Watchman Nee. He is the man who introduced me to the deeper Christian life.
I was a young man in college when one of my friends handed me The Normal Christian Life by Nee.
That book changed the course of my life forever.
Watchman Nee introduced me to a greater Christ, a profounder understanding of Scripture, and a deeper look at the gospel and Paul’s letter to the Romans.
I then began reading more of Nee’s book published by Christian Literature Crusade and Tyndale house.
(The very best of Nee’s work can be found here.)
In a 2010 blog post, I wrote about how Watchman Nee met T. Austin-Sparks.
It was through reading Nee that I discovered Sparks, who has been my greatest distant mentor.
As far as I’m concerned, Sparks had the greatest revelation of Jesus Christ since Paul of Tarsus, outshining Augustine, Calvin, Luther, Wesley, C.S. Lewis, and the rest.
Sparks also recovered the revelation of God’s Eternal Purpose, which is the central theme of my ministry.
I’m writing this post with the hopes that Christians in their 20s and early 30s will be exposed to the deeper Christian life through these men just as I was when I was at that age.
Regrettably, most Christians in their 20s and 30s today have been influenced by shallow contemporary ministries, and thus they have no hunger or thirst for the deeper things of God.
Perchance they will find this post and be stirred to go deeper. Because there really is more to the Christian life than what you have been given.
On this score, here is a new site completely dedicated to the deeper Christian life for 21st-century Christians who know there’s something more to the Christian faith. The Deeper Christian Life
Here’s a biography of Nee taken from BrotherWatchmanNee.com
Watchman Nee – 1903-1972
WATCHMAN NEE WAS born in 1903.
In 1920 at the age 17, Nee Shu-tsu (Watchman Nee) was saved while being a high school student.
He would later testify about the experience saying, “From the evening I was saved, I began to live a new life, for the life of the eternal God had entered into me.”
When he felt the Lord call him into His work, he adopted the English name Watchman and the Chinese name To-sheng, which means “the sound of a watchman’s rattle.” Nee saw himself as a watchman raised up to sound out a warning call in the night.
Like A.W. Tozer, Charles Spurgeon, and G. Campbell Morgan, Watchman Nee was autodidact (self-taught). Nee didn’t attend theological schools or Bible institutes. His rich knowledge of God’s eternal purpose, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the church were acquired through his intense study of Scripture, prayer, and reading the works of others. They also came from his experiences.
Nee was a student of Andrew Murray, Jean Guyon, John Bunyan, George Cutting, J.G. Bellett, Charles G. Trumbull, A.B. Simpson, T. Austin-Sparks, George Muller, Jessie Penn-Lewis, Mary McDonough, E.H. Broadbent, Robert Govett, and many others.
The core revelation Nee received involved the living of a crucified life and a resurrected life for the body of Christ and God’s eternal purpose.
He called living this life a normal Christian life.
Watchman Nee taught that believers have been crucified with Christ and that the normal Christian experience involves Christ living in us through our experience of bearing the cross in our practical human situations (Gal. 2:20).
Many of the experiences that informed Nee’s understanding of this truth are presented in his groundbreaking book, The Release of the Spirit.
Like Bonhoeffer, a contemporary of Nee’s, Watchman Nee saw that the church as the Body of Christ was simply the enlargement, expansion, and expression of the resurrected Christ.
Nee’s vision of the church as the Body of Christ in resurrection was advanced. His ministry concerning the crucified and resurrected Christ was a stewardship of grace that ministered the resurrected Christ into the believers for the building up of His Body.
His books The Glorious Church and The Normal Christian Church Life are classics.
Watchman Nee’s ministry was two-fold:
1) the deeper Christian life for all Christians about deepening the individual spiritual walk.
2) the life and practice of the church.
The first ministry of Nee’s is still popular today; the second is still controversial.
