“God’s overflowing love is freely bestowed upon man and surrounds man; man is innocent and pure, unencumbered and carefree, blissfully living under God’s eye. … But as a person with a conscience and sense of humanity, you would feel differently. You would feel warmth, you would feel cared for and loved, and you would feel happiness” (“How Important God’s Love for Man Is” in Follow the Lamb and Sing New Songs). Every time when I hear this hymn of God’s words, I’m always touched by it. I once strayed from God and resisted God. I, just like a lost lamb, couldn’t find the way home. It is God’s great love that has brought me back to His family. I would like to share my experience of returning to God’s family with brothers and sisters in the Lord and friends who have yet to return to God.
Because my parents always quarreled when I was young, I lived in fear every day. I felt that my life had no meaning, but I feared death, not knowing why we exist or why we die; yet somehow I felt that there is a pair of hands supporting me to live on.
After I graduated from high school, my mother believed in the Lord Jesus driven by our neighbor and I also went to the church with her. Since then, I have known that God is the Lord of all creations, and it is Him who redeemed mankind from sin. He personally became flesh and was nailed to the cross as a sin offering. The Lord’s love for man is truly great. Galvanized by the Lord’s love, I determined to be a good believer in the Lord Jesus to repay His love. From that day onward, I had a direction and goal in life. Afterward, I often attended meetings, read the Bible and praised the Lord. Gradually, I felt happy within my heart. In particular, when I read verses in the Bible which told the Lord will descend on a cloud in the last days to bring us into the kingdom of heaven, my heart was full of expectations. Furthermore, the pastors also often explained the scripture in meetings, “Which also said, You men of Galilee, why stand you gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). This made me believe even more firmly that the Lord Jesus would descend on a cloud and bring us back to the home in heaven.
In 2005, I got a Korean boyfriend and I followed him to Korea. I couldn’t find a Chinese church there due to the language barrier. Gradually, I became weak in my spirit and unwittingly strayed from God. After marriage, because of the huge difference between the Chinese and Korean culture, we couldn’t live together peacefully and we divorced not long after. The divorce was a heavy blow to my soul and I suffered greatly in my heart. Moreover, I had no relatives and friends in this foreign country, which made me feel more lonely. The only thing I could do was to pray to God silently. I told God all my sufferings and asked Him to guide me to find a Chinese church.
A year later, I found a Chinese department of a Presbyterian Church. At that time, I was very happy because I could finally worship God in the church again. However, to my disappointment, the pastors there only read to us Bible verses and explained the literal meanings during meetings, without any light. We couldn’t obtain the provision of life and having meetings were just completely going through motions. During meetings, some people were whispering to each other, some were playing mobile games, some were sleeping, some were looking for a partner and some were even hooking arms. I thought, “The church is a place for worshiping God, and it is holy, but we are here having meetings without a heart that reveres God. God definitely detests this. Will the Lord abandon this filthy place?” However, the pastors and preachers acted as if they were blind and ignored them.
I lived in this morass of evil, so gradually I became debauched. I often went out to drink with my friends during free time. I was totally behaving like a non-believer. However, every time when my heart strayed from God, the Lord Jesus’ words would show up in my head, “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walks through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. Then he said, I will return into my house from where I came out; and when he is come, he finds it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goes he, and takes with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first” (Matthew 12:43–45). The Lord’s words gave me restraints and protections. I dare not go too far from the Lord and do things excessively because I was afraid that I would be detested and abandoned by the Lord if I aggravated Him, and then I would end up in the hands of the unclean spirits.
On the Christmas of 2016, in order to lighten the atmosphere, the church asked some talented brothers and sisters to perform. A sister whom I had never met before sang a hymn for all of us, “The scene painted in the Bible ‘God’s command to Adam’ is both touching and heartwarming. Although the picture contains only God and man, the relationship between the two is so intimate we start to feel wonder, wonder and admiration. God’s love overflowing is freely given to man, God’s love is around him. Man, innocent and pure, without a care to tie him down, lives in bliss in the eyes of God. God takes care of man, and man lives under His wings. All that man does, all his words and deeds, are bound up with God, can’t be apart. From the first moment God created the human race, God had them in His charge. What kind of charge is that? It’s for Him to protect man and to watch over man. He hopes for man to trust in, to trust in and obey His words. This was the first thing God expected of the human race. … Is there love in His heart? Isn’t there care and concern? God’s love and care is something that can be both felt and sensed. If you are a person of conscience and with humanity, you will feel warm, being cared for and loved, you will feel blessed with happiness. When you feel these things, how will you act towards God? Will you cleave to Him? Will reverential love, will reverential love not grow in your heart? Will your heart draw close to Him? From this we see, how important God’s love for man is. But even more important than this is that man can feel and comprehend God’s love” (“How Important God’s Love for Man Is” in Follow the Lamb and Sing New Songs).
