Brother Yun
Brother Yun was born in February 1958 in the province of Henan. His original name was Liu Zhenying (ćæŻè„).
Brother Yun became a believer at the age of 16. Soon after he became a Christian, God called him to be His witness in the west and south. As he was obedient to the calling, he eventually became a witness of Christ not just in the western and southern parts of China, but throughout China and in the nations beyond China as well.
Brother Yun was born into a poor family. His familyâs financial situation took a turn for the worst when his father became ill with an asthmatic condition that led to lung cancer eventually. His life got worse when he became a Christian as he suffered severe trials and persecutions. In the midst of suffering for the Lord, however, he experienced miracle after miracle, which helped to strengthen his faith.
HOW BROTHER YUN BECAME A BELIEVER
In 1974, Brother Yunâs father became ill with lung cancer. His mother, who had been a Christian for many years but had become spiritually cold after the expulsion of Western missionaries during the Cultural Revolution, felt a deep sense of desperation because if her husband had died then, it would leave the family in dire straits. She thought of committing suicide. One evening, as she was lying in bed, she heard a voice saying to her that Jesus loved her. In tears and in repentance, she rededicated her life to God and gathered her family to pray for her husband. The next morning, her husband got better and as a result, everyone in the family, including Brother Yun, put their faith in God.
HIS HUNGER FOR THE WORD OF GOD
Brother Yun was 16 when he became a Christian. Soon after, he started hungering for the Word of God. However, his family did not have a Bible. He began asking his mother who Jesus was. In response, his mother would tell him that Jesus was the Son of God and that He had recorded all His teachings in the Bible.
Brother Yun wanted a Bible and his mother recalled that there was a man in another village who had one. So she brought him to see the man. The man was too afraid to show Brother Yun his Bible. So he suggested to the latter that he could pray and ask God for one.
Brother Yun decided to fast and pray for a Bible. For the next 100 days, he ate only one bowl of steamed rice everyday. One day at 4am, after fasting for 100 days, he saw a vision. In the vision, he was walking up a steep hill and trying to push a heavy cart at the same time. He was heading towards a village where he intended to beg for food for his family. He struggled greatly as he continued his climb uphill. The cart was about to roll back and fall on him when he saw three men walking down the hill in the opposite direction. One of them was a kind old man and he was pulling a large cart of fresh bread. When the old man saw Brother Yun, he asked him if he was hungry. He said âyesâ and started crying. The old man then took a red bag of bread from his cart and asked his two servants to give it to Brother Yun. As he put the bread into his mouth, it immediately turned into a Bible.
Upon waking up, Brother Yun began to search for the Bible. His search, however, was in vain. All of a sudden, he heard a faint knock on the door and someone was calling out his name. Immediately, he recognised the voice â it was the same voice he had heard in the vision. He quickly opened the door and standing before him were the two servants he had seen in the vision. One of them held a red bag in his hand. In this red bag was a Bible.
It was later that Brother Yun found out the names of the two men. One was Brother Wang while the other was Brother Sung. They were sent by an evangelist to give Brother Yun the Bible. The evangelist, who had suffered terribly during the Cultural Revolution and had nearly died while being tortured, had received a vision from God. In the vision, God showed him Brother Yunâs house and the location of his village. He was asked to give his Bible to Brother Yun. However, he did not obey God until three months later.
Brother Yun began to devour the Word of God. Even though he could hardly read, this did not deter him at all. When he had finished reading the entire Bible, he started to memorise one chapter per day. In 28 days, he had memorised the Gospel of Matthew. Then he went on to memorise the Book of Acts and so forth.
OBEDIENT TO THE CALL OF GOD
One morning at 4am, Brother Yun had a dream. In the dream, God asked him to be His witness in the west and south. In the same dream, he saw a young man from the south coming to his house. And so at daybreak, he told his mother to expect the young manâs visit and to ask him to wait for him. Then he sat off to a village he had never heard of in the west. The people in this village had been praying for him to visit as they had heard about how he had prayed for a Bible and got it.