Nee wrote about his commission saying,
“What the Lord revealed to me was extremely clear: Before long He would raise up local churches in various parts of China. Whenever I closed my eyes, the vision of the birth of local churches appeared…
When the Lord called me to serve Him, the prime object was not for me to hold revival meetings so that people might hear more scriptural doctrines, nor for me to become a great evangelist. The Lord revealed to me that He wanted to build up local churches in other localities to manifest Himself, to bear testimony of unity on the ground of locality so that each saint might perform his duty in the church and live the church life. God wants not merely individual pursuit of victory or spirituality, but a corporate, glorious church presented to Himself.”
Nee suffered greatly due to his faithfulness, including rejection, opposition, slander, gossip, and condemnation.
But he was willing to pay the price for following the Lord, even to the point of the cost of his life. His profound revelation combined with his sufferings issued in a rich ministry of life.
Nee lived a life of suffering. The majority of his sufferings came from five sources: poverty, ill health, denominational opposition, dissenting brothers and sisters in the local churches, and imprisonment.
Nee was also frequently afflicted with serious illnesses, including tuberculosis and a chronic stomach disorder as well as angina pectoris, a serious heart ailment.
He was never cured of the heart disease; thus, his ministry was sustained by the resurrection life, not by his physical strength.
Like T. Austin-Sparks, his mentor, Nee was often criticized, slandered, and smeared by fellow “Christians.” He was also the frequent subject of false rumors, and the misrepresentations of his ministry were so strong that he once responded to them, saying, “The Watchman Nee portrayed by them I would also condemn.”
Following the takeover of China by the Communist party, Watchman Nee was arrested in 1952 for the sake of the gospel. He was falsely accused, condemned, judged, and sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment in 1956.
The story of Nee’s ending on this earth is tragic and heart-breaking. He died in confinement on May 30, 1972. He died in misery and humiliation. Not one relative or brother or sister in the Lord was with him. There was no proper notification of his death and no funeral. He was cremated on June 1, 1972.
Because Nee’s wife died six months earlier, her eldest sister was informed of Nee’s death and cremation. The following is a report from Watchman Nee’s grandniece, who accompanied Mrs. Nee’s sister to the labor farm to pick up his ashes:
“In June 1972, we got a notice from the labor farm that my granduncle had passed away. My eldest grandaunt and I rushed to the labor farm. But when we got there, we learned that he had already been cremated. We could only see his ashes. Before his departure, he left a piece of paper under his pillow, which had several lines of big words written in a shaking hand. He wanted to testify to the truth which he had even until his death, with his lifelong experience. That truth is—“Christ is the Son of God who died for the redemption of sinners and resurrected after three days. This is the greatest truth in the universe. I die because of my belief in Christ. Watchman Nee.” When the officer of the labor farm showed us this paper, I prayed that the Lord would let me quickly remember it by heart…”
My granduncle had passed away. He was faithful until death. With a crown stained with blood, he went to be with the Lord. Although God did not fulfill his last wish, to come out alive to join his wife, the Lord prepared something even better—they were reunited before the Lord.
While Watchman Nee’s imprisonment confined him, his ministry was not bound (2 Tim. 2:9). Under the Lord’s sovereign hand, Nee’s ministry has spread throughout the entire world as a deep supply of life to all seeking Christians.
His ultimate burden was the spread and the building up of the church as the house of God. Although his own earthly tabernacle (physical body) has been taken down, the building of God obtained through his ministry remains and still is growing and spreading throughout the earth.
By the time Nee was arrested in 1952, approximately 400 organic churches had been raised up in China from his ministry — indirectly and through his co-workers. In addition, over 30 organic churches were raised up in the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia.
Watchman Nee was a man of revelation and extraordinary gifting, but he was also a man of sorrows and suffering. The experience he gained through his suffering served as an immeasurable help to all those under his ministry and also became a rich heritage to the Body of Christ, a heritage acquired by paying a price, even the ultimate price.
Nee began to write and publish at a very early age. In 1923 he began to publish the magazine The Present Testimony, and in 1925 he started another magazine entitled The Christian.
