Eastern Lightning｜I Questions and Answers About the Church Desolation

Question 1: For years, we feel an emptiness in our church. We’ve lost the faith and love we had at the start, and become weaker and negative. The preachers sometimes feel lost and don’t know what to talk about. We feel we’ve lost the work of the Holy Spirit. We’ve looked everywhere for a church with the Holy Spirit’s work, but every church we see is as desolate as our own. Why are so many churches hungry and desolate?

Answer: The question you’ve asked is an important one. We all know that we live in the late period of the last days. The Lord Jesus once prophesied, “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” (Matthew 24:12). Lawlessness in the world of religion is growing. Religious leaders don’t abide by the commandments. They abide by men’s traditions.

Eastern Lightning｜Gospel Movie | Who Is My Lord

Liu Zhizhong is a pastor at a local house church in China. He's been a believer for over 30 years, and has constantly maintained that "The Holy Bible is inspired by God," "The Holy Bible represents God, believing in God is believing in the Bible, believing in the Bible is believing in God." In his heart, the Bible is paramount. Due to his adoration for and blind faith in the Bible, he has never studied or looked to Almighty God's work of the last days. Until one day, when he blocked believers from reading the words of Almighty God online, he had a chance encounter with the preachers from the Church of Almighty God. After undergoing intense debates about the truth, was he finally able to see the relationship between the Holy Bible and God clearly? Was he able to move away from the Bible to understand that Christ is the truth, the way, and the life? Will he be raptured before God?

From: "New Gospel Movie | Is the Bible the Lord or God the Lord? 'Who Is My Lord'"

Eastern Lightning｜Experience Testimony｜Being Reborn Through the Word of God

Being Reborn Through the Word of God

Wang Gang    Shandong Province

I am a farmer and because my family is poor, I always had to travel all over to find temporary jobs to earn money; I thought that I could make a good life for myself through my physical labor. However, in reality, I saw that there were no guarantees for the legal rights of migrant workers like me; my salary was frequently withheld for no reason at all. Time and time again I was cheated and taken advantage of by others. After a year’s worth of hard work, I didn’t receive what I was supposed to receive. I felt that this world was truly dark! Humans treat each other just like animals where the strong prey on the weak; they contest with each other, fight hand-to-hand, and I simply didn’t have a foothold to live on like this. In the extreme pain and depression of my spirit, and when I had lost faith in life, a friend of mine shared the salvation of Almighty God with me. Since then, I regularly gathered, prayed and sang with brothers and sisters; we communicated truth, and used our strengths to make up for each other’s weaknesses. I felt very happy and liberated. In the Church of Almighty God, I saw that the brothers and sisters didn’t try to outwit each other or make social distinctions; they were all purely open and got along with each other. Everyone was there to diligently seek truth in order to throw off their corrupt dispositions, and live like humans and obtain salvation. This allowed me to experience happiness in life and understand the significance and value of life. Therefore, I decided that I should spread the gospel and allow more people who live in darkness to come to God to receive His salvation and see the light again. Consequently, I joined the ranks of proclaiming the gospel and testifying of God. But unexpectedly, I was arrested by the CCP government for preaching the gospel and I suffered the extreme brutality of torture, cruel treatment and imprisonment.

Eastern Lightning | To Bear Witness for God Is Man's Duty

I

God bestows you with life; it's a gift you receive from Him. And so it's your duty to bear witness to Him. God gives you His glory, His life the Israelites didn't have. And so you must devote your life and youth to Him. You've got God's glory, so you must bear God's witness. It's ordained.

II

It's your good fortune to be given God's glory. And so it's your duty to testify to His glory. If you believe in God only to gain blessings, His work won't be meaningful, and you won't fulfill your duty. You've got God's glory, so you must bear God's witness. It's ordained.

