Wang Yuping, China
Just like all the other brothers and sisters who thirst for the return of the Lord Jesus, I too continuously long for our Lord eagerly to return to receive us into the kingdom of heaven soon so that we can enjoy its blessings. One day in November of 2006 I finally heard the news of the Lord’s return. Through reading the words expressed by Almighty God and through the fellowshiping about and bearing witness to God’s work in the last days from my brothers and sisters, I finally recognized that Almighty God incarnate is the returned Lord Jesus. Thereupon, I willingly accepted Almighty God’s work in the last days.
In a meeting, Sister Yang told me in a very serious tone: “Right now there are many brothers and sisters who, after accepting God’s work in the last days, come across some of Satan’s disturbances and temptations. Some are deceived by the lies of the CCP, some meet with the disturbances and threats of pastors and elders, some are coerced or obstructed by their families, and family members of some suffer ailments or calamities. These are tricks by Satan trying to obstruct us from returning to God. We all already understand that the work of Almighty God’s judgment starts from God’s house, and this is God’s final stage of work in saving mankind. He is doing everything He can to save man, and Satan is constantly practicing its tricks and disturbances on us in order to obstruct us from coming before God and receiving His salvation. Right now the fight that is being waged in the spiritual world is becoming more and more intense, so we urgently need to be equipped with the truth and master discernment in order to not be deceived whenever Satan’s tricks befall us and to stand witness to God. Now, let’s read a passage from the word of Almighty God.” So, I took the book of God’s word and carefully read the following passage: “As God works, Satan harasses. In the last days, it will finish its harassment; likewise, God’s work will be finished, and the kind of person God wishes to complete will be completed. God directs people positively; His life is living water, immeasurable and without limits. Satan has corrupted man to a certain degree; in the end, the living water of life will complete man, and it will be impossible for Satan to interfere and carry out its work. Thus, God will completely obtain these people. Satan still refuses to accept this now; it continuously pits itself against God, but God pays it no attention. He has said, I will be victorious over all of Satan’s dark forces and over all dark influences. … God is wiser than it, and His work far exceeds it. Therefore, I previously stated the following: The work that I do is carried out in response to Satan’s ruses. In the end I will reveal My almightiness and Satan’s powerlessness. When God does His work, Satan tails Him from behind, until in the end it is finally destroyed—it will not even know what hit it! It will only realize the truth once it has already been smashed and crushed; at that time it will already have been burned in the lake of fire. Will it not be completely convinced then? For it has no more schemes to employ!” (“You Should Know How the Whole of Humanity Has Developed to the Present Day” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). Sister Yang gently said to me: “Through the word of God we can see that in God’s management work Satan is following closely behind each step of God’s work. God is in front carrying out the work of saving man, and Satan is in the back, disturbing and destroying it. It is constantly vying for man with God, and this is especially true during God’s final stage of work in completely saving man. At this time Satan is even more so doing everything in its power, exploiting all kinds of people and things to disturb us and obstruct us from accepting and obeying the work of God. It is Satan’s despicable goal to distance man from God and make man deny God and betray God, thereby losing God’s salvation. But God’s wisdom is carried out in response to Satan’s trickery. He uses Satan’s disturbance to bring us to an understanding of His work and His wisdom and almightiness, and also to allow us to see clearly Satan’s wickedness and ugliness. So, no matter what happens in the future, we all must pray to God and rely on God and seek the truth, and we must see through Satan’s trickery so that we can stand witness to God. It’s just like the trials that Job went through. He stood witness to God, causing Satan to retreat in humiliation….” After hearing Sister Yang tell me this, I responded with complete faith: “Yes, we believe in the true God. If we depend upon God then we have nothing to fear; if I come across Satan’s temptation, I will certainly stand on the side of God.”
