By Wen Jing, China

A few years ago, I came back from out of town to my local church to do my duty. When I heard the leader, Zhang Xin, say Xiao Liu was the watering deacon, I was stunned. I knew Xiao Liu used to sow discord, as well as suppress and punish people. To gain power in the church, she and a few evil people claimed the leaders and workers to be false, causing chaos. At that time, the brothers and sisters identified her as an evil person based on her behavior and were preparing the materials to expel her. Why was she now the watering deacon? I asked Zhang Xin, who said Xiao Liu had changed now and bore a burden in her duty, and that I should view her lovingly from a perspective of growth. Although I had my doubts, I had just come back, so I didn’t know what was going on, and I thought that as a leader, Zhang Xin wouldn’t go against principles in choosing people, so I didn’t ask more. Zhang Xin also mentioned that Sister Fang Ling, who had been her partner as leader before, hadn’t done a duty or attended gatherings since being dismissed and hadn’t reversed course after repeated fellowshipping. Therefore, she was to be cleared out, and Zhang Xin asked me to provide examples of Fang Ling’s evildoings. This made me a little suspicious. Fang Ling merely hadn’t borne a burden in her duty and was a false leader who didn’t do real work. But after being dismissed, she still preached the gospel, attended to general affairs, and did no evil. Why did she have to be cleared out? The more I thought about it, the more wrong it felt. I recalled that when I had contact with Zhang Xin in the past, she’d been quite vindictive. Fang Ling once reported to upper-level leaders that Zhang Xin didn’t bear a burden in her duty. Could it be that she held a grudge over this incident and wanted revenge on Fang Ling? If that was the case, Zhang Xin was punishing Fang Ling, and that was doing evil! But I also realized I didn’t know about Fang Ling’s recent behavior, so I couldn’t be certain that there was something wrong with Zhang Xin. I decided to wait until I knew for sure.

Later, I heard that Zhang Xin had distorted the facts and judged Fang Ling during a gathering, and when a sister refuted her, she condemned that sister and Fang Ling for ganging up together to attack leadership and arranged for that sister to reflect in isolation. Because another sister said Fang Ling treated others lovingly, Zhang Xin then lied, saying that sister’s safety was at risk, and stopped her from attending gatherings for three months. There was also a sister in charge of general affairs, who Zhang Xin stopped from doing her duty merely because she gave Zhang Xin advice. This really shocked me. How could Zhang Xin have no God-fearing heart at all? She did so many evil things to suppress people. And those she suppressed were the people in the church who pursued the truth. There was certainly a problem with Zhang Xin. I went to Sister Li Xinrui, who watered newcomers, to fellowship and discern the issue. She told me, “Xiao Liu shows no repentance at all. She still cries out about the injustices she’s suffered and keeps arguing about who was wrong and who was right at every gathering she attends, causing disruption to church life. When Fang Ling was the leader, she looked into Xiao Liu’s evil behavior, so Xiao Liu has brazenly said that she wants revenge on her.” I was outraged. Zhang Xin actually said that Xiao Liu had repented. She was clearly condoning an evil person who was disturbing the church. Wasn’t this a sign of a false leader? But I thought about how if Zhang Xin didn’t promptly reverse course, she would delay the church’s work, so I decided to point out these issues to her first. After meeting Zhang Xin, I told her that she violated principles by stopping those sisters from doing their duties. Unexpectedly, she actually yelled at me, “Some people refuse to obey me, and speak ill of me behind my back! I know exactly who has these opinions about me. If they won’t obey me, go report it to upper-level leaders! Everything I do is just and right. I’m not afraid of what anyone has to say about me.” Her vicious response frightened me. Now, she alone had the final say in the church, and she suppressed and punished whoever didn’t listen to her. She was nothing but a tyrant. I’d only said one thing to her, and she was so vicious that I feared if I continued to point things out and expose her, she would forbid me from doing my duty. My life entry would suffer if that happened. Once I thought of that, I stopped pointing out her problems. After I got home, I felt very guilty. An evil person was disturbing the church, and my brothers and sisters were being suppressed. Instead of handling the matter, Zhang Xin was suppressing people, and when I pointed out her problem, she didn’t accept it. I knew I should report this situation to the upper-level leaders. After that, I went to see Xinrui. We discussed the principles of writing a report letter and prepared to report Zhang Xin. But when we finished writing out her evil behaviors and prepared to hand it in, I hesitated. What would we do if Zhang Xin found out about our report letter, made up a charge, framed us, and had us expelled? How could I be saved if I had been expelled? After thinking about this, I didn’t hand in the letter for a long time. But as I watched the chaos in the church, I felt guilty about not reporting it. Over those few days, whenever I thought about this matter, I’d feel really upset.

