William Branham

“A Man of Notable Signs and Wonders”

God didn’t put His endorsement upon one particular church, but He revealed that the pure in heart would see God . . . Let the fellow believe whatever he wants to about it. These things don’t amount to very much anyhow. Be brothers, have fellowship with one another.¹

William Branham was beyond doubt a man of notable signs and wonders. From birth, supernatural manifestations marked his life. He truly walked with God for a time, but in the latter years of his life, began to err in doctrine and veer from his true calling. He did indeed have a divine impartation to minister healing and deliverance. A modern day prophet of biblical proportion, he healed the multitudes and delivered the afflicted from all kinds of demonic bondages and strongholds. He walked in the Spirit, guided by visions and angels: For a period of time the supernatural seemed to permeate his life and all he set his hand to.

During the height of Branham’s ministry, from 1946-1954, great men came alongside him to promote and partner with him; men such as Gordon Lindsey, F.F. Bosworth, and Jack Moore. Branham’s healing team launched what became known as the Voice of Healing magazine, which gave rise to the great healing revival of the early 1950s. This movement directly impacted T.L. Osborn, Kenneth Hagin, Oral Roberts, and others so that today the wider church has a firmer grasp on the truths regarding faith and healing.

Meager Beginnings

William Marrion Branham was born to a fifteen-year-old mother, and an eighteen-year-old father, in a tiny, dirt floor shack up in the hills of Kentucky. They were poor and illiterate, and had no interest in spiritual matters. William grew up without any knowledge of God, the Bible, or prayer. Yet God had a special call on his life and would go to great lengths throughout William’s childhood to get his attention. From a young age, William heard God’s voice, and knew that he was being called to a different kind of life than those around him.

He didn’t understand the calling or how to quiet the longing he felt in his heart. At the age of nineteen he decided to move away hoping that he would find solace in a new location. He moved to Phoenix, Arizona where he worked on a ranch, but he still couldn’t escape the sense that God was calling him. When he received news that his brother had died, he returned home to his grief-stricken family. It was at the funeral that he heard his first prayer and knew then that he needed to learn to pray.

Answering the Call

He stayed close to home to be near his grieving family, taking a job at a nearby gas works company. After two years on the job, William was overcome with gas fumes when testing a meter and ended up in the hospital where he underwent surgery for appendicitis. As he lay in the recovery room, he felt his life ebbing away. His body grew weaker and his mind grew dark; and then he heard the familiar voice saying, “I called you and you would not go.” The words were repeated again and again. William’s inner voice answered back, “Lord, if that is You, let me go back again to earth and I will preach our Gospel from the housetops and street corners.”²

He was released from the hospital a few days later and began immediately to seek the Lord. He found a small, independent Baptist church that nurtured and prayed for him and then six months later ordained him an independent Baptist minister. William obtained a small tent and began to minister with great results. It was in June of 1933 at the age of twenty-four, that Branham held his first major tent revival. Three thousand people attended in one night. It was during this time that a supernatural manifestation occurred.

Branham Tabernacle

William was holding a special baptism service where he baptized 130 believers in the Ohio River. When he had baptized the seventieth person, this is what William described happened: “A whirl came down from the heavens above, here come that light, shining down . . . it hung right over where I was at . . . and it like to a-scared me to death.” Many of the four thousand that saw the light ran in fear, some remained and fell in worship, others claimed to have heard an actual voice.³

Several months later, in the fall of that year, the people who attended those powerful meetings built a headquarters for William’s anointed ministry calling it “Branham Tabernacle.” From 1933 to 1946, Branham ministered at the Tabernacle while working at a secular job. During this time he also met his future wife, Hope Brumback, with whom he had two children before tragedy struck in 1937.

The Price of Disobedience

While Branham was on a fishing trip, he came across a camp meeting of the “Oneness Pentecostals” (a denomination often referred to today as “Jesus Only”) and was asked to minister there. Shortly after he started to speak, the power of God engulfed him and he ministered for the next two hours. Pastors from all over the country invited Branham to speak at their churches so that he completely filled his calendar for the following year.

