Major Ian Thomas emphasizes that the gospel is meant for those who are spiritually hungry, seeking peace, love, and support. He encourages individuals to bring their complete selves to God, as true blessings come from total surrender and obedience to His will. Thomas shares personal experiences from his missionary work in China, illustrating how God provides for those who trust Him and how He can turn our weaknesses into strengths for His glory. He challenges listeners to reflect on their commitment to God and to actively participate in spreading His love and truth to others. Ultimately, he calls for a deeper relationship with Christ, urging everyone to seek Him for true fulfillment and purpose.

For me, the gospel is for the hearts of those who are hungry for peace, longing for love, and seeking for support. And so to those of you here tonight who feel that they need comforting, then I pray that something that happens in this place tonight will comfort you. For those of you who long for a peace or something to uphold you, that you will find Jesus Christ all you ever hoped you would be, and that he will do just this one thing for you. And then for those of us who still do not have that absolute assurance that we really belong to him, may you find it. Without Christ, life isn't much worth living, is it? It's a very empty sort of business. Then may you find him and his love and his salvation. And in what you hear tonight, I pray that you won't take just what Mary Thayer would say, that you will go back to this, the word of God, that you will prove it, that you will find out that God is true, and that Jesus Christ is love. I am going to read one verse, and I pray that this verse following on to the testimony of this little girl will sweep into your heart and do something to you as it has to me. I'm going to read the tenth verse of the third chapter of the Old Testament book of Malachi. And because my Bible is Chinese, it will not be in the same words as you remember in your Bible, but it will be the same meaning, I hope. And I pray that even in its meaning, God will bless your heart. The great over and above all, the Father, who consoleth the host, leaves saying, If you will bring into my storehouse your completed charge, that my family may be sustained, then you can prove me. And see as I will not open wide windows in heaven, pouring out blessings to so many, you will never be able to use them all. But if you will bring, this is the great Almighty God. For although he is the Creator, although he comes pro, although he with one sweep of his hand can produce or immerse, erase, leans out from his heaven tonight and asks, he doesn't call, he doesn't tell us, he doesn't put, neither does he in any way put. If you will bring into my storehouse, what? And then you're going to find that it is something very, very different that belongs to you, the person. Your completed charge. And friends, I do not believe this means bits and pieces. I do not believe that God just wants one penny out of a ship. Neither does he want one thing out of ten. That is not my, the reading as I read it in my Bible. God isn't hard up, dear friend. Is it your God hard up? No, he isn't my God. My God? Oh, he's the owner of everything. He's great, over and above all ones. Who controls? My dear friend, he isn't hard up. He produces all the gold that ever was. All the jewels that ever will be. All the valuable things that have ever been or ever will be. He is the creator. So dear friend, he isn't hard up, is he? And so this isn't his. It isn't mine. Friends, it is something definite to be put in a definite place for a very definite purpose. My completed time to be put in God's storehouse for the purpose of sustaining and upholding God's service. Friends, you think that lonely little missionary would like a pound note? She doesn't. No, she doesn't. She longs for your prayers. She longs for your comfort. Money isn't what we want, friends. We want understanding, and love, and sympathy, and humility. So don't think that you can just palm off God with a fresh receipt. Oh, no, you can't. If you will bring into my storehouse your completed time, which, friends, you're going to find out is everything, and put it into my storehouse, somewhere where God can put his hand on it. And when he needs it, take it out and put it down where he wants to use it. Then, and not until when, do we get the blessing. Do we? Then you know what I'll do? Oh, I'll just throw little tickles on you. I'll bless you occasionally. I'll heal your disease. I'll make you feel a little better. I will open wide the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out blessings. Friends, isn't it wonderful? This is what God promised you and me. And if we haven't got it, well, then it's our own fault. It is because we haven't done what God asked. So tonight, dear friends, you and I have got to come down very humble and very low before this wonderful, almighty God and realize that if we are poor and miserable spiritually, if we are battling against things that we know we shouldn't be battling against, if we have not got the blessing, then it is because we have not been obedient. I went to China as a girl in my twenties. I knew nothing about China. I'd never read a book on China. I didn't even know where China was. I'd never been to a mission in Egypt. I'd never met a mission. I wasn't brought up in that kind of way. I had found Christ through reading the newspaper. And the Spirit, He challenged my heart for a land on the other side of the world from where I was then living because the paper said there were people there who knew nothing of His love. I tried all I knew to find somebody to help me to go and sail. And I bought, with my own savings and the money which I earned myself, a third-class ticket on the Trans-Siberian Railway and went. Friend, I can say what I like about this simply because it was I who did the planning and it was I who bought the ticket and it was I who went on my own money. I wonder how many of us are waiting for somebody to help us out. He's great, oh, God, oh, when will be your God? Then God. Give to Him what He's waiting for. You're a completed child and you'll manage to live. I know because, you see, I went to China. I wandered