By Li Mei, South Korea
Editor’s note: We all know the road to the heavenly kingdom is tortuous, fraught with Satan’s various temptations and confusions. Especially when some Christians have just accepted Almighty God’s work of the last days, they come across some of Satan’s temptations, such as losing their property, suffering illness, and so forth. This is without a doubt a challenge to their faith. Then how should we experience these adversities when faced with them? The author Li Mei once had a perplexity like this. I will share her experience with you and I hope it will be useful to you.
Seeing Through Satan’s Intentions Behind Its Disturbance
In February 2018, I was fortunate enough to accept Almighty God’s work in the last days. In the beginning, my faith was very strong, and I really liked to read God’s words and watch various videos and movies of the church. However, when I started to go to the church meetings, Satan’s temptations and attacks came upon me one after another.
That day, my sister brought me to the church and then I read God’s words there. However, not long after this, my eyes began to hurt me. At first, I ignored that. But soon they hurt so much that I even couldn’t see the words clearly, and meanwhile my head began to ache and became ever more painful, which made me unable to sit still. Because of this, I couldn’t help but whisper in my heart: “That’s strange. I haven’t been like this even when I
Seeing me in so much pain, she helped me rub my temples and fellowshiped to me: “Sister, when we suffer pains, we should see that behind them there’re Satan’s schemes. So we mustn’t complain about God. Let’s read some of God’s words: ‘God works, God cares for a person, looks upon a person, and Satan dogs His every step. Whoever God favors, Satan also watches, trailing along behind. If God wants this person, Satan would do everything in its power to obstruct God, using various evil ways to tempt, harass and wreck the work God does in order to achieve its hidden objective. What is its objective? It does not want God to have anyone; it wants all those that God wants, to occupy them, control them, to take charge of them so they worship it, so they commit evil acts alongside it. Is this not Satan’s sinister motive?’”
She then fellowshiped: “From God’s words, we can see that God works to save mankind, but Satan is unwilling to see we’re saved by God. So it follows along at each step of God’s work and disturbs us through various ways, wanting to make us doubt God’s almightiness and dominance, lose faith in Him, and live in the midst of our misunderstanding and complaints of Him. Once we can’t see through the spiritual war, we will fall prey to Satan’s trickery, thus returning under its domain and losing God’s salvation in the end. This is Satan’s despicable purpose. However, God’s wisdom is exercised based on Satan’s schemes. Through Satan’s disturbance, God wants us to clearly see its treachery and evil, while at the same time perfecting our faith in Him. As long as we rely on God and look to God more, we will overcome Satan’s temptations and see God’s omnipotence and sovereignty.”
After hearing God’s words and Sister Cao’s fellowship, I came to realize that Satan just wanted to use the illness to attack me and sow discord between me and God, so as to make me blame God. I must not fall for Satan’s tricks. The more Satan interfered with me, the more I must attend church meetings and read God’s words.
Knowing How to Stand Witness for God in the Spiritual Battle
Then Sister Cao read another passage of God’s words to me: “Through mankind’s cries God gives them what they need, but He does not ‘reside’ within them at first. He just constantly gives them aid because of their cries and people gain hardiness from that internal strength so that Satan dare not come here to ‘play’ at its will. This way, if people constantly connect with God’s Spirit, Satan dare not come to disrupt.”
She continued fellowshiping: “On the road to following God, we often face attacks from Satan. It’s impossible to fight back against Satan by ourselves. So we must pray to God and depend on Him more. Thus God will give us confidence and power, and help us triumph over Satan’s temptations and attacks.”
So I prayed to God: “Almighty God! Satan makes my eyes and head hurt so much that I can’t read Your words. God! May You give me faith, so that no matter how Satan disturbs me, I will stand witness for You and not leave You.” After praying, I really felt the pain gradually eased.
However, my head and eyes ached again as I walked home from the church. What’s worse, I felt so discomfort in my heart that I could hardly breathe. Then I said to my sister: “Why do I suffer pains again? If I’m still in pain tomorrow, I won’t go to the church meeting.” As soon as I finished saying that, I realized I had lost witness, and I felt some regrets. After we got home, my sister played a hymn “God’s Love Brings Us Close Together.” I heard these lines in it: “In negativity and weakness, we support each other. We are together in adversity. Standing witness, we defeat Satan. We escape the darkness and live in the light. …” As I listened, I became relaxed. Meanwhile, my heart no longer felt uncomfortable, and my eyes and head didn’t feel as painful. After a while, Sister Cao called me and asked me how my head was. I then told her about what had just happened. She said: “The more we are attacked by Satan, the more we should pray to God and have faith in Him.” I said with a sigh: “Just now, the pain was so bad that I even forgot to pray to God. My faith in Him is really small.”
