1 Corinthians chapter 10, 1
Corinthians chapter 10, I want to speak to
you tonight on the subject of the perils,
the perils of the victorious life, the dangers,
the pitfalls of the victorious or the abundant
life.
I'll never forget reading a little pamphlet by
a great man of God named Trumbull on
the subject of the perils of the victorious
life.
And I tell you when I finished reading
that pamphlet, I never thought the same again.
I never thought the same again.
In Luke 14 we're told to count the
cost.
We're told how foolish it is to go
forth to war or to build a building
without first sitting down and counting the cost.
And I believe these days of conference are
days of counting the cost.
They're days of seeing what we're going into,
of seeing what's involved, and then by faith
saying, I believe, as we talked about the
other night.
And I believe we need to count the
cost.
Let us read this passage of Scripture.
Moreover, brethren, I would not that you should
be ignorant, how that all our fathers were
under the cloud, and all passed through the
sea, and were all baptized into Moses in
the cloud and in the sea, and did
all eat the same spiritual meat, and did
all drink the same spiritual drink, and did
all drink the same spiritual drink, for they
drank of that spiritual rock that followed them,
and that rock was Christ.
But with many of them God was not
well pleased, for they were overthrown in the
wilderness.
Now these things were our examples to the
intent we should not lust after evil things,
as they also lusted.
Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of
them, as it is written, the people sat
down to eat and drink, and rose up
to play.
Neither let us commit fornication, as some of
them committed, and fell in one day three
and twenty thousand, that's twenty-three thousand, fell
in one day.
Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of
them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents.
Neither murmur ye, as some of them also
murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.
Now all these things happened unto them for
examples, and they are written for our admonition,
upon whom the ends of the world are
come.
Wherefore, let him that thinketh he standeth take
heed, lest he fall.
There hath no temptation taken you, but such
as is common to man.
But God is faithful, who will not suffer
you to be tempted above that you are
able, but will with the temptation also make
a way of escape, that ye may be
able to bear it.
Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry.
I speak as to wise men, judge ye
what I say.
This is a shocking passage of Scripture.
Really, you wonder how it got in the
Bible.
The story of twenty-three thousand people who
fell in immorality in one day.
Twenty-three thousand fornicators.
The world's most realistic, straightforward, on-top-of
-the-table book.
That's what we've got in front of us,
and it's amazing.
And this is the story of God's people,
who according to verse four, had all drank
of that rock.
They had all experienced something of God.
They all knew God.
And they were pressing on through the wilderness,
and they, well, we all remember when they
arrived at the other side of the Red
Sea.
The songs they sang, the praises they sang,
and of course they were a victorious, a
victorious multitude.
Such tremendous, tremendous victory.
And then we read about what happened.
I'm scared for some of you.
Maybe that's the wrong choice of a word.
But I know the destiny of many religious
zealots.
Many of us have come into this work
because we have a zeal for the Lord.
Or at least, we have a zeal.
And the destiny of most people who have,
or who at some time in their younger
years, have this kind of zeal, and get
involved in the kind of work that we
are getting involved in, the destiny, is not
a pretty one.
The majority of us in this room, especially
those of you who are young, the majority
of us will end up on a tangent.
Will end up at a dead end street.
A cul-de-sac, I think they say
in France.
And I begin to think of it, and
it makes me just say, Lord, Lord, what
can I do?
You say, well why do you say that?
What a thing to say.
What are you, Operation Discouragement?
Operation Kick Me Down?
No, Operation Realism.
Look at history.
Look at other universities.
Look at other youth movements.
Look at other missionary movements.
We want to be realistic, don't we?
And the reason that many of us will
end up knocked out, the reason many of
us will end up on a tangent, will
end up on the shelf, Corinthians 9, is
because we didn't realize in advance the perils
of this kind of life.
The perils of the victorious life.
The perils of giving all to Jesus Christ
and coming in to that deep walk with
him.
Because, and it's hard to explain this, but
it's true, when a man becomes an intense
and a committed man for Christ, it's in
a sense like stretching the bowstring.
