May we look to the Lord in prayer.
Lord, we do want to say to You that we do love You—not because we know what love is, but because we know Thou dost love us. It is Thy love in us that stirs our hearts to know Thy loveliness, to know Thee as our love.
So we just come and offer ourselves to Thee as a love offering. We ask Thee to take us in Thy own hand, bless us, break us, and distribute us, that Thou mayest be glorified.
We do commit this time into Thy hands and pray that, by Thy Holy Spirit, Thou wilt speak to each one of us, that we may be transformed and conformed to Thy image. To God be the glory. We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
The theme of this conference is the unfolding of God’s recovery work in the church.
We know that God has been doing this recovery work for a very long time. Even when we read the New Testament, we find in the book of Revelation, in chapters 2 and 3, that the Spirit of God is calling for those who have ears to hear. This is God’s recovery work in the church.
So, throughout the centuries, we know that God has been doing this recovery work: recovering that which is in His heart, that which His heart desires, that His heart might be satisfied.
But historically speaking, we usually commence that recovery work of God from the sixteenth century. So that is the reason why you will hear again and again, during these days, about the last four hundred years.
Now, that does not mean that before that God did no work of recovery. As a matter of fact, recovery work is what God has been doing all the time. But starting from the sixteenth century, it seems as if God has been doing that work with intensity.
We try to illustrate this recovery work of God in the lives of men. What God intends to do in the church, He usually will first do in individuals. These lives will be sown as seed in the church, in order that God may receive a harvest.
So that is the reason why we feel that these lives may illustrate the unfolding of God’s recovery work in the church.
We have mentioned Martin Luther and how God worked justification by faith into his life. In turn, God used him to recover the truth of justification by faith to His church.
We mentioned Count Zinzendorf and how God put in him a passion for Christ, and, out of that passion, love for mankind. This passion must be recovered in the church.
We mentioned John Wesley and how God worked this matter of holiness by faith. Holiness is not by works; it is by faith in the Lord Jesus. He is our holiness—perfect love. This holiness must be one of the characteristics of the church of God.
And yesterday morning we mentioned John Nelson Darby and how God worked into his life that loyalty to the truth of God. Every word in the Book, in the Bible, is living, practical, eternal, and relevant. This spirit must mark the church of God.
Now, this morning we will come to the last person. We come to the twentieth century, to our time, and we would like to share on the life of Watchman Nee.
First of all, I will read to you something written by him. He composed it in 1930, and it serves as a maxim. It can very well sum up his life and ministry.
Let me love and not be respected;
Let me serve and not be rewarded;
Let me labor and not be remembered;
Let me suffer and not be regarded.’Tis the flowing, not the drinking;
’Tis the breaking, not the keeping;
A life suffering to seek others’ blessings,
A life loving and true comfort giving.Not expecting pity and concern,
Not accepting solace and applause;
Ever lonely, ever forgotten,
Ever wordless, ever forsaken.Tears and blood—
My price for the righteous crown shall be;
Losing all, my cost for a faithful pilgrim’s life.Towards the life, O Lord, that You chose to live
In those days when on earth You walked,
Gladly suffering all injuries and loss
So that all might draw near and repose.I cannot see how much further I should go;
Still I press on, knowing there is no return.
Let me follow Your pattern, so perfect and true,
Bearing ingratitude without complaint.In this time of trial, O my Lord,
I pray that You wipe all my hidden tears away.
Let me learn, O Lord, You are my reward.
Let me seek others’ blessings all my days.
Watchman Nee was born on November 4, 1903, in Swatow, China. His birth was an answer to his mother’s prayer.
His mother’s name was Hó-Píng, which means peace. She was afraid that she would give birth only to daughters and no sons. The reason was that her sister-in-law had given birth to six daughters, and at that time she herself already had two daughters. You know, in the old Chinese concept, a son was expected.
