I have prayed that tonight God will speak
to each one of us in his own
loving particular way and to give you an
idea of why we are here in Australia
is because that we believe living on the
other side of the world that you're behind
the times and you have failed God.
Friends, come down up to be humble enough
to realise that you are not doing what
God told you to.
This is the day when people fly around
the world on business in jets.
They rush around for pleasure in great cruisers.
They move heaven and earth for their sport,
but they do very little for Jesus Christ.
The mission field of such is poor, miserable,
penniless and in most cases carried on by
a few old men.
Friend, it sounds awfully hoary, doesn't it?
Tonight, this is the truth and I am
bringing to you the verse that God used
to challenge me and I pray that he
will challenge you.
God has not altered, although the world has.
And tonight you have got to throw out
some of the old ideas that a missionary
or person who works for Christ has got
to be some particular kind, some sanctimonious effort
produced by some committee or fellowship or missionary
society.
God can call who he likes, how he
likes and when he likes, put them down
and use them in the way he desires.
And friends, tonight may God challenge you for
prayer, to give and to go.
The mission field as such is closer to
you than it is to any other English
speaking nation.
And yet, to you, it is a way
in the edge of nowhere.
While we have a strong, alive, virile church,
that although in numbers is much, of course,
lower than yours, we are stronger than you.
So dear friend, you'll find that I come
from China to challenge Australia for Christ.
The boot is now on the other leg.
And the verse I'm going to bring to
you is the first, or the first few
verses, of the twelfth chapter of Genesis.
We find that this man Abram, who belongs
to a big family, who are going on
a journey, you can read all about them
presently, we're only just referring to them.
And as they are travelling, something happens.
The head of the family, the father of
Abram, dies.
We find that although the family should have
moved after the burial or funeral of the
old man, they didn't.
Why, we don't know.
We only know that they didn't.
And then we find God coming into the
picture and lifting up this man Abram, challenging
him to the very depths of his soul
and his heart, so that he gets up
and goes out to follow God.
The first few verses of the twelfth chapter
of Genesis.
Now my Bible is Chinese, this is as
it comes back to you from Chinese.
And Jehovah, the God, said to Abram, the
man, Get thee out, out from your father's
house, your father's relations, and your father's country.
Come, I will take you to the place
of my choosing.
I will make of you a great and
mighty nation.
I will pour my blessings upon you.
I will make your name so that from
one end of the earth to the other
they shall know of it.
I will bless those that bless you, but
I will also curse those that curse you.
I will open the heaven and pour blessings
upon you, so that from one end of
the earth to the other men shall know
that I am Jehovah, the almighty God.
And Abram did as God asked him.
He got out.
Friend, tonight Abram was sitting in a very
comfortable place where there wasn't very much to
do, the graveyard.
And tonight God is going to show you
that you have sat rather a long time
in your little homemade graveyard.
And the challenge is, get thee out.
Out where God intends to use you.
Out where God intends to bless you.
And pour through you his blessing to someone
else.
I went to China as a girl in
my twenties.
I believe God asked me to.
We don't meet God going down the road.
And I'm not the kind that dream dreams
or have visions.
I only know that although I was born
in a Christian home, my mother, my father,
my Sunday school teacher, all the ministers who
came and went in our church, not one
of them ever spoke to me for a
personal Jesus Christ.
And so I grew up on religion.
Having no idea that salvation was a personal,
something for a personal heart.
I left my home, I went into London
to work and earn my own living.
And for those first few years, pleased myself.
I earned good money, I spent it on
myself.
I did what I liked, ate what I
liked and wore what I liked.
To me, my life was my own.
And then all of a sudden, one evening,
I, going along one of those main thoroughfares
in London, was drawn into a large church
by a group of people who were outside
the church door fishing.
I, that night, found Jesus Christ as my
saviour in a church that I don't know
anything about or have never been in it
since that day.
I believe now that all one had to
do was to attract somebody to this gospel.
And so I went round, and if an
opportunity was given, and I talked to people
about salvation, I bought tracts which I handed
out to anybody who would receive them.
And to me, that was all I had
to do, my duty was done.
Until, at the end of that year, when
I had known Christ as my saviour, just
over that one year, he challenged my heart
for China, a place I knew nothing about.
I suppose if I had read the Bible,
if I had attended church or prayer meetings,
he would have called me in one of
those ways, but I didn't go, neither did
I read the Bible.
I was reading, one day, the Daily Paper.
I read an article on China that said
that way over there were hundreds, thousands, maybe
millions of people who did not know where
they were going to spend eternity.
No one had been to tell them about
Jesus Christ.
And I, although I couldn't have explained very
much about salvation, knew I was saved.
I knew nothing of church, I'd never heard
of a mission or a missionary, and I
knew very little about the Bible.
