I have several scriptures to share with you
this evening as I want to speak to
you on the subject of the enemies of
world evangelism You know, it's exciting to be
in a place where people are taking notes
That really warms my battery Or charges it
or whatever else?
A.W. Tozer said the whole world is
an emergency situation Nothing is right nor will
be right until put right by the redeeming
work of Jesus Christ Some of us continue
to be deeply concerned about the situation in
Iran with all those hostages who have been
there for so many months Meeting some time
ago a young man came up to me.
He said my father's one of those hostages
that made it more real Many of us
also are concerned about the millions who are
hostages in the hands of Satan Who need
to be set free by the redeeming work
of Jesus Christ.
I was thinking as we were singing and
Just a few minutes ago the tremendous potential
just in this auditorium tonight All that God
would move in our midst and that we
would also be obedient.
You know, there's a great danger if we
expect God To do more than his word
says he will do young people sitting around
waiting for some kind of special call I
Have never had a missionary call most of
my best workers Some of them on the
field 15 20 years speak the language fluently
church planters soul winners never had a missionary
call.
I Recall it's a missionary kick and if
you need one, I'll be happy to see
you at the end of the meeting May
God have mercy on our spiritual sluggishness and
all of our excuses why we're not going
Let us look at Mark chapter 1 let
us see the Lord Jesus Christ in action
2,000 years ago As he walked along
the Sea of Galilee And he saw Simon
and Andrew his brother in verse 16 casting
an ad into the sea for they were
fishermen Mark 1 16.
This is the Word of God The anchor
of my whole Christian life my whole Theological
framework everything I do and say day by
day is the fact that this is God's
Word and I would be thrilled to correspond.
I was told years ago to get a
hobby And so I have a hobby of
corresponding with people and I'd be thrilled to
correspond with any of you Especially you have
doubts about whether this book is the Word
of God.
There are many books in the bookshop about
this Now wrote on wrote one called.
Can we know?
This is God's infallible Word This is God's
authoritative word this whole Bible Institute Which has
touched many areas of the world for Christ
built on that principle And I hope your
life is being built on that principle.
And if it is then you cannot take
lightly any scripture even if it comes from
a feebling funny or whatever skinny Person that
you've never met before or even heard of
before some of you are still wondering how
I even got here.
So am I Mark chapter 1 Jesus walked
along the Sea of Galilee.
He saw Simon and Andrew Jesus said unto
them come after me and I will make
you fishers of men Great way they forsook
their nets and they followed him When he
had got a little farther he saw James
the son of Zebedee and John his brother
Who also were in the boat mending their
nets and straightway called them and they left
their father's ebony in the boat Must have
been an embarrassing moment With the hired servants
and they went after him We see the
same strategy over in chapter 2 where Jesus
spots Matthew Verse 14 as he passed by
he saw Levi the son of Alpha sitting
at the tax office and he said unto
him follow me and He arose and followed
him God has not brought us together in
these days just for Bible study God has
not brought us together in these days just
that we may feed more on his word
though.
Praise God for that privilege My heart was
touched as I listened to part of the
message last night.
I wanted to be here, but in my
particular work With 1,400 people spread across
across the globe and the ship arriving in
Barbados and about other 15 other crises that
I'm in the midst of including a automobile
accident in Germany in which the parents of
our German director were both killed Simultaneously just
a couple days ago.
I Had to be on the phone last
night.
My father's also had a heart attack.
He's in hospital in Florida But in between
the phone calls, I I got enough of
the message last night to just have my
own heart stirred and challenged One of the
great blessings I've had in my life is
cassette tapes If you go down to the
OM display, you will see that we're a
bit neurotic on the cassette tape thing You
can get tapes down there so cheap if
you don't like the message just record over
them and you save money And I listen
to these cassettes all the time.
I had I like to redeem the time.
I hate to waste any time It's it's
an easy thing for me because my temperament
is somewhat geared that way and I don't
want everybody to get Into some redeeming time
neurosis.
What a wonderful thing.
It is to make use of every minute
driving your car You can listen to the
Word of God Listen to tapes when you're
shaving.
I hate shaving Women, I I've never been
able to understand my wife 20 years.
I've been trying to understand her and I've
just decided to accept her as she is
Can't believe what she does with all that
time in the bathroom but Cassettes is a
wonderful thing for women that you know, they
have to have all this time Arranging that
which May be too late.
But anyway, I want to challenge you to
make use of cassette tapes.
I Had brother Andrew with me recently in
the bathtub.
