(Christian Biographies for Children) Ian Thomas read

Okay, we are going to listen to a story. It's the last one in the book, we have reached the end of the book, we got to find a new one. After this, let me pull it up one second.

You can sit there if you want, or you can sit over there. Okay, so this is the man, the life of a man who was, I forget when he died, but he was alive until pretty recently. His name was Ian Thomas.

And he was a major in the army, the British Army, so it's commonly known as Major Ian Thomas. So here's his, in fact, I think at the time of the writing of this book, he was still alive, if I remember correctly. So here's the story of Major Ian Thomas.

Okay, so the title of this chapter is The Adventurous Life. I think all of us like adventure to some extent, and some more than others. So here's how you can have an adventurous life, even as a follower of Jesus.

Some Christians learn that the Lord can make life an adventure. Major W. Ian Thomas of England is one of them. Major Thomas served in the infantry.

The infantry, does anybody know what the infantry is? Raise your hand if you know what the infantry is in the military. Infantry? Well, you know what the Air Force is? They fly in planes. You know what the Navy is? They go in ships.

You know what the cavalry is? They ride on horses. And the infantry is foot soldiers, army. We would call them the army today, except back in the day, they were the ones that marched on foot.

So he served in the infantry, and sometimes that was the most dangerous, because you were in the thick of the battle. You were on foot, nowhere to escape or run. So he served in the infantry in the British Expeditionary Forces in Belgium at the beginning of World War II, and took part in the evacuation of Dunkirk, which was a famous battle in World War II.

Often in combat, whether in France or Italy or Greece or somewhere else during that long World War II, he found that the Lord Jesus was all that he needed to be. He proved that Jesus would take care of him. But he was also, more importantly, a soldier of the cross, faithful to the captain of our salvation.

He found life with God to be true adventure. He was raised in a respectable middle-class English home, and was taken to church and taught the basics of the Christian faith. But he learned hardly anything about the Bible, either at home or in the church that he attended.

Some churches are like that. You don't really learn much about the Bible. You just go and they have meetings.

And so children, you can be thankful that you are in a church where you're taught the Bible and you're taught to learn memory verses, and you can remember that. It's a good thing. Many people who go to churches don't have such teaching.

But he learned hardly anything about the Bible, either at home or in the church that his family attended. At the age of 12, he was invited to a Bible study group of the Crusaders Union, which is kind of like a children's Sunday school, by a 13-year-old young boy who, just in the previous year, had received Christ as his Savior. So here was a 13-year-old boy about the age of some of you.

And just that year, he had become a Christian, and he invited Ian to come to this Bible study, children's Bible study. So think about that, children. You can be a witness.

We're going to read about how, when this boy invited Ian to the Bible study, Ian ended up becoming a Christian. And so that also is a good example. Now, we don't know who this boy is.

We don't know his name. But I believe he has a reward in heaven, simply because he invited his friend Ian, and Ian became a man used by God tremendously. So some of you can invite a friend to come to your Sunday school, come to church meetings, or you can even tell them about Christ.

As you get to know children outside, through sports you play or other friends you meet in your neighborhood, you can tell them about, bring them to RLCF sometime. So this 13-year-old boy brought Ian, and even though that 13-year-old boy was just a Christian for a few months, and as he came to this Bible study, the Bible began to be more meaningful to young Ian. And the next summer, at the age of 13, he was converted to Christ at a Crusader's Union camp.

That decision was made when he was alone. And simply by praying earnestly, Lord Jesus, please be my savior, Ian became a Christian. At the age of 15, he felt convinced, so this is after being a Christian for two years, he felt convinced that he should devote all of his life to serve Jesus.

At the age of 15, what a wonderful thing, he told God that he would become a missionary. He began to preach, listen to this, at the age of 15, he began to preach out in the open air in his town of Hampstead Heath. He was also actively involved in Sunday school work and the Crusader's Bible class.

His life soon became full of continuous activity. He came to Wheaton College in the United States in 1956 for a week of meetings, just to attend the meetings, he wasn't a preacher yet. But while there, he described those early years of constant but empty activity this way.

It was like his trying to find the best area in which to be a missionary, and the best way to be a missionary, just like one would do with a new job. So he treated his Christian life just like having a new job. How can I be the best at what I'm doing? How can I be the best missionary like he would want to do the best at his job? The first missionary influence on young Ian's life came through a doctor serving in Nigeria, in the Hausa band.

Ian was so struck by their very first meeting that he made it his ambition to one day join the Hausa band in Nigeria, in West Africa. He thought that the best thing for him to do was to become a doctor. His parents kindly allowed him to pick whatever career he wanted, and so at the age of 17, he went to London's University to study at St. Bartholomew's Hospital.

At the university, Ian became a leader in the InterVarsity Fellowship Group, which is kind of like a Bible study group for college students. Anytime there was any evangelistic activity going on, any church meetings, he was always there, full of zeal. He started a slum club in the east end of London, which is a club, like a meeting, Bible study meetings in the slums, the really poor areas of London.

Out of sheer desire to win souls, he wanted to win souls so much that he started this meeting in the slums of London. By the age of 19, every moment of his day was packed with doing things, preaching, talking, counseling. Here's what Ian Thomas himself writes.

He says, the thing that bothered me, however, was that nobody was getting converted. I was the only one who was sincere. That gets a little discouraging after a while, doesn't it? The more I did, the less happened.

And it wasn't because I wasn't sincere. There were plenty of people that needed to be brought to Christ, and I had plenty of strong desire, but just nothing happened. I became deeply depressed, he writes, because I really loved the Lord Jesus Christ with all my heart.

I wanted him to make me a blessing to others, but I discovered that no matter how much harder I tried to win souls, rushing here, dashing there, taking part in various programs, preaching in the morning, preaching in the evening, talking to the Bible class, witnessing to this person, counseling with another, all of this did nothing, nothing, nothing to change the complete emptiness and uselessness of my activity. I tried to make up with noise what I lacked in effectiveness and power. Let me say that sentence again.

He says, I tried to make up with noise what I lacked in effectiveness and power. That means he didn't have the power of God with him. He didn't have the effectiveness of the Holy Spirit with him, and so he just did more, spoke more, found more opportunities to speak.

He did lots and lots and lots and lots of speech. So by the age of 19, I was completely exhausted spiritually until I felt that there was no point of going on, and there was certainly no point in going to Africa as a missionary because all my activity had already ended in failure. I was prepared to go to Africa and be as useless there as I already was in England.

There's nothing magical about getting on a boat and changing your geographical location or putting on a pair of tropical shorts and a sun helmet, which is apparently what they wear there. Talabis can tell us if that's true or not. That will not make you a soul winner, though.

That will not make you a soul winner overnight. Don't think that you will be any more spiritually effective. Listen to this carefully.

This really hit home to me. Listen carefully. Don't think that you will be any more spiritually effective on the mission field than you are in your own hometown.

If you go to the mission field, you're not going to somehow magically become an effective missionary if you're not already an effective missionary right where God has placed you. Such an important truth. God may call some of you children to serve him elsewhere.

I don't know. But he'll only call you to do that, and you'll only be effective there if you want to be effective right where he has already placed you, right here in Loveland, with your friends at your age. Don't think that you will be any more spiritually effective on the mission field than you are in your own hometown already.

Actually, you will find it a thousand times more difficult. Then one night in November that year, this is 1956. No, it doesn't tell us what year.

Anyway, that one night in November that year, right about midnight, in my room at home, I got down on my knees before God, and I just wept in complete despair. I said, now listen, this is a man who is being effective for God already. He's preaching.

He's telling everybody that he can about God and all these things. But he's just in despair. He knows that his life is completely powerless.

I said, oh God, I know that I am born again. I love Jesus Christ. With all my heart, I've wanted to serve you.

I tried my best, and I'm a hopeless failure. As far as doing anything more, I am finished. I am not going to be a missionary.

It is useless for me to continue like this. I hate this double life. And then everything changed that night.

He goes on to say, I can honestly say that I had never heard from any man or read anywhere the message that came to me then. God simply focused on me. The truth in the Bible of Christ, who is our life.

Christ, who is our life. This was the moment he had been waiting for. For seven weary years, he had watched me.

He's writing. This is the moment God had been waiting for. For seven years, God had watched me running round and round in the wilderness.

He had been waiting for the time when at last I would fall down in hopeless despair. And I heard him say to me, Philippians 1 verse 21, to me to live is Christ. John 14, 6. I am the way, the truth, and the life.

I am the life. Romans 5, 10. If when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, how much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life.

His life. When Christ, Colossians 3 verse 4, when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall we appear with him in glory. Life, new life, to me to live is Christ.

So these verses came alive to him. It's like God reminded him. He knew all these verses, but just intellectually.

Now he knew them in, it came to his heart. God spoke to him and made it a reality in his heart. It just came to me from every area of God's word.

And very kindly and very lovingly the Lord seemed to make it plain to me that night through my tears of bitterness. And this is what he said. You see, Ian, for seven years with complete sincerity, you've been trying to live for me, for my sake, on my behalf.

Whereas I, God was saying, have been waiting for seven years to live that life through you. Let me repeat that. God was telling Ian, you've been trying to live for me, to do something for me.

I've been trying to live through you. And you finally come to that realization where you're going to let me live through you. I've been there the whole time.

All the things you've been begging for, they've been yours since that day, seven years ago, when you invited me and at your invitation, I came into your heart. And so when I came into your heart, you already had my life, if you were willing to receive it and believe it. But you see, even though you have agreed mentally, this is God, Ian recounting what he felt the Lord speaking to him.

