Now, more and more people have heard about Almighty God and The Church of Almighty God. In 1991, the incarnate God appeared under the name of Almighty God, and began His work in China. On the basis of the Lord Jesus’ redemptive work in the Age of Grace, He does the work of judgment beginning with God’s family, as prophesied in the Bible. He is unlocking all the mysteries in God’s six-thousand-year management plan for mankind, and is expressing all the truths for purifying and saving mankind. Because of Almighty God’s appearance and work, many long-term believers in the Lord, in all denominations, have confirmed through reading His words that Almighty God is the returned Lord Jesus, and thus they have accepted Almighty God’s work in the last days. As more and more people began to follow Almighty God, The Church of Almighty God gradually expanded. Subsequently, like all house churches in China, The Church of Almighty God has been suppressed and persecuted continuously by the atheistic CCP government. Especially ever since the kingdom gospel was spread widely in 2012, the CCP government has been crafting rumors to slander The Church of Almighty God via the media. Meanwhile, it does its utmost to persecute and arrest the believers in Almighty God. Thus, the eyes of the world are now focused on The Church of Almighty God. In recent years, the CCP government has used the Internet to spread various rumors to smear The Church of Almighty God without restraint. It says that, “Christianity publicizes that family is important and that mothers should not leave their children. But in Beijing alone, about thirty thousand families have been abandoned by the believers in Almighty God. They leave their families to preach the gospel; thus many families have been broken” and “The believers in Almighty God all forsake their families and don’t look after their children.” When you see these accusations, will you believe them, suspect them or want to investigate them? Let’s discuss this issue together.

It Is Heaven’s Law and Earth’s Principle to Follow God’s Will, So How Can the Rumors of Families Being Broken Be Rational?

The CCP deceives people by saying, “Christianity publicizes that family is important.” It misleads people that the church in the Age of Grace paid attention to keeping families intact while The Church of Almighty God allows believers to abandon their families. But please remember that the atheistic CCP government doesn’t even admit there is a God at all, so how can it understand Christianity correctly? Is its propaganda worth trusting? Two thousand years ago, the Lord Jesus taught His followers: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). “He that loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37). “So likewise, whoever he be of you that forsakes not all that he has, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33). “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like to it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40). From the Lord’s words, we can see that the Lord Jesus didn’t teach people to only love their family and relatives. He taught people that if they value their family and relatives above God, then they were unworthy of being His disciples. That God gives us a family is to make us honor our parents, love our spouse, and glorify Him and benefit our family. But God’s intention is not to cause us to forget Him for the sake of our family. Because God’s purpose of creating mankind is to allow us to worship Him, manifest Him, carry out His will and fulfill our duties as created beings on earth. Since we believe in God, we should magnify and exalt Him in everything. At any time, we should put His commission first and our personal affairs second. When God calls on us, we should be able to put aside our personal interests without hesitation to expend ourselves for Him and satisfy His requirements. This is the key behavioral principle of believers in God, and shows conscience and sense. By doing this, we will be blessed by God. The Lord Jesus said: “Truly I say to you, There is no man that has left house, or parents, or brothers, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God’s sake, Who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting” (Luke 18:29-30). From these verses, we see that the phrase, “Christianity publicizes that family is important,” used by the CCP is groundless. Only God’s word is the truth. Since we believe in God, we should believe in His word and practice according to His requirements. If a church only propagates focusing on family and paying attention to material life, that church is not a part of true Christianity. A true one is under the authority of God’s words and the truth, and its believers all practice according to God’s words. If a Christian only enjoys the blessings of domestic harmony and the happiness of family gatherings, and regards his or her family and relatives as more important than obeying God and satisfying Him, they will completely violate God’s will and won’t be considered a true Christian. Even if their family get along harmoniously and love each other how can they receive God’s approval? Whoever only enjoys God’s grace but ignores God’s will is an ingrate. This is just like many modern relationships between parents and children. Parents bring their children up and help them establish their families and their careers. But when they grow up, they only look after their own little family rather than care for their parents. Such people are ungrateful and seriously lack humanity. So the CCP’s opinion that “The believers of the Church of Almighty God abandon families and children and break families by preaching the gospel” is absolutely absurd.

Looking back to the Age of Law, the prophet Samuel was brought to the temple and dedicated to Jehovah God by his mother after he had just been weaned; the prophet Jeremiah left his parents before he married, and spread the word of Jehovah God all his life far and wide; in the Age of Grace, the twelve apostles, including Peter and John, all cast aside their families, houses and lands to follow the Lord Jesus. Especially after the Lord Jesus ascended to heaven, many disciples and apostles wandered around for years in order to spread the Lord’s gospel to other countries. Did these prophets and apostles abandon and break their families? The British missionary Hudson Taylor came to China to spread the gospel when he was 22, and he passed away in China; the American missionary Lottie Moon arrived in China to spread the gospel when she was 33 and died on a ship back to America in her seventies. There were also many other missionaries from other countries who made long journeys and brought the seed of the gospel to China. In order to spread the gospel of the Lord Jesus, they came to China. Can we say that they broke their families by spreading the gospel? Wouldn’t they have liked to enjoy the happiness of a family life? Of course they would! But they did their missionary work because they knew that it was the redemption of God’s crucifixion that forgave their sins and saved them from violence; they got the greatest salvation of God and saw the deeds of God. They remembered the teachings of the Lord all the time, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment” (Matthew 22:37-38). As created beings, they knew that they should sacrifice for God, devote themselves to spreading the gospel and make more souls return to God. Think of the two-thousand-year history of the Age of Grace. If there weren’t those apostles, disciples and missionaries who devoted and lost their lives to the gospel work one after another, then how could we, born in this country run by an atheistic government, enjoy the salvation of the Lord Jesus? How could the gospel of the Lord Jesus have been spread all over the world?