When he had excitedly returned home to share the news with his wife, her mother was there and scorned him for associating with the Oneness Pentecostals. Branham capitulated to her rebuke and cancelled all his meetings. He would later regret this as the biggest mistake of his life. If he had gone on to hold those meetings, his family would not have been caught in the great Ohio flood of 1937.

As it turned out, in the winter of 1937, Hope had just given birth to their second child. Because her immune system had not been completely restored, she had succumbed to a serious lung disease. It was during this period of recovery that the levee broke on the Ohio River and the floodwaters rose. She and her two young children were transported to several locations during which time both became seriously ill with pneumonia. Hope’s lung condition turned to tuberculosis and she died only weeks later. Although the older child eventually recovered, the younger infant’s pneumonia turned to a fatal spinal meningitis and the baby died the same night as her mother.

The Rushing Wind

The next five years were difficult for William as he reeled from the loss. He continued to preach at the Branham Tabernacle and have prophetic visions. No one seemed to understand him or the nature of his visions and he grew more restless. He did remarry during this time for his oldest child’s sake and worked to provide for the family as a game warden in addition to preaching at the Tabernacle.

One spring day, in 1946, he came home for lunch and sat with a friend under a large maple tree. All of a sudden, according to Branham, “It seemed that the whole top of the tree let loose . . . it seemed like something came down from that tree like a great rushing wind.” His wife came running out to see what the commotion was all about, and after getting a hold of his emotions, Branham shared all the past experiences he’d had with the wind rushing above him in the trees. Since he was a young child, a “mighty rushing wind” haunted him, spoke to him, and compelled him to seek God for answers.

He then told her that he was going to find out once and for all what was behind this “wind” and recalled that he had said, “I told her and my child good-bye and warned her that if I didn’t come back in a few days, perhaps I might never return.” ⁴

A Visit from an Angel

Branham left for a secluded place to pray and read the Bible. He cried out to the Lord to speak to him in some way. That night he noticed a light flickering in the room that began to spread across the floor and then grew into a ball of fire shining on the floor. Footsteps approached and he saw a large man dressed in a white robe coming toward him.

The man spoke, “Fear not, I am sent from the presence of Almighty God to tell you that your peculiar life and your misunderstood ways have been to indicate that God has sent you to take a gift of divine healing to the people of the world. If you will be sincere, and can get the people to believe you, nothing shall stand before your prayer, not even cancer.”

William humbly replied that he was so poor and uneducated no one would listen to him. The Angel gave him two gifts that he would use as signs to help the people believe. The first would be his ability to detect disease by a vibration in his left hand; and the other would be the word of knowledge revealing the secret sin hidden in a person’s heart.

Walking Out The Calling

The following Sunday after returning home, Branham shared with his congregation what he had experienced. While he was speaking, someone handed him a telegram requesting that he come to St. Louis to pray for a gravely sick daughter. He quickly took up an offering for the train-fare and borrowed a suit of clothes. At midnight he boarded the train for St. Louis.

He arrived to find the girl dying from an unknown sickness. She was weak and wasting away, hoarse from crying out in pain. William was moved to tears and pulled away to seek the Lord privately about what to do. He saw the answer in a vision and waited until the conditions were just as he had seen them in the spirit. He asked the people present if they believed he was God’s servant and directed them to do just he told them, nothing doubting. He proceeded to ask for several things and prayed according the vision the Lord had given him. Immediately the child was healed.

News spread quickly and the people of St. Louis asked Branham to return. In June of 1946 he conducted a twelve-day healing revival there where tremendous manifestations took place. The lame walked, the blind saw, the deaf heard, and the dead were raised. A woman who stood mocking outside dropped dead from a heart attack. Branham went out to pray for her and she revived praising God. The healings that took place were beyond count as Branham often stayed until 2:00 a.m. to pray for the sick.

From St. Louis he went on to Jonesboro, Arkansas, were 25,000 people attended the meetings.⁵ On one occasion, Branham went out to pray for a woman who had died in an ambulance outside the meeting hall. She sat up healed and Branham had to sneak out of the front of the ambulance under cover of disguise to return to the meeting.