through Europe, Poland, Russia, across to Japan and back into the north of China and here I joined an old group. We didn't know each other. We didn't know anything about each other. We heard at different times under entirely different circumstances from different people heard of a particular place where we both went and where we met. We planned, Jeannie Lawson and I, on meeting and joining up together to have what would have been the first mission station in that particular place in China. But try as we could and all the plans that we could think up, we failed to get anyone even into the small culture. And so one day we got down low before God and suddenly Jeannie, she said, you know dear, I think you and I are on a wrong trail and I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea if both of us just threw our ideas to the wind and got going on something that God could help us. You see, I kind of discovered that He put you and me in a very important place in this part of China and I don't think anybody's ever going to come into a mission station but they come in to an end over those great high southern gentry mountains availing on that one animal route that ran from the border of Hebei down to the edge of the Yellow River in Hunan men who carried all the merchandise and any travelers who traveled on what we call animal trains. Now these animals are camels, mules or donkeys and the man comes along with his animals all very heavily laden but every night he has to find somewhere to go for himself and his animals to sleep and eat. And so over those mountainsides are little villages or what look like little hamlets. They are there for one purpose, to closure for those men. Right in the center, halfway from either end of that animal route is the one city, Yangtze. In it are two women, an old lady of seventy-four and a girl as young from England, twenty-five. Every single man had got to spend at least one night in that city and now there's an inn in this city that's kept by these two queer people and those men, well, some of them come in because they're poor or persuaded by others, some because they're curious but they're all treated exactly the same. They're welcomed by a little old Scot woman with white hair who says, brother, welcome, oh welcome and then he is let go into the kitchen where he can buy a bowl of food the same price as he could have bought it anywhere else on the street or in another inn. His meal is taken into the backyard and fed and watered and cleaned and everything's wonderful. And then as the man comes out he can lean against the wall or sit on the little stool where he listens to a story told by this Scot woman who sits in the middle of the yard. I don't know that story. I didn't understand Chinese in those days. Even if I did I wasn't even there. I know it's in the backyard, you see. We have to have somebody to look after the mule. And so silly glary say it was that's where she is getting mixed up with a lot of smelly, pesky, obstinate mules. And I thought I'd gone to China to preach the gospel and if I could I wasn't allowed to. I'm a young and single girl and I couldn't be mixed up in a yard full of mules. Same gun we want our own way. Don't we want it to go as we want. Oh, I wouldn't dream, no. You think I went all that way? Oh, no. Friends? He's friends. Over and above all he doesn't ask what you want. He longs that you give him. Not just a piece of yourself but all. You don't find that when you set out to do what God wants you to do it'll take everything you have. Your hands, your heart, your feet, your head, your brain and everything. And you're content to just hand him out a little piece here and there and expect him to sort of bless you and pat you on the head and everything's fine. No. That's why you don't get blessed. Here you see is the reason. When you've put in our completed side then you say, I will bless. The first Christians in that area of China were not men of the city, were not women who lived around in the city. They were men who came down from those mountain trails to stay a night in a mission. And then she and I, and I, facing a terrific problem, wondered what I was going to do and suddenly found that God had opened an amazing door. He'd signed me employment. You know I didn't get a sign of a look for a job. Why I should have done that in England. I've got a good job in England and they pay good money. And so I hadn't gone to China just to look for a job. But it wasn't just going my way, was it? Oh no, God has explained, dear friends, and we've already said the blessing comes when you fit into the plan. I discovered one day that I was the only woman in that district with unbound feet. All over the north of China this custom of binding little girl's feet had gone on for many years. And I understand that people who had come into the north of China had tried hard to send it out for the place. And now down in the capital of China or where I came into power, this man, this man, first Christian leader, and he started to put on the court. Now I don't know anything about any other reform in any other part of China, but I do know that up there came a law, a reform, that was going to mean so much to my sister, it was going to mean that binding of women's feet was for two. It was against the law. And this, the carrying out of the law, meant that this particular man with his sister had now got to find someone whom he paid to the government and sent round his district to send the customer. And the man going, ooh, he was getting so worked up and so worried, he'd long since decided that it was impossible and most unseemly to send the man back with standing women's feet. Ooh, no. Ooh, no. As well, assigned a woman, but there was one. No, not one single eligible woman. Until one day, sitting in his yamen, he kept an appointment with a traveler from the other side of those mountains. And in the course of conversation, he said to the traveler, Oh, you've come from the other side, dear, dear man. Could you help me to find someone to whom I can give this honorable and worthy position of the official of these hills? You mean to say we haven't begun yet? Can't find anybody. Oh, dear. Oh, man, you're going to be in a mess for so long. Because when these