Written by a preacher from an An Hui house church

I am a young brother who had been deceived by the Eastern Lightning cult for one month. During the time when I was deceived, I served them with great effort. In order to serve this cult, I was an enemy to the senior pastor who ministered to our church; I accompanied false teachers of the cult to spread errors in many churches, attacking and slandering those brothers and sisters who had realized the truth about the EL; I took the false teachers to many churches to destroy them, to preach the cult doctrine, and brought many brothers and sisters into the snare…

During that one month, I attended more than a dozen training sessions to listen to the teaching of the cult and to receive the “truth.” I was one of their key candidates to be trained and boasted about. I also saw the deceptiveness and evil conduct of many false teachers. If it were not for God’s restraining in every way, I could have gone very far with them to “preach the Gospel” in many other areas to poison people. Imagine that! If that had been the case, I probably would never have had a chance to come to my senses. It is so scary even to think back!

The erroneous teaching of the cult is very evil and deceptive. Up to now, many of our people are still deeply snared and are not able to realize the truth, serving Satan faithfully just as when I was deceived, and even more zealously than I did. The activities of these servants of Satan are rampant. All churches in our neighboring counties have suffered their destructive work, and they have severely disturbed churches in the southern part of An Hui province.

This cult has been around for about 8 or 9 years since its inception. Their false teachers are very crafty, and they cover their tracks very well. They have a well-developed organizational framework, theological structure and clear purpose. They grow rapidly through secret activities. Their meeting places are very well hidden, and they never provide real names or addresses. Their activities have now spread all across China. At the present time, many churches in China are still not well informed about this cult and are ignorant of its danger. Although different efforts have been made to expose the cult, and people know them by the name “the Eastern Lightning cult,” the EL members, however, have learned from their failure and from their experience. They have now changed their appearance, and they will not admit that they are of the EL cult. The books they distribute (regarded by the EL members as the ‘little scroll’ in the book of Revelation) keep changing names, but their contents are basically the same. Books I know are: Lightning That Comes from the East, Word Revealed in Flesh, The Work of the Holy Spirit in the End Times, New Voice, Have You Heard God’s Voice? and God’s Secret Work, etc. The reason they keep changing the names of the books is to make it hard for people to see who they really are, so that they can keep deceiving more people.

On May 10, 1998, a man than I knew and was named Xiao Song introduced to our area a group of people who had a northern accent. They came to preach about the Female Christ. But I had never even dreamed of the fact that Xiao Song had become a pawn of the cult and that he had been to many places, and by means of cheating had got many people to listen to the false teaching. By the time I heard of this visiting group, they had already talked with a few coworkers. The coworkers were very worried, but they couldn’t yet determine for sure that these people were false teachers. At that stage, they just felt they couldn’t accept what they had heard. Then, without any earnest praying and seeking, I hurried to the meeting place. There I met Xiao Song and a young girl who was introduced as Zhang Li Li. “Did you say that Jesus has already come?” I questioned her, “And I heard he had become a woman born in China. Have you got any evidence that allows you to say this nonsense? Has the Bible taught this?” Although Zhang Li Li was only 25 years old, she didn’t look that young and carried the air of an older person. She was very good at weighing people’s words and watching their expressions. She acted according to the circumstances, and she was very crafty. When she heard my questions, she answered with some cold murmurings, then threw the questions at me, “Where did you hear about that? When would you say that Jesus will come back?...” At this time, Xiao Song immediately came forward to mediate our dispute, “You’ve only heard the conclusion, but you missed the contents. When I first heard that Jesus had come, and it was as a woman, I also took them as cult people immediately, just because I had never heard of this teaching. It was so different from what we had been teaching. But after I heard their teaching, I realized it was true. It has biblical evidence. So please listen first before you arrive at any conclusion.” Xiao Song’s words appealed to my curiosity, and I decided to join the meeting first to find out what it was all about. At that time, Zhang Li Li took the chance to help the hostess with some chores, while Xiao Song pretended to have just come to know her, asking me not to raise too many questions while listening to the teaching, to not offend the teachers.

