Testimony of Returning to God: My Debate With Pastor Jin, a “Spiritual Father” (Continued)

reading God's words

Christian Life | Continuing on the True Way but Cursed by the Pastor

For the following two weeks, Pastor Jin would come to the fruit stand to talk to me from time to time, trying to convince me to return to his church, which I never agreed to. Seeing I wouldn’t listen to him, his humiliation morphed into anger.

One day Pastor Jin stormed over to my fruit stand and, no longer referring to me as “Deacon Li”, said, “Xiangming’s mother (my son’s name is Xiangming), don’t be such a fool! The Bible clearly states ‘This same Jesus … shall so come in like manner as you have seen Him go into heaven’ (Acts 1:11). So when the Lord returns He will definitely be on a white cloud—let go of this Almighty God stuff! On top of that, if you’re going to believe in that you can, but do you really need to drag your two kids into it? Deacon Pu has always had such a devout family, and even the kids’ grandparents were devout during their lives, too. I can’t let your family’s name be destroyed!” I was indignant hearing him say this and thought, “I’ve accepted Almighty God’s work of the last days which is keeping up with the footsteps of the Lamb and being raptured up before God’s throne. This is an incredibly wonderful thing, so how could you say I’m destroying my family’s name? What’s even more upsetting is that not only do you want to keep me from believing in Almighty God, but you’re even trying to control my children’s freedom of belief. How could you try to control our investigation of the true way?” I then rebuked him in my righteous anger: “God’s sheep heed God’s voice. No man can stand in the way of a person’s faith in God. My children have read Almighty God’s words and they understand that it’s God’s voice. That is the guidance of God! When I went to church before to seek and investigate, my children weren’t interested, but now they want to go to The Church of Almighty God with me. They have their own freedom of belief and I’m not putting limitations on them. Why would you try to restrict our children’s freedom of belief?” Pastor Jin couldn’t say anything to refute that, so he just said some angry, debased things to curse me and then stalked off. I was shocked by his behavior. Although I felt upset, I primarily felt confused. I thought, “Pastor Jin used to always pray for our family to be blessed, so why would he be so vicious today? Is it really because I’ve accepted Almighty God’s work of the last days that he’s so hateful and oppressive, that he’s cursing me this way?” I was really at a loss.

After some time I shared Almighty God’s gospel of the last days with two sisters from my old church. They were happy to listen to Almighty God’s words and got in touch with me frequently. But not long after, Pastor Jin learned that they were looking into God’s work of the last days. I don’t know what sort of tactics he used to threaten them, but they stopped contacting me and started intentionally avoiding me. I felt not only upset, but angry, and I couldn’t help but think the Lord Jesus’ words rebuking the Pharisees: “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for you neither go in yourselves, neither suffer you them that are entering to go in” (Matthew 23:13). Not only did Pastor Jin refuse to accept God’s work of the last days himself, but was doing everything in his power to stop the other brothers and sisters from seeking and investigating it. He was even threatening people with expulsion from the church to keep them from accepting Almighty God’s work of the last days. Isn’t that just like the Pharisees who stood in the way of believers accepting the Lord Jesus’ work of redemption? Not only did they refuse to accept God’s salvation themselves, but even dragged other brothers and sisters down into hell with them. That will certainly be damned by God!