One night, when I went to Xinrui’s house, Zhang Xin suddenly came over, and aggressively accused Xinrui of exposing her at the church. Seeing her vicious attitude, I felt very indignant. She really was too conceited. She recklessly committed misdeeds, but forbade others from exposing her. People didn’t even have the right to speak, and the whole church was under her control. I had to stand up for justice and expose Zhang Xin to protect the work of the church. But considering how arrogant she was, how she didn’t listen to anyone and was so vindictive, I thought that if I provoked her, I might be the next one she punished. She might invent some charge to have me expelled. I felt very conflicted, so I silently called on God to give me courage and confidence. I thought of God’s word: “Every church has people who cause disturbance for the church or disrupt the work of God. They are all Satans who have infiltrated the house of God in disguise. … These people rampage through the church, spreading their negativity, venting death, doing as they please, saying what they please, and no one dares to stop them. They brim with the disposition of Satan. No sooner do they cause a disturbance than an air of death enters the church. Those within the church who practice the truth are spurned, unable to give their all, while those who disturb the church and spread death run rampage within—and, what’s more, most people follow them. Such churches are ruled by Satan, plain and simple; the devil is their king. If people in such churches do not rise up and reject the head demons, then they, too, will sooner or later come to ruin. From now on, measures must be taken against such churches. If those who are capable of practicing a little of the truth do not seek to, then that church will be expunged. If a church contains no one who is willing to practice the truth and no one who can stand firm in their testimony to God, then that church should be completely isolated, and its connections with other churches must be severed. This is called ‘burying death’; this is what it means to spurn Satan” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. A Warning to Those Who Do Not Practice the Truth). God’s word gave me courage and strength, and I was no longer afraid. God’s righteous disposition doesn’t tolerate offense, and for those extremely evil people and antichrists, God has the utmost hatred and disgust. Even if they hold power and run rampant for a while, in the end they will be revealed and eliminated. God’s word is very clear; when evil people and antichrists control the church, if no one practices the truth, then they are condoning these evil forces running rampant in the church. Such a church is ruled by Satan, and if the members don’t repent, they will all be forsaken and eliminated by God. I was really struck by this. Zhang Xin was a tyrant in the church, attacking and punishing my brothers and sisters, yet to protect myself, I didn’t stand up to expose and stop her, letting her and Xiao Liu do evil and disturb the church’s work. I was standing on Satan’s side and resisting God, and I had a share in their evil. Realizing this, I found the courage to expose Zhang Xin for protecting an evil person, using her position to punish others, and taking the path of the antichrist. After she heard this, Zhang Xin was speechless. She changed the subject immediately, agreed to let Fang Ling back into the church, and then she left.