Today in the last days, God incarnate does the work to save mankind and He has put forward His requirements for the Christians who accept His work of the last days. Almighty God says, “You must know I am the One who bestows life unto mankind, and it is you who receive life from Me and must bear witness for Me. This is your duty which I send down upon you and which you ought to do for Me” (“What Do You Know of Faith?” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “Are you aware of the burden on your shoulders, your commission, and your responsibility? Where is your sense of historic mission? … They are poor, pitiable, blind, and at a loss, wailing in the darkness—where is the way? How they yearn for the light, like a shooting star, to suddenly descend and dispel the forces of darkness that have oppressed man for so many years. Who can know the full extent to which they anxiously hope, and how they pine, day and night, for this? Even on a day when the light flashes past, these deeply suffering people remain imprisoned in a dark dungeon without hope of release; when will they weep no longer? Terrible is the misfortune of these fragile spirits who have never been granted rest, and long have they been kept bound in this state by merciless bonds and frozen history. And who has heard the sound of their wailing? Who has looked upon their miserable state? Has it ever occurred to you how grieved and anxious God’s heart is? How can He bear to see innocent mankind, whom He created with His own hands, suffering such torment? Human beings, after all, are the victims who have been poisoned. And although man has survived to this day, who would have known that mankind has long been poisoned by the evil one? Have you forgotten that you are one of the victims? Are you not willing to strive, out of your love for God, to save these survivors?” (“How Should You Attend to Your Future Mission?” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “As members of the human race and devout Christians, it is the responsibility and obligation of us all to offer up our minds and bodies for the fulfillment of God’s commission, for our entire being came from God, and it exists thanks to the sovereignty of God. If our minds and bodies are not for God’s commission and not for the righteous cause of mankind, then our souls will be unworthy of those who were martyred for God’s commission, and much more unworthy of God, who has provided us with everything” (“God Presides Over the Fate of All Mankind” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).

God tells us clearly that obeying Him and satisfying His requirements are our inescapable responsibility and duty as His creatures. Thus, in order to let those brothers and sisters of all denominations longing for God’s appearance hear the personal utterances of God and get His salvation of the last days soon, many Christians who have accepted Almighty God’s work of the last days give up their family and career. They devote their youth to serving God, expend themselves for God and perform their duties heart and soul. They busy themselves spreading God’s kingdom gospel and bringing the people living in darkness before God. They are fulfilling their responsibilities and duties as created beings. Just like in a family where the husband has to make money outside the home, so he cannot be at his wife and children’s side all day. Can we say that he is forsaking his wife and children and breaking his family? Since he performs his familial duty, nobody will blame him. Similarly, the brothers and sisters of The Church of Almighty God leave their families to perform their duties. They are performing their obligations and duties as God’s creatures; their deeds are proper and just. How can we say that their going to spread the gospel results in them forsaking and breaking their families? If they didn’t preach God’s words or testify to God’s work, many people wouldn’t have the opportunity to come before God and accept the last-days salvation of Almighty God. Then, what would the ending be if the whole world lay in wickedness? Would those sinners, like the people in Noah’s time, be destroyed by a great flood, or, like the people of Sodom, die in fire and brimstone? If so, how could God’s original intention when He created humanity and the price of efforts in His six-thousand-year management plan be realized? So it is heaven’s law and earth’s principle for Christians to forsake everything and expend themselves for God.

Does the CCP Destroy Believers’ Families or Do Christians Themselves Forsake Their Own Families?

The CCP says that the Christians of The Church of Almighty God forsake their families to spread the gospel, but it is obviously just creating rumors and trying to frame these believers. In fact, believers in Almighty God perform their duties out of principle, and completely out of their own willingness. “Principles for Establishing a Church and Managing Church Life” points out clearly: “Dedicating one’s entire being to expend for God should be based on one’s own choice. Some people dedicate themselves to spread the gospel, others serve in churches. Some people dedicate their entire being to expend for God full time. Others can only expend themselves for God part of the time. This all depends on the choices people are willing to make; God’s family does not force people to do things.” From this, we can see that there is only a small proportion of people forsaking their family to spread the gospel. Most believers still farm, have jobs and live the family life. They attend church meetings and perform some duties within their powers according to the circumstances they live under, because God doesn’t ask us all to leave our families to work for Him.

