A Camaraderie of Confidence Books by John Piper Battling Unbelief Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian Brothers, We Are Not Professionals Contending for Our All (Swans 4) The Dangerous Duty of Delight The Dawning of Indestructible Joy Desiring God Does God Desire All to Be Saved? Don’t Waste Your Life Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die Filling Up the Afflictions of Christ (Swans 5) Finally Alive Five Points Future Grace God Is the Gospel God’s Passion for His Glory A Godward Heart A Godward Life The Hidden Smile of God (Swans 2) A Hunger for God The Legacy of Sovereign Joy (Swans 1) Lessons from a Hospital Bed Let the Nations Be Glad! A Peculiar Glory The Pleasures of God The Roots of Endurance (Swans 3) Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ Seeing Beauty and Saying Beautifully (Swans 6) Spectacular Sins The Supremacy of God in Preaching A Sweet and Bitter Providence Taste and See Think This Momentary Marriage What Jesus Demands from the World What’s the Difference? When I Don’t Desire God The Swans Are Not Silent Book Seven A C a m a r a d e r i e o f C o n f i d e n c e The Fruit of Unfailing Faith in the Lives of Charles Spurgeon, George Müller, and Hudson Taylor J o h n P i P e r ® WHEATON, ILLINOIS A Camaraderie of Confidence: The Fruit of Unfailing Faith in the Lives of Charles Spurgeon, George Müller, and Hudson Taylor Copyright © 2016 by Desiring God Foundation Published by Crossway 1300 Crescent Street Wheaton, Illinois 60187 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America. Cover image: Howell Golson First printing 2016 Printed in the United States of America Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible. All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author. Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-5185-7 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-5188-8 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-5186-4 Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-5187-1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Piper, John, 1946– author. Title: A camaraderie of confidence: the fruit of unfailing faith in the lives of Charles Spurgeon, George Müller, and Hudson Taylor / John Piper. Description: Wheaton : Crossway, 2016. | Series: The swans are not silent; 7 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015037473 (print) | LCCN 2016002501 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433551857 (hc) | ISBN 9781433551864 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433551871 (mobi) | ISBN 9781433551888 ( epub) Subjects: LCSH: Christian biography—England. | Spurgeon, C. H. (Charles Haddon), 1834–1892. Müller, George, 1805–1898. | Taylor, James Hudson, 1832–1905. | England—Church history—19th century. Classification: LCC BR1700.3 .P5548 2016 (print) | LCC BR1700.3 (ebook) | DDC 274.20092/2—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015037473 Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. LB 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To the Global Partners who have gone out from Bethlehem Baptist Church for the sake of the Name Con t en t s Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 Introduction: A Camaraderie of Confidence in the Mighty Goodness of God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 1 Charles Spurgeon: Preaching through Adversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 2 George Müller: A Strategy for Showing God— Simple Faith, Sacred Scripture, Satisfaction in God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 3 Hudson Taylor: An Enduring and Expansive Enjoyment of Union with Jesus Christ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Index of Scriptures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Index of Persons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Index of Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 P r eface This is book seven in the series of biographical studies called The Swans Are Not Silent. The series title comes from the story of Augus- tine’s retirement as the bishop of Hippo in North Africa in AD 426. His successor, Eraclius, contrasted himself with Augustine by say- ing, “The cricket chirps, the swan is silent.”1 It was humble. But in a profound sense, it was untrue. Augustine became probably the most influential theologian in the history of the Christian church. The swan was not—and is not—silent. So when I say “The Swans Are Not Silent,” I mean: there are voices from church history that are still heard, and should be heard, in the ongoing history of the church. My hope is that this series will give voice to some of these swans. In this volume, the swans are Charles Spurgeon, the greatest preacher of the nineteenth century; George Müller, the great lover of orphans and supporter of missions; and Hudson Taylor, the founder of the China Inland Mission. Some of the things that bind them together are that they were all contemporaries, based in England, knew each other, encouraged each other, and took inspiration from each other’s lives. When one reads the history of evangelicalism in the nineteenth century,2 and reads the lives of Spurgeon, Müller, and Taylor against that backdrop, one can’t help but see that they were part of something much bigger than themselves. The waves of the Great Awakenings 1 Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1969), 408. 2 The stories of the first and second halves of the century are told respectively by John Wolffe, The Ex- pansion of Evangelicalism: The Age of Wilberforce, More, Chalmers and Finney (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007), and David W. Bebbington, The Dominance of Evangelicalism: The Age of Spurgeon and Moody (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005).