My Heart Begins to Waver When I First Hear God’s Words
One evening, I was pacing back and forth in my room thinking of the next day’s meeting and feeling a little concerned. I thought to myself: “These past couple of years, all I do is hold the Bible and spout tired old clichés that even I find dry and dull. The brothers and sisters don’t want to hear this either, so what should I do?” I thought deeply about this for a long time but still didn’t come up with any way to solve the problem. And yet I couldn’t not preach to my congregation, so all I could do was stubbornly take up my Bible and prepare my sermon for the next day. When I opened the Bible, I found a piece of paper covered in writing that had been hidden within the pages. I lifted it out and read these words: “God will accomplish this fact: He will make all people throughout the universe come before Him, and worship the God on earth, and His work in other places will cease, and people will be forced to seek the true way. It will be like Joseph: Everyone came to him for food, and bowed down to him, for he had things to eat. In order to avoid famine people will be forced to seek the true way. The entire religious community is suffering severe famine, and only the God of today is the wellspring of living water, possessed of the ever-flowing wellspring provided for the enjoyment of man, and people will come and depend on Him. That will be the time when the deeds of God are revealed, and God is glorified; all people throughout the universe will worship this unremarkable ‘man.’ Will this not be the day of God’s glory?” (“The Millennial Kingdom Has Arrived” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).
After reading these words, I knew that my wife had put them here for me to see, and that she had done it to get me to study Eastern Lightning. But we took different views and I just couldn’t bring myself to study it. I pondered deeply for a moment, however, and I contemplated the words carefully. I thought that they did indeed make sense—the religious world was now entirely desolate, pastors and elders worked and preached in such tired, old ways without a shred of new light, and the enthusiasm and energy believers had when they first began to believe had disappeared. They could not keep the Lord’s teachings, they lived in a vicious cycle of sinning and confessing, and their sins grew and grew to the point where many believers couldn’t resist the seductions of the dazzling world any longer, and they took their leave from the Lord … These were all facts! Only Eastern Lightning testified that the Lord had returned to perform a new work and to express new words. This was at odds with my own understanding, however, and I could only believe in the Bible, and I was unable to accept any word or work that was not to be found within the pages of the Bible. Then I thought of how the pastors always used great emphasis when they said, “God’s words and work are all recorded in the Bible, and we can see God’s words and work from Genesis to the Book of Revelation. There cannot possibly be a second book beyond the Bible that records God’s work and words!” All of God’s words and work are recorded in the Bible and there are none outside the Bible. What Eastern Lightning was saying sounded good and authoritative, and I felt that these words could not have been spoken by an ordinary person. It was just that they went beyond the Bible, however, and so I felt like I couldn’t listen to them. Thinking this, I stuffed the piece of paper into the very bottom of my drawer.
I Question Every Word and Hear a Knocking at the Door to My Heart
Several days later, I found out that Sister Li had also accepted Eastern Lightning, and I felt very worried. I thought about how Sister Li was such a sincere believer in the Lord and how she had such a good understanding of spiritual matters. She was also very loving to her brothers and sisters, and I just couldn’t let her be stolen away by Eastern Lightning. And so, I hurried to Sister Li’s home and expounded to her a little on the Bible, and I said to her, “Sister Li, God’s words and work are all recorded in the Bible and there are none outside the Bible. If we believe in God, then we cannot depart from the Bible. Eastern Lightning testifies that God is performing a new work, and this clearly goes beyond the Bible. We cannot believe it….” To my surprise, without waiting for me to finish what I was saying, Sister Li retorted with a question: “Brother, I have a question I’d like to ask you. You always say that God’s words and work are recorded in the Bible, but which is the greater—God or the Bible? Did God’s words and work come first, or did the Bible come first?” Hearing this, my heart began to thump, and I thought to myself: “Which is greater, God or the Bible? Did God’s words and work come first or did the Bible come first? These questions were completely new to my ears and I had never heard or thought such things before! No human mind could have come up with these words, so these questions must have come from Eastern Lightning’s book. It seemed that Eastern Lightning was special!” But then I thought, “No! Isn’t she saying this just so that I will diverge from the Bible?”
I then said to Sister Li, “There is no differentiation in greatness between God and the Bible. A belief in God is a belief in the Bible, and vice versa. Believing in God in accordance with the Bible can never be wrong.” Unexpectedly, Sister Li once again retorted with a question: “There was no Bible at the time of Moses, so was he a believer in God? Did Jesus’ disciples follow Him on the basis of the Old Testament? The Pharisees held to the Old Testament and yet they were condemned by Jesus. Why was that? Can you explain it?” Sister Li’s questions astonished me, and I was momentarily stumped. I thought it over: “Sister Li only accepted Eastern Lightning a few days ago and everything she says goes far beyond the Bible. She says things that I have never before heard or even considered. Even if I brought all my knowledge of the Bible to bear, I still wouldn’t be able to answer her questions!”