Relentless Revival

1947 was a high profile year for Branham. In Arkansas he acquired his first campaign manager. Time published news of his campaigns as his ministry toured the western states. While in Portland, Oregon, T.L. and Daisy Osborn attended his meetings and were greatly influenced by what they witnessed. It has been said that this was the refreshing and refocus they needed to launch their world-changing international ministry.

This was also the year that Gordon Lindsey joined forces with Branham. Lindsey became his administrator and organized and promoted one of the greatest healing revivals to this day. Accompanied by Jack Moore, the “Union Campaign” joined the forces of the Oneness Pentecostals and the Full Gospel circles for a series of revival campaigns held throughout the Pacific Northwest and Canada. Branham was successful at avoiding doctrinal differences and leading thousands to salvation and healing. Reports stated that 1,500 souls were born again in a single service and as many as 35,000 healings were manifested during that stretch of ministry.

The Voice of Healing

The Branham team wanted to give a greater voice to the message of healing that could reach beyond the confine of their meetings so decided to distribute a monthly publication they called The Voice of Healing magazine. Not long after his quick rise to national success, Branham suffered a nervous breakdown. In 1948, it was thought he might die when another rising healing evangelist, Oral Roberts, rallied believers everywhere to pray for Branham’s restoration. Six months later, Branham was back on the scene.

In 1950, F.F. Bosworth joined the Branham team and together they conducted another major healing crusade gathering crowds of over 8,000 at a single service. During the same year, Branham traveled to Scandinavia making him the first Voice of Healing evangelist to travel to Europe. In the fall of 1951, the Voice of Healing ministry team traveled to Africa and held healing campaigns there through December. It is reported that the meetings were the greatest ever in South Africa with crowds exceeding 50,000 in number.⁶

Deviating from the Call

Branham remained very influential in the ministry of divine healing for nine years. During this time healing evangelists began to surface all over the country. In 1952, at the height of the Voice of Healing revival, forty-nine prominent healing evangelists were featured in The Voice of Healing magazine. The revelation of divine healing had reached an all-time peak across the world. But from that year on, the healing revival fires began to dwindle. By 1955, Branham began to experience difficulties, and his ministry took a radical change.

Branham had a falling out with Gordon Lindsey, who was forced to leave the ministry. Without Lindsey, his organization was mismanaged and fell into financial ruin. He also began to err in doctrine without the balanced voice of Lindsey who brought stability not only to his administrative affairs, but also kept his teaching sound and bible-based.

As the glory days of the Voice of Healing revival began to wind down toward 1958, Branham searched for other ways to make his mark. He began teaching from his visions rather than from the Word of God. Not called to be a teacher, Branham began to veer off in extreme directions regarding his interpretation of truth. Disturbing doctrines were taught and emphasized throughout the remainder of his ministry.

God Removes a Prophet

On December 18, 1965, Branham and his family were traveling home to Indiana from Texas where William had preached for the last time at Jack Moore’s church. His son was in the car ahead of theirs when a drunk driver swerved and missed the son’s car but hit William’s car head on. Mrs. Branham was immediately killed. William was still alive when his son found him. He asked about his wife and when he was told she was dead, he instructed his son to place his hand upon her. His son picked up Branham’s bloodied hand and placed it on Mrs. Branham. Instantly a pulse returned and she revived.

Branham remained in a coma for six days before he went to be with the Lord on December 24, 1965. Though saddened by his death, his ministry colleagues were not surprised. Gordon Lindsey wrote in his eulogy, “God may see that a man’s special ministry has reached its fruition and it is time to take him home.”⁷

Lindsey also accepted the interpretation of Kenneth E. Hagin—father of the Word of Faith movement—who had prophesied two years before that the Lord was “removing the prophet” from the scene. Branham died exactly when the Lord told Hagin he would. According to Hagin’s prophecy, William Marrion Branham, the “father of the healing revival” had to be removed from the earth because of his disobedience to his call and the creation of doctrinal confusion.

