10 - Chapter 10
Chapter 10 - Wednesday Morning, July 14th ------------------------------
HINDRANCES, AND CAUSES OF FAILURE.
Mr. Hudson Taylor:―This morning we have to consider some of the hindrances, and causes of failure which we have experienced in the past, that we may see clearly how they are to be avoided. Now read Zephaniah 3:1-20. As God has made an adequate provision for us, so had He done for Israel, but what do we find was the actual experience of Israel?
FAILURE.
“Woe to her that is rebellious and polluted!” This city, so wondrously blessed—this city in which He was prepared to manifest his delivering power—is spoken of as one that is rebellious and polluted. The explanation is this: God spoke, but “she obeyed not the voice:” God gave correction; she would not receive it. “She trusted not in the Lord; she drew not near to her God.” And those princes who should have been the watchmen of Israel, became as “roaring lions;” the judges, who should have delivered the poor and needy, were evening wolves;” the prophets, instead of declaring the will of God, became themselves “light and treacherous person;” and the very priests “profaned the sanctuary.” What was the reason of all this? They trusted not in the Lord!” they “drew not near to their God.”
CHASTENING.
Oh how gracious were His ways—how slow to chastise, to cast off Israel! With the tenderness of a father he dealt with her, trying every plan to bring in blessing. The judgments of the Lord were revealed: He showed His people what He must do to the idolater, to the willful and wayward, in order that they might learn, and that it might not be needful to cast them out from His sign. “But they knew no shame; they would not receive instruction: they rose early and corrupted all their doings.”
Thus—just as in that beautiful chapter, Ezekiel 36:1-38.—God is obliged to take the matter into His own hands—see verses 8-12. In these verses we read what came to Israel when she did not trust in the Lord; now we are going to hear what will be the result when she does trust in the name of the Lord. THE REMEDY—TRUST IN THE LORD.
“The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity nor speak lies.” There is no reason for doing iniquity or lying when we trust in the Lord. What should we gain by it? If we trust in the Lord we have everything guaranteed. Do we want to gain happiness? When we trust in the Lord we are as full of happiness as we can be—we rejoice with joy unspeakable. Trust in the Lord delivers from the snares and temptations of the Devil—leaves him nothing to bait his hook with. When you are full to overflowing you cannot be more full. It is unbelief, want of faith, practical atheism, that gives the devil all his power. “They shall feed and lie down”—they shall eat till they are satisfied, and then they will lie down. “And none shall make them afraid”—who can make us afraid if we are trusting in the Lord? Who can scale the heavens and tear Him from His throne? “Sing, O daughter of Zion” (Zephaniah 3:14-15) —well may she sing and shout; well may she be glad and rejoice! BUT WILL IT LAST? The thought may now arise, “This is not the first time Zion has been blessed; was she not blessed in the father’s days when He brought them out of Egypt and fed them in the wilderness? Was she not blessed in the time of David and of Solomon? And yet none of these blessings lasted. Is there no fear that her blessing may be lost as before?” No! There is a fundamental difference now. God has now not only put trust into their hearts, but He has undertaken to keep it there; He is going to keep them trusting. Now they are trusting, not in Moses, not in Samuel, not in David, nor in Solomon; but in the name of the Lord; and so they may safely sing as never before, shout as never before, and rejoice as never before. “The King of Israel, even the Lord, is in the midst of thee, thou shalt NOT FEAR EVIL ANY MORE.” The anticipation of evil is evil; the fear of evil is evil; the unbelief that does not trust to be kept is evil; but here the encouragement is—“Thou shalt not fear evil any more.” “The Lord thy God is in the midst of thee, a Mighty One who will save.” This is the ground for praise. When Christ dwells in the heart by faith, what danger, what fear? He WILL save. Oh these precious wills of the Lord! It is nothing to the Lord to save; or as Jonathan said to his armor-bearer, “there is no restraint to the Lord to save;” (1 Samuel 14:6) let Him have His own way, for He cannot be hindered.
