Students of Conviction - Is God Real to You? — Gladys Aylward

For some of us, there had been given great joys, but also great heartaches. And there was a time when some of us wondered how we would be able to stand on some of the testings and the trials that God was putting us through.

Finding Security in Jesus Christ

But I wonder how many of us have really come down to rock bottom with Jesus Christ, and been able to prove that he and he alone can hold and does hold. When the Red authorities came in to take over China, some of us were in a very large university city in the West, and in that particular city there were quite a number of universities.

The Government's Test of Conviction

But in one section of one of those universities, there were 500 students, and to each one of those students, the life in the university represented learning, a future, a hope. They were there for the same purpose as our young people go to our universities here in these lands of yours.

And to each one of those students, there were handed out by the authorities a large form, much larger than this piece of paper. On it, there were rows and rows of questions. I could tell you those questions if I wanted to.

I know them. But the student has to sit down and answer them all. Now, they're very confusing. Some of them are embarrassing, and many of them the student does not know the answer. But he's got to find an answer.

That's what he's there for. And so, as you go down and down and down, perspiring and worrying, you can almost miss a little row of words right along the bottom of the form. So small, looking so unimportant, but the most important question of all.

And as near as I can give it to you back from Chinese into English, this is what it says. And at this moment, right now, what position are you in? If for, put a circle. If against, put a cross. Now, you're not asked, are you a Christian?

They're not as clever as that. Or as stupid, maybe. No, what position means just what manner are your thoughts and your heart in. If for, call the government. And to you who have had no indoctrination, this needs just a little explaining.

I suppose to you it would be quite easy. Oh, put your little dots. Why, I didn't put that government into power, and I may not agree with it. But I can't help it being there. And after all, God, who is God, must have allowed them to get that power.

So I suppose I'd better just put my little dots and be full. Now, friends, be very careful with your thoughts. Do you really believe it's as easy as that? Men who deny God and for men who say Christ never lived.

You're going to stand for men who everything they touch flows with blood. Cruel and horrible. Are you going to put a dot? Courage enough to put your cross? Go outside them and defy them? Friend, it takes an awful lot of courage.

Two Hundred Students Stand Firm

They're only students, remember. Of all those 500 students, every single one had begun their educational life in a Christian school. In the old days, there were no others. If they had ever been sick, then they had been attended to in a Christian hospital.

Because in the same way, in the old days, there were no other kind of hospitals, only those opened and kept by the missionaries. But that doesn't mean to say they were all Christians. When the authorities took in the papers and counted them, there were 300 circles, or little dots.

There were 200 crosses. 200 boys and girls in their late teens or early twenties had dared to defy the government. Well, we'll see. And so the authorities, they called their circleites, as we call them together, and in a large place on the university campus, they gave them a talk.

They gave to those students all the power necessary except take lives. That means they weren't to kill anybody. But they had got within the next six weeks to pull those Christians over onto their front.

And so for the next six weeks, the people outside watched. Nasty little teasing, horrid little tricks, all those things that do happen when young people are filled with fear. And then the forms were handed out again.

This time when they were taken and counted, the authorities, from whom we know all this, discovered there were fewer circles, there were more crosses. And so they said, well, now how on earth did they manage that?

We gave them all the power possible. They could do exactly what they liked except kill them. But they hadn't managed to pull one over into our circle. But those on the side of the cross had managed to pull some of our people into their plan and purpose.

Prayer and Bible Reading Under Surveillance

And so they set out to find out how this had been done. And they discovered that if you had gone at, we'll say, eight o 'clock in the morning across that very lovely University campus, you would have found groups of boys and girls, these students with their Bibles under their arms, and perhaps a packet of books in the other hand, making their way to some place where behind a lecture hall door, or down a passage, or in some corridor, of a little group met.

They read from this the Word of God, and they prayed, and they poured out their hearts to the great God whom they worshipped. Another awful day was going to begin, and they would fail this God whom they loved, and whom they knew loved them unless he poured out help and strength and courage to them.

All went well for two or three days, and then the other side found us. And they appeared behind the lecture hall door, and down the corridor, and so there was only pandemonium. There could be no Bible reading, and no prayer.

And so the Christian students decided to go at six. And again, all went well for a little while, until the other side went. And so the Christian students decided to go at six. Again, two days went by, and the other side went and broke up their little groups and prayer meetings, and so they went.

