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Scripture Reading: 1 Thes. 1:9-10; 2:19-20; 5:23-24; Matt. 24:14; Acts 1:8-11; 2 Tim. 4:7-8; Rev. 22:17, 20; 14:1, 4b
In the Bible, dreams are very close to the visions given to man by God. The dream Jacob had became his vision (Gen. 28:10-17), and the dream Joseph had also became his vision (37:5-11). In the Bible there are many others who saw visions in their dreams.
I was saved in April of 1925, and from then on I loved the Lord and desired earnestly to know the Bible. At that time I was young and strong, and both my thoughts and intellect were still developing. However, the Lord laid hold of me, and He caused me to spend willingly the most precious years of my life entirely on Him and His Word. Thus, from the reading of the Word I saw the significance of dreams and visions.
Since everyone has dreams, it seems that dreams should be meaningless. Nevertheless, the Bible uses dreams to reveal to us the visions of God. The Chinese Bible uses the expression strange dream. A strange dream is a dream in which a person sees some uncommon scenes; hence, it is called a strange dream. The English word vision denotes a scene, just as a television broadcasts numerous different scenes.
Now I would like to tell you about an extraordinary dream I had in 1943. What God showed me in that dream was not a common scene. Rather, what He showed me was a vision, a strange and miraculous scene. Although I had known the Bible since my youth, before 1943 I had never had any uncommon vision or scene in a dream in my almost twenty years of being a Christian.
In the evening of July 7, 1937, the night of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, I was on a boat from Chefoo on the way to Tientsin; the next morning I disembarked at Takukou, which was the biggest port in the north. That morning it was unusually quiet; not a soul was to be found. I continued by train, and when it arrived at the Tientsin station, there was a child selling newspaper extras. I read the extra and found out that on the previous night Japan had instigated the Marco Polo Bridge Incident and had begun its invasion of China. Because of this, there were wartime conflicts from Tientsin all the way to Peking.
At the time there were a few co-workers who were waiting for me in Peking to travel together to Suiyuan, Shansi, and Shensi. Previously, we had decided to preach the gospel in different provinces during the summer. Now that Japan had started the invasion of China, the co-workers and I felt that we should move quickly according to our original plan. We took the train from Peking to Suiyuan, and when we arrived in Suiyuan, we rode an open coach to Taiyuan, which is in Shansi. In Taiyuan we immediately started to meet and preach the gospel in every place. Next we went to Shensi and then went by train to Sian. In Sian we received a telegram from Brother Nee asking us to attend the co-workers’ meeting in Hankow. We went from Sian through Chengchow to Hankow, and there we waited for Brother Nee. While waiting, I received the news that the Japanese army was about to take over Chefoo, so I had to return to Chefoo and get my family out. However, while I was on my way from Hankow to Chefoo, Chefoo was lost to the enemy, and I fell into the hands of the Japanese.
The next year I was arrested and put into prison. It was a short imprisonment, but some marvelous things happened. A few years later, at the end of 1942 and the beginning of 1943, a great revival began in Chefoo. We met continuously for almost one hundred days, and every day we had new leadings from the Lord. The brothers and sisters consecrated themselves to the extent that every individual and every home was consecrated, and they offered all their possessions, including house deeds, property deeds, stocks, and bank deposits. The serving ones were divided into groups to check and list all the material things offered by the saints. One group checked the garments, another group checked the jewelry, and still another group checked the utensils. They took turns to check and register all the items, one by one.
The news of this revival found its way to the Japanese army headquarters. The Japanese military police received an intelligence report leading them to suppose that in Chefoo there was a man with great charisma who had stirred up a group of people to the point that they gave up even their family possessions and delivered to him all their valuables. The Japanese military police said that apparently I was a preacher, but they had never seen such a phenomenon in Christianity. Therefore, they sent undercover workers disguised as saints to come and listen to the gospel. I knew the Japanese were watching me while I was speaking from the podium, so I cannot say that I was not concerned. On the one hand, I looked to the Lord, and on the other hand, I thought about the condition of Christianity. Born and raised in Christianity, I understood the situation of Christianity quite well. By that time I had worked with Brother Nee for nearly ten years, and I knew the Lord’s truth was with us. Therefore, I had the thought within me, “O Lord, I cannot die.” Where would the truths be if I died? I had only this one thought in mind: I could not die.
