Written by an Evangelist

According to my observations, the Eastern Lightning Cult has developed into its fourth phase and is going to enter into the fifth phase.

The First Phase:
The Eastern Lightning was first started in Henan Province, with the issuance of its first book titled The Lightning from the East. In the beginning, they used rather coarse and unoriginal means, which were easy to see through. Using information they collected from Christians, they sought out those evangelists who were on the run all the time and slid into their houses books into which they occasionally put some cash between the pages. I have personally received books distributed in this way. It is easy to recognize their books at this stage, for the first-person point of view is adopted. Words like "my sons and daughters" are used to speak to the readers, as in their book Walking in the Light. This phase lasted until about seven years ago.

The Second Phase:
This phase saw the change of their adopted means from temptation to coercion and violence. This started about four years ago. By feigning an invitation (for example to pray for their family or other brothers and sisters), they bring those they have chosen to attack to their place and attack them physically. Almost every one of them keeps a small club in their bosoms which they will use to knock out these people by hitting them hard on their knees, elbows and head. Then they bring them to an appointed place and instilling into them the Eastern Lightning doctrines. If they do not accept the teachings, crueler means will be applied. I know personally many such victims, whose experiences have been reported by the Henan Satellite TV station. Some of them had their ears cut off, legs broken, a sister's legs were broken by her brother, all because these people refused to accept the Eastern Lightning heresy and its "female Christ." This was the reply by the people from the Eastern Lightning to the interviewers of the TV station. They have gone so far as to have violated the criminal law and they have of course been punished by law.

One of my father's coworkers was deceived in this way and was poisoned. A coworker of mine who has suffered together with me was also poisoned by the poison put in the water he drank. A brother who was the neighbor of my sister-in-law was poisoned to death. These events happened in our lives and demonstrate the violence of this stage of the work of the Eastern Lightning. They attack influential members of the church. Although the attackers claim to be Christians, it is easy to see through their lies.

The Third Phase:
The characteristic of this phase is sexual temptation and reputation-damage to the victim. I know a sister from Anhui Province, who used to be a full-time worker for the Lord. She was kidnapped by the Eastern Lightning and has been with them for five years now. I have tried hard to find her whereabouts. She is a beautiful woman, but now she cares nothing about her reputation and has seduced a number of church leaders into sexual immorality. I have two coworkers from Anhui who were tricked and taken away by the Eastern Lightning. They were put under house arrest for two weeks and sexual temptation. Two women came up to him, attempting intimate affections to him and someone else appeared suddenly to take pictures of them all. These pictures were to be later used as evidences and threats to our brothers forcing them to accept the Eastern Lightning heresy. If they refused to accept it, a man would show up to accuse them of taking liberties with his fiancée or cousin etc. and threatening to take them to court. These two brothers managed to escape and when they did leave they did not even have their shoes on, for they were watched closely day and night. They told me in person what they had been through.

In Zhoukou, Henan we have two coworkers who are father and son. The father is a highly respected elder of the local church. The son who is in his thirties, remains single. This family was singled out by the Eastern Lightning who wanted to use the reputation of the father to attract many believers and take advantage of the single status of the son. They sent a beautiful lady to their house. While she was at their house, she said to them: "You are a wonderful God-loving family. How I wish I could serve in a family like yours. I really wish to be married into your family. Such sweet talk caused the father to be vigilant but touched the son's heart deeply. One day when she had a chance to be alone with the son, she seduced him; losing his mind, he slept with her. The son regretted his sinful act and talked to that lady. But the lady threatened to destroy his and his father's reputations so that the church would drive them out. However, within one week of the son's having relations with the lady, the church had already sensed it, seeing a total stranger staying in their house. The church asked the elder to stop the son in his sinful act. He could not, however, overcome this temptation. The father and son talked many times and had their feelings badly hurt, for the son wanted to marry that lady but the father strongly opposed the plan. The church thus drove out the son because of his sins.