HE WILLS TO SAVE.
Thank God for that in China! Here is the difficult language, the anti-foreign feeling of the people, our own unfitness and unworthiness; —but there is no restraint to the Lord to save, by many or by few. He can save, and He will save; we will expect Him to save, and He will do more than we expect! If we have faith to trust Him fearlessly, to pour our barrels of water over the sacrifice, He will not only cause the sacrifice to be burnt, but He will lick up the water also, and burn the stones to powder! Let us open our hearts wide—let us bring vessels not a few, and He will fill them all with oil. And thank God He will not only save, He will REJOICE OVER THEE WITH JOY,
He will rest (margin, be silent) in His love, He will joy over thee with singing.” Just think of God singing! When a heart is fully yielded up to Him, when the creature trust implicitly in the Creator, the very heart of God sings! Shall we not make His heart glad this morning?
SILENT IN LOVE. This passage was made a great blessing to me before I left China last time, and during my voyage home; but until after I reached Paris the clause, “He will rest (or be silent) in His love,” did not come home to me with so much power as it has done since. As our train came into the station at Paris, I saw my dear wife awaiting me on the platform. It was not long before I had secured my luggage, and was seated by her side in a cab. I had much to talk to her about, but we could not speak, we could only sit in silence side by side—the joy was too great for expression—and this passage came to mind. I thought “Is it possible that this is only a type of the heavenly love? Is it possible for the love of God to be so drawn out towards His people that He is obliged to be silent in His love, because there is no expression for it?” But when words fail, then the love will take another turn, and break out into singing—“He will joy over thee with singing!”
WEAK POINTS MADE STRONG. In conclusion. Their very besetments shall be the grounds of praise and fame. The weak points of the fortifications shall become the strongest. These are to be the very points where special praise and fame is to be won by the Lord. Won in His people, won for His people, and won for His very Name’s sake. We can link with this Joel 2:19, “Behold I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and ye shall be satisfied therewith: and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations;” and (Joel 2:25-27) “I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, My great army which I sent among you. And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and shall praise the Name of the Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and My people shall never be ashamed,” etc. Oh my brethren, what a God we have to do with! Shall we not let Him have His own way with every one of us? Can anything be better, or anything grander?
MR. SOWERBY, Baptist Missionary Society.
Four or five years is a very short time to gain much experience in China—it is only enough to give one an insight into one’s own ignorance—but it seems to me that if we look our difficulties in the face, we can sum most of them up under two heads: first, those which are subjective—hindrances to the work which arise simply from what we are; and secondly, those which are objective—difficulties that we meet with for which we are not responsible, which we could not have made different to what they are, such as the habit of opium smoking among the people, their deadness, their avariciousness, slowness to understand, the difficulties of the language, and even our want of strength. But there are also difficulties which we meet with, the cause of which is from without, but the effect of which is within; for instance the habit of opium smoking. We have not only to overcome that, but it creates in us a sense of disgust and despair. It may be that we are associated with brethren with whom there is incompatibility of temper. We ought not to try and part from them, but we ought to try and overcome any painful feelings within us. I cannot think of any difficulties which do not fall under these heads.