It's like he was saying that the Lord spoke to him. You see, even though you've agreed mentally and theoretically to the truth that I have been in your heart, you've lived completely ignoring the reality of it. Even though you know, you can say, I know Jesus is coming to my heart.

You haven't been living as if he's really in there, as if his life, as if he, the person of Jesus is actually inside. You've been busy trying to do for me what only I can do through you. Now, if I am your life and you begin to accept it as a fact that I, Jesus, am your life, then I am your strength.

You've been begging for strength for seven years. I am your victory in every area of your life, if you want it. I am the one who will go out and win souls through you.

You see the difference? God was telling, Jesus was telling Ian, I am the one who will go out and win souls through you. And it is perfectly natural for me to do that. And I know exactly where to go and where to find them.

So Jesus is the one winning the souls. He knows where to go. He knows how to do it.

I don't have to worry. I don't have to try hard. I'm just going to make myself as a vessel to leave you.

Why don't you begin to just rely on me, Jesus was telling Ian, and say thank you. That night, all within the space of one hour, Ian Thomas discovered the secret of the adventurous life with Christ. He wrote, without trying to understand the theory of it and without relying on anyone else's experience, I simply said to the Lord Jesus Christ that night, well, it is that or nothing.

In other words, Jesus, you have to live through me or nothing at all. If this is true, then I'm going to simply thank you for it in simple, complete faith, whether I have the evidence to support it right now or not. And even though my history is complete failure, the only thing I have up to this point is failure, is what Ian was saying.

I'm just going to believe you completely. I'm going to thank you that if you are my life, and this is true, then you are my victory. You are my strength.

You are my power. You are my future. You are the one who is going to go out now clothed in me.

Isn't that a wonderful phrase? Jesus is going out clothed with Ian. It's Ian's body, but Jesus is the one inside. Think if you can take that from this meeting.

From now on, Jesus is going to go out, and I'm just his clothing. I'm just the clothing around Jesus's life inside me. From now on, you are the one who is going to go out clothed with me to do all that I have been hopelessly trying to do for the past seven years.

And then I went to sleep, Ian says. I got up the next morning to do a completely different Christian life. But I want to emphasize this.

I have not received anything more than he had already given me seven years ago. He'd given me Jesus himself. I had had the Lord Jesus, who is enough for all my need, and in whom I have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly things.

For all of those seven years, I just didn't act like it. But that morning, I stepped out on my way to the university with a new song in my heart. I was saying, Lord Jesus, I thank you for the first time in my life.

This is your day. I no longer have the burden of running my own life. At last, I have a governor capable of governing my life.

This is your day. It's your life. You live it through me.

On my way down to the university, I thought about the church meeting that I had to speak at on the following Sunday. It was a Sunday school class for boys. I said, well, now, Lord, it looks like you're going to have to speak to that boys' class now, not me.

Isn't that wonderful? Yesterday, I thought I was going to speak. But today, I realize you're going to speak to the boys. Thank you, dear Lord, for the boys that you are going to save.

I didn't know how many boys there were in that class, but I began to dream. Well, maybe 30 boys will be converted. Not bad for a start.

For the first time in my life, I'll ask if any of them want to repent of their sins and accept Jesus Christ as their Lord. I'd never done that in my life, and for a very good reason. I didn't expect them to come forward, and I didn't want to look like a fool when nobody came forward.

But now I thought, Lord Jesus, this is different. So on Sunday, I went up and found that there were around 90 boys in the class. I just spoke simply about the Lord Jesus Christ and the complete freedom from sin that he offers to those who repent.

And at the end, I said, if any of you fellows want this life, I'm going to be here. Just come and talk to me afterwards. And guess what? 30 boys came and talked to me afterwards.

I hardly knew what to do with them, but I just did the best that I could. In other words, Ian was saying, I didn't even know what to tell them. He was so shocked that 30 boys actually came forward.

He didn't know what to tell them. But I just did the best that I could, and I believe God honored the desire of their hearts in spite of my clumsiness. That was a tremendous joy to me, and this happened day after day for some time, no matter what type of meeting it was.

When I stepped out to the university that first time, I had stepped out into a new land. This was Canaan, the land of Canaan, and I had stepped out in blind faith, like the parachuter, just pulling the cord and jumping into nothing. But now I had memory, having seen what God could do through me when I allowed him, a memory that would strengthen my faith for each next step into Canaan.

And there, I believe Ian is talking about how that first step, you don't have anything to go on. You're just trusting the Lord. But after you do, he allows that memory of him having used you and answered prayer to keep you going, to strengthen your faith.

So for the next meeting, I thought, well, it worked last time. I wasn't quite sure that it would work, but it did. And so I will rely on him again for this meeting.

