Most
believers in Jesus Christ have heard the “Eastern Lightning”
from
their pastors, elders, or preachers. But actually no one knows
exactly where the Eastern Lightning comes from. There are
different opinions about the origin of the Eastern Lightning among
the denominations and sects. Some think that the Eastern Lightning is
an emerging Christian denomination,
some even condemn it as a cult.… People have such erroneous
opinions of the Eastern Lightning because they do not have any
knowledge of God’s work
God’s
work is continuously moving forward. However, because people do not
know the principle of God’s work being always new and never old or
the purpose of God’s work of saving mankind and
because they have satanic disposition—being arrogant and self-right
and obeying no one, each time when God does a new work, it will
inevitably be blasphemed, persecuted, and condemned by
the religious world
which obstinately sticks to the old way, and those who accept the new
work and preach the true way are
imposed on various false charges and are misnamed. The records in the
New Testament show us a fact: In order to deliver mankind from
punishment for being unable to keep the laws, God was incarnated and
began the work of redemption in the Age of Grace. At the time when
Jesus worked in Judea, He performed many miracles and signs, healed
and cast out demons, bestowed upon people rich grace, and expressed
many truths. That was sufficient proof that Jesus was really and
completely God Himself, the Messiah that would come. However, the
Jewish chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees didn’t believe that
Jesus was the Messiah they had desperately longed for. They even
slandered, judged, and condemned the work of Jesus as a heresy, a
cult. As Jesus grew up in Nazareth and started doing His work in
Nazareth, they called Jesus and His followers the Nazarenes. They
also accused Paul of being a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.
(cf: Act 24:5) What can we see from this fact? Every believer in
the Lord knows
this: When Jesus did the work in Judea, He ushered in the Age of
Grace and did the new work of redeeming mankind fully according to
God’s own management plan. Whether the Jews or the Gentiles,
whether the Zelotes or the Sadducees, as long as they truly thirsted
for and sought the true way and followed the only true God, they
would be forgiven of their sins and receive God’s salvation. God
didn’t need to establish and had never established any religion,
organization, or party, so how could He found the sect of the
Nazarenes? Therefore, the sect of the Nazarenes was an offensive term
fabricated by the chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees who “served”
Jehovah in the temple for the purpose of attacking and framing Jesus
and condemning His work. It was because of being deceived and
controlled by these so-called servants of God that the Jews crucified
Jesus and the entire Jewish nation was thus subjected to
unprecedented destruction in the end.
Similarly,
to free man from the endless cycle of committing sins and confessing
them and completely rid man of his corrupt satanic disposition and
sinful nature so that he will become holy and be fully saved by God,
God is incarnated again in the last days and
expresses the truths to judge and chastise the corrupt mankind,
carrying out a new work in order to utterly purify them. The
brothers and sisters who accept God’s gospel of
the last days and keep up with God’s new work have undergone the
judgment, chastisement, trials, and refinements of God’s word, and
seen clearly that Almighty God who
expresses the truth in the last days is exactly the returned Lord Jesus.