HELP IN GOD. When we look at it thus, we see how God, and God alone, is able to help us. How can we overcome those difficulties which arise from our own weakness, but by having a fuller measure of the Divine Love within us? It is as we grow in grace, and become more perfect in our Christian character, that we shall find them overcome. It is the same with regard to those other difficulties the cause of which is without, and the effect within. We can only overcome them by God graciously placing His Spirit within us. Then with regard to those difficulties that are without: there is no use fretting about them, we are sent here to overcome them. God knew all about them when He sent us here, and they are the things we are sent to combat,―the sinfulness of the people, their deadness, etc. It seems to me that when brethren come here, they felt they did not know what they would meet with, and then the battle seems too hard. I am not sure that one brother is not about to give up missionary work, and one of his chief stumbling blocks is this: the want of success that has been given to Protestant Missions, owing to the weakness of the methods they use. I do not mean he distrusts the Gospel, or the power of God’s Spirit, or the methods by which it is to be made known; but he feels that Protestant Missions have been carried on such lines that there is very little change of success. He is not responsible for that, nor are we; but if these difficulties exist we have to overcome them, and we may do so. We have to feel this,―that God has sent us here to face all these things―that in the Name of the Lord we will set up our banner. Surely God is with us. Surely God knows everything that is wrong, and He has given us the Gospel to preach, that we may overcome them—why then should we doubt?
“Right is right, since God is God;
“And right the day must win;
“To doubt would be disloyalty;
“To falter would be sin.”
NEED OF ENDURANCE.
Many fail because they have not the power of endurance. The greatest test of all strength is the power of being able to endure, and it is so in this spiritual warfare. Mr. Taylor must have had his heart saddened by seeing men who began well but did not continue well. Yet in many promises how much we have to encourage us in that respect! I have had the feeling again and again that I must give it up, and go home. It is then that we must go on our knees and pray to God to make us strong to endure. It is just when we feel that we cannot do any good—that the people are too bad, and we are too weak—that we have to pray to God to give us grace to continue, and to determine that, be the difficulty what it may, we will stand firm to our post, and we will rather die than leave it.
I might quote the word of warning given to me by a senior missionary once. He told me the time when most missionaries fail is just when they have obtained the language, but have not got fully into the work. I think perhaps in the C.I.M. that is obviated by the brethren beginning to work as soon as they have got a little of the language. In other Missions people are not permitted to do so. Their hearts get cold for want of active work, and then the difficulties burst in on them in full force. My friend said that more fail in their third year; they get the language and are ready to work, and when they come face to face with the difficulties they fail. Some fail in orthodoxy, some go back to the world, some relinquish the work.
I mention this because to be forewarned is to be forearmed. I know it was so with me. The hardest time I have had in China was two summers ago: I felt it intensely difficult to keep on. One brother said to me “I would do anything if I only knew what to do.” However, I am sure our God is sufficient to meet all our difficulties, if we only trust in Him, and make up our minds that we will overcome difficulties in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
MR. HUDSON TAYLOR. In times of discouragement it is a great help to remember the Lord’s work is not our work for the Lord, but the Lord’s own work through us and others. He will not fail nor be discouraged. I have felt those times our brother spoke of more than once, when I have been brought face to face with some new phase of work, some new call of God, some new realization of deep need. Then the thought I have mentioned has been helpful to me.
MR. J. H. STURMAN.
I feel as to one’s growth in grace one of the greatest drawbacks has been want of more watching for God’s leading and of meditativeness. I often lose opportunities for praise by failing to see God’s guiding hand in small matters.
MR. C. T. STUDD.
I remember at K’uh-wu one of these attacks came over me. I was in a thick fog, and I could not get up to praising pitch, though that always disperses the mists. Sunset came, and I could not praise—then, being out of doors, I tried to run, and the praise would not come. Presently, I happened to turn round, and looking along the horizon, I saw the hills all capped with mist and cloud, and the Lord seemed to say—“You see the mountains are there just the same though capped with mist, they have not been removed;” and the Lord opened my mouth, and I was able to praise.
DR. EDWARDS. A great many difficulties arise in our work from the deadness of our own hearts, but may not they arise frequently from our want of knowledge of the people among whom we work? We seem to know so little of them and their modes of thought. There must necessarily be want of sympathy unless we can understand their condition and their difficulties; and without this we very frequently, if not always, fail to get at their hearts. Should it not be our aim to get to know more of the difficulties of the people, so as to understand them better? And in order to understand them, should we not get among them more?
MR. HUDSON TAYLOR.
