Missionary Biography – Charles Thomas (C.T.) Studd

Charles Thomas (C.T.) Studd
by Stephen Ross

Forward Ever, Backward Never! “Some wish to live within the sound of Church or Chapel bell; I want to run a Rescue Shop within a yard of hell.” — C.T. Studd.

Charles T. Studd was a servant of Christ who faithfully served His Saviour in China, India, and Africa. As Alfred Buxton in the forward to the book intitled C.T. Studd: Cricketer & Pioneer by Norman Grubb states: “C.T.’s life stands as some rugged Gibraltar — a sign to all succeeding generations that it is worth while to lose all this world can offer and stake everything on the world to come. His life will be an eternal rebuke to easygoing Christianity. He has demonstrated what it means to follow Christ without counting the cost and without looking back. C.T. was essentially a cavalry leader, and in that capacity he led several splendid charges. Three in particular stand out: when C.T. and Stanley Smith led forth the Cambridge Seven to China, in 1885; ten years later when C.T. toured the American Universities at the start of the Student Volunteers; and when in 1910 he initiated the campaign for the region between the Nile and Lake Chad (the largest unevangelized region in Africa at the time)…” As a soldier of the Cross, C.T. is remembered for “his courage in any emergency, his determination never to sound the retreat, his conviction that he was in God’s will, his faith that God would see him through, his contempt of the arm of the flesh, and his willingness to risk all for Christ.” Charles Thomas Studd was born in England in 1860, one of three sons of a wealthy retired planter, Edward Studd, who had made a fortune in India and had come back to England to spend it. After being converted to Christ during a Moody-Sankey campaign in England in 1877, Edward Studd became deeply concerned about the spiritual welfare of his three sons and influenced them for the cause of Christ before his death two years later. By the time C.T. was sixteen he had become an expert cricket player and at nineteen was captain of his team at Eton College. He was further educated at Trinity College, Cambridge where he was also recognized as an outstanding cricketer. C.T. was saved in 1878 at the age of 18 when a visiting preacher at their home caught C.T. on his way to play cricket. “Are you a Christian?” he asked. C.T’s answer not being convincing enough, the guest pressed the point and C.T. tells what happens as he acknowledges God’s gift of eternal life received through faith in Christ: “I got down on my knees and I did say ‘thank you’ to God. And right then and there joy and peace came into my soul. I knew then what it was to be ‘born again,’ and the Bible which had been so dry to me before, became everything.” His two brothers were also saved that same day! But there followed a period of six years in a backslidden state. C.T. relates: “Instead of going and telling others of the love of Christ, I was selfish and kept the knowledge to myself. The result was that gradually my love began to grow cold, and the love of the world began to come in. I spent six years in that unhappy backslidden state.” The Lord in His goodness worked in his life and after a serious illness of his brother and his going to hear D.L. Moody the Lord met C.T. again and restored to him the joy of His salvation. “Still further, and what was better than all, He set me to work for Him, and I began to try and persuade my friends to read the Gospel, and to speak to them individually about their souls.””I cannot tell you what joy it gave me to bring the first soul to the Lord Jesus Christ. I have tasted almost all the pleasures that this world can give … but those pleasures were as nothing compared to the joy that the saving of that one soul gave me.” The Lord continued to work in his life, and led C.T. to go to China. C.T. seeking to comfort his mother wrote: “Mother dear, I do pray God to show you that it is such a privilege to give up a child to be used of God to saving poor sinners who have never even heard of the name of Jesus.” C.T. was one of the “Cambridge Seven” who offered themselves to Hudson Taylor for missionary service in the China Inland Mission and in February, 1885, sailed for China. Once there, they followed the early practice of the Mission by living and dressing in Chinese fashion. He and the others began at once to learn the language and to further identify themselves with the nationals by wearing Chinese clothing and eating with them. It was while in China that C.T. reached the age (25 years old) in which according to his father’s will he was to inherit a large sum of money. Through reading God’s Word and much prayer, C.T. felt led to give his entire fortune to Christ! “This was not a fool’s plunge on his part. It was his public testimony before God and man that he believed God’s Word to be the surest thing on earth, and that the hundred fold interest which God has promised in this life, not to speak of the next, is an actual reality for those who believe it and act on it.” Before knowing the exact amount of his inheritance, C.T. sent £5000 to Mr. Moody, another £5000 to George Müller (£4000 to be used on missionary work and £1000 among the orphans); as well as £15,000 pounds to support other worthy ministries. In a few months, he was able to discover the exact amount of his inheritance and he gave some additional thousands away, leaving about £3400 pounds in his possession. Three years after arriving in China, C.T. married a young Irish missionary from Ulster named Priscilla Livingstone Stewart. Just before the wedding he presented his bride with the remaining money from his inheritance. She, not to be outdone, said, “Charlie, what did the Lord tell the rich young man to do?” “Sell all.” “Well then, we will start clear with the Lord at our wedding.” And they proceeded to give the rest of the money away for the Lord’s work. They served the Lord together in inland China through many perils and hardships until in 1894 after ten years in China, ill health forced the Studds to return to England, where they turned their property over to the China Inland Mission. From 1896-1897, C.T. toured American universities in behalf of the newly formed Student Volunteer Movement. C.T. describes one of the meetings at Bucknell College in Pennsylvania: “Had a splendid student’s meeting at 6:30. The Lord was greatly with us. After some hymns and a prayer, I spoke for about 30 minutes; then all got on knees, and one after another gave themselves to God in such sentences as ‘Lord, take me as I am,’ ‘I will go with Thee, Lord Jesus.’ There must have been a score of them. Oh, surely that is the sweetest music that can ever be heard by any ears, and if sweet to us, how much sweeter to Jesus. Afterwards I got them to sing a hymn:”The cleansing blood I see, I see, I plunge, and oh, it cleanseth me.” In 1900 the Studd family went to South India where C.T. served as a pastor of a church in Ootacamund for six years. From the time of his conversion, C.T. had felt the responsibility upon their family to take the Gospel to India. China, then India, and now the heart of Africa. After their return home to England in 1906, C.T. was stirred by the need for missionary pioneer work in Central Africa. But again the path was not without obstacles. Penniless, turned down by the doctor, dropped by a Committee of businessmen who had agreed to support him, yet told by God to go, once more C.T. staked all on obedience to God. As a young man he staked his career, in China he staked his fortune, now he staked his life. His answer to the Committee was; “Gentlemen, God has called me to go, and I will go. I will blaze the trail, though my grave may only become a stepping stone that younger men may follow.” Leaving his wife and four daughters in England, C.T. sailed, contrary to medical advice, for the heart of Africa in 1910, where he continued to work until his death in 1931. C.T. bore much fruit for the Saviour while in Africa as he endured weakness and sickness; loosing most of his teeth and suffering several heart attacks; but he endured hardness as a good soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ! In a letter home, C.T. gave a last backward look at the outstanding events of his life: “As I believe I am now nearing my departure from this world, I have but a few things to rejoice in; they are these:1. That God called me to China and I went in spite of utmost opposition from all my loved ones. 2. That I joyfully acted as Christ told that rich young man to act. 3. That I deliberately at the call of God, when alone on the Bibby liner in 1910, gave up my life for this work, which was to be henceforth not for the Sudan only, but for the whole unevangelized World. My only joys therefore are that when God has given me a work to do, I have not refused it.” Shortly after 10:30 p.m. on a July day in 1931, C.T. Studd went home to be with His Lord whom he had loved so dearly and served so faithfully! The last word he spoke was “Hallelujah”! All quotes from C. T. Studd: Cricketer & Pioneer by Norman P. Grubb.

