But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them – bringing swift destruction on themselves. (2 Peter 2:1)

Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. (Jude 3-4)

Just as the Bible has prophesied, the existence of heresies and cults has never ceased since ancient days. They follow the church as shadows follow our bodies. Many false teachings have risen in China in recent years, but the most destructive one among them all is the Eastern Lightning Cult (the EL).

Taking great effort to promote the so-called “female Christ,” the El radically denies Christianity as revealed in the Bible. They are very strictly organized, and their activities are conducted under extremely high secrecy. Morally they are corrupt, and they justify all means to achieve their goals, even to the point of murdering people. The cruelty of their practices is bloodcurdling.

The author of this article wants to expose and condemn the doctrine, morality and harmful practices of the EL, to help God’s children to clearly see the reality of the EL and to be spared of terrible harm at their hands.

A. Absurd and Bizarre Doctrine

We can see from the teaching of the EL that they deny orthodox Christianity, and attack the authority of the Bible with no restriction. They deny the omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence of God, and even deny salvation through Jesus Christ. Now let’s have a close look at the errors of the EL doctrines from the perspectives of God, Christ, salvation and the Bible.

1. Radical denial of God

According to the teachings of the El, human history is divided into three stages: the first being the Era of Law, the second being the Era of Grace, and the third being the Era of the Kingdom. In the teaching about the first stage, they deny the omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence of God. They say, “Jehovah doesn’t have the full nature of God.” They even teach that “God didn’t foresee that Adam and Eve would eat the forbidden fruit.” These teachings belittle God’s work, and contradict the biblical revelation of God. The Bible makes it very clear from the beginning that “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1), that all things were made through Him and sustained by Him. Moreover, the Bible emphasizes the omnipotence of God over and over again (see Gen. 17:1; Ex. 6:3; 3:13-15; Ps. 139:1-4; Jer. 32:17). Comparing their teachings with the teachings of the Bible, it’s not hard for us to see the errors of the EL. Besides these errors, the EL also denies the existence of the triune God. In their book Lightning That Comes from the East, there are horrible teachings like “the triune God doesn’t exist at all. It’s a wrong idea of man…because nobody was ever able to do any research on the age and nature of God’s dwelling place; neither does anybody know how the three persons in the Godhead are distinct yet unified.” They even teach that “the doctrine of triune God is an idea poisoned by tradition.” The Holy Spirit that gives life is only said to be the ministering spirit of angels. All these teachings have radically denied the orthodox faith that was preached by the early apostles.

Although the Bible does not use the term “triune” God, the doctrine of the Trinity is revealed clearly throughout the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. This is a mystery beyond human comprehension. Many Bible passages reveal that the God who we believe in has personalities, and is a triune God (Gen. 1:26; Matt. 28:19; John 14:16; 2 Cor. 13:14; etc.)

The EL denial of the triune God has on one hand revealed the way they despise God, but on the other hand it has undermined people’s faith in God, causing harm to the church.

2. Wrong concepts of Christ

In their teachings about the so-called second stage – the Era of grace – they deny the union of humanity and deity in the person of Jesus Christ. They teach, “Jesus was a normal, ordinary man before he fulfilled his ministry. There was no sign of deity in him.” And that “Jesus’ work was not complete. It only represents part of God.” This is a fundamental denial of the deity of Jesus Christ. It denies the equality of Jesus with God before His incarnation. It destroys the unity of the Godhead. The EL not only denies the deity of Jesus Christ, but also denies His crucifixion and resurrection. It says in their book Walking in Light, “The crucifixion of Jesus was not a fact, neither was his resurrection true. The meanings of those records were not in the letter, but they carry some inner significance.” But the Bible, especially the New Testament, emphasizes the genuineness of the resurrection of Jesus over and over again. For example, Jesus appeared many times to His disciples after His resurrection; the disciples witnessed His resurrection and stressed the significance of His resurrection. The crucifixion and resurrection form the core of Christianity. They are the foundation of the faith, hope and love of the church. Apart from this foundation, we have preached in vain and believed in vain, and the whole of mankind is still in sin, having no hope of salvation. Jesus was crucified to redeem us of our sin, and He became alive again to overcome the power of death, so that man can have the hope of resurrection. The EL also claims that the second coming of Christ is not as a glorious King coming on the clouds, but that He came in a “second incarnation” as a woman in China. These teachings contradict the true biblical revelation of Jesus, and are sufficient to establish the EL as anti-Christ. Their denial of the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Jesus is intended to shake the foundation of Christianity. Any teachings that deny the deity, humanity, death, resurrection, ascension and the second coming of Jesus Christ are heresies, and therefore should be strenuously resisted by God’s children.

