As In a Mirror

A few years ago I read the book, The Heavenly Man by Brother Yun and Paul Hattaway. Brother Yun is a Christian from China who grew up during the horrific “Great Leap Forward” of Communism in his country. The book tells his life’s story, and the story of how Christianity has fought for life in China. Today’s inspiring story was in part inspired by Renee’s Memorization Marathon Challenge.

Through a series of miraculous circumstances, Yun was given a Bible; after reading it through, he began to memorize a chapter every day. He had the entire gospel of Matthew memorized in 28 days! Soon afterwards, he was told by the Lord in a dream to preach the gospel in the west and south. Yun then met a man who pleaded with him to come to his village and share the words of God in the Bible. I don’t think I have to tell you that Bibles were rarer than gold in China. Here is what Yun shares about preaching in that village at the age of sixteen:

I sat there with my eyes tightly shut and held the Bible up above my head. I declared, “This is the Bible. The angel of the Lord sent it to me in answer to my prayers. If you want to get a Bible, you will have to pray and seek God as I did.”

They all looked at me in astonishment, with their mouths wide open. The way God provided my Bible caused great wonder among them. they wanted me to teach them. At that time I didn’t know what it meant to preach. I could only recite the Bible from the chapters I had memoriaed, so I recited the entire Gospel of Matthew out loud, from chapter 1 to 28.

I didn’t know if the people understood what I was saying or not. In order no to lose my place or forget anything, I recited what I had memorized quickly, like a flowing river.

When I had finished I was filled with the Holy Spirit and sang some Scripture songs that I had never learned before. When I opened my eyes I saw how God’s Word had captivated everybody. The Holy Spirit was convicting them of their sins. They all knelt down and repented with tears flowing down their cheeks. That night, even though I was just sixteen years old, I learned that God’s word is powerful. When we share it with a burning heart, many people are touched. At that first meeting, thanks to the power of God, dozens of people had given their hearts to Jesus.

They pleaded with me to stay and continue to read the Bible. I told them, “God told me I must also go to the south to be his witness.” This didn’t please them and they wouldn’t let me go! Therefore I stayed and recited the first twelve chapters of the Book of Acts to them. I promised that after I’d memorized more of the Bible I would return to their village and recite what I had learned.

Brother Yun continued to preach in other villages in the west and south, where many miraculous manifestations of the Holy Spirit took place.

God poured out His Spirit to many desperate souls. Like thirsty men in the desert, they gleefully drank in the water of God’s Word. Even though I was just a teenager, the Lord enabled me to lead more than 2,000 people to Jesus in my first year as a Christian.

In those days my understanding of “the west and south” was limited to those areas near my home village. Gradually, by the Lord’s grace, that territory has expanded over the years to include the whole of China and even to nations outside China.

Brother Yun is among the hundreds, probably thousands, of believers in China who have refused to bow down to the Communist government and stop sharing the gospel and meeting in houses to build each other up. Thus, he has been arrested several times. But God gave him strength to live on and tell the world the truth about what is happening to our Christian brothers around the world. I would highly recommend reading this book; there is so much more to this story that I couldn’t post here. Our God is bigger than our biggest notions of big!

For more Inspiring Stories, visit In Defense of the Christian Faith.