One day not long after this when I was finished spreading the gospel I was back at my front door when my neighbor came rushing over to me waving her hands, saying: “Where have you been? Something big has happened! Earlier, your son’s friend Liu went to borrow your truck, but the truck wouldn’t start very easily. So he got the tractor to pull it along, but after trying several times it still wouldn’t move. It just so happened that Hu was there too, and he got up into the tractor and put it straight away into fifth gear. The tractor sped off and the metal cable that was pulling the truck suddenly snapped, and whoosh! The cable snapped back and hit Hu on the temple, and immediately blood started pouring out. He’s already been rushed to the hospital….” My mind suddenly went blank, and I rushed into my home to pray to God: “Oh God! I do not understand Your will. Why has this suddenly happened to me? Please enlighten me….” After praying to God I thought about the scriptures from the Bible: “And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, Being forty days tempted of the devil” (Luke 4:1-2). When thinking about these words I also suddenly recalled Sister Yang’s fellowship about the truth on the spiritual fight. Then I understood. These things were just Satan tempting me and disturbing me. Satan just wanted to use these unfavorable things to attack me so that I would doubt God, blame God and deny God. This truly is a spiritual fight! It was at this time that I thought about another thing that God has said: “You are able to stand on the side of God when He does battle with Satan, and you do not turn back to Satan, then you will have achieved the love of God, and you will have stood firm in your testimony” (“Only Loving God Is Truly Believing in God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). These words of God filled me with faith, and I thought to myself: “Satan, no matter how you disturb me I will not fall for your tricks, I will not blame God or doubt God, I will stand on the side of God, I will properly follow Almighty God.” Once I understood the will of God I felt much steadier in my heart.
But Satan was unwilling to admit defeat, and it still constantly disturbs me through people and things. While Hu was hospitalized his family put all responsibility over my family. They wanted me to pay for all of the medical expenses. I kept trying to negotiate with them, telling them that I was willing to pay half, but all along they would not agree with me. After three weeks Hu was already healed, but he still wasn’t discharged from the hospital. This was done deliberately in order to extort the money from my family. Then one day Hu said: “The truck is yours, so all the expenses should be paid by you.” Hu’s wife also stood up and yelled out: “That’s right! Since it’s your truck that was involved in the accident then you should pay all the expenses….” As I stood there with them pestering me endlessly I started growing very angry. I had involuntarily gotten caught up in this matter. I felt a particular pain, I was distraught with anxiety, and I didn’t want to talk to them anymore, so I unhappily walked out of the room. When I got downstairs I thought to myself: I’m a believer in God; when things like this happen to me I should not get angry in this way, I should entrust this matter to the hands of God. I need to rely on God. When I returned home I opened up the book of God’s word and saw the following words of God: “In every step of work that God does within people, externally it appears to be interactions between people, as if born of human arrangements, or from human interference. But behind the scenes, every step of work, and everything that happens, is a wager made by Satan before God, and requires people to stand firm in their testimony to God. Take when Job was tried, for example: Behind the scenes, Satan was making a bet with God, and what happened to Job was the deeds of men, and the interference of men. Behind every step that God does in you is Satan’s wager with God—behind it all is a battle. … You should know that everything that happens to you is a great trial and the time when God needs you to bear testimony” (“Only Loving God Is Truly Believing in God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). As I read these words I thought back to that day when I boasted in front of Sister Yang that I would certainly stand by the side of God whenever trials befall me. I hadn’t imagined that when Satan persistently pestered me, I couldn’t calmly seek God’s will in His presence, my mind was always preoccupied. For this, I felt extremely miserable in my heart. Hadn’t I fallen for Satan’s tricks? It wasn’t until I was finished thinking about these things that I could finally see how truly sinister and evil Satan is. It had used this affair to disturb me, to make me angry for losing some of my fleshly interests, and even more so it wanted to use these things to make me deny Almighty God and betray Almighty God. But I will not fall for Satan’s tricks, I am willing to depend on God, and to deliver these things into the hands of God. Whether or not Hu would leave the hospital, how much money I would have to spend in the end, I accepted that these things would be orchestrated by the hand of God, and regardless of the outcome, I would be willing to obey. Once I had come to understand God’s will, once I was willing to stand witness to God, I unexpectedly witnessed one of God’s wondrous deeds the following day. God had aroused a young man to go to Hu’s hospital room and reprimand him: “I cannot bear to look at someone like you, someone who bullies good people, and someone who extorts someone else for their money. If it were me I wouldn’t give you a single cent.” Other people in the room also chimed in: “That’s right, he was the one that got into the truck, and now he wants this person’s money, how unreasonable!” “Right! Whoever borrowed the truck should also pay some of the money! They can’t have the owner of the truck pay for everything!” After Hu heard this he lowered his head and didn’t say a word. Three days later Hu was discharged from the hospital. I knew deep in my heart that behind these events taking place it was God who had opened up this way out for me.
