Experiencing God’s Salvation in Times of Peril

By Gangqiang

The year when I first went to work in the city, one of my relatives persuaded me to believe in Bodhisattva, saying that Bodhisattva would protect me in disasters if I believed. I thought at that time: I just want to find a reliance that will save me when there’re disasters. So, I agreed. He gave me a statue of Bodhisattva, and I placed it in the west room of my house. I burnt joss sticks, laid tributes, and kowtowed to it every day, hoping it would bless our family with peace. However, after worshiping it for some time, not only didn’t we have peace, but my wife and I often quarreled with each other over household affairs. I also lost all my money in the wholesale business.

One day in October 2005, my elder sister came to preach God’s work in the last days to us. I told her that I had believed in Bodhisattva. After hearing that, my sister said, “A clay idol fording a river is hardly able to save itself. How can it save you? Only the One who can create the heavens and earth and all things is God. All others who claim to be God are embodiments of Satan, are evil spirits, and are tools for Satan to deceive man. … Our life and death are all controlled by God, the Creator, and all things and all matters are in God’s command. Whatever we encounter in the future, we should pray to God.” After hearing what my sister said, I was not certain about God, and did not know whether I should give up worshiping Bodhisattva. I thought that it was not a bad thing to believe in one more. Later, my sister fellowshiped more with us, and gave us a book before she left. Then, after much deliberation, I decided that I’d better investigate for some time first, for I was still not sure whether  God could save me. I didn’t throw away the statue of Bodhisattva immediately, but instead I hid it in the cupboard. I was busy making money, so when my sister came to have meetings with us later, I just listened to her casually and was not serious about attending meetings or reading God’s words. It was not until two months later when I had a breath-taking experience that I realized God is the true God.

That day, I drove to the sandy ground with my wife to carry sand. It covered an area of about six to eight acres. I saw more than a dozen people were digging sand, and pits were left here and there. At the moment, one of the vehicles was almost full, so I drove beside it to wait. I saw that the father and son who were digging sand had made a very large hole, and the sandy soil above fell down from time to time. My wife said to me, “The sandy soil keeps falling down. We’d better not load it here. It’s so dangerous! What if it collapses?” Hearing her words, I thought, “I not only worship Bodhisattva but also believe in God, and they will protect me.” So I didn’t take her words seriously, but still decided to dig sand there.

After a while, the father and son finished loading and drove away. I drove my farm truck to where they dug sand, and parked it about half a meter away from the sandy soil wall. The wall was about ten meters high, which was steep like being cut off by a knife, and there was a gentle slope nearby. My wife and I got off and started to load sand into the truck. However, never had I expected that when I just finished one shovel, I suddenly heard a bang, and the wall before me loosened right after that. I raised my head and saw that a lot of yellow sand was showering down on me from ten meters high. In an instant, the sky above me turned black and yellow. I shouted in my heart: Oh, God! Then I turned around and ran, and saw that my wife was also running toward the slope with the spade in her hand. I involuntarily took a deep breath, and covered my nose and mouth with my hand. When I just ran one step, my right foot was like being covered by a thick and heavy quilt. Before I realized what was happening, I had been buried by the falling sand overhead. Lying prone in the sand, I tried to move a bit but couldn’t, for my whole body was pressed against the sand tightly. At that moment, my eyes, mouth, and ears were all covered with sand. I was unable to see, speak, or hear anything. It was deadly still around me as if I had been cut off from the outside world. I almost suffocated, and the blood also seemed to stop flowing. At that time, I felt I was only a step away from death.

After a few moments, I suddenly remembered that I had a statue of Bodhisattva at home. So I anxiously waited for it to perform a miracle quickly and save me. However, after waiting for a while, I hadn’t heard any movement. Dogged by the fear of death, I was very anxious within: What if I’m really going to die? Just when I was in despair, I suddenly thought of what my sister said two months before when she preached gospel to me, “A clay idol fording a river is hardly able to save itself. How can it save you? … Our life and death are all controlled by God—the Creator, and all things and all matters are in God’s command. Whatever we encounter in the future, we should pray to God.” Then I immediately called to God in my heart, “Oh, God! Please save me. I can hardly hold on….” After the prayer, a miracle really happened! Somehow, a kind of strength was born in my heart. I felt that God was just by my side, and I was especially peaceful within, without the slightest fear.

After a short time, I felt as if the weight on my body got heavier. I couldn’t hear anything a moment before, but now my ears became sensitive. I heard someone was walking back and forth on the sand over me. One person said, “The soil block is so large; even if more people came, we will be unable to move it, not to mention there are only a few of us. What should we do now? The man must be dead.” I felt a spurt of great joy within, and my heart thumped violently. I thought: God is truly effective. He really sent someone to save me! I collected myself and exerted all the strength to shout, “Help me!” As soon as I shouted out these words, the sand pressed against me again. I immediately held my breath, but it was not as easy as it had been. I felt as if there was a huge mountain pressing on me, causing me to explode, and I got a lump on my neck because of the pressure. When I could hardly bear it, I heard someone saying outside, “Listen! He’s just under our feet. Quickly! Let’s dig by hand! He’s still alive.” Hearing that they were saving me, I quickly prayed to God again in my heart, “O God! I can hardly hold on any longer. May You give me faith so that I can rely on You to hold on….” Then I heard someone shouting outside, “Brother, please hold on for another five minutes. We’re about to get you out.” After another few moments, I felt the weight on my body became lighter and lighter, and about half an hour later I was rescued from under the sand. I took several deep breaths after coming out. I once more saw the light, and felt extremely happy in my heart. Although my chest ached a bit, I didn’t get hurt. My nervous heart also became at ease, and felt the joy of surviving a disaster.