And the more you stretch the bowstring, the
greater the impact when it snaps.
And this has been proven again and again.
Men who were intense with God, who preached,
who won souls, who had zeal, who walked
in victory, down through history, if you read
history carefully, have become powerful instruments in the
hands of Satan.
I don't think there's a need tonight to
mention a lot of names, but it's true.
And those of you who are older, you
know how true it is.
Young person, it might be better for you
to go home at the end of this
conference.
But think about it a little more.
That's right.
It might be better for you to go
home and get in your local church, and
get affiliated in contact with some believers, and
think about it some more.
Study the word some more.
Listen to the tapes again.
Then take a premature step into spiritual combat,
a premature step into this kind of life,
because there are many perils.
There are many perils.
And oh my, when I meet people, like
one girl, that's right, she went to India.
She was intense.
She was in love with the Lord.
She was committed.
No doubt there were areas of weakness.
I won't have to tell you any more.
It's not necessary.
Needless to say, though serving Christ in India,
though being used to win souls, though all
the rest, it's just far, far, far from
the Lord.
And when I see, or when I hear,
or think over it, I tremble.
I realize this is a battle casualty.
It might have never happened if she hadn't
gone.
Young person, don't go into OM for a
year without counting the cost.
Satan is not some kind of jovial fellow
who is throwing stones in the brook.
He knows where his enemies are.
He knows that when a man comes into
victory, when a man forsakes all and follows
Christ, that he is a potential everything he
doesn't want.
I like the little booklet, Demon's Nightmare.
And you just see, when this fellow starts
to win souls for Christ, all the demons
start to throw everything they have, and they're
calling all the plays and making every attempt
to stop this soul winning.
And when you determine in your heart, you're
going to win men to Christ, you're going
to turn your back on the world, you're
going to give your life to prayer, and
to snatching men from the jaws of hell,
Satan draws up a master plan to ruin
your life and drive you into the ground.
If you don't believe that, then you must
read a different Bible than I read.
Satan seeketh whom he may devour.
Speaking of the wicked, wicked woman in the
book of Proverbs, it says, and she seeketh
and hunted for the precious life.
That's right.
And I know young men that never had
a temptation in the area of morals to
any degree, until they got active in the
work of God, until they got out in
front line combat, and then again and again
and again, the devil brought situations, the perils
of the victorious life.
Better to go home, better to wait here,
better to say, not me, Lord, I'm not
ready.
I admit I can't count the cost.
I admit it.
I'll go home.
Than to go into battle, than to forsake
all and to commit your life, even for
a year, in this kind of way.
You will, without a doubt, if you become
desperate and concerned about the messages we are
giving, you without a doubt will become a
primary target of the evil one.
And every one of our leaders could come
up here and give testimonies to subtle, stinging
darts that were thrown at them.
The perils of the victorious life.
Of course, that's why it's so important to
make sure you have the victory.
Let me list a few of the perils
that have come to my mind that I
believe can especially hit us in OM.
The peril of pride.
Pride.
The Bible says that pride cometh before the
victory.
That's Satan's version.
Pride cometh before a fall.
Ooh, I tell you.
Pride.
Intellectual pride.
Any of it here tonight?
Bible knowledge pride.
Ooh, very subtle.
Preacher's pride.
Church planter's pride.
All kinds of spiritual pride can come in.
When we get into the battle, we see
some victories.
We see some men won.
We see a church planted.
And all we become pasta.
Pride cometh before a fall.
It's deadly.
It's one of the perils of the victorious
life.
It's one of the perils that comes to
us in OM as we commit ourselves to
the task.
As we say, Lord, anywhere, at any time,
at any cost.
The peril of pride.
Subtle, terrible, hideous pride that has ruined many
a man of God.
Many a man of God.
I want to tell you I've seen how
pride has come in to even men who
are used mightily of God.
Mightily.
In ministry.
In edification.
In soul winning.
And yet a subtle form of pride clings
and creeps into the heart and the man
does not sin.
The man does not sin.
I've seen it again and again all over
the world.
Spiritual pride.
One of the perils of the victorious life.
