Hallelujah, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ I testify.
But before I begin I would like to thank God for this opportunity to come here to Taiwan and to share with you Gods leading of how I am able to stand here today with you as a brother.
Although my mother had baptized me as a baby in the Catholic church, our family never went to church, and so my personal journey of faith really began when I was ten years old. My mother and father were having some marital difficulties and my friends mother used the opportunity to invite my mother and sister and I to church.
The church was strongly evangelical, and simply preached that you need to “accept Jesus into your heart,” in order to be saved. I can remember my sister and I in the Sunday School class, and the teacher saying, “if you say this prayer, you will go to heaven forever, and if you dont say this prayer you will go to hell forever,”…”who wants to say the prayer?” So we said the prayer, and that was it I thought, I was guaranteed to go to heaven because I said that prayer.
And a few years later after we joined a Baptist church, and of course the Baptist church insists the biblical baptism must be underwater, and so this time when I was sixteen years old, I was baptized in a baptismal tank. So this was actually my second baptism.
But the test of my faith came when I was about 17 years old, my father and I both became sick by an unusual virus. The symptoms of this virus are very low blood sugar and also a sinus infection. Unfortunately, the doctors did not understand the illness, and as a result both us remained ill for a long period.
My father lost his job and left my mother, and I started failing school even though I used to be a straight A student. I become depressed and actually starting smoking drugs with my church youth group, I soon stopped going to church, and my drug habits grew worse and worse, until soon I was dealing drugs and spent almost four months in jail.
After I got out from jail, I stopped taking drugs to alleviate my suffering, and I starting dating a girl who soon became pregnant. My faith had taken a very long fall.
However, after four years the doctors were able to give me sufficient medication to kill the virus. My health came back and my grades went back up, and about that time an youth leader asked if I wanted to start going back to church.
And so I did, and of course I was deeply sorry for the mess I had made of my life and for abandoning my faith in God. And so I would say sorry to God several times a day, for quite a long time. I think in part of course I was especially sorry for the fate of my daughter. And I was determined to do everything I could do change my life and make my life pleasing to God.
And I became a very devout Christian, reading my bible, sometimes five hours a day, praying for long periods in secret, evangelizing, and giving all I could to the poor. My daughters mother however, was no longer interested in me and went her own way.
But when I was about 27 years old, I had an unusual encounter with God. My mother invited me to a Christian campmeeting close to the mountains. And when I got there I was so surprised, all the people there were praying in some sort of strange tongues. I had never seen, or even heard of this before, and was actually a bit afraid.
To make a long story short, I ended up going to the front with some others thinking I would confess my sins. But the preacher right away came to me at the end of the line, and laid his hands on my stomach, which had become bloated out from my illness.
And then all of the people prayed for me, and all of a sudden this incredible power descended on me, and I was filled with this incredible love, it was like the very presence of God Himself descended on me. I have never in my life experience such love, and joy. I became intoxicated with this overwhelming love.
And this went on for three days, I was literally in heaven on earth, and joy just seemed to burst my heart apart. And still to this day I have never experienced anything even like this encounter with God. And within a week my stomach, which the preacher, laid his hands on, was completely healed.
So from that point onward I began to see miracle after miracle, and outstanding personal miracles became as common as birthday parties. And I began to get this deep and inner conviction that God in fact had chosen me, and was very interested to be involved in my life, and so my devotion became even stronger.
But eventually the experience of miracles became confusing for me, maybe because of the experience or immaturity of church members, including myself, and the miracles seemed to stop both in my own life and in the church I attended, and I decided to start attending a quieter church that did not experience spiritual gifts.
Until one day, about four years ago, when I was 38, two sisters from our church, got jobs at the office where I worked. I thought these girls were very strange, they seem to be very devout Christians, but why did they not want to come to our weekly office bible studies? And I saw the name of the church they belonged to “True Jesus Church.” Thats a pretty cool name I thought.
Then I started thinking to myself, I need to start going to a church that has the Holy Spirit. I cannot hide myself from God, and from His purposes. And I thought to myself, I think the True Jesus Church, whatever it is, has the Holy Spirit, I need to go there.
And so I asked one of the sisters to invite me, and started to go to TJC. And so week after week, we would kneel down and pray in tongues, I would pray in tongues in my “prayer language” and they would pray in their version of tongues.
And I thought to myself its too bad they cant pray in tongues as good as I can, they just keep making the same sound. And why do they keep calling themselves the “True Church,” have they deluded by someone?
Until one weekend we were having special services with lots of prayer. I got tired of praying in my prayer language, my mouth was getting sore after about half an hour. But they wanted me to keep on praying. I was getting exasperated. And so I didnt know what to do.
And they were beckoning me to come to the front with others but I did not understand why. And so I went to the front and continued to pray in prayer language but in my exhaustion I made to God one simple silent prayer, “Help me Holy Spirit.” No sooner than I finished saying it, a shock went through my body and the back of my tongue began to roll as fast as fan and my body began to vibrate.
