Well, this is a time for fellowship. I hope, brothers and sisters, that you do not feel that we are in a formal meeting. Do not consider me too old; it is actually my second childhood, so I am one with all of you.
Feel free to share with one another whatever may be on your heart—whether there is something you want to share that may benefit us all, or whether there is some question that has bothered you before the Lord and you would like the opportunity to ask it.
I do not pretend that I will answer every question. But I do thank the Lord that our Lord Jesus is the answer to all questions. So we will seek the Lord together, let Him answer us, and find that surely He is the answer to all our problems.
Question: During this morning, you spoke about watching movies. I understand that perhaps most of the young people here still watch movies. What is your real point about that?
It is true that among God’s people today, we find great freedom, as it were, in our daily life and in our walk with the Lord.
In my time, when I was a young man, going to the theater and seeing movies was not considered something that a Christian should do. Today, the idea about these things is becoming more and more lenient. But when I was young, generally among God’s people, we felt that we should be separated from the world.
This is not something by which we try to create a law among God’s people. It is something up to the Lord—whether He wants to deal with us in this matter.
What is behind this is a principle: we are separated from the world unto the Lord. The interpretation of what the world is varies with different people. As you go on with the Lord, your understanding of what the world is will begin to change.
In this matter of seeing movies in theaters, some people do not feel that there is anything wrong with it. If the Holy Spirit has not raised this question with you, and you are not addicted to it, then, as the Bible says, all things are lawful—but we do not allow anything to have control over us.
When I was young, I was addicted to movies. It was more than just amusement to me; I felt that it was almost my life. I loved it, and I went to movies often. Even in Christian circles, I dared not go on Sunday.
To me, it was a habit that really interfered with my spiritual growth and my life with the Lord. Because of this, the Lord dealt with me.
So, in this matter of seeing a movie, I would not tell God’s people, “You should not go,” or, “You should go.” This is not a matter of law. It is a matter of your relationship with the Lord.
As you seek the Lord, He will begin to reveal to you what the world means. If a movie becomes a world to you, then it is something that you have to deal with before the Lord. If it takes you away from the Lord instead of helping you toward the Lord, then it is a problem in your life.
The Holy Spirit will touch your conscience. If the Holy Spirit has touched your conscience on this matter, then it is something you have to deal with with the Lord. If you do not, it will interfere with your spiritual growth and become a hindrance to your life with the Lord.
The principle is this: if we make friends with the world, we become enemies of God. That is quite a biblical statement. In the Bible, you can see the principle, but how that principle is applied is up to the Holy Spirit. We are all living persons, and the Holy Spirit deals with each living person in a living way.
If something becomes a problem to your spiritual life, the Holy Spirit will raise this question with you. When He has raised the question, it is something you have to do something about, because you are at a juncture: whether you will really go on with the Lord or go the other way.
So I would not say to young people that they should not go to movies. I would not say that. As a matter of fact, I never say that.
All I do is remind us that we, as God’s people, have been separated unto Himself. There is the world, but the cross stands between the world and me.
As Paul says in Galatians 6, when the world looks at me, I am crucified to the world; and when I look at the world, the world is crucified to me. So there is no friendship with the world. Our friendship is with God.
We who are redeemed by His precious blood and separated from the world unto Himself are called to live a holy life. In Scripture, holy simply means separated unto God.
Are we separated unto God? In John 17, in the prayer of our Lord Jesus, He said that we are in the world, but not of the world. That is our position. We are still in the world; we have to live and have contact with people. But we are not of the world. We will not go the way of the world.
We are a separated people unto God, and that is what holiness means. I use movies as an illustration, not as a law imposed upon young people.
When the Spirit of God began to touch me on this matter, He questioned me. In going to theaters, I was supporting people who were ungodly. The Lord questioned me: “Are you going to continue to support those movie stars—ungodly people? Is this the way you should live?”
My answer was, “I should not do that.” But because I liked movies so much, I continued. Yet God would not let me go.
After my last visit to the theater, the Lord cut it off. Thank God, after it was cut off, I did not feel that I had lost anything.
