📒 God’s Discipline Made Me Examine Myself; God’s Word Conquered Me | The Church of Almighty God

Zhang Congxian

Fuyang City, Anhui Province

I was formerly a leader in the Born Again Church. Since 1997, the believers in the Almighty God had been constantly preaching the gospel to me, no matter whether it was windy or rainy, extremely hot or bitterly cold, daytime or nighttime. However, I always retorted upon them, saying, “‘The Eastern Lightning’ you preach is a female Christ. Don’t deceive me. Moreover, you cannot deceive me. I have searched the whole Bible. It never says that God will be incarnated the second time, much less as a female Christ. You say that God has been incarnated the second time. It is a deceitful lie and is purely a heresy, a cult! Believers in God should take the Bible as the standard. Anything apart from the Bible is not to be believed. Even if you come ten thousand times, I absolutely will not accept!” And I often used Alarm Bell (a handbook printed by our Born Again Church specially for blaspheming and resisting the Almighty God’s end-time work) to seal the churches and said to the brothers and sisters many times, “‘The Eastern Lightning’ is a heresy, a cult. Take strict precautions against it! None of you can receive them or dispute with them, because you cannot match them in dispute. Even less should you listen to them. Once you listen, you will be deceived, and once you go in, you cannot get out.They even cut off others’ noses, gouge out others’ eyes, and commit sexual immorality. They are the ones who drag people into hell and into the lake of fire. … Only our Born Again Church is the true way. The Lord has promised us that once saved always saved, and he will definitely come and take us to heaven. We absolutely cannot accept ‘the Eastern Lightning’!” In this way, I condemned and resisted the Almighty God’s end-time work all along.

One Sunday in early June of 2002, I prayed in the church: “O Lord! May you curse and punish those who preach ‘the Eastern Lightning,’ because they deceive your children everywhere. They are the ones who kill lives, destroy souls, and drag people into hell. They are much more the ones who act in opposition to you. O Lord! May you treat them with righteousness and strike them down with the sword of the Holy Spirit!” As soon as I finished those words, I felt dizzy as if the sky and the earth were spinning round, and felt extremely oppressed in my heart as if I were dying. Only after a long time did I go back to normal. On the following Sunday, I prayed again in the church, still asking the Lord to curse and strike down those who preached “the Eastern Lightning.” But the same thing as last time happened, and it was even worse than last time. Right then I examined myself: “Could ‘the Eastern Lightning’ be the true way? Otherwise, how could the Lord discipline me like this? I prayed and cursed them without listening, reading, or investigating. Have I not made a judgment blindly? I cannot continue like this. If anyone comes to preach again, I will listen. If it is the true way, I will accept it.”

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On June 21, a relative of mine came to preach God’s end-time gospel to me again. So, I prayed to God, “O Lord who created the heavens and the earth and all things! You know man’s heart best. I believe in you for gaining you. May you keep me from being deceived. If the end-time gospel they preach is really from you, please inspire me and guide me. I am willing to seek, because you say: ‘Seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you….’” After the prayer, I asked him, “What is the three-stage work? You have to make it clear. If it is true, I will accept.” He said, “When God comes this time, he makes clear all the truths to man and unlocks all the mysteries to man. We’d better read God’s word!” Then, he read me this piece of God’s word “The ‘Savior’ Has Already Returned on the ‘White Cloud.’” God says: “In each age and in each stage of work, my name has representative meaning and is not groundless. That is, each name represents one age. ‘Jehovah’ represents the Age of the Law and is a respectful address by which the Israelites call the God they worship. ‘Jesus’ represents the Age of the Grace and is the name of the God of all those who were redeemed in the Age of the Grace. If in the end time people still expect that the Savior Jesus will come and come still in his image in Judea, then the entire six-thousand-year management plan would stop in the Age of the Redemption and could not advance any further, and the end time would never come and the age would never end. This is because ‘Jesus the Savior’ is only the One who redeemed and saved mankind, and I took the name ‘Jesus’ only for the sake of all the sinners in the Age of the Grace, not for the purpose of ending the whole mankind. Although Jehovah, Jesus, and Messiah represent my Spirit, these several names only represent the different ages in my management plan and do not represent my everything. The names by which people on earth call me cannot fully express all my nature and all that I am. They are only different names by which people call me in the different ages. So when the final age, the last age comes, my name will still change. I will not be called Jehovah or Jesus, much less Messiah, but the powerful Almighty God Godself. I will end the entire age with this name. I was once called Jehovah, and I was once called Messiah by people. And people once called me the Savior Jesus out of love for me. Today, I am no longer Jehovah or Jesus whom people knew before but the God who has returned in the end time and who will end the age and the God Godself who arises from the ends of the earth filled with all my nature and full of authority, honor, and glory. People have never contacted or known me and never known my nature. From the creation of the world until today, no one has ever seen me. This is the God who appears to people in the end time and yet who is hidden among them, living among them true and real, like the burning sun and the flaming fire, full of power and filled with authority. No one and no thing will not be judged in my word. No one and no thing will not be purified by the burning fire. In the end, all nations will be blessed because of my word and will be crushed because of my word. I will make all people in the end time see that I am the returned Savior and I am the Almighty God who conquers all mankind. And I will make all people see that I was once man’s sin offering, but in the end time I become the fire of the burning sun that burns all things and the Sun of righteousness that reveals all things. This is my work in the end time. I take this name and have such nature for the purpose that all people will see that I am the righteous God, the burning sun, and the flaming fire, that all people will worship me—the only true God, and that all people will see my real image: I am not only the God of the Israelites or only the Redeemer, but the God of all created beings in heaven and on earth and in the sea.” As I listened, I pondered over these words. I felt that each word was with power and with authority, they were words no created being could speak, and this was indeed the true way and the expression of the true God! At that time, I had great enjoyment and also felt very brightened in my heart.