Looking at Sister Li, I felt a little embarrassed, but if I didn’t reply then I would look like I didn’t know anything. So I diverged from the topic at hand, said a little on another subject and then went home.
My attempt to advise Sister Li had failed, and I felt upset, but I also felt very confused: “Pastors and elders are now slandering and condemning Eastern Lightning wherever they go, and I toil and busy myself every day in order to ‘guard the flock.’ My church is sealed so tightly, and yet some believers with good spiritual understandings and who are pretty good pursuers of the truth are constantly accepting Eastern Lightning. Where on earth do these Eastern Lightning believers get such great faith from? They tirelessly go to any trouble to preach the gospel to others and are so loving and patient. What on earth is this all about?”
God’s Words Guide Me and My Heart Is Stirred
Toward evening one day, I returned home to find a sister there who was unknown to me, and I thought this must surely be someone my wife had asked over to preach the gospel to me. Thinking of how more and more brothers and sisters were accepting Eastern Lightning nowadays, I was extremely curious about the sermons preached by Eastern Lightning, and why they seemed to hold such power, so I decided to listen.
After dinner, the sister spoke to me about the desolation in the religious world, saying that instances of unlawful activity in the religious world were becoming more and more numerous. Religious leaders were not following the way of the Lord and neither were they practicing the Lord’s words; they just preached about biblical knowledge and theological theories so as to show themselves off and testify to themselves. They were not exalting God or testifying to God in the slightest, they had completely strayed from the Lord’s way, and many believers grew cold in their faith and love. No one kept the Lord’s teachings anymore, but instead everyone was now living in a state of sinning and confessing, and this precisely fulfilled the Lord’s prophecy about the last days: “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” (Matthew 24:12). The sister told the facts, but I thought that if she continued to preach to me, she would surely get to God’s work of the last days, and so I said hastily, “Sister, you can fellowship about the Bible, but if you fellowship about the Lord Jesus returning to speak words and perform work then you can stop right there. All of God’s words and work are in the Bible and the Bible contains the whole of God’s salvation. There are none of God’s words or work outside the Bible, and I will not listen to any sermon that goes beyond the Bible.” The sister saw how resistant I was, and so she said a silent prayer and then read to me a passage of God’s words: “Today, God has new work. You may not accept these words, they may feel odd to you, but I advise you not to reveal your naturalness, for only those who truly hunger and thirst for righteousness before God can obtain the truth, and only those who are truly devout can be enlightened and guided by God. Nothing will come of seeking the truth through quarreling. Only by seeking calmly can we obtain results. When I say that ‘Today, God has new work,’ I am referring to God’s return to flesh. Perhaps you do not mind these words, perhaps you despise them, or perhaps they are of great interest to you. Whatever the case, I hope that all those who truly yearn for the appearance of God can face this fact and give it careful consideration. It is best not to jump to conclusions. This is the way that wise people should act” (Preface to The Word Appears in the Flesh).
After listening to her, I thought to myself: “These words are sincere and earnest and they speak the thoughts that are in my heart. What’s more, they ask people to seek in all things, and this is in accord with the Lord Jesus’ teachings: ‘Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you’ (Matthew 7:7). Should I be approaching Eastern Lightning with a seeking heart?”
Just then, my wife read another passage of God’s words to me: “Not ever does the work of God conform to the conceptions of man, for His work is always new and never old. Not ever does He repeat work of old but rather forges ahead with work never before done. As God does not repeat His work and man invariably judges the work of God today based on His work of the past, it is exceedingly difficult for God to carry out each stage of work of the new age. Man presents far too many hindrances! The thinking of man is too hidebound! No man knows the work of God, yet they all define such work. Away from God, man loses life, truth, and the blessings of God, yet neither does man accept life nor truth, much less the greater blessings God bestows upon mankind. All men wish to gain God yet are unable to tolerate any changes in God’s work. Those who do not accept the new work of God believe that the work of God is changeless, and that the work of God forever remains at a standstill. In their belief, all that is needed to gain eternal salvation from God is to keep the law, and as long as they repent and confess their sins, the will of God will be forever satisfied. They are of the opinion that God can only be the God under the law and the God who was nailed on the cross for man; it is their opinion too that God should not and cannot exceed the Bible. It is precisely these opinions that have shackled them firmly to the law of old and kept them fettered by rigid regulations” (“How Can Man Who Has Delimited God in His Conceptions Receive the Revelations of God?”).