I had an aunt who had returned from America and was the principal of a normal school. One day she said, “Why do you not go to movies? You are a young man. If you do not go to movies, it is so lifeless. If it is money you need, I will give you money. Go ahead and enjoy yourself.”
Because she was my aunt, I dared not speak too strictly with her. But in my heart I said, “You do not understand. I have not lost anything. I do not feel that because I do not go to the theater, I have lost anything.”
I have my life with the Lord, and He has more than compensated for me. I do not want to go. That is my human feeling. Thank God, it is grace; it is not law.
It is not merely a matter of movies. I use that as an illustration because it happened to me. It can be something else.
For instance, if you have read The Normal Christian Life, you may remember an illustration there. A brother went to Kuling Mountain in China because of his health. It was a resort place where missionaries had homes and spent the summer.
This brother stayed with a Chinese family. The man of the family was an electrician and the only electrician on Kuling Mountain. During his stay, the brother preached the gospel to him, and the man was saved.
When summer was over, the brother left. Winter on the mountain was very cold. This newly saved brother had a habit of drinking wine, and every time he drank, he got drunk.
When winter came and the weather grew cold, his wife warmed some wine for supper. In China, wine was often warmed and taken with food. Before they ate, the brother said, “Let us pray.”
As he began to pray, he suddenly stopped and looked at his wife. He asked, “Can a Christian drink?”
His wife said, “I do not know.” So he said, “Get the Book.” Brother Nee had left them with a Bible. They tried to find out whether the Bible said that Christians could drink wine or could not drink wine.
They had not read the Bible through, so they did not know where to find such a passage. Thank God they did not find the passage that says:
Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities.
—1 Timothy 5:23
The wife said, “Go ahead and drink it. Next summer, when Mr. Nee comes, we will ask him whether a Christian should drink.” That sounded reasonable.
So the brother said, “Let us pray again.” But when he started to pray, he stopped again. “Can a Christian drink?” He could not continue in his prayer. After this happened a few times, he said, “Take the wine away.”
The next summer, Brother Nee went to the mountain. The man asked him, “Can a Christian drink?” Brother Nee asked why he was asking, and the man told him the story.
Brother Nee asked, “Did you drink?” The man said, “No.” “Why did you not do it?” He replied, “Because my boss within me would not allow me.”
He did not even know the name of the Holy Spirit. He simply called Him “the boss within me.” But the Holy Spirit had touched his conscience.
The Lord would not allow him to drink because he became drunk every time. The Word of God says:
And be not drunken with wine, wherein is riot, but be filled with the Spirit.
—Ephesians 5:18
For that brother, the old habit had to be dealt with. With me, drinking was no problem. I had never drunk. Once on an airplane, I did not know that something was champagne; I drank a little, and my face became very red. That was not a spiritual problem for me, but a physical one.
But with some people, you find old habits that the Holy Spirit will deal with, so that new habits may be cultivated. Christians should have new habits.
You should cultivate the habit of studying the Bible. It should become a new habit. It is not that you read ten chapters one day and then do not read for ten days. No, you should have the habit of reading every day.
Christians should develop new habits, and old habits should be put away. That is the way we grow spiritually.
Brothers and sisters, young people, do you think there is nothing in your past that the Holy Spirit has to deal with? Are you so holy and so pure that there is absolutely nothing the Holy Spirit needs to deal with? Think of that.
I feel that among young people today, because of a lack of real, intimate life with the Lord, it seems as if they can go free without any touch of the Holy Spirit upon their conscience.
If you will allow me to say one thing, this is very heavy on my heart. I have been praying for several years, asking the Lord to raise up a new generation to carry on the torch of the testimony of Jesus.
In my generation, thank God, when we were young, the Lord touched us. But today, I travel to many places around the world, and one thing has become very rare.
You very rarely find young people in their late teens or early twenties who are really apprehended by the Lord and have such a heart for Him. It has become a rarity. In my time, it was very common.
Today, when we look at young people who are already thirty, we say, “Well, they are too young.” In my time, twenty-year-olds were already in the field. The Lord called me when I was twenty.
Today, we are looking for a new generation: young people who have devoted themselves totally to the Lord, are willing to pay the cost, and will follow Him. We are praying for that.
