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Scripture Reading: John 7:39a; 14:6-11, 16-21, 23, 26; 16:7, 13-15; 17:21, 23; 20:22; 1 John 3:24b; 4:13
In the previous chapter we saw the lessons that Brother Nee learned through his sufferings. We have covered his suffering from poverty, from ill health, and from Christianity. His suffering from Christianity includes five items: being despised, being criticized, being opposed, being attacked, and being spoken of evilly through rumors. The most subtle and damaging item is rumors. Satan is a liar and the father of all the liars (John 8:44). A rumor is a lie. Brother Nee had to endure many rumors about him throughout his ministry. Such suffering came to him from those in Christianity.
In May of 1934 he and I were traveling together to a suburban city outside of Shanghai named Kiangwang. While he was driving, he turned to me and said, “Brother, now we have to turn to the Gentiles.” He was quoting Paul’s word in Acts 13:46 after being rejected by the Jews. Paul and Barnabas preached the gospel to the Jews, but the Jews rejected them and persecuted them. Since the Jews rejected Paul’s ministry, he said, “Behold, we turn to the Gentiles.” By 1934 when Brother Nee said this to me, his ministry had been fully rejected by Christianity. He presented his ministry to Christianity, but in return he received despising, criticizing, opposing, attacking, and rumors. Then he told me that we had to turn to the Gentiles. From that time we started to pay more attention to bringing unbelieving sinners into the church. In this chapter we want to go on to see another category of Brother Nee’s sufferings.
Brother Nee’s sufferings from certain ones among us were more serious than those from Christianity. As we have pointed out, the church life began in Brother Nee’s hometown in 1922. In 1924 he was excommunicated by six brothers. This was carried out not just by an announcement in the meeting but by something in writing, and it happened while he was away. He related the whole story of his being excommunicated to me in detail.
He was working in the city of Hangchow, which is very close to Shanghai, when he received a letter telling him that he was excommunicated. Brother Nee told me that when he was about to react to this, the Lord checked with him, “Are you going to be in My hand, or are you going to be in your own hand?” Thus, Brother Nee had no choice in this matter. After his preaching work was finished, he returned to his hometown. Most of the brothers and sisters there were students saved through him, and they were furious about what had happened. They absolutely did not agree with what was done to Brother Nee. They went to the pier to wait for the arrival of his boat. When he arrived, they told him that he should not stand for this excommunication and that he had to do something. He was seasick from his journey, so he told them to come to his home that night to have fellowship about this matter.
That night his home was crowded with people. But before they came, he had received a word from the Lord telling him not to vindicate himself and to leave the city the next day. He told the young people gathered at his house, “I cannot do anything because the Lord will not allow me to do it. The only thing I can do is to get packed and leave the city tomorrow.” They were so disappointed, and many of them wept when Brother Nee said this. He left Foochow in 1924 and went to Pagoda. Brother Nee wrote a marvelous and inspiring hymn during that time. This long hymn, which has not yet been translated into English, speaks of a man learning how to bear the cross without vindicating himself, learning how to suffer without saying anything. This is a long hymn that relates his feeling and sensation during that time.
Later, he received the burden to put out the monthly magazine called The Christian. The issues of this publication covered the truths revealed in Revelation 1—3 and Genesis 1. Brother Nee wrote these under severe suffering in 1925 and 1926. At the end of this period of time, he had the burden to go to Shanghai and Nanking to start a new work there. The church in Shanghai was established at the end of 1926 and the beginning of 1927.
We need to see a principle from looking at Brother Nee’s life. This principle is that the church is produced by the life of Christ through sufferings. The birth of the church is like the travail of a mother who is delivering a child. We should not think that we can go to a place to establish a church in an easy way. The church is produced by the life of Christ through someone’s sufferings.
From the beginning of the church life in mainland China, there was a sister who was dissenting toward Brother Nee. She was about twenty-five or twenty-six when Brother Nee was twenty years old. She was a gifted sister who eventually became a traveling preacher and was considered very highly by Christianity. Following the six brothers who excommunicated Brother Nee, she was the major one who was always dissenting toward him. In January of 1934, while we were in the third overcomer conference in Shanghai, she was in the meetings in a dissenting way. While Brother Nee was speaking, she was shaking her head in disagreement. She was older than him and received respect from many directions, yet she was dissenting toward him. I saw many dissenting ones throughout the years. This sister was one of the strongest of these dissenting ones. She was in the church life in the beginning in China, but eventually she left. Such dissenting ones were a real suffering to Brother Nee.
