I never thought I would make it to
see Malcolm here, in Canada.
Our main contact over the years has been
the telephone.
And now, I spent a few days here
and met Stephen and his wonderful family.
And now all of you, family of God,
what a privilege that is for me.
Great, thank you so much.
I understand that at 2 o'clock I'm
on television?
Uh oh, why did you come?
You could have stayed home.
Last Sunday I was at the People's Church,
and I've preached many, many times before in
the good old days of J.
Smith, and later Paul and the others.
Now I'm on my way home.
Tomorrow I'll be heading home.
And then a few more Sundays after this
I'll be preaching at the Baptist Church in
Gaza, which is the only evangelical church in
all of Gaza.
And the little that is left there of
the Christians and the building, I hope I
can encourage them.
I usually go there two times a year.
Quite a world that we live in.
Some years ago I was flying over Saudi
Arabia.
It's taken off from the capital city Riyadh,
and at the airport I picked up an
international paper, International Heritage Tribune.
And I was reading that on the airplane,
and something caught my eye and shook me.
It was a book review, and the subject
of the book, it was a scientific book
on, what do you call it, opinion research
on the subject, who, which person in the
world history has influenced the world most.
And then we would have to answer that
question, and you grasp your Bible.
I think our answer would be very clear.
Jesus Christ, at least he influenced my life
more than anyone.
But when I read that article, flying over
Saudi Arabia, it stated that all the opinion
polls from around the world that indicated the
person who influenced the world more than anyone
else, was Mohammed.
And it hit me particularly hard because I
was flying right there, over Saudi Arabia.
So I looked down the list, the second
wasn't even Jesus.
It was Newton.
And then third and fourth place had to
be shared with Jesus and the Apostle Paul.
Shared.
That is the opinion the world has today
about Jesus Christ.
And that is the opinion the whole world
today has about Mohammed.
He is the number one.
And if we go on at a rate
like we do, he will be number one
in the next 100 years.
And Jesus will slip down the list.
Way, way down.
Is there anything we can do about that?
I came across a quote.
With more than a billion Muslims in our
world, who awaken daily without the scriptures, without
Christ, and without assurance of eternal life, we
must redouble our efforts in prayer, giving and
going.
I am not asking you to agree with
me or with that quote.
I am only stating it.
Because I have seen it.
I was there recently.
I have been preaching the last year in
churches where I had a guard with a
machine gun next to me.
I have been in churches where people have
been mowed down, mid-service and half of
the whole congregation killed.
In one big blast.
We live in a very strange world.
And we could never have imagined 50 years
ago when Malcolm Fenton and I went to
Missionary Training College together.
We were classmates.
And we had fun.
And we evangelized and we prayed and we
cried and we studied.
We would never have imagined at that time
what the world would come to in 50
years from that moment.
Nobody could have told us.
If somebody had told us, we would not
have believed him.
Impossible.
But it happened.
Where will we be 10 years from now,
50 years from now?
Where will our children be, our grandchildren?
And yet, we have the book.
I only have one book.
Well, some people say I have more books
in my study.
But every book I have in my study
is meant to make me understand this book
better.
That all related to this book.
I have one book and I want to
be known as the man of one book.
In Holland, I am known in many areas
as the man of the book.
And my surname, incidentally, is van der Beil.
And some believers in Holland sometimes mistake my
name and don't spell it right.
And they write a letter to Andrew of
the Bible instead of Andrew of the Beil.
It sounds almost the same.
Andrew of the Bible.
So that's how I get my mail.
I think that's great.
Let us become people that are known for
our knowledge and our affinity with the book.
It's only one book.
God's book.
And I want to read a couple of
passages from the book.
And I do always that with fear and
trembling because I've often stood in congregations where
no one had a Bible.
I have many times preached in a church
where even the pastor had no Bible.
And it did not make me feel good.
It made me more than ever determined that
I must make sure that everyone has a
Bible.
Especially every pastor must have a Bible.
But I believe every Christian must have a
Bible.
Let God speak and all men be silent.
Now the words I want to read are
about the Apostle Paul.
And they are the last two verses in
the Acts of the Apostles.
Or rather the Acts of the Holy Spirit
through the Apostles.
And there's only one word I want to
emphasize before I go on to the second
passage.
But I read the last two verses.
Then Paul dwelt two whole years.
