In 1995, I returned to the Lord Jesus because of my illness. After believing in the Lord, I was soon healed by the Lord. Because of that, I pursued very hard and often would rather go to the nearby villages to preach the gospel than go to work to earn money. Only one year later, I became a preacher of the Church of Truth.

In 1998, our church gradually became desolate. The believers often raised envy and strife and formed cliques among themselves, and the meetings had become a formality. Seeing that situation, I tried to use my own ability to resolve those conflicts, but the result was contrary to my wishes. I was also drawn into the “whirlpool” of envy and strife. Right at that time, I met an elder of the Local Church. To pursue to become an overcomer, I came out of the Church of Truth and joined the Local Church. In the beginning, I read many life-studies written by Brother Lee and felt that my views had been broadened. However, one and a half years later, I gradually got bored, because at each gathering (big meeting), we either fellowshipped the messages written by Brother Lee many years ago or watched videotapes, and there was no way to practice as to how to get rid of sin. Moreover, the envy and strife within the church were also very serious. I became disappointed. Many times I knelt down before the Lord and cried out earnestly, “O Lord! The messages from Brother Lee are indeed higher than those from all other sects and denominations, and they have made me know why God created the heavens, the earth, and man. But the theory he advocated that one can overcome the environment by calling on the name of the Lord doesn’t work so effectively in my personal experience. It’s only helpful for a while. O Lord, how I wish to know what we should do to be commended by you. O Lord, we are always living in the condition of committing sins in the day and confessing them at night. Won’t we all become sons of hell when you come to take us if we live a sinful life like this every day? O Lord, now, every day we plan for ourselves in our thoughts, but we cannot overcome our sins. What should we do? O Lord, I really feel I have no way to go….”

In the fall of 2001, the elder of our Local Church (who was in charge of four small districts) phoned me and said in an angry tone, “If Brother XX and Sister XX go to your home, you absolutely can’t receive them. They have joined ‘Eastern Lightning.’” The next day, that elder made a special trip to my home and said to me, “Brother, ‘Eastern Lightning’ is a cult. They preach that God has come and come as a female Christ. That gang of people stop at nothing to do evil, and they are of an underworld organization. They will give you whatever you ask for. If you don’t listen to them, they will break your arms and legs or even put you in a sack and throw you into the river….” Hearing his words, I couldn’t help hating “Eastern Lightning” from the bottom of my heart. So, I actively gave the elder counsels, saying: “If we want to guard against ‘Eastern Lightning,’ we should first conduct a training course on how to resist ‘Eastern Lightning’ and train the brothers and sisters in the form of questions and answers. For example, we ask the brothers and sisters, ‘Someone says that God has come, through being incarnated and as a female Christ. Do you believe it?’ If they cannot answer it or have doubts about it, we will find some verses in the Bible to refute ‘Eastern Lightning.’” The elder nodded his head approvingly.

The first time I went head-to-head with the people of “Eastern Lightning” was on October 30, 2001. That day, two sisters and one brother came to my home and testified to me that God had returned in the flesh to do the work of judging and purifying people. Before the brother explained it in detail, I scolded him to his face, “Stop! What you preach can deceive others but not me. You preach that God has been incarnated and as a female. That’s absolutely impossible! God is a male. How could he be a female? You people are too foolish and ignorant. You don’t even know whether God is a male or a female. How dare you come out to preach the end-time gospel? I advise you to go somewhere cool to enjoy yourself. I really don’t have time to listen to your nonsense. Today, I’ll neither beat you nor abuse you. Go away right now! You believe in your female Christ, and I believe in my Lord in heaven. There’s no need for you to worry about whether I will perish or not. Never come to disturb me again. Otherwise, don’t blame me for being rude!”

The next day was Sunday. That brother came to my home again. I purposely didn’t open the door for him, nor did I answer his phone. The next morning, I had hardly been at my work place an hour when the brother called on me. He reasoned with me by every means and hoped that I could make some time to have a fellowship with him. I said to him in exasperation, “No wonder others say that you people of ‘Eastern Lightning’ are brazen faced. You are really so! Didn’t I tell you not to come to disturb me anymore the day before yesterday? Why do you come again? I have no time to fellowship with you. Please go wherever you like and excuse me for not seeing you off!” After I said that, I returned to the electrician’s office and slammed the door.

More than a month later, a sister from Suihua City came to my work place to preach God’s new work to me. Seeing that the sister was small and lightly dressed, I hit upon a malicious idea. I said to her, “Sister, please wait outside for a moment.” Then, I entered the room, took off my working clothes, got on my thick leather “army” shoes, cashmere cotton-padded cap, and a cotton overcoat. After I was “armed to the teeth,” I walked out with my head held high and myself straightening up, and I said to the sister, “Since you’ve come from so far and it’s not easy for you to be here, you can talk to your heart’s content. I am all ears now.” In December, the temperature in the northeast was very low (more than 20˚C below zero). In the sharp wind, the sister’s face had turned pale, her lips had lost color, and her thin body kept trembling, but she still fellowshipped with me seriously, “Brother, to accept God’s new work, we have to first drop those imaginations and notions in our minds. Let’s talk about God’s three-stage work first….” While nodding my head absent-mindedly and perfunctorily, I thought in my heart, “Aren’t you people thick-skinned? I just don’t believe that it’s not cold enough to freeze your face. You want to talk about three stages of the work, but before you finish one stage, you will be so cold as to run away. And you won’t come even if I ask you to come next time.” It was really too cold that day. Although I was in very thick winter outerwear, my face and feet soon felt frozen. In the end, I grew impatient first and said, “Sister, let’s cut the long story short. Our elder says that you are of an underworld organization and especially cheat people of their money. I advise you not to set your mind on cheating me anymore. You’d better give up hope of it. I won’t be fooled by you….” Although I said many offensive words, the sister still said to me calmly, “Brother, your elder says that we are of an underworld organization and especially cheat people of their money. But brother, please think about this: If we are really of an underworld organization, those we will cheat should be the rich people such as the general managers or the board chairmen from large company groups. But as far as I know, brother, you are only an ordinary worker, and your family is not wealthy. What can we cheat out of you? Brother, please think about it again: If I had not been urged by the Holy Spirit and encouraged by God’s love, I would not have braved the biting wind in such cold weather and come to preach God’s new work to you. Is there such an underworld organization that cheats you out of money? It’s because God doesn’t want you to perish that he has sent us many times to rescue you. Hope that you don’t think too highly of yourself and even less feel self-important because of having a little knowledge of the Bible. Brother, if you don’t experience this stage of God’s work, you won’t know what God’s present intention is, you won’t be able to do things after God’s heart’s desire, and you won’t have your life nature transformed. The few letters and doctrines that you understand will only lead you to hell. Won’t that be a heartbreaking thing to you who have served the Lord for so many years?” Hearing the sister’s words, I felt that they were not unreasonable. So I couldn’t help bowing my head, unable to be arrogant anymore. I had no choice but to say to her, “It’s too cold today, and I’ll get off work soon. We can find another chance to fellowship later.”