Before the teaching started, I suggested inviting a certain older brother to come. I realized we who were present at the meeting had not believed long, and we had no experience with any heresies, nor did we have a solid understanding of the truth, so I thought we should have the older brother come and help discern whether this teaching was right or wrong. But Zhang stopped me strongly, saying, “Don’t let the older man come here. It’s for his benefit – because this teaching is God’s judgment. It is different from what has been taught before, and it is hard for people to receive. Many old servants of God will not accept this teaching because they love position and are bound by old ideas. They may even resist or slander, closing the door of all the churches under their control. By doing this, they will become blasphemers of the Holy Spirit, and consequently suffer eternal death. Then they will not only bring harm to themselves but also hurt brothers and sisters in the church. So we’d better keep the older brother uninformed. It’s for his benefit. We’d better have some local coworkers listen to the teaching first.” So while the hostess of the house could not decide what to believe, they tried their best to stop her from calling the older brother; at the same time, they quickly arranged for me and another two sisters to stay and listen to the preaching.

Zhang’s actions were very surreptitious. She frequently left the house to make phone calls. The next day, Xiao Song joined us to listen to the teaching. He told me he had only heard the teaching a couple of times, and that he’d continue to hear more later on. He said the more he listened to the teaching, the better he understood it. Later I learned that he had been lying to me. He had listened to the teaching many, many times, and Zhang was actually his girl friend in the cult group. Zhang had been preaching this cult for years, but Xiao Song told me at that time that his girl friend was in Nan Jing. She was a computer typist, and had not heard the teaching yet. I believed all that he told me at the time. Zhang helped Xiao Song in all his lying. During the whole session, these two echoed each other perfectly. It was a fabulous performance. Their purpose was to convince us that their teaching was “the truth,” that they had given up everything for the truth. They wanted to build trust in us, so that we would relax and let down our guards, and therefore we could be well deceived and become their accomplices.

Before I accepted their “truth,” Zhang had always pretended to be a faithful Christian who loved the Lord. She gave thanks to Jesus before meals, and prayed in Jesus’ name when she preached. She talked in a very friendly manner, and she read the Bible, preached from the Bible and talked about the states of different churches. One of the reasons I was deceived was that I was lulled by their appearance. Not long after, the teaching of “the Word” began.

Most of the EL false teachers like to sit, with a writing board besides them, so that they can write and draw while teaching. One of the characteristics of their teaching is to raise questions; the second characteristic is to garble and misinterpret the Bible; and the third is when questioned or challenged by the audience, instead of giving direct answers or responses, they always avoid the issue and skirt around it. If too many questions are asked, they will look very unhappy. Most of their teaching starts from Genesis. They talk about how man lost the tree of life and the garden, and then they will introduce the teaching about God’s salvation of man. They teach an absurd theory named “the working plan for six thousand years” or “three steps of God’s work.” They finish at the reappearance of the tree of life in the book of Revelation. The whole thing is very systematic. In the beginning, it’s very hard for people to find anything wrong, but when they start to introduce the “three steps of work,” their errors will gradually show, but many still can’t discern it yet at this stage. The so-called “three eras and three steps of work” means: in the Era of Law, man became aware of his sins through the Law; in the Era of Grace, sins are forgiven through Jesus’ cross; in the Era of the Kingdom, man is judged by the words in the “little scroll” and the root of his sin is taken away. This is an erroneous division of time, because in God’s working plan, the Era of the Law only began with Moses, while before that there was no law, and the name of God Jehovah was not known.¹ Why should one say that God’s six-thousand-year work started with the Era of Law? There was no law before Moses, and that part of history should not be forced into the Era of Law by human will.

When it comes to the “turning point” of the Era of Law to the Era of Grace, they try to make a mountain out of a molehill. They put the emphasis on how the Pharisees and the teachers of the law did it wrong by “believing in God but not accepting Him; believing in God and yet resisting God; using their own ideas to limit God; replacing God’s plan with their own imagination; measuring God (Jesus) with the ‘letter’ of the Bible, etc.” They say, “the ‘Pharisees’ of today are also at a ‘turning point,’ just like the Pharisees in Bible times. Man could live by keeping the law in the past, but after Jesus was born, if man still stuck to the law and did not believe in Jesus, then he would not only lose his life, but also he became an evil doer. Now Jesus has come, and her name is the Almighty One. Man could receive life by believing in Jesus in the past, but now if he continues in the same faith and does not believe in the Almighty One, then he will no longer have life, but will perish…” Doesn’t that sound reasonable? But in reality, it’s purely a logical idea from Satan. They also say, “The reason why the Pharisees rejected Jesus was because they did not know Jesus. They had learned from the Scripture that a Messiah was coming, and had pictured Him according to the ‘letter’ in the Scripture. But when Jesus did come, they found what they had learned did not match His reality: the Scripture had said a virgin was to conceive a baby, but what they saw was a married Mary; the Scripture had said Jesus was to be born in Bethlehem, but people saw Jesus come from Nazareth; the Scripture had said Jesus was to sit on the throne of David, but He ended up crucified on the cross; the Scripture had said He would be Messiah, but He was actually called Jesus…as a result, the Pharisees nailed Jesus to the cross. We who live today have never seen Jesus either. We could only imagine Jesus’ second coming through the ‘letter’ of the Bible. So now that Jesus has truly come back, are we going to repeat what the Pharisees did, and to limit Jesus by ‘the letter’ and reject the Almighty One?...”

