Return to God

By Ranjana, India My Church Was Becoming Increasingly Desolate I am an Indian Christian. In 2007, I began to believe in the Lord because of an illness, and afterward, my condition gradually improved. In order to repay the Lord’s love, I started spreading the gospel to people around me. Several years later, locally, a church was established and I took on various aspects of the church’s ministerial work with our pastor. At that time, the pastor also opened up a drug rehabilitation center and preached the gospel to drug addicts, many of whom believed in the Lord and went to the church. Gradually, the pastor spent much of his time in the drug rehabilitation center and didn’t focus on shepherding the brothers and sisters or resolving their states. Later on, I discovered that the pastor had already been in charge of all the money of the drug rehabilitation center and that he hadn’t kept any accounts, causing brothers and sisters to argue about this and to be suspicious with each other. From then on, our church gradually fell into desolation. The pastor focused only on preaching about donation; his sermons were always the same old staff that lacked illumination, and could not move brothers and sisters; he just read some verses and talked about his own literal interpretations and paid no attention to preaching the Lord’s word, so brothers and sisters couldn’t get sustenance and fewer and fewer of them were coming to gatherings. He had no choice but to invite pastors from other churches to preach sermons, but they too preached on the same old things and spoke of theological theory, and thus many brothers and sisters still did not attend gatherings. Not only that, the pastor participated in political activities and ran for office and even lent the church’s money to the believers to earn interest. As a result, when the church demanded repayment of debts from the believers who failed to pay back the money, they even didn’t go to the church because of their inability to pay debts. Faced with this kind of situation in the church, I prayed and fasted but it was to no avail. Seeing that the church was becoming increasingly desolate, I had no desire to go there. I simply stayed at home where I prayed and read the scriptures by myself. My faith was gradually whittled away and later I began to be busy with my work. My Elder Sister’s Changes Got Me to Reflect on My Actions At the end of 2017, I saw that my elder sister attended online gatherings, and although sometimes I heard her fellowshiping with her brothers and sisters, I had no inclination to ask what she had fellowshiped about because I had become so busy with my work. One day, when I saw my elder sister attending a meeting and fellowshiping with her brothers and sisters, I suddenly felt unease and couldn’t help but recall the story of Martha and Mary. I thought to myself, “My sister often quiets before God like Mary did, attend gatherings and read God’s words every day, while I’m caught up in various affairs, busy with doing things instead of paying attention to listening to God’s words like Martha. So how could I gain God’s approval?” Thinking of this made me very upset. I told myself that I could no longer go on like this—I had to attend gatherings. One day, I asked my elder sister to drive me to the church but she said to me, “Don’t go to the church. There are too many arguments and suspicions between brothers and sisters. Our church has already become desolate and is without the work of the Holy Spirit.” Hearing this, I didn’t agree with her. I felt confused and thought, “Why did my sister tell me not to go to the church? Our church is indeed desolate now, but the closer to this time the more we should keep going to the church. Generally speaking, believers in the Lord always encourage people to go to church, but why did she say that we don’t need to go there after she has had online meetings with several believers? Have they told some message to her?” I couldn’t help remembering some verses, “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; so that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. Why if they shall say to you, Behold, He is in the desert; go not forth: behold, He is in the secret chambers; believe it not” (Matthew 24:24–26). The scriptures said false Christs would appear in the last days to deceive people. My sister hadn’t gone to the church for gatherings, so was she deceived? Thinking this, I felt a little worried about her. But due to her bad temper, I didn’t dare talk with her about that and I planned to secretly observe her in the following days. After some time, I found that my sister had changed a great deal. In the past, she had no idea how to pray, was uninterested in God’s words, and was preoccupied with her business. But after attending online gatherings, she wasn’t so busy with her business as before but took her belief in God to heart, came to know how to pray and enjoy communicating God’s words, and even discussed the Bible with me. Seeing her changes, my worry melted away. I felt that there must be something different about her meetings, so I thought, “Maybe I should go to listen?” Remembering the scriptures related to the wise virgins and foolish virgins, I began to think: Once I was a church leader, but I was never like my sister, who was so desirous to have meetings and fellowship and who had the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. Although I persisted in reading the Bible, I didn’t gain any enlightenment and illumination. If I continued like this,…

