Tables of Stone — Major Ian Thomas

It's a privilege it is to be a Christian, to be a redeemed sinner, utterly undeserving, completely unmerited, and yet at peace with God our Maker, and excited to step out into every new day, knowing that it's going to be the sheer adventure of sharing life with Him hour-by-hour on earth on the way to heaven.

God's Adequacy in Every Emergency

What more could you ask for more? And problems, marvels, difficulties, threats, trials, perplexities, all of them providing our Lord Jesus with a new and fantastic opportunity to demonstrate His adequacy in deity.

That's what makes life so interesting. Specific dialogues are no problem. Every day, you see, is an opportunity for Him to demonstrate afresh that He in us is gloriously adequate. No emergency, the Chinese word for emergency, is dangerous opportunity.

That's a beautiful definition of an emergency as far as God is concerned. It's just as dangerous to ask opportunity to Him, that's all. And you and I have been called upon to live that quality of life.

What's its impact going to be? We believe that in the purpose of God, in the measure in which we reconcile to our Creator in growth by our Lord Jesus, empowered by His Spirit, we make ourselves available to Him so He will continue in and throughout to discharge His ancient office of seeking and saving that which is lost.

Calling Upon the Lord for Salvation

Let me read these few verses to you. It's from the 10th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, Romans chapter 10, verse 13. So, call upon the name of the Lord, invoking all that He is. Don't forget that definition of what it means to call upon the name of the Lord.

That's the lovely way in which it's put in the Amplified New Testament, invoking all that He is. The word invoke, as you know, simply means to draw upon His resources and bring Him into action. You invoke another person's activity, and when you call upon the name of the Lord, you invoke His activity.

By your attitude of faith that continues to be whole, you release His activity in terms of your humanity. You let Him loose. You turn it over to Him. Calling upon the name of the Lord shouldn't say it.

That is to say, every boy, girl, man, or woman convicted by the gracious, loving, Holy Spirit of their need as sinners, coming to the Lord Jesus for the sake He came to be, invokes His redemptive activity.

Puts Him into action. I'm one of the sinners you died to save. Thank you so much. I want you to get to work on me, because I'm one of the sinners you died to save. And, the promise of God, His pledge, is this.

Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, without a shadow of a doubt, absolutely without any ambiguity whatever, shall be saved. Saved in the fullest possible sense of the term, because, you see, when you call upon His name, you not only invoke His redemptive activity, you invoke His regenerative activity.

You recognize that He's not only going to move into your experience to redeem you by His death and reconciliate as God, He's going to move into your experience and all the power of His resurrection by restoring to you His Holy Spirit, and by His presence, credit you with His resurrection life, so that you're going to be saved, you're going to be being saved, and one day you will be saved.

Saved from the penalty of sin, I am saved. Being saved from the power of sin, and one day, in His presence, I'll be delivered from the very presence of sin, so that, having been saved and being saved, one day I will be saved, and then that will be the final consummation of that salvation, that so great salvation that He came to provide to you and to me.

Then he goes on to say this, verse 40,. How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How are they going to invoke the activity of somebody about whom they have not become convinced?

How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? How are they going to invoke the redemptive and regenerative activity of one of whom, not having heard, they cannot believe? How shall they hear without a preacher?

Simple enough in the sheer logic of what he's trying to tell us. How shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And, how shall they hear without a preacher?

The next question is very relevant. How shall they preach except they be sent? In the ark of the testimony beneath the mercy seat in the holiest of all, the mercy seat sprinkled with blood, that spiritual content of our faith presented to us by the Lord Jesus, that ark that had to be carried on two pieces of wood borne upon the shoulders of a man not less than thirty and not yet fifty, beautiful picture of our Lord Jesus outside a city wall bearing two pieces of wood upon His shoulder, the cross upon which He died, that you and I might receive by the Holy Spirit, the One who seals us, the One who sanctifies us, and the One who sends us.

For whom He seals and sanctifies, He sends. How shall they preach except they be sent? It's going to be pretty awful. You can nearly always detect a man who's preaching who hasn't been sent. You should never try to preach if you haven't been sent.

And, of course, if you've been sent you won't have to try to preach. Except they be sent are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things. Have you got beautiful feet?

It says you can have beautiful feet. Some of us have long since despaired ever having of a beautiful face, but there's not one single one of us here tonight who can't have beautiful feet. Have you got beautiful feet?