After experiencing this, I could see the wickedness and despicableness of Satan. It had used people and things that I knew to disturb me and attack me in an attempt to make me complain to God and blame Him and distance myself from Him due to the fact that I was going to lose some money, and it wanted me to live in suffering. At the same time, I could also see that when I stopped considering my physical gains and losses, when I relied on God through my faith in Him, when I stood on the side of God, then God used the words of nonbelievers to open up a way out for me, forcing Satan to retreat in humiliation. This granted me the chance to see God’s authority that mobilizes and rules over all things. It’s just as it is written in the word of God: “I will mobilize all to serve Me, and moreover, I will reveal My power, so that every man can see that in the whole universe world not a single object is not in our hands, not a single person is not in our service, and not a single accomplishment is not performed for us” (“The One Hundred and Nineteenth Utterance” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). The more I read the word of God the more I see that God is almighty, that God is wonderful. I see now that all things are in the hands of God, and I now have more faith in God. I am willing now to experience more of the work of God in whatever happens next, and I will rely upon God in order to no longer fall for Satan’s temptations.
A month later Satan’s temptation befell me again. One day, my daughter who had just recently gotten married came back home where she suddenly fainted at the front door. My neighbor picked her up and helped her into the house. I thought at first that it was just a common cold, I didn’t pay much attention to it. I certainly wasn’t expecting that halfway through the night she would suddenly start trembling from head to toe. I was scared and had no idea what to do. I just quickly grabbed her and held her to my chest, and after a little while she seemed a little better. The next morning my daughter said to me: “Mom, go perform your duties, I’ll be okay.” I silently prayed to God: “Dear God! All things are in Your hands, so I entrust my daughter to You….” After this I turned to my daughter and said: “Jing, you need to pray to God more and rely on God, for He is the strong support that we need.” After urging my daughter about this I went to go perform my duties. I didn’t expect that two days later when I returned I would find my daughter in a hospital bed unconscious. My daughter-in-law turned to me and said in a sad voice: “Mom, after you left, Jing’s illness started getting really serious. When the doctor examined her, he said she had a cerebral hemorrhage and that she needed a craniotomy surgery. But since you and her husband have not been here the past two days, there was no one to sign off for her, and now we’ve missed the time for surgery. I also heard the doctor tell Jing’s mother-in-law that her condition was not good and that even if she did wake back up she would be in a vegetative state.” When I heard this it felt like a knife had been twisted into my heart, and tears started falling out of my eyes. I just couldn’t accept this as the truth. So I held on to a bit of hope and went to talk to a specialist, but he shook his head as he said to me: “We’ve used all the medicine that we could, we’ve tried as hard as we can, the best possible result is that she wakes up in a vegetative state.” After hearing this doctor’s words I felt that even heaven had come crashing down. It felt like I lived in endless suffering…. Later on, when my son-in-law saw what state my daughter was in, he not only wasn’t concerned about whether she would live or die, but he even turned to me and showed a total lack of humanity asking me to return the betrothal money that he had given us at the time of the wedding. On that day the road to home from the hospital felt so long, I was a lost soul wandering down that road. It felt like I was walking down a long, dark tunnel where I could not see any light in front of me.
When I returned home I was feeling dispirited and feebly opened the book of the word of God and read the following words: “On earth, all manner of evil spirits are endlessly on the prowl for a place to rest, are ceaselessly searching for the corpses of men to eat up. My people! You must remain inside My care and protection. Never behave dissolutely! Never behave recklessly! Rather, offer up your loyalty in My house, and only with loyalty can you mount a countercharge against the devil’s cunning” (“The Tenth Utterance” of God’s Utterances to the Entire Universe in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “When you face sufferings you must be able to not consider the flesh and not complain against God. When God hides Himself from you, you must be able to have the faith to follow Him, to maintain your previous love without allowing it to falter or disappear. No matter what God does, you must submit to His design, and be more willing to curse your own flesh than to complain against Him. When you are faced with trials you must satisfy God in spite of any reluctance to part with something you love, or bitter weeping. Only this can be called true love and faith” (“Those Who Are to Be Made Perfect Must Undergo Refinement” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). As I read these words of God I thought back to the events that had just taken place, and I truly could see the contempt, maliciousness and savageness of Satan. It wanted to take me away from God’s hands, it wanted to devour my spirit. It was practicing its cunning schemes against me everywhere that it could in order to disturb me and attack me. First, I was extorted by others, and since I lost money I lived in suffering; this time Satan used my beloved daughter to again test me, it tried to use my daughter’s illness to make me complain to God, deny God and betray God, so that I would lose God’s salvation in the last days. These were all the cunning schemes of Satan. It was just like the trials that Job faced in his time. In the background was a fight, and Satan wanted to make Job abandon God and deny God by making him lose his wealth and his children, but Job never complained to God. Instead, he praised God’s name, causing Satan to retreat in humiliation and giving beautiful and resounding testimony to God. Although my flesh is weak I must see through Satan’s cunning schemes and stand by God’s side. God says: “And only with loyalty can you mount a countercharge against the devil’s cunning.” “You must satisfy God in spite of any reluctance to part with something you love, or bitter weeping. Only this can be called true love and faith.” God is using Satan’s attacks to perfect my faith and my devotion in God. Man’s life and death are both in God’s hands, so I should deliver my daughter into His hands. As I thought about this, I knelt to the ground as bitter tears ran down my face, and I prayed to God: “Almighty God! The fate of man lies in Your hands. But if You do not allow this then my daughter will not die so long as a single breath is in her body, and if it is like what the doctor said that she will become a vegetable, then I will not blame You, I will still follow You.”