—The Awakening of One Who Had Been Deceived by Rumors By Chenguang, Canada Editor’s Note: Because of believing the CCP’s negative propaganda about the May 28 Shandong Zhaoyuan Case, for a time the protagonist of this article Chenguang tried to block his wife from believing in Almighty God. But though he had tried everything, his wife still persisted in her faith. Afterward, through investigating The Church of Almighty God (CAG), he came to know the truth behind the May 28 Incident and became sure that Almighty God is the returned Lord Jesus. Would you like to know about his experiences? Let’s read them together. The CCP’s Rumors Were Rooted in My Heart, and I Became Suspicious of My Wife Due to our work, my wife and I came to Canada, and we attended meetings in a church near our house. Once, the pastor said in a sermon: “CAG is now testifying that the Lord has returned. This is not true. Don’t believe that, and moreover don’t have any contact with them.” Hearing this suddenly reminded me of the negative propaganda about CAG from China’s news media. In particular there was a report by China Central Television (CCTV) on the May 28 Murder Case in a McDonald’s in Zhaoyuan, Shandong, in which the CCP said that the criminal suspects were members of CAG. At that time, I felt so frightened, but I didn’t really pay much attention to it as I thought I wouldn’t come into contact with members of CAG. Now that the pastor talked about this, I must be on guard. That day, my wife didn’t listen to the sermon because she had to look after the children in the church. On our way home, she asked me about the content of the sermon, and I told her the pastor’s condemnation of CAG. Surprisingly, after hearing what I said, she immediately said: “What the pastor said isn’t in accord with the Lord’s will. The Lord Jesus said: ‘Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again’ (Matthew 7:1–2). We believers in the Lord should have reverence for God, so how can the pastor casually condemn other churches? Besides, we all believe in God. Why can’t we treat other denominations fairly?” Seeing that my wife not only wasn’t afraid but had such a big reaction, I was somewhat astonished, and casually asked her whether she had contacted any members of CAG. She said she hadn’t, and so I stopped asking. One day, when playing with my phone during my break at work, I found it had a GPS system which I hadn’t used before, and I wanted to check it out. Then I put in my wife’s cellphone number, and the result showed that she was in a house near our home. I then sent a message to ask her where she was, and unexpectedly she replied she was on her way to work. Taking another look at the result my phone showed, I felt quite bewildered: Why did she lie to me? But I was too embarrassed to catch her out, so I thought about looking for a right opportunity to ask her. Finding the Evidence of My Wife’s Belief in Almighty God, I Tried Everything to Stop Her That day, after getting home from work, when I went to take something from the wardrobe, I accidentally caught sight of a black bag which contained several books. Out of curiosity, I opened one of them, and unexpectedly the words “The Church of Almighty God” leaped out at me. I was shocked and thought: “How could my wife have books from CAG? Could it be that she has contacted people from the church?” At that time, I suddenly thought of my wife’s strong reaction when she heard the pastor’s condemnation of CAG, and her lying to me that morning, so I became even more certain that she had contact people from CAG. I began to worry and considered how to persuade her if she really had believed in Almighty God. Then I hurriedly went online to search for information on CAG, and when I saw the Chinese government’s news reports about the May 28 Incident, I got more worried about my wife. When my wife returned home from work, I impatiently asked her whether she had contacted people from CAG. She appeared to be a little surprised at my question, but she still replied she hadn’t. Seeing that, I angrily laid out on the desk the books I had found, and questioned her loudly: “When did you start believing in Almighty God? There is a lot of negative news online about CAG, don’t you know that? You lied to me this morning. You weren’t on your way to work. Where were you?” Seeing that I had found the books, my wife admitted that she had believed in Almighty God and that she was attending a meeting in a sister’s home that morning. At the thought of how she usually was reasonable and cautious, I softened my tone and continued: “The Chinese government said the boundaries between men and women were unclear among believers in Almighty God and that the Zhaoyuan case has something to do with CAG. This is awful! Can you please not contact them anymore? It will be so much better if you just go to church meetings, and I will go with you every week. Why do you want to contact them?” When I finished, I showed her the negative information online. After reading them, my wife said angrily: “These people have never had any contact with the people from CAG at all. They shouldn’t be saying anything about it. These words are completely unfounded and hearsay, they are rumors. They’re completely untrustworthy! In the past few months, I’ve been contacting the brothers and sisters of CAG, and what I’ve seen is that they dress…

The Bible prophesies there will be judgment day in the last days. Many people hold that the Lord will be seated on a great throne and judge people, but is this how the prophecy will be fulfilled in reality?

