保罗和西拉被推入内牢时

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为服务做准备。
BY REV. J. Hudson Taylor. 摘自在中国发表的讲话。主耶稣基督不仅是我们的救主，也是我们的
服务的模式。"父怎样差遣我，我也怎样差遣你们"。现在，如果我们回顾一下
神在古时对祖先说话的人
的人，我们会发现他们总是有足够的装备来做服务。
有足够的装备来做服务。你会发现没有任何记录显示
你不会发现神使用一个没有装备的人的记录。有时我们看到一个人，像摩西一样，被召去做某项工作，在得到装备之前就把自己推进去，然后就失败了。传播福音的伟大工作交给了门徒们
赋予他们向世界传福音的伟大工作，他们被要求：" "你们要在耶路撒冷城中等候，直到你们得着能力"。但对于我们的服务
已经提供了完整的装备；神愿意在我们需要的时候给予我们一切。祂不会一下子为我们的生活服务提供装备
一下子。祂不期望我们劳苦奔波，背负着
明年的供应品背在身上。在路上有新的供应
新的供应，新的光亮，新的力量，新的启示，视情况需要而定。
I. 掏空。当主耶稣被带到世界上的时候，他所需要的最大的东西是什么？第一件事不是填补
填补，而是清空。为了处理像我们这样空虚的生物
为了对付像我们这样的空虚的人，祂需要多么大的放下，多么大的舍弃啊! 祂所放弃的都是好的。因此，对于我们的工作来说，仅仅准备好
我们准备抛弃那些邪恶的东西，那些没有基督徒可以坚持的东西是不够的。我们必须学会，使我们适合工作的第一步是清空。圣经
圣灵已经给了我们一些瞥见那些荣耀的机会
但在所有这些荣耀中，以及在所有这些荣耀中，我们必须了解到，上帝为所有爱他的人所准备的那些东西。
所有这些荣耀，甚至更多的荣耀，主耶稣都把自己掏空了。他，天使的主，变得比天使更低；他是永恒的，必然是不死的，却穿上了他的衣服
祂是永恒的，必然不死的，但为了死亡而披上了凡人的外衣。然而，我们被告知，他
变得比天使低一点的人已经被
"加冕"。这个冠冕是特别的--它是为每个人品尝死亡；它是受苦的荣耀和荣誉，是通过成为拥有死亡权力的人的附属品而征服他的荣耀和荣誉。
征服拥有死亡权力的人。他是通过服从而不是通过抵抗来征服魔鬼的。
抵抗。在保罗的生活中也有类似的情况。保罗在罗马被捆绑，我们可能会想到他的
: 1897年2月。
我们可能会想象他的处境会使弟兄们望而却步。但他告诉我们什么呢？他们因他被捆绑而更加自信。他的苦难远没有使信徒们失去勇气，当他们发现锁链对一个使徒来说是件小事时，他们觉得--"我们可以有足够的勇气传教--毕竟，如果基督只在我们里面，这又算什么呢？"活着的基督，掌权的基督，使使徒在所有这些事情上显得如此优越，以至于鼓励其他人前进。
它鼓励其他人向前迈进，尽管要冒着与使徒所承受的同样的考验。挫折带来的胜利。在腓立比的监狱里，当保罗和西拉被推入监狱时，难道不是同样的事情吗？
当保罗和西拉被推入内牢时，他们因遭受了残酷的鞭打而抽打着腰部，向上帝唱着赞美的歌。囚犯们一定感觉到，惩罚这样的人是多么的不可能！他们的迫害者只能把他们填满。迫害他们的人只能让他们越来越充满喜悦，直到他们越来越多地溢出来。我毫不怀疑，他们用他们充实的喜悦让囚犯们睡不着觉。要向世界证明魔鬼的力量并不强大，最好的办法莫过于让他得逞，并在其间显示出信徒在基督里对他的胜利。就像基督以死亡征服了拥有死亡力量的人一样，在罗马迫害时期，脆弱无力的殉道者，其中许多是柔弱的妇女，能够表明异教的所有力量都无法对付那些被基督充满的人。因此，在殉道者受苦的地方有许多人信主，而殉道者的血也证明了自己确实是教会的种子。现在也是如此。我们不是在坚持和要求我们的权利时，为主做了最多的服务。而是让他们离开，从而表明这些东西对我们来说不算什么？如果我们被圣灵充满，以至于当我们陷入各种诱惑时，我们可以把它当作快乐，那么请相信，我们正在给魔鬼以最严厉的打击。只要让恶人看到我们被吓坏了，在损失和十字架的道路上退缩了，他们就会得逞了。相反，让他们看到我们在这些事情中以基督为荣，我们就会成为主耶稣、使徒保罗和那些殉道者的真正追随者，他们通过上帝征服了王国，颠覆了宗教，带来了彻底的革命，就在犹太人和异教徒的联合企图似乎无法抵挡的时候。他们的敌人认为他们已经成功了；他们甚至在他们的法令中宣布基督教已经失效了；但摇摇欲坠的是异教。我们不需要害怕迫害。它即将到来--它肯定会到来。只有让我们取得这样的成功，使人们害怕废除他们的习俗，我们就会看到严重的迫害。但我们是否要担心福音会



Preparation for Service.
