Well, you may wonder why I am here. I was asked to come to the young people’s conference. I would like to come, but as I have said in the past, I am not a speaker. I am a fellowshipper. I love fellowship.
Now, what is fellowship? I think this question has been asked several times in the past. Well, fellowship is sharing in common. There is something in common, and we share with one another our joy, maybe our hope.
Now, you may wonder, what is it that you and I have in common? Age-wise, we are far apart. I was born at the beginning of the century, and most of you were born toward the end of the last century. I was brought up in the old country, and you may feel that I am old-fashioned. I consider you as modern men and women.
So, there is really nothing in common. How can we fellowship? Now, thank God, there is something we have in common. As a matter of fact, it is Someone that we have in common. You have the Lord Jesus, and thank God, I have Him too. You love Him, and by the grace of God, I love Him too.
This transcends all our differences. It concerns the difference in our age, the difference in our upbringing, race, language, culture—whatever it may be. Because in Christ Jesus, we are one.
There is much that we can share with one another. You know, fellowship is sharing Christ. You share with me the Christ that you know, and I share with you the Christ that I know. By sharing Christ with one another, our joy will be full.
I think there is almost nothing on this earth that will give us greater joy than fellowship in Christ Jesus.
The aged John wrote in 1 John 1:3:
That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also,
that ye also may have fellowship with us:
yea, and our fellowship is with the Father,
and with His Son Jesus Christ.
John had fellowship with God. He had fellowship with Jesus Christ. What he had received, he shared with us, that we might have fellowship with him, and he might have fellowship with us. In doing that, our joy is full.
Now, our two brothers have shared with us, in the past and also this evening, four people in the Old Testament: Joshua, Samuel, David, and, hopefully, Daniel.
Our brothers shared with us these four people not primarily because they wanted us to know these people. I think they shared them with us that we might see Christ in their lives. We may see God’s purpose in their lives, and we may see God’s grace upon them.
At the same time, of course, we also see how they responded to the grace of God. Because of that, God made them vessels of gold and silver, vessels of honor in His house.
Now, in 2 Timothy 2:19, our brother has mentioned many times:
Howbeit the firm foundation of God standeth, having this seal,
The Lord knoweth them that are His:
and, Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness.
This is a very, very important verse. On the one hand, it tells us that there is a sure, firm foundation of God. He knows who are His.
In other words, whom He foreknew, He called; and whom He called, He justified; and whom He justified, He glorified. God knows who are His. God knows you.
Even before you were born, even before the foundation of the world, God knew you. Because He knows you, He calls you. Having called you, He will justify you; and not only that, He will glorify you.
So God has a purpose for every one of us. Or, to put it another way, God wants every one of us to be a vessel of gold, a vessel of grace, a vessel of mercy. That is God’s purpose.
Dear brothers and sisters, I want to assure you that, so far as God is concerned, God knows you. He has called you, and He has purposed you to be a vessel of honor in His house.
It is not God’s will that He should want you to be a vessel of dishonor, just as a vessel of wood. That is not God’s purpose for you. God’s purpose for you, in knowing you, in calling you, and in justifying you, is to glorify you, that you may be vessels of honor in His house.
Now, that is God’s side. But on our side, He says, “Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness.” In other words, on our part, we have a responsibility.
God has chosen every one of us to be vessels of honor. But on our part, we have a responsibility: How do we respond to His purpose? How do we respond to His call? How do we respond to His grace?
His grace is sufficient to make us all vessels of honor in His house. There is no question about it. But the problem is our attitude toward His call and our attitude toward His grace: whether we will accept His grace and allow Him to work in our lives.
Whether we are willing to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit in departing from iniquity, purifying ourselves, and separating ourselves for God—that is up to each one of us.
So, dear brothers and sisters, we do have a responsibility. I use the word we because I believe most of you—if not all. I hope it is all. I pray that it may be all—that we do respond to His call, accept His grace, and become vessels of honor in His house.