representatives of the government come, they'll expect you're nearly finished and you haven't even begun. I can't find anybody. Who said you were? You know, I don't think you're left anywhere you're concerned because, you know, when I was coming up the road only a few minutes ago to keep this appointment with you, I saw come out of the wind, not far from the city gates down there, what I am positively sure was a woman. But, you know, what struck me so was that he had the biggest seat I'd ever seen on a woman around here. What? You mean to say there is a large-footed woman from right here in my city? Well, I'm sure it was a woman. Yes. Wonder woman. And so the moment the guest had disappeared, up dropped the mandarin and came. And standing in my yard is a man who is sure that this job belongs to me and I belong to the job. Oh, no. Oh, no, I didn't come all the way here to find a job and certainly not to do with him. And anyway, I'm not getting mixed up with government and nothing to do with government. You know, I was sent by the great almighty God who said, I don't mind what God you serve as long as you do this job for me. And woman, it must be you. It must. You realize that you are the only woman in this whole great district with big feet? Well, then I must be a wonder. And to me, it was as if the Lord Jesus had opened a most amazing door. Why did God put me there? He knew the size of my feet. He knew all about me, the person. And all he had said one day was, would you give to me your completed town that I might put it down and use it for the sustaining of my family? Because I long to draw blessings not only on you but on me. And friend, that's exactly what happened. I cannot tell you this was a wonderful job and I cannot tell you, but if I tell you the truth, that I had wonderful wages. I only know that I shall never cease to praise a great and loving God for allowing Glendale which she disappeared into the middle of time and allow God to turn her into the official of Jesus. Because I soon discovered that every two aching little feet have a lonely and aching heart that don't need just feeding and clothing but comfort. And to me there was the joy of giving up the love that he had given to me and as he poured his blessing on me so I could pour it out onto them. I have loved these women. Oh, they were dirty, they were illiterate and their poor little painful smelly feet but they were those whom Jesus Christ had died for and I loved them because I wanted them for him. And then, right in the middle of this which I truly believe that God had given me to do I decided that this district was quite big that there should be more than me after all, Jesus had sent the disciples out two by two and there was only one in that great big district was only one person who really knew Jesus Christ and that person was Gladys Hayes and so with a heart full of longing leading before the Lord day by day I expected to find somebody coming over those mountains somebody who'd say, well, who are you? Oh, I didn't know you were here. Oh, that doesn't matter. What have you come for? I've come because I believe Jesus Christ loved these people. Right. Then you and I alone will join up together. Now friend, I truly believe that this was what was going to happen that God who had challenged me who had equipped me who had drawn me out who had put me down there would do the same for someone else and although we would not know each other we would meet right there link up together and loving each other and him go out for his glory but no one cared and I waited and waited and waited I wrote letters I put articles in Christian periodicals I believed that my God it was a God who answered prayers it was a God of love surely he could challenge somebody and friend tonight I don't know whether he did ever challenge anybody I only know they never came and tonight I wonder is God going to challenge you it won't be for this area of China simply because this path is closed but isn't it for somewhere where you know that he is wanting you to go to or to pray for or to do something about if you will bring into my storehouse five minutes of every day no your completed time that's what it says then when God called Mary sales he didn't ask her for one hand he did not ask her for a two piece he asked her for herself we cannot separate ourselves and so God dear friend does not demand or pull or push or force but he longs that we shall give him ourselves that he can take us up and use us for his glory I one day found myself terribly disappointed all mixed up in my mind walking down the one main street of our little city was God really a God of love well it was awfully difficult to sort of balance out because people who love you well they do what you are and they don't sort of put you down somewhere and then completely forget you and that's what it seemed to me as if God had done he pulled me from my home taken all I had got to offer and put me down in the middle of China and forgotten me nobody was going to come and join me and I was so lonely so lonely sometimes that I ached and I began to talk to myself simply because there was no one else to talk to no one I knew spoke English no one I knew knew of a little island called England no one knew that in my heart I still loved my mother and my father and my people who really belonged to me and I didn't know how to talk about it because I knew nobody would understand they'd never been outside of their little villages they'd never been far away from their families and they knew nothing of the sea which separated me from all I knew and loved and this God was he love that was the state of my mind walking down the street when suddenly I saw sitting on the street an ordinary mountain woman and leaning against her knee was a very dirty, sick looking little child I learned on talking to the woman she was there to sell it and I bought it now I bought the child because I truly believed that as I stood on the street Jesus Christ asked me to when he wants you to do something dear friend you'll know he won't talk to you in your ear maybe but he'll talk to you in your heart and you'll be positively sure that that's what you're to do I only know that all the dreams and the hopes that had gone on in