But I really believed that everybody ought to
know that Christ, Son of God, had died
on Calvary, that they might be saved.
And here were a people who didn't know.
And so I, now, formed a little plan
that I would do my little piece.
I would go and lay this need before
someone, and I would go off and tell
the Chinese about Christ.
Well, I did all I could.
I didn't impress anybody or get anyone pushed
off.
And so by the end of that second
year, I was in the same place as
when I had begun.
And I decided I would now ask one
more person.
If that person refused, I would throw the
whole idea to the winds, decide I was
wrong, and forget it.
The person I went to ask was my
own brother.
I caught him in the kitchen of our
own home and proceeded to tell him the
same as I had told others, to appeal
and plead with him as I had pleaded
with others during that past year.
Well, he thought this was the biggest joke
he'd ever heard.
And he threw back his head and he
just laughed and laughed and laughed.
And then, finally, he made to run from
the kitchen.
And standing in the doorway, he suddenly turned
back and flung back this.
If you really believe somebody ought to be
going, why don't you go yourself?
Bang went the kitchen door and he was
outside.
Friends, my call to China.
If you really believe somebody ought to be
going, go and push someone else.
But God didn't say that.
Abraham, get thee out.
Come to a place of my choosing, that
I pouring my blessing through you will use
you.
Friends, God never works second hand.
That's what the world will tell you he
does, but he doesn't.
God is a very loving and personal God.
And he calls those he wants to use
in a very loving and personal way.
And tonight, if he challenges you, it will
be a personal call.
I have not come to call you for
the mission field.
I have only come to challenge your heart
with the open doors that lie on my
mission field.
And tell you what God did for me
in the hope that you will believe he
could do the same for you.
I have never asked anybody from that day
to this to do anything that I believe
God asked me to do.
And although it's got me into very tight
corners and embarrassing places sometimes, I'm still going
to keep my word to God.
I went out to draw up my little
savings, proceed to sell my clothes and everything
I possessed, to buy for myself a third
class ticket on the Trans-Siberian Railway and
go to China.
There's no man in here.
I never told anybody.
The business was God's and mine.
He asked, I answered.
And the God Jehovah said to Abraham the
man, and Abraham did as God asked.
See dear friends, it's just as easy as
that.
And we make it so complicated.
And we get all confused.
We get tied up in committees and all
sorts of ideas and people's organising and grand
names and we never go to where God
intended we should.
We continue to sit in our own little
graveyard while the heathen die without us.
And the devil walks and takes what he
likes in the places where you and I
as God's witnesses should have already been or
be going.
I wandered through Europe, Poland, Russia, across to
Japan and back into the north of China.
For those of you who are afraid to
go out at dark, I had never been
more than a few miles from my own
home and I was just over 20.
God's a great God young friend.
He'll protect you if he wants you setting
off with him.
I got to China.
And here I joined an old lady.
We didn't know each other.
We'd never seen each other.
Neither did we know anything about each other.
We had both heard at different times under
entirely different circumstances from different people of one
particular place right in the heart of China
that had had no witness for Jesus Christ.
And we both believed that that was where
God wanted us to go.
That's where we met.
Gina Lawson was 74.
I was 25.
And so we did not walk the same,
talk the same, think the same, want to
do the same or want to eat the
same.
We were opposite.
How could we be the same?
Age and youth don't want to do the
same.
She had already lived her life and was
coming to the end.
I was only at the beginning.
But I know that God put us together
and for that purpose of his glory we
formed our little plan.
We took a courtyard in this small city
hidden in the southern Shanxi Mountains.
And we were going to have the first
mission station in that area of China.
And so for days we cleaned, we organized,
we prayed and we waited.
But not one single person even looked inside
our door let alone attempted to come in.
So we came down lower and lower and
lower before God.
What does one do?
How do you start off?
We didn't know.
And then one day we discovered that God
had put us in a very important place
in that area of China.
Because over those great southern Shanxi Mountains there
went on a little mountain track that ran
from the border of Hunan by the Yellow
River up to the border of Hebei men
with animal trains.
And these men with their strings of camels
mules or donkeys traveling day after day taking
one month or more from one end of
that route to the other had got to
find somewhere both of themselves and their animals
to eat and sleep each night.
And so in sheltered parts of the mountainsides
or down in the valley where there was
water there were what looked like little villages.
They were not villages they were just groups
of courtyards which were in to cater for
these men and their animals.
Right in the center of that animal route
exactly half way from one end to the
other was the one and only city the
city of Yanchang where God had put two
women Junie Lawson and Gladys Ting.
Every single man going or coming for whatever
purpose had got to spend at least one
night in that city simply because it was
a long day's journey in either direction before
you came to any other habitable place.
Well says Junie you see darling where God's
put us?
