By Mingai, Malaysia

Waiting for the Lord to Descend With Clouds to Take Me Into the Kingdom of Heaven

In our meetings, every time when talking about the return of the Lord, the pastor would fellowship these verses for us, “You men of Galilee, why stand you gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11), and said, “The Lord will come as He departed. After the Lord Jesus resurrected, His Spirit departed on a white cloud, so when He comes back, He will likewise descend on a cloud in a spiritual body. So we must pray and read the Bible more, preach the gospel more and make more offerings. This way, we will not be abandoned by the Lord, and will be taken into the kingdom of heaven when He returns.”

One day, I saw the Bible say, “Behold, I come as a thief” (Revelation 16:15). I thought, “The Lord said that He would come as a thief. That means He will come secretly, then how should we welcome Him? If the Lord descends with clouds in secret while I am asleep, what will I do?” Especially when I thought of how, in recent years, the world is increasingly evil and dark with political disarray and imminent wars, and disasters are growing bigger and bigger in scale—the prophecies of the Lord’s return have pretty much been fulfilled—I felt more anxious and I was worried that I would miss the chance of welcoming the Lord’s coming. But when I recalled how the pastor told us that as long as we prepared oil and worked for the Lord diligently, we would be raptured into the heavenly kingdom when the Lord returned, then I wasn’t that worried.

Attending Online Gatherings and Discussing How the Lord Will Return

In August 2017, I met Sister Liu on the internet. The first time I communicated with her, I felt she was very kind and friendly in the way she treated others. Afterward, I often attended the group online gatherings organized by her. When Sister Liu fellowshiped, she would give examples and tell stories to help us understand God’s words. I felt her fellowship was really enjoyable.

One time at a gathering, we talked about the Lord’s second coming. Sister Liu said, “We all know that the prophecies of the Lord’s arrival in the last days have been fulfilled, but how do we think the Lord will return?” Thinking of how the pastor often said the Lord would descend on a cloud, I answered with certainty, “The Lord Jesus will definitely descend with clouds in His resurrected spiritual body and openly appear to us, because the Bible says, ‘And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory’ (Matthew 24:30).”

Sister Liu said patiently, “It is prophesied in the Bible that the Lord will come upon clouds with His power and great glory. That’s true. But if we look carefully, we will see that there are also many prophecies concerned with the Lord’s coming in secret. For example, ‘Behold, I come as a thief’ (Revelation 16:15). ‘And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom comes; go you out to meet him’ (Matthew 25:6). ‘As a thief’ and ‘at midnight’ mean coming secretly without anyone knowing it. We can also look at several verses from the Bible, ‘For as the lightning comes out of the east, and shines even to the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be’ (Matthew 24:27). ‘For as the lightning, that lightens out of the one part under heaven, shines to the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in His day. But first must He suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation’ (Luke 17:24–25). These verses mention ‘the coming of the Son of man’ or ‘the Son of man in His day.’ ‘The Son of man’ refers to being born of man and a person with normal humanity. If He is a Spirit, then He cannot be called the Son of man. Just as the body of the Lord Jesus after the resurrection is a spiritual body, so He can’t be called the Son of man. Angels are spirits, and they can’t be called the Son of man either. All that has the image of man but is classed as a spirit can’t be called the Son of man. The Lord Jesus is God incarnate, so He is called the Son of man. Therefore, ‘the Son of man’ mentioned in these verses refers to God’s incarnation in the last days. The verse ‘But first must He suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation’ proves even more explicitly that when the Lord comes again, He will become flesh and arrive in secret. If God came in a great, transcendent Spirit, it would be a great and powerful scene, and everyone who saw that would fall to the ground to worship Him, then God couldn’t possibly endure suffering or be rejected by this generation. Only by God incarnating as the Son of man and coming to the earth to perform His work, and by people seeing Him as normal and ordinary and not knowing that He is God Himself, can they resist, condemn and reject Him. Just as when the Lord Jesus appeared to do His work, the Jews didn’t recognize that He was God Himself and thus resisted and condemned Him. From all this, we can be sure that when the Lord comes again, He will arrive in secret by becoming flesh.”