When the meeting at the village concluded and Brother Yun got ready to leave, the villagers refused to let him go. So he stayed on and recited to them the first twelve chapters from the Book of Acts. After that, the villagers finally let him go. From the village to his house, it could take up to 2 hours to walk. Because he did not want to make the young man from the south wait too long, he decided to run home. All of a sudden, he found himself entering his village without any apparent time lapse. What should have taken him a few hours took him just a few moments. It was as if God had supernaturally transported him back to his village.
PERSECUTIONS AND MIRACLES IN HIS LIFE
Brother Yun was arrested by security police numerous times and was thrown into prison three times for sharing the gospel in communist China.
When Brother Yun was arrested the first time, he was only 17 years old. At that time, he was ministering at a meeting far away from home. After he was caught, he was thrown into a freezing cold prison cell. There was no heat in the cell and his winter coat had been thrown into the snow by the security police who had caught him. He began to sing Psalm 150 aloud. The more he sang, the more he was filled with joy. Gradually, his frozen hands and feet regained feeling and he no longer felt cold.
During his first imprisonment in Nanyang, Brother Yun felt that God wanted him to fast without food and water until he could see his family again. This fast lasted 74 days, which was humanly impossible but yet was made possible because he chose to obey God.
During those times when Brother Yun was in the hands of government officials, he was repeatedly beaten and tortured with electric batons. He was also kicked and trampled upon. Furthermore, he had needles being jabbed underneath his fingernails.
Once, Brother Yun was paraded through the streets with a red cross tied behind him for half a day. When night fell, he was locked and left alone inside a large interrogation room. The wooden cross was taken off his back but his hands were still tied up. All of a sudden, the rope that was used to tie his hands snapped by itself. He immediately walked out of the interrogation room and walked through the courtyard in the midst of onlookers. Nobody stopped him or said anything to him. It was as if God had blinded their eyes and they did not even recognise who he was.
Because the front gate was locked, the only way Brother Yun could get out was to climb over an eight-foot high cement wall. He climbed up as much as he could manage. Then he looked over the wall and saw that there was a ten-foot wide open tank directly below. Suddenly, he felt as if someone had lifted him up and thrown him over. He was thrown so far that he did not land in the tank.
Brother Yunâs 3rd imprisonment was a very dark period in his life as the prison guards in the maximum security prison were determined to prevent his escape. So they beat his legs to cripple him permanently. They had him beaten up everyday, even in his crippled state. One day, God instructed him to escape from the prison. This was confirmed by a brother-in-Christ. Thus, on May 5, 1997, he miraculously walked past dozens of prison guards and out of the maximum security prison. It was as if he had become invisible to the guards. He did not realise that his legs had been miraculously healed until later.
Throughout all the horrendous and painful experiences that Brother Yun went through, the word of the Lord kept coming to him, encouraging him and strengthening his faith.
BROTHER YUNâS MINISTRY
Brother Yun eventually escaped China and sought asylum in Germany in 2001. Since then, he has been continuing his ministry from there and has spoken to congregations internationally. He has founded âBack to Jerusalemâ Movement and has been sending missionaries out from China to share the gospel in the least-reached nations.
Brother Yunâs life and ministry have impacted many lives. Thousands of people have become Christians through his ministry. It is thus inevitable that fellow Christians have allowed themselves to be used as instruments of wickedness to attack his reputation. The co-author of The Heavenly Man, Paul Hattaway has aptly put it this way, âMany of the great Christian leaders throughout history have been the subject of brutal attacks from other Christians.â
AFTERTHOUGHT
Brother Yunâs childlike faith and his prompt obedience to Godâs call are exemplary. It is incredible that he has remained faithful to God despite the tremendous suffering and persecutions he has gone through.