And so I suggest that you and I
get down before Him throw a few of
our ideas to the winds and see what
He suggests.
And down on our knees on a mud
floor we pleaded with God to show us
how to appeal to these men and women
who every single one knew nothing of Jesus
Christ and was going to a lost eternity.
And we discovered now that here was a
way and our ideas went to the winds
and instead of having a mission station we
opened the courtyard as a mule inn.
Every night down from the mountain sides came
these men.
They could go into our kitchen where they
bought a bowl of food the same price
as they could have bought anywhere else.
We weren't there to make money and they
came out they leaned against the wall they
sat on little stools or stoves around the
courtyard and there in the middle of the
yard sat Junie Lawson telling a story.
I don't know the story I one, did
not understand Chinese in those days two, I
wasn't even there.
I'm out in the yard looking after the
mule and I suppose you think well that's
a foolish thing to do.
You mean to tell us, Daddy Sayer that
you went all the way from Great Britain
to China to look after some mules?
No, I didn't.
But that's what I did when I got
there.
Of course we're very particular now the graveyard's
very comfortable, isn't it?
Dear friend, I wouldn't get out.
Oh no, not if you want to do
some hard work for God.
You see, God does not promise that we
eat what we like that we wear what
we choose or we live in the kind
of place that we think is comfortable.
Get thee out and put your hand in
mine and come to the place of my
choosing.
You see, dear friend you don't even know
where you go.
So perhaps that's why you don't go or
you don't even bother to find out what
the kind of place is even like.
May God challenge you tonight, friend on your
little soul of going round and round when
God wants to give you a vision of
the great outside filled with souls for whom
he climbed Calvary's hill to die for unsafe.
I lived with Jeannie Lawson for one year
in a mule inn.
And when she died at the end of
that year I faced my most terrific problem.
I was, of course, only still a young
and single girl and I was in the
middle of China alone.
I suppose it would have been very sensible
to move.
One, I didn't know where to go nor
did I know anybody.
But two, God didn't tell me.
I couldn't understand for quite a long time
why God had left me there.
Wasn't he love?
And yet I couldn't go more than a
few steps from my own front door.
I couldn't go out and do any shopping.
I couldn't be seen talking to a man.
There were lots of things that I was
just tied up in simply because I was
a young and single woman alone.
And God did not leave one in embarrassing
situations.
He was love.
Then all of a sudden I was to
wake up and discover why.
He'd left me there.
I found out that I, because I had
come from the outside, was the only woman
in that whole district with unbound feet.
And all over the north of China this
custom of binding little girls' feet had gone
on for many years.
The little girl, when she was from two
to four years old, her feet were bound
up.
By the time she was from twelve to
fourteen, ready to be married, her feet were
finished.
They were the same size as my middle
finger.
This was never God's intention.
I believe there had been people who tried
to do something about stamping this custom out,
but they'd all say, and now.
Down in the capital of China there had
come into power this land's first Christian leader,
Chiang Kai-shek.
He started to put on reforms.
I don't know about the rest of China.
I only know that he made a law.
The binding of little girls' feet is to
cease against the law.
And he saw that this law was carried
out.
This meant that every headman of a particular
district had now got to find someone whom
he could employ and pay and send round
his particular district from the government to stamp
this custom out.
The Mandarin of Yangchunxian had been looking for
a long time for someone suitable to do
this job in his particular area.
He had failed to find anyone in that
there was no woman with unbound feet.
And he said, well, I can't send a
bound foot woman to advocate big feet for
women.
And where do I go to find somebody
suitable?
Now he tried everything, given his trust due,
but he failed.
Until all of a sudden, one day, a
traveller going in from the city on the
other side of our mountains to discuss something
quite different to this with him was faced
with a very worried, concerned looking man.
You've come from that city on the other
side of the mountains.
Do you think you could help me?
I'm just desperate to find someone to whom
I can give this honourable and worthy position
of the official of feet.
You mean, man, you haven't found anybody yet?
No.
And I just don't know what to do.
I've tried everything.
Oh, said the traveller, I think I've got
an idea.
And I think your troubles are at an
end because when I was coming down this
very street on my way to keep my
appointment with you, I saw coming out of
an inn down by the city gate what
I truly believed was a woman.
But believe it or not, Shen Zheng, he'd
had the biggest feet that I've ever seen
on any woman around here.
And the mandarin, of course, so shaken, wondered
whether this possibly could be true.
For far very long he's standing in my
yard to see if it's true.
Discovered it was.
And of course he said, well, then you
are the person.
He was positive this job was mine.
I was positive it wasn't.
I hadn't gone to China to get mixed
up with governments and feet?
No!
Why, before long I was going to become,
so I hoped, a proper missionary.
And I was going to go round and
preach the gospel.
Oh no, stay out of this business as
long as possible.