Then, we ate and drank another piece of God’s word “Corrupt Mankind Needs Even More the Salvation of the God Incarnated in the ‘Flesh,’” in which God says: “The reason why God is incarnated is that the one he works on is fleshly man corrupted by satan, not the spirit of satan or anything that is not fleshly. Because man’s flesh is corrupted, he takes fleshly man as the one he works on. And even more because man is the one who is corrupted, no matter which stage of the work of salvation he does, he chooses man to be the only one he works on. Man is an ordinary mortal and is fleshly, and God is the only One who can save man. So for God to do his work, it is necessary for him to become flesh that has the same nature as man’s to do the work, so that he can achieve better results of the work. Because man is fleshly and man has no ability to overcome sin and break free from the flesh, for God to do his work, he has to become flesh to do the work.” “The working of the Spirit can only be applicable to a limited scope and cannot replace the working of the flesh. The exact goals for people required by the working of the flesh and the real value of the knowledge people gain through it far surpass the accuracy and the real value of the working of the Spirit. To corrupt people, only exact words, clear goals to pursue, and visible and tangible works are the most valuable works. Only realistic works and timely guidance can fit people’s taste. Only practical works can save people from their corrupt and fallen nature, and these can only be achieved by the incarnated God. Only the incarnated God can save people from their corrupt and fallen old nature.” “The greatest advantage of working in the flesh is that he can leave with those who follow him his exact words, his exact charges, and his exact intentions for mankind. Then those who follow him can preach all the works he has done in the flesh and his intentions for all mankind in a more accurate and practical way to everyone who accepts this way. Only when the God in the flesh works among men has the reality that God is with men and lives with men been fulfilled and has the wish that all men see God’s face and see God’s work and hear God’s personal word been realized.” From God’s words, I knew the necessity and great significance of God’s incarnation, and realized that no matter whether God did the work in the Spirit or in the flesh, he did it according to the need of the corrupt mankind, and that man should not be so devoid of reason as to circumscribe God’s work, much less measure God’s work according to his notions. In the past, I had believed that God would never be incarnated the second time; this notion was resolved completely. However, I was still unable to accept God’s being incarnated as a female. So, we continued to eat and drink God’s word: “Every stage of work done by God has practical significance. At that time when Jesus came, he was a male. This time when God comes, he is a female. From this you can see that God’s creating both man and woman can be for his work and with God there is no gender. When his Spirit comes, he can put on any flesh as he wants, and this flesh can represent him. Whether this flesh is a male or a female, he can represent God as long as he is God’s incarnated flesh. …” God’s word is a sovereign remedy. It cured the illness in my spirit and made me fully certain about the Almighty God’s end-time work.

Later, during my contact with the brothers and sisters who believed in the Almighty God, I observed them carefully and found that none of them had his nose cut off or his eyes gouged out, and even less were they promiscuous. God’s administrative decrees give very strict requirements for his followers. The fourth decree says: “Man has corrupt nature and even more has emotions. So, in serving in coordination, all are forbidden to coordinate with the opposite sex alone. If they are discovered to do so, they shall be expelled, no matter who they are.” This shows that God is holy, and God does not allow filthiness to exist in his family. Only then did I see clearly that what were written in Alarm Bell were all rumors that blasphemed and slandered God. They were purely venomous slanders! Alarm Bell was a knife to kill without spilling blood, and even more a bowl of magic potion. Too many lives had been ruined by it. Thus we could see how evil the intentions of the writers of Alarm Bell were.

“In the past, I believed in God in an utterly foolish way. I stubbornly observed the letters of the Bible and acted as a watchdog of the Bible. I shouldn’t have been so stubborn, much less have disobeyed and resisted God like that. I am so devoid of reason and so inhuman that I have made God suffer so much for me. I am really indebted to God. There is no way for me to make up for my past offenses, and it is really too late for me to regret.” As I thought of this, I felt so distressed that I could not refrain from tears.

The above is my real experience of how I changed from resisting the Almighty God to accepting him. According to what I did, I really deserved to be cursed by God. But the Almighty God only disciplined me to make me examine myself, so that I have tasted God’s righteous nature and seen that whatever God does is love and salvation for man. Thank God for saving me and giving me the second life and the opportunity to start a new life! Today, I write down my evil deeds of disobeying and resisting God. I hope that brothers and sisters can take warning from them. Never hurt God’s heart like me anymore, otherwise you will only end up ruining yourself. Won’t it be the biggest failure of a believer in God? I hope that brothers and sisters will wake up soon. Do not believe the rumors or put blind faith in your leaders anymore. Accept the Almighty God’s end-time work immediately. Only the Almighty God is our salvation!

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