I am an old preacher and am also responsible for ushering in my church. In the past, I had often heard of various heresies such as "Mengtoujiao," "Eastern Lightning," "Berea," and so on, and had refuted them in my sermons. Little did I expect that recently I would come face-to-face with some suspected heretics.
They came to my home and tried to brainwash me in twenty minutes, but I simply rejected them. It was only when I thought about what had happened that I began feeling the fear that heresy was just around the corner.
This is what happened: The day before Christmas, a brother in Christ who used to come to our meeting place for Sunday worship called me and said that a sister in Christ wanted to meet with me. So, we made an appointment to meet at my home. After waiting about ten minutes, the brother brought a lady in her forties. As soon as the lady sat down, she began to talk at length about her faith, sharing that she had been a believer and a preacher for many years and that the church she attended was in a nearby urban village, which I knew immediately from her remark that it was an unregistered church.
Then the lady asked, "So you are a preacher? Do you preach the Book of Revelation?" "Of course I do." She asked again, "Do you preach about the Great Tribulation?" "We preach on all the truths of the Bible." She went on to say that now that it was the last days, it was important to preach the message of the Judgment, and as she quoted Ezekiel 3:16, she said that if those who were the watchmen of God's house did not warn the wicked who would die, God would hold them accountable for causing those deaths. She then told me that the witness recorded in the book of Revelation was already here and had been preaching on earth for more than a decade, but was continually rejected. I asked, "Are you talking about the female Christ?" But she denied it. Then she pointed out that only the witness was worthy of opening the scroll. When I shared a testimony of a believer who was healed of his sickness, she "corrected" me by saying that people who believe in God should not get sick because sickness is the punishment for sin.
Then she mentioned some online spiritual training courses conducted by an overseas seminary and said that there were more than 100,000 graduates in the most recent course. She told me that I could join the course if I was interested. When I heard this, I felt that this was the usual tactic of the heretics, so I categorically refused, and the couple left dejectedly. Later, I talked with other believers and realized that this was a common tactic of religious cults such as "Shinchonji" ("New Heaven and Earth").
In this light, every church, no matter how large or small, must be careful and firmly reject any attempt by heretics. It is important not to leave any room for the devil and Satan, as I have heard during my visits that some church members and even some preachers and church leaders have been deceived, causing great losses.
As believers, we must not only be firm in our faith but also not entertain people we know nothing about or listen to sermons from unknown sources, and we must not participate in training from outside sources, especially those on the Internet. When encountering heresy, one should think with a discerning mind, persist in one's refusal, and report the event immediately.
Note: A church worker in Linfen, Shanxi Province, wrote this guest/freelance article.
- Translated by Joyce Leung