Our two brothers used these four people to illustrate, on God’s side, what God’s purpose is; and on our side, if we respond to His grace, what He can make of us.
But probably some of you will feel, “Well, these are people in the Old Testament. They lived thousands of years ago.” Joshua probably lived fifteen hundred years before Christ. David and Samuel lived around one thousand years before Christ, and Daniel probably six hundred years before Christ. So they are thousands of years apart from us.
Maybe God could do such things in those days, but can God do something now? Will He do the same thing today?
Perhaps you may say, “These people were Jews. They were God’s chosen people. Therefore, you find such things happening in their lives. But we are Gentiles—Chinese, Canadians, Brazilians, French. Will God do the same thing for us, even for us?”
So, this afternoon, I feel I would like to illustrate God’s call, purpose, and grace by a more modern person, a person we can relate to. Of course, I cannot illustrate someone in the twentieth century, because he would be only one year old. So I have to illustrate with one who has already passed on.
He was Chinese, and he was born at the beginning of the century. His name was Watchman Nee. I wonder whether you have heard of him.
Because I personally knew him, I feel that I would like to use his life to illustrate what our two brothers have been telling us: to show that God is able to do just the same thing and make us vessels of honor in His house.
Watchman Nee was born in 1903. He was born into a nominal Christian family. Do you know what a nominal Christian family means? In other words, they are called Christians; they are members of a Christian church; but it is only the name.
They did not really have any living relationship with God, no living relationship with Jesus Christ, and yet they called themselves Christians. So when our brother was born, he was born into a nominal Christian home.
His mother, when she was in school, had some real contact with real Christians, but Christianity was only a passing thing to her.
She had given birth to two girls. You know, in China, in the old days, we wanted boys. In their family, they had a relative who had given birth to, I think, seven girls. So the mother was rather alarmed. She was afraid that she too would continue to give birth to girls and have no boys.
Because she had some idea of Christianity, she prayed. She asked God to give her a boy. She even promised God, “If You give me a boy, I will give him back to You,” just like Hannah with Samuel.
Sure enough, God answered her prayer. You know, sometimes God answers the prayers of people who are not His, because our God is so great. So a boy was born, and that was our brother, Watchman Nee.
He was brought up not in a real Christian way. They went to church on Sunday, but other than that, there was almost nothing in the family. Even though he had this so-called Christian connection, he was just like other non-Christian people.
He was educated at Trinity College in Foochow. It was a college run by the Episcopal Church from Dublin, and all the teachers were missionaries. It was a college according to the English system, rather like a community college in America.
Our brother despised preachers. In those days, the Chinese teachers were employed by missionaries, and the missionaries gave them only their living. They had to listen to the missionaries in everything. So many Chinese looked down upon preachers because they thought they did such work merely for a bare living.
Brother Nee’s mother, even though she was a nominal Christian, actually had nothing of the Lord in her. She was a very strong woman. I knew her very well because she treated me as her own child, and she was very strict.
As a matter of fact, she joined the Chinese Revolution, and her husband got his position because of her. You can see what a strong character she was. Like other women in the old days, she liked to play mahjong. Sometimes the pastor would come to her home asking for money, and she would take money from the mahjong table and give it to the pastor. That was the extent of it.
Our brother was very brilliant. He already had his future planned out—what he wanted to do.
But then, in 1920, when our brother was seventeen years old, a lady evangelist came to that city. Her name was Dr. Dora Yu. She was a medical doctor, and she devoted her life to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Mother Nee, when she was studying in Shanghai, had heard Dr. Yu and had been greatly impressed by her. So when Dr. Yu came to Foochow, Mother Nee felt that, knowing her in the past, she had a responsibility to go and hear her.
She invited her mahjong friends to hear Dr. Yu, and she went there herself. She was convicted. One day, while she was playing mahjong with her friends, she said, “I cannot do it anymore. I have to go and hear her.” She went, and she got soundly saved.