Prayer Tele-conference call scheduled for Monday 5/4/09 at 8:00 pm

We have scheduled a prayer conference call for this Monday night 5/4  at 8:00 Eastern time.

The Early Night Watch or First Watch of the Night (6PM – 9PM)Lamentations 2:18-18; Exodus 27:21; Psalm 119:148

 

It is the first watch of the day: the gate and beginning for the generic day.

Conference call dial in information:

Conference Dial-in Number: (605) 475-4800
Host Access Code: 652077*
Participant Access Code: 652077#

Prayer points as the Lord leads:

Jesus said he came not to do his own will, but the will of the father. We will be praying that our wills become God’s will.

We will be praying that the fire of God burn off the chaff in this season.

Prayer for the government, society and the church for an another great awakening.

THE REVIVAL WE NEED

by OSWALD J. SMITH

With a Foreword BY REV. JONATHAN GOFORTH, D.D.

The Christian Alliance Publishing Company 260 West 44th Street, New York, N.Y. 1925

Preface

Five years ago there came into my life a spiritual experience that revolutionized my work, and resulted in a Ministry characterized by some of the manifestations that usually accompany Revivals.

It was in this atmosphere that these messages were born; and while the writing of them has occupied the five intervening years, they but breathe the spirit that then prevailed.

May God through them reveal this His servants the shallowness apparent in so much of our Modern Evangelism, and turn them to that deep and abiding work of the Holy Spirit which will alone stand the test of divine fire!

Oswald J. Smith

Toronto, 1922

 

Foreword by Jonathan Goforth

MR. SMITH’S book, “The Revival We Need,” for its size is the most powerful plea for revival I have ever read. He has truly been led by the Spirit of God in preparing it. To his emphasis for the need of a Holy Spirit revival I can give the heartiest amen. What I saw of revival in Korea and in China is in fullest accord with the revival called for in this book.