Works Consulted

1. C. Douglas Weaver, The Healer-Prophet, William Marrion Branham: A Study of the Prophetic in American Pentecostalism (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1987), 54
2. Gordon Lindsey, A Man Sent From God (Jefferson, IN: William Branham, 1950), 39-41
3. Weaver, The Healer-Prophet, 27
4. Roberts Liardon, God’s Generals: Why They Succeeded and Why Some Failed (Laguna Hills, CA: Roberts Liardon Ministries, reprinted by permission of Whittaker House, 1996), 324.
5. Lindsey, William Branham, 93.
6. Liardon, Gods Generals, 331
7. Weaver, The Healer Prophet, 105

Website: www.godsgenerals.com

Watchman Nee, a suffering apostle of Christ

WATCHMAN NEE, an apostle of Christ from China

God's Dynamic Salvation Work

Beginning in the sixteenth century, many Protestant missionaries were sent to China from Europe and America. In the opening years of the twentieth century, following centuries of faithful labor and catalyzed by the martyrdom of many Christians in the Boxer Rebellion, the Lord's move in China advanced dramatically. Many "native" preachers were raised up by the Lord and became prevailing in gospel preaching, especially around 1920 among China's new generation of high school and college students. A number of brilliant students, among whom was Nee Shu-tsu (Watchman Nee), were called and equipped by the Lord to do His work during this time.

Nee Shu-tsu, whose English name was Henry Nee, was born of second-generation Christian parents in Foochow, China in 1903. His paternal grandfather, in fact, had studied at the American Congregational College in Foochow and became the first Chinese pastor among the Congregationalists in northern Fukien province. Nee Shu-tsu had been consecrated to the Lord before his birth. Desiring a son, his mother had prayed to the Lord, "If I have a boy, I will present him to You." The Lord answered her prayer, and soon afterward Nee Shu-tsu was born. His father later impressed on him, "Before you were born, your mother promised to present you to the Lord".

Prior to his salvation Nee Shu-tsu was an ill-behaved student, yet he was also exceptionally intelligent. He always ranked first in his class as well as in his school, from elementary school through his graduation from Anglican Trinity College in Foochow. He had many grand dreams and plans for the future and could have had great success in the world. Yet Nee Shu-tsu, acquainted with the gospel since childhood, had the deep realization that if he received Jesus as his Lord for salvation he must also serve Him. In 1920, after a considerable struggle, seventeen-year-old Nee Shu-tsu, still a high school student, was dynamically saved. At the moment of his salvation, all his previous planning became void and his future career was entirely abandoned. He testified, "From the evening I was saved, I began to have a new life, for the life of the eternal God had entered into me". Later, after being raised up by the Lord to carry out His commission, he adopted the new English name Watchman and the new Chinese name To-sheng, which means "watchman's rattle," for he considered himself a watchman raised up to sound a warning call in the dark night.

Equipping and Training

Watchman Nee attended no theological schools or Bible institutes. His wealth of knowledge concerning God's purpose, Christ, the things of the Spirit, and the church was acquired through studying the Bible and reading spiritual books. Watchman Nee became intimately familiar with and greatly enlightened by the Word through diligent study using twenty different methods. In addition, in the early days of his ministry he spent one-third of his income on his personal needs, one-third on helping others, and the remaining third on spiritual books. He acquired a collection of more than 3,000 of the best Christian books, including nearly all the classical Christian writers from the first century on. He had a phenomenal ability to select, comprehend, discern, and memorize relevant material, and he could grasp and retain the main points of a book at a glance. Watchman Nee was thus able to glean all the profitable scriptural points and spiritual principles from throughout church history and synthesize them into his vision and practice of the Christian life and of the church life. Watchman Nee received much enlightenment and help from a number of Christian writers.

Revelation and Living

Through his fellowship with Miss Barber and others, along with his study of the Bible and numerous spiritual books, Watchman Nee received a wealth of revelation. He was truly a seer of the divine revelation. The core of his revelation was threefold: it concerned (1) the living of a crucified life, (2) the living of a resurrected life, and (3) the issue of such a living, the church. Related to the crucified life, he saw and experienced the subjective aspects of Christ's death. He realized that he had been crucified with Christ, that it was no longer he that lived, but Christ Who lived in him. He also realized that in order to experience the death of Christ in a subjective way, he needed to bear the cross. Although he had been crucified with Christ in fact, he also had to remain in Christ's crucifixion in his experience. He learned that to remain in Christ's crucifixion was to bear the cross by refusing to allow the old man or the flesh to leave the cross. He realized that in order for him to have such an experience, God must sovereignly arrange his environment, making it a practical cross for him to bear. This is exactly what God did throughout Watchman Nee's life.