And so I, making my excuses, tried to
tell this man no.
And then all of a sudden something was
to happen that was to alter me, of
the whole set up of the city in
due time and the lives of hundreds of
women.
I heard as it were a little voice,
way in the distance somewhere.
It sounded exactly like my brother.
I don't believe I heard this in my
ears.
Simply because my brother was still away in
the middle of England and I was in
the middle of China.
But I know I heard it in my
heart.
The very words that my brother only a
few years before had flung at me across
our kitchen.
If you really believe somebody ought to be
going, why don't you go yourself?
Did I really believe that this custom of
foot binding should be done away with?
Well of course I did.
Didn't I believe that my Jesus was love?
And that he had made little boys feet
and little girls feet the same?
That they might walk freely?
Well of course I did.
Then why didn't I do something about it
myself?
And so the no that had already been
formed in my mouth was immediately turned into
yes.
Shandong, my God has just told me to
accept this position.
But I only do it on one condition.
That you give me in writing that I
do this job as I desire.
You see I worship a living God.
And I only go where he says.
I only say what he tells me to.
I only do as he desires.
And if you're willing to accept me under
those conditions then alright.
Oh yes, yes.
I don't mind what God you worship.
And I just don't mind how you do
the job as long as you do it.
And if you come down first thing tomorrow
morning I'll give you the whole thing in
writing.
And I got it.
Friend are we afraid?
Compromising!
Aren't you?
Are you compromising?
Do you believe this book's true?
Then say so!
Do you believe this God's real?
Then prove it to somebody.
And Jehovah the God said get thee out.
Out of walking in circles.
Dear friend if you're saved then prove it
to someone else.
The moment we on the other side of
the world don't think you're saved.
Because you have no proof.
And we want proof.
We want your prayers.
We want your sympathy.
We want your prayers.
We want your understanding.
But you're so busy in your little graveyard.
Keep on dear friend.
It's nice dusting gravestones isn't it?
Oh yes.
It's so nice because there's no, there's no
worry in it you see.
Oh friend.
May you see yourself tonight as God sees
you.
And as some of us.
And be willing to accept this challenge not
from me.
But thee great almighty Jehovah of hosts.
The only true and living God who says
get thee out.
Because I'm longing to bless you.
Of course you're not getting any blessing.
How can you?
Graveyards don't get blessed.
They're all dead anyway.
What's gonna bless in them?
They don't know it.
God isn't gonna bless Christ down some dead
valley.
He blesses souls.
Dear friend are you a soul?
Then accept the challenge.
And tonight put out your hand in faith.
And take Jesus Christ at his word.
And you will find that the minute you
step out the blessing will begin to flower.
Out into those hamlets on the mountain side.
In and out those little villages.
This is Gladys Aylward.
Oh no.
No Gladys Aylward she's disappeared.
Where's she gone?
Oh she's just around the corner somewhere.
Who's this person?
Oh that's just her.
Oh her?
You mean that bossy foot one?
Yes.
Oh she just goes round and round and
pokes her nose in everywhere.
There's nothing escapes that woman.
She comes in your village and just tells
you where to get off and what to
do.
Even how to wash the baby.
You mean Oh yes.
But do you know?
Have you listened to the stories she tells?
Do you know she believes there's a God
who loves everybody.
Do you believe there's a God who loves
everybody?
Never heard of him.
Well she knows all about it.
She knows his name.
She knows where he is.
She says he talks to her.
Worth going to listen to don't you think?
Dear friends they come.
They listen.
Before long they believe.
As in the first place.
The first Christians came into that area of
China.
Through listening to the gospel in a mule
inn.
So now the first Christian groups came into
being.
So just her.
You know that foot one?
Oh her.
Friend, looking for a good name?
Want to have your name in a missionary
list?
Get thee out!
Are you expecting man to spoon feed you
and lift you up and put you down
somewhere?
Get thee out!
Dear friend this God is a God of
great wonder.
And yet we sit around waiting for some
man or woman or committee or something to
just lift us in and out.
Why not people die without Christ?
Isn't that it?
Do you know any about China?
Do you know when China went red?
Do you know the date?
Oh no you don't.
Of course you don't.
You aren't even concerned.
Oh you're busy in your graveyard.
Friend are you still going to be busy
after tonight?
I pray that God will pour his blessing
upon you.
And we will receive some of that blessing.
The promise to Abraham was that the blessing
should flow unto him and through him so
that from one end of the earth to
the other men would know that this great
God of Abraham was the almighty Jehovah of
hosts father of Jesus Christ.
I in my own way was terribly happy.
Who wouldn't be?
Wasn't I doing what I believe God had
sent me to do?
Oh I wasn't a missionary.
And I wasn't eating what I liked and
doing exactly as I pleased.