While I was listening to every word and phrase in this hymn, my heart was beating faster and faster and I was so touched that I burst into tears. I felt like I was in this beautiful picture, accompanied by God, loved by God, and enjoyed all things God has given, such as air, sunlight, water. All of them contain God’s love. I was enjoying everything God has given, but my heart was straying from God. God must be very upset. I felt that God was calling to my heart and soul, especially when I heard the phrase, “But as a person with a conscience and sense of humanity, you would feel differently. You would feel warmth, you would feel cared for and loved, and you would feel happiness.” Look back to the year of 2007 when I didn’t want to live with my husband anymore: When I had no place to go, it was God that prepared for me a place in Female Protection Center for Foreigners, where they provided me with food and shelter, found a lawyer to help me with my divorce, all were for free; when I needed a guarantor for applying citizenship, God again prepared a Head of Department of the Presbyterian church to be my guarantor (Normally, Koreans would never be someone’s guarantor that easily, especially when I was a foreigner, not to mention that I only went to that church three or four times. I knew it was God who helped me secretly); applying the citizenship needs 30 million KRW (Korea Won) of real estate, but I didn’t even have 3 million KRW, and however the people at the customs just asked me to show them my incumbency certificate to prove that I had a job to support myself and did not hassle me at all; … God is always showing me miracles when I needed help the most. They are all under God’s sovereignty. God’s love is truly broad and profound, but I was being so rebellious that I had forgotten about God and hurt God’s heart. This hymn touched my soul. I resolved to regain the faith that I had in the beginning and not to degenerate and hurt God’s heart again.
On February 19, 2017, my head and eyes were hurting so badly that they couldn’t be cured by the doctors in the hospital. Then sister Li from my church introduced to me her friend, a Chinese physician, and said that I could be cured in just a week of treatment. So I went to see her friend. On that day, we also met brother Jin, the Chinese physician’s friend. It was surprising to meet a brother in the Lord here, I thought it must be God’s arrangement, so we started talking about the Bible. Brother Jin read to us a passage from the Bible about the Parable of the Ten Virgins. Then he asked me, “Sister, are you hoping for the return of the Lord Jesus?” I replied, “Of course!” He asked again, “Then did you know how the Lord comes?” I replied without hesitation, “The Bible says that He will come with clouds.” Brother Jin said, “Did you know that the Lord Jesus has returned?” I was surprised and said, “Mark 13:32 records, ‘But of that day and that hour knows no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.’ No one knows the day of the Lord Jesus’ return, how did you know?” Brother Jin did not tell me the answer right away, instead he picked out some prophecies in the Bible about the return of the Lord Jesus, “Be you therefore ready also: for the Son of man comes at an hour when you think not” (Luke 12:40). “For as the lightning, that lightens out of the one part under heaven, shines to the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day. But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation. And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man” (Luke 17: 24–26). “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20). “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27).
After reading these Bible verses, Brother Jin said, “The Lord told us to watch and wait because no one knows the day of His return. However, according to the prophecies, the Lord will return in the image of the Son of man. When we say ‘the Son of man,’ it means God becoming human, in other words God becoming flesh. Although we do not know the exact time when God comes, we can recognize Him through His voice because God’s sheep will hear His voice and follow Him.” At that time, I thought of what the pastors said in the past, “Whoever witnessed about the Lord Jesus returning in flesh was a fraud.” I didn’t want to listen to whatever brother Jin was saying anymore, so I sent a text message to the pastor, “Someone told me that the Lord has returned to flesh. Which church are they from?” The pastor replied, “They are from the Eastern Lightning.” He asked me to leave them quickly. He also told me not to have any contact with them anymore or read any of their books, and then he sent me some articles on guarding against heresies. I thought what the pastor had said was right, so I decided to stop listening to their fellowships and ignore them.
