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- 09 10-80 10a Part I
09-10-80 10a Part I
Bertha Smith

Olive Bertha Smith (1888–1988). Born on November 16, 1888, near Cowpens, South Carolina, to John and Frances Smith, Bertha Smith was a Southern Baptist missionary and prayer advocate who profoundly influenced global missions. The fifth of eight children, she grew up in a churchgoing family and accepted Christ at 16 during a revival, stepping forward to trust in His salvation. After graduating from Winthrop College in 1913 with a bachelor’s degree, she taught briefly before enrolling in the Woman’s Missionary Union Training School in Louisville, Kentucky, graduating in 1916. Appointed by the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board in 1917, she served in China’s Shantung Province for 30 years, teaching at a girls’ school, leading Bible studies, and witnessing the Shantung Revival of the late 1920s, which saw thousands converted through repentance and prayer. Expelled by Communists in 1948, she became the first board-appointed missionary to Taiwan, serving a decade until mandatory retirement at 70 in 1958, despite working 15-hour days. Smith authored Go Home and Tell (1965) and How the Spirit Filled My Life (1973), recounting her experiences and revival principles, and founded the Peniel Prayer Center in Cowpens to foster spiritual renewal. In retirement, she traveled to over 15 countries, preaching to churches and inspiring figures like Adrian Rogers and Charles Stanley, until her death on June 12, 1988, at 99. She said, “Prayer is the mightiest force God has put into our hands.”
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Sermon Summary
In this sermon, the preacher discusses the importance of examining the Bible like a mirror. He highlights that the Chinese view reading the Bible as examining it to find every relevant passage on a specific subject. The preacher emphasizes the need for guidance and extra Bible classes to understand and link up these passages. The sermon also touches on the concept of purity, using the analogy of a bride's costume to represent it. The preacher expresses concern over rushed wedding ceremonies and urges Christians to be true to their vows until death separates them. The sermon concludes with a reminder that God is always present with believers and that they do not need to beg for His presence.
Sermon Transcription
Is the Lord here this morning? And how do you know? Huh? How do you know? Ah, he said so. He said so. He's here because we're here. He'll never leave us. Never leave us. We leave him. If he doesn't leave us, well, that's enthroning. And dear Lord, we thank you. We do not have to beg or ask you to meet with us. You're here because we're here. And we have your word that it doesn't take but two or three for you to meet in their midst and to meet to worship you and to call upon you and adore you. And we're here this morning to worship you and to hear your word. And we're here for your Holy Spirit to speak to us. And now we enthrone you to take over. And you have your way in this meeting. And get glory to yourself here. We pray in Jesus' name and for his sake. These days, in studying the holiness of God and the sinfulness of human beings, we learned that when holy God gave Israel a way whereby he could dwell in their midst and whereby he could be worshipped, he established the priesthood. And the priest and, of course, the people had to be put to death, as I've said a few times to the mourning group, before the Lord could dwell in their midst. And being God, he put them to death in those sacrifices. And the special animals that he'd chosen who could typify the Lord, who would come later. And then he appointed the priest to offer the sacrifices, teach the word. And they had the privilege of going into the holy place and worshipping for themselves and for the people, burning that fragrant incense which went up to God as worship and praise. And they had to be holy men, holy men. The priest was set aside. They couldn't put in it their minds on making a living. They had to live off of the tithes of the people. And they spent their whole time for the people. Well, in the New Testament, you and I are the priests. We're the people standing between holy God and the sinful world outside. And we're to give them God's word, and we're to enter into God's presence and pray for those that go without, those that do not know him. And that's the only way the Lord has to reach other people, as through the people that are his. And the only way he can reach your unsaved friends, friends, is through you or someone else that's saved. And the only way, because we're the only, we're person of this for him to live in. And it's only as he expresses himself through us to other people that the Holy Spirit, and live out the word that we give them, that the Holy Spirit can use that word to bring conviction to them and show them their need. Therefore, we're to be holy people. And there are many reasons given in the Bible why we should be holy, many positions that he places us in. And we're priests, at the moment we're saved, we're made priests unto God. We said yesterday we were temples of the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit came down at Pentecost, the people became separated people, the saved