Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. – Romans 10:18
Watchmen Nee was born in China in 1903, the great-grandson of Protestant missionaries who had devoted their lives to preaching the Gospel and serving the people there. He had a Western-style education at a missionary society school and was considered highly intelligent and ambitious. Alone in his room, after attending a revival meeting when he was 17, Nee said he was “struggling to decide whether or not to believe in the Lord.” He was reluctant at first but tried to pray although he felt his prayers went nowhere because of the enormity of his sins. Then, in a vision, he saw the Lord’s arms outstretched, and Jesus saying, “I am waiting here to receive you.” After his conversion, Nee was gifted by God with evangelism, and trained to be a Christian worker. He said he often had visions of the Lord instructing him. Beginning in 1922, Nee initiated church meetings through many parts of China, establishing churches and conferences to train Bible students and church workers.
Following the Communist Revolution, Nee was persecuted, arrested, and imprisoned for his faith. He spent the last twenty years of his life in prison. He died in May 1972. Humanly speaking, Nee died in misery and humiliation without one relative or even a brother or sister in Christ with him. But God, Who was ever present with him, has remained faithful to His servant Watchman Nee, as under the Lord’s sovereignty, his ministry has spread throughout China and across other parts of the world. He listened to the Lord and obeyed, and his voice has gone out to the ends of the Earth.
He left many writings behind. One helpful quote says, “We must not pay attention just to reading and studying; rather we should ask, if we are open before the Lord. If we do not have an unveiled face, the glory of the Lord will not shine on us. If our hearts are not open to God, God cannot give us any light.”
Each person who has received the Lord, who has the Holy Spirit operating within, has been gifted to expand, comfort or minister to the kingdom of God on Earth. Know your gift or gifts. Use them. God has given you the power to do it. Pray that lights for the kingdom of God would shine out of the dark corners of Washington, D.C. so that others might come and find that the Lord is waiting to receive them also.
Today’s Verse: Romans 10:18
But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for
“Their voice has gone out to all the earth,
and their words to the ends of the world.”
All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Recommended for further reading: Jeremiah 30:1-11
The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Write in a book all the words that I have spoken to you. 3 For behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will restore the fortunes of my people, Israel and Judah, says the Lord, and I will bring them back to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall take possession of it.”
4 These are the words that the Lord spoke concerning Israel and Judah:
5 “Thus says the Lord:
We have heard a cry of panic,
of terror, and no peace.
6 Ask now, and see,
can a man bear a child?
Why then do I see every man
with his hands on his stomach like a woman in labor?
Why has every face turned pale?
7 Alas! That day is so great
there is none like it;
it is a time of distress for Jacob;
yet he shall be saved out of it.
8 “And it shall come to pass in that day, declares the Lord of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off your neck, and I will burst your bonds, and foreigners shall no more make a servant of him. 9 But they shall serve the Lord their God and David their king, whom I will raise up for them.
10 “Then fear not, O Jacob my servant, declares the Lord,
nor be dismayed, O Israel;
for behold, I will save you from far away,
and your offspring from the land of their captivity.
Jacob shall return and have quiet and ease,
and none shall make him afraid.
11 For I am with you to save you,
declares the Lord;
I will make a full end of all the nations
among whom I scattered you,
but of you I will not make a full end.
I will discipline you in just measure,
and I will by no means leave you unpunished.
All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