After she was saved, she felt that she should begin family devotions. One day, she gathered the family together and tried to start the devotion. She went to the piano, trying to play something to begin it.
But as she sat down to play, she was deeply convicted that she must ask her son’s forgiveness. The Holy Spirit convicted her.
Brother Nee was the oldest son. Because two sisters had preceded him, and because boys are perhaps more naughty than girls, he was the one disciplined most in the family. Sometimes his sisters would pity him and try to take the blame upon themselves to keep him from being disciplined.
But one time, a very precious dish was broken, and Mother Nee thought it must have been Watchman. Because of that, Watchman hated his mother.
When the Holy Spirit convicted Mother Nee, He said, “You cannot start your family devotions unless you first ask your son’s forgiveness.” In China, this was never done. We were brought up with the concept that our parents are always right. Our parents never apologize to us.
Even if they did something seriously wrong, they never apologized, because they felt they had the right to do it. So in China, this was never done. But the Holy Spirit convicted Mother Nee. She got up, went over to Watchman, and asked his forgiveness.
That deeply touched Watchman’s heart because it was never done in China. So when he was invited to hear Dr. Yu, he felt that he should go. “Whoever can change my mother is worth hearing.”
So he went. The first time he heard the gospel, he knew that he must be saved. There was no question—this was the truth. But he could not come.
Why? Because he had all his plans for the future. To him, he felt that he could not just accept Jesus as his Savior. At the same time, he felt he had to surrender his life to Jesus as his Lord, and he could not do it.
He knew he was a sinner. He knew he needed a Savior. He knew Jesus was ready to save him. But he could not accept it, because he felt that, at the same time, he had to yield his life to Jesus and take Him as his Lord.
He struggled over this for days, until one day he was in his own room praying. He told us that he saw the blackness of his sins and, at the same time, the redness of the blood of Jesus. He was so touched by the love of Christ that he yielded himself to the Lord.
So, on the day he was saved, at seventeen years old, he not only accepted the Lord Jesus as his Savior; he also received Jesus as the Lord of his life.
Dear brothers and sisters, thank God you have decided to consecrate your lives to the Lord. This is the right thing to do. It is something you should do. This is the minimum; this is the basic; this is the first thing.
Receiving the Lord as our Savior and accepting Him as our Lord go together. A believer and a disciple go hand in hand. You cannot just be a believer and not a disciple of the Lord.
Thank God, consecration is the first Christian experience. If you have not consecrated your life to the Lord, who loved you and gave His life for you, you may be saved, but you have not started your Christian life.
Consecration is the first Christian experience. Thank God you have done it, and you should do it.
Consecration is giving yourself totally to the One who loved you and gave Himself to you totally. Consecration is accepting Him as your Lord. Instead of being master of your own life, you give up your rights to Him and take Him as your Master, as your Lord, allowing Him to lead you in the life ahead.
Consecration is allowing Him to work out His purpose in you, allowing His grace to make you a vessel of honor. That is consecration.
Consecration is not something you do once in a lifetime. No. What you did last night is the beginning. It is like entering through a door. Now there is a way of consecration ahead—a whole consecrated life ahead of you.
It is a life dedicated to God, a life given over to God, allowing the Lord to work out His full salvation, to make you vessels of gold and silver, fit for the Master’s use.
So, dear brothers and sisters, a life is ahead of you—a consecrated life, a life separated from everything unto God.
How we need to renew our consecration. It is like the daily burnt offering: one lamb in the morning and another in the evening. The fire on the altar of the burnt offering never goes out. It is there day and night continuously. That is consecration.
Especially when we come to a crisis in life, whenever there is a crisis in your life, please dedicate yourself. Reconsecrate yourself to the Lord. Deepen your consecration.
When the Lord opens new territory, a new area, a new understanding, consecrate more—more and more. Consecration is the first Christian experience, and it is the last one too. It is the most basic one, and it is also the highest.
So, dear brothers and sisters, thank God you have now begun. There is a way ahead of you. Just look unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of faith, and He will lead you all the way.
