Spiritual Warfare: A Septuagenarian Christian’s Joys and Sorrows Dealing With Her Family’s Resistance

By Jinbu, South Korea

A Septuagenarian Welcomes the Lord’s Return

I turned 74 this year. I used to be a member of the Three-Self Church in China, but after my husband passed away I came to South Korea to live with my daughter and her husband. I kept trying to find a church here that possessed the work of the Holy Spirit, but I discovered that the pastors and elders always preached on the same old things and I didn’t gain the least bit of spiritual sustenance. I was feeling really discouraged.

What are the differences between dispositional change and good behavior?

Relevant Words of God:

A transformation in disposition mainly refers to a transformation in people’s nature. The things of a person’s nature cannot be seen from outside behaviors; they are directly related to the worth and significance of their existence. Which is to say, they directly involve a person’s outlooks on life and their values, the things deep within their soul, and their essence. Someone who is unable to accept the truth will have no transformation in these aspects.

Testimony of Faith: How to Overcome the Temptations of Satan (Part 1)

By Geng Xin

Editor’s Note: The Bible records, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). Satan is incredibly insidious, evil and treacherous. It does not want us to attain God’s salvation and so it frequently enacts its deceitful schemes against us in an attempt to make us shun God and betray God, so it can then devour our souls. When we are attacked by Satan’s temptations, how should we deal with them? I trust that Brother Geng Xin’s experiences will allow you to reap some benefit.

How I Nearly Became a Foolish Virgin

By Li Fang, China

In the fall of 2002, Sister Zhao from my denomination, the Church of Truth, brought her niece, Sister Wang, to my home to tell me the great news of the coming of the Lord. After a few days of reading the words of Almighty God and listening to Sister Wang’s detailed fellowship, I understood that, from the creation of the world until now, God has performed three stages of work in order to save mankind. Other truths that I also came to know were God’s adoption of a different name during each stage of His work, the significance of God’s name in each age, and the mystery of God’s incarnation, etc. These truths really came as big eye-openers for me, and I feasted my eyes upon them. I thought to myself: “This way sounds crystal clear, and Almighty God very probably is the returned Lord Jesus, so I’d better make sure I grasp this chance and read more of Almighty God’s words.” Before leaving, Sister Wang left some books of God’s words for me. Whenever I had time during the day, I read God’s words. The more I read them, the more I loved reading them and the more I felt that they were the words of God. After three days I became anxious. I thought: “My son, who is also a believer, and many brothers and sisters in my church still don’t know this great news about the return of the Lord. I’d better hurry up and tell them.”

What are the differences between doing one’s duty and rendering service?

Relevant Words of God:

There is no correlation between the duty of man and whether he is blessed or cursed. Duty is what man ought to fulfill; it is his heaven-sent vocation, and should not depend on recompense, conditions, or reasons. Only then is he doing his duty. To be blessed is when someone is made perfect and enjoys God’s blessings after experiencing judgment. To be cursed is when someone’s disposition does not change after they have experienced chastisement and judgment, it is when they do not experience being made perfect but are punished.

Testimony of Faith: How to Overcome the Temptations of Satan (Part 2)

By Geng Xin

Though when I was tempted this time, I had understood God’s will and not been caught out by Satan’s deceitful scheme, Satan was not quite done yet. Not long after, Satan began to attack me once again.

Competing in This Way, I Benefit Tremendously

By Ma Xin, China

Since my husband was not engaged in honest work, frequently drank alcohol and showed no concern for family matters, I would often sink into bitterness and pain. At a time when I did not have the strength to struggle on, a relative delivered Almighty God’s kingdom gospel to me. Through reading God’s word, I understood: God expresses the truth and does the judgment work of the last days in order to save the human race from the hands of Satan. He instructs man to understand, obey and return to Him so that he can receive His protection and care. As a result, I gladly accepted the work of Almighty God of the last days and quickly started my church life. However, right as I found something I could depend my life upon and felt a sense of joy and cheer, Satan’s temptations pounced on me like a wild beast rushed after its prey and a spiritual war erupted …

What is the difference between understanding the truth and understanding doctrine?