Seems quite long I think for the Apostle
Paul.
I was on the move that man.
But two whole years.
In his own rented house although he was
a prisoner.
That's why he was there so long of
course.
And received all who came to him.
Preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the
things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with
all confidence.
No one forbidding him.
I'm reading from the New King James.
Other translations have the last word there.
Unhindered.
He proclaimed the message of Jesus Christ.
And the kingdom of God unhindered.
I want to state it clearly.
Because it's easy in our time to get
into some kind of persecution syndrome.
And think that doors are closed.
Well that's ridiculous.
Doors have never been closed since Jesus said
go.
Because God has not closed the door.
He's not contradicting himself.
So who would be interested in making us
believe that doors are closed?
The enemy of God.
And we're not going to believe him.
Amen?
So all doors are open.
And I've often very often challenged congregations especially
students.
If you think any door is closed in
the world where you cannot unhindered proclaim Christ
as Lord.
Then tell me about that closed door.
Then I will openly tell you how you
can get in.
I may not be able to tell you
how you can get out.
But that should be of no concern.
As long as the goal stands, the goal
should be our main concern.
Getting out?
Did Paul get out?
Did Jesus get out?
Did the apostles get out?
Did the martyrs get out?
The point is as far as the proclamation
of the gospel is concerned.
They were unhindered because every place becomes a
pulpit.
And the Bible says so clearly the word
of God is not bound.
Is not chained.
Even though the messenger may be chained.
But that does not diminish his influence.
To the contrary.
Our new testament will be awfully thin if
Paul had not been willing to go to
prison.
He had no time to write.
God said that I want you to write.
I think sometimes God had even his hand
in getting Paul into prison.
For our good.
To show the world that as far as
the proclamation was concerned it was unhindered.
Now here he is in Rome.
In his own rented house.
Although he is under house arrest.
He received all who came to him.
What else do you want?
All who came to him he received.
Great.
And if you cannot go to them.
Let them come to you.
That's a dangerous statement if you apply that
to the asylum seekers and the refugees.
And the rebels and the terrorists.
If you do not go to them they
will come to us.
I've said that for more than 40 years
in relation to the communists.
If you do not go to them they
will come to us but we won't like
it.
And I say the same today.
If you do not go to the fundamentalists.
If you do not go to the Muslims
they will come to us but we won't
like it.
Yet the Bible says the proclamation of the
kingdom comes first and it will be unhindered
if you will accept every circumstance.
Go or let them come.
Preferably go.
There's more fun in that I think.
And if you come back it only means
that you go again.
That's the reason for coming back.
Not for settling down.
But for resting, taking stock.
Get more faith and more prayer partners behind
you.
Get more support and go again.
And that's the lesson of course that God
has been teaching Paul and the others and
that God has been teaching me.
I only come home to go again.
Unhindered?
Absolutely unhindered.
Just talk about a soldier with a machine
gun.
Then what?
There's not any more nerve racking than speeding
on the highway and looking in your rear
mirror and seeing the police car behind you.
That is scary.
Makes me nervous anyway.
But not the machine gun guy.
He also has to hear the gospel.
That was Paul's attitude.
You hear for a purpose.
Doesn't matter where.
Doesn't matter what restrictions people put upon you
but the word of God is not changed.
The proclamation of the kingdom of God comes
first.
And then everyone will listen.
And that is the situation today.
But there is sometimes, very often I think,
a price to be paid.
But when we are not bothered by or
bound by or hindered by cultural bagage.
We can only preach Jesus Christ.
We are not hindered because of our religious
luggage.
We can preach Christ unhindered.
We are not depending on our political or
military or diplomatic protection.
That would hinder you.
Especially all the white people now in Asia
and in the Muslim world.
God forbid that there would ever be a
war in Iraq.
But if that happens, no white skinned person
should get anywhere near the Middle East or
the Near East.
Or any area stretching from Indonesia to Morocco.
The 1040 window.
So then who is going to do it?
We have to go back to the scriptural
principles.
And not be bogged down by or discouraged
by all those reports.
You can't do that.
It's too dangerous.
The only danger that I know of is
being out of the center of the will
of God.
That is dangerous.
But once you are in the center of
God's will, there is not a single dangerous
place in the world.
Only open doors.
And this very word unhindered is just the
same word basically as open doors.