my heart for those last two years the fact that maybe one day that young man would climb the mountain who would be my husband that maybe one day climbing that mountain would be that fine girl who would be my fellow worker no the hope it had all gone and God said no you just buy this because this is the world and friend it isn't as we choose or is it? do you choose? you make your own plan and then go along in it then that is why there is no blessing if you will bring and put in my storehouse yourself then friend you get the blessing I never dreamed I was buying my first daughter and she brought in to my life to my heart one by one of the others who were to become my sons and my daughters now they've all been different they came in different ways with their little pathetic history with their little temper with their little temperament and to each I learned that they might find peace and security and love not only from me who was to be their mother and from the rest of the family who were to be their brothers and sisters but from Jesus Christ no wonder how many of us who are mothers and fathers put first things first and give our children Jesus Christ you know mother you go all out to feed it physically you use the same energy and thought to feed it spiritually father you plan and organize for your child educationally you do the same spiritually then tonight here is a challenge you might educate your child and give him all the degrees that the world can give but don't give him Christ and his loss mother you can feed your child on the best of everything but if you do not give your child Christ he or she is lost and in that which God asks us to give to him I believe are these we love too the children were to be the witnesses the testimonies at a time and in a place that I believed in the future I would never be able to go or be in I would get old and there would be a day when I couldn't climb mountains then they would climb those mountains to me this was just as God ordained and I was terribly happy by the time the war came I had got 40 children and I said well dear Lord thank you 40 nice good children but I really believed that 40 are enough after all you don't surely expect me to go on much longer do you and so I decided that I would just settle it with everybody God included of course and we would not have any more now dear friend God answers prayer but he doesn't always answer it as you expect and I said Lord Jesus I have only room enough in my courtyard food enough in my kitchen and patience enough in my heart for 40 and so if you have never answered a prayer before you must answer this no more children in my yard and God leaned out of heaven and he said Clarice Aylward mind your own business over and above all and I'm waiting to pour a mighty blessing on you so I'm not taking any orders from you friend you ought to got around we do you know shall we praise him that he doesn't always carry out our orders shall we be careful after tonight to pray through God's Holy Spirit in his will that he doesn't have to disappoint us because dear friend he doesn't answer our prayer in the way in which we expect him to he's made a plan and he's going to keep within that plan he has ordained that if you give to him what he asks he will pour out a blessing and all he's longing for is obedience from your personal heart and so there came down from the north pushed now by an advancing enemy 40 more children until I awoke one day to find we had exactly doubled there were over 80 during those first few years of the war we ran around in the mountains I believe this great God worked miracles for us I have laid in a crevice of our mountain side with three little babies pressed against my back and I have watched the enemy soldiers march only two or three feet away and I have known that if one of those little babies made a little cry or sneeze we would all be lost but the babies didn't cry neither did they sneeze they were Lord's babies you see and he can keep them quiet he fed us he protected us he checked us he led us he had it where I had his hand over and then there came a time when I who knew what the outside world was like when no one else in that district did and I watched an enemy that was strong they had guns they intended to take cities and they marched forward and we had no way of resisting one day they would come and the city would fall and then what was going to become of my family and me were we just going to fall into the hands of the enemy and just say nothing not if I knew it and so we moved we moved to a large city several days north of where we lived and here with a wall all round us we kind of felt safe and we praised God and we kind of settled down now we were all right but we weren't because the enemy came nearer and nearer and nearer and there came a day when I realized that they were going to take that city and what about my family and so I lined them up one day and I said I am your mother I have fed you I have clothed you I have loved you all you have ever known of comfort of peace and security has come through me because I love Jesus Christ but this is the end I am sending you out you're to climb the mountains and you're to go away down into those mountains I'm going to wait here and if there is help of any sort then I will send it to you but you must keep on the road that I'm telling you to keep on every night you bigger ones are to put the little ones to sleep wherever you are I don't know what you're going to eat I don't know how you're going to live but each night you're to sing a chorus you're to all kneel down in your little groups of five and you're to say a prayer and God who is your father will take care of you and I with a breaking heart send them off they I truly believe were to decide weren't they the testimonies that God had given to me His glory that I was to die they didn't matter I was beside the point they were young their lives were in front of them and they were really charming God was going to use them and I remained in the city three days later the enemy took the city I was still inside and now I was so lonely without the children and so concerned as to what they were doing that I wished I had gone with them the morning that I discovered that the city had