Relevant Words of God:

Coming to a real understanding of the actual meaning in God’s word is no simple matter. Don’t think this way: I can interpret the literal meaning of God’s words, and everyone says it’s good and gives me a thumbs-up, so it counts as understanding God’s word. That is not the same as understanding God’s word. If you have gained some light from within God’s word and you have gotten a sense of the true significance of God’s word, if you can express the significance of God’s word and what they will ultimately achieve, once this is all clear that counts as having some level of understanding of God’s word. So, understanding God’s word is not quite so simple. Just because you can give a flowery explanation of the letter of God’s word does not mean you understand it. No matter how much you can explain the letter of God’s word it is still man’s imagination and way of thinking—it’s useless!

Finding a Church With the Spirit’s Work Resolved My Spiritual Hunger (Part Two)

By Li Yinghua, South Korea

Investigating The Church of Almighty God Opened My Eyes

A few days later Brother Zhongcheng invited me to the church and only then did I know that it was called The Church of Almighty God. He read many of Almighty God’s words for me and showed me the church’s website, which has videos of recitations of Almighty God’s words, choral videos, all sorts of videos of singing and dancing, gospel films, crosstalks, short sketches, and testimonies of personal experiences written by brothers and sisters—all these works bear witness to God. It really opened my eyes. Brother Zhongcheng also said that branches of The Church of Almighty God are being established in many countries all over the world and that Almighty God’s words have been translated into more than 20 languages so that those who hunger for God’s appearance from all over the world can get onto their site to seek and investigate. Seeing all this content, I felt that without God’s guidance there’s no way they could have produced so many great works bearing witness to God. I became even more certain that this church does have the Holy Spirit’s work and I really gave thanks to the Lord for guiding me to meet brothers and sisters from The Church of Almighty God. Brother Zhongcheng then said to me happily, “Sister,

What Are the Aims of The Church of Almighty God?

The Church of Almighty God waters and shepherds its believers in complete accordance with the words of God in the Bible and The Word Appears in the Flesh expressed by Almighty God, so that every believer can, under the guidance, provision, watering, and shepherding of the words of Almighty God, understand all of the truths in God’s words, possess the right outlook on life and values, have the right goals to pursue, follow the way of God, hold on to God’s commissions, glorify God by being the light of the world and salt of the earth, be praised by God, and be qualified to inherit God’s promises.

You say that God becomes flesh in the last days to do the work of judgment. Does this have any basis in the Bible, or fulfill any biblical prophecies? Without a biblical basis, we shouldn’t be so quick to believe it.

Answer: Any major incidents of God’s work are prophesied in the Bible, and there are quite a few prophecies relating to the second coming of the Lord Jesus and God’s work of judgment in the last days. But what we should understand is that prophecies only tell people what will happen. They are reminders for people to be watchful and to seek and investigate carefully in the last days, so they won’t be abandoned or eliminated by God. That’s all the prophecies can do. The prophecies can’t help us know God’s work, nor understand the truth, or help us obey God, or increase our love for God. So, our best course is to directly investigate the words expressed by Almighty God, and the work done by Him, and from these determine whether they are truly God’s voice and expression. That is the most important, and wisest, course of action. This is much more realistic and useful than searching for a basis in biblical prophecies. We all know that when the Lord Jesus came to do work, the apostles and believers who followed Him only recognized gradually, through His work and words, that the Lord Jesus was Christ, the Messiah prophesied to come. The chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees who knew the laws and studied the Bible knew very well that the Lord Jesus’ words were the truth, had authority, and had power, but because they hated the truth, they not only refused to follow the Lord Jesus, they used the letters and rules in the Bible to oppose and condemn the Lord Jesus, and finally nailed Him to the cross. This shows us that the Bible can’t lead or guide us to accept the return of the Lord. For those of us who await the Lord’s return, the Bible only serves as corroboration. The clever virgins don’t welcome the Groom using the Bible. When they hear the Groom’s voice, they ascertain it is God’s voice and go to meet the Lord. Those who rely on biblical prophecy, rather than seeking God’s voice, and who reject and condemn Almighty God’s work in the last days— they are the most foolish virgins, those who God will abandon and eliminate.

What is the difference between the redemption work of the Age of Grace and the judgment work of the Age of Kingdom? Why must one accept the judgment work of the last days before achieving salvation?

