Ironclad Proofs of Being Conquered by God’s Word

I. Having Listened to the Rumors and Believed the Lies, I Resisted Blindly. For “Guarding the Church” and “Defending the Way,” I Shut the Door on the Lord.

I am Wang Haijun, formerly a preacher of the Justification by Faith Church. Just like other brothers and sisters, I believed in God for the purpose of going to heaven and gaining eternal life, and I served God for the purpose of gaining the crown of righteousness. While I was earnestly expecting the Lord to return to reward me, I actually, because of my foolishness and ignorance, believed the rumors and thus shut the door on the Lord and became one who resisted God.

In 1999, our church got a copy of the material called The Inside Story of Eastern Lightning from another church. It said that “Eastern Lightning” was a cult, a heresy. Its book contained a magic potion; once one read it, he would be bewitched. They had evil spirits in them; once one listened to their fellowship, he would be deceived into joining them. “Eastern Lightning” was an underworld organization. If one joined it, he would be unable to withdraw. If he tried to do so, he would either have his legs broken or his nose cut off. I swallowed the words in that material without any thinking and spread them wantonly. At the same time, I established rules in the church to guard against “Lightning”: No one should have any contact with the believers of “Eastern Lightning.” Don’t listen to their fellowship. Don’t read their books. Outside believers must be brought to the church, and no one should receive them privately. Violators should offer sincere prayers of repentance, and they will be rebuked or expelled according to how deeply they have been “poisoned.” The outside believers can only listen and not preach.

At that time, Sister Wang in our church accepted “Eastern Lightning.” I forced her to offer a prayer of repentance, but she refused. So, I drove her out of the church and did not allow her to attend meetings anymore. Sister Zhang, whose elder sister traveled about fifteen miles to come to preach God’s end-time gospel to her, was so frightened under my pressure that she hid herself and dared not even serve her sister a meal. Afterward, I still forced her to offer a prayer of repentance, which made her feel so wronged that she could not speak but only shed tears silently. Later, two sisters from other places came to my home and said to me, “The Lord has come. Woe to those who do not accept…” I said contemptuously, “The Lord has come. Have you seen him? Woe to whom? I think that a disaster is hanging over your head!” As I said that, I drove them out. After that, nearly one hundred people came to preach the end-time gospel to me. Of them, I brushed some aside, rebuked some angrily, gave some violent pushes, mockeries, and taunts, even teases and humiliations, and threatened some with calling the police to arrest them and drove them away.

By 2000, our church had completely lost the normal church life. Guarding against “Lightning” and talking about the “rumors about Lightning” occupied most of our meeting time, and there was no supply of the way of life at all. The more we guarded against “Lightning,” the less the number in the church became. The brothers and sisters became weaker and weaker, more and more people slept in the meetings, the leaders committed adultery and quarreled with jealousy, and the brothers and sisters intrigued against one another and formed cliques among themselves. The church had already fallen apart. In the autumn of 2001, though I frenziedly resisted “Eastern Lightning” and stepped up efforts to close the church to outsiders, still more than half of the people in our church, including my wife and my sister-in-law, accepted “Eastern Lightning” behind my back. Only I was kept in the dark. When I knew the truth, “flowers had fallen” and I could do nothing. Even so, I still frenziedly shouted a slogan: “Even if I am the only one left, I will not accept ‘Eastern Lightning’!” At that time, I also knew that the church had completely lost the working of the Holy Spirit. When we preached, we depended solely on strength of our flesh, and the songs we sang were all sad ones about “the desolation of God’s temple.” The atmosphere was so inanimate. I knelt down before the Lord many times and prayed in bitter tears, asking him to revive the church, but I got no “answer.” Then, I fell into deep thinking: “Exactly what is ‘Lightning’? Is it truly like what is said in the rumors? Wherein is it ‘evil’? Wherein is it ‘heretical’? It doesn’t matter that I cannot go to heaven, but how about so many brothers and sisters? The Lord said that the good shepherd would lay down his life for the sheep. Now, of the Lord’s sheep, some have returned to the world, some have joined ‘Lightning,’ and the rest are so passive and weak that they cannot pick themselves up. If this continues, how can I give an account to the Lord when he comes? To get the Lord’s sheep back and stop the brothers and sisters from being ‘deceived,’ even if I have to climb up the mountain of swords and go down to the sea of flames, I have to venture into them. I must ‘personally go into the tiger’s den’ to bring the whole thing to light.”