fallen to the enemy I went down to the front to find if there was at least one little way to get out but all the time believing that there was Lord Jesus have you left me inside this city now occupied by an enemy army for a purpose is it that I have to witness for you then all I ask is strength and wisdom and understanding and words to say that I might have courage to testify not only to my friends and my brothers but to my enemies that you are my God that you are the great almighty God take away all fear from my heart and I believed he was going to lead me there to that person but as I was walking through that courtyard it was just as if someone brushed past me now there was no person there I know but as that person brushed past very clearly in my ear I heard the word pass that means run now if you had been in that position what do you think you would have done I hope what I did picked up your heels and run and I continued to run in the direction that I was going in now I did not know this courtyard it was not my own home I'd only been there a little while and to my utter amazement I discovered I was running to what I thought was a blank wall and it was quite high and I remember clearly now those thoughts all scattered as I was running along thinking oh but I'll never get up that wall and even if I do how am I going to jump up as I was running towards it in a straight line I could almost feel myself being pulled as it were to one side and when I reached the wall I suddenly discovered in the wall a door now I had learned since that that door had not been opened for at least 30 years it had been built when the courtyard was built as a camel inn and in China these back doors are to carry out the dead you never carry a dead body out the front door because it had been a mission station for those years they didn't care where they carried out their dead bodies and they had even forgotten the door was there I managed to pull and pull and pull and get just a little tiny bit open just enough to squeeze myself with a terrific sort of squeezing through and I found myself standing out on the other side of the wall I was facing first of all the stranger's bedding ground which is been a mission station for those years they didn't care where they carried out their dead bodies and they had even forgotten the door was there I managed to pull and pull and pull and get just a little tiny bit open just enough to squeeze myself with a terrific sort of squeezing through and I found myself standing out on the other side of the wall I was facing first of all the stranger's bedding ground which is a piece of land around every Chinese city to do what it says the very stranger's is on the edge of the stranger's bedding ground also around every Chinese city is the moat just a piece of dirty water on the other side of that water is a field of grain and marching very properly and orderly through the field of grain are the advancing enemy and so I flattened myself against the wall so that they couldn't see me they weren't looking in my direction they were going that way you see and I thought now if I wait long enough those enemy soldiers will go down to the field of grain turn around and go into the city gates which is on a level with the walls that I am flattened against and then when the last on a level with the walls that I am flattened against and then when the last man is in I will make a good away and go through the field of grain and arrive now whether I thought all that plan carefully out or not I don't know but I think that was the idea anyway all I know is that I thinking that that last soldier was already inside the city gates left the shadow of the wall and rushed forward but he wasn't inside the gates and he must have seen something move seeing a soldier he had a gun and he took aim and shot it was a good look too it was a good soldier although it was an enemy but he didn't hit me I had on a little Chinese suit in those days we didn't wear these long gowns as we do now we wore little jackets and baggy trousers and the little jacket was on and as I must have left the shadow of the wall and dived forward our clothes which never fit very tightly did the wind blow it out did somebody pull it out I don't know but it must have blown out and the bullets which came whizzing along went straight through the fleece of my coat and all I felt was a hot heat as it sort of grazed off my back and buried itself into the ground right beside me and I thought well do and of course I went flat on my face on the ground I really thought I was dead and I lied but quicker than it takes time to tell you I was sure that that man wasn't going to stop at one bullet oh no they don't you know in a minute another bullet was going to come and I'd got to get out and so not waiting to undo these what you call little frogs that are on our clothes I just hauled them up and lying on my Bible which raised me up from the ground I came out of the coat and I left it with its arms outstretched on the ground where I had been but I had wiggled on the Bible into the moat and I got a very nice coat yet little did bother and I lay in the moat and I said Lord if this is just your love and your wonder I breathe all my arms and legs are still here then I will promise all I have all I ever will have will be for you and I got up then those men had gone into the city and away two days later I joined up with the children and together the family and I climbed those mountains twelve whole days he kept us he fed us he hid us and down on the twelfth evening we arrived there is the yellow river and oh wonder Ma isn't it going to be wonderful over the other side of that river there aren't any enemies over there are there no and all the houses will they have roofs on well yes oh do you think we will have time to sit down and talk to each other properly yes do you think they'll have good things to eat over there yes freedom that's what all men stood in our houses no enemies houses with roofs on and freedom all that lay between us was a set of yellow rivers we expected naturally to find boats many boats but there wasn't any sign of a boat or any person there and so I very cheerfully said oh I wouldn't worry do you know what we're going to do all of us oh