With the help and prayers of the congregation, the son - who was after all a new-born Christian - changed his mind and realized that that lady was not a Christian at all, for being a loose person, she could have done the same to others as she had done to him. Under the pretext of wanting back a copy of the book Little Scroll that she had given him, she came to trouble this brother repeatedly. He then replied to her, "Never will I accept the teaching of the Eastern Lightning. Never again will I have any intimate relations with you. And I will not return that book to you." At the initial success at getting the son, the lady had started to spread the news of her sleeping with the son of the elder, wanting to destroy this elder's reputations in the church. Now that she realized all was over, she summoned some gangs from the Eastern Lightning who set fire to this elder's house. I visited with this elder and he told me in person the above story. I know there are many events just like this one in Gansu Province, Fukang of Xinjiang, Anhui, Henan and Hubei Provinces and etc..

The Fourth Phase:
The foregoing phases have passed. Over the recent half year, the means of the Eastern Lightning is becoming more mysterious and harder to guard against. Having learned from their experiences in the previous phases, in this phase they have become very deceitful and secretive, and they do their work more carefully paying much more attention to details, as described in the book An Inside Look of How the Eastern Lightning Works. Their work is not confined to only Xinjiang and Gansu, for according to my observations, they have a headquarters in Xian, Shanxi or in its surrounding area and are extremely active in Anhui. I received their repeated invitations while I was in Anhui, but I did not accept them - I will talk about this later on. A sister accepted their invitation and was put under house arrest. She nearly died and was able to escape with the help of the Public Security Bureau. I just learned that they are active in Shandong as well. A big prize has been put on my head for those who can kidnap me. This is not a fun game, but a bloody fight face to face.

At this stage, their target is the church leaders. As for the less influential and immature believers, they are not targeted specifically. They use extremely surreptitious intrigues and are strictly organized, with their schemes so highly detailed it is hard to believe. They are indeed from Satan, a heresy intending to demolish the Church of God, so even workers of God with many years of experience are also deceived by them.

I will not write down all that I know about their work in Xinjiang, Gansu, Shanxi, Henan, Anhui and Shandong etc., due to the limited space of this report, but I will illustrate the point with a description of what happened to a few coworkers of mine, who have just escaped from them recently. As described in An Inside Look, they use uniform methods, steps and means, working under one selfsame principle.

Around February of the year 2000, we had a fellowship meeting, after which I went to serve the Lord in another area. I was away from home for about three months. So a spy of the Eastern Lightning, who had been in our church for nine months, started to do his work. (It is one of their strategies to "spy" and "pave the way.") Our congregation had before then known about the crimes the Eastern Lightning had committed and about the government's condemnation of them as a heresy, but we had thus let our guards up, thinking they were already being watched by the government. This is one of the main reasons why we fell into their trap.

How they find their way into churches is usually the same. They would describe themselves as "having a heart for serving, but uneducated, spirit-filled Christians lacking the knowledge of the Bible and the Truth of life." We all wanted to see them corrected, and our brothers and sisters were very happy to accept them and help them to give up evil and return to good. They thus got admitted to the church, totally unguarded against by our congregation. As soon as they were accepted by our church, they started to learn about our church and to pave the way for their future work. During this long period of time, they would be as meek as sheep, learning our praise songs and how to pray and would even pray "in Jesus' Name." After the sermon, they would be very loud in their praises of the preacher and say words like: "The Lord is merciful to us, for we have never heard before preaching as good as this." This was to foreshadow what they would do in the future. During this time, they would pay special attention to the key leaders and important workers of the church, as well as the interpersonal relationship among the workers, especially any unhappy events among them. They would also pay special attention to the warm-hearted believers (just as described in An Inside Look), looking for those who come to the church earlier than others, who never get sleepy during sermons and take notes, who can learn the praise songs quickly and who take care of all kinds of small business. They would then approach these warm-hearted believers, while leaving alone the half-hearted ones. They would also try to find out what books our coworkers like to read, for example books by WANG Ming Dao, Watchman Nee, WANG Guo Xian and LIN Xian Gao (Samuel Lamb), for people who enjoy reading these books believe in justification by faith.

