RT Selects: Hudson Taylor - Abiding in Christ

[00:00:00] Do you wish for someone who understands you like no one else? Someone who makes your wishes come true and wants to experience the most beautiful adventure of your life with you? The Shopify commerce platform revolutionizes millions of companies worldwide. With Shopify, you can create your own online shop

[00:00:18] without programming or design knowledge. Thanks to the efficient set-up and intuitive social media and online marketplace integration, you can advertise and sell via Instagram, eBay and Co. Reaching new target groups has never been so easy.

[00:00:34] Shopify offers all the tools to set up your online business on a single, secure platform. Test for free and present your business to the world. Visit shopify.de//try Simply enter shopify.de//try and get started. Made for Germany. Powered by Shopify.

[00:00:56] This is Troy. Just coming into your ears here right before the cold opener, just a quick introduction. We're not going to put out a new episode this week because in our research and experience, Thanksgiving is not a time when people listen to their podcasts.

[00:01:10] They tend to be going to Thanksgiving dinners and this episode won't be listened to as much. So we don't want to send out a great sermon that somebody worked hard on that volunteered to read it for us on a week that people won't probably be listening to it.

[00:01:22] However, if you are listening or downloading the last episode, you're maybe working or you're busy, whatever's going on. Enjoy this episode by Hudson Taylor. It's an older one. It is fantastic. We heard so many people when we first put it out loved it.

[00:01:35] And so if you listened to it before, great chance to hear it again. And if you have not listened to it ever, this is an opportunity for you. And we have many new listeners and followers. So I would not be surprised if you have not heard this sermon

[00:01:45] and we really do hope it encourages you. And as we are in the time of Thanksgiving, I can honestly say, I just want to say to you, I am extremely thankful to so many of you who are listening and telling people and sharing these stories with friends.

[00:01:59] People have been reaching out to us just a whole lot lately, giving us tons of encouragement. I have an honestly in some ways been more encouraged from people and the feedback we've had lately in the past like month or so

[00:02:10] that I feel like I have almost in the entirety of running Revive Thoughts. So thank you so much. My heart feels very full from all of the messages and stuff. And as dorky as that line sounds, I mean it. So I'm willing to say it.

[00:02:21] And thank you for those of you who also listened to the recent two-parter on Woodrow Wilson. Yes, it was a little different than what we normally do. And you may have thought, well, that's a lot of Woodrow Wilson.

[00:02:30] I went a little crazy with how much Woodrow Wilson I read up, how many of his speeches I was invested in. And I was definitely wondering the whole time like, is this actually for anybody? Does anyone really want to listen to this much about this man?

[00:02:43] And the answer was yes. You have really reached out. We've gotten a ton of messages and a ton of people sharing and a lot of comments and a lot of things. Not everyone agreeing with my takes on everything, but overall very positive.

[00:02:55] And so I'm pretty grateful for all of you, whether you agree or not. Thank you for listening to those two-parters and letting us know what you think. And now without any further ado, an exciting episode for your listening pleasure on Hudson Taylor.

[00:03:09] Revived Thoughts is a production of Revive Studios. This is Troy and Jill, and you're listening to Revive Thoughts. We get the key to the whole question of fruit bearing in the first two words, I am. It's not what you are, but what he is.

[00:03:37] Every episode we bring you a different voice from history in a sermon that they delivered today. We have another Hudson Taylor sermon for you. This sermon was delivered in Northfield, Massachusetts in the 1880s. Jill, Hudson Taylor is a favorite of the show.

[00:03:51] If you have not listened to the sermons Compassion on the Multitude and The Source of Power, also done by Hudson Taylor, we highly recommend that you do so. Now we have certain episodes that I think work really well

[00:04:02] when they tell the full stories, you listen to all of them. You can listen to this one by themselves, but I think as we learn and research each episode, we add them together and it just tells you a more rich story.

[00:04:11] So unlike in some other episodes where we would go over the entire life of Hudson Taylor, we're going to really be focusing on the early days of Hudson Taylor. We're going to be focusing on the early days of missionary life for him.

[00:04:23] I read some of his autobiography about how he got to China and what it was like when he first arrived. Many people don't know this, but Hudson Taylor arrived during the Taiping Rebellion, a 15-year civil war in China. It's one of the bloodiest events in human history.

[00:04:40] It is the bloodiest event of the actual 1800s. It's really just World War I and World War II that compete against it. It's this unbelievable story of this missionary arriving. You couldn't think of a worse place at a worse time to be.

[00:04:54] In the story itself of how the civil war got started, we covered that in an earlier episode at The Source of Power of how this guy thought he was Jesus' brother and it turned into a 25-30 million person affair. So definitely go listen to that if you haven't.

[00:05:08] I really think it's just very interesting. But in this story, we're just going to hone in on him arriving in China and what that must have been like. Whenever we cover someone that we've already covered on the show, as is Revive Thoughts tradition,

[00:05:20] we always just do a quick little 30-second recap. Statistically, there is someone listening to this podcast that doesn't know who Hudson Taylor is or what era he was preaching in. So you might know all about him, but this may be your first introduction

[00:05:37] to who Hudson Taylor was as a person. He was a missionary to China in the 1800s. He was born in the year 1832 in England and he got saved when he was 16 years old, wanting to become a missionary to China.

[00:05:49] This was something that his mother had been praying for him for his whole life, even before he was born. In the womb, his mother prayed for him to be a missionary to China. So he became a doctor and his goal was to be a doctor in China

[00:06:03] and a missionary at the same time. He arrived, as Troy said, during this Taiping Rebellion, which is a war that a lot of people haven't even heard of, let alone know that it was the bloodiest war of the 1800s,

[00:06:16] like 10 times the amount of death as the American Civil War. It was huge, but it's just not on a lot of Americans' radars. He also started the China Inland Mission, one of the biggest mission organizations in the world, still exists today.

[00:06:30] Hudson Taylor, much like another man of this era, George Mueller, they really pioneered... I don't know if pioneer is the right term, but they really made their identity as in-faith missions, this idea that you bring all of your needs, all of your requests to God,

[00:06:44] and you put your faith that God will provide anything and everything that you need. So not a lot of planning and calculations. It's just going in and trusting that the Lord is going to put you where he needs you to be.

[00:06:57] He was also one of the first to dress and kind of assimilate into the society of the people he was trying to reach. And this was something that missions organizations did not do. When you went to a foreign country, you were representing your home,

[00:07:14] which was usually England during this era, and so you wore English clothes and you wore an English hat and you did English things. But Hudson Taylor really championed the idea of, I'm going to wear Chinese clothes, I'm going to cut my hair like the Chinese cut them,

[00:07:27] I'm going to try to live like a local and not stand out as much as possible with the goal and the intention of being able to hopefully more effectively share the gospel. He did lose several kids in the mission field and a spouse,

[00:07:41] but he stayed faithful and he saw many thousands saved in China. There's this incredible story we told in an earlier episode when he is training to become a doctor. He was working on a sick gentleman. He scratches himself. It was a very bad illness,

[00:07:55] and he was told by the doctor basically, go home, you're going to die. He said, if I die, I die, but I think I'm going to go to China instead and be a missionary. He survived. He was the only one working on that body that did.

[00:08:05] And in the last episode we did on Hudson Taylor a while back, we really focused a lot on the boat trip to China when he was taking people with him. But there's this incredible story, kind of almost ties these two things together that I found on this one.

[00:08:16] It's a good way to start is he's leaving the harbor to go to China. So the very beginning of this journey for him, they get caught in this huge storm and they're at sea for 12 days. Well, they're at sea for a long time,

[00:08:26] but they're specifically at sea these 12 miserable days in the storm. And they were about to run aground and crash. The captain of the boat kept dropping the anchor. You can see they were very close to ground. It was about to be a big problem.

[00:08:37] And the captain of the boat, he was a Christian, told Taylor, wasn't I supposed to get you to China? Yeah, I think it'll be half an hour before we're all dead.

[00:08:44] And Taylor said, I could die here knowing that I had obeyed what God had told me to do, but I still think I'm probably going to get to China. And sure enough, around that moment, the water current changed and they were back on course.

[00:08:55] Yeah, boats. He's got a lot of boat stories. I feel like I guess anyone traveling in the 1800s got a lot of boat stories. Boating sounds dangerous. It sounds dangerous as well. I mean, I'd be curious. I'm sure there were lots of transits that went perfectly smooth,

[00:09:09] but it sounds like every time you get on a boat, you're like rolling the dice like 50-50. You might run aground. You might get sunk in the storm. At least if you're on a boat in the 1800s, you don't want to find out Hudson Taylor's on board.

[00:09:18] That's true. Because then you're going to have a rough trip. He's got a journal of bad boat days. There's another instance where he's on a boat and they're passing past the Guinea Islands

[00:09:28] and there is a lack of wind and it's causing them to get stuck too close to these reefs on this island. And the crew did everything they could rowing by hand, but the captain finally said, there's nothing we can do. We are going to run aground here.

[00:09:43] We're going to damage the boat. We're probably going to have to swim for it. And Hudson Taylor said, hey, you know, there's four Christians on board, if my count is correct. The captain being amongst them, there were two others as well.

[00:09:53] And he says, hey, why don't we all go to our rooms and pray as much as we can to see if the Lord delivers us out of this situation. And Hudson Taylor went to his room and began praying.

[00:10:03] And he said he felt instantly that the Lord was working, the Lord was going to preserve them. And his reaction to that was to double down praying even harder, which I think is an interesting take.

[00:10:14] Like he felt assured, but he wanted to pray even harder that the Lord, I guess speeding, you know, the Lord's work. And after he was done praying, he went up to the deck and in full confidence,

[00:10:27] you know, he was telling the deck hands to lower the sails to get ready for this wind that's coming. And they laughed it off at him. But sure enough, moments later, the gusts of wind picked up and they sailed out of the danger.

[00:10:39] Hudson said these things taught him to pray for everything. We have mentioned when he arrived in Shanghai in the past, it was in the middle of the Taiping rebellion, just really just kicked off. But I try to always put myself in his shoes.

[00:10:50] Can you imagine what it is like to land at a port in a time like that? You just gave up your future and your homeland. You are not going to school. You're not going to become a lawyer or a doctor, whatever great business plan,

[00:11:02] whatever it was, you put all this side. You just had a horrible six-month journey across the ocean. It was very unpleasant. There had to have been moments where at least for me, I'd be going, what am I doing? Is this what I'm supposed to be doing?

[00:11:14] This is what I had to pray just to get the wind to move on that boat back there. I mean, that sounds rough. You get to the port and instead of seeing, you know, a thriving culture and nation

[00:11:22] and language and things you've got to learn, you're seeing literal war and smoke and you're hearing gunfire and you can, you will be able to be taken to a place where you can see these two armies that are fighting it out on basically the streets.

[00:11:35] He goes to get an apartment and due to all the conflict, you know, something we don't think about in these times of conflict, there's not as many shelters. There's not as much food. Those things that you normally need, there aren't as many of them.

[00:11:47] And so when he goes to get an apartment in this war-torn city, they basically said all the people who are not from China have to live in the smaller corner of the city right now. It's kind of the only place where you guys might be safe.

[00:11:59] And because of that, the rent rates in that area were just through the roof. And even worse, the value of the money, the pound that he had brought over, had gone down to a third of what it was because, again,

[00:12:09] the economy is crazy and the food is so much scarcer and supplies are harder to move and safe places are less. So suddenly, you know, as hard as moving overseas or becoming a missionary is, it just got a lot harder because the country you went to

[00:12:23] is in the middle of an actual war. Yeah, Hudson Taylor arrived with three letters, and these were letters that were designed and written to help open doors for him. They're connections that he'd make. People recommended that when you get to China,

[00:12:37] bring this letter to so-and-so and they can help set you up with a place to live and some support structure there. And so his first letter, this first contact that he was trying to get a hold of, he found out that that man had recently died.

[00:12:51] And this was one that all of his friends back home supported and knew and recommended that he work with. And so to have that taken away, kind of put him out on his own a little bit there. The second contact he was given to get in touch with,

[00:13:04] he sought out and after a bit of research, he found out that that gentleman had just returned to America and was no longer in China. And so now two of his three leads in China had fallen through.

[00:13:17] The third letter that he had had been given to him by a total stranger. He knew nothing about this man, this contact that he was supposed to get a hold of. But with no other options, he finds this man and he delivers the letter

[00:13:29] and it was the start of a partnership, a relationship. This man gave him a place to stay for six months and helps get him a position where he helps with a Chinese language teacher. Being in Shanghai at this time was not good.

[00:13:42] One day they were waiting to meet up with a companion by a gate, just waiting for somebody to show up. And they had a little chat, you know, with the shop owners that were nearby.

[00:13:50] And some fighting starts out, the armies get back to Warren and it's in this area. And so Hudson and the guy he's with, you know, they make a run for it. They're out of there. They don't waste any time with the shop owners

[00:14:00] trying to pack up their shops so they can leave without, you know, losing their stuff. Hudson, you know, they kind of go to another part of town, they buy some stuff. And when they get back to the London Mission Society,

[00:14:10] they kind of go through the hospital and they see these two shop owners whom they had just been talking to. And they go, hey, you know what's going on with these guys? And they said, you know, just a few minutes after you left,

[00:14:20] a cannonball hit that spot and took these men's legs pretty much out. And because these two men weren't able to get it amputated in time, maybe didn't want to, maybe they just were reluctant until it was too late. Both of them ended up dying.

[00:14:33] And they could see the fighting of these two armies from the city at all times too. One day they could watch it from a balcony and Hudson Taylor was watching it going on from a balcony from where he was when him and another gentleman were sitting there

[00:14:45] and a cannonball flew right between the two of them and hit the wall behind them. And it just landed, got stuck in the wall. I mean, you know, if you'd been just half a foot over, that would have been a cannonball for you.

[00:14:54] And another day one of Hudson's friends had been reading a book outside while Hudson was inside. His friend goes and uses the restroom, comes back outside and the chair he had been sitting in had just been pretty much destroyed

[00:15:04] by a cannonball that had landed from somewhere from one of these fights. So, I mean, just again, another element of living overseas, you're learning language, you're doing all this stuff. But also cannonballs are just kind of flying everywhere and you never know where they're about to land.

[00:15:18] Yeah, one of the more hazardous mission fields in that time. Definitely. You could definitely say. Him and this doctor friend, they were attempting to rent a house with the Chinese to do missions work, you know, to be in their streets, to be in their towns.

[00:15:33] But there was so much fighting and shooting in that part of the city that it became impossible. The fighting was so loud at night that nobody could sleep. Fires were breaking out all the time. There was one night Taylor went up to his roof

[00:15:45] because he was monitoring a fire in the city and he needed to know if he was going to evacuate or not. And how about another cannonball nearly misses him. It sounds like there's just cannonballs left and right.

[00:15:56] It reminds me of the Joan of Arc episode where the arrows are flying and Hudson Taylor is a cannonball magnet. Yeah, yeah. They decided they needed to leave this part of Shanghai and they were planning on loading everything up and moving.

[00:16:08] But before they could move, a fire did spread to their house. Not the same night, but it was later on that week. A fire did spread to their house and he lost all of his possessions, including his medical equipment and medical equipment that he specifically brought to China

[00:16:25] to help with his ministry there. All burnt, all gone. Hudson said in his autobiography that I was reading that this would have been enough. I mean, this was enough pressure to break a seasoned missionary.

[00:16:36] Like, this would have been enough for even a guy who's been on the field for 20 or 30 years to go, I need to get out. I need a break. Go somewhere else. This is not working for me. But he said he was so young and untested, so new,

[00:16:46] that this truly made him feel what Satan sometimes suggested to him, would whisper into him when he was being tempted to despair, which was everything was against me. I'll read the quote he had from this time because I think it's pretty incredible.

[00:16:58] The great enemy is always ready with this often repeated suggestion, all things are against me. But oh, how false the word, the cold and even the hunger, the watchings and sleeplessness of nights of danger, and that feeling at times of utter isolation and helplessness,

[00:17:11] which were well and wisely chosen and tenderly and lovingly given to me. What circumstances could have rendered the word of God more sweet and the presence of God more real, the help of God more precious to me. They were times indeed of emptying and humbling,

[00:17:25] but were experiences that made me not ashamed and that strengthened purpose and gave me, sorry, and gave me strength and purpose to go forward as God might direct with his proved promise, I will not fail you nor forsake you.

[00:17:36] One can see even now that as for God, his will and his way is perfect and yet can rejoice that the missionary path of today is comparatively as smooth and an easy one compared to those.

[00:17:46] So you can see in that quote he's saying, yeah, it was really difficult, but despite the suggestion by Satan that all was against me, it made me really cling to God more and I am thankful for who I became from that.

[00:18:28] With the help of modern devices and intuitive social media and online marketplace integration, you can advertise and sell via Instagram, eBay and Co. Reaching new target groups has never been so easy. Shopify offers all the tools to set up your online business on a single secure platform.

[00:18:46] Test for free and present your business to the world. Visit shopify.de//try Simply enter shopify.de//try and get started. Made for Germany. Powered by Shopify. And it may be easy to forget, but Hudson Taylor was a missionary and he, missionaries tend to be sensitive people.

[00:19:11] He mentioned this, I never thought of it this way before, but they tend to be sensitive people who care about the souls of others. That's why they go overseas in the first place. So he's not a hardened general watching people die in the middle of a war.

[00:19:22] These are the people he had gone to save, gone to help, gone to preach the gospel to. And yet he had to watch as they shot each other, blew each other up with cannonballs, as many of them starved in between and it wore really heavy on his soul.

[00:19:34] But if you remember our episode on J. Gresham Machen just a few episodes ago, he found encouragement in those trenches of World War I and so did Taylor on those streets of Shanghai. In those early days of war and famine, fire and hardship,

[00:19:46] Taylor was able to use his medical skills a whole lot. He was able to bring food and help in villages sometimes without being told to. He was able to preach and share the gospel quickly with people

[00:19:55] who were really thinking about eternal things because their lives were in danger. He was thrown into the furnace, but he also got opportunities to engage with the people that he may never have gotten if it was during a time of peace.

[00:20:07] He did all this using that same prayer that helped his boat get to Shanghai in the first place. And he did all this through what he'll call abiding in Christ. And you need to listen to this sermon. as Taylor explains what it looks like to abide in Christ

[00:20:22] and definitely pay attention to this one. I think it's a very good one. Will you open with me to the 15th chapter of the gospel of St. John? I am the true vine, and my father is the husbandman.

[00:20:37] It's a great help in studying scripture to get to know the truth. I'm going to read a passage from the book of Acts. It's a great help in studying the Bible. It's a great help in studying scripture to get, if you can,

[00:20:54] the key of the passage under consideration. And you'll very frequently find it at the beginning of a book or at the beginning of a chapter. We get the key to the whole question of fruit bearing, which is the subject of this chapter,

[00:21:09] in the first two words, I am. It's not what you are, but what he is. That's the all-important thing. As another illustration, take the 23rd Psalm. What's the key of that psalm? You get it there again in the first two words, the Lord. It's about the Lord.

[00:21:31] It's not about you. It's about him. As to what we are, why, we're as changeable as the winds and the clouds. But as to what he is, he's the same yesterday, today, and forever. The blessing of the 23rd Psalm, and that applies today, depends upon this,

[00:21:49] upon what the Lord is and upon what the Lord does. And the question of fruit bearing depends not upon what we are, nor where we are. Our surroundings are, I was going to say, immaterial. They're not immaterial because they're what God has arranged and ordered.

[00:22:07] God puts every man in the very best place for himself and for the world at the time. Young people whose hearts are stirred about missionary work are apt to say, well, you know, I'm surrounded by very unfavorable circumstances. Surrounded by a set of college companions

[00:22:25] who at home the influences are against me. If I could only go to India or China, I could shine for Jesus. Why, dear friends, a candle that won't shine in one room is very unlikely to shine in another. If you're at home, if your father and mother,

[00:22:43] your sister and brother, if your very cat and dog in the house are not the better and happier for you being a Christian, it's a question of whether you really are one. It isn't our surroundings and circumstances that are the all-important thing. No, but how far we're linked.

[00:23:01] How close is the union between our souls and God? What do we know about him? What is he to us? This is the all-important question. And this beautiful chapter for we're all longing to be fruit bearers, you know, brings the whole question before us in the first verse.

[00:23:19] I might also say in the first words, I am. It's just right there. And in reading the Bible, if I may still dwell on this subject a little before I read, you'll be surprised if your attention has not been drawn to it before

[00:23:34] how the Lord renders prominent all through the Bible what he is and what he's going to do. Take, for instance, that wonderful chapter, the 36 of Ezekiel, where the Lord says that he's going to take his people out from among the heathen.

[00:23:49] He's going to bring them back into their own land and he's going to sprinkle clean water upon them and make them clean. He's going to write his law in their hearts and he's going to keep them right as well as put them right.

[00:24:01] It's what he is all the way through. Take that chapter and read it through and emphasize the first personal pronoun where it clearly refers to the Lord. So in reading this chapter, the 15th of John, we have got to lose sight of what we are

[00:24:16] and fix our attention upon the true vine, our Savior and upon his father. I am the true vine, he says, and my father is the husbandman. And he says, I am the true vine. I am the true vine, he says, and my father is the husbandman.

[00:24:31] Notice what the Lord Jesus says here. I am the true vine. Of course, this refers to the 15th chapter of Ezekiel where Isaiah is spoken of as a vine brought out of Egypt. I wish I had leisure to compare these two chapters together

[00:24:46] because the 15th of Ezekiel and the 15th of John are both about a vine. The one about a vine brought out of Egypt is the true vine. Israel proved a false vine. He bore fruit for himself but not for God. But Christ is the true vine.

[00:25:07] And then there's another thought about this expression, I am the true vine. What's the meaning of the word true? It isn't sure. It isn't true as opposed to false. These are not real vines, not true vines in one sense. These are vines while there are others

[00:25:28] that are worthless ones. But it's true in the sense that that which is the substance as opposed to that which is the shadow. Just as the tree in the orchard is a true tree and the copy of it in your picture or painting

[00:25:43] is only after all a picture. The vines in our vineyards are only pictures of something higher and more substantial that was in the divine mind before the vine tree was created. And so Christ says, I am the true vine. Oh there's a world of meaning

[00:26:01] in those words. I could dwell upon them nearly all the morning. I used to read this chapter which was a favorite chapter of mine from the time I was converted 40 years ago and I always misread it. I will tell you how I read it. I read,

[00:26:16] I am the true root. And I used to say to myself, well that's true. Oh there's fatness in that root. But how is my poor puny branch going to get fatness out of that root? Well I learned however that that is not the problem at all.

[00:26:34] He doesn't say I am the true root. Rather it's I am the true vine. The branch has only to remain in the vine to enjoy everything that is in that vine. Some of us are very foolish for sure. We're like the younger

[00:26:49] son who wanted his father to divide his substance and give him a good share and let him go a long way off and enjoy it. And do you know what he came to? The same result that would come to us if we did the same

[00:27:01] thing. But the Lord is too wise. He won't divide his substance. He won't let you go a long way off and enjoy it. You would soon come to grief and want to come back to your father's house. The Lord Jesus says I am the

[00:27:16] true vine. Why that's the root and the rootlets and the stem and the trunk and the vine and the branches and the leaves and the flowers and the fruit. It's all one vine and there's nothing outside of it. And if you want fruit

[00:27:31] bearing, there's no fruit bearing outside of the living Christ. You can do nothing of yourself. You can bear no fruit of yourself if you attempt to sever yourself from the vine and think you'll strike out a root for yourself. You'll be disappointed. You know, young vines

[00:27:49] don't bear fruit and the object isn't to fill the vineyard with new roots. There's a vine in the Garden of Kew that bears an enormous amount of fruit. I should be afraid to tell you how much it bears several hundreds of pounds of fruit. But

[00:28:04] it's all one vine. If you were to cut one of the branches off, you wouldn't find it would be fruitful like the original vine. It would require years of growth and development to reach that stage. And we're not interested for growth and development separate

[00:28:19] from Jesus, but just as members of the true vine to enjoy our all in him. Now suppose that I should take a piece of cord and tie it around my finger here and say, whatever becomes of the rest of my blood,

[00:28:34] I'm going to secure a finger full for this finger. Do you think the finger would thrive? Why it turned black and it would swell and it would ache until it would be glad to get the cord off again. If I kept it on too long, it would ruin

[00:28:49] the finger forever. God doesn't give us a little share of life to you and to me. It requires all the blood of the whole body to keep this one finger. The heart is pumping it in

[00:29:01] and the veins are bringing it out and all the life in my body is at the disposal of that finger to keep it in healthy condition. And the finger is expected to cooperate with the rest of the body toward the building up of the whole frame. So there's

[00:29:16] the whole Christ life in the believer. We don't come to him and ask him to give us life for that we have already. If we're not in Christ, we have no life in all. If we're not in him, he is not our life.

[00:29:31] When Christ who is our life will appear, then you also will appear with him, be manifested with him in glory. I am the vine, the whole vine. Well, this is very good to be branches of that vine is indeed a source of rejoicing, but a great deal

[00:29:49] depends upon the culture of the vine. You see, the branches of the vine cannot go walking and seek the sunny places or the sun's very hot, seek the shady places. It can't go around to inspect and see if the soil

[00:30:04] is fat and decide that it will thrive here or there. They are united to the vine and so their particular position that altogether depends upon the skill of the cultivator. If you under prune a vine, it won't bear fruit as it should. If you over prune it,

[00:30:22] you'll prevent its proper development. And here's an important thing to bear in mind. It isn't the sap that comes out of the root that builds up the vine. The sap that comes out of the root is a very thin

[00:30:34] saline fluid with no carbon in it or next to none and there's nothing in it at all to build up but it circulates and presses up until it reaches the branches and it goes into the twigs and then into the

[00:30:46] leaves and there it gives out in the sunshine a good deal of its own fluid while it's giving out, it's taking in. There's no taking in without giving out. If you think you can stop giving out, you'll soon cease to be able to take in and

[00:31:01] then you'll have no healthy life. While the sap is in the leaves, it's taking in carbon from the atmosphere and a rich nourishing thick sap then comes back through the twigs and the branches and all the growth is in the return circulation.

[00:31:16] You know, there are some people indeed who are very, very greedy. They're spiritual misers. They come to conventions like this and hear sermons and try to get all the benefit out of them that they can for themselves but never think of giving it out again

[00:31:31] to others. The natural result very soon follows. Their digestion becomes clogged. They're not lighthearted, not joyful. The circulation isn't keeping up. If they would only go back and give out what they have gained, the return circulation would make them so much the happier and richer.

[00:31:52] The whole vine would grow and thrive. It's only as we give that we get. Suppose you should see a stream running here down the mountainside and you should build a pond or a tank to hold it and keep it from running away. Could you keep it there

[00:32:07] as living water? As soon as you keep it there, it ceases to be living water and begins to putrefy. You know, that's how it is with the Dead Sea in Palestine. The water's all the time running in but it doesn't

[00:32:19] run out again or improve the surrounding country at all. But there's a day coming when there will be a channel made when the water will burst right through to the Gulf of Aqaba. Then the water of the Dead Sea will become alive

[00:32:31] and there will be plenty of living fishes there and a totally different state of things brought about. Well, let's not be satisfied with merely taking in for selfish purposes, but let there be an equivalent giving out. This is one of the truths taught us by this most precious

[00:32:47] verse. I am the true vine and my father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that bears no fruit, he takes it away and every branch that bears fruit, he cleanses it that it may bear more fruit. Well, I'm reading from the revised version and there's an

[00:33:06] advantage here in the revised version because it renders the same word the same way in this and in the next verse. Already you are clean because of the word which I've spoken to you. Perhaps some of us have read that verse in the old

[00:33:20] version. He purges it and we thought of the sharp pruning knife for rather dreaded the operation of it. We've thought it meant perhaps the cutting away of the right hand or the removal of our dearest friends and we've been afraid to submit

[00:33:35] ourselves to the Lord lest his discipline should be sharper and harder than we're able to bear. Why he knows what we're able to bear better than we do a good deal and he has a good deal more love for us than we have properly for ourselves. It's safe

[00:33:51] to trust him unreservedly. The word used here is just the word that we get in the next verse and so that explains what is meant here. He cleanses every branch that it may bring forth more fruit. Then he says that those disciples to whom he was

[00:34:06] speaking were already clean. They were cleansed because of the word which Christ had spoken to them. Many of you are intending to be preachers of the word. Be careful students of the Bible get to know it thoroughly. Let the word of Christ dwell in you

[00:34:22] richly in all wisdom. Don't study the Bible. Don't read the Bible to find text to preach upon or chapters to expound but study it to find something that will feed your own heart. If you do this you'll find it a most delightful book and when it's a

[00:34:37] delight to you God will enable you to make it a delight to others. Let us go to the Bible to feed ourselves and not to feed other people and then we'll understand how to feed other people so much the better. Let us go to the Bible to find

[00:34:52] the word of Christ and then we'll understand how to feed other people so much the better. Let us first take the learners class and then we'll be able to teach. Let us be learners and keep in the learners class our whole life long and look up to

[00:35:08] the gracious spirit who delights to expound to us the word asking him to give to our own souls a fresh blessing that we may bless God and serve our generation. Then we will not be too badly equipped as teachers and expounders of God's Holy

[00:35:23] Word. Now it's by this word that the disciple to whom Christ spoke was clean. Already you are clean. You're cleansed because of the word which I've spoken to you abide in me and I in you. Oh precious words what a privilege to be allowed to abide

[00:35:41] in him. What a blessed thing it's to be commanded to abide in him. May we all obey. May our Bible reading this morning give us some intelligence on this subject of abiding. Oh how many years I was in the dark on this subject. I long to abide in

[00:35:58] Christ but I didn't know what abiding was. I confused it all together and such is the perversity of human nature that I read this verse many thousands times and never for a moment saw what it meant. Now I believe most thoroughly in the

[00:36:14] inspiration of the scriptures. I put them to the test and they don't fail me and I have good reason to believe. I use my Bible as I use my checkbook in the bank only with this

[00:36:26] difference. I have to tear out a page every time I cast a check and I can't use it a second time but in taking from this book I can leave the words in and use it again and again. It's a sort

[00:36:37] of circulating letter you know. You never come to the end of it. I believe most thoroughly in the verbal inspiration of scripture. If you put it under a microscope you'll see it as much proof of its divine origin as in the structure of a leaf.

[00:36:53] Now I'm not going to give you any theory as to how it was brought together but here's the book verbally inspired and you know the rest upon every word that God speaks through it. Now

[00:37:04] abide in me. I used to read this and I'll tell you what I used to get out of it. Instead of thinking what the word abide really meant I thought it was a sort of hand over hand climbing

[00:37:16] climbing up a rope or a pole after the manner of an athlete. I used to feel that I hadn't managed this climbing. I thought abiding in Christ was to become one of a sort of spiritual aristocracy which very few people ever had the opportunity to

[00:37:31] attain or reach to. Abide in me and I in you. The Greek word that's used here you'll find rendered in similar passages by the word to dwell or by the word to remain. And that just gives us the meaning of the word abiding. I'm not a very strong

[00:37:47] man. I may not be able to pull myself hand over hand up to the ceiling here but I'm sitting in a chair. I'm not a very strong man. I'm not a very strong man. I may not be able to pull

[00:37:58] myself hand over hand up to the ceiling here but I'm sitting in a chair. It doesn't take a great deal of strength to remain there. Christ says I am the vine you are the branches. So see

[00:38:10] where you are and you can't get into a better place and you're never out of it. There's an all important point. We have Jesus Christ all the time. Abide in me and I in you. I never saw

[00:38:26] this until God was pleased to show it to me when I was very very needy hungry and thirsty for the truth. One afternoon in an inland city in China feeling almost in spiritual despair I was reading my Greek Testament and in the sixth chapter of St.

[00:38:42] John's Gospel reading in course I came across a verse which struck me as it had never done before. I was reading from the 52nd verse onward and if you'll just turn to that passage you'll see perhaps the train of thought that was such a help to me may

[00:38:57] help someone else here. In the 56th verse he that eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. I'd read the verse in the authorized version dwells in me and I in him a hundred

[00:39:12] times. I had never connected it in my mind with this 15th chapter where the word happens to be rendered in that passage. I had never read it in my mind with this 15th chapter where the word

[00:39:24] happens to be rendered in that version abide in me. But of course reading it in the original my mind was carried on by the verb from the 6th to the 15th chapter and I saw at once why here's a

[00:39:36] little light on this great and difficult problem. I have evidently been making a mistake about this subject of abiding in Christ. I had thought that abiding in Christ meant keeping our faith fixed upon Christ so constantly meditating upon him and

[00:39:50] dwelling on him that we never lost the consciousness of his presence. I thought I was continually so to speak to realize his presence and continue to look to him for blessing and help and guidance. Now what I thought it was abiding I have since seen

[00:40:05] was feeding upon Christ. Feeding is a voluntary act you go to the table sit down partake of what's there. That's a voluntary act but the man who wanted to feed all the day and wanted to feed all the

[00:40:18] night too wouldn't be a desirable member of any community. This is what I was trying to do and because I couldn't manage it I would get into a sort of almost religious indigestion. I had a little hospital and dispensary work that kept me busy perhaps a

[00:40:36] man would be brought into the place with an artery cut and in imminent danger within half an hour the question of whether he would live or die would be settled and one's whole attention would be wrapped up in the patient and one would think of wouldn't

[00:40:49] think of a thing else until the result was known. And then the thought would steal over me why for two hours I hadn't thought about Jesus Christ once and I would go off into my closet almost in despair and confess this sin. I was in very great distress

[00:41:07] indeed I wanted to be feeding at the table all the time. I was in great distress indeed I wanted to be feeding at the table all the time. Now if a man has two or three square meals every day and

[00:41:18] perhaps a lunch or two between he ought to be able to go to work. Abiding in Jesus isn't fixing our attention on Christ but it's being one with him and it doesn't make any sense what we're doing

[00:41:30] or whether we're asleep or awake. A man is abiding just as much when he's sleeping for Jesus as when he's awake and working for Jesus. Oh it's a very sweet thing to have one mind just resting there. About 10 years ago the Lord gave me a very great blessing.

[00:41:47] I had a little girly who had a crib by my bedside and at about six o'clock in the morning her nurse would come tapping at the door to give this little one her bath. And we missionaries are so

[00:41:59] much separated from our own children but we do so delight when they're with we're with them. It's such a treat. It's an ordinary enjoyment to most of you but it's a very great treat to

[00:42:10] us I can tell you. Well I saw this little girly asleep and I gave her a little kiss. She woke up put her arms around my neck and as she looked up to me I just looked up to God and said Oh Lord

[00:42:22] wake me up morning by morning with a kiss of love. Let that kiss be the first thing every morning. Now that was fully tainted by God. Now that was fully 10 years ago and he hasn't forgotten it since. It's a wonderful good morning. I am so glad that my

[00:42:38] love for my little girl that just led me to make that prayer in that way. When you ask for a thing look for it. You know we so frequently ask for things and don't expect to get them. And of

[00:42:52] course we're like Mr. Spurgeon student. You want a Spurgeon student said to him I'm afraid I've mistaken my calling and that the ministry really isn't my proper work. Why said Spurgeon what's the reason you've come to that conclusion. Well I've been

[00:43:07] working in such a place for such and such a time and I don't seem to have accomplished much. Why man alive you didn't expect that every time you preached a sermon somebody would be converted did

[00:43:17] you. No of course I didn't expect that. Well you don't get it then. Expect results and you'll find them. Now as to this abiding in Christ I don't say that to eat or to drink is to abide. It wasn't

[00:43:32] the act of eating that was the abiding. It doesn't say while you eat you're abiding it says such is the meaning of the original. He who abitually does eat and drink my blood is abiding. When I realized this I thought there's something tangible. I know I do

[00:43:50] delight in God's love. When I get a little measure of it I know I turn to it with more than enjoyment. I do feed upon him however faulty my poor life may be and whoever does that he says is

[00:44:04] abiding. But am I quite sure that this is the feeding that always follows regeneration. Then I look back and read unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you have no life

[00:44:18] in yourselves. You have no life at all. Well I thought it's quite evident that every true believer has fed upon him sometime or other. This feeding upon Christ is not a privilege or attainment of a spiritual aristocracy of some very few of God's children but it's

[00:44:37] what every one of God's children has done. If I have fed upon Christ I am abiding in him and I am to continue to feed in order that I may grow. Well then I thought there's another difficulty.

[00:44:54] If that's the case I've been feeding and yet all the fruits of abiding love have not been found. We're told that if we abide we will have all our prayers answered and my prayers are not all answered. I remember the words in the first epistle of John he

[00:45:11] that says he abides in me ought himself so to walk even as he walked. If I abide in him I will walk as he walked and I don't walk that way. And there are other things predicated on those

[00:45:24] who walk with Christ that I don't find in my life and yet I have been feeding. So then I thought well God may have given us a good deal and if we've used very little of it there's been a large

[00:45:38] amount of capital at our disposal and we have either not known it or not availed ourselves of it. And I saw that the promises in connection with abiding within Christ were to be claimed by faith

[00:45:52] and I just held the Lord to his word. I don't feel any change taking place in myself but I say you do say that he who does feed is abiding and I accept that statement. Now Lord let the fruits

[00:46:07] of abiding appear. Well since that day they have appeared as they never appeared before and I have had a joy in Christ and a strength and a delight and a blessing to which I was a stranger before. It

[00:46:21] hasn't been ebbing and flowing as it used to be coming and going as it used to be but it has been a deepening joy constantly deepening. God's word has been very precious to me as it never has been before. It was precious before but it's far more

[00:46:38] precious now. God's service is sweeter now than it used to be. It was very often sweet before but not always. It's always very sweet now and I get those fruits for which I was seeking. Accept Christ's statement and claim it for yourself and see if you're not

[00:46:57] brought into this enjoyment and blessing. Now let us with these words in our minds turn back again to this 15th chapter from which we started. Abide in me and I in you. This is a rather difficult sentence to construct. You know it's sometimes paraphrased if you

[00:47:16] abide in me I will abide in you but there's no if there. It's just abide in me and I in you. What's the meaning of this expression? I think there's a double meaning in it. If we turn to the 14th

[00:47:28] chapter we may perhaps find a little illustration that will help us to grasp the meaning. In that chapter the Lord Jesus Christ speaking to Philip says have I been here for such a long time with you and have

[00:47:42] you not known me Philip? He that has seen me has seen the father and how can you say then show us the father? Believe you not that I am in the father and the father in me? Well there was a mutual indwelling.

[00:47:55] I am in the father and the father in me. And the idea there is not at all the idea of the greater containing the less because we see it's mutual. It's mutual that we're in this room, we're in this hall

[00:48:09] but not the hall is not in us. The hall is bigger than us and couldn't be in us. That's clearly not the idea. If you were to take a glass of wine and a glass of water and pour them together the water would

[00:48:21] be in the wine wouldn't it? And the wine would be in the water. There would be such a thorough commingling that you couldn't get a drop of the water without the wine flavoring it and you couldn't get

[00:48:34] a drop of the wine without the water tempering it. The idea is that they are so thoroughly one that they are inseparable. And abide in me and I in you as I understand it is like one of those algebraic

[00:48:49] symbols we sometimes use in which we put a compound quantity with brackets and put one figure or mark outside to govern the whole. It's as if Christ said you abide in me and I in you live in the

[00:49:02] continual recognition of this fact that we're no longer two but one that we're united together that I am dwelling in you and you are dwelling in me that we're in this way really one. Abiding in Christ is keeping in the consciousness of our union with the Lord Jesus

[00:49:21] Christ going forth in service never thinking of what we are in ourselves but realizing what Christ is in us and expecting to find divine resources to operate wherever the divine spirit leads us. Now when this is realized it takes away all anxiety it takes away all

[00:49:42] fear it takes away all carefulness there's no fear of failure. The service will not be in vain in the Lord which is carried on in this spirit of realized union with the Lord Jesus Christ. Temptations flee before one who has realized the joy of abiding in

[00:49:58] Christ. Ah says he I've fallen a thousand times before that temptation but now thank God I don't meet it in myself. I am in Christ and he is in me and when I meet temptation he carries me

[00:50:10] through and gives me the victory. The Lord our God is a mighty one. He will save and when he wills to save who is going to hinder him doing it. It's so blessed to know this union in Christ. And now I

[00:50:26] draw your attention again to that passage in the sixth chapter is illustrated by the use of food for a deep spiritual truth because it has been very helpful to me and maybe for you too. What is natural

[00:50:37] food to the natural body. Well let's go to the tiny life you've held in your hands a little baby say a week old. It's not very long. It weighs perhaps seven or eight or maybe 10 pounds and you say what a

[00:50:52] little darling. It's very light in your arm and you look at its little fingers and they're very puny indeed they can't grasp anything yet. You look at the little eye it's very pretty indeed but it can't

[00:51:03] see. The eye hasn't learned to see fully yet. Put anything in the little hand and it lets it drop. That little infant how weak how little it is. And yet there's perfect life there. Perfect life but still so immature. Go and see that child three months afterwards and

[00:51:22] the little hand can grasp and the little eye can look with intelligence and Mama's recognized when she comes around. And it may be when it looks at you a stranger the eye is not so bright because it's already beginning to be afraid of strangers. It's beginning to

[00:51:37] develop. Go and see it three years afterwards and you see a strong and healthy child with a great increase of weight. Where has the increase of weight come from? Well it's all assimilated food. At first milk and then bread and then other suitable nourishment. This

[00:51:53] food isn't something totally distinct from the body of that child outside of it and separate from it. And yet it's been taken into the body. It's been digested and assimilated and has become hair and brains and flesh and nerve and muscle. Through that assimilated food

[00:52:10] the child is now thinking seeing grasping. By continuing to take food it will continue to grow till it becomes a healthy man or a healthy woman. So thoroughly has the food become assimilated and become part and parcel of the man that you can't go and pick out

[00:52:26] the pieces of food and make the baby of him again. No separation can take place. Now if you're feeding upon Christ, if you're dwelling with Christ continually feeding upon him you'll grow up into him your living head and he will become your power and strength and

[00:52:44] there will be a blessed union and there will be no separation. But I must close. And speaking upon this interesting chapter it's difficult to know where to break off. It would be so easy to dwell

[00:52:56] all day upon any part of it. But just one for word further. Only abide in Christ and you'll bear fruit. You can't bear fruit if you're not abiding. Don't imagine that abiding in Christ is a

[00:53:09] question of a little more or a little less of being a little more perfect or a little less perfect. Apart from me you can do nothing. You can do any amount of work but you can bear no fruit. Fruit

[00:53:23] bearing is the result of abiding in Christ. Abiding in Christ your prayers will not some of them be answered but all of them will be answered. Oh it's such a blessed thing to know that there's a day

[00:53:37] coming when every secret thing will be laid bare. On that day when every hidden thing will be revealed there won't be one single instance brought to life of the prayer of one abiding in Christ that hasn't been answered. Not one single instance. God will

[00:53:53] fulfill his promises. Don't think about your faithfulness or you'll become despondent but think about God's faithfulness and you'll not be disappointed. He is faithful. May we abide in him evermore. Abiding in Christ he said it really well. There's a difference

[00:54:13] between spiritually eating you know and feeding which is good and abiding in Christ and abiding in Christ is not you know that time you spent that maybe some people call it like the religious high or whatever it is that time was you know you're on the mountain peak

[00:54:33] though those times are good. You're abiding in Christ and you're abiding in Christ. You're not just going to be like a little bit more spiritual. You're on the mountain peak though those times are good. You're abiding in Christ all the time. If you are a believer

[00:54:45] you are always abiding in him and allowing him to move you. And I know I'm not saying it as well as Hudson Taylor did in the sermon but I think it's powerful and I think that if we can learn to accept

[00:54:55] that and learn to understand those differences between again the feeding and the abiding I think that that sermon will really change the way you live and the way you see your relationship with God and the way you interact with God and for the better. I know since I

[00:55:10] helped edit the sermon and since I even listened to it again I was there when it was getting recorded that it has had a profound impact on my walk with God for the better and I think that it actually has

[00:55:21] helped me understand those differences and I really do think that for all of us is something we need to kind of understand the difference between those two things. Thank you for listening to today's episode of revived thoughts.

[00:55:42] Today's sermon was narrated by Dr. Mike Dodds. Dr. Dodds is a professor at Calvary University and Seminary and he's also an elder at Shawnee Bible Church. We hope you enjoyed this episode of revived thoughts and this episode with me and Joel we are both pretty busy.

[00:55:58] This is a season of life where both of us have a lot going on and so this episode we just ask for you guys to be praying for us pray for Joel pray for myself Troy pray for Elise over at martyrs and

[00:56:09] missionaries and Nathaniel working on revived divas and be praying for revived studios. We have a lot of things happening in the works and changes and things coming down the pipe and things we're working on it. It would be really great for us if you guys just stopped for

[00:56:25] a minute to set a little prayer for us ask God to be moving and giving us wisdom and all that stuff we would really appreciate you guys doing that. That would be the best thing I think we could ask for

[00:56:35] right now. This is Troy and Joel and this is revived thoughts.

[00:57:35] Made for Germany powered by Shopify