After the war I was invited to come to Shanghai. I was still on the peak of the revival in Chefoo, so that revival was brought to Shanghai. This was the fourth main revival among us.
We have seen how Brother Nee was unable to minister for six years, from 1942 to 1948, because of the rebellious turmoil in Shanghai. Through the revival there in 1947 and the first few months of 1948, the rebellious and dissenting ones were brought back. Nearly all of them repented and confessed to Brother Nee. That brought Brother Nee back to the ministry. Some said that Brother Nee had no time to minister from 1942 to 1948 because of his business, but this was not true. He had the time, but he did not minister because of the saints' rebellion against him. He told me this in a definite way. In 1947 I begged him to minister in Shanghai, but he said that he could not minister because of the rebellious ones there.
Thank the Lord that through the revival in 1947 the whole church in Shanghai was brought back, and eventually Brother Nee's ministry was recovered. The recovery of his ministry confirmed and enlarged the revival in the church. Later, about eighty seeking ones from different parts of China who had come to Shanghai to participate in that revival were with Brother Nee for a six-month training. After that training from April to October in 1948, the trainees returned to their localities, and their localities were set on fire. That became the biggest, most powerful, and most prevailing revival among us. This revival spread throughout all of China. In one locality, over seven hundred people were baptized in one day. Eventually, however, the Communists came to take over all of China.
The revival among us in Chefoo in 1943 spread to Shanghai in 1947. After I was sent to the island of Taiwan, this kind of revival was brought there. This was one of the reasons why the work in Taiwan went so fast in the first few years. Within six years we increased from about five hundred saints to about twenty thousand. This was due to the spreading of the flow of that big revival in China.
The main spiritual aspect of the fourth revival was that all the saints consecrated all that they were and all that they had to the church. That was not only a revival with the practicality of the church life but also a revival with the full surrender of the saints to the Lord for the church. Whatever they were, whatever they did, and whatever they possessed were handed over to the church. This uprooted all the worldly things and built all the saints together. The saints became a prevailing expression of the Body of Christ with the power and impact of the one accord. That was the practicality of the saints being built up.
Even today we are still inheriting all the good points of those four revivals. We are inheriting the experience of the assurance of salvation, the overcoming life of Christ, the practicality of the church life, and the practice of fully surrendering ourselves to the Lord for the church. I hope that we would be so clear about these four aspects: the assurance of salvation, the overcoming life of Christ, the practicality of the church life, and the full surrender of whatever we are, whatever we have, and whatever we can do, to the church.