Thank God, I have seen some, but it is a rarity. I pray that the Lord will apprehend every one of you. It is a blessing when you can be apprehended by the Lord while you are young, because you escape many sins and many temptations.
Question: In the New Testament, Timothy had Paul, and Mark had Barnabas. We see a similar pattern in the Old Testament with Joshua and Moses. Paul said, “Be imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ.” The problem for many young people today is finding someone to imitate. We still have to walk on and press on, but Paul is dead. Who do we imitate?
It is true that it is a great help when those who have gone before us give us such an example that we can imitate them as they imitate Christ. But one thing you have to remember: Paul did not say, “Imitate me,” full stop.
He said, “Imitate me, as I imitate Christ.” In other words, there is a perfect model before us—better than Paul, better than anybody else. Christ Himself is our role model. He is always there.
If, by the grace of God, He provides someone like Paul to help you imitate Christ, thank God for that. But if God does not provide such a person, it does not mean you cannot imitate Christ. You still can.
As a matter of fact, perhaps it is better. Look at Paul. Whom did he imitate? In his early days he was helped by Barnabas, but Paul went beyond Barnabas because he looked at Christ.
Paul said that he counted all things as loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus. It is good if we have older brothers and sisters whom we can imitate through to Christ, but if we do not have such people, it does not mean we cannot imitate Christ.
There is also a danger. If there is someone whom you can look up to, you may look to that person instead of looking through that person to Christ. If that person should fall, your faith may be scattered and shattered.
That is the danger. We as Christians must always look to Christ. Do not look to me. We can imitate what others have learned of Christ, but we do not imitate them merely as men.
If you follow man, one day you will fall. Paul said that some claimed, “I am of Paul,” and others, “I am of Apollos.” But Paul said, “No, I am just a servant. You follow Christ. Do not follow me.”
Among Christianity today, there is a great problem concerning discipleship. You remember Matthew 28. Our Lord Jesus said to go into the nations, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that He commanded.
That is the Great Commission. Christianity has misunderstood it for many centuries. Many have thought that the Great Commission is simply to go to the nations and evangelize. Evangelism is included, but the commission is fuller than that.
The command of the Lord is to go to the nations and disciple them—not only to get them saved, but to bring them into discipleship to Christ. That is the Great Commission.
Discipleship in the Bible follows the old way of discipling. It does not say, “Go to the nations and make them students.” Modern students and disciples are two different things.
You may be in college, or perhaps you have already finished college. You pay tuition, listen to lectures, and try to absorb all that your professors know. But you do not follow them. They give you mental knowledge, but they are not your masters who teach you how to live and how to be a man or a woman.
In the old days, there were no schools as we have today. How did one learn a trade? One became a disciple of a master.
If you wanted to learn carpentry, you found a master carpenter and made a contract with him. You had to leave home and stay with your master.
During the first year, he might not even allow you to touch a tool. What would you do? You served him as a servant. If he had children, you cared for them. When he ate, you filled his bowl with rice. In the house, you swept the floor.
For the first year, he would not allow you even to touch a carpentry tool. You might think it was a waste of time. No, that was the old way of discipleship.
Perhaps after a year, he would allow you to touch the tools and teach you a little. A few years later, you would become a master carpenter.
When you came out, you had not only learned the skill; you had learned the way the master lived. Often, you walked the way he walked. You spoke the way he spoke. Even your tone became like your master’s. That is discipleship.
That is what is meant in the Bible. We who believe in the Lord Jesus hear Him say, “Follow Me.” We leave everything and follow Him.
When the Lord began to preach, He saw Peter and his brother Andrew casting a net, for they were fishermen. The Lord said, “Come, follow Me.” They left everything and followed Him.
Then He went a little farther by the Sea of Galilee and saw James and John, the sons of Zebedee. They were mending their nets. The Lord said, “Come, follow Me.” They left the boat, left their family, and followed the Lord. That is discipleship.
Of course, today you may not need to do this physically, but spiritually, that is what you do.
Today, there is often a separation made between believers and disciples. But in the early days there was no such division. To be a believer was to be a disciple.