Now, she was just a nominal Christian, but out of her desperate anxiety, she prayed. She even made a vow that if God would give her a son, she would present that son to God to serve Him.
The next year, she gave birth to her firstborn. The name given was Ni Shu-tsu, which means “glorifying the ancestors.” It was not until 1925 that our brother changed his name to Watchman. So now he is known as Watchman Nee.
When Brother Nee was six years old, the family moved back to their ancestral place, that is, Fujian. His father, Ni Weng-hsiu, engaged a scholar to tutor his children.
So Brother Nee, when he was very young, studied under a tutor with his older sisters. They learned how to write calligraphy, and they read the Four Books and Five Classics. All these formed the basis of Chinese education for two thousand years.
Our brother learned very quickly. He always surpassed his sisters. Sometimes the tutor tried to encourage them and promised that if anyone came out first, he would get a silver dollar. Our brother usually got it.
His father was a very mild, gentle person. I knew him very well. So he left the discipline of the children to his wife, who was a very strong, domineering woman—and I knew her too.
Because at one time I had my meals in her house, and she treated me as one of her sons.
Now, Brother Nee, being a boy, of course was quite active. Because of that, he was disciplined much more than his sisters. Sometimes his sisters were so sympathetic with him that they tried to put the blame on themselves in order to let their brother off.
In 1916, at the age of thirteen, Watchman entered the Church Missionary Society Vernacular Middle School in Fuzhou to begin his Western-style education. From there he would go to St. Mark’s, and the whole institution is what we would call today Trinity College.
All the missionary staff were Irish, from Dublin, Trinity College, where C. H. Spurgeon studied.
Now, being very brilliant, he did not need to apply himself too much to his studies, and he always came out at the top of his class.
He observed all these Christian rituals, of course. He was baptized, received communion, and attended Sunday school. But he had not accepted the Lord Jesus as his personal Savior.
He loved novels. He loved movies. Having an excellent knowledge of Chinese literature, he often wrote articles and sent them to newspapers. Then he used the money he got to buy lottery tickets.
At one time he was the chairman of the student body. You know, it was a time of great national unrest, an explosion of student feeling. Naturally, Brother Nee was affected by the movement around him.
He had a very strong aversion toward the church and the preachers. He despised the preachers.
Now, you need to know a little background as to why it was so. In those days, the Chinese preachers were employed by the missionaries, and they were usually given a salary barely enough to live.
These preachers had to look up to the missionaries and listen to them; if they did not listen, they might be fired. Because of this, preachers in China were looked down upon by the world, by the people. Brother Nee just despised these preachers.
So later on, when his father told him that at his birth he had been given to the Lord to be a preacher, he could not disagree more. He had his own future planned. He said he would never be a preacher.
In February 1920, Miss Dora Yu came to Fuzhou. Now, I have to give you a little history.
In the history of the church in China, the first two Chinese evangelists were medical doctors. One was a man, Dr. Lu Su-chieh, and the other was a woman, Dr. Dora Yu.
Dr. Dora Yu was on her way to the West to continue her studies in medicine. But while she was on the ship, the Lord called her to serve Him. So she told the captain on the boat, “Let me off.”
Of course, the captain could not do that until the ship arrived at Marseilles. So she got off at Marseilles and returned to China. She became an evangelist, traveling up and down along the coast, preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now, in February 1920, she came to Fuzhou and was to have evangelistic meetings in a Methodist church there. Of course, Mother Nee went there to hear her because she knew her in Shanghai.
When Mother Nee was not married yet, she was sent to Shanghai to study at McTyeire Girls’ School, a famous girls’ school there. It was there that she met Dr. Dora Yu. Then she got married, of course, by arrangement and without her knowledge.
So when Dora Yu came to Fuzhou, because of their former acquaintance, Mother Nee went to hear her. As a matter of fact, she even encouraged her mahjong friends to go with her to hear Dora Yu.
She got saved.