However, who would have known that on February 20, brother Jin and his younger sister came to the place where I received treatment again and told me a lot of things about the work of the Lord Jesus’ second coming. Because I had just received the news of my mother’s death that morning coupled with my doubts about what they were saying, I couldn’t listen to what they had said at all. They continued in that way for three days and brother Jin seemed to be very determined to spread the gospel to me. I was very annoyed, so I tried to chase him away and said, “Stop! If you still continue and not leave, then I will leave!” Brother Jin realized that I really didn’t want to listen to him anymore, so he left. I thought he would not come back again. However, much to my surprise, he came back the next day and brought along brother Cheng to continue spreading the gospel to me. I thought, “Is there an end to this? I can’t stand it!” For the sake of my face, I didn’t chase them away and only had very little conversation with them. Although I expressed an attitude of indifference, brother Cheng was still talking to me very patiently. He said, “The Lord has become flesh and come among people to do the work of judgement and chastisement.” He then read to me a passage of God’s words, “It is My hope that each and every brother and sister who seeks the appearance of God will not repeat the tragedy of history. You must not become the Pharisees of modern times and nail God to the cross again. You should carefully consider how to welcome the return of God, and you should have a clear mind regarding how to be someone who submits to the truth. This is the responsibility of everyone who is waiting for Jesus to return riding upon a cloud. We should rub our spiritual eyes to make them clear, and not become mired in words of exaggerated fantasy. We should think about the practical work of God, and take a look at the practical aspect of God. Do not get carried away or lose yourselves in daydreams, always longing for the day when the Lord Jesus, riding upon a cloud, suddenly descends among you, and takes you who have never known or seen Him, and who do not know how to do His will. It is better to think upon more practical matters!” (Preface to The Word Appears in the Flesh). Although I didn’t absorb much of the God’s words, I could see that brother Cheng was very patient and loving when talking to me. I thought, “All the people in my church are becoming weak, their faith also is becoming small and they no longer have love for each other. Why do the people believing in the Eastern Lightning have so much faith and love? What kind of power is supporting them to be so persistent in spreading the gospel to me? If there’s no work of the Holy Spirit, no one can do it with only human strength.”
During that period, brother Yang together with me were examining Almighty God’s work of the last days. I always showed a careless attitude toward Almighty God’s work, while brother Yang was examining it seriously. Brother Yang said, “In the past, someone preached the gospel of Almighty God to him, but he refused. Today, maybe this is a chance God gives him that he can examine Almighty God’s work, so he won’t miss it again.” Seeing that I only followed the pastor’s words without a humble and seeking heart, he read to me a few verses of scriptures, “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. … Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:3–6). Hearing the Lord’s words, I contemplated in my heart, “Why cannot I be quiet before the Lord to examine Almighty God’s work? If the Lord really has returned, then will I be abandoned because of my refusing to listen to and examine it? I should be humble, and I must not come to a conclusion blindly according to my imagination.” As I decided to quiet my heart to examine Almighty God’s work, I got a sudden call from the preacher in my church which told me not to continue contacting the members of The Church of Almighty God. The preacher’s words made me drop the idea of examining Almighty God’s work once again, then I thought to myself, “The pastor and the preacher had more understanding of the Bible, but they wouldn’t acknowledge the Lord Jesus has already returned. I should follow them because I had little understanding of the Bible and lacked discernment.” After finishing the call, I said to brother Cheng, “Since brother Yang is willing to examine Almighty God’s work, you can continue to fellowship about it without me.” So, I refused God’s salvation once again.