One of the perils of the man who's
living in the heavenlies.
That's right.
One of the perils of the man who
knows the inner fellowship with the Lamb, with
the Lord.
Spiritual pride.
Beware that leaders, those of you who have
been to the field, those of you who
have been used, those of you who have
led men to Christ, those of you who
have tasted of spiritual things, as these people
there in the wilderness, beware of spiritual pride.
Beware of any form of pride.
Remember what Amy Carmichael said?
If I want any other place on all
the earth other than the dust at the
foot of the cross, I know nothing of
Calvary love.
Is that the place that you want tonight?
No pride there.
Another peril that comes, the peril of a
critical spirit.
Here we sit, day in and day out,
and we're getting so much truth.
We're hearing so many messages.
Do you realize what a privilege and yet
what a responsibility it is to go through
a conference like this, with men like Mr.
Wormbrot coming into our midst, and with others,
and giving ourselves to the Word, and to
prayer, and to seeing things, and hearing things
that many people never have the opportunity to
see and hear, by the very fact they
don't have the time.
They have to work.
People can't spend all day in the Bible
conference, and that's why I get so thrilled
when some of you visitors come night after
night.
I realize you're working a lot harder than
we are.
And oh my, how we can get truth,
and instead of having that truth for our
own edification and to build up our own
spiritual life, we use it to build up
a false standard, and then we criticize everyone
else who's not up on that standard.
It's a terrific peril of this kind of
life.
And you go back to your church, and
right away you want to take all that
you learn, and you want to cram it
down your pastor's throat, becoming almost unconscious of
the fact that the man who's been living
30 years for Jesus Christ, studying the Bible
for 30 years, might have something to teach
you.
I mean, it's possible.
It's possible.
But this critical spirit, this attitude of know
-it-all, this attitude of, well, my, I've
got a chunk of truth that very few
have today.
And out we go with our chunks of
truth, and most people get indigestion when we
try to feed it.
A critical spirit.
Are there any of us here that have
this critical spirit?
You know, any idiot can criticize.
Any idiot.
I had a terrible critical spirit.
When I went to Bible college, everything I
saw I criticized.
I could have written an encyclopedia of criticata
on that place.
Everything seemed to be going wrong.
Everybody was unspiritual.
Nobody was winning souls.
Nobody was wanting to pray through the night.
Long lists of things I had.
The Pharisee list.
I had it on my wall.
It's a deadly thing.
And it's a peril in O.M. It's
a peril in any spiritual movement.
It's a peril in any church that's alive.
We in the live church look at the
dead church down the street.
Oh, my.
If they'd only get on the ball, if
they'd only see the vision, if they'd only
understand the truth, maybe it's our lies, maybe
it's our pride, maybe it's our critical spirit,
maybe it's our censoriousness that's keeping them from
knowing the truth.
Beware of critical spirit.
I tell you, God has broken me, broke
me back then, again and again and again,
on this point.
And I thank him, and I praise him,
that we can be delivered from all critical
spirit.
And that's why, praise God, all over the
world we've been able to fellowship with other
believers and work under them.
Do you think that we can't work with
people unless they agree with all the little
O.M. superstructure, all the little O.M.
periphery?
It's ridiculous.
Because we must go out to unite with
those who believe the basic truths, and together
with them accomplish the job for God.
And as you go back to your church,
if you have a critical attitude, if you
have a negative attitude and negative thinking is
one of the greatest soul-killing practices, you
can engage it.
If you are a negative thinker, if you
are pessimistic, you see everything from the black
side.
Though the light shines in your eye, you
only see the dark, even if you have
to close your eyes to do it.
If you're this type, you're in for probably
a good dose of mental trouble sooner or
later.
Oh, that we might have a positive attitude,
a joyful attitude.
Might we not go into a church and
see all that isn't happening?
Might we look for something that is happening,
and believe me, God is working, even in
a place where you think everything is so
-called dead according to your definitions.
Just because the pastor doesn't shout, just because
the organ doesn't jump off the floor and
they don't divide up in twos for prayer,
doesn't mean the place is dead.