Hearing what I said, Sister Cao read me a passage of God’s words: “While undergoing trials, it’s normal for people to be weak, or have negativity within them, or to lack clarity on God’s will or their path for practice. But in any case, you must have faith in God’s work, and not deny God, like Job. Although Job was weak and cursed the day of his own birth, he did not deny that all things in human life were bestowed by Jehovah, and that Jehovah is also the One to take it all away. No matter how he was tested, he maintained this belief. … When Job reached this point, God appeared to him and spoke to him. That is, it is only from within your faith that you will be able to see God, and when you have faith God will perfect you. Without faith, He cannot do this. God will bestow upon you whatever you hope to gain. If you don’t have faith, you cannot be perfected and you will be unable to see God’s actions, much less see His omnipotence. When you have faith and you can touch His actions in your practical experience, God will appear to you, and He will enlighten and guide you from within. Without that faith, God will be unable to do that.”
Then she fellowshiped with me: “Satan’s disturbances are authorized by God and they are God’s trials of us, so experiencing these situations is meaningful. Just like when Satan tempted Job, this was sanctioned by God. On the surface, Job was stripped off all the wealth and children by Satan, and even covered with sore boils. However, within this was God’s good intention—to perfect Job’s faith. From Job’s experience, we can see that though being in pain, he still held on to his integrity and relied on his faith in God to bear a resounding testimony to God. As a result, Satan could do nothing to Job, and had to flee in a panic. After going through the trials, Job obtained anew God’s blessings: He had another seven sons and three daughters, and double the fortune he’d originally had. Most importantly, he had more faith in God, and his faith received God’s praise, and he was taken as a model in later generations. Today, when we are faced with the illness, we should imitate Job and rely on faith to do battle with Satan so as to stand witness for God. If we lose our faith in God, we won’t be able to experience His work and in the end, we won’t see His deeds.”
What she fellowshiped gave me great strength and courage. Compared with Job’s experience, the illness I suffered was nothing. But I had wanted to shrink just because of some fleshly pain. My stature was really too small. After knowing this, I felt very ashamed. So, I said this prayer to God: “Dear God! I ask that You grant me faith and power to fight with Satan to the end. Even if my eyes and head hurt, I will keep on attending church meetings and reading Your words. Even if I can’t read, I will persist in listening to Your words.”
Refusing to Bow to Satan and Thus Seeing God’s Deeds
The next day, when I was going out to the church, I found that I couldn’t get my feet into my shoes as they, before I knew it, had been swollen. At that time, I realized that Satan was still attacking me. Yet when thinking of the experience on the night before, I wasn’t negative or retreating, and went to the church in a pair of loose shoes for the elderly. On the way, I kept praying to God silently, asking Him to protect my heart from complaining about Him. After reaching the church, I watched a video of recitation of God’s words together with my sisters. However, less than five minutes later, my head started to hurt again, so I stood up. But soon, my feet were badly swollen so that I could hardly keep my balance; meanwhile, my eyes increasingly ached. And once I stopped watching the video, my eyes wouldn’t hurt a bit. So I hurried to pray to God in my heart: “O God! Satan attacks and disturbs me over and over, and it just doesn’t want me to believe in You. The previous two times I didn’t stand witness for You due to my little faith. This time I must do it. May You guide me.” After praying, I continued to watch the video. When my headache got severe, I stood up; when I couldn’t stand on my feet, I sit down to continue; when my eyes hurt me, I listened to the recitation. But before long, I felt uncomfortable in my heart. So my sisters and I prayed to God together. After that, a sister played the movie A Battle for me. When I saw God’s words in this movie saying, “If, on the road to loving God, you are able to stand on the side of God when He does battle with Satan, and you do not turn back to Satan, then you will have achieved the love of God, and you will have stood firm in your testimony,” I felt even more confident and then I persisted in watching the movie. Slowly, I actually felt the pain in my head and eyes had gone, and my heart wasn’t uncomfortable. When my sisters saw that I had stood witness by depending on God’s words, they all happily thanked God, and I also continuously gave praise to God. At that moment, I felt particularly relieved, peaceful and at ease, as if the door to my heart, which had been tightly closed, was opened.
Gaining a Lot From This Experience
After this spiritual battle, my faith in God increased more. Although Satan used the illness to attack me and obstruct me from believing in God, God sent sisters to fellowship His words to me all the time, so that I could see through the tricks of Satan and understand God’s will, and then gain faith and power to overcome Satan’s temptations and stand witness. Thank God! At the same time, I gained some discernment of Satan’s sinister and vile motivations. It took advantage of all sorts of means to disturb me in order for me to misunderstand God and lose His salvation in the end. Satan was too evil. Also, I truly experienced the love of God, as well as the authority and power of His words. In spiritual battles, only by depending on God’s words can we overcome and defeat Satan, feeling liberated and at peace. All the glory and praise be to Almighty God! Amen!
Editor’s conclusion: I believe that after learning Li Mei’s experience, everybody has understood that on the path to believing in God, behind every adversity that befalls us there is actually an intense spiritual battle, as well as God’s trial of us. So it is necessary for us to maintain our faith in God and stand witness for Him. If you are now experiencing a spiritual battle, without knowing the way ahead, try relying on your faith in God to experience it and you will see God’s deeds.
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