Let's have a beauty contest tonight to see who's got the most beautiful feet. This is what it says. The feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things who've been sent and went.

Paul's Conversion and the Call to Ministry

Say, do you know what happens if you're numbered amongst those who were sent and went? You turn with me to the first of Paul's epistles to Timothy. The first epistle of Paul to Timothy, and he bears this testament as he reminds us again of those days when, as Paul had cast us in his fanatical religious bigotry, he was the arch-enemy of the early church.

In the first chapter of his first epistle to Timothy, in the 13th verse, he says, I was before a black femur. I was a persecutor. I was injurious. People got horrified consenting to the death of Stephen.

I saw his blood run in the gutter. I heard his bones snap as they stoned him to death. I considered that I was championing God's call. I was a persecutor. I was injurious. A woman saw Saul of Tarsus round the corner, a drop of blood would drain from her face.

She raced home and warned her husband and slammed the door. Little children would flee in terror the moment they saw Saul of Tarsus. But he says this, verse 13, I obtained mercy because I did it ignorant, in my abysmal ignorance.

Because I did it knowing. We reminded ourselves when on the road to Damascus, with letters of authority from the high priest, there are cast all who dared to name the name of Jesus into jail. And how do they must be to their death if their sinnings then might be eradicated?

This heretical teaching of this fanatical free preacher. On the road to Damascus, on the afternoon day, the cast forming encounter with the Lord Jesus. Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do? Why, he says in the preceding verse of that chapter, 1 Timothy chapter 1, verse 12, Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful.

On the road to Damascus, I said, Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do? He said, go. Go to Damascus. Go, he says, and I went. Being sent, and because I went, it was a wonderful thing to be put. Because you see, the moment you're sent and you're went and you're put, nothing can frighten.

Because you know he's put you. What can frighten you then? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Let me know at any given moment that I'm in the place where he's put me. And nothing from that moment can discourage me.

Nothing from that moment can dismay me. Nothing from that moment can deter me. Of course, there's a secret, isn't there? This is what we've been talking about. As you step out into every new day, you relate every new situation to the fact that the Lord Jesus is alive, that he's come to take up by his Holy Spirit residence within your humanity.

You trust in the Lord with all your heart, your mind, your emotions, and your will that you make gladly available to him. You don't now lean to your own understanding, but in all your ways you acknowledge him.

You say, Lord Jesus, you have the right to call the shot. I submit myself gladly to your jurisdiction. I'm at the receiving end of your instruction, and you have promised that you will direct my path.

Then I'm put in the place where he put me. This was the testimony of the Lord Jesus, as we have already reminded ourselves. Again and again, if you like to read John Scott Fuller, and I suggest that you do this.

It's a very healthy exercise. And every single time that the Lord Jesus claims to be sent, to be one of the sent ones, that the Father sent into this world, ring it, ring it with a pen, and you will find that in 14 chapters, some 45 times, the Lord Jesus testifies to the fact that he was sent, and the only possible explanation that he ever gave at any time for anything that he said or did or was, or for being where he could be found, was this.

Jesus said to him, you might gaze up upon a Roman gallows and see God's incarnate Son nailed to a cross. And you say, Lord Jesus, what are you doing there? Lord Jesus said, as my Father, a legitimate explanation, any place in which you may be found.

So, that when challenged as to why you're doing any given thing, why you're saying any given thing, why you're going any given place, charitable confidence you will say, I was sent. Are you a businessman?

In the business that you're in, this is valid as a question to a Christian. It wouldn't be valid as a question to a non-Christian. It wouldn't be valid as a question to a carnal Christian. But, if I'm talking to, as a man or woman, filled with the Holy Ghost, if I'm talking to, as a man or a woman who has become spiritually adult, if I'm talking to you as a man or a woman, or a boy or a girl for that matter, who has grown up in Christ, who recognizes that he gave himself not simply to get you out of hell and into heaven, but to get God out of heaven into you, so that your humanity on earth, 24 hours in every day might close, his divine activity, if I'm talking to you to that boy, to that girl, to that man, to that woman, who in utter abandon now to the Lord Jesus is prepared to give him the place of utter, absolute and unquestioned supremacy, then it's a valid question.

Why are you in the business that you're in tomorrow? Did you just drift into it? Did you just happen to be your father and you were the next in line? Is it just a way of earning your bread and butter?

Or was it just an ambition that you cherished from boyhood? Or could you honestly look me straight in the eyes and say, if you want to know, I'll tell you, because you see he's thin. And I went. That's why I'm living in Fort Smith, and not in Memphis, or New York, or Los Angeles.

