Break out your badges for

 

J.HUDSON

TAYLOR

DAY

21.5.1832 – 3.6.1905

 

James Hudson Taylor was converted at the age of 17 in his father’s study while his mother was spending an afternoon on her knees praying for him.  His own call to China was influenced by his father’s prayers for that country.  Before sailing at the age of 21, he wrote “When I get to China, I shall have no claim on anyone for anything; my only claim will be on God.  How important, therefore, to learn before leaving England to move man, through God, by prayer alone.”

 

The China Inland Mission was founded when he was 33.  June 27th, 1865:  went with Mr Pearse to the London & County Bank, and opened an account for the China Inland Mission.  Paid in £10.

 

He incurred the displeasure of other missionaries by adopting native dress and hair style, but it was not long before they saw the effectiveness of this.  His reliance on faith was inspirational to countless people in succeeding generations.  “On Saturday morning we paid all expenses and provided for the morrow, after which we had not a single dollar left.  How the Lord would care for us on the Monday we knew not, but over our mantelpiece hung two scrolls in Chinese character – Ebenezer and Jehovah Jireh – and He kept us from doubting for a moment.  That very day the mail came in a week before it was due…received a remittance for $214.  So once again we thanked God and took courage.”   (Jehovah Jireh appears in the Authorized Version, but not in many modern versions.)

 

Ebenezer: Hitherto hath the Lord helped us (1 Sam 7:12). Jehovah Jireh: The Lord will provide (Gen 22:14).

 

it is safe and wise to go forth in the pathway of obedience – it is indeed the only safe and wise thing to do

 

Brother, if you would enter that province, you must go forward on your knees.

 

It is His work, not mine or yours; and yet it is ours – not because we are engaged in it, but because we are His, and one with Him whose work it is.

 

…and yet grace can make a few feeble instruments the means of accomplishing great things – things greater ever than we can conceive.

 

…I must have fainted or broken down.  But the battle is the Lord’s, and He will conquer.  We may fail – do fail continually – but He never fails.  Still, I need your prayers more than ever.

 

What we give up for Christ, we gain.  What we keep back for ourselves is our real loss.

 

God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply.

 

God Himself, God alone, is sufficient for God’s own work.

 

By the time he died there were 849 missionaries on the field and 125,000 witnessing Chinese Christians.  Following the expulsion of missionaries from China in 1951, the mission diversified further eventually becaming known as Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF).

 

Sources:  Dr and Mrs Howard Taylor Biography of JHT;  Ruth Tucker Stories of Faith; Hampton and Plueddeman World Shapers; Don Prout New Life.