But we get our little preconceived ideas, we
get our little biases, and we build the
little O.M. image, and if you don't
come up to the O.M. image, well,
we don't have to say it.
We can speak with our looks.
We can speak with our attitudes.
We can speak by our silence.
We can speak by our non-commitment.
There are many ways to speak without opening
your mouth, many ways.
Oh, may God deliver us from any form
of critical spirit.
And may we just refuse, absolutely refuse to
criticize any other born-again Christian group.
May we just run from it.
May we flee from it.
May we just stay a mile away.
We can speak in authority as God gives
grace and in power against wrong practices, yes,
against materialism, against all these things we're talking
about.
But we do not have the right to
go and to name a specific group, if
they are born-again believers and brothers and
sisters in Christ, and criticize.
If we have some criticism, go to them
according to Matthew 18 and tell them direct.
Let us be in O.M. completely delivered
from bombarding other Christian groups and from tearing,
comparing.
You know, like the tobacco men.
I used to see the ads on television
when I was back in the States before
I knew the Lord.
They'd always take a little cigarette.
Tear and compare, tear and compare, funny-looking
man on the screen.
And he'd tear the cigarette down, oh, look
at this, look at, tear the other cigarette
down.
This brand is the best brand.
Smoke this brand, smoke this brand.
And that's just the way some of us
are in O.M. Any Christian group, oh,
another Christian group, I must make sure it's
not more alive than O.M. because then
maybe I'll have to join.
Tear and compare.
Oh, my brand is better.
Smoke O.M. Oh, how,
how God must, must just look down on
us.
And he must be shouting, don't you realize
they're my children?
They're my sons and daughters also.
They're born again.
They're washed in the same blood.
Jesus died for them as well as you.
How can we allow these divisions to come
among true believers?
I'm not talking about modernists, Christ deniers, men
who don't preach the blood.
I'm talking about people who have basically the
same doctrines and the same truths.
May God deliver us from tearing and comparing.
I don't believe it's a valid thing to
join a movement because you think it's the
best movement.
If you're in O.M. because you think
O.M. is the best movement, you are
absolutely on the wrong track.
And you'll probably help the devil to make
us the worst movement.
You must come into O.M. because God
has given you a heart linking, because God
has led you here.
Oh, my heart was so warmed by one
dear Indian brother, and I tell you some
of these Indians, they make us look like
we're walking backwards.
And we had a big question session and
all the questions were being answered.
You know how we are in the West,
we like to answer all the questions.
And I talked to this Indian brother who
was just new in the world.
A wonderful young man.
His wife has sold some of her jewelry
to pay his way down to the conference.
Dedicated fellow.
And I said, well, how do you feel,
brother?
Do you feel many of your questions are
being answered, and you're really feeling, you know,
getting into this thing?
He just sort of stared at me.
He said, that question is not necessary.
He said, brother George, God called me into
this work.
Made sense, didn't it?
God had called him into the fellowship.
It didn't matter if all of his questions
were answered.
Didn't matter if he fully understood anything.
Didn't matter if we were the best or
not the best or anything like that.
God had called him there.
He knew he was in God's place.
And maybe God will take you out of
O.N. and put you into another movement.
Then maybe that movement won't have as much
life.
Maybe it won't have some of the things
you think are so important.
But if God puts you there, that's enough.
Oh, may God deliver us from the critical
spirit, from the judging spirit, from the tearing,
comparing spirit, and cause us to follow him
in humility, in positive thinking, in praise, in
looking at that which is good, according to
what it says in Philippians chapter 4.
Another peril, the peril of becoming accustomed to
spiritual truth.
Now I would say this is the greatest
danger of any people who go to this
assembly.
I would say this was your greatest danger.
My, my, the truth that has come across
this pulpit, and the books that have flowed
out of here, the printing press has been
underneath the place, and what has happened here
down through the years, I would say that
this was without any doubt a terrific danger.
You've heard so many spiritual messages, so many
Christ-exalting messages, so many challenges, you've heard
so many missionaries, it must be a terrific
battle.