In 1938, Nee traveled to Europe and delivered some amazing messages that were later published as The Normal Christian Life. It was then that he met T. Austin-Sparks.
Upon his return, Nee gave a conference on the Body of Christ. According to Nee, this was the second turn in his ministry. Nee recounted, “My first turn was to know Christ, and my second turn was to know His Body. To know Christ is only half of what the believers need. The believers also must know the Body of Christ. Christ is the head, and He is also the Body.”
In 1948, Nee trained workers.
Nee’s views were wholly orthodox. He believed in the verbal inspiration of the Bible and that the Bible is God’s Word. He also believed that God is triune, Father, Son, and Spirit, distinctly three, yet fully one, co-existing and coinhering each other from eternity to eternity.
He believed that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, even God Himself, incarnated as a man with both the human life and the divine life, that He died on the cross to accomplish redemption, that he rose bodily from the dead on the third day, that He ascended into heaven and was enthroned, crowned with glory, and made the Lord of all, and that He will return the second time to receive His followers, to save Israel, and to establish His millennial kingdom on the earth. He believed that every person who believes in Jesus Christ will be forgiven by God, washed by His redeeming blood, justified by faith, regenerated by the Holy Spirit, and saved by grace.
Such a believer is a child of God and a member of the Body of Christ. He also believed that the destiny of every believer is to be an integral part of the church, which is the Body of Christ and the house of God.
Nee shouldn’t be confused with Witness Lee who followed after him. Many who worked closely with Nee believe that Lee departed from Nee’s original vision and even his cautions.
Here is an excerpt from Watchman Nee’s Own Testimony:
My birth was an answer to prayer. My mother was fearful that she would follow her sister-in-law in bearing six daughters, since, according to Chinese custom, boys were preferable to girls. She had already borne two daughters, and although she probably did not fully understand the implications of prayer, she spoke to the Lord and said, “If I should bear a son, I will present him to You.” The Lord heard her prayer, and I was born. My father later told me that before my birth my mother had promised to present me to the Lord.
For most people, the prominent feature of their being saved is the act of being delivered from sin. However, for me the question was whether I should accept Jesus and become both His follower and His servant. I was frightened that if I became a Christian, then I would be called upon to serve Christ, and that would be too costly. Eventually the conflict was resolved as I realized that my salvation must have two aspects. I decided to accept Christ as my Savior and to serve Him as my Lord. The year was 1920, when I was seventeen years of age.
On the evening of 29th April, 1920, I was alone in my room, struggling to decide whether or not to believe in the Lord. At first I was reluctant but as I tried to pray I saw the magnitude of my sins and the reality and efficacy of Jesus as the Savior. As I visualized the Lord’s hands stretched out on the cross, they seemed to be welcoming me and the Lord was saying, “I am waiting here to receive you.” Realizing the effectiveness of Christ’s blood in cleansing my sins and being overwhelmed by such love, I accepted Him there. Previously I had laughed at people who had accepted Jesus, but that evening the experience became real for me and I wept and confessed my sins, seeking the Lord’s forgiveness. As I made my first prayer I knew joy and peace such as I had never known before. Light seemed to flood the room and I said to the Lord, “Oh Lord, You have indeed been gracious to me.”
In the audience today there are at least three former school-mates of mine, among whom Brother Kwang Hsi Weigh can bear testimony both to my bad behavior and excellent academic record at school. On the one hand I frequently broke the school rules while on the other hand my God-given intelligence enabled me to come first in every examination. My essays were often put up for exhibition on the bulletin board. I trusted my judgment implicitly and had many youthful dreams and plans for my career. If I worked hard enough I believed that I could attain any level that I wished. Following my being saved there were many changes and all the planning of over ten years became meaningless, and my cherished ambitions were discarded. From that day, with the undoubted assurance of God’s calling, I knew what my life’s career was to be. I understood that the Lord had brought me to Himself both for my own salvation and for His glory. He had called me to serve Him and be His fellow-worker. Formerly I had despised preachers and preaching because in those days most preachers were the employees of European or American missionaries, having to be servile to them, and earning merely eight or nine silver dollars each month. I had never imagined for a moment that I would become a preacher, a profession which I regarded as trifling and base.