What Sister Liu was fellowshiping was well-founded, and convinced me. Although I had seen the verse from the Book of Revelation, chapter 16, verse 15, ‘Behold, I come as a thief,’ I didn’t understand that it referred to the Lord becoming flesh and secretly coming down to earth. I only understood from the literal meaning of the verse that the Lord would come back secretly. Only after hearing Sister Liu’s fellowship did I know the inner meaning of this verse. But I then thought: “If the Lord becomes flesh and arrives in secret, how will the prophecies of the Lord coming with clouds be fulfilled?” Then I spoke to Sister Liu about my confusion.

Sister Liu said, “Actually, coming secretly in incarnate flesh and coming upon a cloud are both the ways in which God shall appear in the last days. God will first arrive secretly in the flesh, and based upon the foundation of the Lord Jesus’ work of redemption, express His word to judge and cleanse corrupt mankind. The wise virgins are able to recognize God’s voice from His words, follow His footsteps and accept the judgment and chastisement of His words; they will finally gain purification and transformation and be perfected by God into overcomers. When God has made a group of overcomers and the work of the secret coming of God incarnate is concluded, He will send the great disasters to reward the good and punish the evil. Only then will God come upon a cloud and openly appear to all peoples. Those who accept the secret work of God will have the chance to be made complete into overcomers, be left over amidst the disasters and be led into God’s kingdom. Those who resist and condemn the Christ of the last days will be left in disasters to weep and gnash their teeth. Thus wheat, tares; sheep, goats; and wise virgins, foolish virgins will all be separated from each other, and at the same time the prophecy in the Bible will be fulfilled, ‘And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory’ (Matthew 24:30). Therefore, in the matter of welcoming the Lord’s return, we must be wise virgins and focus on listening to the Lord’s voice. Only then will we be able to welcome the Lord’s return. Otherwise, when the Lord arrives, we will not recognize Him and will refuse entry to Him, just as the Jews did thousands of years ago.”

After hearing her fellowshiping, I understood that there are two ways in which the Lord shall return. He will first become incarnate and descend in secret, and after making a group of overcomers, publicly descend with the clouds to appear before people—this is genuinely a mystery. The church pastors couldn’t at all explain the inner meaning of these prophecies. I felt this fellowship was so fresh and new. At the same time, I also understood that in welcoming the return of the Lord, the key is to learn to listen to God’s voice, and only in this way can we be wise virgins. After hearing Sister Liu’s fellowship, I felt I’d gained a lot and I liked to hear her fellowship very much.

The Reason Behind Why Pastors and Elders Resist God’s Work in the Last Days

In the next meeting, Sister Liu told us, “The Lord Jesus has long ago returned in the flesh. He has expressed many truths, and has done the work of judgment beginning from the house of God. This precisely fulfills the prophecy in the Bible, ‘For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God’ (1 Peter 4:17).” Hearing the news of the Lord’s return, I felt surprised, and I thought, “The Lord Jesus has arrived? Why haven’t I heard anyone speak about it before? And my pastor has also never said that the Lord has come back. If I start believing wrongly won’t I lose the Lord’s salvation?” For a moment, I couldn’t accept that fact. Afterward, on Facebook I watched a film bearing witness that God had already returned incarnate, which was pretty much the same as Sister Liu’s fellowship. At the end of the film, I saw the symbol of The Church of Almighty God and realized that it was produced by The Church of Almighty God. I suddenly remembered that my pastor said that “Eastern Lightning” was a heresy and asked us not to have anything to do with it. So I started to suspect the news of the Lord’s return told by Sister Liu wasn’t true, and I also felt guarded toward her, but when I thought of how she explained the Bible clearly, I wanted to continue listening to her fellowship. I felt a battle raging in my heart, and I didn’t know what to do. So I prayed to the Lord, “Lord, is it Your arrangement that has made me come into contact with Eastern Lightning? Is Almighty God really Your return? Oh Lord, I don’t know how to distinguish. May You lead and guide me.” After thinking about it over and over, I decided to continue to seek.