we're going to be so happy do you know we're going to lie down right here right on the bank of the river and do you know we're going to be the first ones on the first boats tomorrow morning because you know what's happened all those men they haven't got any passengers or jets they've gone home for the night they didn't know we were going to come you know but God does oh father he knows he's got it all prepared so if you've got a stretch of imagination a long line all along the banks of the yellow river all the boys big one, a little one, a big one, a little one, a big one, a little one and then me and then all the girls a big one, a little one, a big one and we were happy tomorrow we're going to be free and we sang our choruses we shouted our verses of scripture from end to end of our lives and we went to sleep we got up the next morning and we looked along the river and we praised the Lord and we sang and we said well before long but no boats came and we waited nobody said anything perhaps it's a feast day over in Horney perhaps it's blowing a big wind over there and they can't sit down well anyway we're alright you know because well we'll get there test tomorrow and again that night we slept on the banks of the yellow river but the next morning again the same thing happened and by now we didn't talk to each other but we looked at each other in a queer sort of way and I knew that deep down in the bigger hearts the hearts of those bigger boys and girls they were wondering what was going to happen to us our souls it had now gone comfort of any sort had gone protection of any sort had gone what was going to become of us had God really forgotten and then I said now listen all you are to go up this end and all you are to go up that end and you're to find whatever help of any sort you can I will take two bigger boys and we will go all the way back to the last stronghold of the Chinese forces we did I went back to those boys as far as a little city called Yuanqi and there I found a man in charge of those few bedraggled almost defeated forces of the Chinese army and I said sir would you help me to get my family across the yellow river and he didn't answer and then I pleaded and I finally got down on my knees and I said sir I will do anything for you if you will get my family across the river I cannot let them fall into the hands of the enemy they're my family and he calmly got up and walked out I never dreamed that he had no power to help me and that he probably didn't know what sat and I went out and walked back to the yellow river determined never to kneel again to anyone I never had and I never will and friend if you find one day that Bloody Sail has been executed it will be standing up I bend my knee to one alone Christ because everything and all else fails he never and so again we slept on the banks of the river but we didn't sing chorus the bigger ones grumbled and the little ones cried they were hungry and the biggest one of all was at the end of everything and all night as I lay between them do you think I went to sleep? no I went through all that I could remember of my life all the things that I had done that I shouldn't have done all the things that I had done and I knew that were against the will of God and I wept and by the morning I awoke and my head felt as if it was like a huge heavy plum pudding and I knew there was no boat there was no hope God had forgotten and suddenly it seemed as if over me there came a big black thick cloud just horrible black dust friends don't criticise men and women who fail God when others forget to pray for them I didn't want to see the children I pushed them up the other end of the river God wasn't a God of love God he just called you out put you down he didn't even care what you got and that is there was you know what's creeping nearer and nearer to you? an enemy army men men filled with the lust of war you know what they're going to do? they're going to find one silly woman standing on the bank of the yellow river and they're going to put their hands on her friend I was a friend for the first and the only time in my life I was filled with fear fear of men fear of what men could do to a defenceless woman they're going to play with you let it there with just like a cat plays with a mouse and you think you are going to get away oh how clever the devil and all of a sudden right in the middle of all this coming out from one of these murder little groups of children was a girl a little girl of thirteen who had been given to me only five months before this time and if any of you know anything about old China Bao Xiulan was born in a woman's yard of a Chinese Yaman her mother did not know her father her father did not know her mother and she did not know either of them pretty innocent knowing nothing of the world never been outside that courtyard only knowing how to do pretty little dances and appeal to men Bao Xiulan had been given to me when the enemies swept in because they didn't know what to do with her she had swallowed the love of Jesus Christ like you and I swallow pills it had never dawned upon her little innocent heart that God was not God and that love didn't come from Christ this is the little girl that has come out and standing there in her little shy way she always sort of looked down like she's been taught to do you know and she said Ma no we're not why? well because there do not happen to be any boats and there are no bridges across the Yellow River oh and he told her Xiulan do you believe it's true? of course it's true Xiulan I have not told you fairy stories it is in this book which lives under my arm which is every word true then why don't we go across? because I am not mousy oh yes is God still God? isn't he? and it was just as if somebody had hit me yes he was and it was as if this black horrible death had just dropped on me Xiulan I believe that my God is the Jehovah post I believe he's the almighty and we are going across when? how? I don't know but we're going and she grabbed hold of my hand and she pulled me and we disappeared away at the back where there's some little scrubby bushes some of the bigger boys saw us and they came too and all I remember is that they went down on their knees and I went flat on my face in