I Mean I was I was listening to
brother Andrew in the bathtub Cassette tape and
my heart has been challenged again and again
Alan Redpath Stephen Ofert I've had more than
a hundred and fifty men of God Minister
to me through their cassette tapes when I
was isolated living in Nepal when I was
living in Bangkok when I was living in
India When I spent hundreds of hours in
the backs of our OM trucks traveling out
to India traveling back When I was seasick
in the Red Sea Laying on my bed
taking in hours and hours of dr.
Francis Schaefer by tape I can't tell you
what a blessing that has been in my
life And I hope that you'll get in
to Cassette tapes and the ministry of cassette
tapes, but God has not just brought us
here to receive messages I believe he has
brought us here for a very important purpose
and That he has something very real very
heavy to say to many of us If
not all of us in these days together
the way the world is going we may
never gather again like this You're a fool
if you don't think the world can take
a sudden shift To make meetings like this
even in North America impossible May we redeem
the time in these days in prayer together
in reading the Word of God in searching
our own hearts And I believe that God
wants to speak to some Not all but
to some in the same way.
He spoke to those fishermen two thousand years
ago.
I Wondering whether you could ever be a
missionary Many young people have more kinky foggy
ridiculous ideas about world missions than that.
I think you could put into a book
That only certain types of people can go
to the mission field or only people with
a certain amount of education Or that you'll
have to go to Bible school to go
to the mission field.
I want to tell you in Europe They
won't accept that I believe in Bible school
More people in the Bible school in Europe
than any other movement I know of in
Europe today and we have a deep relationship
with almost every single Bible school We don't
believe in any shortcuts But we stand very
strong that that is not God's way with
everyone and some of our greatest men in
our work Have never been to Bible school
and they know the Word of God some
of them better than the Bible school graduates
That is really interesting because we have some
are almost like walking concordances We get more
recruits out of Cambridge and Oxford University Then
we get out of Bible colleges in the
USA Any one Bible college in comparison to
Cambridge or Oxford?
Or any Bible colleges in Great Britain and
they all know ten times more about OM
than anybody would know about in Canada Now
some of these Cambridge students believe it or
not in Oxford graduates with their degrees because
of OM actually some of them go back
to Bible college But others just move on
but then we have other people come into
our work Who are basically working people and
though they may start in in practical work
in carpentry as an engineer on the ship
or?
Maybe in the office They they they get
into the Word of God on a day
-by-day basis.
They grow they learn to pray They learn
to resist the enemy.
They learn something about Christian literature and soon
they're in all kinds of ministries And I
think it's wrong that we sometimes emphasize that
everybody must go this way and every young
person who talks about the mission field is
Well, you must get more training and more
training and many young people are turned off.
We're losing many candidates through this In an
emission society wonder why they're not getting enough
candidates.
We are not flexible enough.
We are not adaptable enough We are not
guided by the Spirit enough And it it
it frightens me a W Tozer said if
the Holy Spirit left many of our churches
no changes would be made whatsoever and I
believe we need a bigger view of the
way God works and That he's working in
different people in different ways.
We have people come to our ship To
work down in the engine room as a
junior engineer.
I think of one Thing he was a
Cambridge graduate.
He was hopeless in the engine room when
he started, but you know with a Cambridge
degree No paper, but he learned and while
he was on the ship visiting countries God
began to use him in other ways and
He decided to leave the ship He is
now a professional missionary or a non-professional
missionary in Bangladesh and God is using him
in a mighty way in that country Our
plumber from the same ships crew is a
full-time missionary with a major mission society
up in Nepal In fact people from the
crew of the ship ordinary people working people
are literally now beginning to move into almost
every nation in the world Some have gone
back for more Bible college others have not
But I believe with all my heart That
we need to ask God to give us
give us a greater view of the many
different ways That he works Why was om
Rejected by so many Christians, especially in North
America for so many years Because people could
not understand the way God was working through
our feeble little fellowship And when something is
new we don't trust it if it's not
quite according to our traditions Well, we we
put it down or we back off God
in his mercy shifted us to Europe and
the thing exploded among the Europeans And then
it shifted to India where we now have
350 workers and then he shifted in Singapore
Malaysia where we have 125 full-time Singaporean
Malaysians almost all of them backed in prayer
and financed by their churches Which you do
not always find I can assure you in
this part of the world And we now
get more recruits from Singapore Malaysia Than we
do from Canada and we have been pushing
pretty hard in Canada in these last few
years Now it doesn't mean God is laying
Canada aside.
