The Greatness of God

When Brother Yun escaped from the Zhengzhou Prison in China by simply walking out the iron gates, the other Christian prisoners watched him leave. Brother Xu tells it from his perspective:

"I told Yun the Lord wanted him to escape. The Lord surely led me to tell him this. I felt God wanted Yun to escape, but that he wanted me to stay.

"One morning the Lord directly showed Yun it was time to escape. As he walked down the prison stairs towards the courtyard, another Christian brother was coming in. The security door was opened for him at exactly the same time Yun walked out!

"That brother then ran to our cell and told everyone he had seen Yun walking out of the prison! The prisoners climbed up and looked out of the cell window into the courtyard. We watched as Yun walked out the front gate of the prison to freedom!

"Within a few minutes of Yun's escape, the guards discovered he was missing and a huge manhunt was launched. A thorough investigation was held by the authorities to find out how a crippled prisoner in maximum-security solitary confinement could walk out of the prison and disappear!

"Interestingly, the investigation concluded that Yun had received no human help from any of the prisoners or guards during his escape. I testify that this is entirely true.

"It was all the sovereign hand of our Almighty God." (The Heavenly Man, p. 260, 261)

Brother Musheng's testimony is also included in The Heavenly Man, p. 261-262,

"I was privileged to witness Brother Yun escape from prison in 1997 by the hand of the Lord. I had been called to work in the prison yard at seven o'clock that morning. As I walked back to my cell, escorted by a prison guard, we stopped to be let through an iron security gate. I couldn't believe it when I saw Yun walking out! We all knew that he was crippled, so to say I was surprised to see him walking is a great understatement. He walked right past me, but the guard with me didn't see him at all.

"It wasn't until I returned to my cell that I realized I hadn't seen Yun walk since his legs were broken. I was one of three men who carried him around the prison. . .

"It dawned on me that Yun was trying to escape. I immediately fell to my knees and begged God to save his life, as I thought the guards had purposely let him out into the prison yard so they could shoot him. I climbed to the cell window and watched him cross the yard and disappear through the gate.

"There were probably thirty prison guards in the yard at the time, but no one noticed Yun escape! He even walked right past several of them.

"A short time later a great rainstorm came.

"Back on the third floor of the prison, the guard noticed Yun was missing just a few minutes after his escape. He searched everywhere, calling out, 'Cripple, where are you?' To start with, the guard was quite relaxed, but as the number of places Yun could have been hiding diminished, he grew more and more anxious. After about five minutes he raised the alarm and the whole prison was in an uproar over Yun's escape.

"The prison authorities interrogated us, but we truthfully told them we hadn't helped Yun in any way. Two of the guards lost their jobs." [End of quote]

Yun was the only one ever to escape from that high-security prison. Brother Xu received revelation that Yun should escape, but that he himself should remain in the prison. This is not so different from the story in Acts 12, where James and Peter were thrown into prison by King Herod. God allowed James to be executed, but he sent an angel to free Peter from the prison.

It is not for us to question God's purposes, but to know that it is not difficult for God to save anyone from their troubles. Herein is our exercise of faith. We have faith that God knows what He is doing, regardless of whether He brings us through the valley of the shadow of death, or sets us free. God is sovereign and knows the end from the beginning. Our viewpoint is much narrower, and so we must have faith in Him and know that He has not forgotten or forsaken us while we are undergoing difficult times.

This incident occurred precisely 10 years ago today (May 5, 1997). Those of you who have read my book, Secrets of Time, will recall the "Hezekiah Factor," in which we see certain things repeated on a 10-year cycle. Shortly after Yun escaped, there was a great rainstorm, as Brother Musheng testifies. Perhaps this was prophetic in some way of a soon-coming "latter rain" upon China or upon the earth in general. Certainly, I did not pre-plan to write about this yesterday and today. In fact, I only noticed the date yesterday after writing the web log. Perhaps there is more to this divine "coincidence" than meets the eye.

Oh, did I mention that as I am writing this, a significant rainstorm has just come here in Minneapolis?

The same morning that Yun escaped, his wife was at home having a vision.

"In her vision she saw I had been released. I was sitting in front of her and my face looked joyful and content. I asked my wife to assemble all the church elders and co-workers so we could have a meeting. She pointed her finger at me and said, 'Don't you dare! Don't you have any fear? Are you not afraid to die?' I smiled at her and said nothing.

"In response to her vision, Deling caught a bus to Zhengzhou. The first place she stopped was the home of the leader I was planning to visit that evening!

"When my wife entered the old couple's house, they asked her, 'Are you aware that God's servant Brother Yun has escaped from prison?'

"My wife slumped down in a chair and shared the vision she had received from the Lord earlier that morning. The brother laughed and exclaimed, 'Ha! This proves that communication from the Lord is much faster than any telephone or computer!'

"That evening when I arrived at the house, I was amazed to see the face of my dear wife, and a number of co-workers who had assembled to see me." (p. 263, 264)

Deling herself writes on page 265,

"The whole incident of my husband's prison escape, and the way God told me about it in my vision, completely enlarged my understanding of God's greatness. For the first time I really knew that absolutely nothing is impossible for Him!"

Yes, most of know this in our heads, because we have read Luke 1:37. But only when we have experienced it for ourselves does this Word become flesh in us.