After he had consecrated himself to the Lord, accepting Jesus as his Savior and Lord, a change began to come upon him. He wanted to know the Lord more. He wanted to know the Bible more. Oh, he loved the Bible.
After he was saved, he began to read the Bible. He brought his Bible to school. There is something I do not advise you to copy him in: even in class, he read the Bible. Now, do not do that.
Within a very short time, he had read the New Testament—all the New Testament. He just devoured the Word of God. He had such a memory.
During that time, there was some political turmoil in China, and the school was closed. So he went to Shanghai. Dr. Yu had a kind of informal private school where people could live and study the Bible. Watchman went to Dr. Yu because he wanted to know more of the Bible.
But after a short time, Dr. Yu told him that it was not convenient for him to stay there and asked him to go home. The reason was that our brother loved to eat, loved to sleep late, and loved to dress well. When he was with Dr. Yu, he was not a disciplined person.
So he went back home. When the school reopened, he went back to school and continued to read the Word of God. He would talk to fellow students and preach the gospel to them.
After some time, he met a missionary girl. I knew her. The missionary asked him, “Since you believe in the Lord Jesus, how many people have you led to the Lord?”
He said, “I have done my duty, but they just do not believe. That is not my responsibility.”
The girl said, “Did you pray for them before you preached to them?”
“Never.”
“Well,” she said, “you had better pray for them. You should pray for them before you preach to them.”
So Watchman began to pray for his fellow students. He put their names in his notebook and prayed for them everywhere—in class and at home. Gradually, one after another, the Lord began to work.
In January 1923, some fellow students invited a lady to come. Dr. Yu could not come, so they invited Ruth Lee. I knew her very well. She was a very learned woman, and she had been an atheist, but then she turned to Christ.
At that time, she was editor of a very famous Christian magazine in China. They invited her to their school to preach to the students. She came for just a few days, and revival broke out. They could not stop; the meetings continued.
It was such a revival that they had to tell people, “If you want to come to hear the gospel, you have to bring your own chairs,” because they did not have enough chairs.
Revival broke out in the school. The best students in every class and the worst students in every class got saved. You can see the impression it made.
When you went to school early in the morning, you would find students in the yard, under the trees, reading the Bible and praying. They went into the streets with posters on their backs and fronts, preaching the gospel to the people. Revival broke out in the city.
During that time, our brother was reading the Bible, and he discovered something. He discovered that there were things in the Word of God that were not practiced among Christians—at least among those he knew.
There were also many things not in the Bible that were being practiced in Christianity. He struggled over this matter.
The first thing was the practice of sprinkling. When I was a baby, I was sprinkled. But when our brother was reading the Bible, he felt that he must follow whatever the Word of God says. If it was in the Bible, he would do it. If it was not in the Bible, he would not do it.
As he read the Bible, the Lord began to convict him that he needed to be baptized by immersion. He felt that this was the only way mentioned in the Word of God to enact being dead with Christ and risen with Christ.
So this matter began to trouble him. He felt that, as a believer, as one who had accepted Jesus as his Lord, he had to follow the Lord strictly all the way.
One day he talked to a friend and discovered that his friend had also been baptized by immersion. So he told his mother he was going to a certain place where an English lady, Miss Margaret Barber, lived.
Miss Barber knew the Lord very well. When revival was breaking out among the young people, she was the one who really helped them spiritually. They went to her for help.
One day, Brother Nee said he was going to Miss Barber’s place. His mother said, “This is not a weekend. Why do you want to go there?” He said, “I want to be baptized.” His mother said, “I will go too.” So they all went there and were baptized.
After he was baptized, Brother Nee talked again with his friend, a little older than he was. He said, “From the Word of God, we who love the Lord should remember the Lord by breaking bread.”
But this was something that was hardly done. In some churches it was once a month; in other places, perhaps twice a year. He said that, according to the Word of God, it should be very simple: “You should come together, just break bread, and remember the Lord.”