The prophecies of the coming of the Lord Jesus are gradually being fulfilled, but the churches nowadays are universally in a state of desolation. What is the real reason behind this?

By Hui Min, Australia On a Sunday morning, the sun just arose. I received my mom’s phone call while I was still sleeping. “Minmin, are you going to church today?” “I’m afraid I can’t go today. The final exams are coming and I have a lot of schoolwork to finish.” “No matter how busy you are, you must pray to the Lord. Especially in a strange land, you must pray to Him more!” “Hmm. OK.” ………… Being Self-blamed After the Phone Call I hung up and my drowsiness was gone. Thinking back to these years when, although I believed in the Lord, I had never adequately worshiped Him, I felt self-blamed in my heart … When I was six years old, my little brother and I followed my mom in believing in the Lord Jesus. At that time, although I was too young to understand the sermons, I knew the first chapter in the Bible says that God is the Creator of all things. And it’s right that mankind believes in and worship God. From then on, we three attended the worship in the church together. Not long after, this was discovered by my grandpa, grandma and father, all of whom were unbelievers. They did their best to stop us believing in the Lord. However, they couldn’t stop my mom, so they took charge of me and my little brother and did not allow us to go to church. Because of their pressure, I didn’t dare to attend meetings every weekend afterward, and only on holidays could I seek the opportunity to sneak into the church to attend worship. In this secretive way, I reached my nineteenth birthday … At the age of nineteen, I came to Australia to study. Getting rid of the obstruction of my family, I finally was free to worship God. However, I wasn’t happy for long. In the beginning, I visited several churches but felt none was proper: In some churches, when they worshiped God, everybody was reveling and dancing with many flashing and dusky lights, just like worldly people holding a concert. Some churches were far away from my home. … So I didn’t go to any of them again. It was not until two years later that I finally found a relatively suitable church. However, due to the heavy schoolwork, I had to find some time to go there. Thinking of this, I felt worried and ashamed in my heart, so I prayed and repented before the Lord. The “War” After I Returned Home In December 2017, the tense final exams were over and done with. I returned to my hometown in Malaysia and was reunited with my family. My mom happily told me that she had gotten acquainted with several sisters online who really loved the Lord, and that they had regular meetings to fellowship the Lord’s words together. Hearing her words, I felt it was very good to spend more time in the Lord’s presence. After several meetings, mom told me with excitement that the Lord Jesus has returned as the incarnate Almighty God, and that Almighty God has expressed a lot of words and performed the work of judgment beginning at the house of God in the last days. I was shocked by her words and immediately thought of the negative propaganda about The Church of Almighty God that I had read previously online. It said that they misused the name of the Lord Jesus and testified that the Lord Jesus had come back. Moreover, the Bible records that the Lord Jesus prophesied that false Christs would appear in the last days. I was afraid that my mom would take a wrong way, so I tried desperately to refute her. I said, “The Bible clearly records: ‘Then if any man shall say to you, See, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; so that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect’ (Mat 24:23–24). Therefore, whoever testifies the Lord’s return is a fraud, and we cannot believe it.” Mom said, “Minmin, the last days is when false Christs arise, but it’s also the very time that the Lord returns. We cannot blindly condemn all those who preach the Lord’s second coming because of guarding against the deception of false Christs. Otherwise, we would easily miss the Lord’s return and even resist the Lord. Moreover, when reading the Bible, we cannot take meaning out of context. If we integrate them with the following two verses—‘Behold, I have told you before’ (Mat 24:25), and ‘For as the lightning comes out of the east, and shines even to the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be’ (Mat 24:27)—we can know that in fact the Lord Jesus said this to tell us: In the last days, He will come again through incarnation as the Son of man. By saying ‘For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; so that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect’ (Mat 24:24), the Lord Jesus is to tell us the deeds of false Christs and false prophets. They mainly deceive man by imitating God’s past work and showing signs and wonders. Therefore, those who can show supernatural things such as great signs and wonders are just the ones we should guard against. In addition, in the last days, when it comes to the matter of welcoming the second coming of the Lord, not only should we learn to discern the deceptions of false Christs, but even more we should be wise virgins and focus on hearing God’s voice. This is the only way we won’t miss the opportunity to welcome the Lord’s return and be raptured to His presence.” My mom’s fellowship made me calm down a little. I thought to myself, “So the Lord Jesus’ intention in saying these words is…

Through a gathering, I found the reason for the church’s desolation, obtained the supply of the wellspring of living water, and welcomed the Lord’s return.