And oh, how we need to just come
to the Lord again and again.
This is track two.
You've heard so many spiritual messages, so many
Christ-exalting messages, so many challenges, you've heard
so many missionaries, it must be a terrific
battle.
And oh, how we need to just come
to the Lord again and again, and say,
oh Lord, forgive me, forgive me.
My heart has become cold, my heart has
become accustomed, and I can hear a Christ
-exalting message, or a challenging message, and it
no longer stirs me like it did 20
years ago.
No longer stirs me as it did some
years ago.
I just say these few words for those
of you here.
Some of you have lived in days when
this Conference Center was jammed, wasn't it?
Just jammed, and there seemed to be tremendous
blessing, and there was tremendous blessing.
But you know, it means even more to
Jesus for you to get the same blessing
from the same message without the crowd, without
the enthusiasm, without the big wonderful work of
the Lord.
And that's the real test, isn't it?
And this is also true with us on
OM.
OM is in its uphill climb, isn't it?
It's young, it's moving, and it's going places,
so to speak.
The real test will come when perhaps there'll
be a leveling off, perhaps there'll be a
lonely place for some of you, perhaps you'll
get stuck out in the middle of nowhere
and will forget to send you the weekly
report.
Month after month you'll be all alone, and
that's when you're going to find out whether
you really know Jesus, whether you really love
that message, whether anything has really happened to
you here at this Conference.
And I want to say the victorious road
is basically in the long run a lonely
road, a lonely road.
And if you're going to be a servant
of Jesus Christ, if you're thinking about being
a missionary, if you're thinking about going to
the regions beyond, you're thinking about being an
evangelist, if you think God's putting his hand
on you for pastoral ministry, you'd better be
ready for a lonely road, lonely road.
You might be in the midst of a
crowd, but you'll probably find that at times
it'll be a lonely road.
Peril of becoming accustomed to spiritual things.
Some of you have been to several conferences.
You can hear a message on forsaking all
and twiddle your thumbs and think about Susie
Soe at the same time.
You've heard so many messages on the all
-sufficiency of Christ that it has left you
stuck in your own sufficiency.
Oh, may we be just so afraid of
becoming accustomed to spiritual truth.
May we come to every meeting with a
spirit of expectancy.
We only have one month a year to
meet like this.
We only have one month of year to
hear some of our brethren speak, and some
of them we might never speak again, we
never dream.
Last year when our brother Keith spoke, we
never hear him again.
Maybe some of us would have listened a
little harder when he spoke.
This is a once-and-for-all lifetime
for some of us, opportunity.
Let us beware of becoming accustomed.
Let us be hungry.
Some of you might throw back to me,
well, George, you don't seem very hungry.
You don't come to all the meetings.
Believe me, I'd like to come.
But if I don't get some time with
God, and if I don't get some other
things done on top, when I come up
here to speak, I'll be giving you dry
crusts.
And I don't know if you want dry
crusts.
You're probably getting a few as it is.
But I'll tell you, every opportunity, I hear
the tapes of every single one of these
messages.
My own wife's not here tonight, but she's
listening to McDonald's tape from two years ago
in her room as she puts the three
children to bed.
And I'm hungry.
I've heard some of these messages by McDonald
and others three and four times over.
I'm hungry.
And I can't, I just can't hear enough.
Got one tape by Alan Redpath.
I've heard it 15 times.
One by Billy Graham 20 times.
I can't get enough of these messages and
of these truths.
God has given us in his scriptures.
Let us beware of the power of becoming
accustomed to spiritual things.
And most of you will not really captivate
these messages until you hear them five times.
That's why it says nine times in the
New Testament, love your neighbor as yourself.
Because God knew he was a master psychologist.
He knew men's minds, and he knew, take
about nine times for it to stick.
So there it is, nine times.
All the basic doctrines of the Bible are
mentioned several times.
I would never base any doctrine on a
single verse.
I believe that's a dangerous thing in hermeneutics,
in the Bible.
Every major doctrine, there are more than one
verse, there are many verses.
Every major doctrine of the Bible.
Praise God for that.
