On the way, we stopped so that my wife could attend to something, and when she got out of the car the sister also got out. It was cold and windy outside, and the sister stood beside the car stamping her feet in order to keep warm. I called to her to get in the car but she said: “It’s OK. I want to stand outside for a while.” It took a pretty long time for my wife to return, and only then did the sister get in the car. Seeing that she was visibly shivering from the cold my wife asked her: “It’s so cold outside. Why didn’t you stay in the car?” The sister replied: “There’s an administrative decree in our church that states that a man and a woman can’t be alone together or have physical contact. This is one of the requirements that God has of God’s chosen people, and we have to strictly abide by it.” On hearing this, I realized just how different The Church of Almighty God’s people are from ordinary people—even in the most trivial matters they keep themselves in check. When I recalled this incident I couldn’t help but thump my head in self-disgust for not properly investigating the facts and instead blindly believing those online rumors. When I thought about all of the times I’d interacted with the brothers and sisters of The Church of Almighty God and seen how well-behaved they were with members of the opposite sex, how proper and decent they were in speech and action, how principled they were when dealing with people, it was obvious that those rumors online were far from the truth. At this point I felt very ashamed for blindly believing a bunch of online rumors that were slanderous distortions of the truth or outright fabrications, and for having doubts about Almighty God and The Church of Almighty God. I was such a confused idiot! My wife then continued with her fellowship: “God has incarnated in the mundane world to express truths, judge people, and cleanse people. In other words, God wants to thoroughly save people from Satan’s dominion. He wants to rid us of our corrupt dispositions—our arrogance, trickery, deceit, selfishness, vileness, evil, filth, etc., and help us to achieve transformation in our life disposition so that we may live as true human beings. God knows that mankind has been very deeply corrupted by Satan and so doesn’t have the capability to overcome sin. So in order to ensure that people don’t offend God’s disposition during the time when they are accepting God’s salvation, and thus avoid being eliminated and punished, God has laid out the administrative decrees of the Age of Kingdom in order to keep believers in check. Anyone who offends the administrative decrees will be punished by God, and serious offenders will be expelled from God’s house and lose any chance of salvation. God’s setting out of these administrative decrees for the church is so that we gain some real knowledge of God’s righteous disposition which is not to be offended, and also so that we have decrees to keep us in check. This way, there will always be a line that can’t be crossed for all our behaviors, and if we keep within these boundaries then we can generally avoid being tempted by Satan. This is God’s way of preserving us and, even more so, is God showing His true love for us!” While listening to my wife’s fellowship I found myself involuntarily nodding my head, and this is how the knot in my heart was completely untied and the suffering that had enveloped it was alleviated. After that, I once again began to participate in the church meetings.
Every time that I recall this experience there is always some lingering fear in my heart because I saw how damaging these rumors are and how I nearly got confused by them and lost the chance for God’s salvation of the last days. In the Age of Grace, the Israelites also got bemused by false rumors and ended up not admitting that the Lord Jesus was the coming of the Messiah. They abandoned the Lord Jesus and thus lost the Lord’s salvation. This made me realize just what huge obstacles such rumors are for people to accept the true way! But what I still couldn’t understand was why there are so many false rumors and false accusations about The Church of Almighty God online when it clearly is a good church. So, in a meeting, I brought up this question with the brothers and sisters so that we could openly fellowship about it. The brothers and sisters played for me one of the church’s gospel movies, Break Through the Snare, and this movie completely resolved my confusion. With a bit more fellowship from the brothers and sisters I was then able to understand even better that the use of rumors to disrupt and ruin God’s work is one of Satan’s most common methods. When the Lord Jesus came to do His work, the Jewish leaders, chief priests, scribes and Pharisees wanted to ensure that they kept permanent control over God’s people, and so they created many false rumors about the Lord Jesus. They blasphemed the Lord Jesus by saying that He relied on the prince of the devils to cast out demons, they falsely accused the Lord Jesus of not letting people pay their taxes to Caesar, and they also gave false testimony by saying that the Lord Jesus’ physical body was stolen by His disciples and that He didn’t resurrect. I’m sure that if the Internet had existed then those religious leaders would have put all of their rumors and false testimonies online in order to blaspheme, attack, and condemn the Lord Jesus more effectively. Nowadays, in the Age of Kingdom, Almighty God is doing the work of expressing words to judge and purify man, and the government of China and the pastors and elders in the religious community are acting as Satan’s tools. In order to achieve their goal of controlling and entrapping people, they are blaspheming and condemning Almighty God and are creating a mass of rumors and false testimonies in order to frame and discredit The Church of Almighty God. They want to confuse people and keep them in the dark, and attempt to make people abandon God’s work of salvation of the last days and follow them in resisting God. Satan really is just so evil and loathsome!
Then the brothers and sisters read out another two passages of God’s words for me: “On earth, all manner of evil spirits are endlessly on the prowl for a place to rest, are ceaselessly searching for the corpses of men to eat up” (“The Tenth Utterance” of God’s Utterances to the Entire Universe in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “Satan is constantly devouring the knowledge that men hold of Me in their hearts, and constantly, with teeth bared and claws unsheathed, engaged in the last throes of its death struggle. Do you wish to be captured by its deceitful stratagems at this moment? Do you wish, at the moment that the last phase of My work is completed, to cut off your own life?” (“The Six Utterance” of God’s Utterances to the Entire Universe in The Word Appears in the Flesh). They also told me that Almighty God’s words have told us the true situation regarding the spiritual battle, which is that in order to hinder people before they are able to come before God and achieve its goal of devouring them, Satan carries out all sorts of trickery. This includes spreading rumors and false testimonies on the Internet, getting religious leaders to harass and threaten believers, and getting family members to coerce them and prevent them from following Almighty God. In short, anything which makes us doubt, deny or move away from God comes from Satan. If people are unable to seek truths, then they will never be able to see through Satan’s trickery, will easily lose the chance to gain God’s salvation, and will go downhill and eventually be destroyed along with Satan. Thanks to God’s leadership I was able, through watching The Church of Almighty God’s gospel movies and listening to the fellowship of the brothers and sisters, to clearly see Satan’s evil and despicable essence and see through Satan’s schemes.
Since following Almighty God I’ve gained true release and freedom. Now, no matter what happens to me I can read God’s words and pray to God to help me find a path of practice. The brothers and sisters in the church all abide by God’s requirements and seek to become honest people. Their mutual relationships are uncomplicated and open, and they help and support each other as much as they can. As a member of the church, I never have to worry about someone trying to put me down, deceive me, or rip me off. I feel truly happy and content, and this is the life that I always want.
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