After going online to gather with Sister Liu again, I said, “Sister Liu, through this period of communication, I feel your fellowship is indeed illuminating, but I still have another question. Your testimony is that Almighty God is the returned Lord Jesus, but why do the pastors and elders of the religious world condemn Him?”

Sister Liu then fellowshiped this to me, “The Bible says, ‘And the whole world lies in wickedness’ (1 John 5:19). ‘This is an evil generation’ (Luke 11:29). After mankind has been corrupted by Satan, we all live under Satan’s domain, love evil and hate truth and don’t welcome God’s arrival. Therefore, every time God is incarnated to perform His new work, He will meet with the condemnation of the world and the religious community. Just as it was back when the Lord Jesus came to work. Even though He expressed many truths and performed many miracles, fully revealing God’s authority and power, the Pharisees didn’t care how profound the Lord Jesus’ preaching was or how great His authority was. As long as it didn’t accord with their notions and imaginations, they would stubbornly hold on to their conceptions and imaginations and condemn and resist. The modern-day pastors and elders are the same. They don’t have a heart that loves the truth. When they hear The Church of Almighty God testifying that the Lord has returned, they don’t seek or investigate at all. What’s more, in recent years, all the truths expressed by Almighty God as well as all sorts of films and videos produced by The Church of Almighty God bearing witness to God’s work of the last days have been posted online, and more and more people have accepted God’s work in the last days. The pastors and elders have seen The Church of Almighty God develop so rapidly, but they still don’t investigate. If they are really longing for the return of the Lord Jesus, then they should humbly seek when hearing someone testifying to the Lord’s return and seeing The Church of Almighty God become increasingly prosperous, but why do they stubbornly cling to their notions? It is enough to prove that they are not truly looking forward to the Lord’s coming. Although they believe in God, they aren’t at all concerned about how to pursue the truth and get rid of evil. Instead, all they care about is when the Lord will descend with clouds to take them directly up into the kingdom of heaven and make them enjoy the blessings of the kingdom of heaven. Thus, when they hear that God has returned to express the truth to do the work of judgment, which can’t satisfy their desires for blessings, they then condemn and resist. In the final analysis, their resistance to God’s work in the last days is determined by their truth-hating and truth-despising nature.”

How to Confirm That Almighty God Is the Return of the Lord Jesus

Sister Liu’s fellowship made me see clearly the source of the pastors and elders’ resistance of God’s work in the last days, and my doubts about the new work of God became less. Then I said to Sister Liu, “I have some discernment toward the essence of the pastors and elders now. It turns out that they don’t seek God’s work of the last days because they don’t love the truth. In the past, I blindly listened to them and didn’t dare to investigate God’s work in the last days. This time I must seek humbly. I’m still not sure how to ascertain that Almighty God is the return of the Lord Jesus and the incarnation of God. Sister Liu, could you fellowship to me more about this?”