There's another peril.
The peril of asceticism.
Suffering hardship, so, just so we can say
that we suffer.
Suffering hardship for hardship's sake.
And we can, we can on OM have
mental asceticism.
That's right.
In various forms of regret.
Various forms of regret.
And OM may God deliver us from this
because it's subtle and it's deadly and it
can just eat away at us.
This thing of trying to inflict chastisement upon
ourself because we've done some, something wrong.
And trying to make up for some mistake.
No, that's all carnality.
It's carnality.
It's only the blood of Jesus Christ that
can cleanse from sin and that can make
us really free and free, wonderfully free indeed.
May we be very, very careful about this
thing of regret.
In Tozer's book, The Incredible Christian, and by
the way, I'm putting about 20 more Tozer
books in the library.
I just found them.
First come, first served.
Don't take more than one at a time.
Here's what Tozer says about regret.
Listen to this.
Regret may be no more than a form
of self-love.
You commit some sin, you do something wrong,
and you regret it.
Oh, why didn't I do that?
Oh, what a stupid thing.
Oh.
Regret.
Regret may be nothing more than a form
of self-love.
A man may have such a high regard
for himself.
Listen, this is probably saying more than my
whole message, apart from the scripture verses.
A man may have such a high regard
for himself that any failure to live up
to his own image of himself disappoints him
so deeply.
To such a man, this becomes such a
painful loss of face that it is not
soon forgotten.
There's something in that.
And I see this regret creeping in, and
various forms of trying to chastise ourselves.
May we flee and come to the fountain,
precious blood of Jesus Christ, where all sin
is cleansed.
And regret.
I tell you, I've got some things that
I've done, and some things that have happened,
even recently.
I mean, I just, if I allowed myself,
I'd just dig my nails right into the
floor.
Doesn't do any good.
Oh, may we be delivered from every form
of asceticism, mental or physical.
Don't be like that one girl who went
to the home of someone.
The lady had so tirelessly prepared a bed
for the girl to sleep in.
And nice sheets.
And the room was so nice and clean.
The girl met the lady and went into
the bedroom.
She looked at, oh, I don't sleep on
beds anymore.
I sleep only on the floor.
The poor lady, she must have scratched her
head and decided right there and then that
she wasn't going to have any more of
those back.
May God deliver us from getting carried away
on minor points.
Isn't it amazing how people nab onto this
floor sleeping.
This is the biggest joke.
Nowhere in any of our literature, nowhere in
any message have we given instruction that there's
virtue or special blessing through sleeping on the
floor.
And it's just one of those things.
You can talk to people about 40 important
spiritual items and you mentioned some silly peculiar
thing, and that's the only thing they'll remember.
And again and again, we have been, and
I must say this, unfairly criticized in this
world.
All the spiritual emphasis, all the emphasis that
God gives us, and somebody comes up and
the only thing they remember is that O
-M-M-ers sleep on the floor.
And more than 75% of all the
O-M-M-ers on the year program
sleep on beds.
And it's just, it's just a little quick
for the devil to get us into it,
into bondage.
But it is true.
We can get carried away into asceticism, and
we cannot, we can get to the point
where we don't take care of our bodies.
And this is wrong.
Our body is the temple of the Holy
Spirit.
It must be fed.
And all these ideas that O-M-M
-ers don't get fed is a big load
of nonsense.
And yet there are some, not because they're
on O-M, but because they have this
idea and they go to an extreme that
perhaps don't take care of their bodies like
they should.
It's a danger, it's a peril, and we
must run away from it.
Very quickly, another peril, the peril of the
victorious life, of launching out in this type
of life, laziness.
Why?
How can that be?
We talked about it the other night.
Especially if you get in a situation where
no one's over you in the Lord.
Laziness can come in.
I don't know how, but it does.
It does.
I won't dwell on it because time has
passed too quickly.
Another great peril of the victorious life is
moral scandal.
It's fantastic how Satan throws the darts of
immorality at those who mean business for God.
And all the tragedies, we've talked about this
in other meetings.