3. Denial of the all-effectiveness of salvation

Because of their utter denial of Jesus Christ, the EL teaches that Jesus’ salvation was not complete, that it only saves man from his sinful deeds, but is not able to save man from his sinful nature. This teaching radically denies the effectiveness of Jesus’ precious blood shed on the cross. By this rejection of the biblical doctrine of salvation, they intend to deceive people, to promote the so-called “female Christ” and draw followers for her, and to take Jesus out of the heart of man. In their book Walking in Light are words like this, “She will get rid of all the laws of the Era of Grace…not the law of the old covenant, but to abolish laws that were given through Jesus…her main purpose of coming this time is to speak, and her goal is to get rid of the image of Jesus in man’s heart, so that Jesus loses his place in man…” They promote this female Christ, but completely deny the rapture of the church, the new heavens and new earth, and heaven and hell. Their evil motive is therefore very obvious. They are truly controlled by evil spirits, and they are nothing short of being the servants of Satan. Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, let us be sure to keep in our minds the exclusiveness of salvation through Jesus (John 14:6; Acts 4:12), lest we be deceived and not only ourselves, but also the whole church suffer loss.

4. Despising the Bible and denying revelation

The EL doesn’t believe that the Bible is inspired by God, so they attack the divine authority of the Bible with no restraint. They criticize the Bible arrogantly and wildly, “It is religious to contrast what God said before with the words of the female Christ. Everything that God said or that came directly from the Holy Spirit is only religious concept, and is too old fashioned. If we don’t get rid of these ideas, they’ll become obstacles to our service of ‘God’ (meaning their idol, the female Christ.)” For the purpose of deceiving, they claim that “the Bible is only human concept, human imagination, and human idea. It’s all rumors,” and that “the Bible is limited. It can’t represent all of God’s work…thus we should teach people not to study the Bible.” They say that the Bible is a very ordinary and worthless book, and in this way they have denied all the revelation God gave man throughout history. They have books that contradict the Bible, such as Word Revealed in Flesh (bound edition), Lightning That Comes from the East, God’s Voice in the End time, and Walking in Light, etc. Their contents are very similar, all proclaiming the words of the female Christ. However, the writings throughout the books are incoherent, illogical, full of disorder, repetition and nonsense. The mouth of their female Christ is filled with swear words like “blind, stupid, a pile of rubbish” etc. Here we can see that this female Christ has indeed very little character, so she is not worthy of following

The reason why the EL attacks the Bible, denies all of God’s revelation, blasphemes the Holy Spirit that gives us gifts, and attacks God’s servants is because they are afraid that the truth will expose their hidden secrets.

We know that they can’t stand before the truth, but will only be revealed as chief sinners who resist Jesus and oppose the truth. We believe the Bible is inspired by God. It is the special revelation given to man, and through the study of this Bible, man can know God, and know His mind and deeds. We believe deeply that the Word of God lasts forever, and stands firm in the heavens. All God’s children should use the truth in the Bible to stand and resist any heresies and cults.

B. Immorality and Corruption

The EL justifies all means to gain converts to achieve their goals. Their followers enter different churches by different means to spy out their condition. Everywhere they go, they always express great love for people to gain approval and trust in the first place. Then they start to entice people. Once a person is deceived and joins the EL, he is in a swamp. It’s so hard for him to get himself out again. When asked about their identity, the EL members usually hide or provide false names and false addresses. They cheat people with lies, and thus reveal themselves as lacking basic honesty, as well as character, moral integrity and dignity. They use money and material help to entice people to join the cult, but their most despicable means is sexual enticement. They seduce men with women, and force women with men, so as to gain more followers. By these practices they reveal themselves as extremely immoral. Their activities are all well organized and planned. They have a certain level of knowledge of different church families, and so modify their practices to appeal to different churches. Anyone who has jointed the EL must absolutely submit to and serve the female Christ. The EL demands their followers to totally give themselves, to abandon their families, marriages and children, and to offer all of their money. Younger followers are required to preach their female Christ. If there is anyone who doesn’t want to submit, he’ll be threatened or even beaten up (please read the attached letter of exhortation by Fan xx. Fan was deceived by the EL and joined them. After he saw their reality behind the scenes, he managed to leave them. He wrote this letter as an exhortation to stop more people from suffering this harm). Those who are deceived by the EL and join the cult not only lose their personal freedom, but also end up with broken marriages and families.