A week of therapy ended, and then I began to work again. Due to my mother’s death, I felt sadness and pain in my heart. Every day when I came home from work, I would look at the picture of my mother and talked to it as if I was talking to her, my heart full of longing for my mother. One day, I suddenly realized that I, as a believer in the Lord, should pray to the Lord no matter what difficulties and weaknesses I had. Afterward, whenever I encountered difficulties, I would come before the Lord and pray to Him, asking Him to give me comfort. However, I wasn’t moved in my heart no matter how I prayed to the Lord, and sometimes I would fall asleep when praying to Him. At that period of time, I lived in fear and anxiety every day, and I even would feel extremely frightened if there was any sound. In panic and helplessness, I sincerely prayed to the Lord, “Oh Lord! I feel dark in my heart, frightened and fearful. Is it because I have done something wrong? Oh Lord! A few days ago, someone told me that You have already returned as Almighty God. Oh Lord! If that’s the case, I pray to You to send brother Yang to give me a call or text messages at the right time, and then I will accept Your new work and words with an obedient and yearning heart whatever they fellowship with me; If it is not Your new work, if their preaching is false and deceptive, I pray to You to stop them in their tracks.”
Amazingly, God really heard my prayer and arranged brother Yang to phone me. I told brother Yang all my situation of those days. He said to me that the reason why I felt dark in my heart was because I refused to examine God’s work in the last days and disobeyed God. He hoped that I could continue to examine Almighty God’s work in the last days. This time I didn’t reject it.
Right after that, Brother Yang sent me a gospel movie “Faith in God.” I was awakened by a line in the movie, “Since we believe in God, we should listen to God, not people.” I thought in my heart, “Yes! I should listen to God, not people! However, I always asked the pastor and followed the pastor and preacher’s words when brother Jin and brother Cheng preached God’s work of the last days to me. I never considered making a careful examination of Almighty God’s new work and words. As a believer in the Lord, I didn’t pray to the Lord and seek His will, but blindly followed the pastor and preacher’s words, am I not too stupid? The Bible says, ‘We ought to obey God rather than men’ (Acts 5:29). I didn’t obey the Lord, but listened to people, was I not believing and following people? Was I not resisting and betraying the Lord? If Almighty God really is the returned Lord Jesus, I don’t accept Almighty God but rebel against and resist Him, then am I not too blind and ignorant? Am I not shutting the Lord outside?” Thinking of this, I felt very remorseful in my heart, with tears welling up in my eyes.
I came before the Lord and prayed to Him, “Oh the Lord Jesus Christ! Someone once preached to me that You have returned to this world in the flesh, and You are the Almighty God, the Christ in the last days. However, I am not certain about this. Today I am willing to come before You and seek Your will, hoping You will enlighten me so that I can recognize Your voice. If You have already returned as Almighty God, I will repent to You and accept Your work and salvation. Oh Lord! I am praying to You to lead me to return before You.” After praying, I felt great joy and comfort in my heart that I had never had for a long time. Words couldn’t express how happy and steadfast I was. I knew clearly that the Lord must have heard my prayers and gave me comfort and confirmation. At that time, I was eager to examine The Church of Almighty God instantly. But when I thought that I had displeased brothers and sisters from The Church of Almighty God, how could I have the nerve to face them again?
In this dilemma, I received a call from brother Yang. He asked me whether I had the time and the will to go on examining Almighty God’s work of the last days. I told him the worries in my heart. Brother Yang said to me, “That’s okay! We believers in God are a family. No one will take that to heart.” Hearing his words, I knew it was God who sympathized with my small stature. So, Brother Yang and I went to The Church of Almighty God the next day.
Brothers and sisters were very happy that I could get back on the right path. They formally testified to me that the Lord Jesus has already returned, and He has expressed the truth and done His work of judgment beginning with the house of God. And they fellowshiped with me about the meaning of God becoming flesh to carry out His work and the importance of God’s incarnation for corrupted mankind. Afterward, I read God’s words, “I tell you, those who believe in God because of the signs are surely the category that shall be destroyed. Those who are incapable of receiving the words of Jesus who has returned to flesh are surely the progeny of hell, the descendants of the archangel, the category that shall be subjected to everlasting destruction. Many people may not care what I say, but I still want to tell every so-called saint who follows Jesus that, when you see Jesus descend from the heaven upon a white cloud with your own eyes, this will be the public appearance of the Sun of righteousness. Perhaps that will be a time of great excitement for you, yet you should know that the time when you witness Jesus descend from the heaven is also the time when you go down to hell to be punished. That will be the time of the end of God’s management plan and it will be when God rewards the good and punishes the wicked. For the judgment of God will have ended before man sees signs, when there is only the expression of truth. Those who accept the truth and do not seek signs, and thus have been purified, shall have returned before the throne of God and entered the Creator’s embrace. Only those who persist in the belief that ‘The Jesus who does not ride upon a white cloud is a false Christ’ shall be subjected to everlasting punishment, for they only believe in the Jesus who exhibits signs, but do not acknowledge the Jesus who proclaims severe judgment and releases the true way and life. And so it can only be that Jesus deals with them when He openly returns upon a white cloud. They are too stubborn, too confident in themselves, too arrogant. How could such degenerates be rewarded by Jesus? The return of Jesus is a great salvation for those who are capable of accepting the truth, but for those who are unable to accept the truth it is a sign of condemnation. You should choose your own path, and should not blaspheme against the Holy Spirit and reject the truth. You should not be an ignorant and arrogant person, but someone who obeys the guidance of the Holy Spirit and longs for and seeks the truth; only in this way will you benefit” (“By the Time You Behold the Spiritual Body of Jesus, God Will Have Made Heaven and Earth Anew” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).