I won't go over it again, but I
want to tell you, unless you're ready to
stand your ground on this area, unless you're
ready to keep the whole shield of faith
up, where you can stop all the fiery
darts of the devil, you're going to discover
the reality of what it says in that
verse.
Twenty-three thousand fell in one day, and
twenty-three thousand people who had experienced Red
Sea deliverance, who had seen miracles throughout the
wilderness.
And I want to insert here that I
believe it is false doctrine to teach that
men are basically going to be one to
Christ through seeing signs and miracles, or be
established in the faith through seeing signs and
miracles.
That's just not true, because the people of
Israel saw the greatest signs and miracles of
any people that ever lived, and were the
greatest group of unbelievers, and reprobates, and castaways,
and immorality, and everything else.
And all these conversions, many of these conversions,
I read in one magazine of some fantastic
healer.
Thousands of Muslims came to Christ in India.
What lies!
How can these people print such lies?
We've had our men all over India who
don't find any of these people.
But we have this idea that if people
raise their hand and say, I believe, and
a tear comes.
So what happens?
We get some of these healers.
They come from the United States.
They come to India, get a tremendous emotional
meeting, and somebody is supposedly healed.
No one can ever usually prove it, although
I do believe God can heal.
Maybe they heal some man who's a cripple,
throws his crutches into the air.
These Muslims, this is it!
And thousands of Muslims raise their hand, I
want it, I want it.
They don't know what they want.
They don't know anything about Christ.
They want, this is a miracle.
They believe.
Pictures are taken, flashed into the magazine in
the United States.
People are rejoicing, running around in circles.
This is the New Testament Christianity.
God is back again.
I tell you, we must flee all such
nonsense like the plague.
People are not being saved.
In a matter of days, they become harder
against Christianity than when they were first touched.
A man is not born again through seeing
a sign and a miracle.
A man is born again by the regenerating
power of the Holy Spirit.
And signs and miracles might take place, but
all to get caught up in this type
of thinking is deadly, deadly.
Only the Lord can bring a man to
Jesus Christ.
And I want to tell you, I believe
one of the greatest dangers in religion is
emotionalism.
What?
My, I always thought George Bernhardt was emotionalist.
You don't know how anti-emotion I am.
I'm not against having emotion.
No, I'm against trusting emotion.
I'm against building my doctrines on emotion.
I'm against playing on people's emotions to get
them to do something that will not last.
And oh, let us not be caught playing
with people's emotions, violating them to the Lord.
It's deadly.
And I'm just going to say this for
what it's worth.
People who get caught up in emotional religion,
and trust their emotions, and have a religion
that is basically linked to emotions, almost inevitably
end in moral sin.
You don't agree with it?
Right.
All over the world, I've seen it again
and again.
You must have a religion, a Christianity of
the will, of the mind, the total man,
not just of the emotions.
Things have happened in the United States, in
groups that have got carried away in emotionalism,
you can't believe it.
I know of one place in a church
where people get carried away in emotion, and
eventually they believe in dancing in the Spirit,
and they believe in singing in the Spirit.
And these churches, so-called, have then eventually
got into orgies, and into all kinds of
supposedly spiritual relationships, wives among husbands, and terrible
things you can't even describe.
All in the church, all in the name
of Jesus.
Enchantments.
It's deadly.
And in our day, it's flooding the world.
And you get into a place, and you'll
hear them singing, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,
Jesus.
This is an enchantment.
And this calls evil spirits into action.
And this is rampant today.
It's just creeping across America.
And it's one of the most deadly things.
And I've been in these meetings where people
begin to repeat a word.
And I wish I had the reference of
Scripture, because I didn't expect to mention this,
but there's several references that show how this
works and what it's about.
But I see now that people repeat a
word, and they repeat it again, and again,
and again, and again, and again, and again,
and again, and again, in prayer.
The same word again, and again, and again.
And it becomes a hypnotic.
And then things happen that you can't even
imagine.
The perils of victorious life, or the perils
of going all the way for the Lord.
And I want to tell you, Satan has
a plan to get us on tangents.
And we'll come across some little tangent, and
this little tangent will say, we are the
New Testament truth.