They were also interested in how much income our workers make, so that they could use this sensitive issue to attack our church leaders when they got the chance. (In their handbook there are specific teaching materials on how to attack the local church leaders by undermining their positions and their reputations.)

After they had collected all the information they needed, they started to "pave the way" and tried to take our workers to go with them so that they could be indoctrinated with the Eastern Lightning heretical doctrines and have their former learning changed. That particular spy in our church took as long as nine months to do all this preliminary work, until all the important coworkers had left after the fellowship meeting and all his hindrances (among which I am the biggest, I think) were gone. Soon after we left, he talked to a brother who was put in charge during that time: "I've just returned from Lanzhou [Gansu Province] where my brother lives. There are hundreds of people there who are in the dark. They have never heard of the way, the truth, or the light. They are as I was before God opened my eyes. I've never been trained to preach or teach, so I beg you to please go and speak to them. Bring them out of the darkness! Let them know and understand the truth and fundamentals of the Gospel."

Such a call could not be refused. They became excited and threw away all caution. After all, this was a brother who had been in our church for nine months. He had shown much humility and zeal for God's Word. As a result, many hearts were touched and four coworkers (two men and two women) were sent with him. He played a role in selecting which four should go, saying, "Judging from the abilities of the four of you, the way you work, the quality of your lives and your knowledge of the Word, I believe as you work and pray together you'll be as powerful as a cannon shot! Your words will ring true, correcting the people's errors. We will also pray, of course."

It is important to mention here that picking by name which individuals are to go is the same maneuver the Eastern Lightning repeatedly use everywhere. He knew as long as he could with much sweet talk and flattery deceive these four, the whole church would follow along. It was difficult to see through his very tactful lies at the time. Looking back now, we still think they were not lies worked out by mere common humans. Yet we had loosened our guard on our part. May the Lord forgive us our stupidity and immaturity!

On the scheduled day of their departure the Lord tried to prevent them from going, but due to those workers' inexperience they were unable to discern whether it was from the Lord or the devil. The weather on the morning of their departure was harsh, with such strong winds and sandstorms that they could see nothing beyond ten meters ahead of them. When they were ready to leave for the train station, one of the four, who has a gift of teaching, felt such a great pain in his left leg when they went downstairs that he could hardly move.

One brother said, "This is probably a hindrance from Satan. If it is so, you should be ok once we get on the train. And this incident is proof that a great work will be done there."(We can tell how poor our ability is to distinguish the work of the Holy Spirit from our own thoughts and attacks by the devil.)

When someone suggested they delay their trip by a day, the Eastern Lightning spy protested strongly, saying, "No! We must go today. If the train is cancelled because of the weather, we will take a bus." He insisted, because he had already informed the others of these people's arrival and snare after snare had thus been laid for them. The fellow brothers and sisters at church remained totally deceived until they had lost all contact with those four. By the time a sister called me, they had been gone for long and their families had come to the church for these people.

They went on their trip anyway, and when they reached Lanzhou there were three people there to welcome them. Two said they were "brothers from Lanzhou," while one was "a brother from Xian." In reality they were deceivers sent by the Eastern Lightning to trick them. The man from Xian said, "The Lord gave me a vision that there would be two female disciples coming from the northwest. He showed me they will come to revive the church in Xian. So I have come to Lanzhou in obedience to what I received in the vision."