Through this passage of God’s words and brothers and sisters’ previous fellowship and testimonies, I understood that there are two ways in which the Lord returns: one way is out in the open, the other is in secret. Now the incarnate Almighty God’s work of judgment beginning with the house of God is just the work of the Lord coming in secret. Because God’s incarnation has come among men in the form of a normal, average person, no one can tell that He is God, no one knows His true identity. This is a secret to man. Only those who can distinguish God’s voice can recognize, accept and follow God. Just as the Lord Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me” (John 10:27). Those that fail to distinguish God’s voice will certainly treat Him as a regular person, denying and resisting Him, refusing to follow Him. Just like the Jewish Pharisees, they didn’t know His identity and even blindly condemned the Lord when they saw the Lord Jesus. Now is the stage where Almighty God comes in secret to do His work and save mankind. He is currently engaging in expressing His words to judge, purify and perfect mankind, making a group of overcomers before the disaster. The work of God’s incarnation and secret descent among man will complete after a group of overcomers have been made. Then the calamities will visit upon earth, and God will punish the wicked while rewarding the good, appearing openly before all the nations of earth. At that point, the prophecies of the Lord’s public descent on earth will be fulfilled, just as what is said in the Bible, “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matthew 24:30). “Behold, He comes with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him” (Revelation 1:7). This is the reason why all kindreds of the earth shall wail when the Lord comes with clouds. I felt suddenly brightened in my heart and understood the work of the Lord’s secret descent is a great salvation for us. Only by accepting the judgment of God’s words during the time of the work of the Lord’s secret descent, can we be purified and saved by God. If we don’t accept God’s work of judgment now, we will become the ones who resist the Lord when the Lord publicly descends with clouds, surely wailing and grinding our teeth. Then it will be too late to regret, for Almighty God says, “The judgment of God will have ended before man sees signs, when there is only the expression of truth.”
Thank Almighty God! Almighty God has opened up all the mysteries, elaborating very clearly on all aspects of truth. This truly has opened my eyes and convinced me. In the following days, I went to the church for gatherings on time, sharing my understanding of the words expressed by Almighty God in the last days with brothers and sisters, watching all kinds of videos produced by The Church of Almighty God, such as hymns, MVs, recitations of Almighty God’s words and gospel films. Every time in gatherings, I could gain something new, with my heart full of great joy. Especially in the gospel movies, brothers and sisters have detailed and clear fellowships about every issue, which has resolved the questions and doubts I have had in my heart for many years since believing in the Lord. I truly feel that The Church of Almighty God contains the work of the Holy Spirit and the truth. What excited me more was that on the third day I came to The Church of Almighty God, I met a sister who sang hymns of praising God on the stage on the Christmas of 2016. She also accepted Almighty God’s work of the last days. Thank God! It’s God’s guidance and enlightenment that has led us to follow the footprints of the Lamb, brought us out of wilderness and into the good land of Canaan. Finally, we returned to the house of God, and can enjoy abundant provision of God’s words.
It is really God’s grace that I can return to the house of God. If not for God’s guidance and leadership, if not for the brothers and sisters’ fellowships with patience, how could I, so rebellious, have welcomed the return of the Lord Jesus? God’s love for me is so great; it leaves me unable to describe it with words. At this moment, I only want to sing a hymn to praise Almighty God, and I am willing to unswervingly follow Almighty God.