And by the end of that six weeks, the authorities themselves discovered that many of those boys and girls were spending two, two and a half, three, and at the most, four hours a night for sleep. That at all costs, they had an hour with God before the day began.

Isolation and Perseverance in the Face of Persecution

So the authorities said, oh, well, that soon settles. Well, if it's this Bible reading and this praying business, we'll soon settle that. Divide them up. Separate them. And so out into that very lovely university campus, there were sent one Christian student, accompanied by ten communist students.

And for the next three months, all contact with the outside world from that one little Christian had got to be made through ten others who were against him or her in every way and on every point. And to those of us who watched, we nearly broke our hearts.

It was so unfair. It was so cruel. The ten, they could take it in turns to eat, to sleep, and to study. And the little Christian was only one. And we pleaded with the Lord to let them free or to in some way comfort them.

We were not allowed to speak to them or even to see them. And then there came a day when the authorities did not again hand out forms. But when some of us found ourselves lining the city streets, and a few of us found that we had very important places, and we were stood all along what was once a market square, which had now been turned into an execution ground.

The Students Face Execution

And our hearts just failed us. And we said, oh Lord, oh but perhaps it isn't what we think. And then we awoke to discover that standing in a long line all down the middle of the market square were these 200-odd boys and girls.

And they're there not to put a name, a sign, or a name on a piece of paper. They're there to answer in person. Over on the other side of the market square was a man with a paper, the list of their names.

A Young Student's Testimony

Why the first name on that list happened to be the name of a girl, I do not know. A pretty, shy little thing, who I could tell you all about if I wanted to. Born in one of those lovely courtyards up in Peking, come at the end of Five Big Brothers, who'd all of course gone to school, and the professor wanted to go to school too, and the only school around was the Christian school.

And so in the Christian school she had found Jesus Christ, and drawn in one by one the Five Big Brothers, and then mother, and then father, and then the servant, even to the tradesman who'd come to the back door.

A lovely, shy little thing, always away in the back somewhere, never quarrelling or arguing. One of those rather dividend, pretty little things. Seventeen years old. Professor now you know him, she was away a long time, almost at the end of that life.

And as we watched, we could see this rather slim little thing coming very calmly and quietly up past all of her fellow students. And we said, oh Lord, it's so unfair. She's so small and so weak. Why didn't you choose someone bigger, and better, and more capable than he evidently had?

And before long here she was, standing up all alone, facing thousands of people, because for these sort of things in China, a household has to send at least one representative. And for the moment, it looked as if she was swayed.

Perhaps she's going to cry. Perhaps she's going to faint or give in. It's just too much for her simple little hat. But oh no. In just two minutes, with a little toss of her head, she had absolutely command of the situation.

And this is exactly what she said. Sir, for my three months indoctrination, I thought Jesus Christ was real. I thought this book was true. Sir, for my three months indoctrination, I know Jesus Christ is real.

I know this book. Calmly putting the Bible under her arm, down she got, and walked slowly, calmly back into her place in the life. One by one by one, each in their own and separate and different way, they took their sins, and friends, they died.

Right there. Tonight, that they died doesn't matter to you. And for the moment, it looked as if she was swayed. Perhaps she's going to cry. Perhaps she's going to faint or give in. It's just too much for her simple little hat.

But oh no. In just two minutes, with a little toss of her head, she had absolutely command of the situation. And this is exactly what she said. Sir, for my three months indoctrination, I thought Jesus Christ was real.

I thought this book was true. Sir, for my three months indoctrination, Jesus Christ is real. I know this book is true. Calmly putting the Bible under her arm, down she got, and walked slowly, calmly back into her place in the life.

One by one by one, each in their own and separate and different way, they took their sins, and friends, they died. Right there. Tonight, that they died doesn't matter to you. How they died is besides a point to you.

The challenge is, do you believe your God is real? Do you believe this Bible is true? Then friends, you've got to prove it to somebody. Away with all your nonsense, all your nervous ideas, all your little plans and organizing that keep you tied down, all the conventions that you're afraid to break, all the habits that you've got eaten.

I believe my God is real. I believe this book is true. And dear friend, I pray that to every single one of you tonight, that little girl will not have died in vain, that the testimony from a little Chinese student in the Sichuan University might ring over this earth for truth and freedom.

You might have courage to stand where God puts you for the purpose that he asks, that somebody might know that God is real and the word of God is true.