As a believer, you believe in Him as your Savior, and you receive the benefit. But at the same time, you recognize Him as your Lord and Master—and He receives you. These are one thing, not two things.
If you have read Against the Tide, which is the life story of Watchman Nee, you may remember how he was touched through his mother. His mother asked him to hear Dr. Dora Yu, who had led her to the Lord.
Brother Nee felt that whoever could change his mother was worth hearing. So he went. On the first night, he was convicted. He knew that Jesus was the Savior of the world. He knew he was a sinner. He knew that he should believe in the Lord Jesus. But he did not believe.
Why? Because he was a brilliant student. He had already planned his future, and he was a person who could have succeeded in any field.
He struggled for several days. He knew in his heart that if he believed in Jesus and accepted Him as Savior, he would have to surrender his life to Him and take Him as Lord. He could not do that. He wanted to be his own master and plan his own future.
But he knew that if he believed in the Lord Jesus, he had to let go of these things and let Jesus be his Lord. He struggled over this for a few days, until one day he was praying in his room.
I know this because I heard Brother Nee give this testimony in 1936. He said that while he was praying, God showed him the blackness of his sin and, at the same time, showed him the redness of the blood of Jesus.
He was so touched by the love of Christ in shedding His blood to wash away his sins. He was so constrained and touched that finally he yielded. He believed and surrendered his life to the Lord.
That was how he was saved. Because he was saved in this manner, the way of spiritual life became very clear.
Christian life does not begin merely at the time you believe in the Lord. Real Christian life begins when you accept Him as your Lord. That is where your real Christian life begins.
Before that, even though you are saved, you may still be living your own life. You cannot call that Christian life. Only after you have surrendered, consecrated yourself, and put yourself into the hands of the Lord does your real Christian life begin.
Christian life is Christ living His life in you. I hope you young brothers and sisters see that this is not something cheap or easy. It is something real, costly, but worthwhile.
That is discipleship. That is the beginning of discipleship. Why does He call for disciples? Because He wants to mold you and fashion you according to His image.
This is the Word of God: whom He has justified, He has sanctified; whom He has sanctified, He has glorified. That is the will of God. It is wonderful, amazing, beautiful, and glorious. That is what a Christian is.
That is why we are not ashamed to be Christians. It is so glorious. There is nothing better than the character He forms.
I can testify. I believed in the Lord Jesus when I was fifteen. Now I am ninety-four.
I served the Lord immediately after I was saved. In my last year of high school and through my college years, I served Him. After I graduated in 1935, I joined Brother Nee and served the Lord with him.
After all these years of serving the Lord, one thing I can say is this: I am an unworthy servant. He is so good. It is all by His grace. So thank God for it.
Question: How does one become so permanently apprehended by the Lord that one walks consistently with Him and serves Him with fire? How do you walk in the Spirit? How do you remain captivated by the Lord so that you are no longer wandering?
Thank God that the initiative comes from Him. If it depended upon us to initiate it, it would be very difficult.
When you read Song of Solomon, you find the first cry of the bride’s heart:
Draw me; we will run after thee.
—Song of Solomon 1:4
It is not that we run after Him in our own strength. It is that He draws us, that we may run after Him.
How can we really be apprehended by the Lord? It has to come from Him. Romans 12 says:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.
—Romans 12:1
We have to be constrained by the love of Christ. That is the power that enables us to run after Him. It does not come from us; it comes from Him.
But there is something for which we are responsible. The bride says, “Draw me, that I may run after Thee.” There is a heart for Him: “I want Him. I treasure Him. But I do not have the strength. You have to draw me, that I may truly run after You.”
If you have that kind of desire and confession—if you know that you are weak, yet you truly desire Him—He will do it. It really comes from God.
Perhaps I may say something about how I was saved. I was raised in a Christian family. My father was a pastor.
When my father believed in the Lord Jesus, it was during the Manchu dynasty. My grandfather felt that it was a disgrace to the family, because at that time so-called Christians were thought to receive help from foreign missionaries.
My grandfather had sent my father to a mission school so that he could learn English and help with his business. He was a contractor who did business with Westerners and helped build the first American school in Shanghai.