ones, and they were placed into Christ. We learned at Pentecost when they were placed, when the room was filled with wind, the Holy Spirit is wind, and they were all submerged in that wind, or they were all baptized in that wind, they were all placed into Christ. And then they were all anointed by the fire coming on their heads, and anointed meant, in the Old Testament, when they put their oil on their head, which must have represented the Holy Spirit, they were set aside for a certain task for God. In the Old Testament, we saw that they were to be, the kings were anointed, the priests were anointed, and the prophets were anointed, if there's someone else to do it, another prophet to anoint them. And then we learned that another position that we're in is that of being the bride of Christ, that we're the bride of Christ. Now, I never heard the sermon preached on that, I don't know why, but one day I just sat down with my Bible, and I did a little thinking. Well, now, why does the Lord call me his bride? Well, now, the first thing I thought of, brides are chosen, they're chosen by the Lord. And we're chosen by the Lord. We read in Ephesians, we were chosen by the Lord to be saved when? Way back down, way back down before we ever came into the world. Now, if the Lord hadn't chosen some to be saved, no one would have ever been saved, because the natural heart does not want God. The natural heart only wants himself or herself. And so the Lord had foreordained that some would be saved, and I had the privilege of studying theology at Southern Seminary under the president, a great man of God, Dr. U.I. Mullins, taught both classes, both advanced and beginner's theology, but didn't let the women have theology but one year. Ours, of course, was the beginner's, and he insisted on teaching. He didn't have but 400 students at the seminary in those days, and so the president had time, or he took time and made time, he was going to teach that theology. And he was the most delightful teacher I ever had the privilege of sitting under, and he says it's God's foreknowledge. It's not that he foreordained that some would be lost and some would be saved, but he foreknew who would turn to the Lord if the Holy Spirit sufficiently moved them. And knowing in advance who would turn to the Lord, he sent the Holy Spirit down to deal with them and gave them an opportunity to hear the Word, and gave them people who were Christians as examples, and so they turned to him because he sufficiently moved them. None of us would ever come to the Lord of our own accord. Now we, when we're outside, we know it's whosoever will. Whosoever will may be saved, but where does the will to be saved come from? No human being is willing of his own accord to give up himself and his own way of life and everything to be saved, and we're not saved unless we do. The Lord must get complete control of us before he can ever come into our hearts, and so it's the Lord that moves us and gives us such a desire for the Lord that we just can't live without him, so we hand over everything to him. And so before we come, get into the kingdom of God, we know it is whosoever will, but even our willingness is put there by the Holy Spirit. And after we get in and look back, we know that it was all the Lord, all the Lord, we never would have given up ourselves and come of our own accord, that we were chosen of God. And after we're saved, we can begin to praise the Lord that he chose us, that the choosing is just from his foreknowledge, because he doesn't send the Holy Spirit to specially strive, to specially strive with those who are never going to repent. He surely must strive with everybody who hears the word, but if he knows they're not going to repent, why go on striving? But he especially strives with some of us who he knows would repent if we have an opportunity. So we're chosen. The bride choose the one that he wants to, a groom, bridegroom, a young man chooses the young woman that he wants to spend his life with, and he chooses from love, and of course it was God's love that prompted him to choose you and me. Well now, a bride just responds to love. She just loves the man, a girl just loves the man who loves her, and we love the Lord because he first loved us. And even our very love for the Lord must be put into our hearts by the Lord himself. We wouldn't be capable of loving. But the bride responds to love, and she gives up, she gives up her way of life, she gives up her home, she gives up her family, she goes out to live with that young man, and sometimes a wealthy girl or a poor man, and she'll be willing to go to the ends of the earth with him if she knows one thing, if she's convinced that he loves her. If she's convinced, she just responds to his love. And you know, and I know, if a bride ever starts out to catch a young man himself, she usually misses him. The bride chooses, the bridegroom chooses the bride, the young man chooses his bride. Well, she has to give up all of her boyfriends to that man, and she better give up most of her girlfriends. A man doesn't want to come home and find the girl's girlfriends always in the house when he gets home. And as I said, she gives up her way of life, lives like he lives, lives where he lives, and she marries that man to be what she can to him. To be everything she can