June, 1933
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
173
wmQui enge By ALBERT HUGHES* Toronto, Ontario, Canada
y . o c S T T *
/ » 1 S 5 J 0 A 2 S
I . am not a missionary ; that is the one regret o f my life. I tried before graduating from the university to become a missionary, but God closed the door in my face, and I set tled down at home to be a missionary minister. In 1924, God gave me the dream o f my life. There came to me the invitation from the Home Council o f the Sudan- Interior Mission to accompany the director, R. V . Bingham, on a tour o f inspection o f the stations o f the Sudan missions. W e were to hold field conferences, to push the line o f advance a little farther into the interior where Christ had never been preached, and to bring back a report of what God was doing through the gospel, changing sav ages into saints. T ak ing the W ord L iterally I went out to help the missionaries, but God brought into my life in those wonderful days the greatest spiritual experience that has ever been mine. I landed in the heart o f that great country to discover that I was ignorant o f the glory, o f the literalness of the Word o f God— the literal glory o f the Word o f God. _I found out in Africa for the first time in my life that God had written His Word to be accepted at its face value, that He meant every word He had written, that I could depend upon it and stand upon it, and that at every turn o f the road, God would be just as good as His word. For instance, take that ninety-first psalm. How many o f you know that psalm ? I do not mean with your head, or with your tongue, but how many o f you really know that psalm in your heart?
Word, certain portions have been written for certain ex periences and conditions through which you pass; the ninety-first psalm is a missionary’s psalm. I preached from it many and many a time; I have sought to interpret the symbols and the illustrations— to tell my people what they meant and stood for. I got out to Africa to discover that it stood for exactly what it says. “ Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night.” What do you know about the terror by night in Los An geles ? I have walked your streets at midnight; I found no terror. But before you are in Africa five minutes, you are brought face to face with it. “ Nor for the arrow that flieth by day”-Hyou never saw an arrow fly either by day or by night; you preachers have always taught what that stood for. It stands for nothing but an arrow that flieth by day, with poison on the tip. “ Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thou sand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Be cause thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.” I landed on the West Coast o f Africa the first day after Christmas, 1924, to discover the city quarantined with bubonic plague. The people were dying by the hundred. They were dying so rapidly they could not be buried, but
A thousand shall fall at thy side, And ten thousand at thy right hand: But it shall not come nigh thee. . . . There shall no evil befall thee, Neither shall any plague come nigh thy tent. For he will give his angels charge over thee, To keep thee in all thy ways. . . . Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: The young lion and the serpent shalt thou trample under foot. Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. —P salm 91.
The Missionary’s Psalm le that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High Shall abide under the shadow o f the Almighty. I will say o f Jehovah, He is my refuge and my fortress; , My God, in whom I trust. For he will deliver thee from the snare o f the fowler, And from the deadly pestilence . . . Thou shalt not be afraid for the ter ror by night, Nor for the arrow that flieth by day; For the pestilence that walketh in darkness, N or for the destruction that wasteth at. noonday.
I want to say that only missionaries know that psalm. There is not another soul that knows anything about it. In God’s *Home Director, Sudan Interior Mission. Mr. Hughes’ address, as given on these pages, is a summary of one given in the Church of the Open Door, Los Angeles, April 23, 1933. It was stenographic- ally reported, not corrected by the speaker.
were picked up in dump carts and put on a great dump pile. I have visited the bedside o f the dying often in my own city, but I have never felt death so real and so awful as in those days in the Sudan, but thank God for His goodness in making real to the missionaries in experiences like that the glory o f the literalness o f His W o rd ! I went from the
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