C. Secret Activities and Brutal Practices

The El people are extremely crafty, and their activities are very secret. They always use one-way contact to make it hard for people to gain any of their inside information. Their practices are very brutal and deserve condemnation. To those preachers who strongly oppose the EL teachings, the EL members are even more ruthless. In November and December 1998, nine cases of beatings and murder happened to house church coworkers in Nan Yang district (Tang He county), He Nan province. These house church coworkers were severely attacked by the cult members, all because they had been defending the truth, and resisting the EL cult. Some of the injured coworkers had their legs or arms broken, and some had their ears cut off. The scene at the time was too horrible to be looked at. Even unbelievers were filled with indignation, and condemned the evil doers for their inhumanity. The following is the record of the stories of two old people.

This happened one day in November 1998 (September 14 according to traditional Chinese lunar calendar) in Nan Yang district, He Nan province. An old man whose surname was Zhang had just had his supper. Just as he sat down to shell some cotton flowers, a young man dashed in and said that he had a sick family member who wanted some Christian to pray for him. The young man said he heard that this old man had been a believer for several decades, so he came to invite him. When grandpa Zhang heard of this request for prayer for healing, he followed the young man without a second thought.

The young man walked in the front with his bike, and the old man followed him behind. When they had walked about one kilometer away from the village, they drew near to the neighboring village. It was not very dark that evening. They could vaguely see some human shadows moving around in the near distance. As they drew closer, those men suddenly shouted in stern voices, “Take your money out.” Grandpa took them as actual robbers and said, “I’m a local person, and I’m just visiting the neighouring village. I have no money with me.” Just as he finished his words, iron clubs fell heavily on him. He knelt down out of pain, and suddenly saw a shining dagger thrusting swiftly at his face. Out of instinct, he stretched his left hand to grab the dagger, and it was severely injured. In no time, his left check was thrust, his right ear cut off, and his legs broken…

Disasters didn’t come by themselves but in pairs. The next evening after grandpa Zhang was maimed, almost exactly the same evil thing happened to an old lady Wang in a nearby village.

The old lady was having her supper as night drew near. Suddenly a strange young man rushed in and said that his mother was ill, and wanted the lady to pray for her. Lady Wang saw it was getting dark and wanted to refuse to go. But then the sense of herself being a Christian urged her to help in love. So she went to invite two other lady coworkers who were a little younger and with whom she had often worked, so that they could go together to pray for the sick mother.

The three ladies followed the young man to the entrance of their own village, at which place the young man’s brother was said to be waiting for them. However, they saw nobody there, so the young man said his brother had probably gone home earlier. It was already dark by then. The ladies followed the young man toward a neighboring village. Just as they drew near to the village, suddenly a few men with knives and clubs jumped out from the roadside, sternly threatening the old ladies for money. They were terrified at first, but when they realized what was happening, they said, “We have no money.” The two younger ladies took the opportunity and ran away, but Wang was too old to escape. The men immediately surrounded her and started to beat her. One of them lifted up his dagger and was about to thrust it at her chest. The old lady stretched out her hands to grab the dagger out of desperation, and her fingers were badly cut, her blood running everywhere. At that moment the old lady was pushed to the ground. The several scoundrels swung an iron club about two feet long and severely beat her legs. During the beating, somebody stabbed the old lady in her right cheek; the rushing blood immediately soaked her jacket. At the same time, one man knelt down on the lady’s leg and tried hard to snap it. It was only after they were very sure that both of her legs were broken that they decided to run away from the scene.

By the time the old lady was found, the ground on which she lay was covered with blood. Everyone who saw it was shocked by the sight. The old lady was then sent to the hospital. Her village folks all said, “If this old lady could survive, then God must be true.”

With God’s grace, both old people are now out of danger, and are recovering.

After the events, some of the evildoers were arrested by the police. They confessed that they committed the crime and that they were EL members. When the police asked them why they committed the crime, they said because these people had resisted the EL with all their effort, and hindered the work of the “female Christ,” and therefore should be punished. Their simple excuse has thoroughly exposed the evil motives of the EL.

It’s not hard for us to see through these two events that the EL have already become a threat to the life and safety of people. They cause fear in people’s hearts, and bring damage to society. These mobs that are great disasters to the nation are no different from cults!