There can be very little doubt that one of our greatest difficulties here, is our want of a fuller understanding of and a fuller sympathy with the people. Our privilege and duty in this respect are, it seems to me, clearly indicated by the Incarnation. “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.” It is a very small matter indeed, our being conformed to the Chinese in dress, if that be all. It is one of the encouragements when we feel tried by the time required for the study of the language, to remember that it is far more difficult to get to know the people, than to acquire their language. All the time we need for acquiring fluency in the language, may be prayerfully improved in the spirit of God-like sympathy, for gaining knowledge of the people; so that when we do speak to them, what we say will not fly over their heads.
I do like to look at every practical question in connection with Christ. The Incarnation shows that, provided we keep from sin, we cannot go too far in meeting this people, and getting to know them, getting to be one with them, getting into sympathy with them. How is this to be brought about? Is it not a great promise that “The love of God shall be shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given to us”? What is THE LOVE OF GOD? Is it my love to God? No! something better than that. Is it God’s love to me? It is something wider than that! The “love of God,” it seems to me, is that love which God has toward every creature that He has made—that love that leads Him to open His mighty hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing. If God sheds that love abroad in my heart, that love will not be discouraged by the trying things which have been referred to. The love of God will never fail; and the love of God will lead to reality, to devout genuineness of sympathy, which will bring us in contact with the people. How does a mother find out what her speechless babe wants? By INSTINCT OF LOVE. When there is much that it is difficult to understand among this people, I believe that God’s own love brought into our hearts—something not of ourselves at all, nor like ourselves, but independent of ourselves—will be the Key that will give us the explanation, and will draw us near to them. Otherwise we may come to feel as a missionary once told me he felt, “Every year I am in China I get harder and harder, and get to dislike and to hate this people more.” It must be so, unless we are kept from it by this love of God.
MR. SOWERBY. Is it any help to a missionary in trying to understand the religious thought of the people to study their most popular religious works? I think we shall find a way to put the Gospel to them if we know what they think of the Divine, and of Sin.
MR. HUDSON TAYLOR.
It seems to me that every missionary should endeavor to make himself acquainted to some extent with these things, in order to be able the better to adapt himself to the people in his teaching. At the same time it is possible to go too far, and give un undue amount of attention to such studies; because the whole religious literature of China is so vast, that many lives would be needed to compass it, and it is only a very small portion of our one life we can afford to give to the study of error. So that while one cannot consider he has learned the language even, while altogether ignorant of these things, we have to keep the due balance.
CHRIST, NOT RELIGION.
There were some among the early preachers who were thoroughly well acquainted with the beliefs of the pagans, and a few well up in their literature. A great many, however, knew little about it, but they knew a great deal about the one thing needful. I have been struck with this, in a good deal of intercourse with native preachers,―that those who have least of grace are those that deal most largely in their own literature. I have heard one of the most capable Chinese gentlemen I have known in China preaching frequently, both to scholars and to poor men, and I noticed he scarcely ever made any reference to those things which he was master of. One might have expected him to deal with scholars on their own ground; I noticed he dealt with them only on the ground of salvation—“All you know, and all you have, and all you are, will not save you; but the Lord Jesus will.” The Lord wonderfully used him. It was never the Tao-li (Religion) he preached, but the Lord Jesus as his living Saviour.
MISS KEMP.
How is it that some Christian people, really devoted, do so much harm? A letter I have received mentions that some, who seem thoroughly devoted to Christ, by their utter want of wisdom and tact, do much harm. The writer thought it was possible to prevent a soul entering the kingdom by that, and I have sometimes thought so myself.
MR. HUDSON TAYLOR.
