Description

The Heavenly Man is the intensely dramatic story of how God took a young, half-starved boy from a poor village in Henan Province and used him mightily to preach the gospel despite horrific opposition.

Brother Yun is one of China's house church leaders, a man who despite his relative youth has suffered prolonged torture and imprisonment for his faith. His account challenges any complacency about the situation in China, where international economic investment ignores the brutal fact that religious persecution is still a daily reality for millions. Instead of focusing on the many miracles or experiences of suffering, however, Yun prefers to emphasize the character and beauty of Jesus.

This astonishing book will form a watershed in your spiritual life.

The book begins:

"My name is Liu Zhenying. My Christian friends call me Brother Yun. I was born in 1958 in an old farming village named Liu Lao Zhuang in Nanyang County, in Hunan Province, about 100 million souls, with 600 in our village.” "In the 1800s, many protestant missionaries came to my province. But many began to see them as tools of imperialism, colonialism, sent by their nation to rape our land of its natural resources. Such groups as the “boxers” instigated nationwide attacks against missionaries, and most were massacred. Those brave missionaries had come to serve our nation sacrificially and bring the love of the Lord Jesus Christ to improve our lives by building hospitals, orphanages, and schools. We repaid them with death. The Lord called me to follow him in 1974. I was 16, and the Cultural Revolution was still raging throughout China.

My father was sick with cancer, my mother, who remembered stories of Jesus, knelt by his bed and prayed. Suddenly she heard a clear voice say, “Jesus loves you.” She repented of her sins and rededicated herself to the Lord Jesus Christ. Mother called the whole family together and told us, “Jesus is the only hope for father.”

Within a week, he was healed of cancer and all our friends rejoiced. My mother became the preacher in our village, remembering from her childhood what she could from the Bible. I decided I wanted to serve the Lord with all my heart.

We prayed everyday for a Bible because nobody was allowed to read any book but Mao’s Little Red Book. If caught with a Bible, it would be burned, the owner’s entire family beaten in the middle of the village. Those who had Bibles in China had buried them in safe places away from their homes. A Chinese Evangelist was led by visions from the Lord to send his Bible to a young man in a certain village, and I had a vision of these exact two men who brought me this Bible. I devoured its teaching like a hungry child. I started to memorize entire chapters from the Gospels and from Acts. I was receiving visions as I prayed that I was to start ministering to neighboring villages."

The Heavenly Man, Brother Yun with Paul Hattaway, Monarch Books, 2002

Listen to Brother Yun speak of his miraculous escape from prison