Watchman Nee (1903 – 1972)

Who Was He?

Watchman Nee — whose Chinese name was Ni To- sheng, meaning “ringing bell” — was born in Foochow, China, in 1903, into a third-generation Christian family. His grandfather had been the first Chinese Congregationalist pastor in Fujian province, and his mother prayed for a son before Watchman was born, promising to give him to God. He was saved at the age of seventeen, in 1920, through the ministry of the evangelist Dora Yu.

Within three years of his conversion, Watchman was writing and publishing theological journals, preaching across China, and planting what he called “local churches” — congregations rooted in the New Testament pattern and not dependent on Western denominational structures. By 1932, these local churches had spread throughout China, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore.

He published his landmark three-volume work The Spiritual Man in 1928, and his best-known book The Normal Christian Life — one of the great classics of Christian literature — was based on talks he gave in English during his travels in Europe in 1938 and 1939.

In 1952, the Communist government arrested Watchman Nee for his faith. After a long trial, he was sentenced in 1956 to fifteen years’ imprisonment, but was never released. He spent the final twenty years of his life in prison, and died there on 30 May 1972. When he died, a small piece of pa per was found under his pillow. It read: “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.”

A Great Answer to Prayer During an evangelistic mission to Mei-hua Island off the South China coast, Watchman Nee and a small team of young believers encountered fierce opposition from idol worshippers. A local festival to the idol Ta- wang was approaching, and the idol’s devotees dec lared confidently that their god would send clear weather for the procession day — implying that if Nee’s God was real, He should demonstrate power.

Nee and his team prayed. On the morning of the festival, as they were saying grace for breakfast, rain began to fall — light at first, then torrential. The idol’s carriers struggled to carry it in procession and stumbled, dropping it and fracturing its jaw and arm. The power of the idol over the island was broken. A number of young people turned to Christ immediately.

The elders of the village declared that the wrong day had been chosen, and announced a new procession day: the fourteenth. Nee and his team prayed again, asking for clear weather between the two dates for preaching, and for rain again on the fourteenth. God answered precisely: clear days for preaching produced thirty converts, and then, exactly on the fourteenth, torrential rain fell at the appointed hour. Nee recorded: “We quietly brought the matter to the Lord’s remembrance. Not a minute late, His answer came with torrential rain and floods as before. The power of the idol over the islanders was broken; the enemy was defeated. Believing prayer had brought a great victory.”

Key Scriptures Romans 8:26 – 27 — “The Spirit helps us in our weakness. For w e do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”

1 John 5:14 – 15 — “This is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him.”

Ephesians 6:18 — “Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.”

His Words on Prayer “Our prayers lay the track down which G od's power can come. Like a mighty locomotive, His power is irresistible, but it cannot reach us without rails.”

“The purpose of prayer is not to notify God but to express our trust, our faith, our expectation, and our heart desire.”

“Negligence in praye r withers the inner man. Nothing can be a substitute for it, not even Christian work. Prayer enables us first inwardly to overcome the enemy and then outwardly to deal with him.”

“Prayer is the acid test of the inner man's strength. A strong spirit is cap able of praying much and praying with all perseverance until the answer comes.”

“Let us recognise this one thing: burden is the secret of prayer. If a person does not feel within him burden to pray for a particular matter, he can hardly succeed in prayer. ” Prayer and the Word of God “We should not open our mouths too hastily upon approaching God. On the contrary, we first must ask God to show us what and how to pray before we make our request known to Him. Have we not consumed a great deal of time in the past asking for what we wanted?

Why not now ask for what God wants?”

“Prayer according to the will of God is only possible when we ourselves are in harmony with His will.”

Prayer and the Holy Spirit “Prayer is work. The experiences of many children of Go d demonstrate that it accomplishes far more than does any other form of work. It is also warfare, for it is one of the weapons in fighting the enemy. However, only prayer in the Spirit is genuinely effectual.”

“The burden imparted by God is lifted once we have prayed, but the heaviness from the enemy cannot be raised unless we fight and resist in prayer.”

“Why do so many Christians pray such tiny prayers when their God is so big?”