Brother Nee also suffered because of the immaturity and incompetence of those around him. He was bearing the responsibility with the brothers, but there was no comparison between him and all the other brothers. He was very mature and competent, but the others were immature and incompetent. In the early days of the Lord’s recovery in mainland China, Brother Watchman Nee was a unique, extraordinary person. Spiritually, he was far beyond the other brothers. He saw many things that the brothers did not see. Most of us do not realize much concerning this kind of suffering. Suppose that a brother who is thirty-four years old had to serve and bear responsibility with a brother who is only fifteen years old. This illustration may give us some idea of Brother Nee’s suffering in this regard.
Because of the immaturity of the brothers, Brother Nee also had to endure their stubbornness. The practice of the church life in China began in 1922, and I came into the work in a practical way in 1933. Before I entered into the work with Brother Nee, I went to visit him in Shanghai for four months. At the end of that four-month period, Brother Nee said to me, “Witness, we brothers feel that you should move your family here and stay with us so that we can work together. Please open to the Lord concerning this matter.” I went to the Lord, and I became clear that I had to move to Shanghai.
When I entered into the work with Brother Nee, he put me into a position of bearing the responsibility with him. At first I wondered why he did this since I could be considered as a “new hand” in the work. A few of the others had been in Shanghai with Brother Nee for six or seven years. I was a new person in the work, but I was immediately brought into such a heavy responsibility with Brother Nee. Then I found out that all the other brothers were busy taking care of their jobs and businesses. Only one brother there was a co-worker. Whereas I was two years younger than Brother Nee, this brother was about seven years older than him. Before this brother came into the Lord’s work, he had been a postmaster.
I would like to relate something that happened with this brother to show you how Brother Nee suffered. One day a learned man was saved among us, and he desired to be baptized before he left China for the United States. Brother Nee was so clear about this newly saved one, and he agreed that this man should be baptized before he left China. However, the brother who had been a postmaster did not agree with Brother Nee. Brother Nee asked this co-worker what he was concerned about. He said that he was concerned that this new one might not be saved. Then Brother Nee said that if something was mistaken, he would be willing to bear all the responsibility before the Lord. The co-worker still would not agree to this new one being baptized. Brother Nee had shared previously in some messages that in the church life we always need the fellowship and that we should not do things individualistically. Because Brother Nee insisted on doing everything in fellowship, he would not baptize this new one without the co-worker’s agreement. Thus, the new one left China without being baptized. This is just one of the cases of Brother Nee’s suffering because of the immaturity of those with him.
I would like to relate another case of his suffering in this matter. I have shared that Brother Nee picked up many positive things from the different practices in Christianity. At the beginning of the church life, he picked up the way to have our meetings mostly from the practice of the Brethren. This is why some people called us the Chinese version of the Brethren movement. At the beginning, we practiced our meetings more than seventy percent according to the Brethren way. In the meetings of the Brethren, the sisters were not allowed to utter anything. They were allowed to sing, but they were not allowed to speak or even to pray.
By 1933 when I came into the work, Brother Nee realized that not having the sisters pray in the meetings was a big loss to the church. He became clear that it is absolutely right for the sisters to pray in the meetings (see 1 Cor. 11:5 and footnote 2 on 1 Cor. 14:34 in the Recovery Version). The leading sisters agreed with Brother Nee, but most of the so-called leading ones believed that the sisters should not utter anything. Brother Nee fellowshipped with them that we should release the sisters in the meetings to pray, but nearly all the brothers said no. When Brother Nee proposed this, I said Amen, but I was considered by the others as a newcomer who did not know much. This is another example of Brother Nee’s sufferings.
The beginning of the practice of the church life in China was difficult. Brother Nee was the “first traveler” who paid the price to cut the way for the church life. Now that the cutting has been accomplished, it is easy for us to travel on the “road” of the church life. Brother Nee was the “road cutter.” He placed me so close to him in the work because he was lonely. By the Lord’s mercy, my spirit was strong to say Amen to Brother Nee. That became a joy to him in the midst of his suffering. I hope that we would learn the spiritual lessons through this fellowship.
Brother Nee also suffered from those who were ambitious for position. Because his health was not good, he often was not able to attend the meetings. He worked on his publications and took care of the conferences, but mostly he could not take care of the meetings of the church on a regular basis. He turned over the responsibility of all the meetings to me. When I was new in the work, there was a brother among us who was very active and aggressive, expressing that he loved the Lord so much. I appreciated that brother, and I asked him to give a message in one of the Lord’s Day afternoon meetings. At that time we had three meetings on the Lord’s Day — in the morning, afternoon, and evening. Brother Nee found out about this and told me that I should not have asked that brother to give a message. I was wondering what was wrong. Brother Nee did not tell me at that time.
Eventually, I came to know the situation with that brother. He was the third one to come into the church life in Shanghai. The second one was Dr. Yu, the eye specialist, and the first one was the brother who had been a postmaster. These three brothers all came out of the China Inland Mission in Shanghai. That was a strong reason why the Shanghai missionaries went against Brother Nee. These three were the top ones who were gained by that mission.
From 1927, when this particular brother came into the church, he was always ambitious to be one of the elders, but he truly was not qualified. He was not that kind of person, so Brother Nee would not agree with his being a leading one. Eventually, in 1948 after he had been in the church life for twenty-one years, he left the church and caused a division. He started a meeting in his home and hired a traveling preacher, similar to what Micah did in Judges 17 in hiring someone to be his priest.
I saw a number of brothers who passed through the church life, expecting to receive some position. Brother Nee always told people that the church is not an organization with position but an organism with living members. Anything that is positioned on a person’s physical body, such as false teeth, is an inorganic item that is foreign to the body. Nearly all the famous preachers among the Chinese who were around my age passed through the Lord’s recovery in China. They came and met with us for a while, expecting to receive some position in the work. Eventually, they found out that there was no position for them, so they left and became opposers. Brother Nee told us publicly that whoever desires a position in the church life will never get that position.
There was another brother among us who pretended to be the most spiritual person to fulfill his ambition. At the beginning, nearly the whole church in Shanghai was fooled by this young brother, but gradually the “fox tails” came out, one by one. All the responsible brothers believed that he was very spiritual, and some of them even felt shameful that they were not as spiritual as he was. Eventually, however, this young man was exposed. The leading ones and the co-workers came to know that he was false, and they all agreed to deal with him. He was ambitious, pretending to be something that he was not. The church called an urgent meeting, and the whole congregation came together. In this meeting one of the co-workers announced something concerning this brother’s falsehood, and many others also stood up to condemn him. He was condemned by the entire congregation. Then he left and became another cause of division. After he left, he was hired to be a teacher by the top women’s seminary in China.
Whenever trouble came among us, the “arrows” always went to Brother Nee. He was the target. At that time none of the arrows came to me because I was not qualified to be the target. I was under the protection of a big “umbrella,” and that umbrella was Brother Nee. Sometimes when people attacked him, they would highly appraise me. Within myself I realized their subtlety. I realized that if Brother Nee were gone, their arrows would be shot at me.
I want to say something for the sake of the young brothers. The ambition of the brothers is a problem in the church. It is a shame to say this, but it is a fact. This ambition caused Brother Nee much suffering. Brother Nee told us that no one ever gave him a position and that he had no position to give others. Eventually, those who were ambitious for position left. Some of the divisions were caused by this kind of ambition. The ambitious ones would never admit that they were ambitious. When they caused a division, they did it with a certain excuse. They put on a “cloak” of a certain doctrine. They would say that the church was wrong in this certain doctrine, and because they were clear about this, they had to leave. This was altogether a pretense, an excuse, and a cloak for their ambition.
Brother Nee also suffered attacks from rebellious ones who were among us. When I was younger, I read the stories about the children of Israel rebelling against Moses. When I came into the church life, I saw such rebellion. Brother Nee suffered not only the attacks from the outsiders but also the attacks and rebellion from those inside the church life.
I would like to present an example of such attacks suffered by Brother Nee. There was a co-worker among us who fell into immorality. The local leading ones could not handle the situation, so they referred the case to Brother Nee. Brother Nee was forced to deal with this situation, and this brother had to be removed from the fellowship of the church. Later, this brother, who had been a co-worker, started to attack Brother Nee. Eventually, he went to Hong Kong to set up another meeting, which was another division. That meeting was set up close to Brother K. H. Weigh’s home, but it did not last too long because this rebellious brother eventually died of cancer.
Before he died, he attacked Brother Nee. This was during the Second World War when Shanghai was taken over by the Japanese army. The Japanese army was afraid of the Communists. When they found out that someone was a Communist, they killed him. At that time the Japanese military police were careful to examine all the mail. When this rebellious brother was in Hong Kong, he sent Brother Nee materials concerning communism so that the Japanese military would think Brother Nee was a communist and arrest him. Brother Nee, however, was under the protection of the Lord, and this mail that was sent to him several times was never discovered.
Brother Nee suffered such attacks from rebellious ones many times. In 1950 Brother Nee came out of China to Hong Kong for the last time. In Hong Kong we were holding meetings every evening. One night when Brother Nee and I walked out of the meeting hall, there were some people standing at the entrance distributing some booklets against him. Some of these booklets were passed to him. He smiled a little bit and did not take them. They were filled with false rumors and other defamatory things that were absolutely against him. This is another illustration of the attacks he suffered.
I would like to relate one more complicated case, which caused Brother Nee to suffer greatly. This case was related to his marriage. By 1934 at the age of thirty-two, Brother Nee was still not married. The circumstances surrounding his marriage became a difficult situation for him. He was married to Sister Charity Chang, Brother Samuel Chang’s sister, on October 19, 1934, the day after a ten-day conference.
A short while after Brother Nee’s wedding, there was a big turmoil. This turmoil came from two directions. The first direction was from Brother Chang’s aunt. Brother Chang and his sisters lost their parents when they were young, and they were under the care of their aunt. His aunt did not agree with her niece marrying such a “poor preacher.” At that time in China, a preacher was looked upon as a poor beggar, especially by those of the higher class. Although the aunt would not agree with the marriage, her niece, Charity, was very much for Brother Nee, so they were married. After their marriage, the aunt continued to oppose. Some of those in Christianity found out about this and joined with her. This was the second direction of the turmoil.
One day Brother Nee came to me and told me that according to his knowledge there had never been such a problem with someone’s wedding. Their names were even in the biggest newspaper in Shanghai. After he had this time with me, I could not find him for a few days. Eventually, I found out that he went far away from Shanghai to another province.
Now I would like to share about the biggest “storm” in the churches in China. In order to understand why this storm occurred, we need to know the background of the situation in China at that time. In the early days of the Lord’s recovery in China, the financial situation among the Chinese was not good. Still, a number of saints were raised up to serve the Lord by faith.
I would like to share a personal testimony as an example of the way we lived. In 1936 I was sent by the work to northern China to work in Tientsin, close to Peking, the capital. In those days the work would send people without supplying them with anything for their need. If there was the feeling for someone to go somewhere, they went by faith, without help from the work for their material supply. That was our practice in the early days.
When I was in Tientsin, I realized that I needed a bicycle to help me travel in such a large city. I had a little over forty dollars, just enough money to bring my wife and three children from my hometown to join me. I went to the Lord to ask Him how He felt about my purchasing a bicycle. I was so clear within that the Lord wanted me to have one although I did not have any money to buy it. The Lord gave me the assurance within that He would meet this need. This took place on Saturday.
On the Lord’s Day after the Lord’s table, I received a designated gift of two dollars that had been placed in the offering box. The next day an older brother came to see me. Before he left, he put an envelope on my table, saying, “Brother Lee, this is for you.” Then he left. There were ten dollars in that envelope. Later, some registered mail came to me with a twenty-dollar money order from a city far away.
I asked a young brother, who had lost his job and was staying with me, if he would go with me to the post office to get this money order cashed. He agreed. On our way to the post office, I saw a bicycle store. I went in this store and saw a bicycle for sale that seemed very appropriate. The owner said that it would cost me a total of thirty-two dollars. I agreed to buy it, and he promised to deliver the bicycle to me in the evening. After getting the money order cashed at the post office, we returned home.
In the evening, the store delivered the bicycle. I went to my room to kneel down, pray, and thank the Lord. While I was thanking the Lord, He impressed me within to count how much money I had received since the Lord’s Day evening. Two dollars from the offering box, ten dollars from a brother, and a money order for twenty dollars totaled exactly thirty-two dollars! When I realized what the Lord had done, I thanked Him with tears for His faithfulness. This was the way we co-workers lived by faith in the early days of the Lord’s recovery in China.
Many were raised up to serve the Lord full time, but the financial situation was not that good. As a result, the co-workers had to pass through many trials of poverty, and many became sick. In one meeting Brother Nee told us that about one-third of our co-workers had died of tuberculosis. I pointed out in a previous chapter that Brother Nee used one-third of his income to support others for the Lord’s work, but the need among us was great. Brother Nee’s second brother was an expert in pharmaceutical chemistry, and he began to produce some medicine in China. He did not know how to manage, so he asked Brother Nee to do it. Brother Nee took that as an opportunity to do some business in order to supply the Lord’s work.
He was in this business a little over two years, from 1940 to 1942. Then there was a misunderstanding among the brothers. I would say that this mostly came from ambition. Some of the brothers who were working in the pharmaceutical factory were ambitious for a higher position. The misunderstanding became bigger and bigger and developed to such an extent that the entire church in Shanghai became rebellious toward Brother Nee with a few exceptions.
At the same time, the Japanese military police were there trying to arrest Brother Nee. This situation forced the church in Shanghai to “close its doors.” The Japanese military police attempted to force the church in Shanghai to join the false Christianity association under the Japanese military police. The church could not do this. Also, within the church there was a big turmoil against Brother Nee. Thus, the church had no way to go on.
Brother Nee was wise to flee and escape from Shanghai. Otherwise, he would have been arrested by the Japanese military police. He went to the interior of China and carried on his pharmaceutical factory in Chungking, the capital of China during the war. Brother Samuel Chang was a great help to Brother Nee in that pharmaceutical factory. Due to the great turmoil in the church in Shanghai, Brother Nee had no other choice but to stop his ministry. His ministry was stopped for six years. There was a rumor that he was too occupied with his pharmaceutical business and did not have the time to minister. This was false. He did not minister because of the rebellion. This was the last and greatest suffering that Brother Nee had to endure before his imprisonment.
In 1948 a big revival was brought in among us, and Brother Nee returned to his ministry. Through that revival nearly all the rebellious ones repented to him. Though many had become rebellious toward Brother Nee, they were not against the church. It was a real testimony that almost everyone stayed with the church and did not go back to the denominations. During the time of the rebellion, some went to Brother Nee and encouraged him to set up another meeting. He said that this should not be done. He told these saints that regardless of whether the church was against him or for him, it was still the church, and they had to continue in the church.
When Brother Nee returned to his ministry, there was a bigger revival. The church then decided to buy a big piece of land for a meeting hall that could seat three thousand inside and two thousand outside. The price of the land was about one hundred thousand dollars, and the price to build the meeting hall was about the same. I was bearing the responsibility in these financial matters. One day Brother Nee’s wife told me that he wanted me to go to his home that night. When I went to his home, he handed over to me thirty-seven gold bars at ten ounces each. This was three hundred seventy ounces of gold at fifty dollars an ounce at that time. He said, “Take this and use it for the payment of the land.” He told me he got it from the pharmaceutical business.
After the revival brought in through the return of Brother Nee to his ministry, he began to have a training. Later the Communists took over his training center. He was arrested in 1952 and was imprisoned until his death twenty years later.
According to my view and knowledge of Brother Nee, he did not have much peace in his life. He suffered his entire life. He was really a suffering person. In all his sufferings, he learned to deal with his natural life and self. The last lesson he learned through being put aside from the ministry for six years was the breaking of the outer man and the release of the spirit. He learned this one lesson in those six years. During this time he would not minister because so many were rebellious toward him, but some of us had many times of fellowship with him. He always talked to us about the breaking of our outer man and the release of our spirit. Those six years of suffering helped him to learn the lesson of having the natural man broken. When the natural man is broken, the release of the spirit is possible.
He did not merely pass on teaching and doctrines to people. All his teaching had the backing of real experience learned through sufferings. He was not just a Bible student, who learned doctrines and passed them on to others. Whatever he ministered, he himself experienced. He learned so much through all his sufferings. Praise the Lord! Today we are the ones who inherit all the lessons. The sufferings I saw with Brother Nee and the lessons he learned through them helped my life very much. I can never forget what I saw in him. All the impressions I received of him became the greatest help to my Christian life. This is also a great help to the churches. Today we have such a heritage, which was built up by one who paid such a great price. The price was the sufferings. Brother Nee was a man of suffering. He did not have any children, and his wife went to the Lord about seven or eight months before he died in prison. There was no need for him to write a will because he had nothing left when he went to the Lord. However, he left much with us. Today we have the churches and such a rich heritage.