There can be no question as to the fact of harm being done. As to the explanation of it, may it not be that with very great desire to do good, there is a good deal of dependence on self and neglect of the teaching of God’s Word in the method of doing it? We find from scripture that Christ is made to us wisdom. The Jew had every desire to serve God, but he did not serve God according to knowledge. May it not be that there is a Christian zeal that is not according to knowledge? This thought should lead us to great distrust of self. There is a fleshly energy that makes men workers, perhaps, when they should be spiritually feeding and resting.
I cannot but think there are abundant cases of failure which might be avoided. For nearly twenty years of my Christian life I was really in the dark as to the extent to which Scripture warrants us to reckon on Christ’s keeping power. In that state, Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians Christians for illumination is very appropriate. I was not really drawing on the fullness that there is in Christ for keeping power, through ignorance of it. One had been trained to expect that as long as one was down here nothing but ebbing and flowing was to be looked for, and that it is only in heaven that we are to be kept. One needed the illumination of the spirit to know that this was error—that it was as unscriptural to expect that sin should have dominion over us here, as it was to expect that we should have no sin. Then again when one saw that there was in Christ the remedy, one found want of trust prevented one from claiming and receiving it. Of course if we begin to look for healthy fruits of Christian life, before the Christian life itself is healthy and vigorous, we are sure to be disappointed. The first thing is to be fully saved ourselves, fully kept, and kept in touch with Christ our Wisdom, and then to expect salvation to have full effect on all around us. If I am off the insulating stool myself, I cannot expect to electrify others.
Another thing that has been a cause of weakness to myself has been want of confession—of speaking out what the Lord was doing in one’s own soul. I have known what it was to be kept very full of light and joy for a time; an opportunity has come when Christ ought to have been glorified by confession, and I have shrunk from it; but it has been with great loss of power. I do think that as with regard to salvation, with the heart one believes, and with the mouth confesses to salvation, so with regard to the fullness of blessing, it is as important to confess with the mouth, as it is to believe in the heart, that He has fully saved us, cleansed us, and means to keep us.
Nothing has been a greater blessing to me than to confess, “I do not expect to be thirsty again.” I dare not, believing (John 4:13-14; John 6:35) His word, expect to be thirsty; and some people have thought it was very presumptuous to say so; but God blesses me every time I confess it. If we confess that we believe that God really wills what He says, He will always bless us.
What has been my experience with regard to our work? Before the Mission was formed, I told the people that God was going to open the eighteen provinces to us. Some people thought it was presumption, but He has done it. When we sent Mr. Stevenson to Bhamô we made our boast before he sailed that God was going to open the way. When the brethren came out before the Chefoo Convention, we made our boast that God would set before them an open door. Before the beginning of the three years, we published that we were going to have seventy new workers in answer to prayer; because we knelt down in that room at Wu-ch’ang and received the seventy from the Lord by faith; and that evening we had a thanksgiving meeting for them. Here are some of the seventy in this room, and we still thank God for them.
We must not lose sight of the privilege of confession. God is going to send showers of blessing on T’ai-yüen Fu: let us confess it. Let us not wait till they come, and then confess it; let us tell the people, and the Lord Himself today. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. Why? Because we are so full of faith? No! Because “He is faithful.” When God’s grace is triumphant in my soul, and I can look a Chinaman in the face, and say, “God is able to save you, where and as you are,” that is when I have power. How else are you going to deal with a man under the craving of opium? The cause of the want of success is very often that we are only half saved ourselves. If we are fully saved, and confess it, we shall see results. If a river of living water is flowing out from us, depend upon it people will not be in contact with us without effect. May the Lord keep us in His own safe keeping. Since the Lord has given me to know more about Himself, He has used me as never before. He uses me in England, and in China; and wherever I go, He gives me work to do, and I know it is all His doing and not my own. He will take each one of you, keep you, and gloriously use you, if you will only lie in His hand, free for Him to use.
(The Meeting closed with singing “Hallelujah for the Cross.”) “Jesus, my life is Thine!
“And evermore shall be “Hidden in Thee.
“For nothing can untwine “Thy life from mine.”
F.R.H.