the sand and as I closed my eyes I could see this little girl standing happily up into heaven almost as if she could see the Lord Jesus just sitting up there with her little hands raised here we are Lord you can see us can't you? we're down here by Yanshu you know we're all here you know 83 of us and her and we're waiting for you to open the river for us I do not remember anymore down flat in the sand is Gladys here with praise? no I'm finished oh God her son the Lord Jesus Christ died for me I'm just finished all my planning, all my organizing it's got nowhere you and only you must prove yourself I have no way out friends what was Gladys Aylward died on the banks of the Yellow River you can read a book of what happened before the Yellow River but you haven't read a book of what happened after and tonight dear friends you and I have to die to our fears to our sins to ourselves God as it were brings us to a place where he hits us on the head and he says as it were I'm fed up with your planning and your organizing I and only I am God and I want you as you are that I might put you down and pour my blessings out onto us all of a sudden I could feel my clothes being pulled looking round I saw my naughtiest little boy who said Ma important man out on the beach he's looking for you and I who only a few minutes before had been filled with fear of an enemy soldier putting his hand on me now found myself calmly walking up God was still God the great Jehovah was still mine and he was lost I fully expected to find an enemy but I didn't I found standing there a Chinese officer why he didn't come sooner why he didn't come later I do not know there he was the only man who had power to call a boat and from the other side in Honan came the boat he called and we went over to safety we praised our God and we walked through Honan we sat and we talked and reveled in the peace and then as I and the family got to the first city that we passed in Honan Neamture I got arrested and I faced the magistrate in the court who said woman how did you get across the Yellow River in a boat you didn't well I did what kind of a boat sorry sir I didn't look carefully who called the boat sorry sir I didn't look carefully all I know it was an officer what kind of an officer sorry sir I don't know tell you his name no sir you didn't come in the boat but I did how do you think I got here then do you think I can swim I saw this crowd shouting outside and then he suddenly handed through the guard a book great big book look at this and I looked at the open book and there in beautifully written Chinese characters I read the closing of the Yellow River by the order of the commander in chief of the Chinese troops from the city of Kaifeng the capital of Honan and then right underneath it the date five days before we got to the Yellow River there were no boats but we had got a boat friend we did get a boat I know it was a boat but we're all on the other side our God had worked we truly believe a miracle and tonight friend as you in just a short time go from these buildings out along your journeys to your home has God in his own loving way spoken to you this isn't told just for a story friend to every single one of you there has got to come what I call a Yellow River experience where you see yourself absolutely finished you have no strength you have no more planning there is no more organizing you are low in the dark he and he alone is God and able to plan and organize and open doors friend as Gladys Aylward died on the banks of the Yellow River so tonight to every one of you there has got to be depth of self and you will find that when you are willing to lie out there before God and you allow Jesus Christ to as it were hit you on the head and knock out of you that selfishness and that pride and those jealousies and those criticisms and those managing ways all that that represents ourselves we die and from the dead bones of that that was us Jesus Christ comes along and in the same way as he said to the widow's son at Leanne young man, young woman I say unto thee arise go forth tell the great things I have done for you friend, he is not telling you to talk about yourself he is not telling you to advertise some particular product you are interested in he is not telling you to stand for the Methodist church or the Baptist church or even the church, the Anglican church he is asking that you stand for him and his glory see grace over and above all who controls the host leans the night out of his heaven and he says if you will give to me your completed time that my family may be sustained then I can prove pour my blessing upon you I'll open the windows of heaven there'll be so many blessings you'll never be able to use them all night and friend I truly believe that that is what each one of us are here for that we might know these blessings that we might experience these blessings that we might know how to pray that we might know how to give that we might know how to go and do whatever God tells us he comes, he's never had an opportunity of getting his hands on it and so friend as we bow our heads and we seek before him to find out his will for us would you let him speak to you friend I believe that there are those of us who should know how to pray do you really know how to pray pray so that it hurts in there pray so that men on the other side of the world will be saved pray so that men and women here will be uplifted the tithe is to be put in for one purpose friend that his family may be sustained, upheld and kept and so this is not a rush to the mission field or into full time service as you call it for Jesus Christ but in whatever place God puts you to be absolutely his for his glory and a soul women would you pray for the women who today are not free men would you pray for the men who today are not free young people would you promise to give something that God might ask you for yourself that somebody beside yourself might know of freedom and joy have you ever thought about these people the people who are scattered around in this great sin sick earth that God created so beautifully that man has turned upside down and caused confusion in shall find him all the thousands tonight who bow to heathen idols have you ever thought of them