a cornerstone sermon manuscript HUDSON TAYLOR’S TEXT (JOHN 19:30) Given 31 January 2010 No. 8 in the series Texts That Changed History: The Practical Ownership of Scripture Cornerstone Bible Church • Lilburn, Georgia Dr. Doug McIntosh, Senior Pastor As I look back across a fairly long and eventful life, it seems to me that the two most remarkable events that have taken place in my lifetime are very easy to identify. One would have to be the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. That one took the world by sur- prise, but in reality it could have been predicted, because tyran- nies always create huge resentments among their populations. You cannot rob the people to build weapons and expect everyone to be content in those circumstances. The other staggering event, in my estimation, is the astonishing rise of a huge Christian population in China. Nobody knows how large that population really is because the Chinese government refuses to acknowledge the existence of the real church in China, which is unregistered, meets in homes, and is therefore consid- ered illegal. People who have no axe to grind tend to put the number of Christians somewhere between 50 and 100 million. If we split that number in the middle, we arrive at 75 million, which would make China one of the largest Christian populations in the world, comparable to the number of believers in the United States. All this has taken place in the face of communist repression and per- secution. By common consent, the number of believers in China in 1949 when missionaries were expelled was somewhere in the vicinity of a half million. It was not regarded as a strong church, and the predictions were unified in forecasting that the totalitarian communist government would undoubtedly wipe out completely the results of two centuries of missionary work in China in a matter of months. But the church today is one of the strongest in the world, and shows no signs of retreat, for which we can thank God. We will not know this side of the Second Coming all the causes that led up to that tiny church’s existence in 1949, but it is hard to deny that one of those causes was our subject for today, James Hudson Taylor. Hudson Taylor spent 51 years in China in the second half of the nineteenth century. He is best known as the founder of the China Inland Mission (CIM), an organiza- tion that still exists, though its name is now OMF International. (The initials once stood for Overseas Missionary Fellowship). At the time of Hudson Tay- lor’s death in 1905, CIM had on its staff 850 missionaries serving in China. These people were spread over 205 mission stations, and were serving along- side 1,300 Chinese staff. They were working in 188 schools and 44 hospitals scattered over all 15 provinces of China. The churches they established ac- counted for 125,000 Chinese believers. All of that ministry ultimately emerged from Hudson Taylor’s encounter with one text of Scripture, the verse found at John 19:30. I’ll read it for you beginning at verse 28. Hudson Taylor’s Text in Context (John 19:28-30) 28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, “I thirst!” 29 Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth. 30 So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. Hudson Taylor’s Text and His Conversion Hudson Taylor’s text is really Hudson Taylor’s word. That is, the thing that changed his life and led to his conversion was the sentence in verse 30 where Jesus says, “It is finished.” In our English Bibles, we find three words. In the Greek text there is only one: tetelestai. To understand how profoundly this word influenced him, we have to look at… His family Taylor was born in Yorkshire, England in 1832 to godly parents. His father was a pharmacist and a lay preacher in the Methodist church. His father had a great interest in China based on some of the reading he had done, and of- ten prayed earnestly (even before Hudson was born) that if he ever had a son that God would in turn send that child to China as a missionary. That 2 seemed a far-fetched prayer at the time, because China was closed almost en- tirely to missionary work. In spite of that, at the age of five Hudson used to tell visitors to the family home that one day he hoped to go to China as a missionary. As he grew up, however, Hudson Taylor knew a number of struggles in his spiritual life. His struggles At the age of seventeen, Hudson was still unconverted. It wasn’t that he was uninterested in spiritual things, but he simply didn’t understand the heart of the gospel. Taylor wrote of this period in one of his books: “Often I had tried to make myself a Christian and failing, of course, in such efforts, I be- gan at last to think that for some reason or other I could not be saved.”1 He continued in this state for some time, but at last he found his text, which resulted in… His conversion It happened this way. It was a holiday and his family was away. Hudson was home by himself and was rather bored. Looking for something interesting to read, he went into his father’s study and began flipping through books and printed materials when something caught his eye. It was a tract or pamphlet that was several pages long and included an interesting-looking story. He decided to read the story but to stop his reading before the author got to the point where he made his application. Hudson had done that before. But this time was different. He read all the way through and was captivated. One phrase in the pamphlet caught his attention. That phrase was “the fin- ished work of Christ.” He had never heard the expression before and he thought it was curious. If Christ’s work was finished, could anyone or need anyone add anything to it? He wrote of this later when he said, “Light was flashed into my soul by the Holy Spirit… There was nothing in the world to be done but to fall down on one’s knees and, accepting this Savior and His salvation, to praise Him evermore.”2 What he didn’t know was that his mother was praying for him at that very minute because she had been so concerned for his spiritual darkness. When she came home later, he told her of his conversion, and she was not surprised; but she was very excited and grateful to God for this answer to her prayers. Hudson Taylor’s Text and His Missionary Vision The thought that Christ’s work was finished and needed only to be offered to the world quickly brought Hudson back to his earlier interest in missions, and it gave him what we might call his missionary vision. In this area he was exceptional in every respect. One missionary historian introduces the section on Hudson Taylor by say- ing: 3 No other missionary in the nineteen centuries since the Apostle Paul has had a wider vision and has carried out a more system- atic plan of evangelizing a broad geographical area than Hudson Taylor. His sights were set on reaching China, all four hundred million people, and it was to that end that he labored.3 His preparation In order to open doors for his presence in China, he knew he would need something of value to offer the population in addition to the gospel. He de- cided to take up the study of medicine and so became a trainee at the Lon- don Hospital. At the same time he applied to go to China as an appointee of the Chinese Evangelization Society, a poorly organized mission society that had been sending people there ever since the Chinese emperor had permit- ted westerners into the country. His discovery It was while he was in his training that he made the important discovery that was to shape all of his work as a missionary. He discovered that he could depend on God to supply his needs by prayer alone. The doctor whose apprentice he was happened to be an absent-minded sort, and he told Hud- son to be sure and remind him when Hudson’s salary, meager as it was, came due. Taylor decided not to do this, but to see if he could depend on God to supply his needs whether or not the doctor remembered his obligation. His rationale for this was simple: “When I get out 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.”4 Of course, what he said was not quite true. The Chinese Evangelization Society was allegedly responsible to send along funds do- nated to his work; but they were so irregular and irresponsible about this that his dependence on prayer turned out to be a good thing. (By the way, that is not the only way to do it. The Apostle Paul was not re- luctant to tell interested people of his own financial needs when he was moving around the mission field.