This is it.
All the churches in the world are wrong.
We have found the truth.
And they'll have maybe an appealing message, and
they'll have some spectacular thing, or this or
that.
And before you know it, you'll be caught
up with it.
The perils of the victorious life, the perils
of a man who's hungry for God, the
perils of a man who says anything at
any time, anywhere.
Better be careful when you say that, and
add the words.
That's in the will of God.
And that's going to be according to the
Word of God.
And moral scandal so often gets involved in
this.
The story of David and Bathsheba is written
for our admonition.
The story in 1 Corinthians 10 is for
our admonition.
And if you think the teaching, the emphasis
we put at OM on purity and on
social policy and all these things, if you
think these are minor points, if you think
these are minor points, I beg of you,
I would beg of you, to not come
on a crusade.
You must be linked with us on these
points.
Those of you who are coming into this
one-year program, you've read that social policy,
you know what it says about that first
year, you must be linked with us on
that.
We're not asking you to obey a principle.
We're not asking you to keep a rule.
No!
We're asking you at this conference to unite
with us on a spiritual concept to accomplish
a specific job for God, and to stand
against the enemy firm, firm in this point.
The perils in this area are enormous, enormous.
As you knock on the doors, one of
our young men over in Switzerland, knocked on
the door.
The woman said, yes, I want some of
those books.
Come in.
And the moment he stepped in the door,
she threw himself upon this young man, only
because he knew the message that we're preaching.
He knew how to resist Satan.
He knew he could not deceive God and
whatsoever he sowed, he would reap.
Yeah!
From that wicked and abominable situation.
And you will be knocking on doors like
that as you go out in this world.
You will be facing subtle, slippery, deadly people
who will want to be used by Satan
to drag you.
And you know that in our generation there
are now more and more people actually worshipping
Satan.
And spiritualism is one of the fastest growing
movements in the 20th century.
And you will come up against spiritualist mediums.
And they will say, yes, yes, I'm interested.
Yes, yes, yes, come in.
And you will have thought that the policy
about not entering the home with someone of
the opposite sex when they're alone is a
minor thing.
Oh, this O.M.O. is extreme.
And in you go, in you go, as
the ox to the slaughter.
Oh, I want to tell you there's perils
in this life.
There's perils in this world.
There's dangers.
We've got to count the cost.
And then we'll go.
May you realize that.
I mentioned the other day in the afternoon,
the perils that come in the area of
money.
This is another deadly area.
God's people commit unto us money.
Money is committed unto you in your field.
And somehow there can be a day when
there might be 500 pounds, there might be
several hundred pounds there in your field, sent
for some literature.
And Satan moves in.
And before you know what's happened, you've done
something that's wrong and that's ungodly.
I don't know how it happens.
I can't explain these things, but it happens.
All over the world it happens.
Any man who's handling any of God's money
must realize the perils of that, because many
times the devil attacks the treasury.
He attacks, brings disunity and confusion and all
the heartache.
A man once told me when I was
a student in Bible school, three areas that
the devil is knocking out most ministers of
the gospel.
Three areas he was very blunt.
Money, pride and sex.
That's it.
Young person, let's count the cost.
No one's forcing you to come on OM.
No one's forcing you to forsake all.
No one's forcing you to keep any principles
or any rules.
No one's forcing you to do anything.
You have come here completely voluntarily.
We have offered you nothing.
You have come here on your own, and
therefore you can go very easily.
I pray, count the cost.
There's perils for anyone that goes out of
here on this program.
Real perils.
May we count the cost, realize the truth
of the other messages.
If there is future, let us pray.
Heavenly Father, again the clock has cut us
short, for there is much to say in
this supper.
The perils of going all out for Christ.
We can go from one extreme to the
other.
From a full surrender to a full defeat.
From an all-out thrust to all-out
lust.
Oh God, please, keep us from it.
May we realize the truth of that verse,
for there is no temptation taken wherein there
is not a way escape that you might
be able to bear.
Lord, may we realize that verse, and claim
it in Jesus' name.
Amen.