Then the man named Paul from Lanzhou asked one of our brothers, "How many times have you been to Lanzhou?" He replied, "I've been here once before, but this is the first time I have come to serve the Lord." Paul shook his hand, saying, "Brother, this is the fourth time we have met. I have seen you three times before in visions. The Lord told me you really love Him and that you are a very good preacher. I have been earnestly praying you would come and teach us God's Word so that my heart can be comforted. 'The Lord Will Provide' will surely bring you here. So I have been patiently waiting for you to come and teach us God's Word. I hoped you would come just like Paul went to Macedonia after he had seen the vision in which a Macedonian invited him to go there. These days I have had an especially strong feeling and now you are here. Praise the Lord! He really knows our needs!"

These words of flattery appealed greatly to the pride of these immature and unguarded workers and carried them away so that they thoughtlessly jumped into the traps laid out for them. Such is our pitiful human nature that we all hope to receive affirmation and praise for our previous work. Yet in fact, our achievements and reputations etc. are all temptations.

The man from Xian then said, "We have bigger needs in Xian. We have come by following the vision we have received. No wonder we now have met you here. The Lord has brought you here! Are there not four of you? If all four of you good preachers were to stay here in Lanzhou it would be a waste. Why don't two of you stay here, and the other two follow me back to Xian?"

All four of us objected, "We do not put much trust in visions. We'll pray about it, but our first intention was for all four of us to remain in Lanzhou." The Xian man answered, "If this is the case, I will respect your decision. Let's all pray. I believe God will not forsake His flock. I will pray God will change your hearts." They cooperated with each other perfectly well: When the two said they had come by vision, the other one would simply resort to prayer!

Soon it was lunch time and someone came in to join us, whom Paul from Lanzhou introduced as "an elder from the local church." So they shook hands with each other and the elder, as soon as he had sat down, said, "I have come by vision and revelation." The two brothers said, "We're sorry, but we don't put much trust in things like dreams and visions." At this, Paul tapped the elder's shoulder to stop him, so the elder said, "We shall then respect your decision and I won't talk about them again." But during the meal, the "elder" put on a show again and said, "No, the Spirit is moving strongly in me and I can't quench the fire of the Spirit. I'll have to say this even if I know you don't like it. I have seen this vision for two nights now. In my dream, a man in a white robe rebuked me and said to me, 'Why do you stop my work?' I said, 'All three generations of people in my family believe in you and serve you. How could we stop your work?' Then the man said, 'You stop my female servants from going to Xian!' At this I was completely baffled." He was trying to say that he, as the elder, was responsible for any wrongs the church might do. He asked immediately, "What were you talking about before I came in?" Then Paul explained to him the issue that was troubling us. So he said, "Praise the Lord! No wonder I felt a great disturbance in my heart at home, and so great was my disturbance that I just got up and came out of the house. Now I know why the Lord accused me of stopping his work. It was because you four are here already. Brother Paul, we should not stop God's work. Things we don't know, God knows. Don't you see the brother has come a long way from Xian?" The suspicions of the brothers and sisters were completely undermined under such assault from all sides as this, and they discussed among themselves: "How about we agree to part our ways." The Xian man shouted, "Hallelujah! Thank and praise the Lord! God always remembers His sheep! We shall leave today." The spy in our church went out at once to get four train tickets for Xian - for our two sisters, the Xian man and himself.

This was how the Eastern Lightning successfully split the brethren. Later, using the same methods, the two brothers in Lanzhou and the two sisters who went to Xian were convinced to split again.

One of the brothers, who had pains in his leg, was invited to teach, but only five people (all from the Eastern Lightning) showed up even though it was said that several hundred people would come. As usual, they praised excessively. Two days later, someone said, "We have a brother who went to look for the correct teaching after he had found out that things had gone wrong in our church. He has just returned for the first time in two years. Would like to listen to his teaching?" The brother said, "Yes, of course." In that "brother's" teaching, it was first posited that no matter what it is, be it the Movement of the Spirit-filled, or the Eastern Lightning, we should take a look at them all. As long as we have set our hearts right for God, we can never do wrong. This is called "to fight all evils with one good." Then the teaching gradually slid into the heretical teaching of the Eastern Lightning on the so-called three eras - the Era of the Law, the Era of Grace and the Era of the Kingdom. (This is introduced in the book An Inside Look.)

