In Memory of Our Brother, Watchman Nee

2010-06-12 RW

I always shake my head and think it’s really unworthy whenever I read about Bro. Nee’s decision to return to China in 1950. How does he, an outstanding person choose a narrowest way ?

I read the below statement last year before I was a little bit enlightened in my dark mind. Yes, he paid all he had, that is, the highest price, because He is altogether lovely and worthy of his offering.

Such a price includes his freedom,

He would have been released during the long imprisonment if he had denied his belief.

his love,

His wife died at the end of his confinement. He showed his deep sorrow by “internal organs hurt”in his letter.

and eventually his life.

At his departure, no relative was with him. No one knew the cause of his death. Humanly speaking, it’s a despising and humiliating way to die.

And while He was in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as He reclined at table, a woman came, having an alabaster flask of ointment, of very costly pure nard, and she broke the alabaster flask and poured it over His head.

Gospel of Mark 14: 3-6

But there were some who were indignantly commenting among themselves: Why has this waste of the ointment been made?

For this ointment could have been sold for over three hundred denarii and given to the poor. And they were infuriated with her.

But Jesus said, Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a noble deed on Me.

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., delivered a tribute this week to the late Watchman Nee, a Chinese citizen who is widely considered one of that country's most prominent Christian evangelists. Smith, ranking member of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, made the following statement to his colleagues in Congress on Thursday, July 30:

〝 Christianity Today magazine recently honored Watchman Nee as one of the 100 most influential Christians of the twentieth century. Watchman Nee died over thirty years ago but his life and work continue to influence millions of Protestant Christians in China. Today more than three thousand churches outside of China, including several hundred in the United States, look to him as one of their religious and theological leaders.

〝 Madam Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge the immense spiritual achievement of Watchman Nee, a great pioneer of Christianity in China.

〝 Watchman Nee was an astonishingly devoted and energetic man, which I think can be seen from a capsule summary of his life. He became a Christian in 1922. In the 1930s, he traveled to Europe and North America, where he delivered sermons and speeches. Later his sermons were collected and published as books. By the late 1940s, Nee had become the most influential Chinese Christian writer, evangelist, and church builder. In 1952, the Chinese government imprisoned Nee and many other Christian leaders for their faith. Nee was never released, though during the 1960s and 1970s several of his books continued to grow in influence and popularity, particularly in the United States, and his best-known book, The Normal Christian Life, sold over one million copies world-wide and became a twentieth-century Christian classic. In 1972 he died at the age of 71 in a labor farm; his few surviving letters confirm that he remained faithful to God until the end.

〝 Madam Speaker, it is estimated that China has more than one hundred million Christians, and millions of them consider themselves the spiritual heirs of Watchman Nee. Millions more are rightly proud of the contribution Watchman Nee made to global Christianity -- he was the first Chinese Christian to exercise an influence on Western Christians -- and indeed of his contribution to world spiritual culture. It is sad that the works of Watchman Nee are officially banned in China --even as they are being discovered afresh by a new generation of Western Christians. It is my hope that Watchman Nee‘s collected works can be freely published and distributed within China.

〝 After Watchman Nee's death, when his niece came to collect his few possessions, she was given a scrap of paper that a guard had found by his bed. What was written on that scrap may serve as Watchman Nee‘s testament: Christ is the Son of God Who died for the redemption of sinners and was resurrected after three days. This is the greatest truth in the universe. I die because of my belief in Christ. Watchman Nee 〞

Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying to this gifts; and through faith, though he has died, he still speaks.

John 12:24

Hebrews 11:4

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/k8UQOuCFBpA/倪弟兄早年生平

Watchman Nee: A Seer of the Divine Revelation in the Present Agehttp://www.ministrybooks.org/books.cfm?id=%22%25%2AL%20%0A

Reference:

http://video.sina.com.cn/v/b/25529809-1656475295.html倪柝聲 － 今時代神聖啟示的先見http://video.sina.com.cn/v/b/33125995-1654638477.html倪柝聲記念專輯