By Ramadi, Philippines As a Christian who has believed in the Lord for years, I’ve often heard pastors say in their sermons, “Believers such as us have been redeemed of our sins and are absolved. When the Lord returns He will rapture us directly into the kingdom of heaven.” But while I was impatiently waiting for the Lord Jesus to return and take us into the kingdom of heaven, something happened that was particularly painful and confusing for me. After I became a believer, even though I frequently read the Scripture, prayed, and attended gatherings, a quandary for me was that I often found myself unable to uphold the Lord’s teachings in my day-to-day life. I well knew that the Lord instructed us to love our neighbor as ourselves and to forgive others seventy times seven times, but every time my husband wouldn’t listen to me or someone around me did something I didn’t like, I couldn’t help but get mad. Even though I would feel guilty and remorseful and would frequently pray to the Lord and confess, whenever I encountered another situation I still just couldn’t control myself. Plus I couldn’t overcome the temptations of being drawn in, enticed by the trends of the world—I always pursued worldly trends. I was enamored with beautiful clothing and makeup and was constantly thinking about buying stuff and going window shopping. My heart was completely taken over with material pleasures and I spent more time on that sort of thing than I did on my devotionals or reading the Scripture. After a while I even got to the point where I felt less and less like reading the Bible, and I didn’t really want to go to church services, either. I knew that the Lord doesn’t like that kind of behavior, so in an effort to not continue down that path of depravity I forced myself to read the Bible and look for sermons online. But even though I stuck to my plan, I just wasn’t enjoying it at heart, and my life grew distant from the Lord’s words. I reached out to my church friends about this as well, but everyone just said that as long as I prayed more, He would show me mercy and love, that He would forgive and pardon our sins. I didn’t feel any relief from their answers because it’s stated very clearly in the Bible: “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). “For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins” (Hebrews 10:26). If the Lord would forgive us without limits like everyone said, as long as we pray to the Lord our sins would be forgiven, so why does the Bible say that if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there will be no more sacrifice for sins? Without sacrifice for sins how could we enter into the kingdom of heaven? I just couldn’t make heads or tails of these questions within my heart. I was often distressed over this and prayed to the Lord, “Oh Lord, I’m living in a constant state of committing sins and then confessing those sins; I’m so troubled. What can I do to escape from sin? Where can I find the answer? Lord, please tell me what Your will in this is! Amen.” Then in January 2018 I met a couple of sisters from China online, and by chatting with them learned that they’re very devout Christians. We talked about all sorts of things regarding faith and after a period of interaction I began to feel really close with them, that we could really open up our hearts to each other. They were also really devout in their lives and had unique understanding and insight into the Bible. Their fellowship was really illuminating and enjoyable—I really liked delving into the Scripture with them. Once Sister Susan told me very seriously, “The Lord has already returned and He’s doing the work of the last days of judging, cleansing, and saving mankind.” Shocked to hear this, I said, “The Lord Jesus was already crucified and redeemed us of our sins, completing His work. When the Lord returns shouldn’t He just directly bring us into the kingdom of heaven? Why would He also do the work of judgment? Could it be that His work hasn’t been completed?” In response, Sister Lucy shared this fellowship with me: “It’s certainly true that the Lord Jesus’ work of being nailed to the cross has been completed and that we’ve been redeemed of our sins, that we are absolved. However, does redemption mean we can enter the kingdom of heaven? Let’s read a passage of God’s words, then we’ll understand. ‘Man was … forgiven his sins, but as for just how man was to be purged of the corrupt satanic dispositions within him, this work had yet to be done. Man was only saved and forgiven his sins for his faith, but the sinful nature of man was not extirpated and still remained within him. The sins of man were forgiven through the agency of the incarnate God, but this does not mean that man no longer has sin within him. The sins of man could be forgiven through the sin offering, but as for just how man can be made to sin no more, and how his sinful nature may be extirpated completely and transformed, he has no way of solving this problem. The sins of man were forgiven, and this is because of the work of God’s crucifixion, but man continued to live within the corrupt satanic disposition of old. This being so, man must be completely saved from his corrupt satanic disposition, so that his sinful nature may be completely extirpated, never to develop again, thus enabling the disposition of man to be transformed. This would require man to grasp the path…