Now, of course, the students in Trinity College were given permission to attend these meetings, and some of the students went. Brother Nee never went.
After his mother was saved, she asked her son to go and hear Dora Yu. Her son would not do that. The reason was that Brother Nee hated his mother.
Why? Because in January of that year, at the end of the winter holiday, a very precious vase was missing in the house. His mother thought this must have been done by her son, so she subjected him to the indignity of punishment.
Later on, Mother Nee discovered that it was not her son’s fault, but she would not tell her son she was sorry. She let her son nurse his grievance.
Now, Mother Nee thought she should have family worship. So she bought some hymnbooks, and one day she was to start the family worship. She gathered the family together, went to the piano, and started to play a hymn.
But while she was playing the hymn, suddenly the Spirit of God touched her and said, “Go and confess to your son.”
Mother Nee said, “No, it cannot be done.”
You know, according to our Chinese custom in the old days, parents were never wrong. No parent would confess to their children. It simply was not done. It would be a great loss of face if the parents should do that.
She said, “I cannot do that. Nobody does it.” But the Spirit of God said, “You must do it.”
So she got up. The father and the other children were simply amazed at what was happening.
She went over to her son, put her arms around him, and said, “My son, I have punished you unjustly and in anger. Please forgive me.”
This touched his heart very deeply. So the next morning he told his mother, “I’ll go.” So he went.
The first evening, he was touched by what he heard. He knew that the gospel was true. He knew that he must accept the Lord Jesus as his personal Savior. But he did not accept the Lord Jesus that evening.
The reason was, he told us himself, that he felt that for him to believe in the Lord Jesus as his Savior, he must at the same time give up his life to the Lord.
For him to accept Jesus as his Savior was easy, but to give his life to the Lord was hard. He had his own plan for his future, and he was not willing to give up his own future. So he struggled for a few days.
On the evening of April 29, 1920, this is what he told us:
I was alone in my room, struggling to decide whether or not to believe in the Lord Jesus. Then I was shown the blackness of my sins and the redness of His blood. I was constrained by the love of Christ, and I saw the Lord stretched out on the cross, welcoming me and saying to me, “I am waiting to receive you.”
Realizing the effectiveness of Christ’s blood in cleansing my sins, and being overwhelmed by His love, I accepted Him then and there as my Savior and my Lord.
Formerly, I used to laugh at people who had accepted Jesus. But that evening I wept and confessed my sins, seeking His forgiveness. I knew joy and peace such as I had never known before. Life seemed to flood the room, and I said to the Lord, “O Lord, You have indeed been gracious to me.”
Following my being saved, there were many changes. All my planning of over ten years became meaningless, and my cherished ambitions were discarded.
From that day, without any doubt of God’s calling, I knew what my life career was to be. I understood that the Lord had brought me to Himself both for my salvation and for His gospel.
Now, at once, there were many things that had to be done—wrongs to be righted. One of the things that came to him was this: Brother Nee always had good marks, but there was one course in which he always got low marks, and that was Bible class.
Because he did not like to study the Bible, in order to help himself get good grades, he wrote some selected points that he thought the teacher would ask on the palm of his hand and hid them in his long sleeve, so the teacher would not notice. In other words, he cheated.
Now the Spirit of God moved him and said, “You must confess to the school.”
No, he could not do it, because the principal of the school had announced that any student who cheated would be expelled.
So he struggled with himself. If he should confess, he might be expelled from school, and that would be the end of his career. Whether he loved the Lord or whether he loved his career—that was the question.
By the grace of God, he went to the principal and confessed. Fortunately, the principal did not expel him.
During this time, there was student unrest in the country. Brother Nee felt that there were many things in his life that had to be adjusted. So he quietly slipped away from school and went to Shanghai.
He attended Dora Yu’s Bible school to receive a year’s training in her school. He was there only for a short time, and Dora Yu told him, “You go home. It is not convenient for you to be here.”