You can be sure Of course Canadians are
going out with many many different mission societies
far greater than our little weak mob of
people learning about Jesus and that's what counts
and that's my burden tonight and I believe
there's some of you that tomorrow and the
next day need to be having serious interviews
with missionary leaders here about your future and
really getting into the facts about some of
these fields and some of the needs and
I believe with all my heart the Lord
Jesus simply wants to say to some tonight
as he said to those fishermen Follow me
and I'll make you a fisher of men.
I was reading a story some time ago
about a group of men It was sort
of a parable that got interested in fishing
They started a fishing club and they they
boy they got excited about fishing Everybody should
fish and they were telling people about the
lakes and about the streams and about the
fish and the kinds of fish And this
thing really got big in this fishing club
spread all over people were gathering together for
fishing club They were showing slides films men
were giving challenges about fishing Then they opened
some some higher institutions for fishing and men
were taking advanced degrees and getting doctors of
fishiology And there was tremendous vision about fishing
Books were written about fishing and and then
they went into intensive research about fish the
length of fish what they eat how to
catch them all kinds of things whole libraries
filled with books how to fish The only
one problem this group had nobody fish Down
and on they had a World Congress on
fishing made major decisions to have National Congress's
on fishing and at those National Congress's they
decided to set up citywide cells to teach
fishing to everybody that every soul may know
about Fishing and the art of fishing and
the importance of it only one problem.
Nobody fish Spread all over the world and
two fellows finally, you know, they really got
courage bit radical They were who grabbed the
fishing pole room out to the nearest lake
and they fished and the one fellow actually
caught a fish This was unbelievable television game
radio got a fish They asked him to
come back to the to the Congress on
physiology and they asked him to give his
testimony in various schools of fishing and He
never could go back and fish again because
his time was busy giving his testimony about
the fish he caught Do you get the
point?
They loved it.
Jesus said follow me and I will make
you fishers of men and in the mission
field today We need some ordinary fishers of
men men with a passion for soul Men
who want to win other men to Jesus
Christ It's good to have the support forces.
We need them desperately as well, but we
need today fishers of men Follow me and
I will make you a fisher of men
Now I want to keep those verses in
mind if we can and go back into
the Old Testament and look at two men
in The Old Testament.
I doubt if you've ever had these people
all linked up before in the book of
Numbers The book of Numbers if you think
numbers is so you certainly haven't got the
chapter 13 and 14 and 15 And here
in numbers We have the report about the
spies Going out into the promised land and
they come back and most of them have
a negative report Verse 31 of chapter 13.
We are not able to go up against
the people For they are stronger than we
first 28 tells about the people and the
walled cities In other words, most of the
spies saw the problems.
They saw the obstacle and Many of us
today are just like these spies We know
about the mission field we've had the facts
we've had the information the slides the challenges
and Yet somehow we see the problems.
We see the walls the language barrier our
emotional problem barriers All kinds of barriers and
problems we see we feel we're not the
missionary type This one really gets me Young
person says to me.
I'm not the missionary type.
What in the world is the missionary type?
Am I the missionary type?
Well to the poor missionaries?
There is no such thing as a missionary
type Somebody's it.
Oh, but I'm so frightened that the insect
and snake as if the main thing in
a mission field a big Boxes of spiders
and snakes are put under your bed by
the local nationals or something else You know
when it comes to our theology and it
comes to our study and when it comes
to some of our praying Our God is
very very big when it comes to our
action our God suddenly turns into some kind
of midget Who's lost his arms and his
legs and is really quite unable to do
very much at least for you Oh That
God would burn into ordinary people tonight that
he specializes in you ordinary people 50%
to 80% of all the people that
we have worked with and trained around the
world are incredibly ordinary people Who have that
struggles with shyness struggles with inferiority struggles with
emotional problems?
and Yet God has put them together and
is using them.
That doesn't mean they are perfect He who
is perfect.
Let him throw the first stone at the
poor struggling missionary out on the field But
there were two men Who took a stand
and believed God now, they were very different
And what they had to say was quite
different Verse 30 we have Caleb speaking.
I can identify with Caleb a little bit
I tend to think his temperament is a
bit like mine.
His vocabulary is a little bit perhaps the
way mine was Still is to some degree
He's still the people before Moses and he
said let us go up at once and
possess it the land So we are well
able to overcome it.
Now.
It sounds a little bit cocky, doesn't it?
Well, let's go up, you know, what are
you sitting around here for you jerks who
let's go the old CT stud style and
a new book of Quotations of CT stud
has just been printed.
It's not even in the bookshops I mean,
it's not even in North America yet, and
I had to preview that book I will
tell you it kicked me all over the
place Now Joshua he was different Joshua probably
he had been to Keswick or I don't
know But he had this sort of deeper
life vocabulary.
