April, 1942
THE K I N G ’ S BUS I NES S
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# "Unprayed for/' said James Gilmour, missionary to the Mongolians# "I • feel like a fireman on a blazing building with an empty hose."
forward move of missions. May God grant to all His own children enlarge ment of vision to see what He is doing in these portentous days. War may rage on every side, but the work of God as a whole is going on—to victory and not defeat. Now if ever is the time for Christians to rally round the banner of their Lord. Let the church of Christ take heart and live and pray and give for mis sions everywhere as never before. path of our advance, and we can do it with a jubilant song of praise to God in our hearts, yes, and upon our lips. The Sequel When Judah began to praise, the Lord did all the rest. We read that “when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, which were come against Judah; and they were smit ten.” Indeed, the Lord wrought con fusion in the enemy’s own forces so that different sections of them turned upon and destroyed one another. When God moves, how puny and helpless are the strongest h u m a n forces or the cleverest devices to with stand Him! Thus was Judah deliv ered, and, be it noted, not merely in the sense of being saved from defeat and destruction. God gave them such a glorious victory that they were mu6h better off than before they were attacked, for we are tojd that “they found among them [the dead bodies of their enemies] in abundance both riches . . . and precious jewels,” so that “ they were three days in gath ering of the spoil, it was so much.” How like God this was, to turn the threatened defeat of His people into victory, and with much spoil added! He still loves to convert cursing into blessing, bring spiritual enrichment out of trial and suffering, make His children "more than conquerors" over “tribulation, or distress, or persecu tion, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword,” and cause untoward events and adverse forces aimed' against His missionary cause to fall out “ rather unto the furtherance of the gospel.” What a comforting and enhearten- ing message this account of Judah’s experience is for us who are burdened for foreign missions at such an hour as this, when the Adversary by means of this war of unholy aggression is bringing against us new and powerful forces for which we in ourselves are [ Continued on Page 159]
so far from civilization, and into whose hands the francs came few and far between. No wonder their ears were bent to catch Naome’s every word! In the face of facts like these, is it not strange that Christians at home are 'so undiscerning as to believe that missionary advance, has. been cut off by the war? It is sadly true that sail ings have been seriously curtailed, but sailings need not always measure the f Continued from Page 127] their part to play; they were to “go out against them” and face the foe, not to lie down supinely and remain inactive. Theirs was to be rest of heart, but rest in action, because they were assured that God was with them and undertaking for them in the battle. With hearts overflowing with grati tude, Jehoshaphat and the people fell on their faces and worshiped th e Lord; and so filled with assurance of the God-promised victory was the good king that as his army w e n t forth next morning, he appointed sing ers in the forefront to praise and give thanks Unto the Lord even before the battle was begun. Beloved comrades in the missionary warfare in which we are engaged, if we have really followed the example of Jehoshaphat and Judah and have fixed our eyes upon the Lord, then it is our precious privilege to hear Him saying to us in this present grave and critical situation, “Fear not, nor be dismayed; the battle is not yours, but God’s.” And then, filled with the blessed assurance of this fact and of the certainty of ultimate victory, we cari march forward, and face, every obstacle the Enemy may throw in the In China-NOW NINE HUNDRED (over 75 per cent) of the members of the China Inland Mission are still in China. Of this number, 240 are in Occupied China, cut off from communication. China’s Millions, the Mission’s well-illustrated monthly maga zine,' kéèps praying : Christians informed on the Lord’s work,in China. Robert Hall Glover’s article on "When God Fights, Our Battles," published in this • month’s KING’S BUSINESS, is one of the messages which has appeared in China’s Millions. Price $1.00 per year. - TH I CHINA INLAND MISSION 237 W. School Lane, Philadelphia, Pa.
And in the neighborhood of one mis sion station ■alone, more than two hundred Masai children are in Sun day-school. Nor is it in the Masai tribe alone that conversions are reaching a new peak. The Kenya Field Director for the Africa Inland Mission reported 1,293 additions to the church in his fiel.d alone during the first war year. This number does not include all who merely have made p r o f e s s i o n of Christianity. They are those whose lives have been watched and tested for reality until they h a v e b e e n deemed fit to be taken i n t o f u l l church fellowship through baptism. Th® Women Do Their Part Another new movement has been gaining force in all of east and cen tral Africa. That is the conference movement among native Christian women. There is nothing new in the idea of a native Bible conference. What is new is the fact that the par ticipants and organizers are women but lately emerged from the down trodden state in which heathen cus tom has held them. Given its first impetus about eight years ago by missionary women’s workers in the Congo, the'movement has spread, with added momentum during the last four years, down into Tanganyika Territory, arid now into Kenya Colony. The fervor and proficiency with which African women leaders have been de livering Bible' addresses and the def inite spiritual results which have been following in the lives of their listeners have amazed the most ex pectant missionaries, to say nothing of dubious masculine o n l o o k e r s among the natives. A visitor climbing the Congo moun tain trails from Lake Albert to Ka- sengu Mission Statiori on a certain week-end last August would have found between six and eight hundred D’Alur women gathered there. In spite of their dozens of fussy babies, they satift rapt attention at the feet of their Azande guest. Although her face was black like theirs, her tongue was strange to them. Sentence by sen tence, her words were relayed through an interpreter’s lips, bringing soul enrichment to all who heard. The very fact that she was there was a triumph which brought a thrill to the heart of every woman present. From four hundred miles away they had- brought her, paying almost the entire transportation expense them- selyes — and . that with gasoline at eighty cents a gallon! It had been a gigantic undertaking for women
WHEN GOD FIGHTS OUR BATTLES
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