Now, that was being polite. Brother Nee knew very well why Dora Yu was saying this. Because of his gourmet appetite, his elegant dress, and his late rising in the morning, Dora Yu felt that this man, this boy, could never be used by God. He was unfit.
It was a blow to our brother, of course, but he did not give up. He went back to school.
His classmates did recognize some change in him, for many of his old habits remained in him. He carried a Bible with him to school. He read his Bible all the time. Even when the teacher was lecturing, he was reading his Bible. Now, I do not advise you to do that.
So in a very short time, he read the Old and New Testaments several times. He knew the Word of God by heart.
Then he felt it was time for him to witness to his fellow students. He tackled anyone he met until people avoided him. But nobody got saved.
After a year, one day he met a missionary, Miss Groves. Miss Groves asked him, “How many people did you lead to the Lord in a year?”
Brother Nee was ashamed. He said, “None. But I have done my duty. I witnessed to them, and if they did not believe, that is their business. It is not my fault.”
Miss Groves said, “Now, how did you witness?”
“Most likely there must be something in your life you have not dealt with, and that is the reason why your witnessing is not effective.”
Brother Nee acknowledged that this was true. He knew there were certain things still in his life that had not been dealt with, and he determined that they would be dealt with.
Then the missionary said, “Now, how did you witness to these people?”
“Well,” he said, “I just witnessed at random. Whether people were ready or not, I just talked to them, argued with them, and reasoned with them.”
Miss Groves said, “You had better first make a list of the people you want to witness to, and pray for them. Then, when God gives you opportunity, witness to them.”
So Brother Nee said he would do that. He started to make a list of seventy fellow students, and he began to pray for them daily—even in class.
At the suitable moment, every one of the seventy got saved except one person.
As Brother Nee searched the Scriptures, he found in the Scriptures this matter of baptism by immersion.
So, on March 27, 1921, he was baptized in the water at White Teeth Creek.
Lord, I leave my world behind.
Your cross separates me from it forever,
And I have entered into another world
In Christ, where You have placed me.
It was his desire that he would do everything that is in the Scriptures, and he would not do anything that is not there.
On that basis, as he continued to search the Scriptures, he felt that he must remember the Lord in simplicity.
So one day he talked to his friend, well known in this country and now with the Lord, Leland Wang. They called him the Moody of China.
He talked to his friend Leland Wang, and Leland had the same conviction. So one morning, four people gathered in Leland Wang’s house: Leland and his wife, Mother Lee, and Brother Nee. The four of them broke bread in simplicity.
The presence of the Lord was very real, and they were filled with joy. Later on, other people joined.
For his spiritual growth, he turned at that time to a lady missionary by the name of Margaret E. Barber.
Now, Margaret E. Barber came to China in 1899. She was there as a missionary of the Church Missionary Society and taught in the girls’ school there. She was a woman who knew the Lord very deeply.
But after she had been in China for several years, because of the jealousy of her fellow missionaries, she was accused of something absolutely untrue. Yet she would not defend herself. So they sent her back to England.
While she was in England, she had fellowship with F. B. Meyer, and then she felt the Lord wanted her to go back to China without the support of any mission.
So she talked to D. M. Panton, and Panton said, “Now, if the Lord calls you to go, then you go.”
So she came back to China. She went back to Fujian, but she was not allowed to stay in the city. So she lived on an island outside the city.
There, she and her fellow worker prayed and preached the gospel on the streets. They felt burdened for China, so they prayed that God would raise up a young man for the gospel of China.
It was mainly through their prayers that a revival broke out among the students where Brother Nee studied. Many students were saved. They said that all the top students of every class and all the worst students of every class got saved.
After they were saved, of course, they needed spiritual help. Whom would they turn to? Very naturally, they turned to Miss Barber.
For Brother Nee, he was not satisfied. It was true that some had gotten saved, but when he thought of the many students who still remained unsaved, and the many people in the city who were untouched, he felt a need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, that he might have power to preach the gospel.