They use many words to twist the Bible, to identify believers in Jesus with the Pharisees, and to reject the eternal life that Jesus gave man. According to them, man can’t have eternal life through believing in Jesus; he must believe in the so-called Almighty One. They have changed the name of Jesus, and confused many brothers and sisters with their false teaching. Then they teach that Jesus has come as a woman, born in a Christian family; but on some occasions they would say he was born in an unbeliever’s family. They teach that now is the time for harvest, not a time for sowing, so we can’t preach the Gospel any more. They don’t allow people to pray or do things in Jesus’ name, and they say it is wisdom but not sin to lie for the sake of “God” and “truth.” They use much false reasoning to prove that what they teach is “truth.” They repeatedly say that they are not making what Jesus did obsolete, but only going higher and deeper on the foundation of Jesus’ words and deeds; yet in reality they have denied, changed and rejected Jesus. They are going exactly the opposite way against Jesus’ teaching.

Before I came to realize the truth, I had taken what the “Female Christ” said as truth. They boast shamelessly, saying, “If it were not truth, who dare speak so much! If Christ had not come, how could we come up with so much teaching? We were the same as you in the past. We also believed in justification by faith. We’ve had the heritage of Christianity for several generations, and have studied the Bible for years, yet we have not been able to find out this truth. Isn’t it true that so many great pastors and Bible scholars have not been able to work this out? It has been nearly two thousand years since the ascension of the Lord, and man has gone in circles in the Era of Grace. Nobody was able to find the way out, because God had not come to this step of His work yet. Now God has revealed all mysteries with her very voice…” What they say sounds so closely reasoned and well argued. It’s very impressive but also extremely deceptive.

Every time when they gather people to listen to their teaching, they require the audience to be just a few or no more than a dozen people. One time a false teacher Liu spoke to about 70 or 80 people. The audience filled two or three rooms. When this was found out, he was scolded by his leader Cao who strictly demanded that this should never happen again. Then Cao cautioned us once again, saying, “There should be no more than a dozen people attending the teaching each time, and only the participants are to know where the meeting is to be held. They should keep this absolutely to themselves, not letting anybody else know, not even their spouses or parents or children. The meeting should be kept absolutely secret.” Talking about working in secrecy, the followers of this female Christ have indeed done an excellent job. When they go to believers’ homes, they always go into the inner rooms, shut the door, and talk quietly. Their reason for doing this is that they don’t want their accents to give them away.

They never call each other brother or sister. Cao forbad me from calling him brother Cao, but let me call him Xiao Cao or Older brother Cao. They like to have their activities at night times, sneaking around like spies conspiring evil. Many brothers and sisters would question them about this, saying, “When we believe in Jesus, we boldly do everything in the light; why do you always sneak around like this and are never above board?” Their reply was, “Now it is the time of God’s secret work. He is like a thief, working quietly and not known. When it is time to be open and revealed, God’s work of choosing and judging will have been done. Before Jesus was put on the cross, he also worked in secret and sneaked around. When he was crucified openly, people then knew he was the Lord, but it was too late for them to know. They were already condemned…” Jesus had always ministered in public, yet they twist the Word and slander like this. They indeed have proved themselves very disgraceful.

They didn’t allow us to examine their behavior, saying, “The Pharisees couldn’t find any flaws in Jesus’ teaching, but they could easily find His faults in His behavior, such as the disciples not washing their hands before eating, Jesus’ eating and drinking with sinners, healing the sick on Sabbath days, etc. It’s the same with us today. If you set your minds on finding our faults, you certainly will. Because the time has changed, so have our working styles. If you still judge us from the perspective of the Era of Grace, you’ll certainly find us unpleasant…” This is how they justify and cover their lies, slanders, immorality and deceptiveness. Jesus’ intention was to expose the traditions of the Pharisees, but these people take it as His fault. How evil their motives are!