From the very beginning of his ministry, God arranged numerous situations in which he had the opportunity to deny the self and the natural life by bearing the cross and living by Christ as his life. Watchman Nee saw that he had not only died with Christ, but had also risen with Him. The resurrected Christ with the fullness of the Spirit had become his life. It was by the resurrection life of the indwelling Christ that he was able to bear the cross and to participate in the fellowship of His sufferings and be conformed to His death. By the resurrection life of Christ, he abandoned the world, forsook his future, denied himself, was freed from sin, and overcame Satan. It was also by the resurrection life of Christ that he served the Lord, worked for Him, and carried out His commission. His contemporaries bore witness to the fact that he consistently rejected his natural strength in the Lord's service. He feared the intrusion of his natural life into the Lord's work; he therefore dared not minister apart from the indwelling Christ. In delivering messages, contacting people, writing articles, corresponding with the believers, and in mundane matters, he acted not by himself but by the resurrection life. It was by living such a resurrection life that he was able to pass through his extended martyrdom of twenty years' imprisonment, which culminated in death.

Watchman Nee went on to see that the church as the Body of Christ was simply the enlargement, expansion, and expression of the resurrected Christ. His vision that Christ in resurrection was the life and content of the church was far advanced. According to this vision, he not only ministered by the resurrected Christ, but he also ministered the resurrected Christ Himself to the believers for the building up of His Body. He frequently emphasized the fact that anything which is not Christ in resurrection is not the church, and anything not done by the resurrected Christ is a foreign element in the Body. He desired to serve the church with nothing but the resurrected Christ. The more his ministry progressed, the more he ministered the resurrected Christ to the believers and to the local churches. The resurrected Christ became not only his life and living, but also his message and ministry.

Burden and Commission

The divine revelation which Watchman Nee saw resulted in the Lord's twofold burden and commission to him: first, to bear a particular testimony of the Lord Jesus, and second, to establish local churches. The first burden and commission arose from his personal depth of knowledge and experience of Christ's all-inclusive death and resurrection. The Lord specifically burdened and commissioned him to bear testimony to this truth. He faithfully responded to this burden by releasing a number of spoken and written messages on the subjective aspect of the Lord's crucifixion and resurrection, on the principles of life, on the supremacy of Christ, and on God's eternal purpose.

However, Watchman Nee's ultimate burden was not just to elevate the individual believers' experience of Christ, but to establish and build up the practical corporate expression of Christ in the local churches for the satisfaction of God's desire. This was the ultimate commission he received from the Lord based on what he had seen and experienced of Him. His personal testimony recorded on October 20, 1936 described this commission:

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 primary objective was not to hold revival meetings, help people hear more scriptural doctrines, or for me to become a great evangelist. The Lord revealed to me that He desired to build up local churches in various places to manifest Himself and to bear the testimony of unity on the ground of the local churches. In this way, each saint [believer] is able to function in the church and live the church life. What God wants is not individuals trying to be victorious or spiritual; He wants a corporate glorious church presented to Himself.

Sufferings

Watchman Nee saw an undeniable vision and received a definite commission from the Lord concerning the church, and he suffered greatly due to his faithfulness to them. Because the vision was so clear and the commission so real, it did not matter to him that he was rejected, opposed, and condemned. He anticipated this response and was determined to pay any price for the commission he had received of the Lord. His faithfulness to this commission ultimately cost him his life. His profound revelation combined with his selfless sufferings issued in a rich ministry of life according to the Lord's commission to him: the unique New Testament ministry of Christ and of the church.

Watchman Nee endured much suffering for the sake of the New Testament ministry. Due to his absoluteness in following the Lord and his faithfulness in fulfilling the Lord's commission, he underwent frequent mistreatment as well as lifelong hardships. Because he unwaveringly fought the battle for the Lord's move, he was under constant attack from God's enemy. At the same time, he was also under God's sovereign hand. He recognized the sovereign arrangements of God in his environment not merely as a divinely apportioned "thorn in the flesh," but more importantly, as a means by which God was able to deal with him. Due to both the enemy's attacks and God's faithful environmental dealings, Watchman Nee lived a life of suffering. The majority of his sufferings came from five sources: poverty, ill health, various denominations, dissenting brothers and sisters in the local churches, and imprisonment.