do you know why they are bowing to them simply because you haven't proved to them that you believe your God is real and that this book is true couldn't it be because you have spent your money on yourself and forgotten that they have not even a bible to read if they could read friends tonight I challenge you on the time you spend on yourself and the time you give to God the money you spend on yourself and the money you give to God ladies you were there this morning you heard one lipstick the money for one lipstick will buy a free bible I challenge you you know better than God by putting the stuff on anyway and then you leave my people to die without Christ shame on you you expect blessing no hold up God is a just and righteous God and he said when the time is in I will open the window and pour out blessing so dear friends tonight the responsibility is back on you and if you fail him and if you sink down then it's your own fault here is the word of God open you can freely read it buy it anywhere do with it as you like carry it under your arm anywhere you want and yet you read all the silliest, soppiest nonsense that you can think of friends I dare you as you died on the bank of your yellow river our time our money our interest our conversation all the things we do one day dear friend you as I stand before a judgment throne and we answer to God for what we have done in the flesh and all we've got to show what is it there is everything be great over and above all who is Jehovah who controls the host leans right now out of his heaven and he looks down in love on you and me and he says oh if only if only you would bring in to my storehouse just yourself that I might put you in my storehouse train you and get you ready to use and then put you out for the blessing of my family I could open the windows of heaven and I could pour out blessings so many that you'd never be able to use them all up shall we pray great almighty God whom we believe our Jehovah creator of heaven and earth thou who sittest in the highest heaven who controls we dare tonight to come before thee in and through the name of thy son Jesus Christ whom as our saviour we trust and love oh we thank thee for the day when you sent him from heaven and he walked this earth and climbed Calvary's hill we thank thee for the blood shed on Calvary we thank thee for the life given on Calvary and we praise thee and thank thee that tonight we dare because of Calvary stand before thee unashamed unfettered and in that precious blood and in that name claim not only for ourselves but for thee whom thou hast laid as a burden upon our hearts for thy glory oh Lord Jesus teach us we plead with thee how to pray pray so that men and women might find thee we plead with thee dear Lord for men and women who tonight somewhere in some small or large place are bowing to some filthy heathen idol oh God in thy mercy accept what we're going to give to thee that you may be able to pick us up and put us down that they might know thee that through our prayers or through our giving or our going they might find thee oh Lord Jesus break our hearts for the heathens who in their millions tonight know nothing of love peace or security we pray thee tonight for every man, woman and child behind an iron curtain oh God break our hearts for the women lonely, frustrated, bewildered for the men who long for freedom and know they're never going to get it for the babies who know not their mothers for the thousands who march only knowing how to hate and to kill whom we long should know of thy love oh God we plead with thee Jesus how to pray tell us how to give and what to give and how to go we offer tonight ourselves to thee unreservedly take us use us pour through us that someone might know thee we ask this humbly for Jesus sake Amen dear friends I truly believe that God has spoken maybe to many of us you don't have to come and tell us it isn't our business it's God and yours but I would plead with you that if God has challenged your heart don't just throw that challenge aside tonight dear friends there are men and women who will die unless you pray for them there are men and women who will fail unless you pray for them there are men and women who would find Christ if you prayed there are men and women who would find Christ if you gave only enough money to buy one bible or if those whom God has challenged would go to where he wants them to tonight friends do you know Christ as your saviour do you know of the witness in your heart that you're really saved then from the depths of my heart I dare not let you go without pleading with you find Jesus take Christ as your saviour because without him there is no peace or love or freedom with him there is everything and then let him pour through you and to those of you who are church members friends get up and do something allow God to pour his Holy Spirit through you that your church shall not remain a dead church that it will be alive with and for God's Holy Spirit friends should you be doing something in your church not just sitting in a pew should you be going out to do something on visiting or Sunday school teaching would you let God tell you that tonight we may have met here for a very definite purpose that God pouring through us as his body as his church will alter Brisbane tonight friends I may never see you again how long are you going to be free how long am I going to be free we don't know but I believe it rests with you how long Australia remains free friends God the almighty God hears prayers and promises a blessing but it is only through obedience and so may God bless you give you the joy that he has given and has given me may you see your family in the same way as I've seen mine standing for him giving glory to him dying sooner than denied and filling not only your heart but his and the blessing will fall and from end to end of this earth they shall know of his glory he is God he is the victor and dear friends I plead with you tonight claim the power and defy evil the night of you power the night that you stand with me to defy the ideology of the devil in communism to defy Mozart to defy old Khrushchev this is the truth God is real would you defy them with me stand by your heads in prayer and stand for the truth