After my wife had read this passage of God’s words, the sister then gave me fellowship: “Brother, why is it that every time God begins a new stage of work, there are some people who always resist and condemn it? God’s words now reveal the root cause of this issue, and it is mainly because people are arrogant and conceited, because they always cling to their own misconceptions and delimit God to the Bible in the belief that God could not possibly depart from the Bible to perform any new work, and that any departure from the Bible is not a real belief in God. Therefore, when they encounter God’s new words and work, they don’t heed it, they don’t see it, and they don’t get close to it. Instead, they just blindly condemn it as not being God’s new work, and doesn’t that make them no different from the Pharisees at the time of Jesus? God is ever new and never old, and He performs a different work in each age. When the Lord Jesus came, for example, He ushered in the Age of Grace and brought the Age of Law to a close. He performed the stage of work of the redemption of mankind, proclaimed the way of repentance and was crucified upon the cross in order to take upon Himself the sins of mankind. He thereby redeemed man from being condemned by the laws and allowed them to continue to enjoy God’s guidance and blessings. Although our sins were forgiven, our sinful nature remained, and we are still capable of uncontrollably committing sins and resisting God, which makes us simply unqualified to see the Lord face to face or enter into God’s kingdom. Therefore, in order to purify and save us completely, God has once again returned in the flesh in the last days and, on the foundation of Jesus’ work of redemption, He expresses the truth and performs the work of judgment so that our satanic dispositions may be cleansed and changed, and to enable us to thoroughly cast off the bonds of sin and ultimately attain God’s salvation. From this, we can see that God’s work is not something that never changes, but rather is something that forges ever onward according to our needs as corrupt mankind; it grows in profundity with each stage, and every stage of work is a higher work than the stage which preceded it. Only by humbly seeking, by letting go of our own misconceptions and imaginings and by closely following the steps of God’s work can we attain both truth and life.
“We human beings don’t know God’s work, however, and we don’t seek the truth. When God’s work seems at odds with our misconceptions, we then condemn God and resist Him. But what are the consequences of treating God’s new work in this way? Thinking back to when the Lord Jesus came to perform His work, we can see that He not only went beyond the laws of the Old Testament, but that He also expressed many truths besides the laws, He healed the sick and cast out demons and performed many signs and wonders. The words and work of the Lord Jesus possessed authority and power, and many people recognized within His words and work that the Lord Jesus was the foretold Messiah, and so they followed the Lord and received His redemption. Those Pharisees who knew the Bible well and who served God in the temple, however, had no shred of a seeking heart; they were arrogant and conceited, they delimited God’s words and work to the Old Testament, and they used the fact that the Lord Jesus’ words and work went beyond the Old Testament to deny and condemn it. They stubbornly clung to the Old Testament and refused to accept the Lord Jesus’ words and work. They also crucified the Lord Jesus upon the cross, thus committing a heinous sin, and they were cursed and punished by God—the lesson of the Pharisees’ believing in God and yet resisting Him must be taken as a warning! God now speaks of the root cause of why we human beings resist Him, in the hope that we will be able to let go of our own misconceptions and imaginings and no longer delimit His work. We must learn to seek the truth and focus on listening to God’s voice, for only in that way will we be able to keep up with the footsteps of the Lamb and gain the truth that God bestows upon us!”
Hearing the words of Almighty God and the sister’s fellowship gave me a feeling I had never felt before. Although the words of Almighty God are not recorded in the Bible, yet they overflow with authority and power and they completely reveal the root cause of why people resist God. These are not words that could have been spoken by any human being, but are quite possibly inspired by the Holy Spirit, I thought. I should no longer blindly condemn Eastern Lightning. But I thought then of the oath I had sworn before my brothers and sisters, and my heart once again became mired in indecision …
I Seek the Truth, Let Go of My Misconceptions and Follow God
Several days later, I was working at home when my wife brought over some sisters from The Church of Almighty God. I was just thinking of a way to avoid them when one of the sisters seemed to see what I was thinking, and she said to me, “Brother, if you want to know whether Almighty God really is the second coming of the Lord Jesus, you only have to listen to God’s words. The Lord Jesus said: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’ (Matthew 5:3). The Lord Jesus tells us that we who humbly seek are praised by Him. The Lord Jesus has now returned, so if you refuse to listen to Him, won’t you then miss your chance to welcome His return?” Seeing them hold themselves in such an earnest and sincere manner, I felt very moved. I couldn’t help but think of the desolation in the religious world right now, where brothers and sisters were finding it hard to attend meetings regularly, whereas these sisters had such great faith and love. Eastern Lightning was also flourishing more and more and was known to almost every family—this was clearly not something that could have been achieved through human efforts alone! Thinking this, I decided to study in earnest Almighty God’s work of the last days.