I thank the Lord again for the folk whom he was going to save, and I gave the invitation to meet me afterwards, and a few more came and were converted. When I randomly bumped into people on the street, I seemed to always be bumping into the right people. This is extraordinary, I thought.

For seven years, I was always bumping into the wrong people, and I was trying to give them the gospel, and they never wanted to receive it. But now it seemed like whoever I met, there was an opportunity. And now I can't help bumping into the right people.

For five weeks, almost every day, somebody was converted. That is amazing. Ian's Christian friends began to notice that something was different in his life.

He met Christians who were weary and exhausted like he had been, and he was able to share with them the secret of the life that chases away depression and frustration. Sorry, one second. Chases away depression and frustration.

Together, they were making the discovery that fullness of life is Christ himself and only him. At the end of five weeks, God made it very clear to me that he had more to say to me. What he had spoken so far was just the appetizer.

He said, what you have is my life. You know perfectly well that it has nothing to do with you because it happened overnight. It is not some new method or new technique that you have learned.

It is simply my life being what I am, doing what must come out from such a life. Now, you must realize that you cannot have my life for your program, for what you want to do. That is the next thing you must face.

According to my program, you're not going to be a doctor and you're not going to Africa as a missionary. I'm not blaming you. Your plan was sincere.

This is Ian recounting what he felt God was speaking to him. I'm not blaming you. Your plan was sincere, God was telling him.

And God was very kind, Ian says. But, he says, God told him, you're going to leave the university now. This is such a precious truth that you have that I'm going to send you up and down throughout the British Isles to tell people about this life in Christ, how Christ is our life.

There are lots of hungry Christian people who are just like you were, as well as many unconverted people waiting to be bumped into. So, step by step, God led his trusting and obedient servant, Ian, into paths that he did not foresee or choose, but they were pathways of service full of true satisfaction and adventure. Instead of medical school and the mission field, God led Ian to evangelism throughout Britain, especially among young people.

For six years before World War II broke out, he traveled to different places, sharing the secret of the life that is Christ. He wrote, it was just his victory. It was just what he was.

I found that the simpler I could make my words, the more blessing he gave. And whenever I tried to be complicated or clever, God just backed away. Whenever I related a situation to him, I found that he provided.

As soon as I related the situation to myself, in other words, I made it about me, Ian was saying, God went into the background. So, I soon learned to count upon him because then things happened. That is the secret.

It is so simple. Just to relate everything to the Lord Jesus and take our hands off. To stand back and say, thank you, Lord, this is your situation.

At one point he wrote, I find that it is anything but laziness. Because you might think, well, then that's just inactivity, not doing anything. He says, no, it's the exact opposite of that.

Since the war, he says, I have traveled a quarter of a million miles, 45,000 in the past year alone. I'll only be home four out of the 12 months this year while still fulfilling the needs of my wife and children whom I love. This past year alone, I've joyfully preached in Norway, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the United States and Canada, besides the United Kingdom.

It is not inactivity. It's not being lazy. It is simply his activity.

That means I'm only responding to where he opens the door. It is not inactivity. It is his activity.

And that makes all the difference. It is possible to do 10 times as much as most people without breaking down when it is not our activity, but Christ's. Most people break down simply because they are carrying all their own burdens and problems, even if it is trying to do God's work.

It's their own burdens and their own problems, sleeping with them, crowding in on their minds. Nervous anxiety comes from taking on responsibility for things that were never intended to be carried by you. Let me say that again.

Nervous anxiety comes from taking on responsibility for things that were never intended to be carried by you. Rest in him. It is a wonderful rest.

Ian says, I can sometimes work through the night two or three times a week only when it is necessary, although it is not to be recommended. I like that he adds that, you know, he's saying sometimes he worked throughout the night. Megan's laughing over here because I did.

He pulled all nighters, but only when necessary. And he says it's not recommended and still feel fresher than many other folks as long as it is his activity. This is the life of adventure with the Savior.

Rest of heart in the midst of activity. Realizing that life depends completely on our drawing from the infinite resources that are in the Savior. This was Major Thomas's message, especially to young people.

He says it is all in Christ, you see, and all of Christ is yours. You can know that God has a precise and exact plan place for you, which is the perfect place. In his perfect plan.

If you've never done it before, commit yourself fully to him this way. Tell him, Lord Jesus, how wonderful that you know exactly what you want to do through me. You have all the beautiful threads all ready to weave into the program and pattern of things.

Now I am yours. I don't want any other program, any other kind of life, but the one that you yourself want to live in and through me. I know now that all is well for me then, now and forever.

Let me read that again. I know now that all is well for me then, now and forever, because I've committed my life to you this way. This commitment will open the door for you too, dear friend, to the life of adventure with God.

Amen.