But men and women were finding Christ.
And to me this was a wonderful and
great joy.
And then all of a sudden there came
into my life what comes into every one
of our lives.
That's something which I find now on coming
out to meet groups such as you.
So many of us fail.
The challenge for ourselves for our hearts for
our souls for this that is us the
person that is me Friend And we get
caught in these graveyards don't we?
And we get entangled in what man has
said we ought to be doing.
We walk in a certain way because that's
the proper thing to do.
We wear a certain kind of clothes because
that's the fashion.
And we do things well of course we
all have to.
Do you?
Is that what God said?
And Jehovah God said get thee out and
follow me.
Dear friends we are not flocks of sheep.
We are men and women whom God has
given brains.
We very seldom use them.
We just go by someone else and follow
the crowd.
And this is where I believe we fail
God.
Gladys Aylward went into China as a girl
just over twenty.
She awoke one day she was a woman
over thirty.
And she wanted what every other woman wanted.
A home.
Security.
A husband.
Faith.
My heart longed to love.
And I myself longed to be loved.
We do.
God created us for such purpose.
And dear friend it is not wrong to
love.
Neither is it wrong to want to love.
But it's wrong when we choose our own
way of doing it.
The world has set us a certain rule
and we're all running up it.
And getting nowhere.
I believe that the solution to my heart's
questioning the problems that I was facing in
the work in that I as a single
woman found it almost impossible to talk to
groups of men in that I was alone
to the emotions that were sweeping over me
as a woman would be sold if God
gave to me a husband.
And I did the only thing I knew
I put the matter before God.
Dear Lord Jesus as you saved me, called
me, challenged me, equipped me, drew me out,
put me down in the middle of China,
poured your blessing upon me, opened my ears
that I might hear, opened my mouth that
I might talk, gave me a job that
I might be free.
You know how lonely I am.
Somewhere over this great wide earth there is
just a young man who won't know anything
about Gladys Aylward.
But will you challenge him?
Will you equip him and call him and
do for him what you did for me?
And one day I will find him climbing
these mountains and here we will meet.
We'll join up together.
And we will climb mountains for you.
We will have the first Christian home in
this whole area for you.
And it'll be just wonderful.
All your glory will sweep from one end
of this great district to the other.
And we'll be so happy.
And then one day these people will see
the first white baby in this whole area.
And Gladys Aylward dreamed her dream and prayed
her prayer.
But no one came.
Do you know why no one came?
Would you happen to know?
Dear friend, I challenge you.
Do you believe God answers prayer?
Those of you who are Christians will say
yes.
I will say yes.
Then the challenge is even greater.
It means that God challenged someone.
But the someone, isn't that true?
Tonight, dear friend, this is not a call
to that part of China which it is
even for me who belong there, impossible to
go.
But I dare in the name of Christ
and this great almighty Jehovah of hosts, God
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Father of Jesus
Christ, dare to challenge every man right here.
Are you where God told you to be?
Are you doing what God told you to
do?
You needn't answer me.
It's not my concern.
Get thee out and I will give you
a vision of what I saw on Calvary
and what I now see from my lofty
heaven.
Armies of men marching with hearts filled with
hate.
Men in their hundreds, women in their thousands
bowing down to heathen idols.
Thousands behind iron curtains, lonely and oppressed.
While you go free, dusting your little gravestones.
O men, may God challenge you.
Dare I remind you that there are no
bowls, no footballs, no comics, wirelesses or televisions
or stupid novels in heaven.
So would you like starting getting used to
the thing down here if you're going there?
Neither are there any of these things on
the mission field.
Perhaps that's why you didn't come.
No one came.
So glad you say we didn't give in.
Oh, we don't.
We just altered.
I altered my prayer.
Lord Jesus, I needn't really have a husband.
It's not all that, not all that particular,
but you wouldn't leave me alone.
After all, you sent the disciples out two
by two, you know.
And you are loud.
And I do desperately need someone.
Look at this great district and there's only
me.
What about those fine girls?
What about those nurses?
Those teachers?
Oh, they're so wonderful.
They're so equipped.
They're so efficient.
Well, they're way ahead of me.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to have one of
these?
And so I again prayed the prayer and
dreamed the dream that one day over the
mountainside there would come that fine fellow worker.
Oh, she wouldn't mind what she ate.
She wouldn't mind how many mountains she climbed.
No, we would sing choruses together, go in
and out those villages together for Jesus Christ.
But she didn't come.
No one came.
And so tonight in the same way as
I have dared to challenge you who are
men, I challenge us who are women.
Are we doing what God told us to
do?
Did you choose for yourself?
Don't grumble if it didn't work out as
you thought it was going to.
You should have asked God, shouldn't you?
Are you going to spend the rest of
your life dusting chairs or grave stones or
living for Christ?