A Letter to Younger Me About Money
If you listen to anyone in their senior years long enough, youâll eventually hear something like, âIf I knew then what I know now . . . â But seniors arenât the only ones who feel that way. At age thirty, I find myself already saying the same thing about money. Recently, I left a financial planning firm after working as a creative director and wealth coach. I learned more in one year about financial stewardship than I had learned in my first 29 years of life. While working at the firm, I discovered the sorry state of my familyâs finances. I knew we werenât great with money, but I didnât realize the extent of our financial ignorance and problems. I also discovered that I wasnât alone. After six months at the firm, I was able to counsel clients who needed basic financial coaching, and it wasnât pretty. Regardless of income, most were living paycheck to paycheck, and they were up to their eyeballs in debt. Today, twenty-somethings are bombarded with opportunities to make poor financial decisions. At the relatively young age of thirty, I often find myself saying, âI wish I knew at twenty what I know today about money.â If I could have a conversation with my twenty-year-old self about money, here are three things I would tell him. 1. Money cannot buy you happiness. Throughout my twenties, I viewed money as the solution to most of my problems. This belief dictated how I spent my time and, ultimately, my earnings. At one point, I had seven jobs while pursuing a masterâs degree. But I was still broke and in debt, and I never finished my studies. Rather than a source of joy, money became a cruel master (Matthew 6:24). What Iâve discovered is that my experience is all too common. The sad thing is that so few of us seem to learn from our mistakes. We keep trying to pursue happiness through more money. Some will point to studies that suggest thereâs a correlation between money and happiness. One article reported that each additional dollar earned per year reduces peopleâs negative emotions â but that effect disappears at about $200,000 annually. In other words, money is a limited help at best, and certainly doesnât buy lasting happiness, as any honest observer of wealthy people can quickly perceive. Ultimately, money is a means to an end. A dollar or a piece of gold is only as valuable as what we can trade for it. And money is dangerous. It gives the illusion of granting access to anything. So we can easily elevate it to the throne that should be reserved only for our ultimate provider: God, the giver of all good things. So I would tell my twenty-year-old self: Donât try to buy happiness with money. This would have dramatically changed my finances, especially with regard to debt. 2. Donât borrow money carelessly. In my twenties, I borrowed foolishly, and Iâm still paying for it. From student loans to credit cards, I went into debt without giving it a second thought. Debt allowed me to get what I wanted when I wanted it. And the best part? I didnât have to wait or ask for permission. This is the great temptation every twenty-something faces in an age when money is so easily borrowed. The Bible doesnât condemn debt as inherently sinful, but it clearly warns us that money shouldnât be borrowed haphazardly. And Scripture also tells us that when we incur a debt, it is evil not to pay what we owe. Romans 13:8 says, âLet no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one anotherâ (NIV). And Psalm 37:21 says, âThe wicked borrows and does not repay, but the righteous shows mercy and givesâ (NKJV). If I could counsel my twenty-year-old self on debt, hereâs what I would say: Donât borrow money unless you absolutely have to. There is too much at stake to borrow money without giving it careful thought. If youâre considering a credit card or a loan, count the costs, and beware of the risks. And once in debt, I would say, Make a plan to eliminate it as soon as possible. 3. Save, give, and spend money proactively. âA wise man thinks ahead; a fool doesnât and even brags about it!â (Proverbs 13:16 TLB). One of the worst mistakes I made with money was failing to plan wisely. When I received a paycheck or extra cash, I lacked direction. Like the fool in that Proverb, I was proud that I didnât budget. I absolutely hated the idea. Budgeting felt intimidating and seemed like a lot of work. Besides, as long as I didnât plan, I could remain in denial that I was a poor steward of the resources God had given me. I could pretend I was giving and spending wisely and no one could confirm or deny it. And I could make spending decisions based mostly on my feelings. This felt like freedom, but it wasnât. Now I would say this to my foolish twenty-year-old self: Making a plan for your money may help give you dominion over it. Being planless is not being free; being planless makes you a slave to money. But a good financial plan turns money into your slave to serve what you really value. You will be empowered to save, give, and spend money proactively rather than reactively. Itâs Not Too Late to Change Hindsight is indeed twenty-twenty. And itâs not like I now manage money perfectly. Even though I understand more now how to handle money, I donât always act on my knowledge. But over the last year, Iâve come a long way. And if I canât help my twenty-year-old self, I hope I can help others avoid the mistakes I made, or help them make changes like Iâve had to make. No matter how old we are, itâs not too late to correct our course. Weâre never too old to stop trying to buy happiness with money, or to get out of debt as soon as possible, or to begin governing money instead of being governed by money. We want to serve God and not money (Matthew 6:24). But the less intentional we are with our money, the more likely we will end up serving it, for good stewardship is impossible without intentionality. Article by Phillip Holmes