BY REV. J. HUDSON TAYLOR. FROM AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN CHINA. HE Lord Jesus Christ is not only our Saviour, but our
Pattern in service. "As the Father sent Me, so send I you." Now if we look back
to those by whom God spoke
to the fathers in olden time, we find they were always
sufficiently equipped for ser- vice. You will find no record
of God using one unequipped man. Sometimes we see a man, like Moses, called in- deed to a particular work, pushing himself into it before he had received his equip- ment, and then there is failure. The disciples to whom the great work of evangelising
the world was given, were charged : —" Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power." But for our service
full equipment is already provided ; and God is willing to give us all we need, as we need it. He does not equip for life service
all at once. He does not expect us to toil along, burdened with
next year's provisions on our back. There are fresh supplies on
the way, fresh light, fresh power, fresh revelations, as circumstances require.
I. EMPTYING. When the Lord Jesus was to be brought into the world, what was the great thing He needed ? The first thing was not a
filling but^n emptying. In order to deal with empty creatures
like we are, what a laying aside, what a leaving behind He had ! And what He gave up was all good. So for our work it is not
sufficient that we are prepared to put away that which is evil, things which no Christian can hold to. We have to learn that the very first step in fitting us for our work is emptying. The
Holy Spirit has given us some glimpses of the glory of those
things that God has prepared for all those that love Him ; but
of all these glories, and of more, the Lord Jesus stripped Himself. He, the Lord of Angels, became lower than the angels ; and He who was eternal, and necessarily deathless, took on Him
a mortal frame in order to die. Yet we are told of Him that He
who was made a little lower than the angels has been
" crowned." This crowning was peculiar—it was that of tasting death for every man ; it was the glory and honour of suffering, of conquering him who had the power of death by becoming
subject to him. He conquered the devil by submission, not by
resistance. There is something parallel to this in the life of Paul. Paul was in bonds in Rome, and we might have imagined that his
: February, 1897.
position was one that would have deterred the brethren. Butwhat does he tell us ? That they waxed confident through his bonds. So far from his sufferings taking courage out of thebelievers, when they found what a little thing a chain was to anApostle, they felt—" We can preach with good courage—whatis it, after all, if Christ is only in us ? " Christ living, Christreigning, made the Apostle so superior to all these things, that
it encouraged others to go forward, though at the risk of thesame trials that the Apostle endured. TRIUMPH BY MEANS OF REVERSES. Must it not have been the same thing in the jail at Philippi
when Paul and Silas thrust into the inner prison, their backsraw from the cruel scourging they had suffered, were singingpraises to God ? The very prisoners must have felt how impossible it is to punish such men as these ! Their persecutors couldonly fill them fuller and fuller with joy, till they overflowed moreand more. They kept the prisoners awake, I have no doubt,with their abounding joy. There is no better way of proving to the world that the devil's power is not so very great, than byletting him have his fling, and showing in the midst of it what a triumph over him the believer has in Christ. Just as Christ, bydying, conquered him who had the power of death, so frail, feeble martyrs, many of them tender women, in the time of Romanpersecutions, were able to show that all the power of paganismcould do nothing against those who were filled with Christ. Hence there were many conversions in the very arena in whichthe martyrs were suffering, and the blood of the martyrs proveditself to be indeed the seed of the Church. So it is now. It is not in holding and claiming our rights that we do the most service for the Lord. Is it not rather in letting them go, and thus showing that these things are nothingto us ? If we are so filled with the Spirit that we can count it all joy when we fall into divers temptations, depend upon it weare giving the devil back the hardest blow we can give. Onlylet wicked men see that we are frightened, and shrink out of the way of loss and cross, and they have their triumph. Let them,on the contrary, see that we are rejoicing in Christ in the midstof these things, and we shall be truly followers of the LordJesus, of the Apostle Paul, and of the martyrs who through Godsubdued kingdoms, and overturned religions, and brought abouta thorough revolution, just when it seemed impossible to with- stand the combined attempts of Jew and pagan. Their foes thought they had succeeded; they even announced in their edicts that Christianity was defunct ; but it was paganism that tottered. We need not be afraid of persecution. It is coming—it is sure to come. Only let us have such success as to make the people fear the abolition of their customs, and we shall see severe persecution. But are we to fear lest the Gospel should