In the early years of Watchman Nee's ministry, the economic situation in China was desperate. Because of what he saw in the Word, he was exercised to live purely and singly by faith in God not only for his living, but also for every aspect of the Lord's work. Hence, he steadfastly refused employment by any person or organization. In the early days of his ministry in Shanghai, there were times when all he had to eat each day was a little bread.

Watchman Nee was also frequently afflicted with serious ill health. For the first eleven years of his ministry, beginning in 1922, he suffered alone, with no wife to help him. During this time he contracted tuberculosis and suffered acutely for several years. In 1934 at the age of thirty, however, Watchman Nee married a true "help meet," Charity Chang, although the Lord was to give them no children. In later years, he was also stricken with a chronic stomach disorder as well as angina pectoris, a serious heart ailment. He was never cured of the heart disease and could have died from it at any moment. In fact, many times he ministered not by physical strength but by resurrection life.

He also suffered for his belief that, according to the Bible, denominations are wrong in that they divide the one Body of Christ. Because his firm stand for the oneness of the Body of Christ was a testimony against the denominations, they caused him much suffering. Some despised, criticized, opposed, and did their best to destroy his ministry. They also spread false rumors about him and misrepresented him to the extent that Watchman Nee once responded, "The Watchman Nee portrayed by them I would also condemn."

A number of brothers and sisters meeting with the local churches became another source of suffering to Watchman Nee. He found this type of suffering by far the most painful. Some of these believers caused a great deal of trouble due to their dissention, immaturity, incompetence, stubbornness, ambition for position, or rebelliousness. Two years after the church life began to be practiced in Watchman Nee's hometown in 1922, he was even temporarily excommunicated by his own coworkers because of his stand for the truth of the Scriptures, when he protested the ordination of the leading coworkers by a denominational missionary. Although most of the believers meeting with them sided with Watchman Nee, the Lord would not allow him to do anything to vindicate himself. That was a deep suffering to his natural man.

The final source of suffering was his groundless condemnation and imprisonment. Watchman Nee was arrested during the Communist Cultural Revolution in March 1952 and was judged, falsely condemned, and unjustly sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment in 1956.

Watchman Nee was a man of sorrows and suffering. Along his entire path of following the Lamb, he suffered much. Through all these sufferings, however, he learned many lessons. These sufferings not only helped him learn to trust the Lord; they also benefited him in dealing with his flesh, his self, his soul, and his natural life. Due to his obedience to these dealings, he never passed on mere teachings and doctrines, for his messages contained the reality he had acquired through his sufferings. 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 all the local churches, a heritage acquired by him at the ultimate price.

His sufferings also helped him to receive further revelation from the Lord. Certain kinds of suffering often issued in corresponding revelation. His sufferings thus often became the Lord's revelation to him. He was purified, dealt with, broken, and constituted by the Holy Spirit with the divine life through his sufferings. Through such experiences of Christ within his sufferings, he, like Paul, was prepared and positioned to receive the Lord's revelation.

Means of Ministry

Watchman Nee's rich ministry of life was the issue of his revelation and suffering. He used eight different means to carry out the ministry wrought into him by the Lord: preaching the gospel, teaching the Bible, traveling, contacting people, corresponding with people, holding conferences, conducting trainings, and producing publications.

Watchman Nee not only spoke frequently both privately and publicly, but he was also a prolific writer. His publications included gospel tracts, periodicals, papers, newsletters, books, hymnals, and a chart of biblical prophecies.