The Answer from God’s Word:

At the time Jesus’ work was the redemption of all mankind. The sins of all who believed in Him were forgiven; as long as you believed in Him, He would redeem you; if you believed in Him, you were no longer a sinner, you were relieved of your sins. This is what it meant to be saved, and to be justified by faith. Yet in those who believed, there remained that which was rebellious and opposed God, and which still had to be slowly removed. Salvation did not mean man had been completely gained by Jesus, but that man was no longer of sin, that he had been forgiven his sins: Provided you believed, you would never more be of sin. … Jesus did not come to perfect and gain man, but to do one stage of work: bringing forth the gospel of the kingdom of heaven and completing the work of the crucifixion—and so once Jesus was crucified, His work came to a complete end. But in the current stage—the work of conquest—more words must be spoken, more work must be done, and there must be many processes. So too must the mysteries of the work of Jesus and Jehovah be revealed, so that all people may have understanding and clarity in their belief, for this is the work of the last days, and the last days are the end of God’s work, the time of this work’s conclusion. This stage of work will elucidate for you the law of Jehovah and the redemption of Jesus, and is principally so that you may understand the entire work of God’s six-thousand-year management plan, and appreciate all the significance and substance of this six-thousand-year management plan, and understand the purpose of all the work done by Jesus and the words He spoke, and even your blind credence in and adoration of the Bible. All this it will allow you to perceive. You will come to understand both the work done by Jesus, and the work of God today; you will understand and behold all of the truth, the life, and the way. In the stage of work done by Jesus, why did Jesus depart without concluding God’s work? Because the stage of Jesus’ work was not the work of conclusion. When He was nailed to the cross, the words that He had spoken also came to an end; after His crucifixion, His work completely finished. The current stage is different: Only after the words are spoken to the end and God’s entire work is concluded will His work have finished. During Jesus’ stage of work, there were many words that remained unsaid, or which were not fully articulated. Yet Jesus cared not what He did or did not say, for His ministry was not a ministry of words, and so after He was nailed to the cross He departed. That stage of work was chiefly for the sake of the crucifixion, and is unlike the stage today. This stage of work is principally for the sake of completion, of clearing up, and of bringing all work to a conclusion. If the words are not spoken to their very end, there will be no way of concluding this work, for in this stage of work all work is brought to an end and accomplished using words. At the time, Jesus did much work that was incomprehensible to man. He departed quietly, and today there are still many who do not understand His words, whose understanding is erroneous yet still believed by them to be correct, who do not know that they are wrong. In the end, this current stage will bring God’s work to a complete end, and will provide its conclusion. All will come to understand and know of God’s management plan. The conceptions within man, his intentions, his erroneous understanding, his conceptions toward the work of Jehovah and Jesus, his views about the Gentiles, and all his deviation and errors will be corrected. And man will understand all the right paths of life, and all the work done by God, and the entire truth. When that happens, this stage of work will come to an end.

Almighty God’s words include judgment, chastisement, and disclosure, and His words indeed carry majesty and wrath, but don’t they lack mercy and love?

The Answer from God’s Word:

For My work is the work of conquest, and is aimed at your disobedience and old nature. The kind words of Jehovah and Jesus fall far short of the severe words of judgment today. Without such severe words, it would be impossible to conquer you “experts,” who have been disobedient for thousands of years. The laws of the Old Testament lost their power on you long ago, and the judgment of today is far more formidable than the old laws. Most suitable for you is judgment, and not the trifling restrictions of laws, for you are not the mankind of the very beginning, but a mankind that has been corrupt for thousands of years.

from “The Vision of God’s Work (1)” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

Through what is God’s perfection of man accomplished? Through His righteous disposition. God’s disposition primarily consists of righteousness, wrath, majesty, judgment, and curse, and His perfection of man is primarily through judgment. … What God curses is the disobedience of man, and what He judges are the sins of man. Although He speaks harshly, and without the slightest sensitivity, He reveals all that is within man, and through these stern words He reveals that which is essential within man, yet through such judgment, He gives man a profound knowledge of the essence of the flesh, and thus man submits to obedience before God. The flesh of man is of sin, and of Satan, it is disobedient, and the object of God’s chastisement—and so, to allow man to know himself, the words of God’s judgment must befall him and there must be employed every kind of refinement; only then can God’s work be effective.