It happened a few days later that when our brother was left alone in a room, a prostitute sent by the Eastern Lightning came in to meet him: "My brother, have you ever been to Lanzhou before? I met you before, in a vision." She played the same trick again, but with sexual temptations added to it, saying, "I was swimming in my bathing suit when suddenly a crocodile came up after me. I screamed Help! Then you appeared in my dream and I saw you jump into the water and take me in your arms. You saved my life and I have always wanted to meet you in person." Hearing this, the brother put on a stick face. The two men in Lanzhou were subjected to horrible torture, beatings and constant round-the-clock brainwashing and sexual entrapment. Although neither brother gave in to fornication, they were given "medicine" for their painful injuries. This medicine made one brother even more ill, and he was unable to sleep. He lost his perspective and willpower. His mind was in a state of utter confusion. A woman was taken to his room, where they photographed him in his semi-conscious state with her, to be later used as "proof" of his sexual immorality.

In Xian, the two sisters were introduced to two other women, and then the two who escorted us to Xian simply disappeared. One of the two women started to use their usual tact and asked them: "Have you been to Xian before? I have seen you many times in visions. My feeling has been extremely strong these days, so I thought God must be sending His workers to us. I have arranged a meeting for you to teach at." The other woman hurried to make her request too: "I have also arranged a meeting. Hurry! What should we do? It's a terrible waste to keep two good preachers together." The two women began to argue who should get them. They felt embarrassed and agreed to split up, one sister going one way and the other another way. They did not see or talk with each other for the next five months. These two sisters had similar experiences after they parted, so I will recount here the experience of one of them.

One of the sisters was told that the meeting she was to teach at was in the suburbs of Xian. But she was taken to Weinan, then to Tongguan, moving constantly. She was later to escape from the mountains of Tongguan. In the first three days she was asked to teach. The congregation (all EL members) unfailingly praised her sermon, saying things like, "Your sermon was the best we have ever heard. We would like to invite to preach in still another village."

On the fourth day she was preaching when two men in the congregation made a scene. They were specially chosen by the Eastern Lightning to act as though they were demon possessed. They shouted, "Don't listen to her! She is a demon. I have been with her for many years. I follow her everywhere. When she travels by bus, I am faster than the bus. When she travels by plane, I am even faster than the plane. I have never left her, and it has been many years since I first possessed her." They rolled around on the ground, hit people, broke things and refused to eat and sleep. It lasted for two weeks. The look of their eyes and their voices were so vivid that even she continued to believe they were truly possessed until a month had passed after she had escaped to return home. The Eastern Lightning is especially good at planning and making different events work together convincingly.

Seeing people possessed by a demon naturally caused the congregation to bring this sister to account. The family members of these two men were even more persistent and would not let her go. They demanded that she cast the demons out. Under such circumstances, this sister's faith was shaken. She could not have known it was a mere show. During these two weeks, she tried to lay hands on those two men and pray over them in Jesus' name, but these "possessed" people came up and bound her, holding her down, sitting on top of her, and beating her. The more she tried to cast out the devils the more possessed they seemed to become. One of the men mocked her, "Why do you still pray in Jesus' name? Don't you know Jesus' name became useless long ago?" The congregation followed them in mocking her, and caused her to ask herself "Is Jesus' name really powerless?"

It happened next that everyone suggested that the congregation donate money so that those two "demon possessed" men could be sent to a mental institute. They asked this sister: "How much money do you have with you? It will probably cost tens of thousands of RMB. How about you ask your church for some money?" Then they removed all her money, more than a thousand RMB (U.S. $120). She became penniless. This is called "break the escape," an important move for them, which is taught in detail in a book issued by the Eastern Lightning. It is their way of making sure this sister could not run away. She tried suggesting they call the police, but was strongly opposed. After they had tired her out excessively, right in the middle of the impasse, there came to the meeting a "brother" named Wang Enguang from Zhejiang Province. He has deceived a lot Christians by his acquaintance with many well-known preachers. When the two "demon possessed" men saw him they immediately fled to a corner of the room, tried to hide under a table, and shouted, "The light! The true light! I'm afraid!" After some spasms and stiffening of body they became calm, and the demons were presumed to have been cast out. The congregation all said with one voice, "Hallelujah! This is the truth!"