Some of you will be happier with Joshua
over in verse 8 of chapter 14 If
the Lord delight in us Then he will
bring us into this land and give it
us the land which floweth with milk and
honey Studied under Ian Thomas.
I don't know but he had the right
vocabulary But they both got in the land
hallelujah You know, I had a great problem
accepting myself.
I told the story to the high school
kids.
I Never forget it when I was a
teenager.
I picked up this magazine article He's really
beautiful girl down on the beach Which is
my major interest and next to this beautiful
girl was a real skinny fellow about my
size and along came a big you know
tall good-looking fellow a little bit like
Paul and the He knocked this skinny fellow
away and he took the girl I thought
wow The bottom of the advertisement it said
right in today Charles Atlas muscle-building weight
-gaining guarantee So I wrote in For six
months.
I was lifting weight.
I Was eating extra food.
I gained about half a pound One of
the greatest experiences in my Christian life was
when I finally accepted myself Realized that God
loved me when I read some of these
great things.
I thought that everybody spiritual was quiet I
hated my big mouth and I wanted to
become a real quiet sort of mystic saint.
I thought these were the spiritual people I've
never thought of myself as spiritual.
It's impossible for me to think of myself
as spiritual after reading the books.
I read No, Andrew Murray FD Myers all
these books you read too many of them
at once.
You know, you can you can you can
get problems And I had problems and I
praise God for other books that balanced me
out and taught me that I didn't have
to try to be Andrew Murray That Andrew
Murray was human anyway you know and one
of the biggest distributors in the world of
his books and I accepted the fact and
the basic facts about my temperament my metabolism
metabolism The doctor said I have a very
high combustion engine and if I didn't have
low blood pressure, I would be in trouble
I will tell you much less my poor
wife and I came to realize that God
works through different people in different ways God
is not trying to annihilate your temperament, but
to fill you with his spirit and to
work through you for his glory Then I
was willing especially with the help of Caleb
to keep shouting And I believe there's a
need at times for some of us to
cry out The crowd and I want to
cry out tonight That every one of us
would consider whether we really are in God's
will And whether there should not be more
of us even from this great senior class
that should be specifically by faith Moving in
a definite way toward the mission field.
There are too many evangelical pacifists Just sitting
waiting for some some kind of an evangelical
twitch to grab their backbone which years ago
They already traded in for a wishbone.
Anyway May God give men of faith Who
will say we by faith will begin to
move God has a hundred ways to stop
you There are so many obstacles to get
to the mission field today.
It isn't even funny.
I Don't think the great danger today is
too many people Especially in short-term missionary
work out of the will of God on
the mission field And often it's when you
get out there in some short-term work
that you can get exposure and you can
get God's mind To spend the rest of
your life out there or to go back
and send substitutes and send substitutes And we
counted just as much a privilege to train
revolutionary Christians for their home churches when they're
with us out in Europe or India or
the Middle East as We do to train
them to remain out there both are very
important the Mormons have 30,000 two-year
people on the field right now They are
making an unbelievable impact across the world In
Britain alone, they have won a hundred thousand
to Mormonism Even though they preach the most
distasteful message you could ever preach in the
English race the forsaking of tea drinking The
Mormons and we should be so ashamed we
should be so embarrassed we should have some
holy righteous in the nation that somehow God
would move upon this great church in North
America and give us an Army of a
hundred thousand two-year men and women and
from that we could double the number of
longer-term missionaries without any problem whatsoever.
Oh May God somehow show us the strategicness
of even this time together here and That
we may obey his word let us take
courage from Caleb and Joshua that covers the
two main different kinds of temperaments and Let
us believe as these men believe Regardless of
your vocabulary to me when I find God's
people fighting over vocabulary, especially the victorious life
vocabulary And we have endless books on sanctification
You read too many of them guarantee you'll
get confused I believe God works in different
ways in different people We should judge one
another's spirituality less and get on with our
own Life in Jesus Christ, I believe in
the work in the great ministry of Keswick
I'll be speaking this summer at the English
Keswick Convention to the very humbling experience But
I think even Keswick has certainly made a
strong stand that there is no little one
way To present this thing and they don't
want people talking about the Keswick message.
They want people talking about Christ and His
Lordship and his sufficiency, but we see in
the New Testament many different ways to express
Praise God for that Now when we begin
to move When we begin to catch this
vision and we begin to go forward as
an army of God's people In various aspects
of the work Satan will counter-attack And
I want to just try to share with
you very quickly Some of the enemies of
world evangelism that I have seen operating all
over the world in these past 25 years
23 of which I've spent approximately overseas.