Friend, may God give you a vision of
yourself going round and round and round.
And although I truly believe that God does
not want us to leave our responsibility, that
to you who have got to cook dinners
and sweet flours you will still have to
do it.
But would you do it for God?
Would you do it with a vision of
the outside that through it someone else is
blessed or saved?
Dear friend, God did not give you an
high life and health and peace and joy
and salvation to enjoy it all to ourselves.
Oh no, remember he died on Calvary for
all those other people too.
Are you doing anything about it?
Do you know what they're doing in Indonesia
tonight?
Do you know what they're doing in Russia
tonight?
Do you?
Then you should.
You belong to God, they're part of this
family.
And if you don't know there's something wrong
with you but there's nothing wrong with God,
nobody can.
And so Gladys Edward just went lower and
lower in despondency and disappointment.
Oh God, he wasn't the God of love.
Oh no.
No, he was just the God who just
caught hold of you and in a spirit
of enthusiasm you followed him and out you
went and then he stuck you in the
middle of China and just proceeded to forget
all about you.
Didn't even give you a companion.
No, that was that, so well.
Well alright then, that's it.
Dear friend, that's how we get.
It is lonely you know.
It is frustrating, it is disappointing.
Have you been disappointed?
Have you been frustrated?
Well then would you like to think how
much more frustrating it has been for some
of us?
Outside of anything we know.
Are you doing anything about it?
Do you know what they're doing in Indonesia
tonight?
Do you?
Then you should.
If you belong to God, they're part of
this camp.
And if you don't know there's something wrong
with you, but there is nothing wrong with
God.
Nobody can.
And so Gladys Edward just went lower and
lower in despondency and disappointment.
Oh God, he wasn't the God of love.
Oh no.
No, he was just the God who just
caught hold of you and in a spirit
of enthusiasm you followed him and out you
went and then he stuck you in the
middle of China and just proceeded to forget
all about you.
Didn't even give you a compassion.
No, that was that.
So well.
Well alright then, that's it.
And dear friend, that's how we get.
It is lonely you know.
It is frustrating.
It is disappointing.
Have you been disappointed?
Have you been frustrated?
Well then would you like to think how
much more frustrating it has been for some
of us?
Outside of anything we know.
Hardly understanding what anybody says.
Being unable in many ways to convey our
meaning through a foreign language to people whom
we really love.
Friend, if you've grumbled, may God forgive your
grumbles and teach you how to pray.
Do you possess a missionary?
You sent a missionary from your church?
Prayed for her today?
No, you sent her a Christmas card at
Christmas, didn't you?
Is that all?
And Jehovah the God said get thee out.
Oh that tonight God this great loving God
will speak to us and we have failed
him haven't we?
And we failed those who we promised to
stand by because we didn't stand by.
I one day walked up the main street
of our little city.
I wasn't thinking of anybody but myself.
My own right.
Then all of a sudden sitting on the
side of the road I noticed an ordinary
mountain woman.
Kneeling against her knee was a very dirty
sick looking little child.
I forgot what I was going to ask
the woman.
My mind focused on the child.
Talked to her and learned she was there
to sell the child.
I bought it.
I paid for it all the money I
then had in my pocket.
Nine pennies.
They're very cheap on our side of the
world dear friend.
These wonderful souls whom Christ died.
Nine pennies.
I never dreamed I was buying my first
fellow worker.
My first daughter.
Who was going to bring into my life
the most amazing joy.
Who was going to fill my heart with
something that I have never never ceased to
praise God for.
I didn't buy her because I loved children.
At that time I did not love children.
I did not buy her that day because
I loved China.
Because that day I did not love China.
I bought her because Christ asked me from
the moment that I learned from the woman
she was there to sell the child to
the actual moment when I took my money
from my pocket to bargain and buy the
child which could have only taken from four
at the most five minutes.
I Gladys Hayward had been to Calgary.
I didn't see a vision.
I'm not that kind.
I didn't dream a dream.
I'm standing on a busy city street.
The heart of China.
I saw nothing with my eye.
But in my soul I know.
Friend have you ever been to Calgary?
You need spend money and rush to the
holy land.
Sitting in this building tonight with the eyes
of your soul you can see Calgary.
Do you know anything about how they knocked
the nails in his feet?
And his head?
Have you ever felt how they pressed that
crown of thorns on his breath?
Friend have you been to Calgary?
And Jehovah God said get thee out.
Friend we don't see Calgary in the graveyard.
We only see dead bodies and tombstones.
Narrow ideas.
Problems.
Confusion.
The graveyard is the place of the dead.
Calgary is the gate to the living.
Friend would you look outside and see Calgary?
Where Christ son of God died for you?
And then you will do what he asked.
Into my heart the man who died on
Calgary was saying do you really love me?