It wasn't simply that I lacked a client. It wasn't simply that my relatives were around, or even just that the firm moved me from A to B. I'll tell you why I'm in Fort Smith. Now, that is the only legitimate question you and I have the right to give at any time for where we are.

When you go on vacation, are you put? Are you planning next year's vacation? Are you cherishing ambitions about where you're going and how you're going to spend your time? Did it ever dawn upon you that as a living, healthy member of the body of Jesus Christ, the only person who has the right to call the shots as to where you spend your next vacation is the head of that body?

Did that ever dawn upon you? Or, have you successfully dichotomized your Christian life from the business of living on earth? So, you say, it's all very well for this sort of stubborn church, but please don't meddle with my plans for next vacation.

This is how we dichotomize. We have a faith life, a spiritual life, all tidied up and put in a glass case, and that has no chance to spend my time or spend my money. Did you live in the street where you live at the moment?

Did it ever dawn upon you that you were under a moral, spiritual obligation as a Christian to consult the only one who has the right to determine where you're going to live? In what house, what street, what number?

Did it ever dawn upon you, or have you successfully dichotomized, segregated your relationship to Jesus Christ with the nitty-gritty of living on earth? Because that, if that is the case, is why other people are likely to be very little impressed with whatever profession of faith that you may make.

Because, to them, you see, your profession of faith in Christ, in that it is dichotomized, separated from the process of being an ordinary human being on earth, to them it will just be a hobby. They'll say, my hobby's God, your hobby's religion.

You have certain times for your hobby, I have certain times for my hobby. I realize that my hobby doesn't determine where I'm going to live, and your hobby doesn't determine where you're going to live.

So, we dichotomize. You're in college, you're in the moment. Did it ever dawn upon you as a Christian that only one person has the right to put you in that college? And there is only one college in which he is likely to put you, the one of his choosing, and no other.

Or did it never dawn on you? Did you consult everybody and everything, and every factor except Jesus Christ? Then it's probably very unlikely that you're in the college at this moment of his choice. And, you see, it's only in the place where he puts you can you have any legitimate expectation of his blessing, because, as living members of his body, we are to be integrated into the total whole so that he may, unchallenged, execute his divine end in terms of Adam and Eve.

The Christian Life as Total Availability to Christ

That's what I expect of my body. Why shouldn't he expect that of his body? I anticipate of every single member of my physical body that it becomes totally available to me. By maintaining a relationship that allows me, as the head of that body, to close the shop every moment of every day.

Do you expect your hands to be on duty just, say, so many hours a day, often in the afternoons, and coming on again at seven? Have you got hands like that? It's practical Christianity. But we've long since ceased, you see, to have this concept of what it means to be a Christian.

We simply departmentalize our faith, and we use God and we use Jesus Christ simply as a convenience, a means whereby we escape the punitive consequence of our guilt, the means whereby we make some sort of assurance for our ultimate destiny when we've finished with this earth and have done as we please in the meantime.

Now, that's nothing to do with the Christian life. The Lord Jesus is the head of the body of which every redeemed sin is a member of sin. And each individual member of that body, in particular, is to be subject to the head under the direction of the Holy Spirit so that, twenty-four hours a day, the Lord Jesus Himself can be where He wants, doing what He wants, how He wants, where He wants, in you and me.

Anything less than that, anything less than that is playing church. Anything less than that is simply a superficial veneer of religion that is calculated to make you feel comfortable inside and past much.

But, so far as God is concerned, you're all right. And, in the last day, when the dust has settled, all that will be found will be a heap of ashes, the wood, the hay, and the stubble of a wasted life.

And, you'll look dismayed into the face of your Savior with awe. Now, I expect with my hands that they're available to me twenty-four hours a day. I don't even anticipate that they'll have a committee meeting under the joint chairmanship of the two fountains, and decide what they will do in my interest, no matter how sincerely they might seek so to do.

All I ask of them is that they may be restfully available to instantly obey me. That's all. I expect my feet to go exactly where I tell them to take me. I don't expect my feet to take me for a walk for the good of my health.

Strange to say, the Lord Jesus, as the head of the body, claims the right to exercise the same total jurisdiction over his body on earth, which is his. So, here's a forgiven sin, present in his blood, in dwelt by Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me for that he counted me faithful, putting me in the ministry.