Through God’s Words I Clearly See the Pastor’s True Face

At a later gathering I related all of this to the brothers and sisters there, and Sister Li read a couple of passages of God’s words to me, “Do you wish to know the root of why the Pharisees opposed Jesus? Do you wish to know the substance of the Pharisees? They were full of fantasies about the Messiah. What’s more, they believed only that the Messiah would come, yet did not seek the truth of life. And so, even today they still await the Messiah, for they have no knowledge of the way of life, and do not know what the way of truth is. How, say you, could such foolish, stubborn and ignorant people gain God’s blessing? How could they behold the Messiah? They opposed Jesus because they did not know the direction of the Holy Spirit’s work, because they did not know the way of truth spoken by Jesus, and, furthermore, because they did not understand the Messiah. And since they had never seen the Messiah, and had never been in the company of the Messiah, they made the mistake of paying empty tribute to the name of the Messiah while opposing the substance of the Messiah by any means. These Pharisees in substance were stubborn, arrogant, and did not obey the truth. The principle of their belief in God is: No matter how profound Your preaching, no matter how high Your authority, You are not Christ unless You are called the Messiah. Are these views not preposterous and ridiculous?” (“When You Behold the Spiritual Body of Jesus Will Be When God Has Made Anew Heaven and Earth” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “Those who read the Bible in grand churches recite the Bible every day, yet not one understands the purpose of God’s work. Not one is able to know God; moreover, not one is in accord with the heart of God. They are all worthless, vile men, each standing on high to teach God. Though they brandish the name of God, they willfully oppose Him. Though they label themselves believers of God, they are ones who eat the flesh and drink the blood of man. All such men are devils who devour the soul of man, head demons who purposefully disturb those who try to step onto the right path, and stumbling blocks that impede the path of those who seek God. Though they are of ‘robust flesh,’ how are their followers to know that they are antichrists who lead man in opposition to God? How are they to know that they are living devils who specially seek souls to devour?” (“All Who Do Not Know God Are Those Who Oppose God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).

Sister Li shared this fellowship: “God’s words very clearly explain the root of the Pharisees and the current religious leaders condemning and resisting God. It’s primarily because of their arrogant nature, that they don’t understand God’s work, and don’t seek the truth at all. They really uphold themselves; they despise and hate the truth. They’re just like the Jewish Pharisees, who were always in the temple explaining the Scripture and praying for believers, even standing in the corners of the streets praying, so they seemed to be really devout. However, when the Lord Jesus came to work, even though the Pharisees clearly saw that His words contained authority and power, they remained arrogant, stubbornly clinging to their own notions and imaginings, thinking that anyone who wasn’t called Messiah couldn’t be God. They thought that anyone who wasn’t saving them from the Roman government wasn’t God, so they didn’t seek or look into it, much less accept the Lord Jesus’ work. And so they could maintain their own status and living, they wantonly fabricated rumors and bore false witness to madly condemn and frame the Lord Jesus. They did everything they could to stop believers from following the Lord, ultimately colluding with the people in power to nail Him to the cross. This was an enormous sin. Though the Pharisees waved the flag of serving God, they were secretly doing their own business, working and expending themselves for the sake of their status and their living. When the Lord Jesus came to work and save mankind, they became enemies to Him so they could keep believers firmly controlled within their own grasp. Looking at the facts of how the Pharisees treated the Lord Jesus, their attitude toward the truth, and the way they crazily wrested people away from God, it’s clear that in essence, they were antichrists who hated the truth.

Now take a look at the pastors and elders within the religious world today. They’re very familiar with the Bible, they’re able to explain a lot of Scripture and theology, on the outside they appear very humble and devout, and believers all think of them as people who wholeheartedly serve the Lord and really adore them. However, now that God has returned in the flesh to work, the pastors and elders don’t recognize Him at all, but instead behave in an arrogant, self-aggrandizing way; they stubbornly cling to their own notions and imaginings and completely lack hearts of reverence for God. They refuse to seek or investigate Almighty God’s work of the last days. Just think—they are well aware that The Church of Almighty God has borne witness for years that the Lord has returned; the words expressed by Almighty God as well as gospel films and all sorts of other videos bearing witness to God’s work of the last days have been online for a long time. People from all denominations who love the truth have heard God’s voice, and one by one have come before Almighty God through seeking and investigating God’s work of the last days. But how many of the pastors and elders in religious circles have made the effort to seek and look into God’s work of the last days? And how many have accepted it? Most religious leaders have condemned Almighty God’s work of the last days just based on their own notions and imaginings and have used all sorts of tactics to ensnare and control believers under the guise of protecting their flocks. They don’t allow members of their congregations to look into or accept the true way, but try to play a mad tug-of-war with God over His people. Doesn’t this expose them as antichrists? Take this Pastor Jin, for example: When encountering God’s work of the last days, not only did he refuse to seek, but he trotted out his old qualifications, thinking of himself as so well versed in the Bible and so familiar with the Bible, so he just blindly clung to the Bible verses about the Lord Jesus descending on a cloud. He refuted and refused to accept the prophecies that the Lord Jesus would come in secret, even doing his utmost to condemn Almighty God’s work of the last days as well as hinder believers and keep them from investigating the true way. Plus, he tried to delude, intimidate, and threaten believers who had already accepted God’s work of the last days, even using the tactic of cursing in his efforts at disruption. He doesn’t want to allow anyone to follow Almighty God. We can see from how the pastors and elders approach the Lord’s return that they have arrogant nature and have intense hatred for the truth; they won’t remotely accept the truth. They are the antichrists revealed by God’s work of the last days—they are the modern-day Pharisees! However, God is almighty, and He employs His wisdom based on Satan’s trickery, so God has us gain discernment through the pastors’ and elders’ disruption and hindrances so we can see through their true faces as hypocrites who hate the truth. That’s the only way we’ll be able to completely reject them within our hearts, escape from the grasp of those antichrists, and unwaveringly follow Almighty God.”

