The first money I ever raised was for
the high school where God saved me.
I went to a local businessman and told
him I wanted to give a thousand Gospels
of John in my high school.
I didn't even have to ask him.
He said, I'd like to pay for those.
I knew that man worked very hard for
his money.
Many of the gifts that I've received all
these years were very small gifts.
When I lived in India, people would give
me finance.
That would represent sometimes a lot of money
for them.
The ministry of giving is one of the
greatest ministries God has given the body of
Christ.
As a young Christian, I sold everything I
had and gave it for global missions when
I was only 19.
When I met this woman that I told
you about last night, she heard the same
challenge.
She sold everything.
Gave me all of her money.
She gave me all of her money.
She had an inheritance from her father killed
in the war.
She had some money.
That supported the beginning of the whole work
there in Mexico.
God began to touch students to give their
possessions for me to sell.
God began to touch students to give their
possessions for me to sell.
My small bedroom became a second hand store
at Moody Bible Institute.
People would bring their things to sell because
God touched their heart.
I remember especially one man purchased something.
One student purchased something.
When he was about to leave my room,
I gave him Luke 14, 33.
Except you forsake all that you have, you
can't be his disciple.
He took his item and walked away.
God spoke to him.
He brought it back and gave it back
to me.
We could sell it again.
So I needed counsel from older Christians not
to just give away everything.
Especially when I got married.
You would not believe.
I didn't believe in any money for weddings.
No money for weddings.
No money for rings.
No honeymoon.
That's too much honey.
You need to remember my wife had read
I was a man of God.
And when men of God speak, women obey.
She had heard me preaching.
She liked my preaching.
I gave her the key verse from Ephesians
5.
The key verse for our marriage.
Submit to your husband as unto the Lord.
And so she accepted that.
And everything I asked her to do.
The trip to Mexico.
I didn't want to spend any money.
I gave the wedding cake for gasoline.
I traded the wedding cake for gasoline.
We had a small wedding after the Sunday
morning service.
We had a small wedding.
I compromised.
We had a small wedding after the Sunday
morning service.
So I traded things to get gasoline all
the way to Mexico.
5,000 kilometers.
But I was beginning to learn how to
compromise.
Because we traveled through the night.
And it was very cold.
And so the first thing I ever bought
my new wife was a cup of hot
chocolate.
It cost one dollar.
And I said, I told God I want
the dollar back.
The next night we stayed in the home
of a total stranger.
I looked in a phone book.
I saw Pastor Tututo.
I banged on his door.
I said, I'm a missionary to Mexico.
We have no place to stay.
He was so surprised.
He gave us the master bedroom.
The night before we were just traveling in
a truck, a very old truck.
Our first night in a special bedroom.
And the next morning he said goodbye.
And he gave me a dollar.
We have a God who supplies.
It may be a dollar.
It may be a hundred dollars.
It may be a million dollars.
We have a God who answers prayer.
We have a God who supplies our needs.
We have a God also who will test
us.
As the prayer is not immediately answered.
And in the struggle there sometimes are those
disappointments and those heartbreaks.
I love giving away things.
It's wonderful to give you all these books
and CDs.
But I want to give now something special
to my brother Mafdi who brought me to
Egypt.
These global outfits are almost impossible to get.
You have to serve God for 50 years.
You have to be 80 years old.
But I want to present brother Mafdi.
I put it on my
heart to bring an extra large.
And this is going to be a special
moment to see if this fits.
But here is the prize.
If it doesn't fit you can sell it.
And I will send you a triple X.
Let's try to put this on here.
Perhaps the Lord is speaking about losing a
little weight.
Let's pray now.
Lord we need your help now to get
back to your word.
We thank you that we can tell our
story.
Because your word is full of stories.
Of all kinds of people.
Of their victories.
But of their failures.
Even of their sins.
And we thank you for your holy word.
And we thank you that we can find
that biblical balance.
And be kept away from extremism.
That our lives may be a sweet savor
to those around us who are not of
our faith.
Help us now to focus on your word
even though it's far away.
We've heard so much ministry all day long.
But we ask in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Turn to this second book of Corinthians in
chapter 8.
This is such an important passage.
I hope you will study both chapter 8
and chapter 9 perhaps in the next day
or two.
We don't have time to go through these
two great chapters.
But let us look at chapter 8.
And where's the best?
Oh, sorry.
I'm in 1 Corinthians.
Please be patient.
Sorry.
This is 1 Corinthians.
No, it's 2 Corinthians.
This is 2 Corinthians.
Thank you for your patience.
There it is.