After my being saved, while others brought novels to read in class, I brought a Bible to study. Later on I left school to enter the Bible Institute established in Shanghai by Sister Dora Yu. Before very long she politely expelled me from the institute with the explanation that it was inconvenient for me to stay any longer. Because of my gourmet appetite, dilettante dress and tardy arising in the mornings Sister Yu thought fit to send me home. My desire to serve the Lord had been dealt a serious blow. Although I thought my life had been transformed, in fact there remained many more things to be changed. Realizing that I was not yet ready for God’s service, I decided to return to school. My school-mates recognized that some things had altered but that much of my old temperament had remained. Therefore, my testimony in the school was not very powerful, and when I witnessed to Brother Weigh he paid no heed.
After becoming a Christian I had spontaneously a desire to bring others to Christ but after a year of witnessing and bearing testimony to my school-mates there was no visible result. I thought that more words and more reasons would be effective but my testimony did not seem to have a powerful effect on others.
Some time later I met a Western missionary, Miss Grose, who asked me how many persons had been saved through me during that first year. I bowed my head and shamefully confessed that despite my attempts to preach the gospel to my school-mates no one had responded. She said to me frankly that there was something between the Lord and me hindering my effectiveness. Perhaps it was hidden sin, or debts, or some such matter. I admitted that such things did exist. She asked me if I were willing to settle them straight away. I agreed. Then she asked me how I made my witness and I told her that I chose people at random and spoke to them about the Lord regardless of whether they showed any interest. At this she replied that I ought rather to make a list and pray for my friends first, then wait for God’s opportunity to talk to them.
Immediately I started putting right the matters that were hindering my effectiveness, and also made a list of seventy friends to pray for daily. Some days I would pray for them every hour, even in class. When the opportunity came I would try to persuade them to believe in the Lord Jesus. My school-mates often said jokingly, “Mr. Preacher is coming. Let’s listen to his preaching,” although in fact they had no intention of listening. I reported my failure to Sister Grose and she persuaded me to continue praying until some were saved. With the Lord’s grace I continued to pray daily, and after several months all but one of the seventy persons were saved.
Here are some of Nee’s best books:
The Character of God’s Workman
The Normal Christian Church Life
Against the Tide (The Biography of Watchman Nee)
Biography of T. Austin-Sparks – 1888-1971
Photos of Sparks and Nee
THEODORE AUSTIN-SPARKS was born in 1888.
Sparks was a native of south London, educated there and in Scotland. His father moved in the musical world and had little time for God, but from his mother’s side he inherited a long tradition of evangelical Christian faith handed down among Baptists of a Suffolk farming community. He himself however remained unmoved by the Spirit of God until one night, at the age of 17, he was suddenly arrested by the earnest preaching of the gospel in the cold open air of a Glasgow street. That night he went back to his room and gave his life to the Lord. It was a committal from which he never withdrew.
Started in business in Glasgow he engaged also in children’s missions and slum work, and gathered a group of friends for Bible study in his home. Soon also he felt the call of God to proclaim the good news of redemption in several small mission halls, there and in and around London. Sensing that he might have a gift from God in this field, but lacking the means to secure a formal training for the ministry, he did the next best thing; he began to read widely, and used his free time to go and hear some of the last of the great turn-of-the-century preachers and Bible expositors. Notable among these were Dr. G. Campbell Morgan of Westminster Chapel, London, and F.B. Meyer, who was to become a firm friend and counsellor.
His devotion to God had begun to be recognised and at the age of 25 he was unanimously called to serve a congregational church in Stoke Newington, north of theThames. He accepted the pastorate at a time when the church was at a low ebb, and was to leave them nine years later, “well-instructed and firmly founded on the ever-enduring truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” While there, in 1915, he married Florence Rowland, daughter of godly parents, who from then was to prove his life- long support and spiritual companion.