So this friend, his wife, and Watchman Nee began to break bread together. The first time, I think there were three of them. As they broke bread, they truly felt the presence of the Lord and were touched by Him. That was how it all began in those days.
Well, I have fifteen minutes more, so I will try to finish. I just want to tell you something more about this brother—his obedience to the Lord.
One day, he was going to preach, and he chose a verse in Psalm 73:25:
Whom have I in heaven but Thee?
And there is none upon earth that I desire besides Thee.
He was going to preach on this verse, but then he was convicted. He said, “Yes, I can say, ‘Whom have I in heaven but Thee?’ I can say that. But to say, ‘There is none upon earth that I desire besides Thee’—I cannot say that.”
Why? Because at that time, he loved a girl. There was a girl named Charity. They grew up together. They were neighbors and grew up together, and they loved each other.
After he was saved, he tried to approach Charity and teach Christ and the gospel to her, but he could talk about anything with her except the gospel. She would not listen. She would not believe.
He loved her very much. So when he was going to preach on this verse, he said, “I cannot say that,” because in his heart, he really loved her. He struggled over this matter.
God would not let him go. He promised the Lord, “Lord, if You just allow me to have Charity, I will serve You. I am willing to go to a far country, to a far place, to preach the gospel.”
You know, the Lord will not bargain with us.
One day, he was in his room praying. Again, he was constrained. He gave up Charity.
He told us that after he had done that, he changed his clothes. He liked to wear good clothes, but he put on old clothes and went out into the street with posters. That was his way of saying goodbye to Charity.
Thank God, many years later—well, anyway, you find that this young man’s obedience to the Lord was absolute.
So, dear brothers and sisters, you have consecrated yourselves to the Lord. Along your life, you will be challenged. You will be tested. God will touch you in some matter, perhaps some relationship, that needs to be dealt with so that the Lord will truly be Lord of your life.
When such things happen, may the grace of God enable you to yield.
Finally, I would just like to mention something. Brother Nee, after he graduated, found a job. He began to serve the Lord, and he served the Lord so diligently that he hurt his physical body. He developed tuberculosis.
It was so bad that he was in bed for hundreds of days. He could not get out of bed. The doctor gave him up, and the nurse assisting him in the morning said she had never seen such a case. He was dying.
Before that, he met his professor on the street. His professor looked him all over and said, “We had great expectations of you. But look at yourself now. What a pity.”
Brother Nee was sick. His father was very poor and destitute. Of course, being human, he felt the pain. But immediately the Spirit of God spoke to him and corrected him.
When he was dying, the brothers and sisters were praying for him. One day, while he was in bed, he prayed, asking the Lord, and the Word of God came to him:
The righteous shall live by faith.
Immediately, he felt the power of that word: “Live by faith.” So he believed that he would live; he would not die.
Then he felt within him, “Stand up.” He said, “Lord, I have not gotten out of bed for hundreds of days. I cannot do it.” But the word was powerful within him: “Stand up.”
So he put on his clothes and tried to stand up. When he stood up, he felt as though he were standing on cotton. His legs were very weak.
Then he felt, “Walk.” He said, “Lord, I cannot.” But the word was powerful, so he walked. He was on the second floor, and in China the stairways were very steep. He looked down the stairway and said, “How can I go down the stairs?”
But the word remained. He walked down the stairway and crossed the lane to the home of the brothers and sisters who had been praying for him. He knocked on the door. They opened it, and there he was.
For an hour, nobody spoke. They were so amazed. He said, “What have I done for you? I have taken a case that was almost dead.” Afterwards, tuberculosis was no longer a problem to him.
Brothers and sisters, God is faithful.
God is able to do something like that to a country boy, compared with you, in our modern days. Surely, He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is able to do it with every one of us, even though differently, but all to make us vessels of gold and silver.
So, brothers and sisters, we have many witnesses as a cloud around us. They have already gone before us, and they are encouraging us to go on.
Looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith.