Hudson Taylor Sees The Light.
Hudson Taylor had 18 very successful preaching tours in the vicinity of Shanghai China starting in 1855. During his early days of his Christian experience he had many failures, disappointment and struggles.
This is his famous letter that he wrote to his sister, Amelia on October, 1869 telling her about his eyes being opened to the truth of Christ that changed him forever.
You may have read this before but please examine this letter carefully to see the secrets of what he saw. Pray that your eyes will be opened to see what Hudson Taylor saw.
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My own dear sister - So many thanks for your long dear letter . . . I do not think you have written me such a letter since we have been in China. I know it is with you as with me - you cannot, not you will not. Mind and body will not bear more than a certain amount of strain, or do more than a certain amount of work.
As to work, mine was never so plentiful, so responsible, or so difficult; but the weight and strain are all gone. The last month or more has been, perhaps, the happiest of my life; and I long to tell you a little of what the Lord has done for my soul.
I do not know how far I may be able to make myself intelligible about it, for there is nothing new or strange or wonderful - and yet, all is new! In a word: "Whereas I was blind, now I see."
--------------------He is now telling his sister of how happy he has been since he found this secret. He did make it clear that what he found was nothing new or strange, or wonderful but he experienced newness because he had been living in the dark concerning this existing truth. This is very important to know. He was blind to this truth. He did not make the truth exist or do anything to make the truth real. Once he saw this truth it was easy for him to experience it and enjoy it.--------------------
Perhaps I shall make myself more clear if I go back a little. Well, Dearie, my mind has been greatly exercised for the past six or eight months, feeling the need personally, and for our Mission, of more holiness, life and power in our souls. But personal need stood first and was the greatest. I felt the ingratitude, the danger, the sin of not living nearer to God. I prayed, agonized, fasted, strove, made resolutions, read the Word more diligently, sought more time for retirement and meditation - but all was without avail. Every day, almost every hour, the consciousness of sin oppressed me.
--------------------Here we see that Hudson's own experience with Christ fell short the Holiness, power that was demand and promised by God. He confessed ingratitude and the sin of not being closer to God. He prayed, agonized, fasted, strove, made resolutions, read the Word more diligently, sought more time for retirement and meditation but he found that all this did not help at all. Every day, almost every hour, the consciousness of his sin oppressed him.--------------------
I knew that if I could only abide in Christ all would be well, but I could not. I would begin the day with prayer, determined not to take my eye from Him for a moment, but pressure of duties, sometimes very trying, constant interruptions, often very wearing, would cause me to forget Him. Then one's nerves get so fretted in this climate that temptations to irritability, hard thoughts and sometimes unkind words are all the more difficult to control. Each day brought its register of sin, failure, and lack of power. To will was indeed present with me, but how to perform, I found not.
--------------------He knew that abiding in Christ would solve this dilemma but he could not abide. He had determined not to take his eyes from Christ for a moment, but he failed miserably. He found he could not control his own very thoughts. He wanted desperately to experience holiness but found no acceptable outward performance. --------------------
Then came the question, "Is there no rescue? Must it be like this till the end - constant conflict and, instead of victory, too often defeat?" How, too, could I preach with sincerity that to those who receive Jesus, "to them gave He power to become the sons of God, " (i.e. God-like) when it was not so in my experience? Instead of growing stronger, I seemed to be getting weaker and to have less power against sin; and no wonder, for faith and even hope were getting very low. I hated myself; I hated my sin; and yet I gained no strength against it.
--------------------He had the desire to be God-like but he found he had absolutely no power against sin. He hated sin with a passion but even with this haltered for sin he found nothing to ever conqueror it.--------------------
I felt I was a child of God; His Spirit in my heart would cry, in spite of all, "Abba, Father", but to rise to my privileges as a child, I was utterly powerless. I thought that holiness was to be gradually attained by a diligent use of the means of grace. I felt that there was nothing I so much desired in this world, nothing I so much needed. But the more I pursued and strove after holiness, the more it eluded my grasp, till hope itself almost died out, and I began to think that perhaps to make heaven the sweeter, God would not give it to us in this life.
--------------------God was stripping from his own independence. He saw he was utterly powerless to grow in grace or to become holy by using the means of grace.--------------------
I do not think I was striving to attain it in my own strength. I knew I was powerless. I told the Lord so, and asked Him to give me help and strength and sometimes I almost believed He would keep and uphold me. But on looking back in the evening, there was sin and failure to confess and mourn before God.
--------------------When he prayed to God for help and strength he still had to confess total failure and despair.--------------------
I would not give you the impression that this was the daily experience of all those long, weary months, but it tended to be a too frequent state of soul and I almost ended up in despair. And yet, never did Christ seem more precious a Savior who could and would save such a sinner! And sometimes there were seasons not only of peace but of joy in the Lord. But they were fleeting and at best there was a sad lack of power. Oh, how good the Lord has been in bringing this conflict to an end!
--------------------He knew that he had no power but the Lord was using all of this to bring this conflict to an end forever.--------------------
All the time I felt assured that there was in Christ all I needed, but the practical question was how to get it out. He was rich, but I was poor; He was strong, but I was weak. I knew full well that there was in the vine, in the root, the stem, abundant fatness; but how to get it into my puny little branch was the question.
As gradually the light dawned on me, I saw that faith was the only prerequisite to laying hold of His fullness and making it my own. But I had not this faith . . . I strove for it, but it would not come; I tried to exercise it, but in vain. Seeing more and more the wondrous supply of grace laid up in Jesus, the fullness of our precious Savior - my helplessness and guilt seemed to increase. Sins committed appeared but as trifles compared with the sin of unbelief which was their cause, which could not or would not take God at His word, but rather made Him a liar! Unbelief was, I felt, the damning sin of the world - yet I indulged in it. I prayed for faith but it did not come. What was I to do?
--------------------He saw the victory, the holiness, the power and all the fullness in Christ. He knew that the solution was in Christ so he kept on trying to somehow acquire it. He did everything he knew to make it his own but again he only found more failure and disappointment. He saw that it was his sin of unbelief that was the root cause of all his other sins. Then, he found out that he could not even believe. He tried and prayed to believe but no faith came. He was utterly, and completely hopeless.--------------------
When my agony of soul was at its height, a sentence in a letter from dear McCarthy was used to remove the scales from my eyes, and the Spirit of God revealed the truth of our oneness with Jesus as I had never seen it before. McCarthy, who had been much exercised by the same sense of failure, but saw the light before I did, wrote (I quote from memory): "But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One."
As I read I saw it all! "If we believe not, He remains faithful." I looked to Jesus and saw (and when I saw, oh, how joy flowed) that He had said, "I will never leave you." "Ah, here is rest!" I thought. "I have striven in vain to rest in Him. I'll strive no more. For has He not promised to abide with me - never to leave me, never to fail me?" And Dearie, He never will!
--------------------When he read this, his eyes were opened to the truth that had already existed. "But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One. If we believe not, He remains faithful”. This was the secret of what he saw that he had never realized before. He saw that God in Christ had already given him the faith and the belief that was required. God had placed Him in Christ and that he just rest in God's faithfulness to keep him there.--------------------
But this was not all He showed me, nor one half. As I thought of the vine and the branches, what light the blessed Spirit poured directly into my soul! How great seemed my mistake in having wished to get the sap, the fullness, out of Him. I saw not only that Jesus would never leave me, but that I was a member of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. The vine now I see is not the root merely, but all - root, stem, branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruit; and Jesus is not only that; He is soil and sunshine, air and showers, and ten thousand times more than we have ever dreamed, wished for, or needed. Oh the joy of seeing this truth! I do pray that the eyes of your understanding may be enlightened, that you may know and enjoy the riches freely given us in Christ.
Oh, my dear sister, it is a wonderful thing to be really one with a risen and exalted Savior, to be a member of Christ! Think what it involves. Can Christ be rich and I poor? Can your right hand be rich and the left poor? Or your head be well fed while your body starves? Again, think of this bearing on prayer. Could a bank clerk say to a customer, "It was only your hand that wrote that check, not you," or "I cannot pay this sum to your hand, but only to yourself?" No more can your prayers, or mine, be discredited if offered in the name of Jesus (i.e. not in your own name, or even for the sake of Jesus, but on the ground that we are His, His members) so long as we keep within the extent of Christ's credit - a considerably wide limit!
If we ask anything unscriptural or not in accordance with the will of God, Christ Himself could not do that; but "If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us; and . . . we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him."
The sweetest part, if one may speak of one part being sweeter than another, is the rest which full identification with Christ brings. I am no longer anxious about anything, as I realize this; for He, I know, is able to carry out His will, and His will is mine. It makes no difference where He places me, or how. That is rather for Him to consider than for me; for in the easiest positions He must give me His grace, and in the most difficult His grace is sufficient.
It matters little to my servant whether I send him to buy a few dollars worth of things or the most expensive articles. In either case he looks to me for the money and brings me his purchases. So if God places me in great perplexity, must He not give me much guidance; or in positions of great difficulty, much grace; or in circumstances of great pressure and trial, much strength? There is no fear that His resources will be unequal to the emergency! And His resources are mine for He is mine, and is with me and dwells in me.
All this springs from the believers oneness with Christ. And since Christ is now living in my heart by faith, how happy I have been! I wish I could tell you instead of writing about it.
I am no better than before (in one sense, I do not wish to be, nor am I striving to be); but I am dead and buried with Christ - yes, and risen too and ascended; and now Christ lives in me, and "the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
I now believe that I am dead to sin. God reckons me so, and tells me to reckon myself so. He knows best. All my past experiences may have shown that it was not so; but I dare not say it is not, when He says it is. I feel and know that old things have passed away. I am as capable of sinning as ever, but Christ is realized as present as never before. He cannot sin; and He can keep me from sinning.
I am sorry to have to confess it, but I cannot say that since I have seen this light I have not sinned; but I do feel there was no need to have done so. And further - walking more in the light, my conscience has been more tender; sin has been instantly seen, confessed, pardoned; and peace and joy (with humility) instantly restored; with one exception, when for several hours peace and joy did not return - from lack, as I had to learn, of full confession, and from some attempt to justify self.
Faith, I now see, is "the substance of things hoped for" and not mere shadow. It is not less than sight, but more. Sight only shows the outward forms of things; faith gives the substance. You can rest on substance; you can feed on substance. Christ dwelling in the heart by faith (i.e. faith in His word of promise) is power indeed, is life indeed. And Christ and sin will not dwell together; nor can we experience His presence with love of the world or carefulness about "many things."
And now I must close. I have not said half I would like to say if I had more time. May God give you the grace to lay hold on these blessed truths. Do not let us continue to say, in effect, "Who shall ascend into heaven? that is, to bring Christ down from above." In other words, do not let us consider Him as far off when God has made us one with Him, members of His very body.
Nor should we look upon this experience, these truths, as only for the few. They are the birthright of every child of God, and no one can dispense with them without dishonor to our Lord. The only power for deliverance from sin or for serving the Lord is Christ.
Your own affectionate brother,
J. HUDSON TAYLOR
Maybe you have struggles and despairs in your own life similar to Hudson's. You may in the dark concerning the truth of what God in Christ has already accomplished for you and in you. The Holy Spirit will open your eyes to see that you can not even believe or trust. It is not about you or your effort. It is all about what God has already accomplished for you and in you.
The GOOD NEWS of the Gospel is that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit made a Covenant together which is an irrevocable commitment which CAN NOT be broken under any circumstance. This Covenant was not made with mankind it was made between God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus Christ before the world was created.
You did not and could not have any part of it. You are just the recipient and participant of this Covenant. You really have no part to keep other than to just enjoy what He has already accomplished for you. There is no other way possible! God has provided the only solution once and for all. Any attempt you make to fix the unfixable is not only sin but is totally impossible.
Now the truth of the Gospel message is that God has already provided the only solution possible for sin and mankind's condition once and for all. God Himself has forever placed you in Christ before the world was created. He did everything necessary for your total and complete salvation. You do need to understand that God has already accomplished of this for and in you before the world was created.
There is absolutely nothing left out or lacking. He has done it all. There is nothing left that can ever be done. He has not only done all that ever could be done in you and for you. He has even taken the responsibility of your obedience to Him forever by keeping you in His love.
Now as a result what God has already accomplished for you, your old sinful self was crucified with Christ and that you no longer live. Your old sinful self has died, and you no longer have a life. You have received His all-sufficient Life in exchange for you old corrupt self. Now the Christian life isn't yours to live. God does not depend on you to live His Life for Him. He knows that it impossible for you to live His life, so He gave you His life. You do not live for Him - He lives for you.
When you hear this message of the gospel of what God has already done in you and for you, the Holy Spirit beings to open your eyes to this existing reality.
Romans 1:16, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek."
This message of the Gospel of the finished work of God in Christ is the only possible message that contains the power of God for total and complete salvation for mankind. No other message contains the power of God to bring about perfect and continual obedience.
As the Holy Spirit shows you THE FINISHED WORK you will experience God's gift of repentance giving you the ability to trust and embrace His obedience causing you to turn away for your unbelief and your own dead works. Now this is the ONLY obedience possible.
You do have His Life. You are In Him and He will never leave you of forsake you. If you are unfaithful God will remain faithful to you. God will keep you by his Love. You can NOT keep yourself.
God remains faithful to you no mater what. When you see this truth and recognize that you are in NOW in perfect union by what God in Christ had already accomplished, you can rest and your joy will flow. This is the secret of true rest. You thought it depended on your ability to be faithful to Him and have striven in vain to rest in Him. Now you see that God has promised to abide with and in you. He will never leave you or will never fail you.
Now you can give up all own efforts, struggles and striving in the attempt to be faithful. It is impossible for you to be faithful. IT IS NOT UP YOU!!! God Himself has placed you in Christ and you do abide in Him.