After that, a couple passages of God’s word gave me some clarity, and I could understand Zhang Xin’s essence more. God’s words say: “One of the most obvious characteristics of the essence of an antichrist is that they monopolize power and run their own dictatorships: They do not listen to anyone, they do not respect anyone, and regardless of people’s strengths, or what correct views or wise opinions they may express, or what suitable methods they might put forward, they pay them no heed; it is as if no one is qualified to cooperate with them, or to take part in anything they do. This is the kind of disposition antichrists have. Some people say this is being of bad humanity—but how could it be commonplace bad humanity? This is an entirely satanic disposition, and such a disposition is supremely vicious. Why do I say that their disposition is supremely vicious? Antichrists expropriate everything from the house of God and the property of the church, and treat them as their personal property, all of which is to be managed by them, and they do not permit anyone else to intervene in this. The only things they think about when doing the work of the church are their own interests, their own status, and their own pride. They do not allow anyone to harm their interests, much less do they allow anyone of caliber or anyone who is able to speak of their experiential testimony to threaten their reputation and status. And so, they try to suppress and exclude as competitors those who are able to speak of experiential testimony, and who can fellowship the truth and provide for God’s chosen people, and they desperately try to isolate those people completely from everyone else, to drag their names thoroughly through the mud, and to bring them down. Only then will the antichrists feel at peace. … Do they consider the interests of the house of God? No. What do they think about? They think only of how to hold on to their own status. Though antichrists know themselves to be incapable of doing real work, they do not cultivate or promote people of good caliber who pursue the truth; the only people they promote are those who flatter them, those who are apt to worship others, who approve of and admire them in their hearts, those who are smooth operators, who have no understanding of the truth and are incapable of discernment. The antichrists bring these people up to their side to serve them, to run about for them, and to spend each day orbiting around them. This gives the antichrists power in the church, and it means that many people draw close to them, and follow them, and that no one dares to offend them. All these people whom antichrists cultivate are people who do not pursue the truth. Most of them lack spiritual understanding and know nothing but rule-following. They like to follow trends and the powers that be. They are of the sort that is emboldened by having a powerful master—a gang of muddle-headed people. How does that saying of the nonbelievers go? Better to be a squire to a good man than the worshiped forebear of a bad one. Antichrists do precisely the opposite—they act as the worshiped forebears of such people, and set out to cultivate them as their flag-wavers and cheerers-on. Whenever an antichrist is in power in a church, they will always recruit muddle-headed people and those who blindly fool around as their helpers, while excluding and suppressing those people of caliber who can understand and practice the truth, who can take on work—and especially those leaders and workers who are capable of actual work” (The Word, Vol. 4. Exposing Antichrists. Item Eight: They Would Have Others Submit Only to Them, Not the Truth or God (Part One)). “Who are the people an antichrist views as dissenters? At a minimum, they are those who do not take the antichrist seriously as a leader, meaning that they do not look up to them or worship them but treat them as an ordinary person. That is one sort. Then there are those who love the truth, pursue the truth, pursue a change in their disposition, and pursue the love for God; they take a different road from that of an antichrist, and they are dissenters in the antichrist’s eyes. Are there any others? (Those who always make suggestions to antichrists, and who dare to expose them.) Any who dare offer an antichrist their suggestions and expose them, or whose views are different from theirs, are seen by them as dissenters. And there is another sort: those who equal the antichrist in caliber and ability, whose capacity for speech and action is similar to theirs, or whom they see as above them and able to discern them. To an antichrist, this is beyond the pale, a threat to their status. Such people are the antichrist’s greatest dissenters. The antichrist does not dare neglect such people or slacken in the least. They consider them as thorns in their side, a constant irritation, are vigilant and guarded against them at all times, and avoid them in everything they do. Especially when the antichrist sees that a dissenter is going to discern and expose them, a special panic grips them; they are desperate to exclude and attack such a dissenter, such that they will not be satisfied until they have cleared that dissenter out of the church. With such a mindset and a heart filled with these things, what sort of things are they capable of? Would they treat these brothers and sisters as enemies, and think of ways to bring them down and get rid of them? They certainly would. They would rack their brains thinking of ways to bring dissenters to heel and go to any lengths to defeat them, wouldn’t they? Bringing dissenters to heel means that the antichrist makes everyone listen to them, making it so no one will dare to say anything else or hold different opinions, let alone expose them. Defeating a dissenter means that the antichrist frames and condemns them, creating some false impressions so that the