Sister Liu said happily, “Of course, sister. This question is indeed worth looking into. If we don’t understand the truth about God’s incarnation, we may easily shut the Lord’s return out and lose the chance to receive salvation. Almighty God has told us this aspect of the truth. Let’s read a couple passages of God’s words. God’s words say, ‘The incarnate God is called Christ, and Christ is the flesh donned by the Spirit of God. This flesh is unlike any man that is of the flesh. This difference is because Christ is not of flesh and blood but is the incarnation of the Spirit. He has both a normal humanity and a complete divinity. His divinity is not possessed by any man. His normal humanity sustains all His normal activities in the flesh, while His divinity carries out the work of God Himself.’ ‘He who is God’s incarnation shall hold the substance of God, and He who is God’s incarnation shall hold the expression of God. Since God becomes flesh, He shall bring forth the work He must do, and since God becomes flesh, He shall express what He is, and shall be able to bring the truth to man, bestow life upon man, and show man the way. Flesh that does not contain the substance of God is surely not the incarnate God; of this there is no doubt. To investigate whether it is God’s incarnate flesh, man must determine this from the disposition He expresses and the words He speaks. Which is to say, whether or not it is God’s incarnate flesh, and whether or not it is the true way, must be judged from His substance. And so, in determining^[a] whether it is the flesh of God incarnate, the key is to pay attention to His substance (His work, His words, His disposition, and many more), rather than external appearance.’ From God’s words we can understand that the flesh of God incarnate has normal humanity, but also has the substance of divinity, and that He is able to perform the work of God Himself and express the truth to save mankind. From the outside, the incarnate God looks like a regular person and no one can see the essence of God in Him, but from His words and His work, we can recognize that He is God Himself. Take the Lord Jesus, for example. He looked like an average person living amongst men, but He was able to express the truth, bring the gospel of the kingdom of heaven, and provide mankind with the way of repentance. During His work, He also revealed many miracles such as calming the storm, feeding five thousand people with five loaves and two fishes, and resurrecting the dead. He was ultimately nailed to the cross for human beings and became a sin offering of man. From the Lord Jesus’ work and words, we can see that the work He did has authority and power and cannot be done by a person, so we can be sure that the Lord Jesus is the incarnate God. In the last days, Almighty God, similar to the Lord Jesus, appears to be an ordinary, normal person on the surface, but He is able to express the truth to do the work of judgment and purification. Almighty God’s words have revealed various mysteries of the truth, such as the mystery of God’s six-thousand-year management plan and the mystery of incarnation, how Satan corrupts man and how God cleanses man, and the final destination and end for mankind. Many people from different denominations who truly believe in God and long for the appearance of God have read Almighty God’s words, recognized God’s voice and come before God one after another. In little more than 20 years, the gospel of Almighty God has spread throughout mainland China, and is spreading throughout the entire world. We all know that Christ is the truth, the way and the life, and that only Christ is able to express the truth to conquer mankind and save mankind, which cannot be achieved by any person. Time and facts have proved that Almighty God’s words are the truth, the way and the life, and that Almighty God is the appearance of the Savior in the last days. As long as we read more of the words Almighty God expresses, we will recognize God’s voice and see that all of His words are the truth. This way, we can confirm from within our hearts that Almighty God is the second coming of the Lord Jesus.”

After hearing Almighty God’s words and Sister Liu’s fellowship, I understood that in determining whether it is God’s incarnate flesh, we could not judge by external appearance but should investigate according to God’s words and work. Therefore, I decided to read Almighty God’s words more. Thank God. After a period of reading His words, I saw that all the truths that Sister Liu had fellowshiped to me could be found within Almighty God’s words, and I realized that the light of what Sister Liu fellowshiped was from Almighty God’s words. Moreover, from Almighty God’s words, I understood many truths and the mysteries of the Bible that I’d previously not understood in my belief in the Lord. Only God is able to express the truth and reveal mysteries, and these truths can’t be expressed by any created human. Almighty God’s words conquered my heart, and I confirmed in my heart that Almighty God, who has expressed all these words, is the incarnate Christ. I happily accepted God’s work of the last days. I thought back on the past when I blindly listened to the pastors and elders. I didn’t know how to welcome the Lord’s coming, I just waited for the Lord to arrive upon a cloud to take me up into the heavenly kingdom, and even when I heard about the news of the Lord’s return, I didn’t want to investigate and almost missed out on the chance to welcome the Lord. It was God who used the sister’s fellowship on the truth to help me understand how to be a wise virgin and welcome the Lord’s return. This is why I have recognized God’s voice and followed the footprints of the Lamb. Thank Almighty God for bringing me back into His family!

Source: Walk in the Light