At this moment, in this particular place, there's only one possible explanation. It just happens to be the place where my Lord Jesus, to whom I have presented my body as a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, happens to want to be, at this particular moment, clothed with me.

If not, you'll get to heaven, if your sins begin, because you have claimed them as your redeemed. Never be put. You'll never know that divine authority that releases blasphemy. You'll just be a flabby Christian for the rest of your days, and you'll wonder why the Christian life is so incredibly boring, so lustrous, and callous, and monotonous.

There are lots of genuine, born-again, converted, saved, redeemed, on-the-way-to-heaven Christians whose life is anything but the adventure that God intended it to be. You see, the moment you and I are prepared to be numbered amongst those who were sent from where?

I'm calling of its timeless purpose. The littlest thing has a divine sickness of which we may be totally unaware, but of the unfolding of His will. That must last, until one day, as we look back, we see the mosaic of God's perfect will laid out as a perfect plan.

Philip in Samaria and the Desert Road

Now, this was the character of the early church, because this handful of uncutered men and women, unschooled, unaccredited, with none of the gimmicks with which you and I are today so lavishly provided, no jet planes, no satellites, no telephones, no television, no electronics, no tape recorders, just donkeys, and their own two flat feet.

And yet, they evangelized the then-known world in one generation. They turned the world upside down, and they changed the face of nation. Well, because they were real Christians. They were real Christians.

They were those who, as forgiven sinners, actually presented their bodies to the Lord Jesus as though He actually had the right, as God, to see God in them, and that which inevitably could be explained only in terms of God.

Of course, the preaching of the Word, and the preaching of Christ, are synonymous sermons, for He is the living Word with the glorious fulfillment of the written Word. You can't preach the Word without preaching Christ, and you can't preach Christ without preaching the Word.

Then it went down to the city of Samaria, and He preached, and the people, with one accord, gave heed to those things which set its place. Hearing and seeing the miracles which He did, unclean spirits crying with a loud voice came out of many that were possessed with them.

Many taken with pounds and that were lame were healed, and there was great joy in that city. The whole city was moved by God's energy and unction of God the Holy Spirit. The ministry of this man, Philip, spread like a flame.

They had testified, it says in verse 25, and preached the Word of the Lord. They returned to Jerusalem and preached the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans. From wherever they went, their names made news.

The Lord said, Philip, bring the Word. I'm from Jerusalem, and to God we will give it. What did God say? Go. Where to? To the desert. And you see, it's just at that point that you and I are calculating to start arguing.

For here was a man whose name made you. Here was the great evangelist. Here was the great city missionist. Here was a man to whom people flocked to hear the gospel in the power and unction of God the Holy Spirit.

And the word of God says, that's in Philip. Because, you see, Philip was a man filled with the Holy Spirit. What's it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit? Simply, the body, soul, spirit, mind, emotion, and will.

He was available to the Lord Jesus as a healthy member of his body, so that he, Christ, as head of that body, could hold a shot, and be in Philip, close with Philip, where he, Christ, wanted to be at any given moment.

Now, I can imagine that quite a lot of people were very dismayed when they heard Philip go to the desert. They said, Philip, your name makes you. Philip, we need you for our purpose. We're going to have an evangelistic crusade.

We need you. We've got nobody so well-known as you are. We need you. Don't worry. Philip replied, sorry, because I'm not committed to evangelism. I'm not committed to the lost. I'm not committed to the world in which God has placed me.

I'm not committed to the need. That isn't my business. There has been the business of any member of any body to whom I'm committed to evangelism. I'm not committed to the need. I'm not committed to the war-winning.

I'm not committed to the world. I'm committed to Jesus Christ, to whom I belong, who invokes my humanity. I'm committed to him, and for all that which he in me is committed to the Holy Spirit. To the desert I go.

It's just as simple as that. Maybe you wonder, perhaps, as a Christian, I'm talking to somebody here, you wonder as a Christian, why is it that your life, as yet, though a child of God, and with a deep desire in your heart to be of value to him, has registered so little in the life of you?

As you look back over your Christian life, you say, there's so little to show for all my activities. It isn't that I don't work hard at it. It isn't that I'm not sincere. It isn't that I'm not prepared to sacrifice.

But somehow nothing ever happens. So maybe you were never met and went. So you've never known the sheer adventure of being put. Did Philip know where he was going? No. Did he have to? No. Didn't he know what was going to happen?

