By Liu Tao
Yang Liu and Xiang Ming got married through a matchmaker’s introduction. After marriage, though their life was not rich, Xiang Ming showed the utmost care and consideration for Yang Liu. When Yang Liu did the cooking, Xiang Ming was always there to help her. When going outside to stroll through streets or going shopping, they all went along with each other. The neighbors who saw them all said, “I find that you come everywhere in pairs. You are really an affectionate couple.” Yang Liu also thought that Xiang Ming was her closest confidant and was her lifetime reliance. After they had their lovely son, their family was even more filled with joy and they lived a steady and happy life.
When their relative preached the gospel to them, their whole family all believed in the Lord Jesus. Later on, Yang Liu had the privilege of accepting God’s work of the last days. In the same year, they built a spacious and bright house. Xiang Ming didn’t accept God’s work of the last days, but he supported Yang Liu to believe in God, so their relationship was still enviable. However, not long after Xiang Ming worked in a grain and oil processing factory, Yang Liu found that he was a little different from the past. Several times, when they walked together, as soon as his phone rang, he would move away to answer it.
Yang Liu guessed: Does Xiang Ming have unfaithful intentions when he works outside? But when thinking that he treated her very well all the time and had paid a great price for the family, she considered he wouldn’t do that. Although she thought like this, she was still a little worried. Once, a message was sent to his phone as Xiang Ming fell asleep. Because of his abnormal changes, Yang Liu couldn’t help but read the message. It was sent by a female WeChat friend. She replied, “Would you not chat with my husband?” But she never imagined that the female WeChat friend said, “It is not up to me. You should ask your husband. We chatted very happily! You’d better dominate your husband!” Yang Liu was filled with anger at the sight of that, so she turned her husband’s phone off. The next day, she warned Xiang Ming not to chat with female WeChat friends any more. He didn’t refute her, but he began to avoid her. When at home, he always finished meals at the fastest speed, and then looked for an excuse and went to other places to chat with his female online friends.
One time, Yang Liu asked Xiang Ming in resentment, “Do you still want the family? Is using WeChat to talk with female online friends important or am I important? Unexpectedly, he answered coldly, “The female online friends are more important. Now it is the Internet age. People around us all do like this, broadening connections and making friends with others? This is fashion!” Hearing her husband’s cold words, Yang Liu seemed to not know him who had lived with herself for over twenty years. Feelings of sorrow and desolation welled up in her heart. At that moment, she felt herself become faint with anger. She thought about divorcing and leaving the home. But at the thought of her son needing a perfect family, she had to swallow it all up. From then on, Yang Liu and Xiang Ming separately lived in different rooms. Though living under the same roof, they were like strangers.
The happy family lost its former warmth and peace. Yang Liu felt agonized and stressful in her heart. She didn’t understand why Xiang Ming could become such a person now—a completely different person from before. With sorrow and distress, she could only pray and cry out to God over and over.
One day, she saw these words of God, “These trends arise one after another, and they all carry an evil influence that continually debases mankind, causing people to lose conscience, humanity and reason, weakening their morals and their quality of character ever more, to the extent that we can even say that the majority of people now have no integrity, no humanity, and neither do they have any conscience, much less any reason. … One after another, such trends cause people, who are not of sound body and mind, do not know what the truth is, and cannot differentiate between positive and negative things, to happily accept them as well as the life views and values that come from Satan. They accept what Satan tells them about how to approach life and the way to live that Satan ‘bestows’ on them, and they have neither the strength nor the ability, much less the awareness, to resist.” From God’s word, she understood: It was because of the influence of the web and trends that her husband became like this and could say those words having no regard for their feelings as husband and wife. Thinking back, her husband was fairly fond of her, cherished and cared for their family very much, and had the sense of responsibility. But from the time when he worked in the grain and oil processing factory, under the influence of his colleagues and environment, he became obsessed with chatting on WeChat, always having his phone in his hands. He was deeply addicted to it and unable to extricate himself from it, totally neglecting their family, her and their son.
Through the revelation of God’s word, Yang Liu understood: The culprit that has destroyed the happiness of their family is the evil influence brought by the social evil trends, is the WeChat app which occupies her husband’s heart every day, but not her husband, as he is just an innocent and pitiful victim. At that point, she didn’t resent him that much. She resolved to rely on God to fight the battle against satanic evil trends, bringing Xiang Ming back from the claws of Satan. By praying to God and relying on Him, she didn’t give Xiang Ming the cold shoulder as before. She began to speak with him from the heart actively and often read God’s word for him, talked about the harm that social trends bring to man and fellowshiped God’s will of saving man. Seeing the changes of Yang Liu’s attitude, Xiang Ming was able to sit down and had a heart-to-heart talk with her.
One day, Yang Liu said to Xiang Ming, “Xiang Ming, you were not like this before. You treated me well, treated our son well, and also loved the family very much. But since you became addicted to chatting on WeChat, you have no longer taken care of son and me, and even sometimes you can’t hear me when I talk to you. Moreover, you have lost normal life. I found that you didn’t know whether you were full when you ate meals, and just gorged some food and then went outside the dining room to use WeChat. You were also not in the mood to work, but were preoccupied with chatting online as well as those female online friends all day. It proves that you have been controlled by the evil trends. Xiang Ming, you seek temporary excitement and comfort when chatting with them, but have you given thought to this? Can chatting on the web really bring you happiness? Can you rely on chatting with these female online friends to be the rest of your life? Looking around, how many families have broken up because of one side’s chatting online. Some women abandoned their husbands and children and ran off with male online friends; some men left their wives and children for female online friends and got involved with them. Aren’t these tragedies caused by the evil trends raised up by Satan？We don’t have the truth and can’t see through Satan’s trickery, but today God’s word has revealed all the treacherous intentions of Satan. Satan is just using the Internet to tempt and corrupt us and make us live in passions and lusts, and enjoy the pleasure of sins so that it can reach its objective to devour us and make us perish together with it in the end. So, we can’t be fooled by Satan!”
Hearing what Yang Liu said, Xiang Ming felt very frightened and guilty. He said firmly, “Yang Liu, in the past, I thought all people did like this. It was not very serious. I even thought you were petty and made a fuss with me. Not until today do I understand this is Satan corrupting me. It wants to drag me to hell! It’s really the case. Sometimes I also knew it was not good to chat with online friends, which had influenced our feelings as husband and wife, and made me lose the sense of responsibility to our family. Especially when I saw you unhappy, I felt sad, too. And many times I have told myself never again to use WeChat, but I just couldn’t control my heart. Now I understand, this is Satan using online chats to deceive me and harm me. From now on, I can’t fall into Satan’s trickery anymore. I will bring my mind back, and no longer indulge in WeChat. Let’s live well anew!” Hearing Xiang Ming’s words, Yang Liu felt warm in her heart and was greatly comforted. In order to prove his sincerity of repentance, Xiang Ming uninstalled WeChat before Yang Liu.
However, a week later, Yang Liu found Xiang Ming’s received WeChat messages on his phone again. When she questioned Xiang Ming, his face flushed scarlet. He promised her that he would no longer go on WeChat, and threw his phone into the burning cooking stove to prove his resolve of cutting off relations with those female online friends. Yang Liu realized the evil trends had poisoned Xiang Ming too deeply and she could only pray to God urgently, asking God to lead him to forsake the temptation of the evil trends and regain the life of a normal man.
Later, when a sister of the church came to Yang Liu’s home to attend the meeting, she also communicated with Xiang Ming. They read God’s words, “People should implore God frequently so that they do not fall into temptation and succumb to Satan’s deceptions. In this evil time, in this age infested by devils, you should pray that God’s kindness and protection will be with you often, and that He looks after you and protects you, so that your heart does not leave Him and you strive to be able to worship Him honestly and with all your heart and spirit. Is it a right way to follow? (Yes, it is.) So do you wish to walk this path?” The sister fellowshiped, “Faced with Satan’s evil trends, if we rely on our own willpower to change that, it won’t do. We should rely on God with sincerity. And if we devote our mind to something serious, to seeking the truth, Satan won’t be able to sway our heart any more, because if we read more God’s word, we would be able to understand some truths and differentiate the evil trends of Satan, and then we will hate them naturally and will not be addicted to them and be deceived by them. As long as we rely on God, His word can resolve all our problems.” Xiang Ming made a deep nod. Henceforth, he attended meetings and read God’s word with Yang Liu. Gradually, his heart was not possessed by online chat; even if his phone had WeChat again, it couldn’t lure his heart. Yang Liu even heard Xiang Ming blame the female online friend several times for pestering him. Through reading God’s word and fellowshiping the truth, Xiang Ming clearly understood that WeChat was a means by which Satan occupies his heart, breaks up his family and even drags him to hell. Meanwhile, he could distinguish the positive and negative things, and could also quiet his heart before God to seek the truth. The family being on the verge of breaking regained the former laughter and chatter at last.
One day, when Yang Liu and Xiang Ming read God’s word together, they saw the following, “God understands with perfect clarity all that Satan does. No matter what Satan does, no matter what trend it causes to arise, God knows all that Satan is trying to do, and God does not give up on those He has chosen. Instead, without attracting any attention—secretly, silently—God does everything that is necessary. When God begins work on someone, when He has chosen someone, He does not proclaim this news to anyone, nor does He proclaim it to Satan, much less make any grand gesture. He just very quietly, very naturally, does what is necessary.” “Only God is the truth. God controls the heavens and earth and everything in them, and rules over all. Not to believe in God and not to submit to God is to be unable to obtain the truth. If you live in accordance with God’s words, then in the depths of your heart, you will feel brightened at ease, and you will also enjoy an incomparable sweetness. When that happens, you will have truly obtained life.” Both of them understood that if they hadn’t been led and saved by God’s word, if they hadn’t come before God, their family would have broken apart.
They truly felt that God’s love is too great and too real. Yang Liu said, “When I was in pain and confusion, it was God who opened my heart with His word and made me see through Satan’s harm to us, the ignorant, so that I could have some understanding of my husband due to hating Satan and no longer resented and complained to him and could release myself from pain. When I prayed to God wholeheartedly and was willing to commit my husband into His hand, it was the leading of God’s word that made him see through Satan’s schemes, come back before Him, and no longer follow the social evil trends or continually degenerate. In my personal experiences, I realized: God’s word is the truth, the way, and the life. God’s word can make us have a clear understanding, can let us gain discernment and see through various schemes and trickeries of Satan poisoning man. God’s word is our most powerful weapon of resisting the attacks of evil trends. With God’s word in our hearts, we will never be fooled or harmed by Satan. Thank God for leading my husband and bringing him back to his senses, and thank God more for saving my family.”