Well of course I do.
What do you think I'm doing here if
I don't love you?
Haven't I given up my home?
My country?
My career?
Everything I love for you?
Of course I love you.
I want proof.
And the proof I am asking is that
oh but she wants money.
Alright pay for it.
You mean buy that with my own money?
Proof that you love me.
That's why I bought you.
Friend tonight are we going to be obedient
to God or are we going to have
common sense?
Common sense says you've only got that ninepence
I wouldn't spend it.
And what are you going to feed her
on?
Faith says do you love me?
Then buy that.
Friend tonight common sense is in the graveyard.
Faith is outside.
And tonight the challenge is you are on
one side or the other.
There is no middle line you can't hover
on the border.
You are either in the graveyard or outside.
You either are for that side or against
it.
Dear friend you're either going to heaven or
to hell.
There is no other place.
And the challenge is which side are you
on?
I took home my first daughter.
From that one little girl there came into
my life, into my heart into my courtyard
the children who have become my family.
I didn't buy them all they were given
to me they were left on my doorstep
I stood hours on end in the court.
Over on that side is a poor shivering
little thing that is going to be the
slave of some man or woman unless I
win.
And I'm going to win.
In the name of Christ I'm going to
win.
And I do because my Christ is faithful.
This is a soul for whom he died.
I have crawled up those high mountains in
the south of Shenzhen because I have heard
a rumour that up in a little hamlet
or village somewhere are child dealers and they
have stolen two children and I have stolen
them back.
They are souls remember and my Lord died
for them.
The family by the time the war came
into China into our part of China should
I say, I had got 40 children wonderful
family 40 of them and so I decided
very properly that 40 was enough.
I said to God now Lord I believe
that 40 are enough for one woman and
seeing that this courtyard only comfortably holds 40
and I only have enough room and patience
for 40 would you please answer this prayer.
Don't send any more.
Well now God I truly believe and I
know answers prayer but as you who trust
him know he doesn't always answer in the
way you expect.
In this case he leaned out of heaven
and he said let us say it was
mind your own business.
I said in this family it belongs to
me.
I said you here you belong to me.
You live in a place that belongs to
me and if I say there are going
to be more than 40 in this yard
there are going to be more.
All I'm going to say is get prepared.
And so there came 40 more.
By the time the enemy came down to
take that area I had got over 80.
During the war he kept us fed us,
protected us.
I have only a few feet away from
an advancing Japanese enemy.
And just behind here are two or three
little babies and if one of those babies
makes the slightest noise everything's lost.
But they don't make a noise.
God is a great God of love and
he loves me and my family.
And then as the enemy advanced we, the
family and I climbed those great high mountains.
We came down to the Riela River where
we truly believe God worked a miracle for
us and got us a boat.
We came across to the other side where
we came through that province of Hornand into
Shenzhen to begin a new life.
Learn a new language.
Reorganize ourselves.
We now had no home.
We didn't belong to anywhere or anyone.
We were just another group of refugees.
But oh how God blessed us, kept us
together and gave us joy in our heart.
And each new year as the children grew
up and went out into their various spheres
of service we could meet those who could
leave those different places.
Away in somebody's field one by one the
boys would get leave from the army.
The girls would get leave from their nursing
or wherever they were.
And we the family had just a wonderful
time.
We didn't eat very much, there were so
many of us but we did praise God.
All the blessings that he poured upon us
during that year.
And then as we came to the time
of parting was this is the time maybe
when we shall go home.
This may be the year when the enemy
will retreat.
And now we'll go home.
I'll go back first.
Because you see at the end it lost
its roof, it got blown off with a
shell.
And so I'll just go back and get
going on making a new roof.
And of course the city will be different
but it'll be home.
And we dreamed again, a wonderful dream.
Because we'd never gone home.
As one enemy retreated so a ten times
worse and more wicked enemy advanced.
And we found bit by bit this enemy
was to strip us of everything.
Our land, our houses, our loved ones, our
freedom.
And if we had not already given our
souls to God, ourselves.
Communism was born in hell.
I don't care who you are.
That's what I believe.
Praise God one day it's going back to
hell.
You going with it?
Be careful friend.
I am the way says Christ, the truth.
And outside Him there is no truth.
Communism is a lie.
Only Christ is truth.
Before very long there came an arm kill.
And this family as with most other families
is separated.
And we find ourselves like others on two
sides.
What did God call us together for?
To be His testimony.
To be His witness.
I will bless those that bless you.
I will curse those that curse you.
But I says God will open the windows
of heaven and pour out blessings on you
so that men shall know that I am
God.
That from one end of the earth to
the other this blessing shall flow.
Dear friend, I don't know what you and
your family are doing.
I only can tell you what me and
my family are doing.