Nodding, I said, “This fellowship really makes sense to me. I used to lack discernment in this area and was taken in by Pastor Jin’s apparent devoutness. I thought that he was genuinely serving the Lord, and when I saw that film where the pastors and elders clung to the Bible and stopped other believers from turning toward God, I still believed that Pastor Jin couldn’t possibly be that way, just relying on my own notions and imaginings. I thought that he has such a good understanding of the Bible and is a devoted servant of the Lord, so when he heard the news of the Lord’s return he would certainly seek with humility. But after experiencing his attempts at hindering and disrupting me time after time, I finally realized that God’s words reveal people’s nature and essence. It doesn’t matter if it’s a pastor or just a regular believer—as long as they refuse to accept the truth, are arrogant and resist God’s work based on their notions and imaginings, their essence is the same as the Pharisees’ was. I then became able to clearly see Pastor Jin’s deception and hypocrisy When he heard the Lord’s coming he didn’t have any intention of seeking or looking into it. Not only would he not accept it, but he just wildly condemned and resisted it, also standing in the way of other believers so they wouldn’t investigate or accept God’s work of the last days. When I refused to be constrained by him and still accepted God’s work of the last days, he did everything he could to disrupt me, even cursing me. He’s not genuinely serving the Lord at all! He doesn’t bring believers before God. On the contrary, he has believers follow him all the while resisting God’s work of the last days so that they miss out on God’s end-times salvation. He is a modern-day hypocritical Pharisee and is a roadblock, a stumbling block for others on the path of entering the kingdom of heaven. He’s an evil demon swallowing up our souls!”

Now when I think back on all of Pastor Jin’s attempts to stand in my way, I have a myriad of feelings, and I’m particularly grateful for God’s salvation! Every time he took Bible passages out of context in an attempt to mislead me, God enlightened and guided me to refute his fallacies. Also, the other brothers’ and sisters’ fellowship helped me see the pastors’ and elders’ essence of hating the truth and being enemies of God, keeping me from being confused by the fallacies Pastor Jin was spreading, and thus losing out on God’s salvation. I really give thanks for God’s protection so that I could escape from the deceptions and binds of the religious world’s Pharisees and antichrists, and return before God. I also have sympathy for those brothers and sisters who have been hoodwinked by the pastors and elders, who do not seek, investigate, or dare to accept Almighty God’s work of the last days. I’ve seen that as far as welcoming the Lord’s coming goes, we can’t just blindly follow another human being or believe whatever another person has to say—we must focus on hearing the voice of God, praying more and seeking the truth, and viewing things in accordance with God’s words. This is the only way we’ll be able to welcome the Lord’s return. Otherwise, we will lose God’s salvation!

Source from: Eastern Lightning | Testimony of Returning to God: My Debate With Pastor Jin, a “Spiritual Father” (Continued)