And so, I said to the sisters from The Church of Almighty God, “Pastors and elders always say that all of God’s words and work are recorded in the Bible, that the Bible contains the whole truth, and that there are no words or work of God outside the Bible. And yet you testify that the Lord Jesus has returned to perform a new work and express new words. Is this not going beyond the Bible?”
After listening to me, the sister then read me several passages of Almighty God’s words: “There are those who even check the work of the present against that of Jesus in the Bible, and use any inconsistencies to deny this stage of the work. Is this not the action of one blinded? The things that are recorded in the Bible are limited; they cannot represent the work of God in its entirety. The Four Gospels have fewer than one hundred chapters altogether, in which are written a finite number of happenings, such as Jesus cursing the fig tree, Peter’s three denials of the Lord, Jesus appearing to the disciples following His crucifixion and resurrection, teaching about fasting, teaching about prayer, teaching about divorce, the birth and genealogy of Jesus, Jesus’ appointment of the disciples, and so forth. However, man values them as treasures, even verifying the work of today against them. They even believe that all the work Jesus did in His life amounted only to so much, as if God were only capable of doing this much and nothing further. Is this not absurd?” (“The Mystery of the Incarnation (1)” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “After all, which is greater: God or the Bible? Why must God’s work be according to the Bible? Could it be that God has no right to exceed the Bible? Can God not depart from the Bible and do other work? Why did Jesus and His disciples not keep the Sabbath? If He were to keep the Sabbath and practice according to the commandments of the Old Testament, why did Jesus not keep the Sabbath after He came, but instead washed feet, covered head, broke bread, and drank wine? Isn’t this all absent from the commandments of the Old Testament? If Jesus honored the Old Testament, why did He defy these doctrines? You should know which came first, God or the Bible! Being the Lord of the Sabbath, could He not also be the Lord of the Bible?” (“Concerning the Bible (1)” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “Those who only care about the words of the Bible, who are unconcerned about the truth or seeking My footsteps—they are against Me, for they limit Me according to the Bible, and constrain Me within the Bible, and so are blasphemous in the extreme toward Me. How could such people come before Me? They pay no heed to My deeds, or My will, or the truth, but instead obsess over words, words that kill. How could such people be compatible with Me?” (“You Should Seek the Way of Compatibility With Christ” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).
The sister then gave fellowship, saying, “We all know that the Bible was compiled and produced from the written records of man many years after God performed His work, and that it came after God’s words and work—without God’s work or words, there would be no Bible. To say it another way, the Bible is merely a testimony to the previous words and work of God, and the words that God had not yet said and the works He had not yet performed could not possibly have been recorded in the Bible ahead of time. When God performed such works as when He created everything, heaven and earth, at the very beginning, when He destroyed the world with flood, destroyed Sodom with fire and saved Nineveh, for example, the Old Testament had not yet been written. The Old Testament was compiled by followers of God based on such collections of writings as the Pentateuch of Moses, the Psalms of David and the books of Isaiah and Ezekiel. Furthermore, in the Age of Grace, the Lord Jesus proclaimed the way of repentance, He healed the sick and cast out demons, performed signs and wonders and was ultimately crucified upon the cross to redeem all mankind. None of this was recorded in the Old Testament at all. The most that was recorded in the Old Testament were prophecies about the Messiah who would come to perform His work. It was not possible, however, for the work which the Messiah would specifically come to do to be recorded in the Bible ahead of time. Only after the Lord Jesus had come to express His words and had finished His work did people record His words and work, and the New Testament was only formed by people compiling it all after the fact. Similarly, the Lord Jesus prophesied that He would come again to perform the work of separating the goats from the sheep, the work of harvesting, the work of judgment beginning in the house of God, the work of separating each to their own kind, and so on. How God would specifically perform these works was simply not recorded in any detail in the Bible, and it is only when God comes to perform these works do we then understand how exactly He will do them.