It is most timely that Mr. Smith has called attention to man effort and man method in modern revival. If we all had faith to wait upon God in intense believing prayer there would be genuine Holy Ghost revival, and the living God would get all the glory. In Manchuria and China, when we did nothing else than give the address and let the people pray, and kept out of sight as far as possible, we saw the mightiest manifestations of Divine power.

Had I the wealth of a millionaire I would put “The Revival We Need” in every Christian home on this continent and confidently look for a revival which would sweep round the world.

JONATHAN GOFORTH.

Toronto, May 5, 1925

 Chapter 1: The Outpouring of the Spirit

IT was in 1904. All Wales was aflame. The nation had drifted far from God. The spiritual conditions were low indeed. Church attendance was poor. And sin abounded on every side.

Suddenly, like an unexpected tornado. the Spirit of God swept over the land. The Churches were crowded so that multitudes were unable to get in. Meetings lasted from ten in the morning until twelve at night. Three definite services were held each day. Evan Roberts was the human instrument, but there was very little preaching. Singing, testimony, and prayer, were the chief features. There were no hymn books; they had learnt the hymns in childhood. No choir, for everybody sang. No collection; and no advertising.

Nothing had ever come over Wales with such far-reaching results. Infidels were converted, drunkards, thieves, and gamblers saved; and thousands reclaimed to respectability. Confessions of awful sins were heard on every side. Old debts were paid. The theatre had to leave for want of patronage. Mules in the coal mines refused to work, being unused to kindness. In five weeks 20,000 joined the Churches.

In the year 1835 Titus Coan landed on the shore belt of Hawaii. On his first tour multitudes flocked to hear him. They thronged him so that he had scarcely time to eat. Once he preached three times before he had a chance to take breakfast. He felt that God was strangely at work. In 1837 the slumbering fires broke out. Nearly the whole population became an audience. He was ministering to 15,000 people. Unable to reach them, they came to him, and settled down to a two years’ camp meeting. There was not an hour day or night when an audience of from 2,000 to 6,000 would not rally to the signal of the bell.

There was trembling, weeping, sobbing, and loud crying for mercy, sometimes too loud for the preacher to be heard; and in hundreds of cases his hearers fell in a swoon. Some would cry out, “The two edged sword is cutting me to pieces.” The wicked scoffer who came to make sport dropped like a dog, and cried, “God has struck me !” Once while preaching in the open field to 2,000 people, a man cried out, “What must I do to be saved?” and prayed the publican’s prayer, and the entire congregation took up the cry for mercy. For half an hour Mr. Coan could get no chance to speak, but had to stand still and see God work.

Quarrels were made up, drunkards reclaimed, adulterers converted, and murderers revealed and pardoned. Thieves returned stolen property. And sins of a lifetime were renounced. In one year 5,244 joined the Church. There were 1,705 baptised on one Sunday. And 2,400 sat down at the Lord’s table, once sinners of the blackest type, now saints of God. And when Mr. Coan left he had himself received and baptised 11,960 persons.

In the little town of Adams across the line, in the year 1821, a young lawyer made his way to a secluded spot in the woods to pray. God met him there and he was wondrously converted, and soon after filled with the Holy Spirit. That man was Charles. G. Finney.

The people heard about it, became deeply interested, and as though by common consent, gathered into the meeting house in the evening. Mr. Finney was present. The Spirit of God came on them in mighty, convicting power, and a Revival started. It then spread to the surrounding country until finally nearly the whole of the Eastern States was held in the grip of a Mighty Awakening. Whenever Mr. Finney preached the Spirit was poured out. Frequently God went before him so that when he arrived at the place he found the people already crying out for mercy.

Sometimes the conviction of sin was so great and caused such fearful wails of anguish that he had to stop preaching until it subsided. Ministers and Church members were converted. Sinners were reclaimed by thousands. And for years the mighty work of grace went on. Men had never witnessed the like in their lives before.

I have recalled to your minds three historical incidents of the Outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Hundreds of others might be cited. But these are sufficient to show what I mean. And this is what we need today more than anything else. When I remember that such an Outpouring has come to China, India, Korea, Africa, England, Wales, the States, the Islands of the Seas, and many other places, but that Canada, our Dominion, our own beloved country, has never in its history experienced a national Revival, my heart cries out to God for such a Manifestation of Himself.

Do we need it? Listen! How many of our churches are more than half empty Sunday after Sunday? What a multitude there are who never enter God’s house? How many mid-week prayer meetings are alive and prosperous? Where is the hunger for spiritual things? Oh, the shame of it!

And Missions–the lands beyond the seas, heathen darkness–what are we doing? Does the fact that multitudes are perishing ever cause us an anxious thought? Have we grown selfish?