And now, brothers and sisters, we want you
to know about the grace that God has
given to the Macedonian churches in the midst
of very severe trial.
Their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled
up in generosity.
Just read the first two verses.
In the midst of very severe trial, their
overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up
in generosity.
For I testify that they gave as much
as they were able and even beyond their
ability.
They urgently pleaded with us for the privilege
of sharing in the service of the Lord's
people.
And they exceeded our expectation.
They gave themselves first of all to the
Lord and then by the will of God
also to us.
Please read through verse 7.
He gave a very persuasive argument why they
should give.
There is no biblical foundation for saying we
must not ask people for money.
There is no biblical foundation for that.
In the country where I live there was
a man named George Muller and in that
particular culture in the days of colonialism they
didn't believe very much in any kind of
salesman.
It says made in Great Britain that's all
you need.
So George Muller had a dim view of
sales people.
He was a great man of God.
He was actually from Germany.
Some of you know his story.
There's a film about his life and it's
called He was one of my heroes.
But he told people that he was only
going to look to God for the money.
But in that culture in that day that
was the best fundraising tactic he could use.
And then he would show pictures of the
orphans in the orphanage.
And he told the stories of how God
provided the money.
You would have to be very stupid not
to realize this man needs money.
Because I myself was so extreme that appealed
to me as a young Christian.
And I met some people especially a man
named William MacDonald who strongly believed this is
the biblical way.
And always OM soon became famous for practicing
the teaching of George Muller.
OM is looking to God alone.
We don't raise money.
We don't take offerings.
God will supply our needs.
And of course people who knew me and
they heard my story they knew money was
needed.
When I announced I'm going to buy a
ship again you'd have to be pretty stupid
not to know that I need some money
to buy a ship.
We would even say we have no wealthy
people supporting our work.
God is supporting our work.
Certain kinds of people gave OM money because
we had this practice.
But as we searched the scriptures we actually
couldn't find this teaching.
Instead we find the story of the Good
Samaritan.
The Samaritan helping the man by the side
of the road.
The good Samaritan helping the man putting him
in an inn paying the money and then
he says to the innkeeper if there's any
extra expenses let me know and I will
cover them.
Mahdi is looking for those kinds of people.
He wants someone to come to him and
say if you have any extra expenses let
me know and I will take care of
you.
And I also would welcome that.
I'll even give you a cup of coffee
and all these years I sit down with
people and share my story and then I
studied many many other men and women of
God.
Billy Graham Oswald J.
Smith General William Booth several hundred none of
them agreed with George Muller.
They were raising money in a godly way
that honored him.
And we noticed because everybody in OM had
to pray in some money that was a
requirement to come on OM you got to
trust God for some money and pay your
own way.
Now here's a very interesting study.
You probably never heard this before.
In a culture like Great Britain where people
understood that money came for OM.
But in Spain where people did not understand
that except a few the money did not
come.
When British people prayed and prayed the money
came.
When Spanish people prayed the money didn't come.
When Mexicans prayed the money didn't come.
One of the most difficult days in our
history our older ship was in Argentina many
wanted to join the ship they had to
have some money and they were praying and
praying and for many the money did not
come.
And they stood dozens of Latin Americans on
the docks and waved the ship goodbye some
of them weeping disappointed and broken because they
didn't have the money to serve God.
Dozens of Latin Americans were standing on the
docks weeping and waving goodbye the ship because
they wanted to go on the ship and
serve God but because of the money and
managed to stay on the ship.
And in the mid 80's we went back
to the Bible and we accepted Biblical fundraising
fundraising.
It was like a revival of fresh air
blew across our whole movement.
People could share with their friends.
If I don't see the money come in
I cannot join the ship.
They could share and they could say would
you support me as I join the ship.
And that's why thousands of people from Latin
America, from Africa, from every part of the
world, even China, have been able to come
on Operation Mobilization.
And if you want to get involved in
global missions, there's usually two different ways when
it comes to finance.
One is to have a skill that people
are willing to pay you for anywhere in
the world.
So you can get a job in these
countries.
You don't need to raise support.
And Arabs have been doing that.
And many other nationalities.
The second road is the main road that
OM uses, though we use both.
You pray, you exercise faith, and you share
your vision so people can understand.
In the days of George Mueller, there was
almost nothing like that in Great Britain.
Today in Great Britain, we have over 1
,000 Christian organizations raising money.
Some of them are not even preaching the
gospel.
People are confused.
They don't know what to give to.
And then they're coming in from India to
raise money in Great Britain.
People from all over the world come to
Britain to raise money because they hear there's
a lot of money in Great Britain.