So one day he went to see Miss Barber and asked, “Miss Barber, how can I be filled with the Holy Spirit, so that I can have power to witness?”
She answered, “You must present yourself to God so that He may fill you with Himself.”
Brother Nee said, “I have already done that. I have already given my life to God. I am certain of His salvation and calling, yet I still do not have the power.”
So Miss Barber told him a story. It was the story of Mr. Pritchard in America.
Mr. Pritchard was a brilliant man. He was a pastor of a church, but his long desire was to have the degree of Ph.D. He did not like people to call him Mr. Pritchard; he liked to hear, “Dr. Pritchard.”
While he was pastoring a church, he studied at a university for his doctorate. He was very brilliant, and he was only a month away from getting his doctor’s degree.
But one day, while he was praying, he felt that he did not have power. He asked the Lord to give him power, and the Lord pointed a finger at his Ph.D.
Now, if the Lord does not point a finger at your Ph.D., you get your Ph.D. But with Pritchard, the Lord pointed a finger at his Ph.D. and said, “What do you want? Do you want power, or do you want a Ph.D.?”
So he struggled and struggled because he wanted to have that honor, and everything was ready for him to get that Ph.D. One Saturday night, he was struggling before the Lord, and finally, late at night, he gave in.
He said, “Lord, if You want me to give up my Ph.D., all right, I will give it up.” Peace entered into his heart.
He went to bed. The next morning he went to church, and suddenly he remembered that he had not prepared his sermon.
So he just stood up and told the congregation his own story.
Not a piece of the floor was dry.
From that time onward, God greatly used that brother.
When Brother Nee heard that story, he said, “I am willing to give everything for power.”
One day he was going to preach. He was still a student, but he was going to preach. So he was preparing, looking through the Scriptures and trying to find a topic.
He turned to Psalm 73:25:
Whom have I in heaven but Thee?
And there is none upon earth that I desire besides Thee.
Now, when Brother Nee fell upon that verse, he said to himself, “I can say the first part, but I cannot answer the second part. In heaven, whom do I have but God? But on earth, I know I have someone else besides God.”
He had a childhood sweetheart. He grew up with her, and they had a kind of mutual understanding. Her name was Charity.
She was a very beautiful, very talented lady. After Brother Nee was saved, he tried to witness to her. He could talk with her about any subject under heaven except the gospel. When he tried to tell her the gospel, she would not listen.
But Brother Nee loved her dearly, and he felt that he just could not give her up. His love for her vied with his love for the Lord.
He said:
I asked God to put off dealing with this matter. I promised Him that I would do anything He liked if He would just not point to that thing.
He went back to school, still seeking to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
At last, on February 13, 1922, he was willing to give her up.
On the day when I was converted, I shook off the burden of my sins. But on this later occasion, my heart was emptied of everything that would separate me from God.
On that day I changed my fine clothes for a simple garment, went to the kitchen, made some paste, and with a bundle of gospel posters on my arm, went out into the streets to post them on the walls and to distribute gospel tracts.
It was after that that his fellow students got saved one after another.
For that occasion, he wrote a poem entitled “Boundless Love.”
My Lord, may Thy love—broad, high, deep, and endless—
Truly without measure,
So fill my soul that such a sinner as I
May be abundantly blessed.My Lord paid a cruel price to buy me,
And lately His love has constrained me.
I can but carry His cross with gladness
And follow Him steadfastly to the end.All else I relinquish,
Since Christ is now my goal.
Come life, come death—what can it matter?
Why should I look back with regret?Satan, the world, and the flesh
Seek, if possible, to confound me.
O Lord, empower Thy weak one,
Lest I disgrace Thy name.
During those student years, of course, there was a revival. Many got saved, and these students began to go out and preach the gospel.
As the work grew, seven brothers became what they called at that time “workers.” In other words, these were the seven brothers who took responsibility for the whole work.