From Stoke Newington he moved on in 1921 to the charge of Honor Oak BaptistChurch in an undistinguished south-east London suburb. It “ was while here that he began to be more widely known as a gifted and original minister of the Word. His health was never good, but backed by a faithful praying group in his own church he began to travel more widely in Britain.
In 1925 he paid a first visit to the United States as speaker at a Victorious Life Conference in Keswick Grove, New Jersey. He had begun to see, perhaps more clearly than many of his contemporaries, that the cross of Christ is central, not only to world history but also to human experience. To “lose his life” is the disciple’s safe but costly way of entry to a service that is marked by eternal gain, and the discovery of this fact explains and gives meaning to so much in life that the Christian otherwise finds difficult. One day in his study, while waiting on God for the t needs of His flock, the truth that “it is no longer I, but Christ who lives in me” dawned freshly upon him with compelling power. Afterwards he often spoke of the “open heaven” beneath which, from that day on, he ministered.
The Baptist congregation grew, but, with his emphasis on the Christian’s walk of faith, so too did dissatisfaction with what his deacons began to see as materialist methods of fund-raising favoured at that time by the British Baptist Union who held the church property. Thus it came about that in 1926 they, together with almost the whole congregation, supported a move to a vacant rented property – a school hall and residence – in the same general locality of Honor Oak. His lately redesigned church magazine A Witness and a Testimony continued from the new address to be issued bi-monthly, free of subscription, with a modest but increasingly worldwide circulation through until his death in 1971.
The New Christian Fellowship Centre, with its thriving local church and regular week-end conferences and its occasional longer training sessions for young men, became a place of pilgrimage for many. In 1931 this was supplemented by a Scottish summer Conference Centre on the Firth of Clyde at the well-situated house of Heathfield, Kilcreggan.
Meanwhile others of like vision had joined him in the ministry. He had dropped the title “The Reverend,” and they shared an ideal of ministers and elders working “together in unity”; though always his unquestioned gift of preaching set him a little apart. A small press was started for publication of the magazine and of collections of his largely unedited spoken messages.
Down the years there were developments in emphasis in the ministry of the Word, “as”, in his words, “there should ever be where there is life and growth, provided that the essential foundation remains true and unchanging.” So the gospel was faithfully preached, but with it there was a strong emphasis for believers on the life in the Spirit, the eternal purpose of God in His Son, the Christian’s spiritual warfare, and the heavenly nature, vocation and destiny of the Church, the Body of Christ.
This last emphasis on a Church-based witness worldwide meant effectually that the missionary vision of the local church at Honor Oak found strong encouragement from, and sympathy with, the rising indigenous movements of the Spirit of God overseas that, for a while during the thirties and forties, seemed a problem to leaders of the old-established missionary societies.
As a consequence church prayer meetings, always a mainspring of the local testimony at Honor Oak, now ranged in vision over a wide area of the work of God in the earth. Missionaries went forth to work in fellowship alongside such movements, and Mr. Austin-Sparks himself was privileged to travel widely in ministry, not only in Europeand North America but also further afield in India and the Far East. Such opportunities for fellowship with those in whom the Spirit of God was doing His own original work were to afford him lifelong joy.
From his early years he had believed in the power and significance of the spoken Word of God, and that all developments of its exposition and application should be vitally related to the actual and growing needs of the spiritual life of representative bodies of God’s people. Through His Word God would meet His own, but His way of giving to His servants was not merely through bookish, cloistered or studied matter. Rather it was made necessary, drawn out and given meaning by the call and answer of living conditions. Its value – if it was to be anything more than words – lay in its being able to touch the Lord’s people at the point of experience and need which had been the occasion of its original calling forth.
Such was the special calling of T. Austin-Sparks, a man ploughing a furrow perhaps a little apart from his contemporaries, but always true to Christ Jesus his Saviour and Lord, and committed to a vision of spiritually fruitful harvests throughout the whole field that is God’s world.
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