to that man. My friends, I find young people that counsel with me sometimes about marriage, and all they're thinking about is what that man's going to mean to them. They're not thinking about what they can mean to that man. Girls ought to be brought up to die to themselves and live for that man. There's a precious woman, remember in our church when I was growing up, a neighbor of ours whose husband was a merchant, had all they needed, a nice home, and that man built a room next to the bedroom out the side of the house with an outside door so he could come and go at night when he wanted to. And that woman knew that that man was not true to her. She just kept on loving him. She kept on looking after him. She never let one child know what her father was an ideal father. She never let any human being know what he was an ideal husband. She went right on. She bore her burden, but she did have the Lord. She knew the Lord, the burden bearer. So I just sometimes land in our church. He was always there, taught a woman some school class. He was always there, sweet as she could be. And then in the end, after he'd lived for years untrue to her, he became ill and had a long illness. That woman stood by him, nursed him day and night, day and night, and when finally the breath left him, that dear, precious woman fell across the foot of the bed and sobbed, I can't do anything more for him. Now that was being a wife. That was taking a wife's place and being true to that man until death separated them. And that's the vow she'd taken when she married. That's the first spiritual woman I ever knew. And she had good books. And she lent me the book, The Christian Secret of a Happy Life, when I was only 18. I still recommend it to everybody from our book table to our prayer center up across the street from my home in South Carolina. Well, a man not only chooses the person that he wants to live with, which is his first motive in marriage, but he has another motive in marriage. And here I just left out one point I must remind y'all. Brides and grooms love to be together. They love to be alone together. That bride loves to be alone with that bridegroom. Who ever heard of a bridegroom filling their car full of friends when they go off on their honeymoon? All they want is each other. That's all they want, just to be with each other. They're getting away from everybody and going off where they're not even going. My sister married, my second sister. She married the fourth in a family of five sons, no sisters. And she married the fourth son. And the others, only one was married, but the others were off in the city at good jobs. And it became the task of the one that my sister married to stay at home and look after the plantation and his aged mother. And when my sister went into that home, she knew the home wouldn't be hers as long as his mother lived. But she had sense enough to know when she got there, the mother just turned everything over to her, all the housekeeping, when my sister got there. But my sister had sense enough to keep running that house just as much like that old lady had had it as possible. She didn't turn it upside down, move some of the old furniture out. She left that house just like it was. And she tried to do everything just like that old lady would have liked it. And I visited my sister when she'd been married a year and a half, spent a week. And while I was there, she said, Bertha, John and I don't ever have any time to be alone. Well, they lived two miles from town. Anytime he went to town, he called her. When she first married, they used buggy horses. They lived two miles from church. The old lady was a Presbyterian, married a Baptist deacon, joined the Baptist church. Which she never had done because it didn't mean a thing to her. She couldn't believe it. She hoped not to join. And after he died and left her to bring up five little boys. And she never went to church, to that Baptist church again. And she thought she'd lost out with the Presbyterian church, so she didn't go back there. And she brought up five little boys out of the church. Well, of course, as a fourth son, my sister's husband went to church with her. Everywhere they went, they went together in that buggy. Just the two of them. Well, they had a big home and a big yard and big trees and big grounds. And the house had three outside porches. And they had a family room and they had a parlor over there that they seldom used. There was nobody upstairs but my sister and her husband. Except on weekends when some of the boys would come home. Well, I couldn't see why there wasn't just plenty of time for her and John Brown to hold hands and look at the moon. But you know what my sister meant? I didn't let on like I knew what she meant. Do you know what my sister wanted? She wanted to cook three meals with John Brown. And she was so for John Brown. And she was so in love with him, she wanted to sit down at the table and eat with him. And she didn't want that old lady there. I knew exactly what she wanted. And I was so ashamed of her, I didn't know what to do. After that old lady brought up that lovely son to be my sister's husband. She didn't want that old lady there. How wicked! No, what love! What love! What love! How much do you just love to be alone with the Lord? Did you know he's your bridegroom? And