Not looking at circumstances, coming with a message
and going to proclaim it.
And you will find that they are waiting
for you.
When I made my first contact about 10
years ago with the Hamas.
Now of course one of the most notorious
terrorist organizations in the world.
But Israel had deported over 400 of them.
You may remember on the 17th of December
1992.
That will soon be 10 years ago.
And they were there on those forgotten Allah
forsaken mountains.
Where nothing grows, cold, middle of the very
severe winter.
And it looked that they were there to
die.
And I was at that time speaking at
the mission, mission fest in Holland.
That's the equivalent of the big mission conference
that I have here.
And there was a phone call from Lebanon.
Please come and spend New Year's Eve with
the deported Hamas quote-unquote terrorists.
I was greatly tempted to leave the 8
,000 students behind.
But then I figured no, the Hamas will
be there for quite a while.
The students I only had for one week.
Let's unite in prayer for a very explosive
volatile situation.
So we had a midnight prayer concert to
call it.
We all prayed, I was in charge of
the prayer services.
And I asked them to pray for the
Palestinians.
Pray for the Hamas, pray for the terrorists.
Because a terrorist is not born, a terrorist
is made.
By sheer neglect and rejection.
And anything that is made can be remade
by Jesus.
Give him a chance.
And we had a very moving prayer time.
Young people came afterwards to me and said
Andre we have never ever prayed for Palestinians.
Soon after I left with my bags full
of Bibles.
I went all the way to Lebanon to
those mountains to meet the Hamas.
And the first thing they said, listen carefully
friends.
The first thing they said, we knew that
Christ would come to us.
Who told them?
Who told them that Christ would come in
that desperate situation?
That they were branded as terrorists but they
were not otherwise they would not have been
there.
Israeli government officially said they are not terrorists.
There is no blood on their hands otherwise
we would not have exported them, deported them.
I said well then why?
And I was there with books.
Also with Kory Tembun books.
I said here.
I said the leaders of the Hamas.
I said read Kory Tembun books.
Then you can see that you can also
become famous for saving Jewish lives.
I mean somebody has got to tell them.
I did.
And the welcome we had.
And the openness.
And the follow up.
What happened after that.
It is too long to tell the story
today.
But it ended up in special large evangelistic
meetings.
In Gaza.
And in Hebron.
And in Nablus.
And in Ramallah.
And in Bethlehem.
With Hamas.
Sharing Jesus Christ.
Sharing the word of God.
And it goes on till today.
I'll be again with them in a few
weeks time.
But don't put that on television otherwise I'll
get arrested at the border.
I mean here not there.
I'm not here really.
I'm in USA.
Not in Canada.
You're nice guys.
But if nobody tells them.
Aren't we then guilty of perpetuating that terrorist
situation?
When are we going to see them and
share Jesus Christ?
When are we going back to the scriptural
principles?
That once we have been baptized into Jesus
Christ with a new creature.
Everything has become new.
Our outlook is new.
Our outlook on politics too.
And diplomacy and military.
We believe in the kingdom of God.
And we don't need a stupid silly army
to protect us.
If God's angels are protecting us.
So let's bank on that and go.
And we find that it's so great.
I've just come back again from that area.
I cannot give too many details.
But I work a lot with the Afghan
situation.
And this year I had several baptismal services
in which I baptized a good number of
Afghan believers.
They came from all over the country.
From Afghanistan to the place where I was
baptizing.
It was so wonderful.
See, young man, I already baptized two mullahs
this year.
And now they're evangelists.
They're preaching Christ.
There's founding churches all over Afghanistan.
And then miracles take place before and after
baptism.
We started the Bible school last, in September.
Afghan Bible school to train pastors.
And they told me then the story how
the women.
They're very poor by the way.
There is a terrible famine in Afghanistan.
Because all the nations that promised them billions
of dollars have not paid.
The whole world is letting Afghanistan down.
They're dying on the streets.
The women, Christian women, were trying to beg
for bread.
Only found some dry crusts of bread.
And they soaked them in water for a
while so that they have a bigger volume.
And then they eat it to fill their
stomach.
I thought, these are my sisters.
And the Bible teaches that there must be
equality.
Whatever I do for myself, I must do
for them.
And we already think about dinner on Sunday.
I bet you were thinking about dinner this
morning.
We were not thinking about these women crawling
there to the dustbins trying to find bread.