What about the tremendous wealth that God has given us? Take the United States as an example, the richest nation in the world today, and the major portion of her wealth in the hands of professing Christians. And yet the United States spent more on gum in one year than she spent on Missions. How many Christians are giving God even the tenth of what He gives them ?

Then take our colleges and seminaries, both at home and on the mission field where higher criticism is taught. We are told that Jesus never performed any miracles, never rose from the dead, and was not born of a virgin, did not die as our Substitute, and is not coming again. Oh, what blasphemy !

How many professing Christians are living the Christ-life before men? Oh, how like the world we are becoming! How little opposition do we find! Where are the persecutions that were heaped on the Early Church? How easy it is now to be a Christian!

And what of the Ministry? Does the minister grip, convert, and save by his message? How many souls are won through the preaching of the Word? Oh, my friends, we are loaded down with countless Church activities, while the real work of the Church, that of evangelizing the world and winning the lost, is almost entirely neglected.

Where is the conviction of sin we used to know? Is it a thing of the past? Let us look at one of Finney’s meetings. Oh, that we could repeat it today! He tells us that one time when he was conducting meetings in Antwerp, an old man invited him to preach in a small school house near by. When he arrived the place was packed so that he could barely find standing room near the door. He spoke for a long time. At last he began to press home upon them the fact that they were an ungodly community; for they held no services in their district. All at once they were stricken with conviction. The Spirit of God came like a thunderbolt upon them. One by one they fell on their knees, or prostrate on the floor, crying for mercy. In two minutes they were all down, and Mr. Finney had to stop preaching for he was unable to make himself heard. At last he got the attention of the old man who was sitting in the middle of the room and gazing around him in utter amazement, and shouted to him at the top of his voice to pray. Then taking them one by one he pointed them to Jesus. The old man took charge of the meeting while he went to another. All night it continued, so deep was the conviction of sin. The results were permanent, and one of the young converts became a most successful minister of the gospel.

Ah, yes, men have forgotten God. Sin flourishes on every side. And the pulpit fails to grip. And I know of nothing less than the Outpouring of His Spirit that can meet the situation. Such a Revival has transformed scores and hundreds of communities, it can transform ours.

Now, how may we secure such an Outpouring of the Spirit? You answer, by prayer. True, but there is something before prayer. We will have to deal first of all with the question of sin; for unless our lives are right in the sight of God, unless sin has been put away, we may pray until doomsday, and the Revival will never come. “Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you so that He will not hear.” ( Isa. 59: 2. )

Probably our best guide just here is the prophecy of Joel. Let us look at it. It is a call to repentance. God is anxious to bless His people, but sin has withheld the blessing. And so in His love and compassion He brings a fearful judgment upon them. We have it described in chapters 1 and 2. It has almost reached the gates of the city. But see–how great is His love! Notice verses 12-14 of chapter 2, where He says, “Turn ye even to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God; for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth Him of the evil. Who knoweth if He will turn and repent, and leave a blessing behind Him?”

Now my friend, I don’t know what your sin is. You know and God knows. But I want you to think about it, for you may as well stop praying and rise from your knees until you have dealt with it, and put it away. “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” Let God search your heart and reveal the hindrance. Sin must be confessed and put away.

It may be you will have to forsake some cherished idol. It may be you will have to make restitution. Perhaps you are withholding from God, robbing Him of His own. But this is your affair, not mine. It lies between you and God.

Now notice verses 15-17. The prophet has called for a prayer meeting. Sin has been confessed and forsaken. Now they may pray. And they are to entreat God for His own name’s sake, lest the nations say, “Where is their God ?” They are dead in earnest now and their prayer is going to prevail. Listen! “Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly: gather the people, sanctify the congregation; assemble the elders, gather the children. Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, “Spare Thy people, O Lord, and give not Thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, “Where is their God ?”

Ah! my brethren, are you praying? Do you plead with God for this city? Are you beseeching Him night and day for an Outpouring of His Spirit? For now is the hour to pray. We are told of a time in the work of Finney when the Revival had died out. He then made a covenant with the young people to pray at sunrise, noon and sunset in their closets for one week. The Spirit was poured out, and before the week ended the meetings were thronged.

And of course it must be believing prayer, prayer that expects. If God stirs up hearts to pray for a Revival it is a sure sign that He wants to send one and He is always true to His Word. “There shall be showers of blessing.” His promises never fail. Have we faith? Do we expect an Awakening?

Now notice the speedy answer in verse 18. “Then!” After they had forsaken sin and cried unto God in prayer. “Then will the Lord be jealous for His land, and pity His people.” The answer is not long in coming once the conditions have been met. We have it fully described in verses 28-29: “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions; and also upon the servants and upon the hand-maids in these days will I pour out my Spirit.”

Oh, my brethren, the trouble is not with God. It lies right here with ourselves. He is willing, more than willing. But we are not ready. And He is waiting for us. Are we going to keep Him waiting long?