Because families might be separated physically but when
they're united in heart and spirit they're still
one.
And this family might some of them be
up already singing around that great white throne.
Some others might be behind an iron curtain
while the rest of us are out scattered
around in different parts of this earth.
But we're still united as a family for
one purpose.
That God might have glory.
That some soul might find His salvation.
To those behind that iron curtain I only
know that in that filthy prison there is
a testimony for Christ.
A way up in those slave gangs on
the border of Tibet there is a witness
for Christ.
A way down in that big city in
the south of China I know there is
a witness for Christ.
Because I know that there is my son
or my daughter.
And away in Hong Kong greeting refugees.
Away in Famosa nursing other people's unwanted babies
are the very children who one day were
picked up on the sides of mountains themselves.
Who one day grown up came out of
Red China to be a refugee.
Dear friends, tonight as challenge after challenge has
gone, out from my heart through God's Holy
Spirit to you the responsibility now is yours.
Are you still going to remain in that
graveyard?
Or are you going to have courage enough
and be humble enough to say Lord speak
to me.
He will call you by your name in
the same way as he called Abraham.
But he will use the same words he
used.
Out from the ideas that you've got yourself
tied down.
Out of the confusion that the world has
got you mixed up in.
Out of the convention that man says you
must you must walk in.
Out.
Out into freedom.
The freedom of Jesus Christ.
Where you like Abraham put your hand in
God and go where he can use you.
And although you may not move from your
own home, it will be round and round
that home because it will be the place
he chose for you.
And through you he will pour his glory.
But it will also be for the salvation
of someone else's soul beside your own.
That's what he promised.
I will bless you, keep you, provide for
you, lead you, guide you, undertake for you
for one purpose.
That through you I might pour my blessing.
That from one end of the earth to
the other men shall know of me.
Friend can you see why you're poor and
miserable and no revival and no blessing?
Because we have walked round and round and
not heeded and not listened and not done
as he asked.
Tonight I wonder to how many of you
God is going to lay upon a burden
for prayer but there in that graveyard he's
going to stir your heart.
He's going to take you to the edge
of that graveyard and give you such a
vision of Calvary that you'll break your heart.
And through that breaking heart he will pour
love.
Love that will pour out in prayer so
that men and women might find him.
We've criticized, we've pulled to pieces, men and
women we've never seen.
We've talked about them.
We've settled their differences in our own way
for them but we have not prayed for
them.
Men and women tonight we have never given
Russia a real Bible.
We have never given them the word of
God.
Do you blame them for hating us?
Do you blame them for wanting to kill
us?
They don't know love.
They've never known peace.
They've never known Christ.
No young man in Russia has ever heard
the gospel.
Don't blame anybody but yourself friend if he
becomes your enemy.
Pray for him.
Tonight friends would you pray?
Would you pray for the young people in
Russia?
Don't you believe that God loves?
But they don't even know it.
There they march.
Get into the mood.
Making satellites.
On they go.
Fill with strength, energy, purpose.
What for?
The devil.
Because you and I have forgotten how to
pray for them.
The souls for whom Christ died on Calvary.
Women you've criticised.
Oh yes you've fast remarked.
I know.
Upon those women who've never been clean.
The women of Poland.
The women in those southern countries of Europe.
The women we let down in Hungary.
You won't criticise them anymore.
After today friend you'll pray.
You'll pray as you've never prayed before for
women who've broken their heart.
Who've never known freedom.
Who've never known purity.
Cattles of men.
Get thee out.
Friend.
God won't ask you for that wonderful cake.
The soul for whom my son died.
Dear friend.
He won't ask for all the things we're
now so busy and concerned and mixed up.
He's concerned with men.
And women.
And Calvary.
Have you ever realised?
Have you ever stopped to think that no
child over nine in Red China has ever
heard of Jesus Christ?
Communism has been in China for ten years.
So every child under ten has never heard
the gospel.
Mother.
Break your heart.
Over the children of China who are never
going to know unless you and I learn
how to pray.
Tonight friend.
God in his great and wonderful love.
God in his almighty mercy longs to speak
to you and me.
Come.
Get thee out.
Dear friend.
It won't work as you expect.
You'll be so amazed and stirred.
You'll find that most of your life has
been for yourself.
Or for your immediate family.
And the family of God have been stars
for love.
And stars for the word of God.
And stars for fellowship.
Get thee out.
Dear friend.
The moment we are a beast.
I believe he opens the windows of heaven
for us.
And pours out bliss.
Australia.
You're free.
Do you know for how long?
I don't know.
Does Australia belong to you?
Then be along the alert.
Friend the devil is strong.
Is your God stronger than him?
Then say so and stand by him.
Prove to the world that you believe he's
real.
Prove to us you believe the Bible's true.
Get going for God.
Otherwise you're lost.