And then they said, we've got to do
something about this extreme poverty.
The Christians got together and they said, well,
we were famous in the past for carpets.
Afghan carpets.
So they bought a couple of small looms
to weave carpets.
And they made a carpet.
And I'll show you this one.
This one was still in Afghanistan in September.
Jesus is Lord.
In English.
You see, they couldn't do it in Pashtun,
but nobody would buy a Pashtun carpet.
But it had to be English, so that
at least they figured Brother Andrew would buy
them from us.
I did.
I filled my suitcase with them.
Jesus is Lord.
They are in their desperate situation of starvation.
In isolation.
In constant threat from the Muslim fundamentalists.
And the Taliban still there in power.
They're saying that Jesus is Lord.
Basis is the cross of Christ.
It touched me so deeply.
I thought I've got to go to show
the folks here.
In Canada.
That God is doing something.
Don't give up hope.
God is doing something.
But there is a price to be paid.
I was also, this year, in a church
where the Muslims came in and threw bombs
in the congregation on Sunday.
During the service.
It was a small congregation.
And half of the entire congregation was killed.
We don't read it in our newspapers.
Only if they throw a bomb in an
international church, then we publish it.
But not those people there.
Who cares?
We all seem to believe that the Western
life is worth more than an Asian life.
Certainly more than an African life.
And they begged me to come and pray
with them.
Speak to them.
And I did that.
And they gave me a calendar.
And it moved me to tears.
It is the most unique calendar, I think,
in the world.
Put out by the church for the year
2002.
To commemorate all the people that were killed
in that one bomb.
And they made it a calendar.
Think of having to look at the calendar
every day in your kitchen.
With the faces of your pastor and your
relatives and your brothers and sisters who were
killed in that bomb blast.
I would never make a calendar of that.
They did.
And when I had the service there, for
one, I already didn't know what to say.
What can I say?
I fly in on a KLM plane and
I leave on a KLM plane after a
while.
And I leave them behind.
We supported them financially.
Get the life going again.
We were in the church.
And then all the survivors there were sitting
here.
Stood up.
Walked to this side of the church.
Stood there.
The guy mounted the drum like Micah did
so skillfully.
And they began to sing.
I choked up.
Would I sing when everybody else was dead?
Unhindered.
Circumstances, however sad or cruel or adverse, do
not stop the flow of the gospel.
Because God continues to work.
But there's a condition.
There are conditions to be met.
And one of them is our willingness to
lay down our lives for Christ.
Facing terrorism, let's call it an enemy.
Facing a movement that we have no answer
to.
Filling us with fear.
Eliminating, therefore, the scriptural teaching that perfect love
casts out fear.
But we experience today that perfect fear casts
out love.
And I have found very few people who
love terrorists.
And if you don't love them, how can
we ever win them for Jesus?
I'm asking you.
And if they cannot love me, how can
they ever love my Savior?
We are in the way, blocking the way.
We must do something about that.
We must realize that God gave us our
life to be spent for others.
And one story that came to our attention
very much because we are, as open doors,
very much involved in missionary work in Central
Asia.
When the Iron Curtain suddenly collapsed.
Well, suddenly.
Because we all saw it coming.
But it came so quick, we didn't predict
that.
We knew it had to break down.
Because saying there is no God is the
most stupid statement anybody can make.
And it's even more stupid and schizophrenic to
say God is dead and then do everything
to fight him.
Who would fight a dead God?
I mean, it's crazy, that system.
So, no wonder it collapsed.
But then, at least they had a plan.
They had a vision for a new age
world in which there was no place for
God.
And whoever did enter that territory with the
message of Jesus was persecuted.
That's why open doors for many years, decades,
worked in the communist countries.
And I was in practically all of them.
Spending all my time either there or in
the refugee camps.
Only going home when I was too tired,
too dirty and too poor and too sick
to continue.
So, my children didn't have much fun with
their dad, unfortunately.
I asked their forgiveness later, with tears.
But that whole system was fiercely opposed to
any other message.
And then communism collapsed, but the opposition not.
And in Central Asia, where many churches were
founded since, there was one church in Dushanbe.
I was there in my years until my
book came out.
I couldn't go back to the Soviet Union.
But that was 30 years ago when I
started working in the Middle East.
And again, in that service, Muslim fanatics came
in and threw bombs in the congregation.