Others are going to Germany.
They know there's more money in Germany.
But most people fly to the United States
and raise money there.
And there's not time to tell a story.
A lot of bad things have happened.
But a lot of good things have happened.
And we honor those who give to God's
work.
Whether it's the widow's mite or some big
gift from someone that God has entrusted wealth
to.
And so from the mid-80s to this
day, the joy of raising money for global
mission.
My wife and I have always raised our
own support.
Churches often change.
And they stop supporting a missionary.
Two churches in America stopped supporting us.
Three, actually.
And now my best supporting church is a
Chinese church in London.
God can bring money from amazing places.
There's a lot of inherited money.
Money being left from mom and dad to
the kids.
In some countries, the government gets a lot
of that money before it gets to anybody.
But God has raised up godly organizations that
teach people how to avoid extra tax.
How to use your money more carefully.
For the sake of your own family.
It's one of the greatest areas where we
need wisdom.
In some countries, people run up huge debt
on their credit card.
Many a marriage has broken because of the
financial mess and the debt.
The devil knows how to attack.
Most of you have a copy of this
book.
But you are busy people.
And you get texts and pictures on your
telephone.
Some of you like television.
Like to watch the sports, football.
And so there's no time for books.
And I have this fear that nobody is
going to read my book.
And so I'm praying that God will change
your heart.
Because I talk about money.
Which is so important in global missions.
Five times more difficult than finding the people.
Even here I've been talking to people.
They want to go into missions.
I said is your church an Antioch.
Acts 13 Antioch church.
They'll send you.
They say to me my church doesn't do
that.
And someone else told me that doesn't work
in Egypt.
But God is not dead.
He can bring in finance.
And some of you may have finance.
It's not easy to know what to do
with it.
But if you have any extra money, you
should put it into God's work.
The interest rates in heaven are ten times
greater than in the bank.
But I've had a lot of struggles seeing
so much foolishness among God's people.
But God has a loving way of reminding
me how foolish I have been.
After coming to a conference like this, you
should be a mission mobilizer.
We need what we call in English a
grass roots movement.
Not just a few leaders.
But as many as possible.
Talking about the nations of the world.
Showing missionary films.
There are many now.
Showing missionary books.
Telling young people how easy it is to
go on a short term experience.
Even in Egypt.
I want to ask you.
What do you talk about throughout the day?
I listen to what people talk about.
Most of the conversations, they don't seem to
be worth anything.
That doesn't mean they shouldn't talk.
We are people of purpose.
We should be talking about God's work.
One of the things that's helped us with
the ship.
When the ship goes into a country.
People talk about it.
So Christians who are afraid to share their
faith.
They talk about the ship.
And people ask what's that about?
And then they can give their testimony.
Hundreds of thousands have learned to share their
faith because that ship came to their country.
You've been to a great conference.
Maybe you met some new people.
When you go back from here.
People may ask where have you been for
three days?
Some may even criticize you.
Don't you work anymore?
Was that a holiday?
Did you go swimming?
As I said yesterday.
If nobody's criticizing you.
It's because you're not doing anything.
So we can talk about this conference.
We can talk about the crazy American.
And that may open the door.
As you pray may open the door to
talk about your faith.
They may help you open the door.
Why did you go to that conference?
Because I love Jesus.
You can try that on the bus next
Saturday.
I think of that great verse that's helped
me.
God has not given us a spirit of
fear but of courage and a sound mind.
We have a great God.
This event is so important in the sight
of God.
We are all imperfect people.
Whatever church or organization we join it will
be imperfect.
If you do find a perfect church you
better not go.
Because when you go it won't be perfect
anymore.
God wants to use you.
And I have given this book.
I've never made any money from my books.
Because I want to give you what so
many men and women have given to me.
Including your great friend Robert McCrook who was
such an influence in my life.
I've been so privileged.
I've sat under the teaching of more than
1,000 men and women.
I've been through over 1,000 books.
I've listened to 10,000 hours of teaching
on cassette tape and then CD.
God has given me so much.
So I give it to you.
Take some time to pray.
To read these great books.
Change the whole way that you use your
time.
The Bible says redeem the time because the
days are evil.
I try to use every minute to serve
my Savior.
And that has to include moments of rest.
Moments with my wife.
Moments having food.
We are not evangelistic robots.
And one of my favorite expressions and I
close with this.
No matter how filled we are with the
Holy Spirit.
We are incredibly human.
Don't be intimidated by your own humanness.
And especially your weaknesses.
For God's Word says His strength is made
perfect in weakness.
God bless you.
Hallelujah.