances spoken by the Holy Spirit are those spoken by God become flesh. The Holy Spirit cannot speak directly to man; even in the Age of Law, Jehovah did not speak directly to the people. Would it not be far less likely that He would do so in this age today? For God to speak utterances to carry out work, He must become flesh; otherwise, His work would not be able to accomplish its goals. Those who deny God incarnate are those who do not know the Spirit or the principles by which God works.” She started fellowshiping, “God’s sheep hear God’s voice. Only those who humbly seek can recognize God’s voice and behold His appearance from the words expressed by Him. Thus they closely follow God’s footsteps and gain God’s salvation in the end.”

After listening to the sister’s fellowship, I understood that to seek the true way, we must hear God’s voice according to Almighty God’s word. Only in this way can we welcome the appearance of God. I pondered God’s words: That’s right. God’s revelation is in His words. If we don’t get to know the word of Almighty God, then how can we receive God’s revelation? I also thought: If the Lord Jesus came upon a white cloud, all people would have accepted Him. Then, how could we discern which people are the wheat or the tares? Therefore, the returned Lord must become flesh and arrive secretly, and only in this way can we see through the true believers and false believers. God’s work is too wise! Besides, I also was able to distinguish, and saw clearly the pastors and elders’ essential nature of serving God but resisting God. To save their positions and livelihoods, they wantonly condemn the work of Almighty God, even spread rumors everywhere to deceive believers and block believers from seeking and examining the work of Almighty God in the last days. They walk the path of the Pharisees, and are the antichrists, who resist God. I no longer believed the rumors from the internet and religious pastors and elders.

If it weren’t for God’s guidance and protection, I would almost have missed the opportunity to welcome the Lord. If it weren’t for all aspects of the truth expressed by God incarnate, I would have never heard His voice and witnessed His appearance. It is absolutely necessary that Almighty God incarnate does the work of saving man. Thinking about it now, it is really God’s great love and grace. Later, the brothers and sisters fellowshiped with me about some truths concerning the three stages of God’s work, God’s name and the truth of the Bible, and so on. After over a month of search and investigation, I confirmed that Almighty God is the second coming of the Lord Jesus. Additionally, I understood that if we want to free from sin, we must accept God’s work of judgment in the last days, and only in this way can we be purified thoroughly and enter the kingdom of heaven.

Receiving God’s Salvation, I Lived Out the Likeness of a Christian

Once, my classmate called me by my nickname. And in return, I called him by his nickname, thinking it was funny. My classmates already hated and ignored me gradually for I often called them by their nicknames. I didn’t know what to do, feeling very distressed. After that, I read these words of the fellowship and sermons from the above, “I don’t oppose playing jokes, but it is not acceptable to play the impious and dirty jokes. Speaking in a humorous manner and making people laugh heartily is most acceptable. But you’d better not play the dirty jokes that are disgusting and sickening. I see many people live out little the likeness of man. Although we humans all have shortcomings, we should not be loose but be polite and respectful to others at least, which is acceptable and beneficial to others. In this way, we won’t shame God’s name and our performing duties will show results.” I thought about my giving nicknames to my classmates. On the surface, I was playing jokes. However, the fact was that I built my joy on their pain, making me have an abnormal relationship with them. That was little the likeness of a Christian, and was not beloved of God. From now on, I should live out a normal humanity and learn to respect others. Afterward, when my classmate called me by my nickname again, I calmly said to him: “That you call people in such a way is not respectful to others, and will make others feel unhappy. Please don’t do this again.” After hearing what I said, he still kept on calling me by my nickname. I couldn’t bear that and wanted to scold him. But, when I was going to get angry with him, I prayed to God: “Oh God! I ask You to quiet my heart down so that I can practice the truth, live out a normal humanity and shame Satan instead of Your name in such an environment. I am willing to live out God’s requirement—loving others as you love yourself, and to stand testimony to satisfy You.” After that, I showed patience to my classmates and learned to respect them. Gradually, they no longer called me by my nickname. Besides, I apologized to my classmates who were given nicknames by me, and asked them not to call each other in that way. And all of them agreed. My relationship with my classmates became normal little by little.

At this time, I realized that experiencing God’s work is indeed able to change people. I found the path to freeing from sin, and had more faith to follow Almighty God. Thank Almighty God for His love and salvation for me. I’ve seen that God won’t mistreat any person but treat any person with justness and righteousness. So long as we seek and investigate with a heart that hunger and thirst for righteousness, God will surely appear to us and guide us to come before Him to gain the provision of life.