The first enemy I believe is unbelief Unbelief
and I believe there's some of us that
need to repent of unbelief and I will
put myself in the middle of a circle
In our own work, we are faced with
a crisis right now.
I cannot tell you about it Between us
and God and I find unbelief attacking my
soul shaking me to my very foundation Humanly
speaking OM has grown too fast There are
a thousand four hundred of us full-time
that includes hundreds of families and hundreds and
hundreds of children Spread across 35 nations with
an incredible series of problems that that involves
a fleet of 300 vehicles two ships Involved
in about 500 literature production projects and we're
trying in the midst of that longer term
work Including church planting in the number of
Muslim lands and all kinds of things We
are trying to launch what a summer crusade
which will involve a total of 3,000
people this summer I will tell you I'm
scared silly and one of my problem in
problems is that I'm a sensitive person You
may not believe that but even one person
that I know about you know And if
I know it even one who is in
difficulty, it's a burden upon my heart If
I hadn't learned to cast that on God
years ago I would have been wiped out
surely through a nervous breakdown most of my
friends predicted I'd have a nervous breakdown 20
years ago.
They're still waiting a number of them have
had nervous breakdowns I don't know whether watching
me or what but unbelief it never ceases
to attack us and that's why we're told
to take the shield of faith where which
we can stop the firing darts of the
enemy and if I Don't take that daily.
I'm in trouble There's something in my canny
way.
That's always looking for some other option than
the way of faith You'll probably find that
tonight when you go to make this faith
promise That there'll be something operating in you
that will seek some other way than the
way of faith.
Oh I'm good at that.
I think of all kinds of things And
when I get down on my knees God
says no, no, that's not my way you
got to trust me One time when I
thought our ship was going to go down
in the Bay of Biscay Can you imagine
that would be the biggest scandal?
But evangelical church has perhaps had for many
years the way some people think that's the
way I think But I was still scared
four days in an emergency.
This old ship built in 1949 faced out
into the wave 20-30 foot waves everybody
sees it No telephone communication I was scared
and I got And there's a bondage of
the evil one and I shook and wept
in my bed next to my wife like
a little baby not easy to tell you
I Thought counsel from my co-leader George
Miley who coordinates both ships He's an incredible
story top seminary student one of America's biggest
seminaries Discovered through a series of tape recordings
that he was living his own Incarnal ego
trip gathering up his knowledge of Greek and
becoming the number one student God Took him
to his heart brought him to the cross
and I have watched that man for 15
years burn across the world an anointed leader
Preacher who coordinates both ships and without his
help.
We wouldn't even got into the second ship
somehow that morning when I was shaking fear
Even though I didn't get in a sense
the total victory until that phone call came
from the ship.
I Knew Jesus Christ was in charge of
this practice And Jesus Christ is in charge
of your life and you can trust him
Have you trusted him with your life your
problems your burdens?
Have you really trusted?
Are you like many people cast the burden
on him the next morning?
You take the burden back and put it
on your own shoulders.
Some are very good at that Unbelief it
comes in many forms Syncretism universalism Even many
of our mainline evangelical school no longer take
a firm stand that the heathen are off
We you know and feel like almost a
group of oddballs because we believe that they
even are off We don't understand it.
We don't like it, but we see in
God's Word.
There is no hope outside of Jesus Christ
And I know that prairie stands for that
as well.
No wonder God has linked our hearts together
Underneath and it's subtle vicious form It's probably
one of the greatest if not the greatest
enemies to world evangelism Let's stop looking at
the problem.
Let's stop looking at our weaknesses Let's stop
operation introspection and look out to a God
who can even in our feebleness Use us
on the mission field Well more of you
sitting here tonight should be praying and beginning
to move toward the mission field At least
in terms of a couple years.
Oh May God grant We get into this
syndrome that people have to be in perfect
health to go to the mission field I
will tell you have you ever read about
Gladys Elwood my dear silly soul Have you
ever read anything a missionary history to think
that men have to be in perfect health
to go to the mission field We've got
so many different screening tests now We'd screen
out the Apostle Paul if he applied to
many of our missions And forgive me if
I step on any toes you can come
up and step on mine after the meeting
We'll end up operating the same way the
IBM Corporation operates No, we'll have less faith
than they do Coca-cola has already opened
a bottling plant in China And the McDonnell
hamburger chain has just become the biggest restaurant
chain in all of Japan sold a hundred
and thirty four million Dollars worth of hamburgers
to the Japanese last year and have a
goal to put a hamburger in every stomach
And when they came to England the British
said in no way will this go in
England?