Many were killed.
And I have pictures here with me from
the church on Sunday morning.
After they had carried the dead and the
wounded out.
Blood splattered on the walls and dripping down
from the steps.
And these are our brothers and sisters.
And then on the body of one of
the survivors, no, one of the victims, they
found the Bible.
And the Bible was open with a certain
passage that I fearfully want to read to
you.
Because we got hold of that Bible.
And it was splattered, stained with blood.
And I made a picture of that page.
And I'm going to give it to Pastor
Stephen after this service.
The blood of that person was on the
page of this Bible.
And I looked it up.
It was the page on 2 Corinthians chapter
4.
And I will read that to you.
Because on the page were three verses emphasized.
Verse 7, 8, and 9.
As you can see here.
They're emphasized.
So, I looked it up.
And I read.
But we have this treasury in earthen vessels.
That the excellence of the power of God,
power may be of God and not of
us.
We are hard pressed on every side, yet
not crushed.
We are perplexed, but not in despair.
Persecuted, but not forsaken.
Struck down, but not destroyed.
Always carrying about in the body the dying
of the Lord Jesus.
That the life of Jesus also may be
manifested in our body.
In this physical body of mine.
Not as a big town preacher.
But as one who quietly moves in enemy
territory.
To share Christ.
And these are the verses they had underlined.
That is faith.
That is what we're talking about.
And then I say, unhindered.
Unhindered?
Unhindered.
Because you've got to die one day anyway.
What's your problem of getting there a little
earlier?
Receive the shouts of hallelujah instead of the
half hour silence in heaven that Revelation speaks
about.
Hallelujah.
Unhindered.
And then suddenly you see a world that's
opening up.
Open doors everywhere.
Open doors among the so-called terrorists.
Open doors to present the gospel in this
world of tremendous conflict.
Realizing there is another life for us.
There's another future for us.
There's another welcome waiting for us.
The well done which one day our Lord
and Master will speak, I hope, over my
life too.
Oh my God, I hope he will say
that.
But one thing I know, when we get
to heaven's gate he will not look us
over for medals.
He will look us over for scars.
He won't say, what's that ribbon?
Oh Lord, this is the badge I have
from open doors.
Oh, great.
That one.
Well, that was when I attended an all
-night prayer meeting for a suffering church.
They gave me a medal for it.
It was the next day I took off
to sleep in.
I mean, you don't have to be too
fanatical in the world.
God is not looking over those things.
God will look for scars.
There's Amy Carmichael, that famous lady missing to
India.
Once wrote in one of her famous verses,
I love them so much.
She said, he has not traveled far who
has no wound or scar.
And the Apostle Paul says in the end
of Philippians, No, Galatians, from now on let
no one trouble me, for I bear in
my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.
He meant the scars.
And I wonder if we would have to
make a list.
Maybe you sit down tonight, make a list
of the scars you have in your body.
That you earned for Jesus.
Maybe it will be a very short list,
I'm not sure.
But I do know that one of the
prophets that I identify with most of all
is Prophet Jeremiah.
He said in 4.19, oh my anguish,
my anguish.
I rise in pain, oh the agony of
my heart.
My heart pounds within me, I cannot keep
silent.
For I have heard the sound of the
trumpet.
I have heard the battle cry.
And we must readjust our priorities when we
read the New Testament.
When Jesus says in the Sermon on the
Mount, Blessed are the peacemakers.
It doesn't mean we must now join a
peace demonstration.
It means that Jesus sends us to the
arena of war.
That's where peacemakers are needed, not with friends.
I hope.
Where there is war, the peacemakers must go.
Because you have another message.
The message came to Jesus that he paid
for with his own blood.
And now I am here ready to pay
with my blood.
As long, as long as they get the
message.
And then the Lord will heal and change
the situation in the world.
By people who accept that fact.
To live for Christ, otherwise you cannot die
for Christ.
One day we had the pastor seminar in
the north of Pakistan in the city of
Peshawar.
Where my children incidentally still live.
They are little ones.
And every year we have pastor seminars in
that area.
Attended by two or three hundred pastors.
They sometimes travel 30 or more hours together.
It's the only way they get any scriptural
training.
Although they are still running a church, they
know so little.
And one of the teachers was Haik.
Haik from Iran.
And he had to be my friend already.
I knew him.
I worked with him.
