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Our God moves in mysterious ways to accomplish the purposes of His glory. “He
will have mercy on whom He will have mercy…that He may make known the riches
of His glory on the vessels of mercy.” A proud, garrulous busybody had been buffeted
into docile humility by the kindly chastening of a loving God.
It was a quiet, unobtrusive Mr. Lee who resumed attendance at the Jesus Hall when
we came to the English Village to preach the Word of God.
It was about the fourth day of the meeting that we gave messages on the “Meaning
of the Cross,” the propitiatory death of Christ. We showed that the Cross is the
condemnation of the world and the complete proof of the futility of human works. We
showed that Christ suffered the essence of Hell and separation from God, and only as
we sinners recognize that only by His being made “afar off” from God can we be
“made nigh,” only by His being “made sin” could we be “made righteous.”
At the conclusion of the afternoon message as we felt the Holy Spirit was gripping
hearts in conviction, we gave an invitation for those to come forward who would truly
receive of His grace and confess themselves dead, buried and risen with Christ.
There was a fine response as numbers came forward, knelt down and cried aloud to
God for forgiveness of their sins. One of the first was Mr. Lee. He wept and confessed
himself to have been a hypocrite, covetous, a schemer, a busybody, proud,
self-righteous: and he declared God‟s judgments on him to have been entirely just. He
then gave a confession and testimony to the whole assembly declaring that that day
salvation had come to him for the first time.
From that hour Mr. Lee was truly a new creature in Christ Jesus. His changed of
heart took immediate effect in his conduct. He went home and got the remainder of
his stock of books that he had been selling and brought them to the church and placed
them on the ground in the middle of the courtyard.
He invited the preachers and Christians who were assembled to inspect the books
and whichever ones they thought unfitting for a Christian to sell or handle to throw
into a pile on the side.
This was immediately done. Several of the educated young preachers squatted
beside the pile and glanced through each book. All the books, with the exception of
some of the classics of Confucius and Mencius, which were regarded as innocent
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