Many times we read from the Psalms, but
we don't read from the Proverbs.
As a young Christian I was selling books
door to door.
This one lady bought a lot of books
for me.
I was really happy.
A lot of money, a lot of books.
I was preparing to go to Mexico.
She was a woman of wisdom.
She could discern that I was big on
zeal and weak on wisdom.
So she invited me in.
Have a seat.
And she gave me something to eat.
And this woman asked, do you study the
Proverbs regularly?
At 18 years of age I don't know
if I got to the Proverbs yet.
She said there's a Proverb a day, one
for every day in the month.
31 Proverbs.
Young man, read a Proverb every day.
She said something I've never forgotten.
A Proverb a day will keep the devil
away.
I've been reading the Proverbs almost every day
for 40 some years.
Three chapters alone.
Three and a half chapters alone just about
sex.
How many of you men have read the
three chapters on sex in the book of
Proverbs?
Raise your hand.
That's pretty good.
How many women have read the three chapters?
Because women are involved.
That's right.
Because in those days these chapters were especially
about prostitutes.
But in some of our societies today there
is so much sexual freedom people don't need
prostitutes.
It's not necessary anymore in some places.
So I believe those chapters are still relevant
even though the language may be different.
What are some of the fiery darts stopping
people from going to the mission field?
We've talked about wisdom.
Okay, let's get some wisdom.
Let's think this through.
We've touched on the fiery dart of immorality.
These days for many young men it's pornography.
Internet pornography.
And as they take surveys of missionaries One
society, twenty percent of all the missionaries on
the field were having struggles with internet pornography
because missionaries have to use e-mail.
I don't have time to talk about this.
I don't even want to talk about it.
But if you're hooked into pornography in any
of its forms you need to be set
free by the power and the grace of
God and you need to stay free by
wisdom and the discipline of God.
And you must understand the word of God.
You must understand the grace of God.
And beware of extremism in your own thinking.
That you're going to get to some spiritual
level where this is no longer ever going
to be a problem.
There may be a few people like that.
They may have never had a big problem
to start with.
We need to understand.
We are sexual beings.
And we'll probably face struggles in the area
of sexuality all of our pilgrimage with Jesus.
The key is to get to see what
the word of God says.
Read some good Christian books on this subject.
Have at least someone that you're accountable to
you can pray with and talk openly and
honestly with.
Realize that even when you fail God just
still loves you so very, very much.
Now this is where I maybe had an
advantage.
I had strong love from both of my
parents even though they were not Christians.
They were in their pilgrimage.
Once I was saved I got into some
great books about God's love, God's acceptance of
me.
I seldom doubted God's love for me.
We've counseled many, many people.
They're not sure that God loves them.
Is there anybody here tonight?
You're not sure that God loves you?
According to his word he loves you.
He created you in his image.
He loved you before you were saved.
Now you are his child.
His love is now covenant love.
His love is now something just so beyond
anything you can ever imagine.
I love books about grace.
Because I've seen legalism destroy so many people.
Now I know that grace is risky.
Even the great British theologian Dr. Lloyd-Jones
said the message of grace is risky.
And of course you can't have a strong
message on grace without having some people abuse
grace.
That's why I've been talking a little bit
about wisdom and about discipline.
Because grace without wisdom and discipline can become
disgrace.
And I've tried to study the lives of
hundreds of people.
I've read through about a thousand books.
And I've seen people destroy their lives and
their churches and their families because they didn't
understand forgiveness and the grace of God.
And I've seen baby Christians in other cultures
hurt because people were legalistic and therefore walked
on people's culture instead of being sensitive to
their culture and present the grace of God
in a way they can receive it in
their own culture.
And if you've been raised in a very
strict home, even some non-Christian homes are
quite strict about certain things.
Or if you were reared in a very
strict legalistic 25 major rules kind of a
church.
You can be pretty sure that you have
a legalistic streak.
You can be pretty sure you have a
legalistic side to yourself.
Legalistic streak.
And probably sometimes you're very hard on yourself.
And sometimes you won't forgive yourself.
You may know that God has forgiven you,
but you have trouble forgiving yourself.
And that sometimes leads to the inability to
forgive other people.
In God's work, we're all going to be
hurt.
We're in the battle.
We're under pressure trying to reach the world
with the gospel.
And yet we're all so different.
We will offend one another.
We will under pressure.
We may say something unkind or negative even
about our best friend.
And then somebody hears that and say, they
go to our best friend.
They'll say, oh, I thought so and so
was a friend of yours.
Well, yeah, he is.
Oh, you should have heard what he was
saying about you the other day.
And pretty soon the friendship starts to break.
What does it say in Proverbs?
He who repeats a matter can separate the
very best of friends.
It's all here.
I plead with you in the name of
Jesus.
Develop biblical wisdom.
Hold up the shield of faith against the
fiery dart of immorality.
Another fiery dart that I've experienced a lot
of in my life, what I call the
fiery dart of discouragement.
I faced discouragement all my life.
I have these expectations and often I don't
reach them.
I have these dreams.
They don't come to pass.
My dream for Afghanistan.
44 year dream.
Satan, through one of his little sub-trained
demons, I'm sure has whispered in my ear,
you are a total failure, Berwer, a first
class failure.
Just look at Afghanistan.
44 years, nothing.
You got nothing.
Sometimes I've been so discouraged.
I had trouble believing that God was even
there.
And I surely wanted to quit operation mobilization.
How did I get in this kind of
a mess?
But again somehow by God's grace, I sort
of crawled back to the Word of God.
And I've just told God the truth.
Lord, I have very little faith.
I don't know if my prayers are accomplishing
anything.
Plus I've got this problem and I've got
this misunderstanding and I've made a mess with
my wife again.
Can you forgive me?
Ladies, can you even imagine being married to
me?
Don't imagine.
In the audience you could get a headache
even thinking about it.
I'm not a naturally good husband.
Which means I was not a naturally good
father.
And my wife thought I was a dynamic
man of God and agreed to marry me
that one late that night when we were
both very tired.
Late one night she agreed to marry me.
You see I had her in Ephesians as
well.
Ephesians 5.
Not the whole chapter.
Key verses.
Submit to your husband as unto the Lord.
She believed I was God's teacher.
She just accepted that.
She had a lot of money because her
father was killed in the war.
She gave me all the money before the
marriage.
If she had put that money in a
big company like Walmart she'd be a millionairess
today.
She gave it to me instead.
She's been broke ever since.
We went to Mexico.
And the marriage was wonderful for several weeks.
Then she read the other verses.
We've had 42 years of intensive discussion.
Some of you are already married.
After what I said a little while ago
you may think oh maybe I have the
wrong wife.
Oh maybe I have the wrong husband.
Let me just tell you real simple.
It's too late.
But here's the good news.
You could marry, humanly speaking, the wrong person.
And God can make it a great marriage.
That's grace.
Praise God for plan A.
Get a totally radical, spiritual, dynamic Amy Carmichael
wife.
Amen.
Plan A.
But if somehow you end up with plan
B and it's not really working out you're
still learning somehow how to even kiss and
you can't stand her food and she snores
very loud at night.
God is still alive.
God can make that a great marriage.
And one great biblical writer said that marriage
is God's advanced training to prepare for heaven.
Of course if you're single there's a special
program for singles.
And Bruce here has the best program for
singles that I've ever heard of.
Go live in the jungle for 40 years.
Hallelujah.
You'll hear about that tomorrow.
Hold high the shield of faith wherewith we
can stop the fiery darts of the evil
one.
Now I know a few of you are
thinking this guy is speaking very long.
After all this is Germany.
This is a land of punctuality.
I was not planning to speak this long.
But before I walked in one of the
leaders of this organization I will not point
her out because she said something to me
that hardly anybody ever says to me.
She said please speak as long as you
want.
Forget your watch.
Have you brought your calendar?
One of my most famous German stories.
This is the truth.
35 years ago 35 years ago I first
came to Germany.
I remember I was speaking in Heilbronn.
And I was pouring out my heart I
gave an invitation and some people responded two
women walked up to me I'll never forget
said we found this a real struggle.
You reminded us of Adolf Hitler.
Real encouragement.
Talk about the ministry of encouragement.
But the other story was in another meeting
I was preaching for about an hour and
a half and amazingly young people were listening
it was mainly young people.
But one older man was in the back
and I think he wanted to go home
and watch the news.
He started waving his watch at me I
was preaching about world missions the need to
go the need to pray the need to
give then I saw this watch I stopped
the meeting bless the Lord look at this
man God's tricking him he's donating his watch
for world missions in
Acts 13 five men were praying it included
Paul and Barnabas and the Holy Spirit spoke
and said separate me Paul and Barnabas for
the work that I have called for them
please if you can read my book I'd
like to give it free but I don't
have enough copies so we're selling it I
prefer to give it free and if you're
broke and you can't buy one send me
an email and I'll send you one free
through the post but I share this Acts
13 vision in this book I want you
to grab this I want you to have
an Acts 13 prayer meeting back in your
church let the Holy Spirit have his way
then I believe we'll have many more of
you then we'll stand up and make that
commitment to go even to the ends of
the earth when you make this decision many
of you have already made it there's a
price to pay Luke 14 count the cost
there are languages to learn there are cultures
to understand you cannot take this lightly if
a person's going to become a doctor serious,
serious preparation if a person's going to become
a Lufthansa pilot serious training and preparation it's
not a matter of going to a few
meetings pilot, I'll just be here in a
simulator and I'll read a few books and
then I'll go fly I prefer not to
fly with those pilots I like people who
really are trained who really are serious we
know a huge obstacle is finance far easier
to find the people willing to go than
it is to find the finance to send
them and to keep them there years later
when they've got three kids who all need
education and
the financial factor is considered the second or
third major discouragement that stops people going into
missionary work but there are books about this
there are tapes about this there's a lot
in the word of God about money and
what about faith believing God to supply finance
as that famous German George Muller did for
so many decades is one of the great
examples of God's way of faith so let's
make a commitment tonight to become more serious
about the commitment we've already made make sure
we are free from legalism and living in
the highway of grace to make sure we
know what to do when we sin so
that we can grow stronger and stronger in
the Lord to be his men and to
be his women whatever the cost let's develop
biblical relationships but beware of premature romance let's
keep singing the psalm but let's get into
the proverbs and then what about Job developing
a really biblical theology of suffering and what
it's really about on planet earth because it's
another area where many people have been so
discouraged because they thought the Lord was going
to do this and the Lord was going
to do that and when it didn't happen
they questioned God does God really love me
soon they were away from the Lord let
us pray together let's just take a moment
to pray I've just tried to be very
honest if I've offended anyone with my method
of speaking you can forgive me the work
of the Holy Spirit is for you but
this treasure is in earthen vessels none of
us can share from our heart without some
of our own personal mud getting in the
way don't let George Verver mud keep you
from the reality of the Holy Spirit in
your heart I believe with all my heart
some of you want to make a re
-commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ tonight you're
not sure about geography you're not sure whether
it's Germany or some other country but you
want to be a radical disciple of Jesus
you want to hold high the shield of
faith to stop the fiery darts that are
coming at you you want to be God's
man you want to be God's woman you
want to go where He wants you to
go you want to be filled afresh with
His Holy Spirit you want to hear the
voice of the Spirit as Paul and those
praying men did in Acts 13 and if
you'll make that kind of step of faith
if you want to be a radical, Spirit
-filled disciple of Jesus whether it's in Germany
or some other part of the world whether
it's a goer or a sender or both
I'm going to ask that you just stand
up as an outward expression of an inward
transaction and I want to just pray for
you it's a step of faith it's saying
yes to the Word of God this message
of biblical discipleship and balance God's Holy Word
God's promises God's fill you afresh right now
anyone else?
stand up I can pray for you God
bless you Father, you have prepared us for
this meeting tonight many of us are here
because we're already so hungry to do your
will in terms of missions we've seen some
of the obstacles we've realized some of the
complexities and we've seen ourselves and so we
just come to you we confess our sin
we confess our legalism we confess our judgmentalism
we confess our false guilt and we say
to you, O God, we love you we
thank you that you've saved us and that
you live within us we commit ourselves to
your Word and to the way of wisdom
we commit ourselves to the balance of grace
and discipline and we will not give up
we will keep on giving on in the
power of forgiveness and your Holy Spirit for
we pray in Jesus' name Amen