A Letter to Pastor Thomas Wang (Part III)
Part III Our Testimony
A. God Cannot Be Mocked
We were students of a Bible school in the 1950s which was initiated by God’s servant John Song in the 1940s. After the liberation of China, we were called by the Lord from schools, factories and offices to tend this Bible school located on a mountain. Every day we read the Bible and prayed, we were filled with the Holy Spirit. Every one of us knew the destination of our commission. However, we failed to pay more attention to the truth we had heard, so when our Bible school was dissolved, each went his own way and drifted about. Most of us stumbled because of temptation, persecution or suffering. We were found incompetent in just one trial of fame, fortune and lust. God sits as a refiner and purifier of silver; He purifies the Levites. He took us through the water and fire, long-term imprisonment, labor work or supervision from the masses and suffering, so that we would realize that God could not be mocked. God values the worker himself more than the work. Who dares not fear Him? Most of the suffering we went through was to refine us.
B. The Mercy of God
The love of God is as strong as death, and His jealousy unyielding as the grave. He severely disciplines those He loves because we are not loyal or faithful to Him. However, when He saw that we were reduced to such a stage of lowliness, as the lost son desiring the pods in hunger, He lavished His mercy on us. It is because of His mercy that we could escape from the trap and learn to truly exalt His word as great and glorious. Every day we should humble and be contrite in spirit and tremble at His word, purify ourselves in His light and continue to work out the salvation with fear and trembling.
C. The Faithfulness of God
When we return to God in distress, He turns to us and gathers us from all the places He scattered us to. (Deuteronomy 30: 1-4) He broke the bondage and gave us a certain degree of deliverance so that we were allowed to go home. We were able to devour His word day and night, and we could have fellowship secretly. When we examined ourselves with His word and repented and asked the Holy Spirit to give us strength to obey His commands, and preached His word at the risk of our lives, we experienced His presence. Many have believed in Jesus and give up everything to follow God. They have also been sent by the Holy Spirit to preach the gospel.
Moreover, the gracious hand of God has led some of us to go abroad for our commission one after another when it was seemingly absolutely impossible. In America, we started with no place to live and now live in spacious houses. The number of us is increasing and our lives are getting stable and prosperous. We ask of no financial support from the government, the church, any spiritual institution or any one. Indeed we live like the sparrows, by simply fixing our eyes on Heavenly Father in faith. We have no job to earn a living, but rather we read His word and pray day and night, and work for the Lord as the Holy Spirit sends us, just as Ruth picked the leftover grain.
Remembering when Mary first arrived at the United States, a sister in Christ wrote to her from China: “When I saw you off, I was breathless with anxiety, lest you should lead a wandering life in America.” Indeed, Mary could neither do housekeeping, baby-sitting, cooking or heavy laboring. Her relatives in America were never close to her and they did not believe in Jesus. She had no acquaintance in the church. There was no relative or friend with whom she would seek refuge. The only resort was a distant relative of a co-worker in China, who could only let her stay for two weeks at her apartment. Mary could do nothing but pray urgently and trust in the wonderful and faithful God. To her surprise, when she testified for the Lord in a small fellowship she met an old lady, who happened to be her distant relative, and she took Mary to stay with her. The faithful and almighty God has guided Mary since then, and she now lives in New Orleans with her co-workers in a three-floor house with quiet and beautiful surroundings. We are even more grateful to God because we know that we are not idling or retiring here, but that this is a camp of God’s army. Therefore, we pray watchfully and read the Bible day and night without losing time.
Last year I had a chance to visit my co-workers in China. I witnessed how they preached the gospel faithfully even under difficulties and how God let them reap with songs of joy. It was such a joy to see the young give up the world and follow God; the old pray devotedly day and night as a woman in labor, paying a price for the work of God. I also saw how God bless them with abundance of materials. Unexpectedly, the expenses that Mary needed to come to this meeting of AD 2000 & Beyond Movement in Seoul was prepared by them!
“Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.'”(Matthew 28:18-20)
Pastor Wang, may the Holy Spirit that moved Paul and John Son double in you and your co-workers. Pray that God will use all of you to unite the churches, and that all His children will work together with one heart to accomplish the great commission given to us by God!
May God be with you at all times!
With prayers in Christ,
Mary and her seven co-workers
March 9, 1995