And now I noticed how everybody was just
drinking in his words.
Because Haik spoke from experience of persecution.
His face was already marred.
He had the scars of Jesus on his
body.
So easy for me to say all those
things.
But then he says it.
Then the end of the seminar came.
And I have written that in one of
my books.
The calling.
He shook hands with me and said, Andrew,
when they kill me.
He didn't say if, he said when they
kill me.
It will be for speaking up and not
for being quiet.
Four weeks later he was dead.
For speaking, not for...
You can escape pressure and even persecution as
long as you keep your big mouth shut.
But the moment when we proclaim the name
of Jesus and the message of the kingdom
of God like Paul did.
And realize we do it unhindered.
Because if the executioner comes.
Well that will be the end.
But I don't plan the end.
I plan to go on.
That's unhindered.
But you got to pay a price.
My friend Ike did.
He was dead and last week we had
a big open doors day in Holland.
And his widow was at our open doors
day.
And she stood up with her two sons
and she sang.
And everybody was in tears.
Because even we in Holland, we don't know
much of that reality.
But it is a reality.
One day I was in Saudi Arabia.
I have traveled a lot there.
I have preached a lot in Saudi Arabia.
I have smuggled a lot to Saudi Arabia.
Smuggle is a wrong word.
I take it in unofficially.
Without declaring it.
I don't smuggle.
And the Filipino believers asked me if I
could open a new church next Sunday.
Now this is very illegal and very dangerous.
Because it is totally forbidden.
Even the presence of a Christmas tree would
land you in prison or in a coffin.
No, nothing Christian is allowed in Saudi Arabia.
And he asked if I could dedicate a
new church next Sunday morning.
And I did.
And there was a congregation bigger than this.
And I still remember what I spoke about
in Revelation 17.
And all the evil forces in the world
unite their power to make war on the
Lamb.
But the Lamb overcomes.
Because he is Lord of Lords and King
of Kings.
And those that are with him that are
called and chosen and faithful.
Do you know that verse?
Because we pick out a few words.
He is King of Kings and Lord of
Lords.
No, no.
It doesn't say that.
It is in that conflict.
That total confrontation with all the power of
evil.
That he is Lord of Lords and King
of Kings.
You can't just cut it out and make
it a nice chorus.
And have a CD and what have you.
That is not life.
It's out there in the conflict.
And I spoke about this verse.
And I said, you know how long this
will go on?
A few verses further.
I think it's in 17 verse 17.
Until the words of God are fulfilled.
Because it's the word of God that matters.
Not our efforts.
Not our church buildings.
Not our denomination.
The word of God.
Until the word of God is fulfilled.
Will this conflict last?
And will we have to proclaim the victory
of Jesus?
Not when we get to heaven.
There is no sense in doing it there.
Here.
In the conflict.
That was Sunday morning.
We had a great meeting.
Next morning, the religious police came in.
Destroyed everything inside.
Locked the doors.
Shut up the pastor in prison.
Sentenced to die by hanging.
Next Christmas morning.
It's still a method they use a lot
in Saudi Arabia.
Hang the Christians.
And we prayed mightily hard for my friend
in prison.
I felt a little bit more responsible even
for having dedicated his church the day before.
Now he's in prison.
And he was tortured.
And he was beaten.
And he had scars all over his body.
Poor guy.
He did not denounce Jesus.
And then one night.
Bright light appeared in his cell.
Jesus stepped into his cell and touched him.
And healed him.
Even took away his scars.
Related my friend.
Complained to the Lord.
He complained.
He said, Lord, you took away my scars.
How can I prove I was tortured?
His scars were even gone.
And the morning, the morning before Christmas.
They suddenly took him out of prison and
threw him back to Manila.
A free man because we prayed.
Now here's the secret.
Instead of just sitting down there and complaining
about the bad world.
Let's get into action.
Let's rise and shine.
Let's get together and pray.
Pray for open doors.
Pray for me too.
I still need a lot of prayers.
I'm pioneering into those situations.
Because as we pray, we see God's answers.
In the lives of those we pray for.
Prayer is still the answer.
And we had a mighty wave of prayer
going over the world when my friend Wally
was in the Saudi prison.
Until he came out.
That's the way we should act.
Pray.
And to many of us, especially young people.
One day God will say, how about answering
your own prayer?