The sister felt humiliated and defeated, while "preacher Wang" took center stage and explained the teachings of the Eastern Lightning. He quoted many verses from the Bible and systematically explained what they believe step by step, in the order of, for example, the incarnation of Christ, the reason the Jews did not accept Him since the name prophesied was "Emanuel" not "Jesus". They said it is thus understandable why the Jews do not believe. In this way they would gradually lead the listeners to the doctrines of the "Eastern Lightning." They said John the Baptist had been the forerunner of Jesus, and he was gone, so gone with him was the Era of Law. In the same way, Li Changshou (Witness Lee) had been the forerunner of the "female Christ." He was gone too, and gone with him was the Era of Grace. Now the Era of the Kingdom has come. The Jews do not accept the Messiah who has already come because they remain in the Era of Law. Likewise, the "almighty female Christ" has already come, but Christians are still lingering in the Era of Grace. The members of the congregation took turns speaking, trying to instill into the sister their false doctrines, so that she became confused and started to say to herself, "It sounds reasonable."

During all this time, the sister was under house arrest. They took all measures carefully, which include measure number one, "break the escape." They had taken away all the money she had on her. Every night they removed her shoes and clothing, so that she wouldn't be able to escape. In addition, there was always one person watching her as she slept. She was never allowed out of the house. When she needed to go to the toilet she was given a pail to use.

Measure number two, "changing the perspective," is in fact brainwashing. They have rules for "changing the perspective." They are to watch the expression on the face and questions asked, so as to ascertain what level has been reached. They are not to be hasty, as introduced in An Inside Look, but to do it very carefully paying attention to all particulars.

Measure number three is a teaching test. They will bring in someone who "does not believe in 'the Eastern Lightning'" (but who actually has been sent by the Eastern Lightning to feign disbelief in it). Our sister was told to teach the Eastern Lightning doctrines. If she continued to say "it is said in the Bible," she would fail the test. For to them, the Bible is only something to use to cheat Christians; it is not something to teach their doctrine from. Some would pretend to accept her teaching, in order to encourage her. She would lead that person in prayer, but he/she knew already how to "pray," even better than she did. At one point this sister even remembered her family and colleagues, and wanted to bring them in and tell them about the truth of the Eastern Lightning, so that she could bring them out of the teaching of justification by faith. The other sister had a better foundation of her faith and refused to believe in the Eastern Lightning teaching as soon as the "female Christ" was mentioned. Yet, even she was so totally confused that she could no longer think straight.

Measure number four is sexual temptation. (Praise the Lord, none of our four coworkers gave in to it.) This is the real test, to see if she has really accepted the Eastern Lightning. A man was sent to speak to her and he said to her, "I own an apartment in Xian. Come and live with me in Xian, since your husband is not a Christian." Every night, on each side of her was a woman sleeping beside her, keeping her in-between them. Neither would switch sides with her. By midnight, one would shout out loud and proclaim a certain verse from the Book of Ruth and did this repeatedly. The next morning, the other would claim to have seen a vision in her dream, saying, "I saw a curtain coming down from heaven, on which was written 'Ruth 3:7. Tell such and such (this sister's name) to obey my will.' This was repeated three times and then the curtain went up." This was meant to tell the sister to go to bed with Wang Enguang who was sleeping in the same room. Earlier, he had bought her new underwear and found a place for her to bathe. Against her own will, she allowed him to do that since she had not bathed for a very long time. Then one day, the congregation suddenly left one by one, leaving the sister and Wang by themselves. Wang immediately locked the door and tried to seduce her. She rejected him. He then wanted her to randomly pick a verse from the Bible and insisted that her randomly picked verse had in it the meaning of "union." Putting her trust in the holiness of God, she refused to commit adultery with him. Then Wang said, "Don't you remember what period of time we are living in? I must warm your wounded heart with Christ's love." Praise the Lord, our sister never succumbed to his sexual temptation. (The other sister met with the same temptation and slapped the face of the man who attempted four times to caress her. Yet he shamelessly said, "I like you even more now, for this shows you have a strong character." This other sister told my wife and me after she escaped and returned home.) On the following day, people asked among the congregation about Wang Enguang's whereabouts. Some said, "He committed adultery with such and such (this sister's name) and was put to death by God." They meant to defile this sister's reputation, even threatening to inform her family so that she would be resolute about joining the Eastern Lightning. She personally told my wife and me about all the above events.