Every Friday evening they met together to discuss what to do. Usually, they spent the time in arguments between Brother Nee and an elder brother.
You see, being young, everyone was proud of his own ideas and criticized other people’s opinions. Nobody wanted to give in. So they always tried to argue and reason with each other.
Every Saturday, Brother Nee would go to Miss Barber to complain, because he was sure that he was right and the other brother was wrong.
But every time he tried to complain, Miss Barber would always say one thing: “The young submit to the old. This is the Scripture.”
Brother Nee said, “Why should I submit to him? Because I am five years younger than him?”
Oh, how he hoped that he had been born five years earlier. He could not accept it.
So often, Friday after the argument, he would weep at home; and Saturday, after he saw Miss Barber, he would come home and weep again.
One day they had an argument, and Brother Nee felt, “Now I am sure this time I am one hundred percent right. Miss Barber surely will stand with me.”
Again he went to Miss Barber on Saturday, and he poured out his complaint to her, hoping that at last she would say, “You are right.”
But do you know what Miss Barber said? She said:
You criticize your brother before me. Is it like one who bears the cross? Is it like the Lamb?
Brother Nee was ashamed of himself.
He told us that for eighteen months, he literally had no opportunity to present his ideas. He suffered, but he learned a great lesson.
He learned the lesson of the cross: deny yourself, take up the cross, and follow the Lord.
He told us himself that if it had not been for that painful experience, he would not have been able later on to work together with so many fellow workers.
God was removing the sharp corners of his personality.
Vision, purpose, and ability are of little value if one is not bearing the cross of Christ.
It was during that time also that God began to give him the vision of the purpose of God.
You know, between 1921 and 1923, these young people went out and held gospel meetings and evangelistic meetings in many places. Their burden was to win souls for Christ, and that was all.
But then the Lord began to show our brother that there was something more to it. It was not just trying to save souls. It was to gather these saved people and build them together, because what God desires is the Body of Christ.
He said:
As I studied the book of Acts, I saw that it is God’s wish to establish local churches in each city. It was as if a light shone upon me clearly, and I understood His purpose.
I will skip over something because of time.
In 1926, while he was working in South China, a doctor told him that he had a disease. He fell ill, and the doctor examined him and told him that probably he had only a few more months to live.
He said, “I am not afraid to die, but I could not help thinking: Oh, that which God has taught me—it does not seem right to me that these lessons I have learned should go with me to the grave.”
So he felt he should write a book. He started to write, and that book is The Spiritual Man.
He wrote that book as he was able to, and finished it in June 1928. Now, that is a story in itself. I cannot go into it because of time.
After he finished that book, he felt that this was his last contribution to the church. So he said, “Lord, now Thy servant can depart in peace.”
He was so ill that he could not sleep at night. He was just a bag of bones. He perspired profusely at night. His voice became hoarse.
Some sisters tried to nurse him by turns, and one veteran nurse said, “I have never seen a person so sick. He might live three or four days.”
Now, Brother Nee knew that probably his end would come. He was not afraid to die, but he was inquiring of the Lord what the will of God was for him.
One day he felt that his end probably was approaching. So he fasted that day, from morning until three o’clock in the afternoon, praying, confessing his sins, and getting ready.
A few brothers and sisters came to his room to pray for him. He was listening to their prayers, hoping that perhaps some prayer might touch the throne.
One after another prayed. Those who were known as prayer warriors had prayed, but nothing happened. So he said, “That is the end.”
Then a sister began to pray and quoted Psalm 6:5:
For in death there is no remembrance of Thee:
In Sheol who shall give Thee thanks?
Immediately he knew that the Lord was going to heal him.
At last, they went across the lane to a sister’s home to continue to pray, because they knew that was the day. He looked up to the Lord and said, “Lord, give me faith.”
The Word of God came to him:
The righteous shall live by faith.
Romans 1:17
He said, “I could never forget that word. I knew I was healed.”