Very late at night I was sitting at the head of my daughter’s hospital bed until I was not sure when I dozed off. I woke up in a daze hearing my daughter say, “Mom, mom, I need water.” My heart skipped upon hearing my daughter’s voice, and I jumped to my feet. I rubbed my eyes and stared at her. My daughter’s hands were moving and her eyes were open. This immediately flooded me with emotions to the point that I didn’t know what to say, and all I could do was to continue blurting out: “Oh! God! Oh! God! …” Another person in the ward also said in amazement: “Oh! It’s a miracle! How has she gotten better all of a sudden?” I flashed an uncontrollable smile. I saw that man’s life and death truly are both in God’s hands. God’s deeds truly are wonderful. It was God who saved my daughter. Three days later, my daughter miraculously recovered her health, and she seemed just like a normal person again. After experiencing this suffering by the hands of Satan I was able to see that the fight being waged in the spiritual world was an intense one, and I could see clearly the sinister meanness and wicked cruelty of Satan. At the same time I had a much better understanding of the will of God. God had allowed for these trials to befall me so that He could better rescue me and perfect me, for this allowed me to recognize the almightiness and wisdom of God, and it also allowed me to see God’s authority and dominion. This perfected my faith, devotion and obedience toward God. He rescued me from the influence of Satan, allowing my life to grow. God truly is so lovable!
Later on I read the following passage from the word of God: “My entire management plan, a plan that spans six thousand years, consists of three stages, or three ages: the Age of Law in the beginning; the Age of Grace (which is also the Age of Redemption); and the Age of Kingdom in the last days. My work in these three ages differs in content according to the nature of each age, but at each stage it accords with man’s needs—or, to be more precise, it is done according to the tricks that Satan employs in the war that I wage against it. The purpose of My work is to defeat Satan, to make manifest My wisdom and omnipotence, to expose all of Satan’s tricks, and thereby to save the entire human race, which lives under its domain. It is to show My wisdom and omnipotence while at the same time revealing the unbearable hideousness of Satan. Even more, it is to teach My creations to discriminate between good and evil, to know that I am the Ruler of all things, to see clearly that Satan is humanity’s foe, the lowest of the low, the evil one, and to tell, with absolute certainty, the difference between good and evil, truth and falsehood, holiness and filth, and what is great and what is ignoble. This way, ignorant humanity will become able to bear witness to Me that it is not I who corrupt humanity, and only I—the Lord of creation—can save humanity, can bestow upon man things for their enjoyment; and they will come to know that I am the Ruler of all things and Satan is merely one of the beings that I created and that later turned against Me” (“The True Story Behind Work in the Age of Redemption” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). Through these words of God I came to a better understanding of God’s will. I could see that everything that God does is salvation and love toward man. As I thought back to all the trials that I went through, even though I did endure some hardships, I also obtained many things. Through these experiences I saw that Satan continuously used the people and things at my side to disturb me, but all along I had God by my side. He used His words to enlighten me and guide me, so that I could better differentiate things. He gave me a road to follow, gave me faith and strength, so that I could be firm in times of passivity and weakness. Every step of the way I was able to break away from the dark influence of Satan and witness God’s wondrous deeds. In my life I grew tougher through these experiences. After I went through these experiences I felt that I need not fear these disturbances and afflictions from Satan any longer, because I have God at my side. So long as we depend on God and do not leave the word of God, so long as we have faith in God, then God will guide us to victory over Satan’s cunning schemes and attacks, and we will live protected under God’s watchful eye. Now I am of even firmer conviction that Almighty God is the returned Lord Jesus. He is my Lord, my God! I also recognize that we are creatures, regardless of whether we receive blessings or endure hardships, we should always obey God and worship God. I stand here with my resolution firm: My heart is set on following Almighty God to the end of the road!