No. Didn't he have to? No. What did he have to know? He was sent and went. That's all. He was put. Who takes the consequences when you're sent and went and put? Well, the one who's sent and put. Because you went.

That's all. Isn't that simple? When we do violence to the sheer logic of God's Word, and we're absolutely convinced that God put me here because he sent and I went, how stupid it would be for me to wring my hands and say, God, God, you've put me in this place.

What have you done? Please bless me. Please. Please. God just wouldn't be appreciative. Don't you credit with me any intelligence? I sent, you went, I put. These are consequences of me. Don't wring your hands and ask me to bless you.

I would never have put you there if I weren't going to bless you. So, you see, the moment you begin to grasp the glorious principle that Jesus is alive, lives in you, and you're available to him, your whole prayer life, the whole structure of your prayer is radically changed.

In everything you give thanks. You say, God, if you sent and I went, I'm put. And if I'm put, you take the consequence. Now, that was the attitude. I'm absolutely certain. And in fact, when he went to the desk, I'm sure he was sort of chucking himself.

He said, of all the patients that God has sent, this act of worship, I'm going to give an invitation. God was sufficient intelligence to know what he's at. It couldn't be surprising to discover what a man will find in the desk to preach at.

Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch

He arose and went, and behold, a man of Ethiopia, and eunuch of great authority, and the candacy queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to worship, was returning and sitting in his chariot and reading the prophecy of Isaiah.

And then the Spirit of God said to Philip, Go here, and join myself with this chariot. As he went out into the desk, without a clue as to why he was going or what God had in mind, there was a man, a eunuch, chancellor of the exchequer and the queen candacy of Ethiopia, in a caravan, reading a Bible he couldn't understand.

Look at this chariot. And he went. And when you're sent and went, you're put. Who called him out of his city-wide evangelistic ministry? The Holy Spirit. Who particularized the instructions and told him to join himself to that particular chariot and talk to that particular man?

The Holy Spirit. That's the normal Christian life. You see, the Bible tells us how many are going to become Christians, and the Bible tells us exactly how many are going to be the Christians they become.

Do you know how many are going to become Christians? The Bible tells us exactly. Exactly. John's Gospel, chapter 1, verse 12, as many as receive him. To them gives ye the power to become the children of God.

That's exactly how many. No more, no less. As many as receive him. And if you're not numbered as yet amongst those who have received him, you have not more until you do. Can you become the child of God?

That's exactly how many. No more, no less. Will become the children of God. As many as receive him. That's it. How many are going to be the Christians they become? Tells you exactly in the Bible. Romans, chapter 8, and verse 14.

As many as. Not one single one more, not one single one less. As many as are led by the Spirit of God. They are the only ones of those who have become Christians who have learned to be the Christians they become.

As many as are led by the Spirit of God. Are you led by the Spirit of God? Are you sharing that adventure with the Lord Jesus of seeing him fulfilled through you by your obedience to his instructions, that plan for which having created you he has now redeemed you?

If not, your life as a Christian must be incredibly horrible. That is a pancake. But if you know what it is to be led by the Spirit of God, you'll have a sock in your heart. You'll be impatient for every new day to dawn.

You'll go to that man. And then it ran. He ran. He ran to it. He needed to pop it right out. He says, understand this by what thou readest. Because fantastic as it might seem, when having run to that chapter, he listened to the man reading aloud.

He was reading of all passages from the Old Testament Scriptures to the Gospel according to Isaiah. That marvelous fifty-first chapter. That's why he had to run. Because if he hadn't run he'd miss his test.

The man said, it must have filled Philip's heart to bursting with joy and gratitude and thankfulness to God that he wasn't big-headed enough to be wedded to his evangelistic ministry as a popular preacher, and denied God the right to put him where he wanted.

So he was sent and went. Said the eunuch, how can I except some man should guide me? You say, do I understand? How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?

How shall they hear of him except there be a preacher? And how shall they preach except there be, except some man should guide? And he desired, Philip, that he would come up and sit with him. So here we are, here's the famous preacher hitchhiking in the desert.

And the eunuch says, come, follow him. And the place of the Scripture which he read was this, verse thirty-two, he was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb done before his shearer, till opened he not his mouth?

In his humiliation his judgment was taken away, and who shall declare his generation? For his life is taken from the earth and the universe is finished, and he shall either praise himself or a son of man.