At first, she did not contemplate escape because of the isolation of where she was being held, and because she had no money and the bus ran down the mountain only once a day. But one day she said to the old lady who guarded her, "I have already accepted [the Eastern Lightning]. Why am I not allowed to go? I miss my family. I miss my child. I want to go home." The old lady replied, "Is that anything to be decided by you? If you have accepted willingly, it will be wonderful when you bring some people back with you." She then realized all freedom had been robbed from her and decided to escape. When people were busy picking prickly ash in the mountain, God helped her slip away from the big mountain and she begged her way onto one bus after another until she finally reached Tongguan and Xian. In Xian, since she escaped without getting her clothes back, seeing what she had on her, no one would let her borrow some money to make a phone call back home. She wept in the street and was able to finally make a call to her brother in law, who found someone in Xian to buy her a train ticket. She wept uncontrollably when got off the train and saw the faces of her brethren.

Of the four, she was the last to escape. She had been away for about five months. When she reached home, she did not look human. She believed she was going to die, and had written two wills, one to her family and one to the church. In her will to her family, she told her, "Tell Daddy not to find trouble with the church regarding me." In her will to the church she wrote "Dear fellow workers, no matter when, no matter where, coworkers must not separate." We all wept when we read her words.

She had been brainwashed so that her mind was in a state of total confusion and she was on the verge of going mad. She prayed to the Lord, "Lord, I know there is only one true God in the whole universe. I don't mind whether you are Jesus or that 'almighty.' But if you let me die before the truth is revealed, I will rebel against you even in the hell." She was able to bring back with her only the key to her house and those two wills.

Back at home, these coworkers were no longer able to pray. People from the Eastern Lightning forbade them to pray in Jesus' name after the real motives were revealed, i.e., their heretical teachings on "the three eras of time" and "the almighty female Christ." They were allowed to pray in the name of "the almighty" alone, constantly monitored when they prayed. A group of people surrounded them to force them to swear: "Let any betrayal bring down a curse, death, or lunacy." Our sister remembered her experience of that "demon possession" in which the more she called on the name of Jesus, the more aggressive the demons became. So when she prayed with us, she was so afraid to call on the name of Jesus that her eyes were full of fearful tears. All of our coworkers in our church fasted and prayed for her. We made her understand that the reason why the Eastern Lightning stopped her from praying in the name of Jesus is because they were afraid of this name, just like burglars were afraid of police. When she said that their teaching sounded reasonable, I told her whatever is spoken out from their mouths is wrong, because the origin of their teaching is wrong. This is why Paul forbade the evil spirits to witness for him (Act 16:16-18). Whatever from Satan is wrong, even if it is truth, because the purpose of this truth is evil. Some people believe that there are many wonderful points in the books of the Eastern Lightning, but I told them that these books (including Manifestation and Lightning) are not worthy of reading as long as they contain even one wrong statement; for example, the statement which declares "the two incarnations of Jesus, first as a male then as a female." A bowl of delicious chicken soup is to be discarded even if it contains a tiny drop of poison. A counterfeit note is fake no matter how much it looks like a genuine one. We kept round-the-clock vigil and had fastings and prayers for her. I led her in prayers and had her follow me sentence by sentence. When I led her to pray: "Starting from today, I renounce all my connections with the evil spirits of the Eastern Lightning," she started to cry for fear of the curses that might come true and that she would become a lunatic. I read to her Numbers 23:24 in which God turned the curse of Balaam into a blessing. We thus prayed for God to put once again the peace of Jesus in her so that it would be with her from now on. I led her to conclude our prayers "in the name of Jesus" and cautioned her especially not to speak of the so called "almighty" of the Eastern Lightning, since this word from the Bible has been distorted by them to have a different meaning added on to it referring to the "female Christ." With much difficulty, she followed me and prayed as I led her. Then we had her pray by herself and she did, even though somewhat like she first believed. Then all the coworkers prayed for her again. Praise the Lord, for He listened to our prayers, and this sister shined a little brighter each day.