To those who had received their teaching, they would give each literate person one book. There are three different names for the books, but the contents are the same.

When they preach in different churches, they do their best to undermine the church leaders’ place in believers’ hearts. They emphasis that one should “believe the truth and not be affected by men, and listen to God instead of men.” In this way they turn people’s trust to the Female Christ and the false teachers alone. If anyone shows disbelief in their teaching, they would try to hold the rest of the audience under control by saying, “Who do you look to, man or God? Who do you listen to, truth or man? If someone doesn’t believe in this teaching and also asks you not to, what do you do? Would you deny God just for human relationship?” With these words, they bind many believers’ minds. Even if someone realizes the truth one day and stops believing their false teaching, they would not be too worried about others being affected. If a person does not believe, as soon as the false teachers hear from other believers about any of his faults or mistakes, they will do their best to sow dissension, to make false accusations, to attack and slander the person, and to stir up among other believers rejection and deep hatred toward this person. They warn those who have received the teaching that if this traitor ever comes to them to try to take them back, they should either drive him away or avoid meeting with him.

The followers of the Female Christ specifically take followers of Christ as their targets, and especially house churches. Everywhere they go, they do their best to break up the churches, and their means and speed in breaking up and destroying churches are indeed first class, certainly proving themselves to be excellent disciples of Satan. After they have successfully destroyed a church, they will secretly gather the few who have been converted and establish a so-called new church. This new group will then keep changing their meeting locations and times. The EL’s main targets in different churches are young people and leaders who they see as the backbones. In this way, they can destroy a church rapidly and effectively.

The “new church” members are then not allowed to read the Bible. They are told that the Bible is too old fashioned, containing a lot of human ideas and errors. When they meet, they only read the “little scroll” which is full of long-winded repetitions, errors and demon’s words that sound like the cursing of a very rude woman. They also sing so-called “new songs”, which are actually pop songs or other secular songs with their own lyrics. They will also be given new names like Kai Yue or Xiao Yu. These are actually just pseudonyms to cover their true identity. They move around cautiously, being fearful of their movements being discovered.

A brother Xiao Wang here in our church listened to the EL teaching for three days and decided to openly oppose them. So the false teachers spread curses against him everywhere, saying “Xiao Wang is a blasphemer of the “Holy Spirit.” He will perish forever. In a short time – only about one or two months – he will lose his senses and become insane and an idiot.” They also come up with false stories such as somebody somewhere opposed the “Holy Spirit” and “bled all over and died.” Later on there was an influential sister here who also opposed them, so they cursed her, saying “This certain person doesn’t receive our teaching because of human sayings, even to the degree of opposing us. Now she will be in her bed and remain there until God takes her body, soul and spirit all together.” Two months have now gone, and nothing has happened. Xiao Wang and the sister are still very strong and healthy both physically and spiritually. They are still very active, working hard to rescue those who have been deceived.

Thank God! Once I accepted their teaching, but I never had any peace throughout that one month, and my hands and body could not help trembling. This had never happened while I followed Jesus. Other people also experienced the lack of peace and intensive battles in their hearts at the initial stage. Thank God! He preserved a desire for truth in my heart. So later I stayed home and quieted myself for several days. After I studied the Bible, I realized that the teaching of the female Christ was all false and could not stand examination. It is all errors that have come from the devil. Therefore after I realized the truth, I wrote down my experience briefly, so that everybody can also see the reality.

Lastly, I want the readers to keep in mind that, if any of you are in touch with the EL, you should stop listening to their teaching as soon as you sense their errors, and quiet your heart to pray and study the Bible. Don’t ask the false teachers any questions, because the more you ask, the more you’ll be confused. Their demonic teaching and habitual crafty practices can drag you deep into the swamp. I have experienced this myself. Brothers and sisters, please learn this lesson from my mistakes, and turn back soon! The Lord Jesus is waiting for you to wake up!

¹ Editor’s note: This statement that God’s name Jehovah (or, more correctly, Yahweh) was not known before the time of Moses is not accurate. This name of God is used scores of times in Genesis (e.g., Gen. 24:3).

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