The evil practices of the EL followers have already been widely condemned by people from every part of society, but they are still far from repenting. In the days to come, the EL will become more crafty, more secret, and their practices more vile and cruel, so as to deceive more believers. Be alert, God’s children! Because in these last days, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Arise boldly, the chosen army of Christ! Because this is a time when God’s church suffers greatly from the troubles of heresies and cults.

When we see our church members deceived and falling into darkness, when we see with our very eyes that the body of the Lord suffers great loss, we as God’s children should stand up and defend the church of the Lord with biblical truth, lest we be overcome by the anti-Christ satanic Eastern Lightning cult or any other heresies that come from the powers of darkness and that are filled with evil spirits.

The following is the original letter of exhortation written by Fan xx:

Dear brothers and sisters who have been deceived,

I am sinner Fan xx. My other name is Fan xx, and my pseudonym is Zhang xx. I am 33 years old. My home town is in xx village, Ru Zhou city, He Nan province. There are five people in my family. I joined a religious group who followed Johnism in 1978, and later turned to the Shouters (led by Witness Lee) in 1979. In June 1997, two men named “Jian Gong” and “Zhong Xin” (both were pseudonyms) who were said to be from Luo Yang, forced me by means of the stick and the carrot to believe in their “Almighty God” up until now.

1. The name of our organization is Eastern Lightning. The Queen from the south (female Christ) is also called “the Almighty God.” Our basic organization is that 20 people forms a Group, and 40 a Platoon. A leader and two assistants are appointed for each Group and Platoon. In each level of the organization, one woman is arranged for the men to use. They call this “the bed that the spirit passes,” or “three days rotation.” Our highest headquarters are said to be in Japan or the U.S. In each level of the organization, there are first line and second line workers. The first line workers organize the work, while the second line workers do the spying and road paving, that is, preparing for new works. Leaders and their assistants from each level can also enjoy newly hired women and money.

2. The nature of our organization: Using the name of “the Almighty God” and under the guise of preaching salvation, we teach that “God’s salvation is in three steps,” and now is the time for the second step – for harvesting, punishing and judging. We scare people that if they don’t believe they will “die,” so as to draw people into submission. In reality, we are anti-social gangsters joined with foreign forces.

3. Our plan: To gain control over China (which we describe as the big red dragon), and to gain control over the whole world (including each denomination) next year (1999). Anyone that still doesn’t believe by the end of next year will be judged.

Our practices: We force people to give in by all kinds of foul means. We first enter into a church group through various relationships. We try to get along well with people to gain their trust and favor, so that we can get to know their inner condition to prepare the way for further work (selected from Outlines for Spying). We pretend to offer leadership positions (it doesn’t matter whether they are high or low, it’s just a bait) to our targets, so that they can work for us. We treat them with honor, offering them good food, clothing, cigarettes and cosmetics. In those families where we often have meetings, there is always good food to snare people, so that they can serve us. But the greater evil is to offer sexual enticement. If the target is a man, we’ll send a woman to seduce him. If it’s a woman, a man will be sent to force her to give in. By this we intimidate our targets so that they can’t speak for themselves. Through forcing and cheating, we collect money from the families of the followers, and use this money to pay those who we are trying to win over. If there is a financial deficiency, funds will be allocated from the top until the need is met. These targets can also enjoy a lot of material help. As for our doctrine, we deny the Bible. We teach that the Bible is out of season, that we only need “God’s” words to punish, judge and curse so as to beat and destroy people. We teach widely that we are not bound by the law. One can sin as he wishes as long as he prays to God. The sins of the old covenant belong to Jehovah, and the sins of the new covenant belong to Jesus. We teach no truth, but only absolute submission. There is no right or wrong, no reasoning, no limitation, no why. Whether one understands or not, he is expected to submit with all his effort. We demand a follower to give his whole being, and to abandon his family and marriage. He must offer his children and all of his money. Young followers must forsake their families to preach. They are only counted as loving God if they press on continuously.

4. Our overall purpose: to gain people from every denomination and from the government to put them under our control; to unify all religions; and finally to gain control over China and conquer the whole world.

Dear brothers and sisters, I regret so much! They have harmed me, and I know you are also their victims. To those leaders I know, I exhort you with deep pain in my heart, please wake up and escape the danger before it’s too late. Reject darkness and choose the light. I have looked at The Detailed Outlines of Spying which says, “Brothers and sisters, we can’t be Christ, neither are we false Christ, but we can possibly become anti-Christ.” Obviously we have been fooled and cheated. I earnestly look forwards to your waking up; otherwise you’ll have to suffer unconceivable consequences. Beware! Beware!

Fan xx (finger prints)
January 17, 1999

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