you were his bride? Now over in the Old Testament, Israel was called the wife of Jehovah. The wife of Jehovah God. And we hear the prophets wailing over backslidden Israel. Return unto me for I am married unto you. And now you and I know that the marriage tie is the closest tie on earth. The Lord calls married people one. One! That's the reason there's no divorce after marriage. There's not a sin in the Bible listed that people can separate from after their marriage. Well, the adulterers were put to death under God's laws. I don't know what would be done today. We don't have God's laws. We're not living under God's laws. But there isn't anything. Now, fornication is not adultery, friends. You go read the Bible and you'll see the Lord listing people's sins. Fornication and adultery. Fornication and adultery listed in the same verse. And people just naturally say, well, of course, I'm getting a divorce. My husband's guilty of adultery. And how many wicked people want a divorce? They've usually got their eyes on some other man or some other woman. And they accuse the other partner of adultery when they have no evidence, really, that they are guilty of adultery. Fornication was sexual sins before marriage, friends. And when a man married a girl and found she was not a virgin, he could divorce her right there. Divorce her right there. Well, that made her a public example. And everybody in the whole country saw, knew that the girl deserved death. That she'd been sinning with some other man. And they were engaged when they were children, usually. And very young. And there she hadn't been true to her husband to be. And she'd sinned. And he could give her a divorcement and send her back home. And that meant he could go find him a proper wife. But she was disgraced. And everybody in the community knew about her sin. And he didn't have to keep her for a wife. And that was the only sin that anybody could get a divorce for. The only sin. Well, as I said, if people were guilty of sexual sins after marriage, the penalty was death. Death. They didn't get a divorce. When the guilty part of us is put to death, the other one is free to be married. But the marriage vow is for life. Until death do us part. It's what you declare in the presence of God and witnesses if you have a Christian wedding. If you're married by a preacher. The sins of the saints. Is it any wonder, friends, that we do not see revivals? Is it any wonder that we do not see people going down the aisles of our churches, weeping over their sins and saying, How can I thank God? Can you tell me how to be saved? They're not coming to the churches. They're just going to the psychiatrist when they get torn up. Don't know to come to the house of God. Well, in God's sight, when people are married, they're married for life. And that means that's the closest relationship on earth. Closest relationship on earth. Call one. One. And nothing can part them but death. In God's sight. Well, most of you here have perhaps been a bride. You didn't all have a church wedding. And you didn't all have a bridal costume like this. I bet you've seen a plenty of them. And you know what a bride looks like. Now, this one's a little disheveled. Brides are not accustomed to being carried around in a suitcase. But now, isn't she just lovely? Isn't she lovely? And do you know what that bridal costume represents? Her purity. Her purity. And woe unto us that even Christians have to have hurried-up wedding ceremonies. And some of them will even disgrace the church by having hurried-up weddings performed in the church. And some of them I've known ended in divorce pretty soon. Seems at least they can have a home wedding and not disgrace the church and have a girl go down the aisle. In God's sight, she'd be guilty of death. She'd be guilty of death if he were the ruler, the earthly ruler, today. And here she goes down the aisle with this costume on. Could you imagine such a thing in the sight of God? Well, why does a girl get in a state like that before she's married? Because she's not protected. They had chaperones when I grew up. In Atlanta, it has always been, pure girls and pure boys went wrong and sinned sexually. Than any city known. They kept to, not many years ago, a young man in Atlanta had a date with a girl. And his father took his son in the car to the girl's house. They went over to the social function or whatever it was, and he waited for them. If they were nearby, telephoned to come after them, and the father went back after them. The father chaperoned that couple. And that was just the custom. That was just the custom for the best people in Atlanta. And I had a cousin there, and she had three sons. She said she had no trouble. This was up to ten years ago. She said, I don't have any trouble with my sons. She didn't have any daughters. Had three sons. Because of the old custom in Atlanta of the fathers chaperoning the young folks. And we never, girls never went out anywhere without an older brother going along with us. Now we just turn these girls loose. Priests and parents take no responsibility. Chaperone the girls. Why don't we have home parties like we used to have? Well, the youngsters wouldn't stand for it. Well, they're good if you start off when they're little enough and didn't let them go any other time. Have home