But my father was saved. When my grandfather discovered this, he took him out of school. Yet my father’s faith was real, and there were many prayers for him.
My grandfather decided to apprentice him out. A contract was signed, and the next morning my father was to be sent away from home to stay with a master.
That night, my grandfather, grandmother, and father could not sleep. Thank God, after midnight, my grandmother said, “Let him go back to school.”
My father finished mission school. When he wanted to study in college, my grandfather refused to support him. My father had to work eight years to earn his degree. He was the only graduate from Soochow University Theological Seminary that year.
Thank God, I was born into a Christian family. We had family altar every night. My father gathered all of us—we were seven brothers and sisters—before supper in the sitting room. He read from a large Bible, and we all knelt while he led us in prayer.
I was in mission schools from kindergarten onward. I knew the Bible, Bible stories, and everything. Before I was saved, I even preached and led Bible studies. But I was not saved.
The reason was that I knew Jesus was the Savior of the world, but I thought I was too good to need saving. I thought, “Let Him save other people. I do not need it.”
But thank God, the Spirit of God began to work in my life. The Gospel of John says that when the Holy Spirit comes, He will convict the world concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment.
The Holy Spirit began to work on me, convicting me of sin. From the world’s standpoint, I thought I was perfect. What could a student do, except perhaps a little cheating? Everybody was doing that.
But the Holy Spirit laid His hand upon me and touched my conscience. I came under such conviction that I felt there was nothing good in me from head to toe. I was such a sinner.
I began to seek the Lord. I knew the Bible, so I sought Him, but strangely, I could not find Him. For a whole year, I sought Him earnestly.
Whenever there was a revival meeting, or whenever famous preachers came to Shanghai, I was there. But nothing happened. I went to the altar a number of times and wept, but afterward, nothing changed. This continued for a whole year.
That summer there was a conference, and I decided to attend because I wanted to be saved. There were meetings in the morning, afternoon, and evening. The conference was conducted by three young men who had just graduated from Asbury College in Kentucky, along with a Chinese pastor.
A few days passed, but I received nothing. What they preached, I already knew. I could preach it myself. Yet it did not touch me. I saw other people being saved, but I was not.
One morning I was in my room, speaking to myself. I said, “God, why do other people get saved so easily? Why is it so difficult for me?”
Then I remembered the term “gospel-hardened.” I thought, “Perhaps I am gospel-hardened. I have heard too much.” So I told God, “If You want to save me, save me now. If not, goodbye. No more.”
That afternoon, Mr. Kirkpatrick spoke on John 3:16. I knew it so well, and nothing touched me. After he spoke, he asked everyone to kneel and pray. A Black pastor knelt beside me and asked me to go to the altar.
I had been to the altar many times and thought it was useless. But out of courtesy, I went. I knelt before the altar and wept, but afterward, nothing happened.
The meeting was over, and I began to walk out. There were hundreds of people there, but the Chinese pastor stopped me. He asked me bluntly, “Are you saved?”
I had to be honest. I said, “I want to be saved.” Everyone else left, and there were just the two of us.
He asked, “Do you believe the Bible is the Word of God?” From childhood, I had no problem with that. He opened the Bible to 1 John 1:9 and told me to read it.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
—1 John 1:9
He said, “Put your name in it and read it.” I read it twice. He said, “You confess, and God is righteous. God is faithful. He will forgive, and He will cleanse.”
Then he said, “Let us pray.” I knew how to pray, so I began to confess my sins according to the Word. Everything I could remember, I confessed one after another. Then I told the Lord, “There are many sins I have forgotten, but You know.”
While I was praying, something happened in my heart. I said, “Lord, I have done my part by confessing my sins. Now it is up to You. Are You faithful? Are You righteous? If You are faithful and righteous, You will forgive my sins and cleanse me from all unrighteousness.”
When I prayed with that kind of faith, suddenly my whole burden was gone. I had been under a heavy burden for a whole year, and it was lifted. I had such peace in my heart.
I stood up, and the pastor asked, “Are you saved?” I said, “I am.” He asked, “How do you know?” I said, “The burden is gone. There is peace in my heart.”