I rarely have dreams when I sleep, but I had a dream one night. In the dream I held a cane in my hand and was walking peacefully until I came to a place with a steep, crooked downward slope with four steps. I went down the slope step by step, leaning on my cane, and suddenly a German shepherd dog threw itself on me. The German shepherd was the same color as that of the uniform of the Japanese military police. The German shepherd threw itself on me, but I was not wounded, and in an instant the dog went away. Suddenly, when I looked ahead, there was a broad highway very straight and stretching on boundlessly, and the sun had just risen from the east. My heart then felt free and released, and seeing the broad highway, the rising sun, and the boundless, bright horizon, I strode fearlessly onward. This was my dream.
The broad highway, the rising sun, and the boundless horizon greatly comforted me within. Through the dream the Lord told me, “Be at peace. You are not under the hand of the Japanese.” The Japanese army was like the German shepherd attacking me, but eventually it could not hurt me. I knew that the Lord still wanted me to remain on the earth, because there was a broad highway ahead, and I could just keep going on.
Two or three weeks later, as usual, I went to the meeting hall before eight in the morning to take care of some things. As soon as I stepped into the meeting hall, there came two men dressed in blue Chinese long gowns. Right away I knew that one of them was Japanese and the other was a Chinese traitor as the interpreter. The Japanese officer said, “Mr. Lee, please excuse us. We are here to visit you.” I welcomed them into the room that I used to pray and read the Bible. I had the Lord’s leading within and gave him a pocket-sized Bible. In the end he told me, “I apologize, Mr. Lee, but we have to ask you to come to our headquarters. We have a few matters to discuss with you.” I was then brought to the military police headquarters.
After I got there, they told me that they were very busy, and they asked me to be seated. I waited past lunchtime and dinnertime and was detained until nine or ten in the evening. Then they told me that it was late and that I should sleep overnight there and wait for the next day. At that time they did not put me in a prison cell right away but let me sleep on a bed belonging to a military policeman. That night I dreamed again: The German shepherd ran around me, harassing me, but because of the previous dream, I knew that it could not harm me. The next morning they brought me to the interrogation chamber where there were cold water and wooden boards. They made me lie on a wooden board, and then they poured cold water on me, into my mouth and nostrils and all over my body. Afterward, they gave me someone’s name and asked if I knew that person. That person was a brother among us who had gone to Chungking from the inland a few months ago. They asked me where he was hiding. I said that I did not know. Then they asked me how he got there. I told them the church wrote a letter of recommendation for him. While they were interrogating me, I was looking to the Lord. For anything in which I could not reveal the truth, I would ask the Lord, “O Lord, do not let them ask me about it,” and they truly did not ask at all. Whatever they asked, I was able to answer calmly and truthfully.
After the interrogation they let me rest and then dragged me to the prison cell. Then they went to my house and the meeting hall to find the responsible ones to verify the statements I gave under interrogation. I was tortured in this way for more than three weeks. One night I had another dream. I dreamed that I was in a brother’s home in my neighborhood, and a puppy crawled out of a dog hole, wagging its tail at me and running toward me. When I woke up, I felt very happy and peaceful, because I knew that the Japanese military police were coming to me to “wag their tails” and send me home. At that time they interrogated me twice a day, for close to two or three hours each time. The next day, instead of interrogating, they said to me, “Mr. Lee, we are young and impetuous. Please excuse us for any lack of respect.” They wanted to escort me home, but they had to wait until the evening, so they treated me to a meal. The more they chattered, the more I felt that they were like puppies wagging their tails.
The week after they sent me home, in the afternoon on the Lord’s Day after I finished ministering the word, I sat down to partake of the Lord’s table. When the bread and cup were passed to me, I had a trance similar to Peter’s. In the trance I saw a white dog before me. This dog was not like the previous German shepherd or the hole-crawling puppy. I then realized that the Japanese were coming for me again.
As expected, after the Lord’s Day they came again, requesting me to do a little work for them, saying that since I was a member of the church and had many contacts, I should help them investigate those who were Communists. This was difficult for me, since I did not know much. Besides, I would never do anything that would be harmful to my fellow countrymen. A week later, they came to ask me if I had any information for them. I said no. Another week later, I still answered no.
At the time I had to go to the Japanese military police and apply for entry and exit permits because I did not have the freedom to travel. However, I contracted a severe case of tuberculosis. After being ill for half a year, they received news of my illness and thought I was incapacitated and therefore useless, so they released me from their grasp. Thus, I escaped from the hands of the Japanese.
In October of 1944 I left Chefoo and fled to Tsingtao, where I recuperated for one and a half years. Japan surrendered in 1945, and shortly afterward the Communist army advanced into Chefoo. The first thing they did in Chefoo was to come to my home to look for me. All these events that occurred were evidences of the Lord’s preserving me, enabling me to escape out of the hands of the Japanese and the Communists.
It has been over forty years since I first had the dream in 1943. After I had fully recovered from tuberculosis in 1946, the brothers in Shanghai and Nanking asked me to go there, so I went. That brought in a great revival. Then the political situation in mainland China became desperate, so Brother Nee and all the co-workers decided to send me overseas. I came to Taiwan and saw the Lord’s blessing the whole time. Later, when I went to Southeast Asia, I again saw the Lord’s blessing. Even after I went to the United States, the Lord’s blessing was also evidently present. This is today’s situation. I can say that every day I am walking on the broad highway, step by step. Especially today, seeing the development of this new way, it is truly a broad highway and a rising sun, with a boundless prospect. I really feel that this dream is still being fulfilled.
As we look at today’s world situation, review past history, observe the condition of Christianity, and consider the light shown to us in the Scriptures, it is not difficult to conclude that this is a critical moment in time. A British brother brought me a copy of The Times, in which some statistics of Christianity in England were published: The Catholic Church had the most members, totaling 2.5 million; the Presbyterians also had 2.5 million. Beginning from 1970 the numbers dropped greatly. In 1990 the Catholic Church is expected to drop down to an estimated 1.8 million, and the Presbyterians are expected to drop down to an estimated 1.7 million. All the other denominations are in the process of losing members as well. However, in the list of statistics there is a group of Christians called the “home churches,” which had not been in existence before 1970 but currently has eighty to ninety thousand members. This shows that the population of the whole of Christianity is decreasing all over the world. In other words, Christianity has no way, no future.
Supposedly, Christianity has spread to the whole world. According to the numbers, however, in Taiwan there are less than five hundred thousand Christians in a total population of twenty million; therefore, the percentage of Christians is less than two and a half percent. This is to say that for every one hundred Taiwan residents, there are less than two and a half saved ones. The island of Taiwan has easy and convenient transportation, but Christianity has been here for more than two centuries without producing much result. Christianity all over the earth is in the same condition. Supposedly, Christianity has been preached over the whole earth; in reality, it is low in number.
This certainly is a crucial moment. Since the Lord has now shown us the new way and has called us to take the new way, we must keep up with Him. If the new way solely relies on the working saints to go out knocking on doors in their spare time, it will truly not be adequate. This way must rely on young, capable, and educated brothers and sisters receiving the burden to go full time, serving the Lord every day and every hour. I hope that from this day onward the number of full-timers will increase year after year. This is the Lord’s calling for us today.
I genuinely believe that the dream I had was a real vision. The past forty years that we have gone through proves that the dream has been fulfilled, and now we are still on this broad highway. At this point in time we particularly need young people to rise up and serve the Lord full time. There is nothing more glorious than serving full time. Consider this: The gaining of a million dollars cannot compare to the gaining of one soul. If we can spend several years to labor and save several thousand souls through door-knocking, and if they multiply continually, each bringing in new ones and establishing home meetings, and each maturing in life and learning the truth, how worthwhile it will be! This is the new way. This is the broad highway, the rising sun, and the boundless future.
(A message given in Taipei, Taiwan, on May 23, 1987)