Relationship with Witness Lee

Watchman Nee's closest co-worker was Witness Lee. Having been raised as a Southern Baptist, Witness Lee was saved in 1925 at the age of nineteen. That year Witness Lee began to seek to thoroughly know the Bible and found Watchman Nee's articles and publications to be the most outstanding on biblical truths. He soon began to correspond with Watchman Nee and was astonished that someone only two years older than he was such a mature Christian. It was not until 1932, when Witness Lee invited Watchman Nee to Chefoo, that the two had their first personal contact. During the time they began to spend together, Watchman Nee's stress on the divine life rather than on knowledge caused Witness Lee's fellowship with the Lord to deepen and to grow more intimate. In the same year, believers began meeting in Witness Lee's home; by the following year, this meeting was thriving. Due to the needs of the church, both men believed that the Lord desired Witness Lee to serve Him full-time. Their time together increased, during which Watchman Nee continually perfected and tested Witness Lee, preparing him to bear more responsibility. Realizing that the Lord's work in China must be one and that He had begun it in Shanghai through Watchman Nee, Witness Lee moved to Shanghai in 1934 to be able to work more closely with Watchman Nee. They labored, suffered, spread the work, received revelation, and brought in revivals together. Brother Lee edited Watchman Nee's publication The Christian from 1934 to 1940 and was his best man at his wedding.

In fear of annihilation by the incursion of Communism, Watchman Nee sent Witness Lee and a few others to Taiwan in 1949 to continue the work there. The last contact between Watchman Nee and Witness Lee was in March, 1950 in Hong Kong, twenty-five years after Witness Lee first knew of Watchman Nee. At that time, the two of them had extensive fellowship about Watchman Nee'sLee,"What shall we do with so many churches on the mainland? I must return to take care of them and stand with them for the Lord's testimony." return to the mainland. He told Witness

Watchman Nee was led by the Lord to remain in Mainland China in spite of the threat of Communism, and to sacrifice everything for the Lord's work there. In this respect he was like the apostle Paul in Acts 20:24: "But I consider my life of no account as if precious to myself, in order that I may finish my course and the ministry which I have received from the Lord Jesus..." Concerning his decision, Brother Hsu Jin-chin testified the following:

Before Brother Nee left Hong Kong, Brother Lee advised him many times not to return to the mainland. But Brother Nee said, “If a mother discovered that her house was on fire, and she herself was outside the house doing the laundry, what would she do? Although she realized the danger, would she not rush into the house? Although I know that my return is fraught with dangers, I know that many brothers and sisters are still inside. How can I not return?” Brother Lee escorted him three times back from the bus stop to his home in Diamond Hill...

Watchman Nee was arrested by the Communists in March, 1952 for his professed faith in Christ as well as his leadership among the local churches. He was judged, falsely condemned, and sentenced in 1956 to fifteen years' imprisonment. During this entire time, only his wife was allowed to visit him. Although there is no way for us to know what he experienced of the Lord during his long imprisonment, his last eight letters provide a glimpse into his suffering, feeling, and expectation during his confinement. While prison censorship did not allow him to mention the Lord's name in his letters, in his final letter, written on the day of his death, he alluded to his joy in the Lord: "In my sickness, I still remain joyful at heart." Watchman Nee was practicing the word of the apostle Paul in Philippians 4:4: "Rejoice in the Lord always." He died in confinement in his cell on May 30, 1972. Humanly speaking, 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. His wife had died six months earlier, so it was her eldest sister who was informed of his death and cremation. She retrieved his ashes, and they were buried with Mrs. Nee's in his hometown of Kwanchao in the county of Haining, Chekiang province. In May, 1989, the ashes of Watchman Nee and his wife were transferred to and buried in "The Christian Cemetery" in Shiangshan in the city of Soochow of Kiangsu province.

The following is an account by Brother Nee's grandniece, who accompanied Mrs. Nee's eldest 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.

During Watchman Nee's imprisonment he was confined, but his ministry was not bound (2 Tim. 2:9). Under the Lord's sovereignty, his ministry has spread throughout the entire world as a rich supply of life to all seeking Christians.

His ultimate burden was the churches as the house of God, God’s tabernacle. Although his own earthly tabernacle (physical body) has been taken down, the churches, which were so much on his heart, are not only surviving but also continuing to grow vigorously and to spread throughout the earth. By the time Watchman Nee was arrested in 1952, approximately four hundred local churches had been raised up in China through his life and ministry. In addition, over thirty local churches had been raised up in the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. Today the Lord has multiplied the local churches to over 2,300 worldwide through the rich and faithful ministries of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee.