I was formerly a co-worker of the Stream of Recovery. On December 8, 1998, a brother of our church preached Almighty God’s end-time work to me and brought me the book of God’s word to read. I immediately said angrily, “We have always believed in God. Why do you believe in another one?” I only read over one page of it and then stopped reading it, thinking that it was too shallow as it was written in vernacular Chinese. The brother said earnestly, “You will understand after you finish reading this book. This is indeed the personal word of God.” “I don’t acknowledge that it is God’s word. If you say it’s God’s word, then let God speak to me!” Having said that, I said to myself, “You believers in Almighty God have stolen all our ‘lambs.’ Today you also want to snare me. No way!” After the brother left, I went with other co-workers to every church and slandered and blasphemed: “‘Eastern Lightning’ is not believable. It is a false christ, a false prophet, a deceiver coming in the name of the Lord, a female king. They are the very ones that disturb the church and are the evil spirits and devils that beguile people.” In order to preserve my position, I fabricated many lies to frighten the brothers and sisters, saying: “The believers in Almighty God commit adultery and they are of an underworld organization. If you join them, you cannot withdraw. If you try to do so, they will beat you, harm you….”

In February 2000, my younger sister came to my home to preach God’s end-time gospel to me. I said to her, “Don’t come again if you want to preach this. I have heard it many times. I won’t believe it no matter how you persuade me.” But she seemed not to mind what I had said, and kept telling me that God had come this time to do the work of judgment and the work of reuniting all denominations into one…. But no matter what she said, I just turned a deaf ear to it. From then on, she constantly came to preach the gospel to me. Several times when she saw that I did not accept it but desperately resisted it instead, she left in tears. Yet my heart was not melted by these. Each time after she left, I continued my evil deeds—desperately blaspheming and slandering Almighty God’s work and closing the churches to outsiders for fear that people would all follow Almighty God, and I would become a “general without an army.”

By September, I resisted even more desperately. I often slandered in the churches: “The one ‘Eastern Lightning’ believes in is exactly the one recorded in the Bible who sets up himself in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God. He is an antichrist through and through…. Only our Stream of Recovery has the truth. As long as we stand firm, we will be overcomers!” In order to preserve my position, I blasphemed Almighty God, slandered God’s end-time work, and did my utmost to close the churches to outsiders everywhere. Now I know that my actions and deeds are just like what Jesus said in Matthew 23:13: “… You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.”

On December 9 of the same year, my sister came to my home again. She advised me not to talk irresponsibly and not to blaspheme God, lest I be punished by God. Instead of listening to her, I said to her haughtily, “Don’t try to frighten me. I’ve never feared anything since my childhood.” But unexpectedly, several days later, I really received God’s discipline. On the afternoon of December 16, when I was preaching in the church, I lost my voice after speaking only two words. Seeing that my voice wouldn’t work, a co-worker gave me a glass of water. I drank it, said two words, and then my voice wouldn’t work again. This happened three times in succession. In the end I had to shake my head and went for a rest.

On the morning of February 6, 2001, a brother of my village came to my home and talked with me about the matter of belief in God. While we were talking, my sister came again and begged me to go to listen to the message. That brother also persuaded me, saying, “Since we joined the Stream of Recovery, Brother Witness Lee has been talking about the oneness and the building up, but now our churches have not been united but have been divided. And Brother Lee said that the ‘corporate new man’ would appear before 2000. Now is already 2001, but it still has not appeared. This means that the ‘corporate new man’ does exist, but we don’t know where it is. We should seek. Let’s go to listen to it today. If it’s true, we will accept it; if not, there’s no harm in listening. Let’s just regard this trip as a visit to the relatives….” In this way, they persuaded me again and again until I agreed to go to listen.

After we got there, the brother who preached the gospel fellowshipped with us about the three stages of God’s work. He also fellowshipped that God’s work was done according to the age and stage, God’s work was ever new and never old and was never repeated, and God’s work did not match man’s notions. He said, “God’s work features a word ‘new’ and a word ‘amazing.’ If one can keep up with God’s work, he will ‘live’; if not, he will ‘die.’ From the following examples: Noah entered the Ark, the Israelites were brought out of Egypt and entered Canaan, people in the Old Testament age were to keep Jehovah’s laws, people in the Age of the Grace were to believe in Jesus, and so on, we can see the principle of God’s working and the two entirely different outcomes between those who kept up with God’s work and those who did not. Let’s look at the Pharisees. Although they were very familiar with the Scripture, they became ones resisting God and were punished by God eventually. The main reason was that when God started a new work, they did not keep up with it but measured Jesus against the Scripture. The Scripture says that the virgin would be with child and would give birth to a son, but in man’s view, Mary had a husband and was not a virgin. The Scripture says that Messiah would come and assume power, but he who came was called Jesus and was born in a poor carpenter’s family. The Scripture says that he would save his people from their sins, but Jesus himself was nailed onto the cross. In their views, all these were neither in conformity with the Scripture nor with man’s notions. So, they crucified the merciful Lord Jesus onto the cross according to the literal meaning of the scriptures. Today we are also living in a transitional age. We are also waiting for Jesus’ coming again and waiting for the fulfillment of the prophecies in the Bible, such as Jesus’ sudden coming on the white clouds in Jewish garment on a certain day of great joy. However, would Jesus really come according to man’s imaginations and the literal meaning of the prophecies? Of course not! For God does not work according to man’s notions. Today, God has not appeared to men as the Spirit or come on the white clouds to let every eye see him, but he has been incarnated to do the work among men in a hidden way. God has not come in Jewish garment, but has taken the image of a Chinese and worked in Mainland China. God has not taken on a male appearance to do the work, but has taken on a female one. God is no longer called Jesus, but is called the Almighty who is full of power and authority…. Can you accept all these?” When I heard these words, my color changed and my head “buzzed” all of a sudden. I said, “It’s possible that the Lord has come, but it’s absolutely impossible that he has been incarnated and as a female! …” Seeing that I couldn’t accept these, the brother looked up several verses that prophesied the Lord’s second coming: Luke 17:24-30; Hebrews 9:28; Revelation 1:12-16, 11:15, 14:1-4, 17:14; and so on. He said, “These verses mention the ‘Son of Man,’ ‘Christ,’ and the ‘Lamb.’ Then, what is the ‘Son of Man,’ ‘Christ,’ or the ‘Lamb’? Both Jehovah and Jesus were God Godself. Why could Jesus be called the ‘Son of Man,’ ‘Christ,’ or the ‘Lamb’ whereas Jehovah could not? The ‘Son of Man,’ ‘Christ,’ and the ‘Lamb’ are the names by which God incarnate is called. Jesus could be called ‘Christ’ because Jesus was the holy flesh in which God’s Spirit was clothed, and he had normal humanity and full divinity. Yet Jehovah was Spirit. Sometimes he also appeared with the spiritual body, but he only had full divinity and did not have normal humanity. So Jehovah could not be called ‘Christ,’ the ‘Son of Man,’ or the ‘Lamb.’ The biblical prophecies concerning the Lord’s second coming all mentioned the ‘Son of Man,’ ‘Christ,’ or the ‘Lamb.’ Haven’t these fully shown that the Lord’s second coming is through being incarnated? If it were God’s Spirit who came, could he be addressed in such a way?” Hearing these, I was suddenly enlightened: “So the Lord’s second coming is really through being incarnated!” I felt much relieved immediately. The brother continued, “Luke 17:24-25 says: ‘For the Son of Man in his day…. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.’ These verses also show that the Lord’s second coming is through being incarnated. Let us consider this: if it were the Spirit who came, could he suffer? How could he be said to be rejected by men? The Scripture also says that false christs will appear to deceive people in the end time (Matthew 24:3-5). We all know that only those who pose as Christ can be called false christs. If the true God came not with the flesh but with a spiritual body, could false christs pose as Christ? Could they deceive people? If so, why did Jesus say that false christs would appear in the end time? Hasn’t this even more shown that the Lord was giving his disciples a hint that he would come again still through being incarnated?” Thank God! Through the brother’s fellowship, I finally understood this truth. “Alas! How come I haven’t thought of that before?” The brother said, “It is not because we humans haven’t thought of that, but because we have had a fixed view of God and are not willing to seek at all. Didn’t Jesus say that ‘He who seeks finds’ (Matthew 7:8)? Didn’t he say that ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness’ (Matthew 5:3, 6)?”