Nowadays, if most believers have left their family it is not because they want to forsake their family but because of the wild persecution of the CCP. Since the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, the CCP has done its utmost to attack religious beliefs. Most of the Protestant and Catholic churches have been completely shut down, confiscated or their members forced to join the Three-Self Church by the CCP government. Many house churches have been forcibly abolished, and house meetings have also been strictly forbidden. Countless Christians have been persecuted cruelly by the CCP for believing in God. Especially since Christ of the last days, Almighty God, started His work in China, the CCP government has called numerous emergency meetings to scheme how to abolish The Church of Almighty God, and it has many secret files on the church. It has also conducted nationwide mass arrests of the believers in Almighty God on unwarranted charges such as “endangering the social stability,” “subverting the government,” and so on. Moreover, it has tried various contemptible ways to create rumors to defame and frame The Church of Almighty God and deceive China’s citizens, and its police even cruelly torture believers in Almighty God. Many of the believers are injected with drugs and subsequently develop schizophrenia; some are so badly maimed by the torture that they are unable to take care of themselves afterward; some are imprisoned in labor camps and, after their release, are still monitored by the CCP government and deprived of their personal freedom. For example, Liu Qi, (male, 24 years old) a Christian in Xinmi City, Henan Province, was arrested by the CCP police when he was spreading the gospel on December 7, 2012. During the period of his arrest, he suffered extremely brutal torture by the CCP police. When he was released after completing his sentence in December, 2015, he was deranged and delirious. Ma Kun, (female, 44 years old) a Christian in Xingyang City, Henan Province, was arrested by the CCP police and was beaten so badly she is now disabled; when she walks, her right leg cannot bend and her head always leans to the left. Jiang Guizhi (female, 46 years old) a Christian in Qinghe District of Pingyu County, Henan Province, was arrested and imprisoned by the CCP police on January 4th, 2013 in Xinmi City, Henan Province. Then the police used torture on her to extract a confession. In the early morning of February 12th, Jiang died as a result of the physical abuse inflicted by the police. Gao Cuiqin (female, 53 years old), a Christian in Suozhen Town of Huantai County, Zibo City, Shandong Province, was arrested on July 15th, 2014. Two days later, she was electrocuted to death when the CCP police were torturing her with an electric baton. The cases listed above are just a few examples among the many cases of Christians being persecuted by the CCP. In fact, as documented, dozens of Christians in The Church of Almighty God have been fatally abused by the CCP government in the past 20 plus years. Nearly one million believers have been arrested by the CCP police, and some of them were sentenced to imprisonment; this is an ironclad fact. Therefore, it is not that we forsake our families, but because we are hunted and persecuted by the CCP that we cannot return home. We have drifted and wandered for so long, so how could we not miss our families? As normal people of flesh and blood, don’t we long to go home to look after our parents, raise our children and enjoy family happiness? But the CCP deprives us of all those rights. Moreover, the CCP usually employs the feudal measure of “zhulian,” which means once we are arrested by the police, not only will we be in danger of imprisonment, cruel torture, and even death, but our homes will be ransacked, and our families will be forced to pay fines and will be ceaselessly monitored and hassled by them. How many times when we miss our families are we only able to pray to God with tears in our eyes? How many times when we feel weak within are we only able to fellowship about God’s words to gain spiritual strength with the sisters and brothers suffering the same persecution? It is the CCP’s frenzied arrests that break our families apart. However, it falsely accuses us of forsaking our families and breaking our families by spreading the gospel. It is completely distorting the truth.

What’s the Intention of This Atheistic Government in Doing Its Utmost to Craft Rumors Against God and Slander God?

Why does the CCP do its utmost to craft rumors against The Church of Almighty God? What on earth is its purpose? Many people see it clearly: This party of devils resolutely smears, frames and condemns The Church of Almighty God and arrests and persecutes Christians without restraint because it wants to turn China into a godless nation forever, a place where there are no Christians and no preachers spreading the gospel. All these things it does are for maintaining its dictatorial rule, controlling the Chinese people forever, bullying and oppressing the Chinese people as it pleases, and eventually torturing them to death and dragging them into hell. The CCP is an evil, satanic regime which hates the truth and God the most. It knows only Almighty God can express the truth in the world and He is doing the work of judging, purifying and saving mankind in the last days. But now the words of Almighty God have already been made public online so that the entire human race can seek and investigate them. The evil CCP is very afraid that once the words of Almighty God are publicly proclaimed, all the just people who love the truth will return to Almighty God. Then its satanic, devilish nature of hating the truth and resisting God will be completely exposed to the light and the entire human race will abandon it. If so, it will lose its base in China and it won’t be able to corrupt or harm people in the world anymore. Therefore, it very much hates all the truths expressed by Almighty God and His church, and tries to stop people from accepting the true way and turning back to Almighty God by using many methods. Only by clearly seeing its satanic, devilish face and its intent and purpose in creating rumors will we no longer believe the rumors and reject the work of Almighty God.