“Moreover, God’s words and work are not wholly recorded in the Bible, and this is an undeniable fact. In the Age of Law, for example, there were many words of God relayed by the prophets which were not recorded in the Bible, but which were collected within the secondary scriptures. When the Lord Jesus was performing His work and giving sermons in the Age of Grace, He must have said innumerable things, and so that which is recorded in the four gospels of the New Testament are but a drop in the ocean. Just as it says in the Gospel of John, chapter 21, verse 25: ‘And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written’ Therefore, all the words and work of God that are recorded in the Bible are but the tip of the iceberg of His words and work, so how can we just delimit God’s work and words to the Bible alone and say that there are none outside the Bible? Did the Lord Jesus not launch a new work and express new words that went beyond the Old Testament? If we believe that all of God’s words and work are within the Bible and that anything that goes beyond the Bible is not God’s work, wouldn’t we then be denying the work and words of the Lord Jesus? And wouldn’t we be blaspheming against God? It is evident then, that the Bible is just a record of the work God has previously performed, and it is a testimony to God’s work. Therefore, anyone who delimits God’s words and work to the Bible, who believes that the Bible contains the whole truth and that there are no work or words of God outside the Bible, is taking a view that is hugely mistaken, a view that arises from their own misconceptions and imaginings and which is a fallacy and an outright lie meant to deceive people. Brother, do you understand what I have fellowshiped?”
Hearing this, I felt upset and distressed; just a few short passages had completely exposed my past wrong views, and they had completely exposed the absurdities of the whole religious world clinging to the Bible and their delimiting God’s words and work to the Bible alone. Those few short passages also brought to light the nature of our clinging to the Bible and the consequences of doing so. Almighty God’s words were indeed the truth and no human being could have written such words. I have read many spiritual books, and no words had ever shaken my heart the way Almighty God’s words had. No wonder those who believed in Eastern Lightning had such great faith and followed Almighty God so unswervingly. I now realized that it was because they understood the truth from God’s words, and because their lives were supplied that their faith waxed greater and greater, and these results were all achieved by the words of God!
Supplied by the Living Waters, I See and Think Clearly
Following on from my meeting with the sisters, I avidly read “Concerning the Bible (1)” through “Concerning the Bible (4)” twice over in one sitting. The more I read, the more light entered my heart, and I understood that the Bible was merely an historical record of God’s two prior stages of work. What’s more, the records in the Bible were limited; from when God created heaven and earth, to when He led mankind’s life on earth in the Age of Law, to when the Lord Jesus redeemed mankind in the Age of Grace, God performed innumerable works on man and spoke innumerable words, so how could the New and Old Testaments possibly contain it all? Furthermore, the Lord Jesus clearly prophesied, “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth” (John 16:12–13). “He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (Revelation 2:7). Within these prophecies, God is clearly telling us that, when He returns in the last days, He will express truths and will speak to the churches, and that He will tell us many truths which we do not currently understand. How then could I continue to go along with the pastors and elders of the religious world delimiting God’s words and work to the Bible alone, and saying that there are none outside the Bible? By doing that, are we not denying the Lord Jesus’ words and pitting ourselves against God? What’s more, God’s work is ever new and never old, and He does not base any stage of His work on the Bible, but rather He performs newer works beyond the Bible and He brings us newer paths of practice. How then can we say that anything that goes beyond the Bible is not God’s words or work? If I delimited God’s words and work to the Bible and used the Bible to replace God, would I not then be treating God with contempt and blaspheming against Him? Would I not then be so arrogant and ignorant?
I Recall God’s Love With Gratitude
Thinking back over my years believing in the Lord, I realized that, because I clung so stubbornly to the Bible, I delimited God’s words and work to the Bible and believed that all the truths held within the Bible were the complete truth, and that there could not possibly be any work or words of God outside the Bible. I therefore refused to seek and study God’s work of the last days time and time again, and I went along with the pastors and elders, believing that I was “guarding the flock and protecting the Lord’s way,” when really I was just obstructing my brothers and sisters from seeking and studying God’s new work—I really had been so arrogant and ignorant! Thinking of this, I felt remorse and I reproached myself, and I deeply regretted the fact that I’d not sought or studied the gospel of the Lord’s return when I’d first heard it, but instead had rejected it. In the end, I not only became someone who yearned for the Lord’s coming yet resisted God, but I also harmed my brothers and sisters! And yet God showed me mercy, and He sent brothers and sisters to me time and time again to preach the gospel to me; this really was God showing me such great kindness and mercy! It was the words of Almighty God that had remedied my religious misconceptions, and it was God’s love that had guided me every step of the way and enabled me to keep up with God’s work of the last days. Thanks be to God!
Source From: Gospel of The Descent of The Kingdom