Picking up you ever see an English meeting
a hamburger.
He takes his knife and he force he
cuts it up Comes in telling him they
have to pick this up with a hand.
It will be a total failure it's the
biggest restaurant fastest-growing chain in Great Britain
today across the country and They're picking them
up and they love it.
They're going out of their mind It all
started with one man One man who bought
one crummy little dinky hamburger stand and decided
to do something for the sake of money
Divorced his wife in the process and a
few other things But the church, oh, well,
you know, I mean, I mean, we're gonna
be careful, you know We're gonna have another
committee meeting and really well, you know the
problems Would Caleb and Joshua make it into
your mission society?
I believe health is important.
Do not get me wrong and I believe
it's good to have a health form and
know where you stand.
We have one in no end So don't
misunderstand me But there are times when God
is going to need people even with health
problems on the field The director of our
work in Germany is a diabetic One of
our best girls in Belgium is on crutches
and I wouldn't want to tell you some
of the other people that are hobbling around
the old world filled with the Holy Ghost
and winning souls to Christ and planting churches
May God get all the glory not man.
Oh, I pray that somehow our excuses will
be broken down.
I Know some people will get nervous when
they hear this kind of message and I
cannot even get into some institutions Especially our
cemeteries seminaries because I preach this way Because
they are afraid that this skinny little loudmouth
is going to come along and pied Piper
the poor Greek students off to the regions
beyond and they will never come back This
is not true.
Most of them have come back and Believe
me some of the things I say you
must try to understand this some of the
things I say are only to bring some
other things into balance and And if other
people weren't saying so much over here on
the other side I wouldn't say so much
to bring it into balance and I praise
God for some of our great seminaries and
They have graduated some great men and we
have some of them But how easily we
get caught up into intellectualism This school is
one of the few That seemingly has stayed
free from this very subtle tentacle of intellectualism
and pseudo-intellectualism Which I believe has stopped
more people from going to the mission field
than the world will ever know And I
am NOT against knowledge many of our men
as I've already mentioned graduated from Cambridge and
Oxford and some of them have had to
take their degrees spiritually speaking and Just crumple
them up before Jesus and say here.
I am a sinner use me all that
God would give us a Vision in that
area and then the next enemy and we
won't get to all of them is materialism
The love of things I wonder how many
of us would be willing to sell some
possessions to give more to work for world
missions Oh, wait a minute.
This is really fanaticism sell something I remember
when the Spirit of God moved through Wheaton
College among a few students They started to
put their possessions up for sale it and
I don't think that's ever been forgotten It
was considered extremism fanaticism Asceticism everything you can
think of we're so worried about people becoming
fanatical As if this was a real big
problem within the church today Over enthusiasm people
so in love with Jesus Christ, maybe a
problem of a few Posers said to think
that this was the biggest problem in the
average church too much enthusiasm Was like sending
a squadron of policemen out to a cemetery
to guard against the midnight demonstration by the
residents Not really the biggest problem in the
average church in Canada.
I would say All that we would have
such a love for Jesus Christ that we
would count it a joy to let some
of our possessions go Well, what are we
going to do with acts to act three
act four act five who?
unpleasant chapters those are So what you have
Jesus said and get bags that wax not.
Oh, what a funny old verse When's the
last time you heard that one expounded?
No wonder John White's book Golden Cow has
upset many many people in North America these
days Because if there's any area where we
have strayed it's in the area of material
possessions and materialism Love of money the manipulative
power of money and everything that's involved with
that and beware Brother Maxwell, mr.
Maxwell gave me this this morning How here
at Prairie the devil can sometimes bring in
a subtle pride?
because you do have Many of you a
degree of victory in reality in this area,
but let's always take heed I always say
that to our people in my own work
Let's take heed lest we fall.
Let's look around our homes.
Let's look around our closets Let's make sure
we still have that first love and that
first deal For reaching a lost world for
Jesus Christ, and I believe when that happens
We are gonna see some amazing things take
place And if this wasn't my lifestyle and
my conviction in my belief, I would not
say a single word I don't believe everyone
will be the same and I was an
extremist when I was at Moody.
I had to acknowledge that I Didn't believe
in spending any money for hardly anything.
I Haven't bought any clothes hardly in 25
years We have the old missionary barrel and
I just look in there and find whatever
I can get that doesn't make me more
spiritual It just gives me a greater privilege
to give more money for Bibles and scriptures.