Then Philip opened his mouth and began to sing, and he preached unto him Jesus, told him the lovely story of God, amazing compassion in Christ, paltry, sinless, son of God, the word incarnate, walked with her, unculled, unblemished, like a lamb without cloth, and then was given to be our partner, that sheltered beneath the blood, fruited upon the mercy feet, painted upon the doorposts and the lintels, all the lovely Old Testament picture language of a crucified Redeemer, man of sorrows, what a name for the Son of God who came ruining sinners to return.

Hallelujah! What a savior! Told him the story. They went on their way as they came to accept water. He said, yes, water. Water came to me to be baptized. For without a doubt, no doubt, Philip explained, you see the marvelous thing is this, that this Jesus, about whom the prophet here speaks, not only died for us, he rose again from the dead, so that we, identified with him in death, pictured in baptism, might now walk in the newness of life, share in his resurrection.

For, you see, God has not appointed us to walk, but to obtain judgment and to obtain mercy. Not appointed to judgment, but to obtain mercy. For he died for us, that whether we wake or whether we sleep, whether in the body or out of it, we should live together with him.

And that light, that quality of light which alone is eternal, begins the moment we are prepared, humbly admitting ourselves to be the sinners that we are, the moment we make work for him. He got all excited about it.

Hadn't noticed it was water around. He was talking about these things. When suddenly, when suddenly they used the foot, there's water. What about you again that time, sir? It really just said it a little bit.

I cried. And so? He said, yes. That time? Did he say that time? He said, yes, that time. That means, you, somebody, 210. I believe that this Jesus which you're talking about is the Christ, the Son of God.

That's all I was waiting for. All I was waiting for was for a man to tell me. That's all I was waiting for. That wasn't that simple. How difficult was it for Philip to leave that huge cross? He couldn't help it.

Philip didn't know what was about to happen. You see, the restfulness of it. Why was it so restful? Why didn't Philip have to pray all night and wring his hands and squeeze blood out of his face? Why didn't he have to shake God and say, please wake up?

There's a man here and he's saying, come and see, please do something about it. That's the way we pray sometimes, don't we? Nothing like that. You see, Philip was bearing fruit. He that abides in me, and I abide in him, bringeth forth such fruit.

Abiding in Christ Rather Than Striving

But of course, without these, struggle as you like, shout and scream, preach or pray, you can do how much? Nothing. Nothing. Have you ever seen a vine sweat in to produce grapes? It's been writhing with the sheer agony of its own self-exertion.

Oh, if only I could scream to break that. Oh, if only I could get a grape. That's how Christians get their grapes. But they don't get grapes. He took them to the branch. He took them to the branch. This is what transformed the life of Hudson Taylor.

Hudson Taylor, a dedicated, earnest man who loved Christ with a passion for Saul, went to China. And there he sweated it out for God. He sweated it out for Jesus. Have I done my best for Jesus? Until in sheer abject misery of despair, he came back utterly, utterly depressed.

It's a question. And then from John 15, verse 5, he suddenly says, You are the vine and its door. The vine includes the branch. The branch is not stuck onto the vine. The vine is everything. Branches and all.

You can see that part of Jesus, who is the vine, called branch, through whom he, the vine, bears fruit. That's all. That part of the vine, Jesus, called branch, through which he, the vine, bears fruit.

All I've got to do is a vine. Take my finger. And he, the vine, bears fruit through me. That part of him called branch. I've seen it. And a thousand missions went to China. Who did it? Through whom? The branch.

So with that, Hudson Taylor, it's a vine. Life of the vine. To flow through the branch and bear the fruit. Christ. It's so glorious, so restful. Takes all the stress and all the stress. Doesn't mean we're unconcerned, but we have an unshatterable confidence that he's the one who came, speaks, and says that which is lost.

And he knows exactly where to ask. He knows exactly how to cross that path. He knows exactly how to interview us again. But the tragedy is this. We've all suffered so long as Christians from St. Vitus Down.

We're busy as members of the body showing the head how busy we are. Wouldn't it be terrible if I had St. Vitus Down? Maybe sometimes you think I have. But, you know, I really, my hands are saying to themselves, I really want the head to know that I'm on the job.

I really want, I want the head to know I'm really enthusiastic about this business. Now that's the kind of body the Lord Jesus has to work with, I know. And you know, when they have a heart attack every now and again, he sighs with relief.

So restful. Because he was so, what are you doing in the desert? You're the great creature. You know what Philip said? I'm the clone. Aren't you concerned? Oh yes. You see, my concern is to be committed to him and to all that to which he is committed in me.