                                      from Follow the Lamb and Sing New Songs

From: "The Hymn of God's Word 'To Bear Witness for God Is Man's Duty'"

Eastern Lightning｜God Is the Source of Man's Life (Excerpt, Stage Version)

Almighty God says, "God created this world and brought man, a living being unto which He bestowed life, into it. In turn, man came to have parents and kin and was no longer alone. Ever since man first laid eyes on this material world, he was destined to exist within the ordination of God. It is the breath of life from God that supports each living being throughout his growth into adulthood. During this process, none believe that man lives and grows up under the care of God. Rather, they hold that man grows up under the love and care of his parents, and that his growth is governed by the instinct of life. This is because man knows not who bestowed life or from whence it came, much less how the instinct of life creates miracles. Man knows only that food is the basis of the continuation of life, that perseverance is the source of existence of life, and that the belief in his mind is the wealth of his survival. Man does not feel the grace and provision from God. Man then squanders the life bestowed upon him by God. … Not one man whom God looks upon day and night takes the initiative to worship Him. God continues to work as He has planned on man for whom He holds no expectations. He does so in the hope that one day, man will awaken from his dream and suddenly comprehend the value and purpose of life, understand the cost at which God has given man everything, and know how fervently God longs for man to turn back to Him. None have ever considered the secrets to the origin and continuation of man’s life. And yet, only God who understands all of this silently endures the hurt and blows from man, who has received everything from God but is not thankful. Man takes for granted all that life brings, and “as a matter of course,” God is betrayed, forgotten, and extorted by man. Is the plan of God truly of such importance? Is man, the living being that came from the hand of God, truly of such importance? The plan of God is of absolute importance; however, the living being created by the hand of God exists for His plan. Therefore, God cannot lay waste to His plan out of hatred for this mankind. It is for the sake of His plan and the breath He exhaled that God endures all torment, not for the flesh of man but for the life of man. He wishes to take back not the flesh of man but the life He breathed out. This is His plan."

From："The Recitation of Almighty God's Word 'God Is the Source of Man's Life' (Excerpt, Stage Version)"

Eastern Lightning｜Questions and Answers About Why the True Way Is Persecuted

Question 3: You testify that the Eastern Lightning is the true way, but the CCP government has condemned the Eastern Lightning as a cult. How should we differentiate between good religion and evil cults?

Answer: The CCP is an atheist party. It resists God and hates the truth more than any other. It has determined all churches and groups that believe in the true God as evil cults and has openly declared that the Bible is an evil cult book. This is a recognized fact. Don’t you know this? Besides, haven’t we suffered enough persecution for believing in the Lord Jesus over all these years? Have there not been enough preachers and Christians persecuted to death and imprisoned by them? How can you still listen to the rumors of the CCP government?

Eastern Lightning｜New Gospel Movie | Faith in God

Yu Congguang is a gospel preacher from the Church of Almighty God. Because he was pursued by the CCP government while preaching the gospel, he fled to the mountain and got help from Zheng Xun, a co-worker of the local house church. Both of them felt like old friends at the first meeting. Zheng Xun took Yu Congguang to the thatched shack where he and his co-workers attended meetings. There, Zheng Xun’s co-workers had a debate on whether a believer in God should obey those in power, and Yu Congguang gave fellowship in light of this issue and dispelled their puzzlement. That fellowship benefited them all a lot and they started to seek and study Almighty God’s work of the last days. However, when Elder Sun of the local church learned that Yu Congguang was a preacher from the Church of Almighty God, he tried every possible means to seal off the church, preventing the believers from looking into the true way. He went door-to-door searching for Yu Congguang and even incited the believers to call the police and to put him in jail. …

In the face of the hunting and persecution from the CCP government and Elder Sun, Yu Congguang earnestly prayed to and relied on God, resolving to bring to God those in the local house church who truly believed in God and who sought and studied the true way. After several setbacks, Yu Congguang, Zheng Xun and others had no choice but to gather together among the reeds, in the basement, or in the cave for fellowship about Almighty God’s word. … Because Zheng Xun and several others investigated the Eastern Lightning, Elder Sun regarded them as foes, and the church split up into two groups. Faced with this situation, Zheng Xun and his co-workers felt pain and confusion. Yu Congguang fellowshiped with them about the words of Almighty God directing at their puzzlement, and he also expounded on what is faith in God and what kind of faith will be approved by God. At last, Zheng Xun and the others understood the truth, and their puzzlement, difficulties, and deviations in their belief in the Lord were resolved. All of them got liberated in their heart, and sighed that after years of belief, they finally realized the true meaning of faith in God. …

From："New Gospel Movie | What Is True Faith in God? | 'Faith in God'"