I admit that our movement went extreme I
Apologize if we offended any of you as
most of us sold our possessions cashed in
our insurance policies sold our vehicles and most
of us have been following that simple practice
throughout the world all these years and No
wonder our missionary families can live on four
and five thousand dollars a year 6,000
in almost any nation in the world I
know that's very upsetting to some people but
I say it anyway, because I don't like
the present trend of 20 30 40 grand
to support a missionary and It's going to
explode the backlash is already coming There is
a big anti missionary feeling in North America
at this present time And that's one of
the reasons Because young people to be missionaries
have to be go beggars and beg around
to 50 or 100 different churches just to
get support to Go to the field If
this is the way they operated in the
book of Acts then I must be a
flying donkey take a picture and then forgive
me I Beg of the church and all
of us together to repent of the fact
that money has become too major a factor
And we have lost the burden To sacrifice
for Christ a word that really has been
wiped out of the evangelical vocabulary Because someone
came along and said compared to Christ there
is no sacrifice.
Therefore.
We don't use the word And we played
a little trick on ourselves and decided there
was no longer anything.
We could really do that was a sacrifice
This school was built on sacrifice you have
been given the privilege to study here because
others have gone the extra mile and Suffered
and sacrificed and wept and prayed no work
of God has been built without tears without
toil without sacrifice sweat and tears Mission leaders
and missionary co-workers tonight.
Let us reread the story of our founders
Men like Hudson Taylor CT stud and a
host of others Who were very disliked in
their day, but who plowed and fought and
battle and wept and fasted and planted the
seed We benefit from today and then the
third enemy is impurity John White has also
written a book on this subject We spoke
about this this morning to the high school
young people as we went verse by verse
in God's Word What's the Bible says about
sex?
It bothers me that in the churches we
don't teach more about sex There are 400
verses in your Bible even the King James
on the subject of sex and yet we
have so little to say about it and
we wonder why this is one of the
things that is stopping so many young people
in their tracks and If you think that
can be resolved through a set of rules
You must have your head in deeper sand
that I knew existed anywhere rules can be
a help.
I'm not against rules They build character if
they're right and if the people are rightly
motivated, but it's not enough There has to
be a deep work of grace There has
to have to be a baptism of purity
in the heart that has to be disciplined
the word prayer and all the other biblical
principles of the New Testament Purity God's plan
way When we see the invasion of impurity
even into the church We understand why at
times they can't get any missionary candidates and
now it's spreading to the mission field and
we've had major Major trouble in the mission
fields with impurity and adultery and immorality Praise
God not to a huge degree, but it's
there and it scares me And I trace
it back to the lack of prayer.
I take the back to the lack of
reality the lack of discipline and The lack
of following the simple basic teachings of Jesus
and the New Testament in our down-to
-earth Seven day a week living and then
the fourth enemy I believe is extremism.
This is why I wrote a book on
spiritual balance Which will even help you to
perhaps not misunderstand some of the things I'm
saying tonight But it's so easy when we
have strong convictions if those convictions are not
mixed with love and patience that we become
bitter Or we go into some extreme On
one page here in the back of my
Bible.
I've listed about 40 50 areas where we
have to work toward balance And I'm wrestling
with whether I should share that on Saturday
or Sunday But beware of extremism.
I was so thrilled to see that.
This was a major emphasis here at Prairie
This thing of balance.
I feel so linked with this concept major
crews balancing one another off Avoiding Polarization which
leads to paralyzation Trying to understand people more
trying to relate to people being slower to
speak speak quicker to listen Oh May God
keep us from extremism and then the fourth
enemy or a fifth enemy very quickly false
ideas about missionary work I've touched on a
few of these but let's all be open
-minded.
I Am so indebted to the great missionary
movements represented here today The first time I
went to a mission conference conference like this
Who's a Tennessee Temple School in Tennessee?
I was studying in another school Away from
there and the first time I ever went
to a mission conference and saw missionary displays
like we have here I couldn't believe it.
I almost left.
I Almost went out of my mind.
I never knew there was so many great
societies.
I went to every display I gathered up
every piece of literature.
I was so turned on.
It's a miracle.
I even could drive home And I pray
every one of you will get down to
these missionary displays and just clean all that
literature out of there and spread It all
over the world.
And if you can't go yourself then send
ten other people in your place.
Oh What a challenge to be in a
conference like this and as you read some
of this literature by these great missions You
will get some of the false ideas knocked
out of your mind We need study.
We need we need investigation.
We need research some of the vision I
received for the Muslim world Didn't happen in
the night didn't happen in some exotic or
wild dream It happened in the library a
Moody Bible Institute my favorite place reading books.
I Got more blessing out of the books
that were not on the curriculum than the
books.