I went to look for my wife after getting my breath back. I saw that she was buried, her neck and head left outside, and two people were rescuing her. It was lucky that she was also out of danger. Then I noticed that there were a lot of frozen soil blocks, big and small, around the place where I was buried, and that only where I lay prone was covered by sand. I was caught between two large fallen soil blocks just now. If I had moved one more step forward, I might have been crushed to death. I turned my head and saw that there was a soil block, about the size of a cupboard, on my truck. It was thrown into a sandpit seven or eight meters away, and the trailer was damaged. At this time, a person said to me, “You’re so blessed! We were just about to leave after finishing loading, when the accident happened to you.” Another person said, “You’re really lucky! You’re not crushed to death by such a disaster. It is Heaven that protected you!” Seeing that all this happened so miraculously, I knew clearly in my heart that it was God who had saved me. I thought: I am still alive after being buried under the sand for half an hour. If I hadn’t called to God to save me, but only waited for Bodhisattva to save me, I would have died underneath the sand. At the moment I was buried by the sand, I felt man’s life was so puny and fragile, and man is so helpless in the face of disasters. Although I hadn’t been serious in my belief in God, He still blessed my wife and me, giving us a second life.

After going back home, I told my wife how I prayed to God while being buried in the sand. My wife said, “I also called out to God ceaselessly. Seeing that you were buried by the sand, I thought you might have been crushed to death. I was so scared. I wanted to save you, but I couldn’t move. Then I saw someone come to rescue you. It was God who was protecting us in secret!” I nodded my head and said in agreement, “Yeah. After experiencing this disaster, I have finally seen clearly that God is the one true God. Bodhisattva and all other idols are all false gods, and Satan uses them to cheat and deceive man. We shouldn’t persist in our mistaken way and be fooled by Satan anymore. From now on, we should worship God wholeheartedly, and attend meetings and read His words carefully, for only God can save us and control our destiny.” While saying this, I stood up and took the statue of Bodhisattva out of the cupboard, and smashed it outside.

Later, when my sister had a meeting with us, I told her what had happened to me. Then we fellowshiped two passages of God’s words, “God created this world, He created this mankind and, moreover, He was the architect of ancient Greek culture and human civilization. Only God consoles this mankind, and only God cares for this mankind night and day” (“God Presides Over the Fate of All Mankind” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “Mankind was originally made by God, and regardless of the religion, every person will return under the dominion of God—this is inevitable. Only God is the Most High among all things, and the highest ruler among all creatures must also return under His dominion. … He who is incapable of creating the world will be incapable of bringing it to an end, whereas He who created the world will surely bring it to an end. Therefore, if one is unable to bring the age to an end and is merely able to help man cultivate his mind, then he will surely not be God, and will surely not be the Lord of mankind. He will be incapable of doing such great work; there is only one who can carry out such work, and all that are unable to do this work are surely enemies and not God. All evil religions are incompatible with God, and since they are incompatible with God, they are enemies of God. All work is done by this one true God, and the entire universe is commanded by this one God” (“Knowing the Three Stages of God’s Work Is the Path to Knowing God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).

Through fellowshiping God’s words, I understood that the destiny of all mankind is in God’s command, and that it is God who rules over, arranges, and orchestrates everything. Satan is not capable of creating the world, not capable of creating mankind, and much less is it capable of holding sovereignty over all things. In order to make us mankind worship it, Satan uses various kinds of idols to deceive us, making us mistakenly think that there are a lot of gods, and thus we’re unable to tell who creates this mankind and holds sovereignty over the destiny of mankind. Satan attempts to use such base means to deceive us so as to take God’s position in our heart and achieve its evil purpose of devouring and taking possession of man. Thinking back to the years when I worshiped Bodhisattva, I quarreled with my wife every day, there was no peace in my family, and I was frustrated in everything I did. It cannot at all give us peace and joy, much less can it deliver us from disasters. It is an evil spirit that afflicts us. Fortunately,  God’s salvation came upon us, and He listened to our prayers when my wife and I were threatened by death. If He hadn’t sent people to help us, my wife and I would have died. I still felt breath taken while recalling the scenes that day. Even the farm truck was knocked out of shape, but we were safe and sound. This made me see God’s almightiness and sovereignty, and even more see God’s love and protection toward us.

Through this experience, I thoroughly confirmed that  God is the unique true God. I made up my mind: I must try my best to pursue the truth from now on, and bear witness for God’s wondrous deeds upon us.