parties in your homes. Because they don't know a thing about having home parties and all enjoying games together. They've got to be old one by one, one by one, one by one. Well, church members. Bend up high. Boys and girls. In God's sight, guilty of death. And it comes right back to the parents. Letting them do as they please from time they're little. Just doing what they want to do. Well, that's not God's plan. That's not God's plan. Now, a man has a second reason for choosing a bride. He wants a family. He wants children. And he can't have a family of children without a bride. So he chooses a bride to be the mother of his children. And the proper kind of a bride lives to bring up children. Not to have a career and a husband too. She doesn't need both. She's got a husband. She doesn't need a career. She ought to let him be the career person in the family. And live according to the way he can support. Unless they're widowed or somebody deserted and they have to work. And we'd all take our hats off to them and pray for the Lord to bless them. But the business of a married woman is to produce children as personalities for the Lord to live in. A few years ago, when I was over in China, my last term, I was asked to teach. That last term over there, my first term, I established churches. And because I was the only person there for two years. And then after that, I'd go to the city and stay long enough and preach the gospel long enough. And teach. I didn't preach. I just taught. Teach the word. Till they'd be enough to organize a church. And then one of the men missionaries would come. Maybe two or three of them. And a Chinese pastor. We didn't have many Chinese pastors over there. We trained up some in a seminary. And they'd organize a church. And one of them would be chosen as pastor. He couldn't stay there all the time. Might be teaching in a seminary. But he would come and preach and have business meetings. Well, my last term, I was asked to teach Old Testament in a seminary. And start a new church right in the center of the city of Taipei. The churches I'd started before were out in the suburbs where the people lived. And where people could go by bus. And the buses, the city was laid off like our Washington. With all the capital buildings and the main buildings. And the railway. And the banks. And the post office. And all that right in the city. And the streets went out like spokes. And the people could come from outside into the city. And the other churches had been outside. Now perhaps that's where the people lived. Out from the government buildings. But the mission ordered a church right in the center where people could come in from every direction. And there's no such thing as exchanging tickets. You just get off of one bus and you've got to buy another ticket to go somewhere else. And they didn't have much money for tickets over there. They'd lost everything they had when they fled from the communists. To get out. Well, one day, after it wasn't a few years, we had a wonderful church there. And a couple came up from the southern part of the island. Where I had established a church when I was given all the time for that. And applied for church membership. They joined down there after I left. After I'd come up to Tai Bay for the seminary. And they came up and joined in by letter. They were both teachers. They'd been teaching in the south. They'd been transferred by the government. They switched the teachers where they wanted and the government does. And they'd been transferred up to the capitol to teach. And came to join our church. Well, I didn't see any children. And after the... I didn't get to speak to them that morning. But the night service, I had a chance to talk to them after the service. And ask them if they had any children. And the man said, Mr. Yuan said, Oh no, Miss Smith, we're so grieved that we have no children. Well, to make them feel better. I said, well, you know that means that you have far more time to win people to the Lord. And I said, Paul, Paul didn't have any wife. But he called the people that he won to the Lord his sons. His sons in the Lord. Timothy and Titus were called his sons. And I said, I don't have any children in the flesh, but I have many children in the Lord. What do you suppose that man said to me? Alas, Miss Smith, Mrs. Yuan and I have no children in the Lord. No children in the flesh because of physical weakness. We have no children in the Lord because of spiritual weakness. Now what about them? What were they living for? No children in the Lord. No children in the flesh. Well, they came to our church regularly. Made wonderful, wonderful members. And after a while, they left with some others. And they thought the Communists was going to take Taiwan and came to Brazil. You know, Brazil is so pink. Even people from red China could come over there. Well, when I was down in South America a few years ago, I've been to that continent several times. Been to all the states except one. Well, all the states except one. Yes, it has that mission there. That's been a really engaging. Well, there once something happened and we had to cancel it. They had to cancel the Christian Life Conference, or the prayer retreat for missionaries, I think it was. And I was down in the southern part of South America, Chile and Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. And since we have 10,000 Chinese in Sao Paulo, and a family that I knew who had gone over from the mainland and had been saved and didn't want their children to have to be taken over by red China, they'd come to Brazil. And the man wrote me when they got there and asked me if ever I got down that way to be sure to come to see them. So I arranged to come back through and they asked me to come and have a meeting in their home. So I came back through Sao Paulo and the daughter of the family met me at the airport and I'd just gotten over that. And I was upstairs dressing and she came up and said, Mrs. Yuan was downstairs. I said, what Mrs. Yuan? She said, Mrs. Yuan from Taiwan. Hi there. They went to the church that she sponsored. I didn't even know they'd come to Brazil. And I went down and there stood Mrs. Yuan. Of course she greeted me most graciously. And she presented me, this is my daughter so and so, and this is my daughter so and so. And there stood the most darling little girls, one five and one two. And I said, I wasn't sweet. I said, did you adopt these? No, I borned them. And what do you suppose they were over there doing? The husband was pastoring a church, bringing people to the Lord, bringing people to the Lord, pastoring a Chinese church. And when he got right with the Lord and began to have children in the Lord, he gave them children in the flesh. Now wasn't that just like the Lord? Just like the Lord. Just like him. Just like him. Well, if it takes physical health to bear children in the flesh, just so does it take spiritual health to born children in spirit. Spiritual health. We've been talking these days about hindrances to prayer. And of course nobody's saved without somebody praying them into the kingdom. Now this woman represents a bride who's spiritually sick. Spiritually sick. She's got sin in her heart. How would a man feel going down to the altar to meet his bride and seeing her come down the aisle with all the immoral thoughts and all the selfish thoughts in her heart to show on that beautiful rose? Whoever would marry a bride like that, she surely would be a strange bride. I showed this at Grove Avenue Church a few years ago. I was the pastor of Grove Avenue Church. I've been to that one twice. I've been to another one in Baltimore before that with these other kids. But the tears just started rolling down that young man's seat as he sat there on the front seat looking at this bride. He just couldn't stand it. The thought of a bride that full of sin. That full of sin. What kind of bride are you? How many children in the Lord do you have? How many people have you won to the Lord since you've been saved? How many have you won during the last month? Many of these girls that are growing up having early weddings came through somebody's Sun Street class. Most of these that have church weddings. Church members. Been baptized. Taught in GAs with somebody maybe. Taught in Sun Street with somebody. Did you get, were you holy enough to teach the word to those people so the Holy Spirit could use it and take it to their hearts? If they had those girls they'd have been separated unto the Lord. And they wouldn't have been going to places their parents didn't know they were going. They'd have been full of the Lord. It's your business to have gotten them filled up with the Lord when they were young. Got them separated unto the Lord. Not to grow up and be a person like this. Does this represent you? Do you have any spots on you? Or does the other spot in this bride represent you? Which one represents you? The Lord makes it my business to show people their sins. Show people their sins. And not only show them their sins but show them their sins. Show them what they are by nature. And it's the sinful nature that produces spots. Spots are sins. Sins are what we commit. And sin is what we are. Even we may have sins of omission. Know to do good. He that knoweth to do good and doeth it not the epistle of James telleth to him it is sin. Now the difference in sin and sin is represented, I mean is described in the epistle of John. If you want to look at the first epistle of John, the first chapter, I think it would be good for you to turn to that and look at it. We'll begin with verse 7. If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, of course that's Jesus Christ, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. That's iron sin. That's sin. He cleanses us from what we are and counts us righteous. If we say that we have no sin, that's iron sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. You know there are some branches of our Pentecostal friends who are godly people and some of them love the Lord with all their hearts but they used to didn't have educated pastors or pastors who loved the word enough to go to somebody who did know what they didn't know and learn from them. And they taught their people that after you're saved you must have a second blessing when you're holy sanctified and the Holy Spirit fills you up and when you're holy sanctified your sinful nature is taken out of you. Your sinful nature is eradicated and when your sinful nature is eradicated you're holy sanctified. Well now the only thing wrong with that is that's just not Bible teaching and the Lord couldn't take our sinful