Oh, Lord, never thought of it.
Well, we did.
Unhindered.
Because somebody cared.
Timothy.
Sent a letter to him.
Timothy, come bring my coat.
It's getting awfully cold.
It's just in the beginning.
Roman winter.
Very cold.
And bring my Bible, he says.
And bring John Mark.
And bring supplies.
And bring money.
I have to pay my rent.
And Paul could write.
He could communicate.
And as long as we can do that,
there is a lifeline that we must use
to get through to them.
That's why he says, unhindered.
I can do anything I want.
Wait a minute, Paul.
You were in one room.
No, he said, I can do everything I
want.
People come to me.
If I can't go to them, it makes
no difference.
The status and situation of the messenger is
totally subordinate in relation to the message.
Jesus Christ is Lord, even if I pay
for it with my own blood.
But let's get on with it.
Pray.
And you know, that is one of the
main messages that I want to convey.
Pray in faith.
Pray with the willingness to have the page
in your Bible splattered with your own blood.
Pray that things will change now that we
face this new enemy.
I already said, communism at least had a
plan for the world.
Islam has a plan for the world.
But without the God who gave his son
to die.
But terrorism has no plan.
They only destroy.
And we have no answer.
We cannot nearly match the dedication of the
guys that blow themselves up.
I tell you, I get letters from these
guys.
I talk to these guys.
Only God knows how many have not committed
suicide because Brother Andrew talked or prayed with
them.
I even got a letter recently from a
Hamas man.
He said that he was one of the
suicide volunteers.
He said, Andrew, there is no future for
me.
There is no plan I can make except
that one terrible thing.
Would you please pray for me?
Time and again, it's these people that ask
for my prayer.
Pray for them.
Pray with them.
One day I was visiting again in Bethlehem.
Bethlehem Bible College is my base when I'm
in that area.
That's where I'll be a couple of weeks
from now.
And whenever I preach there, I have quite
a number of Muslims come to my meeting
because they know me.
They know me from the time I was
in the mountains.
They also know me because of the aid
we give, the food we give.
Especially the Christians.
We're feeding one thousand families in that area.
And I had spoken there.
And I had challenged them.
Because the Muslims want to argue.
They want to debate or they want to
dialogue.
And I'm not a man for dialogue.
I'm totally ignorant.
Although I was at the rec college, but
we didn't learn much there, as you know
from Malcolm.
We only learned to have a passion for
souls.
Is that enough?
I think it is enough.
And I said to them, and I've repeated
it later when I was teaching in the
Hamas University.
I said, I'm not interested or qualified to
have a dialogue with you over the theology
of Quran.
Or the Bible or even the existence of
God or Mohammed.
I cannot debate all that.
But there's one thing I want to have
a dialogue with any of you at any
time.
And that is on this question.
What kind of person does the book produce?
Let's talk about that.
Suicide bombers or healers?
People with compassion or people with hatred?
Can we, in a joint effort, give them
a reason for living?
Whereas at the moment they only see a
reason for dying.
Can we turn them around?
I've been speaking there in Bethlehem.
And a professor, a well-known Muslim scholar,
comes to me and says, Andrew, if you
are still in touch with Jesus, will you
please ask him to come soon and help
us?
I felt so small.
If you are still in touch with Jesus,
could he not see that?
Could he not hear that in my words?
As I was so powerless in my preaching
there, that he wasn't sure if I was
still in touch with Jesus.
Andrew, if you're still in touch with Jesus,
could you please ask him to come soon
and help us?
With that I want to end, because I
could go on.
I could even accept the invitation to preach
as long as I want to.
But I won't, because my history in Eastern
Europe, in the communist countries, is too much
for Canadians to bear.
They had no clock, but they had time.
And I would often speak for four hours.
And I think, oh, poor congregation.
I would say, Amen.
Before I got to the chair, the pastor
would get up.
Andrew, no, thank you for your brief introduction.
Now we want your sermon.
Oh, gosh, what do you do?
Just grab your Bible, shoot up a telegram
prayer, which God does answer, provided you take
time for prayer when you have time.
And open the word again.
That's how we fill the one service a
week we could have, from eight to six.
But we've got to find an answer.
And I want you to believe the word.
It's unhindered.
Doors are open.
We pay the price.
The world will turn around.
There's no other way.
Is that enough?
Then I quit.
God bless you.