I had to read Maybe I shouldn't say
that here.
That's just the way I am.
I read them all And I believe everybody
here should be reading a book a week,
but that's a separate message and I don't
want to get Too confused just lastly the
sixth enemy is is ignorance.
Oh Might we take books like operation world
and and read them.
May we get to know what's happening in
China?
May we get to know something about India.
May those of us in missions become familiar
with other missions other fields People in Latin
America should be focusing on the Muslim world
We in love the world have made our
major target for three years Latin America We're
even sacrificing our big ship to go there,
even though half of us are not even
happy about it Because Latin America is one
of the most responsive places in all the
world today And the ship has just had
such a ministry beyond all all capacity of
understanding working with the churches in Latin America
She just arrived Lord willing in Barbados today
The enemy of ignorance needs to be wiped
out and then seven laziness and unwillingness to
suffer Philippians 129 it's been given you in
his behalf not only to believe but to
suffer for his sake.
Oh For that what we see in the
book of Nehemiah a mind to work People
think I jog at 630 in the morning
because I'm infatuated with jogging what the truth
I hate jogging.
I think it's stupid I like tennis.
I like something.
That's a you know, it's got a little
sense of reference to it But I jog
because I don't like it and they're not
too many things I can do every day
that I don't like I'm the kind of
character that basically enjoys life to a large
degree.
And so I choose purposely things every day
that I don't like And it's wonderful you
start liking the things you don't like I
can't figure that out We need to learn
to deny self in the little areas and
then eighthly Intellectualism a subtle vicious enemy of
world evangelism not knowledge, but intellectualism ninth disunity
and failure to build relationships Some people thought
the secret of OM was some dynamic leader.
Others thought it was the vision for world
evangelism Or this thing or that thing if
there's any one secret in our feeble work
apart from God himself It's been the emphasis
on building deep close relationships So that those
of us who linked together 20 years ago
many of us are still together and even
those who in other mission societies We're linked.
We're one heart.
We're one mind.
We don't all believe the same thing.
We don't all cross our T's in the
same place But we've become a one heart
and of one mind And we've had no
major disunity in 24 years And that is
almost makes an unstoppable combination when it comes
to evangelism and church planting Reaching out across
the lost world or whatever.
God leads you into we need to build
relationships.
We need revival among us as missionaries To
love one another more to pray together more
to esteem one another better than ourselves to
not seek our own thing or just push
our own group, but to really come into
oneness and Single-mindedness in God's work and
then lastly the final enemy is prayerlessness Majorities
still are not making it at 730.
I know it's a long way Some are
ill, but I'll be ashamed If in the
next two days, we don't have to move
out of that dinky pinky little room over
there with this prayer meeting because God touches
hearts that prayer is priority and That we
need to be on our knees as a
company a half an hour is nothing Most
of our prayer meetings are six seven hours
long And we still don't get through praying
for the hundred and fifty nations across the
world where millions are going out into hell
I want to challenge you from the bottom
of my weak struggling heart.
Is this a game with you or is
it real?
Are we soldiers in a total warfare?
Are we sometimes or in some way on
some kind of evangelical holiday weekend?
Who may God take us and break us
and fill us and bring us to our
knees?
and may we see Flow from this place
a wave of prayer and giving and power
and sacrifice and people that will touch every
Nick and corner of this floor of this
lost world.
I pray this in Jesus name Let us
pray Oh Father, please give each one here
discernment to take any straw out of this
message Now we may get the wheat of
what you want to say to us That
many may hear the voice of Jesus saying
follow me follow me and I will make
you a fisher of men Now we may
not wait for some kind of special super
Special call but that we may seek your
will and get guidance Well, we know we
need guidance and we need to be led
of you But we believe you will lead
us And we believe you have given the
command and now we must obey Lord we
stand against these fiery darts these fiery darts
That Satan that are trying to cripple world
evangelism and stop the flow of missionaries and
finance to the ends of the earth this
ugly syndrome of unbelief this subtle deceptive materialism
this Awesome Extremism and all that comes with
it That's so easily gets us on a
side road or gets us majoring in minors
and minoring in the majors Teach us the
way of discipline in the spirit of sacrifice
Take us into the inner chamber that we
may know something of intercessory agonizing prayer That
we may be your men and your women
and go where you want us to go
and do what you want us to do
Oh God grant this we pray with every
inch of our being Knowing Lord that when
we fail you will be there to pick
us up and minister We acknowledge our mistakes
as missionaries our need for greater vision greater
flexibility adaptability Lord meet us in this place.
We pray and believe in Jesus name Amen