We have other coworkers who have been caught by the Eastern Lightning and never came back. Some are staunchly following their erroneous doctrines. We had a female coworker named Chen who was invited to Anhui and has since changed sides and is now working for them. Another brother who initially really loved God, and was our fellow worker for a long time, also changed sides. He constantly called me and asked me to come to meetings, but I refused. He did this to show his loyalty to the Eastern Lightning and it was also a requirement made of him. He was able to get a sister named Han instead. She was gone for 18 days. We found out later she had been confined in a cave in Gong County. Her experience was almost identical with the other sister's. She came back so badly beaten and bruised that she couldn't get out of bed. I know some coworkers from Jinan (Shandong Province) and Hangzhou (Zhejiang Province) and some of the Lord's workers with many years experience, who were carried off by them. I know three from Lanzhou, two of them managed to escape, one returned with the help of the police. The situation is the same in Xinjiang. In Pucheng near Xian, a sister disappeared for more than twenty days. Her family hired a taxi for two hundred RMB a day to look all around for her, but by the time they found her she had accepted the Eastern Lightning doctrines. There are similar instances in Weinan as well.

Due to the limited time, I cannot speak in more detail. But I find it very necessary to warn everyone about the sinister methods adopted by the Eastern Lightning. We should not loose our guard thinking they are a cult that has already caught the attention of the police. Watch out that they do not take advantage of our warm-heartedness for Christ and entrap us into temptations.

The Fifth Phase:
According to my observations, the fourth phase is coming to an end and they are entering into a new stage of their work - I want to blow the trumpet call of warning, so as to call workers of all churches to vigilance and prevention. The above-mentioned Chen heard that our four coworkers had returned home, so he reported it to the headquarters of the Eastern Lightning Cult, which immediately sent two key figures (both male). These two men met with our sister who was the last to escape. She did not tell me about this meeting at first, but after a long struggle later on, she told me everything. The fact was the Eastern Lightning did not believe that I will never accept their "almighty" and were planning to kidnap me. Our sister warned me not to stay in my house and said, "I have never seen these two men before. They are now staying with (such and such) in our neighborhood." I told her not to meet with those two men again. She told me their conversation in the meeting. She said to them, "After I returned home, my church told me it was totally a fraud. All the demon-possessions and visions were sheer lies." Then they said, "After all, they were for your good!" So they acknowledged themselves that they were sheer liars. This removed all the confusions and doubts from our sister. In the meantime, they said to each other: "We should make sure that we can't continue to use these methods in the future." This should catch our attention, for it means that they will learn from their failure and think of more sinister ways to get us.

The Eastern Lightning Cult is organized with twelve structural levels. Each level sums up their experiences to form a common strategy for their next maneuver. According to the prophecy in the Bible, there will be more and more events like this in the future. We are blowing this trumpet call to warn every one of us, but especially workers of the church: Beware!

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