The Bible clearly states that when we are in faith, we will see, “…though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.”(2 Corinthians 4:16) This is because the Holy Spirit works in us every day and leads us forward. Here are three examples of how the Holy Spirit has led us, with the dates of when they occurred so you know they happened recently. Before looking at these three examples, we first note that according to past progress, we should continue to read John 16. However, when preparing, I found that apart from the first paragraph that came out a long time ago, there were really no other words. And these could not be consistent with the small topics that came out this week about the thoughts brought about by last week’s piecewise Bible study. Knowing that the two cannot be put together, I began to think about how the Holy Spirit has led us recently, and found that these three examples should be shared.
First, we discussed the thoughts that arose from last week’s piecewise Bible study (2/16/25). To illustrate this, we explained the current process of the piecewise Bible study. From the process of “1132 Yu Hongjie’s Discipleship of Newcomers- Unbiblical Places (2)”
discussed last week, we saw that the previous teaching that one must complete the corresponding article word for word to follow God’s will is wrong. Basically, God has absolute sovereignty. How can we restrict God saying that You have to do this? Of course, other problems we have seen are also described. Second, I stayed in Taiwan for about three months and did not return until January 19 of this year (2025). In the things that happened in the last month or so, I saw how the Holy Spirit led us forward. This is also an example of how we should work with God. I will describe this matter clearly in detail. The third is something that happened just this Wednesday (2/19/25), which tells us how to discern the work of an evil spirit.
1. Thoughts raised from last week’s piecewise Bible study
Let’s first look at the current process of piecewise Bible study. Every time we do this, we prepare slides first, as shown in previous sharing. When sharing, the slides are the backbone, and then there may be temporary additions. After sharing, we will have corresponding or expanded articles based on the shared videos. At this time, we will try our best to follow the sharing and complete the corresponding article part word for word. In particular, the West Coast Christian Conference (WCCC) in the United States does this, so we believe this is the right way to do it.
After sharing “1132 Yu Hongjie’s Discipleship of Newcomers- Unbiblical Places (2)” last week, when I was about to write an expanded article based on the video, I found that after adding the expanded part, it would be impossible to keep the final article short enough. This made me rethink whether my previous teachings were correct! So I found two problems. The first is that God has absolute sovereignty. We cannot tell God that we must do something. He can tell us His will in His own way, such as the subsequent expansion. Of course, it is easiest for people to write it out word by word, but we must know who is the Lord!
Second, it assumes that the speaker is so spiritual that any words he can discern off the cuff are from the Holy Spirit, rather than simply permitted by God, as the book of Job states at the beginning. In other words, assuming that the speaker’s words are the words of the Holy Spirit, I can only say that from my personal experience, this is not necessarily the case! I saw a person who thought he was like this and only spoke what God wanted him to say. May God open his eyes! I also discovered that the video or its corresponding article is only to convey some main concepts. As long as the concepts can be explained clearly, there is no need to write them out word for word, because doing so may contain errors that are only allowed by God. Especially when we have to add expanded parts of revelation, we don’t want to keep the final article very long.
Of course, there are some people who are so spiritual that they can immediately know what is the will of the Holy Spirit. There is such an example in the Bible. “But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, “Get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a desert road.) So he got up and went; …”(Acts 8:26-27) From Acts 8:27-28, we know that a eunuch had gone up to Jerusalem to worship, and now he was back, sitting in his chariot, reading the book of the prophet Isaiah. Then, “Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go up and join this chariot.” Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?””(Acts 8:29-30) After Philip explained the words and preached to the eunuch, he was baptized, and ” When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; …”(Acts 8:39)
Our brief introduction to this incident is not only to say that it is possible to know the will of the Holy Spirit off the cuff, but also to emphasize a principle of Bible reading, which is, do not guess about what the Bible does not say or the concept in the Bible. The Bible does not mention the word Trinity, but it definitely has the concept that God is a triune God.
Back to the example of Philip, someone told me that since Philip was taken away after being baptized, he was initially taken away not far from the eunuch’s chariot. We see that the Bible does not say this. The messenger told him to go down the road to Gaza. To say this, it is to forget God’s power. He had already foreseen that if Philip immediately went on the road in the wilderness, he would just happen to see the eunuch’s chariot. The scripture does not use the word “immediately”, why do we say this? Philip was a man full of the Holy Spirit, as the scripture says, “The statement found approval with the whole congregation; and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, …”(Acts 6:5) Philip knew “Do not quench the Spirit.”(1 Thessalonians 5:19) There is this immediate concept in faith, as the text says, “Be like men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast, so that they may immediately open the door to him when he comes and knocks.”(Luke 12:36)
If Philip was snatched on the way coming, we won’t see his faith to immediately obey to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And if he was snatched on the way coming, why didn’t the Holy Spirit take him directly to the chariot instead of making Philip run? Some people speculated that such a direct rapture would scare the eunuchs. This is not mentioned in the Bible and there is no such concept. Do not interpret the Bible subjectively.
2. The guidance of the Holy Spirit and working with God
Regarding the guidance of the Holy Spirit, He wants me to take the first step this time, and then lead me step by step. If I don’t take the first step, there will be no guidance later. Therefore, to work with God this time, I must believe in God, stand on God’s side and take the first step. Now I will tell you what happened and you will know why I say so! Please note that for privacy reasons, I have not named the brothers, but have used older brothers and younger brothers (by opening his house for gathering) in the narrative.
At the end of last year (2024), I suddenly went back to Taiwan for nearly three months due to my mother’s health. Because my brother told me that he couldn’t feel her pulse, I changed my flight ticket that was originally scheduled to return next year. On one Sunday of this visit, I heard hymns singing next door and knew there was a meeting of Local particular Churches (地方教會的召會) there, because other churches held their meetings in the church on Sundays. Around February of the same year, I went back for about ninety days, but I didn’t know about this meeting during that time. I thought, maybe God let me know about this meeting after showing me the objective facts recorded in the medical system that I could show others, and wanted me to give everyone I could meet a chance to see it with their own eyes and obtain this objective fact. Because I knew that God often uses coincidences to guide people, but not all coincidences are God’s guidance, I did not dare to take it lightly, so I attended this meeting about a week later and took the first step. After attending the meeting, I was sure that this was really what God wanted me to do!
First of all, I did not have a good impression of the church. In my opinion, I should not attend this meeting. In the end, I was convinced in my mind because this verse, “For God so loved the world, …”(John 3:16) The plan of salvation is for everyone, and the Great Commission is to preach to unbelievers and ask them to obey the Lord’s word. In other words, give everyone a chance. Similarly, I believe that this objective fact is not just given to me, but to give everyone I can come into contact with an opportunity to know the existence of this objective fact.
After attending the meeting, several things happened, and I became more certain that this was God’s step-by-step guidance. First, I knew in my mind that I should send this to the older and younger brothers: “1123 God reveals His existence through objective facts that are visible to others.” After I did it and had a brief discussion with the older brother in the meeting, I knew in my mind that I should add this paragraph: “But if a Christian has not experienced objective facts, and now has an opportunity to see these objective facts for himself, so that he knows that God has indeed used objective facts to demonstrate His existence. In this case, he is also doing this for himself.” Because my medical system is in English, I used to think that it had to require the other person knowing English. In my mind I knew that I had to add another paragraph, “Even if you don’t understand English, it doesn’t matter. You can use translation software to instantly translate it into any language that can be translated by the software.” Of course, “1123” was updated many times before it reached the final version. I just chose these two events to show how the Holy Spirit led the completion of this article this time. These are all subjective evidences I mentioned, because I cannot show what in my mind to anyone. The objective facts are quite different, because the objective records of the medical system are available to everyone.
In addition, through attending the meetings, I learned that they often use the word “administration.” I also discovered that the word “administration” they use does not appear in the Bible, but is in the annotations of the Recovery Version of the Bible used by the church. Because I thought the older brother interpreted this word by quoting 1 Peter 5:5, I went to look at this verse. The Chinese translation of the Recovery Version and its English version are as follows: The English version is “In like manner, younger men, be subject to elders; and all of you gird yourselves with humility to one another, because God resists but gives grace to the humble.” If you don’t know the Chinese, it is ok since only the word “elders” will be considered. The word “elders” is called “長老” in Chinese. I’ll put the Chinese translation completely for the sake of completeness. So the Chinese version is “照樣，年幼的，要服從『年長的(older people)』；你們眾人彼此相待，也都要以謙卑束腰，因為神敵擋狂傲的人，賜恩給謙卑的人。” I never expected the Recovery Version’s annotation in English to say this: “Although the original text uses the same word for elders as in verse 1, in principle this should refer to all older people.”
This verse is clearly talking about spiritual life rather than physical age, so the word elders is used. This is a deliberate violation. The deliberate violation is that one knows that the author is talking about elders, and the deliberate violation is that one insists in the annotation that “in principle, it should refer to all older people.” If a person truly relies on the words of the Bible, it would be impossible to have such annotations. God has also made me see the errors in the annotations of the Recovery Edition in different circumstances. This is just one of them. There are also illogical parts, so we must be very careful to distinguish the right from the wrong of the annotations.
There was also a brother who was leading the hymn singing and said that God asked him to choose a hymn to replace the one he originally wanted to choose, but this did not come from God. God wanted to use this incident to tell this brother not to think that things that come from one’s mind must come from God. Why? Because that song is a prayer to God, asking God to free us from being bound by religious rituals, while He is performing the rituals of religious shouting in songs and public prayers. Because apart from the church, there is no such shouting. The early church did not have that. The church originated from Watchman Nee, where this church comes from, did not have that either. God will not give people a contradictory message.
In order to confirm that this brother was indeed unable to make such a discernment, I asked him to read what Eliphaz the Temanite said to Job in the Book of Job (see Job 4:12-21). I also asked him if he knew that the spirit was Satan. Can you see that the words of the Spirit are a mixture of right and wrong? In order to communicate with him, I looked at the notes in the Recovery Version and found that it was only quoting the beads. If you look at the scriptures cited one by one, you will know that those are Satan’s views. Satan rebelled against God, and of course God did not believe him. There is no mention of God believing in angels.
There are quite a few examples of God believing in angels, and I will just mention three of them now. For example, “But the prince of the kingdom of Persia was withstanding me for twenty-one days; then behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left there with the kings of Persia.”(Daniel 10:13) Also, “And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war.”(Revelation 12:7) Another example is, “The angel answered and said to him, “I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.”(Luke 1:19) These are all examples of God’s trust in angels.
I also attended the annual meeting. When the older brother took me there, he mentioned that I should not use “I” and “you”. From a human perspective, it seemed as if I was separating them. It was true, but there was always a reason every time in such a usage. For example, I have objective facts and they don’t. In this case, how can I honestly talk about this matter with them? As a Christian, I must tell the truth!
At the same time, he also asked me about my motivation for attending the meeting, and I told him. When I came back, I was stimulated to send an email to the young brother, telling him my motives, including the facts stated above, and the statement in Chinese, “Please forward this message to the brothers and sisters. I will bring my computer to the next meeting, and if anyone wants to see this objective fact in person, I can show it to them. I hope they have the patience to read such a long message. Thanks.” It was also told by the older brother that I had five minutes to share at the next meeting. After thinking about it, I decided to send out this message first and see everyone’s reaction! How can five minutes be enough to share objective facts? I didn’t expect that not only did they not forward my email, but they also made a temporary change and moved the Sunday meetings in the next two weeks to be held at a different location than the young brother’s home. This reminded me that I had told them when I would be returning to the US, so they knew that I would no longer be in Taiwan in two weeks, and that because of my eyesight, I would not be able to attend the last meeting I had scheduled by bringing my computer. Regarding the eyes, this is another work of God. The situation at that time is in my testimony, “1038 Walking on the sea with a testimony, and healing a born blind.” If you are interested, you can go to the website “https://a-christian-voice.com/” and click “Understanding of Spiritual Life” to find this article.
