May 5. Brother Yun. The first year he was a Christian, Brother Yun helped 2000 people find the Lord. About six years later, the arrests and torture began. He was arrested three times, and the third time, on this date in 1997, Brother Yun miraculously escaped a maximum-security prison.
In 2001, Yun left China and sought asylum in Germany, where he founded “Back to Jerusalem,” a Chinese missionary organization. Yun has written four books, urging people to trust God to do what He has promised.
Impossible situations require persistent prayer.
When the teen who came to be known as Brother Yun was 16, he didn’t know much about Jesus. His mother had been a believer, but had drifted.
One night, his mother struggled to care for his father who was dying from cancer. She gathered her five children and said that Jesus would save them. As a group, they prayed all night for their father.
In the morning, Yun’s father was healed.
Yun’s mother returned to following Christ, and Yun knew that there existed a powerful God who answered the prayers of His people.
Soon after this, the Lord told Yun to be His witness “to the south and the west.”
Now he was desperate to know more about Jesus. He said, “My mother told me ‘Jesus is the Son of God, who died on the cross for us, taking all ours sins and sicknesses. He recorded all his teachings in the Bible.’”
There was just one problem with this.
“I asked if there were any words of Jesus left that I could read. She replied, ‘All his words are gone. There is nothing left of his teaching.’”
This was during China’s Cultural Revolution when bibles could not be found. In fact, if anyone was caught with a Bible, “it would be burned, and the owner’s whole family would be severely beaten.”
But Brother Yun so badly wanted to read the Word of God. So he did what all desperate men must do: he fasted and prayed for a miracle.
“Every morning and afternoon I ate and drank nothing. I cried like a hungry child to his heavenly Father. For the next one hundred days I prayed for a Bible, until I could bear it no more.”
Thankfully, before Yun lost his mind, he received a vision from the Lord.
In the vision “a kind old man was pulling a large cart full of fresh bread. When the old man saw me, he asked, ‘Are you hungry?’ I replied, ‘Yes. I have nothing to eat.’ The old man took a red bag of bread from his trolley and said, ‘You must eat it immediately.’ When I put the bun in my mouth, it instantly turned into a Bible!”
Of course, when he opened his eyes and realized that it had only been a vision, he was distraught. Seeing their son’s anguish, his mother and father cried out to God, too. They begged the Father to give their son a Bible. Now that the whole family had united with him in prayer for his Bible, would God disappoint them?
Of course, when he opened his eyes and realized that it had only been a vision, he was distraught. Seeing their son’s anguish, his mother and father cried out to God, too. They begged the Father to give their son a Bible. Now that the whole family had united with him in prayer for his Bible, would God disappoint them?
“Suddenly I heard a faint knock at the door. A very gentle voice called my name. I immediately recognized the voice as the same one I had heard in the vision. One man held a red bag in his hand. My heart raced as I opened the bag and held in my hands my very own Bible!”
Brother Yun later found out that around the time he had begun praying for a Bible, an evangelist in a faraway village had seen Brother Yun in a vision, and the Lord had told him to give Brother Yun his Bible.
And how did Brother Yun respond to this miracle?
“From that moment on I prayed to Jesus with faith-filled prayer. I fully trusted that the words in the Bible were God’s words to me. I devoured its teachings like a hungry child.”
“Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:27 ESV).
Do you need a miracle in your life? Is there something you lack that only God can provide? Take a moment today to ask the Father. You’ll be amazed at what he can do. Impossible situations require persistent prayer.
Hattaway, Paul and Brother Yun. The Heavenly Man. Monarch Books, 2002.
https://www.gods-kingdom-ministries.net/daily-weblogs/2007/03-2007/brother-yun-gets-a-bible/
Story read by Peter R Warren, https://www.peterwarrenministries.com/
“I did not really suffer for Jesus while in prison—I was with Jesus,” he writes in his book. “The ones who really suffer are those who never experience God’s presence.”
~Brother Yun