Then he felt that the Lord wanted him to get up. He had been in bed one hundred and seventy-six days without leaving the bed.
He took the clothes that he had not worn for so long, put them on, and tried to stand up. He said that when he stood up, he perspired and shook like a reed, as if he were stepping on cotton.
The Word of God came to him:
In faith ye stand fast.
2 Corinthians 1:24
Then he felt God wanted him to walk—walk down the stairs.
The Word of God came to him a third time:
For we walk by faith, not by sight.
2 Corinthians 5:7
He said that he went to the stairway, looked down, and had never seen a stairway so tall.
He said to God, “As You told me to walk, I will do so, even if I die as a result.”
Holding on to the railing, at every step he prayed, “O Lord, it is You who enable me to walk.”
On reaching the bottom of the stairs, his strength came back. He walked across the lane and knocked at the door where the sisters and some brothers were praying.
They opened the door. He went in. Seven or eight brothers and sisters were there. They sat there motionless and speechless for an hour.
So he told them his story. The following Sunday, he preached for three hours.
He was healed of tuberculosis instantaneously. He never had a problem with it afterward.
As a matter of fact, the radiologist, a German, who had taken his last picture, later refused to take any more pictures. He showed Brother Nee a picture of another person and said, “You look at these two pictures. Which is better?”
Of course, the other picture was better. The radiologist said that man died within a certain time. In other words, “Do not waste your money.”
After that radiologist died, Brother Nee went there and obtained some of the X-ray films to remember him.
It was during his sickness that God showed him the work God wanted him to do.
He said:
Before I became ill, I not only visited various places to conduct special meetings, but I also had a great ambition of writing a comprehensive and good commentary on the Bible. I intended to devote my time, my money, and my energy to writing a commentary composed perhaps of a hundred books.
But he said, “After I wrote The Spiritual Man, I knew God did not want me to do that.”
God made it known to me that the primary purpose of His imparting messages to me was to lay stress on the living way of life, to assist God’s children in their spiritual life and walk.
That is the first thing.
The second thing he felt was that God wanted him to conduct what he called overcoming conferences. So, year after year, he held these conferences, and people came from all over the country and were helped.
Third, he felt God wanted him to build up local assemblies. Fourth, to train young people.
Starting from the year 1928, the Spirit of God began to move in China, in many parts of China, especially along the coast.
Many of God’s people began to catch the same vision that had been given to Brother Nee. So many assemblies sprang up all over the coast.
It was not all the labor of Watchman Nee. Many were raised up, some without any knowledge of one another. It was after several years that we met one another and found that God was showing us the same thing.
So they grew very rapidly in the early thirties.
But in 1935, Brother Nee felt there was dryness in his spirit.
Now, by the way, at that time he was married. He was married to the same person that he had given up years ago. God saved that lady.
That lady went to Peking, studied at Yenching University, and received her master’s degree. She was the queen of the university. But later on she got saved and changed. So their friendship was renewed, and they got married.
But in 1935, he felt that there was dryness in his spirit, so he wanted to seek help.
He felt that he would like to go to England to see Mr. T. Austin-Sparks, to receive help from this brother. He had never met that brother before, but he had read some of his early writings, and he felt that that brother could help him.
Before he went to London, he went to North China, to Chefoo, at the invitation of Dr. and Mrs. M. E. Barber. Some of you may know them. They loved the Lord.
While he was there, he met another missionary, a China Inland Mission missionary, Miss Elizabeth Fischbacher.
This sister knew the Lord very deeply and had experience of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. They were together for a few days. They had sweet fellowship together, prayed together, and Brother Nee felt that his spirit was refreshed.
One day, while he was praying alone in his room, the Spirit of God came upon him.
Instead of going to England, he returned to Shanghai. He gathered a few workers together. That was the year I joined him.
We were together every morning for a week, searching the Scriptures and praying together.
After that, we began to present this to the church.