On the last Sunday I could attend the meeting, my heart was stimulated, and I went to the meeting earlier than usual, before the time even came. I happened to meet the young brother when he was going to attend the changed meeting. Just as I said in my email in Chinese to the young brother afterwards, “I didn’t see your email but I got the chance to share with you briefly. I thought that as your wife said, you all met at your home except for the annual meeting.” How could I not think that this was a temporary change, which prevented the brothers and sisters from seeing the objective facts and from facing the fact that annotations could be wrong. This last email also includes, “if possible, please tell the older brothers about Demas!” I told the older brother about this matter to correct his viewpoint because I wanted him to know that even Christians like Paul’s co-worker can fall. From the conversation I had with him when he gave me the ride to annual meeting, I knew that this was something he should know. Finally, I also said that next time I come back, I will not attend their meeting. Thank them again.
The last thing we talked about ‘1123’ after I returned to the United States is the episode below. A sister sent me an email in Chinese said, “I had the same thought after I read the article for the first time, so I didn’t tell you my true feelings. I just expressed my disagreement in a very subtle way. I’m sorry. But yesterday the Holy Spirit inspired me to tell you my true feelings.” This was not due to the Holy Spirit. Why? Since part was right and the other part wrong. To This is the Satan’s signature. From the above description I stated earlier, one should be able to see that the mentioned parts are indeed due to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and of course there are also parts that I did not mention them. Although she did not directly say that I did not write this article under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, it can be seen from what she said, because she said, “I believe your original intention is to glorify God.”
Because her true feelings were a mixture of right and wrong, and were not the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, I did not express her true feelings. But in order to let her see that this was not the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, in the update on 2/3/25, I only wrote out the objective facts done by God at that time, because I thought this might be something she could accept. But later in the email I sent to those who were participating in the piecewise Bible study, God did not agree with this, because I was moved to say in an uncertain tone that this update was only suspected to be related to my old self, so when preparing for this piecewise Bible study, I changed back to the old version online.
Regarding this objective fact from God, some people will subjectively think that this objective fact was done by another spirit. Because I believe in the God of the Trinity, if it was done by another spirit, then this spirit also wanted me to believe that it was done by the God of the Trinity. Someone might say how magnanimous the spirit is, willing to do such and such. Because it is due to either the Holy Spirit or the evil spirit. I don’t believe the existence of such evil spirits, but some people may believe so subjectively. You must know that the existence of the Triune God is an objective fact, and the objective fact will not be changed due to subjective views.
3. An example of discerning the work of evil spirits
Someone told us that he wanted to tell us there things about the work of the Holy Spirit in him many years ago in different periods. I felt that there was something wrong with the way he talked to me on the phone, so we took a train to Silicon Valley on Wednesday (2/19/25) to meet him.
After meeting him, the first thing he told us was that a long time ago when he was laid hands on, he suddenly flew forward a long distance, and then the Holy Spirit put him down softly with face downwards. Because he was put down so gentle, he believed that this was the work of the Holy Spirit. He also talked about a related incident, in which someone’s wife saw this incident. When her husband had no hope, she still decided to have him intubated to prolong his life, despite the opposition to intubation. By this way, she could arrange for the laying on of hands on her dying husband and also for many people to pray,l. But a similar miracle did not happen and her husband died anyway.
The second thing was that during one of his prayers, he felt his soul leave his body and go to heaven, where he had an indescribable experience.
The third thing was a dream. His interpretation was that the Holy Spirit wanted him to tell others what he had experienced, so he told more than a hundred people in his church about these three things. Among these more than one hundred people, no one told him that this might be the work of evil spirits, pretending to be angel of light.
To find out if he could discern, I asked him to look at the fourth chapter of the Book of Job to see if he could recognize that the spirit in Eliphaz the Temanite’s dream was Satan. Unexpectedly, he said that he didn’t read the Bible, so I told him that if it was the work of the Holy Spirit, it would not make people stop reading the Bible. This is definitely not the work of the Holy Spirit. We really need to use the words of the Bible as the absolute standard for discernment.
(Verses refer to those in NASB95 unless otherwise specified.)
(You can get all articles in “https://a-christian-voice.com/” under “On spiritual understanding about life.”)
aChristianVoice 一個基督徒的聲音 