natures out and leave us physically alive and my sinful nature is taken out of me, I'm dead. That means my life breath leaves me. I am sin and because I am sin I think sins, I talk sins, I act sins except as the Lord delivers me from them. Now we are responsible for what this sinful but we're not responsible for that sinful human nature. We inherit it. We are responsible for what this sinful nature produces and we might produce just a little bit of pride or just a little bit of jealousy. Well that comes from the devil just like the blackest sin as you can imagine comes from the devil. It's the devil coming at us through that devil nature that we're always going to have. It's never going to change. It's never going to get any better. Well, what can we do about it? I think I'll just show you how it looks here. Another poster just to show you how what this old devil nature looks like. Now here's a young Christian man sitting here reading the Bible and across the top there it says Shum Ying Yu Gin The Bible is as a mirror and over here it says you should examine the Bible The Chinese never speak of reading the Bible they speak of examining the Bible and that means that they want to find every passage in the Bible on the subject they're studying and they don't know where to find it and they don't have concordances in their Bible and they're always begging for an extra Bible because they want to understand the Bible and they want to get all those passages linked up and they have to have guidance to find them and so they'll say can you give us an examining Bible class? Oh, you give them a week or ten days and you just get through and they'll name another book in the Bible Oh, we're going to understand that Won't you please give us another Bible class an examining Bible class That was after that great revival came and everybody loved the Bible Well, over here it says you should examine the Bible to see what your sins are and down here at the bottom it says the Lord does not look at people as people look at people as people look at people they look at the outward appearance but as the Lord looks at people he looks at the inward heart and here's this Christian man dressed exactly right in his new fall clothes with his fur garment now over here women wear furs the men don't wear it and the women turn it and put it outside so the fur acts for somebody to see now the Chinese wear all they can afford it wear a fur lying long garment but they turn the fur in to keep them warm and they put silk on the outside and there he is with his fur garment little jacket that the teachers wear and his felt shoes all dressed for the winter and he's just exactly right and he's sitting there at his desk reading the word of God and as he reads the word of God lo, he sees himself the Holy Spirit like a light from heaven enlightens his eyes and he sees in the word of God that he's like that poor beggar clothed in tatters and rags and then down to the bottom there's the next verse that says all of our righteousness is filthy rags Isaiah 54 6 friends if our righteousness is filthy rags in God's sight our goodness is filthy rags what do our sins look like in his sight what do our sins look like what do we look like what do we look like now he's not seeing sins he's seeing sin he's seeing his old devil nature as the Lord looks at and I and we've been talking about sins these days and of course those spots on that dried stomach represented sins but friends we've got to face up to sin what are we like by nature sin I just wish everybody here could see sin sin as the Lord made me see it but I sure would hate you to have to suffer like I did after being head of a girls boarding school in the eastern part of Shandong for 15 years
09-10-80 10a Part I
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Olive Bertha Smith (1888–1988). Born on November 16, 1888, near Cowpens, South Carolina, to John and Frances Smith, Bertha Smith was a Southern Baptist missionary and prayer advocate who profoundly influenced global missions. The fifth of eight children, she grew up in a churchgoing family and accepted Christ at 16 during a revival, stepping forward to trust in His salvation. After graduating from Winthrop College in 1913 with a bachelor’s degree, she taught briefly before enrolling in the Woman’s Missionary Union Training School in Louisville, Kentucky, graduating in 1916. Appointed by the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board in 1917, she served in China’s Shantung Province for 30 years, teaching at a girls’ school, leading Bible studies, and witnessing the Shantung Revival of the late 1920s, which saw thousands converted through repentance and prayer. Expelled by Communists in 1948, she became the first board-appointed missionary to Taiwan, serving a decade until mandatory retirement at 70 in 1958, despite working 15-hour days. Smith authored Go Home and Tell (1965) and How the Spirit Filled My Life (1973), recounting her experiences and revival principles, and founded the Peniel Prayer Center in Cowpens to foster spiritual renewal. In retirement, she traveled to over 15 countries, preaching to churches and inspiring figures like Adrian Rogers and Charles Stanley, until her death on June 12, 1988, at 99. She said, “Prayer is the mightiest force God has put into our hands.”