252
T h e K i n g ’ s
June 1932
B u s i n e s s
is Jesus Christ. What Africa needs is Jesus Christ. Noth ing else will suffice. Civilization will not do, education will not do, reformation will not do; they need a living, life- giving Saviour. Thank God, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, no less there than here. hen we owe it to them also because o f what it has done for us. What is the difference between us and a degraded Hottentot or a Fiji Islander? Is there any in herent superiority of Occidentals over Orientals? Are we
agony for China. He had been there and knew the needs. No one was meeting them. 'Finally, he flung himself down on the sands and poured out his heart to God. Then God spoke, and said, “ I am going forth to evangelize inland China, and if you will go with me, I ’ll make you my chan nel.” And that man, a humble, ordinary, obscure man, said “ yes” to God. Little did he dream of the sequel to that surrender— the China Inland Mission as it has since developed, with its 1,285 missionaries, its 300 stations distributed throughout
Westerners made of bet ter stuff than the men and women of the East? No, indeed. Missionaries can give you scores of in stances where converts there put us to shame, even with one tithe of our privilege, by the lengths to which they go in Christian exp e r ien ce , devotion, and sacrifice. No, the difference be tween us and them is one of privilege, of opportun ity. W e have been bask ing in the sunshine of the knowledge and love of God all our lives, while
sixteen great provinces, and all the resultant sal vation of souls and spir itual fruitage. No, Hud son Taylor could not foresee all this, but he said “ yes” to God, and God wrought through him. And if you and I, in the same way, will say, " I am ready, as much as in me i s " I know there are some things that will happen. Some o f us will GO. You say, “ It never oc curred to me that I should go.” That may be
Dare we disappoint Him? Brethren, let us rise; He who died for us Is watching from the skies; Watching, till His royal banner Floateth far and wide, Till He seeth o f His travail — Satisfied!
they have been out in the cold, dark midnight of heathen ism and superstition. But have you thought what it might have meant if that man of Macedonia whom Paul saw in a vision had been a man of Persia or India, and the tide of evangelization had turned eastward over Asia rather than westward over Europe? It would have meant that we would today be bowing down before idols and sunken in the degradation of heathenism, while they would be en joying our gospel blessings. Let each of us ask himself the question, “ Am I doing as much for them as I would hope and expect that they would do for me if the tables were turned, and I this morning were where they are, and they were where I am ?” “ I A m R eady ” Here the appeal is to our Christian heart. The appeal to conscience is necessary, yet it is insufficient. The heart must be reached. Logic must give way to love. hat a splendid example Paul presents of Christian discipleship! No sooner is his conscience convicted of indebtedness than his heart responds, “ I am ready, as much as in me is.” He boasted himself the bondslave o f Jesus Christ. Life and Ueatn were one and the sarne with him, only feat Jesus Chriit might be magnified. Once All o f us will PRAY . We cannot all go, but, thank God, we can all pray. And prayer is, after all, the-might^ iest factor in missions, because the great thing in missions is not methods or money or even men. The great thing in missions is God, and His almighty working, and that work ing is called forth by prayer as by nothing else. " I f ye ask . . . 7 will do.” Prayer is the most potent factor in missions. It is prayer that levels barriers, bursts open closed doors,\ thrusts forth workers, releases money to support them, i sustains their strength, gives power to their message, aiMx leads souls to Christ. We cannot all be preachers, but evefy giveira vision of'Je?usCh~rist and a lost world, Paul n e v e i o n e of us can by prayer project ourself from this room, so. It never occurred to a lot o f young men to go over seas to Europe until something happened in 1914, but then conscription was laid upon them and it became a question, not of “whv go?” but r^Vmr- r,f “ „rhy ^nf- pt >?” Every young man had to be able to give a satisfactory reason why he could not go or why, by staying, he could contribute his quota better than by going. And the divine command is, “ Go.” ^Conscription, moreover, has been laid upon us as Christians and we are not our own'; we have been bought with a price. In the face of the Great Commission and the world’s crying need, are we holding back with less than an excuse such as will prove satisfactory when we come to give an account before Him?
thereafter allowed self-interest to challenge for a single instant the absolute lordship of Christ, that He might achieve His purposes through his life. Are we “ ready, as much as in us is” ? “ How much.is that?” you ask. I cannot say. I do not know how much is in you. But more than that, even you do not know until you give God a Ichance. God does not give us our gifts full grown, but in embryo. Only as-wemse them' do they develop, and do we discover how much God can do through us. D o you think that young man knew how much was in him who, on a Sunday morning in June, sixty-seven years ago, paced the sands of Brighton Beach, England, in an agony o f soul concern for inland China, unlighted with the gospel ? The church bells were ringing, calling the peo ple to worship, but he could not go in. He was suffering
or from our closet, into the uttermost corner of the world and bring to pass things that would not otherwise take place, for “ prayer changes things.” et prayer , I am afraid, is the last thing that some of Oi us do, and the thing that gets the least of our time, Should we not be convicted, when God has given us this blessed privilege, has placed this mighty power at our dis posal, if we do not pray? How much have we really prayed for missions? How much time and labor have we given to missionary intercession? We shall have, like the apostles of old, to “ give ourselves unto prayer,” to make prayer a previous engagement, a fixed appointment, and to safeguard it from intrusion and interruption. It is only when prayer costs that it counts. And we shall also have to be ever on the alert to gather facts and information
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