He said, “No.” He was very wise. But when he said no, inwardly I knew what he meant. I said, “Because God says so.”
He said, “That is right. Your faith must be based upon God’s Word, not upon your feeling. Your feeling may change, but God’s Word is eternal.”
That changed my whole life.
On the last day of the conference, there was what they called a consecration meeting. In those days, consecration was often understood as consecrating your life to become a preacher if you were a man, or a Bible woman if you were a woman. That was their idea of consecration.
I can still vividly see it. There was a huge map of China hanging on the platform. The preacher said, “Now the Lord has saved you. You must serve Him. Where do you want to go to serve Him? You can choose. Come up to the platform and point to whatever place on the map you will go.”
Think of it: I was fifteen years old, newly saved, and deeply touched by the grace of God. I told myself, “I must go to the farthest place, the most difficult place, to show my love for the Lord.”
So I marched up to the platform and put my finger on Mongolia. And I meant it.
During my last year in high school, I tried to obtain every book I could find on Mongolia. I tried to prepare myself for Mongolia. It was real to me.
By the grace of God, a few of us were saved at that time, and we organized meetings in the school. One-third of the student body came to our meetings. Many were saved. We went into the countryside to preach the gospel.
I was determined not to go to college. I thought it would be a waste of four years. I wanted to go to Bible school and prepare myself to go to Mongolia.
When I graduated, I told my father that I was not going to college and that I had chosen a Bible school. I thought he would certainly be glad, because he loved the Lord. But my father said no.
He said, “You go to college. There is no good Bible school in China. After you finish college, I will send you to America to study theology.” I was so disappointed. I thought my whole plan had been smashed.
So I entered a Methodist college where the professors were missionaries from America. When I arrived, I lived in the dormitory and immediately plunged myself into Christian activities.
But to my surprise, I began to see that something was wrong. These missionary professors did not believe the Bible as the Word of God. They did not even believe that Jesus was the Son of God. All they talked about were ethics, politics, social matters, and such things.
It was a great surprise to me. When I encountered that situation, I knew in my heart that I had to withdraw from all those Christian activities. I was very lonely.
There were three people in the same dormitory room, but I was desperate. I knew that my only lifeline was my personal life with the Lord. If that was not maintained, I was finished.
So I spent much time in my room, reading the Bible and praying. I did not care if students came in and out, talking loudly. I did not care, because I could not live without that life with the Lord.
As I did that, the Lord began to open my eyes to Watchman Nee. I had heard him before. I knew that what he said was good, but I was not ready. At that time, I began to read his writings, and they really touched my heart.
The Lord changed me completely. In my college, the Lord raised up a testimony for Himself. He does it.
People from not only my college but also other schools and hospitals began to come. We had meetings, but we were greatly persecuted—not by the world, but by Christian workers.
During the last two years of my college life, I was very close to the Lord. I was in prayer incessantly. Those were the best years. I was learning how to serve.
Because I was the youngest, I was the one who opened the door for people to come in. I welcomed people, cleaned the house, led prayer, played the organ, preached, sent them away, closed the door, and visited them. I was so busy, but humanly speaking, I was very happy.
Thank God, my father understood. When I finished school, Brother Nee asked me to join him. I felt that I was not ready. I wanted to stay where I was because a meeting had already been raised up, and I wanted more time to study the Word and learn.
But the Lord miraculously sent me away. That is why, after I graduated, I began to serve the Lord together with Brother Nee.
Not my way, but His way. His way was harder—much harder—but better, much, much better. Thank God, by the grace of God, I am still here. He is faithful.
Dear young brothers and sisters, if God can be so merciful to a person like me, I believe the Lord can do something far better in each of your lives.
May the Lord lay His hands upon you and raise you up to hold the torch of the testimony before He returns. His return is near. There is no time to waste.
My prayer for you is that the Lord may apprehend every one of you. Now, go ahead.
I think it is time to stop. I do not want to make the meeting too long, and I do not want the brothers to become too tired. Let us ask two or three brothers to lead us in prayer. Finally, may I ask Brother Alfred to give the last word?