dissenter is made a fool of and gets pruned, causing their reputation to hit rock bottom. Is doing something like this not the greatest form of evil deed? Does it not offend God’s disposition?” (The Word, Vol. 4. Exposing Antichrists. Item Two: They Attack and Exclude Dissenters). The nature of antichrists is especially sinister and vicious. To monopolize power and create an independent kingdom, they promote the people they like to be their right-hand men, and if anyone points out their deficiencies, exposes them, or threatens their status, they regard them as a thorn in their side, attack and exclude them by any means they can, and even clear them out from the church. The essence of antichrists is that of evil people. They are averse to the truth and have no conscience or reason, and no matter how much they punish others, they feel no guilt. Looking at Zhang Xin’s behavior, as a leader, she didn’t uphold the work of the church at all, and she used her power to cultivate her followers to control the church and attack and exclude dissenters. Xiao Liu was an evil person and needed to be expelled, but because she defended Zhang Xin, Zhang Xin promoted her and found various reasons to absolve her of her guilt. Fang Ling had a sense of justice, and when she pointed out Zhang Xin’s problems, Zhang Xin held a grudge. When Fang Ling was dismissed, Zhang Xin saw a chance to take revenge, so she did everything possible to clear out Fang Ling from the church. When several other sisters didn’t follow her in condemning Fang Ling, she suppressed and punished them. Zhang Xin was sinister and vicious, she punished anyone who threatened her status or didn’t obey her, and she was a tyrant running amok in the church who felt no remorse at all. She was a true antichrist. After we had identified this in Zhang Xin, we handed in the report letter.

It didn’t take long for Zhang Xin to take revenge on us. She stopped me from coming to gatherings, using the excuse that I was a safety hazard. Because Sisters Li Xinrui and Yuan Siyu had identified Zhang Xin for what she really was, she also stopped them from going to gatherings. So we agreed to hold gatherings together. Some time after that, Zhang Xin framed me and Xinrui for contending for leadership, causing chaos in the church, and being evil people, and asked the brothers and sisters to reject us. Some believed Zhang Xin’s words without discernment and would coldly ignore me when they saw me in the street. When this happened, I felt hurt and wronged. Why, after practicing the truth, were we being suppressed, punished, and framed by these forces of evil? Why was Zhang Xin still prospering in the church despite doing evil? Why did our brothers and sisters misunderstand and reject us? I was in so much pain, I didn’t know how I would walk my path in the future, and I was trapped in negativity. At the gatherings over those days, when the sisters discerned Zhang Xin’s behavior, I didn’t want to speak. I thought, “I stood up to expose Zhang Xin, and not only have I been suppressed, I’ve been misunderstood by my brothers and sisters as vying for leadership. Now I’ve been suppressed and isolated. Who will speak up for me? Well forget it then, those church affairs are none of my business.” I was feeling very weak, and I was in deep spiritual darkness. In my torment, I knelt before God with tears in my eyes and told Him over and over, “God! I am suffering so much after experiencing these things. Why am I being suppressed and rejected for practicing the truth to protect the interests of the church? God, please guide me, help me understand Your intention.”

Later, I read in God’s word: “When confronting real-life problems, how should you know and understand God’s authority and His sovereignty? When you are faced with these problems and do not know how to understand, handle, and experience them, what attitude should you adopt to demonstrate your intention to submit, your desire to submit, and the reality of your submission to God’s sovereignty and arrangements? First you must learn to wait; then you must learn to seek; then you must learn to submit. ‘Waiting’ means waiting for the time of God, awaiting the people, events, and things that He has arranged for you, waiting for His intentions to be gradually revealed to you. ‘Seeking’ means observing and understanding God’s thoughtful intentions for you through the people, events, and things that He has laid out, understanding the truth through them, understanding what humans must accomplish and the ways they must adhere to, understanding what results God means to achieve in humans and what accomplishments He means to attain in them. ‘Submitting,’ of course, refers to accepting the people, events, and things that God has orchestrated, accepting His sovereignty and, through it, coming to know how the Creator dictates man’s fate, how He supplies man with His life, how He works the truth within man” (The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique III). After contemplating God’s word, I suddenly understood, when things happen that I don’t understand, I should have an attitude of submission, learn to seek God’s intentions, and wait for things to proceed on God’s time. I realized that after we submitted the report letter, there was a process for the upper-level leaders to handle it. Before they could deal with it, Zhang Xin would definitely continue to do evil, attack and exclude dissenters, this was her evil nature revealing itself. During this period, we had to be patient and wait. This was a necessary part of the process. But I didn’t have the heart to submit and wait, and I didn’t seek to learn lessons in this environment. When I saw that Zhang Xin hadn’t been handled, and that I was instead condemned and rejected, I complained and misunderstood God, denied His righteousness, and felt disappointed by Him. I was so unreasonable!

After that, I prayed to God and asked Him to guide me in understanding His righteous disposition. Then, I read this passage of God’s word: “How do people know and grasp God’s righteous disposition? The righteous receive His blessings and the evil are cursed by Him. This is God’s righteousness. God rewards good and punishes evil, and He recompenses every man according to their deeds. This is correct, but there are at present some events that do not accord with man’s notions, namely, that there are some who believe in God and worship Him who are killed or meet with His curses, or who God has never blessed or paid attention to; no matter how much they worship Him, He ignores them. There are some evil people who God neither blesses nor punishes, yet they are rich and have many offspring, and all goes well for them; they are successful in everything. Is this God’s righteousness? Some people say, ‘We worship God, yet haven’t gotten blessings from Him, while evil people who don’t worship God and even resist Him are living better and more prosperously than we do. God isn’t righteous!’ What does this show you? I just gave you two examples. Which one speaks to God’s righteousness? Some people say, ‘They are both manifestations of God’s righteousness!’ Why do they say this? There are principles to God’s actions—it is just that people cannot see them clearly, and being unable to see them clearly, they cannot say that God is not righteous. Man can only see what is on the surface; they cannot see through to things as they are. Therefore, what God does is righteous, however little it accords with man’s notions and imaginings. There are many people who constantly complain that God is not righteous. This is because they do not understand the situation for what it is. It is easy for them to make mistakes when they are always looking at things in light of their notions and imaginings. People’s knowledge exists among their own thoughts and viewpoints, within their ideas of transactions, or within their perspectives on good and evil, on right and wrong, or on logic. When someone sees things from such perspectives, it is easy for them to misunderstand God and to give rise to notions, and that person will resist Him and complain about Him” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Part Three). “What would you say—is God’s destruction of Satan an expression of His righteousness? (Yes.) What if He allowed Satan to remain? You dare not say, yes? God’s essence is righteousness. Though it is not easy to comprehend what He does, all that He does is righteous; it is simply that people do not understand. When God gave Peter to Satan, how did Peter respond? ‘Mankind is unable to fathom what You do, but all of what You do contains Your good will; there is righteousness in all of it. How can I not utter praise for Your wisdom and deeds?’ You should now see that the reason God does not destroy Satan in the time of His salvation of man is that humans may see clearly how Satan has corrupted them and the extent to which it has corrupted them, and how God purifies and saves them. Ultimately, when people have understood the truth and clearly seen Satan’s odious countenance, and beheld the monstrous sin of Satan’s corruption of them, God will destroy Satan, showing them His righteousness. The timing when God destroys Satan is filled with God’s disposition and wisdom. Everything that God does is righteous. Though humans may not be able to perceive God’s righteousness, they should not make judgments at will. If something He does appears to humans as unreasonable, or if they have any notions about it, and that leads them to say that He is not righteous, then they are being most unreasonable. You see that Peter found some things to be incomprehensible, but he was sure that God’s wisdom was present and that His good will was in those things. Humans cannot fathom everything; there are so many things that they cannot grasp” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Part Three). As I contemplated God’s word, I realized that I held the notion that righteousness means fairness and reasonableness. An evil person and an antichrist disrupted the work of the church, and since we safeguarded church interests by standing up to expose and report it, God should have watched over us, protected us, and not let us be oppressed, and the evil person and antichrist should have been expelled immediately. I thought this was God’s righteousness. After we wrote the report letter and I saw that the antichrist and evil person hadn’t been dealt with, still held high positions in the church, and had isolated and condemned us, I began to have doubts about God’s righteousness, and even unreasonably asked where God’s righteousness was. I was so arrogant! I thought of how, when Peter was tested, he underwent painful refinement. Although he couldn’t fathom what God was doing, he believed that God was righteous no matter what He did, and that there was God’s wisdom in it. This is why he could submit to God, and in the end, he had the utmost love for God, submitted to Him unto death, and produced beautiful testimony. But I didn’t understand the truth and measured God’s righteousness from a transactional point of view based merely on what little I could see in front of me. When God did things that accorded with my notions, that benefited me, I thought God was righteous, and I could praise God. When I was suppressed by an antichrist, and my future and destiny were involved, I lost faith in God, and even doubted that God was righteous and denied that the church was ruled by truth and righteousness. I evaluated God’s righteousness entirely based on whether I benefited from His actions. It was utterly absurd. God is the Creator, God’s essence is righteousness, and God hates evil, that is determined by His essence. Although the church hadn’t expelled the antichrist and evil person for the time being, that certainly didn’t mean God wasn’t disgusted by their actions, it didn’t mean God didn’t despise evil, and it didn’t mean the church wasn’t ruled by truth. There was God’s wisdom and good intentions in this, I just didn’t understand it. I had to be reasonable, assume my place as a created being, submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangements, pray to God and seek, and wait for His enlightenment and guidance. Once I realized this, my heart brightened, and my misunderstandings of God vanished. I also realized that some brothers and sisters in the church still hadn’t seen Zhang Xin for what she was. Through these things, little by little, they would all come to see Zhang Xin’s essence. Everyone had to see her for what she was before they could reject her. This would really help us to develop our discernment. After understanding this, I prayed to God to say I wanted to submit to His orchestrations and arrangements, and learn lessons in this environment.

Later, in God’s word, I read: “If you wish to be saved, not only must you surpass the hurdle of the great red dragon, and not only must you be able to discern the great red dragon, to see through to its hideous countenance and rebel against it utterly—there is also the hurdle of the antichrists for you to surpass. In the church, an antichrist is not only the enemy of God, but also the enemy of God’s chosen people. If you cannot discern an antichrist, you are liable to be misled and won over, walk the path of an antichrist, and be cursed and punished by God. If that happens, your faith in God has completely failed. What must people possess to be granted salvation? First, they must understand many truths, and be able to discern the essence, disposition, and path of an antichrist. This is the only way to ensure not worshiping or following people while believing in God, and the only way to follow God to the very end. Only people who are able to discern an antichrist can truly believe in, follow, and bear witness for God. Some will then say, ‘What do I do if I don’t currently have the truth for that?’ You must equip yourself with the truth with all haste; you must learn to see into people and things. Discerning an antichrist is no simple matter, and requires the ability to clearly see their essence, and see through the plots, tricks, intentions and goals behind everything they do. That way you will not be misled or controlled by them, and you can stand firm, safely and securely pursue the truth, and be steadfast on the path of pursuing the truth and attaining salvation. If you cannot surpass the hurdle of the antichrists, then it can be said that you are in great danger, and you are liable to be misled and captured by an antichrist and come to live under Satan’s influence. … So, if you want to get to where you can be granted salvation, the first test you must pass is one of being able to perceive and see through Satan, and you must also have the courage to stand up and expose and forsake Satan. Where, then, is Satan? Satan is at your side and all around you; it might even be living inside your heart. If you are living within Satan’s disposition, it can be said that you belong to Satan. You cannot see or touch the Satan and evil spirits of the spiritual realm, but the Satans and living devils that exist in real life are everywhere. Any person who is averse to the truth is evil, and any leader or worker who does not accept the truth is an antichrist or false leader. Are such people not Satans and living devils? These people might be the very ones you worship and look up to; they could be the people who lead you or the people you have long admired, trusted, relied upon, and hoped for in your heart. In fact, however, they are roadblocks standing in your way and hindering you from pursuing the truth and obtaining salvation; they are false leaders and antichrists. They can take control of your life and the path you walk, and they can ruin your chance to be granted salvation. If you fail to discern them and see through them, then at any moment, you could be misled and captured. Thus, you are in great danger. If you cannot extricate yourself from this danger, you are Satan’s sacrificial victim. Anyway, people who are misled and controlled, and become the followers of an antichrist can never, ever attain salvation. Because they do not love or pursue the truth, it is an inevitable result that they are misled and follow an antichrist” (The Word, Vol. 4. Exposing Antichrists. Item Three: They Exclude and Attack Those Who Pursue the Truth). After contemplating God’s word, I understood His intention. God allows antichrists and evil people to appear in the church, and His wisdom is behind this. God is using their disturbance and misleading as a means to give people discernment so that they can free themselves from Satan’s dark influence and achieve salvation. I thought about how Zhang Xin had suppressed and punished me, and my brothers and sisters had misunderstood and rejected me. Although it caused me some suffering, during this process, I saw a real example of how antichrists mislead and harm people, I gained knowledge and discernment, and I clearly saw that Zhang Xin was an antichrist whose essence hates the truth and is hostile to God. I no longer felt constrained and controlled by her, and I learned from her failures and was able to avoid taking the wrong path. Weren’t these real gains? Wasn’t this all God’s love and salvation? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that God is so wise and righteous, and the more I regretted not knowing His righteous disposition. When I was oppressed, I just pinned the blame for all that injustice on God, and misunderstood and complained about Him. I was so rebellious. Once I realized this, I felt indebted to God, and I wanted to repent. Exposing false leaders and antichrists is a good and righteous act, and it was my responsibility and obligation. If the evil people could be exposed and expelled, my brothers and sisters could have a good church life. Even if my brothers and sisters misunderstood me, or I was expelled by the antichrist, there was nothing to regret. I thought of another passage of God’s word: “Evil men will always be evil, and will never escape the day of punishment. Good men will always be good, and will be revealed when God’s work comes to an end. Not one of the evil shall be deemed righteous, nor any one of the righteous deemed evil. Would I let any man stand wrongfully accused?” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Those Who Submit to God With a True Heart Shall Surely Be Gained by God). God’s word was all too clear. God is righteous, He gives mercy and salvation to those who genuinely love Him, and He curses and punishes evil people and antichrists. This is determined by God’s righteous disposition. Whether or not I am saved is up to God, not the antichrists. Although our church was controlled by the antichrist, and we were suppressed, this was only temporary. God sees everything, the Holy Spirit reveals everything, and sooner or later, the antichrist would be revealed and eliminated. Over those days, I often pondered God’s word, and slowly, I felt release in my heart, and I gained confidence in God’s work.

One day, the upper-level leaders arranged for two sisters to resolve the chaos in our church. We were very excited, and we thanked God repeatedly. Unexpectedly, after we’d truthfully reported Zhang Xin’s evil behavior, she was only dismissed for being a false leader. Although we all resumed church life, I couldn’t help but feel uneasy. Zhang Xin was evil by nature. She’d unswervingly punished and suppressed people for the sake of her status, and drew in and defended evil people. She also didn’t accept the truth at all, and she refused to repent. She wasn’t a false leader, she was a true antichrist. But then I thought, “If I bring it up, will the brothers and sisters say I am stubbornly refusing to let go of her issues? Then forget it, it’s none of my business. Anyway, she won’t do anything to me now.” With this in mind, I decided not to mention these things anymore. During my devotionals, I read in God’s word: “Antichrists will never accept the truth; they will persist in their wrongs to the end, never reversing course or repenting” (The Word, Vol. 4. Exposing Antichrists. Excursus Six: Summarizing the Character of Antichrists and Their Disposition Essence (Part Three)). I knew that Zhang Xin had the essence of an antichrist, and if she wasn’t expelled, she’d take any opportunity to disturb church life and create chaos, and then my brothers and sisters would suffer at her hands again. I had to stand up and expose Zhang Xin. I couldn’t keep protecting myself. In God’s word, I read: “Once the truth has become life in you, when you observe someone who is blasphemous toward God, unfearful of God, and perfunctory while performing their duty, or who disrupts and disturbs church work, you will respond according to the truth principles, and will be able to identify and expose them as necessary. If the truth has not become your life, and you still live within your satanic disposition, then when you discover evil people and devils who cause disruptions and disturbances to the work of the church, you will turn a blind eye and a deaf ear; you will brush them aside, without reproach from your conscience. You will even think that anyone causing disturbances to the work of the church has nothing to do with you. No matter how much the work of the church and the interests of the house of God suffer, you don’t care, intervene, or feel guilty—which makes you someone who has no conscience or reason, a disbeliever, a laborer. You eat what is of God’s, drink what is of God’s, and enjoy all that comes from God, yet feel that any harm to the interests of the house of God is not related to you—which makes you a traitor who bites the hand that feeds you. If you do not protect the interests of the house of God, are you even human? This is a demon that has insinuated itself into the church. You feign belief in God, pretend to be a chosen one, and you want to freeload in God’s house. You are not living the life of a human being, are more like a fiend than a person, and are clearly one of the disbelievers. If you are someone who truly believes in God, then even if you have yet to gain the truth and life, at the very least you will speak and act from the side of God; at the very least, you will not stand idly by when you see the interests of the house of God being compromised. When you have the urge to turn a blind eye, you will feel guilty, and ill at ease, and will say to yourself, ‘I can’t sit here and do nothing, I must stand up and say something, I must take responsibility, I must expose this evil behavior, I must stop it, so that the interests of the house of God are not harmed, and the church life is not disturbed.’ If the truth has become your life, then not only will you have this courage and resolve, and will you be capable of understanding the matter completely, but you will also fulfill the responsibility you should bear for God’s work and for the interests of His house, and your duty will thereby be fulfilled” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Part Three). Reading God’s word, I realized it was through His enlightenment and guidance that I had some discernment of Zhang Xin and Xiao Liu’s evil deeds. If I didn’t stand up and expose them, I had no conscience and I would fail to safeguard church work. I could no longer be selfish and despicable by looking the other way anymore. I thought of something written in the administrative decrees of the Age of Kingdom: “Do everything that is beneficial to God’s work and nothing that is detrimental to the interests of God’s work. Defend God’s name, God’s testimony, and God’s work” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Ten Administrative Decrees That Must Be Obeyed by God’s Chosen People in the Age of Kingdom). I understood God’s requirements. I was a member of the church, so where the work of the church was concerned, I had a responsibility to stand up and protect it. Later, the upper-level leaders came to look into the situation. I reported Zhang Xin and Xiao Liu’s evil behavior and the upper-level leaders started to investigate again to verify this. Through fellowship at a gathering on the truth regarding identifying antichrists, the brothers and sisters all gained discernment. One by one, they exposed and reported the evil deeds of Zhang Xin and Xiao Liu. In the end it was determined that Zhang Xin was a true antichrist, and she was expelled from the church. Xiao Liu, after refusing to repent for her evils, was expelled for being an antichrist’s accomplice. Some brothers and sisters who were misled by Zhang Xin came to their senses, and they all rejected Zhang Xin and no longer followed her. After that, church life returned to normal.

Although there were twists and turns to reporting this antichrist, being suppressed by her allowed me to gain some discernment of antichrists, develop my insight and receive some real experience and knowledge of God’s righteous disposition, and my faith in God grew even more. All thanks be to God!