And the comfort of God went through me. I was overjoyed and scared all at the same time. And in that moment by the presence of God I knew instantly, “I am in the True Church,” this makes no sense to me at all, but I know I am in the true church.
And so by the Spirit I received I knew that God had put me in this church, but I did not understand many things. Especially why they called it the “True Jesus Church.” And I began seeking very hard to understand, and actually I thought maybe God had me here to correct the church, ha ha. Because I of course strongly believed all Christians should be in unity even as Christ prayed in John 17.
And I thought that our church was very much in error in the way we separated ourselves from other believers. And so initially of course my goal was to convince the church that no ones doctrine is really any better, and that we should be more tolerant to other opinions for the sake of unity. And that really all that matters is that you “believe in Christ.”
But of course my brothers and sisters wanted me to rebaptize, and for the sake of their peace I wanted to, but of course for the sake of God I thought I could not, I cannot rebaptize, this is wrong. I had already been baptized twice. To be baptized again, would not only deny my faith but the faith of all other Christians, and this would be wrong before God.
And so in the summer when Elder Chang came to visit he began to challenge me, and I was so happy he was arguing with me, because I wanted to know if there was anyway before God, that God would allow me to rebaptize and give my brothers and sisters peace.
And the love of God was so strong in his arguments that I actually thought he was talking to me in English. So much so that at one time I was convinced that he even spoke to me a sentence alone which I understand in English.
And finally he said one thing that convinced me. “if the person that baptizes you does not have the Holy Spirit, what authority does he have to baptize.” And so I thought “Yes” hes right, Gods church is a spiritual church and has to be established in spiritual authority.”
And so the next day I agreed to baptize, but to be honest I was still somewhat afraid if I had really done the right thing in Gods eyes, because I was only using arguments from the bible, and I am only on earth, and God resides in heaven. And perhaps God Himself was not truly happy with my baptism.
And so to console myself, when I went home I sent an email to my closest spiritual friend defending my decision to baptize with the Elders argument, that the disciples received the authority to forgive sins when they received the Holy Spirit. But after sending the message I realized I accidently typed the wrong Bible verse. And it was to late to change my message.
And so my heart sank, I thought, my friend will now think I have really lost it, and maybe I really have lost it. But when I looked up the verse I really sent I got a shock, because the verse I had sent to him in my defense read “you will indeed be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with.”
And in that I moment I felt the Holy Spirit was speaking to me that God had approved of my baptism. And I felt this incredible peace. A peace that grew into tremendous excitement three months later, when in fact that I found out that our church was established y the Holy Spirit speaking to Paul Wei “you must be baptized with the baptism of Jesus.” The same message God had spoken to me through my e-mail.
And then I understand the truth. The commandments of Christ: baptism, communion, and footwashing are all according to Christs example. Through the bible we can see the church of the apostles was established in “complete unity” (John 17) through following the example of Christ.
And this is the one baptism of Ephesians, the only baptism in which all believers can agree to unite, “one lord, one faith and one baptism” and come to the complete unity that our Lord Jesus Christ prayed for.
And so with this revelation and excitement, along with my brothers and sisters in Edmonton, I immediately sent a letter to all 400 churches in the City of Edmonton, to explain that the “complete unity” Jesus prayed for can only could only take place in the “one baptism” of Jesus own example.
And I was very surprised by the response, all the churches I sent the letter to, from those I talked to basically agreed at first their first read and, many were very excited that there truly is a way to fulfilling the will of God and the prayer of Jesus Christ.
And so in Edmonton now we are continuing our efforts to persuade all churches and be united by the example of Christ, and to put away the observance of religious days that have been created by men, so that all believers can truly come back to complete unity as Christ prayed, and so that all believers can truly come into the relationship that God wants with His people.
Because we also see the spiritual climate in Canada is perhaps much more open than in Taiwan. As most churches in Canada disregard the significance of their own doctrines, and hold the unity of churches as more significant than protecting their own doctrines.
So we simply need to continue our delivery of the truth in a patient and positive manner. And so this is something I hope you can pray for.
And on a personal level I most definitely believe God is going to use our church in a very significant way among western churches in the years to come. And I truly believe, the basis of our doctrine, must in Gods timing drive the way to unity for all true believers of Christ, both black, white and Chinese, all whom Christ has chosen for salvation.
And so this is why our church retains the testimony of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit which resides in our church to testify to the truth. That our church was established by God to reestablish the true doctrine of salvation for all believers, and this is something I am so excited about.
As for my own family, my mom is coming sometimes to the church and my daughter believes the doctrine of our church but still needs to come to church, but I have confidence my family members will eventually come.
So this is my testimony, I am excited to share with you, as one of your first “white Canadian” brothers, blessed by God to find the truth. And so I want to thank you for bringing us the true gospel. The only gospel that can fulfill our Lords desire, so let us give thanks to God, and pray that the river continues to flow, that we can be excited that the door of salvation is opening. May all glory be unto our Lord Jesus Christ.
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