Dear Father, we thank you for what you've
already said in a very strong way to
our hearts this morning.
Pray that we may continue on from there,
carrying these truths back to our own situation,
our own hearts, our own particular struggles.
Lord, we thank you that we can face,
by your grace, by your grace, life head
-on with all that it involves, some of
the scary experiences, some of the hard experiences.
And may we, as a result of these
days together, somehow go away a little more
mature about what it's all about here on
planet Earth.
Guide us in our thinking, in our note
-taking, in our studies, in our conversations throughout
the day.
And Lord, wherever there may be people that
listen to this tape, may somehow you minister
their hearts as well.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
Well, we always get lots of sound effects.
And we're picking up a little bit from
what Brother Alfie has shared.
I would just look at that passage in
2 Corinthians that all of you are familiar
with.
In praying and preparing for this morning, I
felt burdened to really speak a little about
the grace of God, the practical grace.
And this is just what Alfie has been
sharing with us.
How God gives practical grace.
Or should we say grace for practical, difficult
situations.
We know those beautiful words in 2 Corinthians
12, where Paul speaks about the messenger of
Satan in verse 7, used to humble him.
Now he prayed three times that it would
go away, and it didn't go.
Instead, God spoke to him and said, verse
9, My grace is sufficient for thee, for
my strength is made perfect in weakness.
Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in
my infirmities, that the power of Christ may
rest upon me.
And then those strange words, really, therefore I
take pleasure in infirmities, weaknesses is a better
translation.
In reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses
for Christ's sake.
For when I am weak, then I am
strong.
Words that I trust you do turn to
frequently.
Life for most of us as we move
on is going to have some hard experiences.
And as we're warned and exhorted in scripture,
as much as possible it's good to know
the enemy's tactics.
I made just a list of some of
the hard experiences that some of the people
I have counseled have gone through.
Some of them I've gone through myself.
I thought you might want to just write
some of these things down.
And just rejoice that he giveth grace.
We know that hymn we often sing, as
the burden grows greater, the grace grows greater.
Or as the burden increasing, the grace groweth
greater.
It's been really amazing to watch so many
people in the history of OM just receive
grace in the time of need, really.
It's amazing.
People like Brother Ray Lynch, who so wanted
to get back with his wife, so wanted
to get back to his children.
The greatest human desire this man has ever
had.
It's never happened.
To see God give him the grace these
past 20 years since we've been laboring together.
God giveth grace.
What are some of those hard experiences?
Some of you may be in even now.
Great mistake if we presume that leaders are
all just ready to go and disciple others.
Who's going to disciple the leaders?
Who's going to minister to the leaders?
Who's going to show the leaders the way
of grace, the way of forgiveness, how to
wrestle with their emotions, how to deal with
their hang-ups?
Because in fact, you know, every week a
large percentage of the problems are not the
followers, they're the leaders.
Can't blame new recruits, young babes in Christ
for some of the things that happen on
OM teams.
It's often, far more often the failure of
the leader to appropriate the grace that God
wants to give at that moment or to
appropriate the wisdom or to learn from God's
hand, God's school of experience.
It is true that things that have happened
to us in the past often affect present
conduct.
Things that happened to you back in your
family, your own relationship with your father, some
of the trials you may have gone through
in the past do affect often present behavior.
That doesn't mean that we believe in fatalism
or that we believe in some form of
deterministic philosophy, but it means we just realize
that's a factor.
Modern psychology is actually telling us now it's
less a factor than previous thought.
The modern trend in some schools of psychology
is that these young people from New York
City, from broken homes and delinquent homes, it's
all not as simple as we once analyzed,
and that some people from broken, terrible homes
are just doing fantastic things, even in the
secular world.
It used to be, from what psychology was
trying to tell us, if you were from
a broken home or your mother had this
problem and your father had that problem, you
just didn't have a chance.
You were just destined to be a juvenile
delinquent.
We know if that happens in the secular
world, how much more it happens when the
Holy Spirit invades a situation.
What are some of the specific areas in
day-by-day living where we must appropriate
the grace of the Lord?
Number one, when we feel that our own
parents don't really love us.
When we feel our own parents don't really
love us.
Some of you may never have had that
particular situation.
But some of the people you counsel have.
In fact, some people run into O.M.
as an escape from difficulties in the home.
Now, of course, if it's a converted Hindu
or converted Muslim who's been thrown out of
his home, you know, that's understandable.
But if it's a brother who's just running
away from a Christian home because he doesn't
like it or he's never disciplined himself or
for some other reason, then we're facing a
totally different experience.
We need to be able to counsel and
train some of these young people to be
able to go back home and relate to
their own parents and to appropriate the grace
of God for that situation.
Very seldom is it a black and white
case that your parents don't love you.
It's more likely that they're not gifted in
expressing it.
Or it may be that in a family
of ten children, your father and mother ran
out of steam.
I often thought with three children I was
running out of steam, much less a baker's
dozen.
We fail oftentimes as young, zealous, idealistic O
.M.ers to face the fact that our
parents are human.
Our parents are human.
Of course they're going to fail.
Of course they have failed.
You get this idea that when you arrive
at the age of 25, you've got everything
together.
I think I had less together now at
43 than I did at 25, at least
in some ways.
That's why many men come into a mid
-year or mid-life crisis.
As they realize at 40 that they don't
have it, they don't have what they were
dreaming about at 25 or 19.
It's far more embarrassing.
When you make mistakes at 19, people overlook
it.
Mistakes that I made at that age, many
people just, they were impressed by the mistakes.
They were encouraged, this is normal.
Press on.
Make the same mistakes now, and you can
be in real trouble when you're older.
The second thing is, when you try hard
to do something, you try very hard, you
pray hard, you work hard, and it fails.
Fails.
That's where you need grace.
You have a great evangelistic campaign, you work
very hard on it, and no one comes
to Christ.
Or maybe some come to Christ, you're all
excited and you tell others the wonderful things
God has done, you have your follow-up
meeting and no one shows up.
Remember the follow-up?
I know about the tea already.
Remember the follow-up meetings we had in
Bombay after the ship visited?
We didn't get overwhelmed by all the new
converts from the open-air meetings.
Somebody did some research into this.
If you want to get a case of
the depressions, read some of that research.
We have to know how to appropriate grace
when we try hard to do something and
it fails.
Beware of the failure syndrome.
You think you're failing so much, most people
sense they're failing a lot.
Most people.
There are a few who are caught up
in some kind of temporary success ego trip,
but it generally doesn't last so long.
Ment three, when someone, especially a friend, gossips
about you.
That's always a great experience, isn't it?
You ever get that one on your team?
Leaders who find out someone's gossiping against you?
Find out they've developed a little nickname for
you?
You're the kind of leader that tends to
bark in the mornings and wake people up
in a way that scares them.
You're a bit demanding on them, bossing them
around, and so they give you, privately, a
little nickname.
Hitler.
In one of my first teams, one of
the members thought I was a Hitler.
You know, there is a slight resemblance, you
know.
The same Aryan strain, and it is a
strain at times to be an Aryan, whatever
that means.
You know, if we're going to grow up,
we've got to know how to handle gossip.
If no one's gossiping about you, you're not
doing anything.
You're probably going to sleep for the last
five years.
Gossip is as basic to spiritual life in
India as microbes in the water.
We can boil the water.
I don't know what we're supposed to do
with the gossip.
We have to learn to appropriate the grace
of God for those situations.
Then, fourthly, we won't let your tea get
too cold, but we need to get a
little bit of this before the break.
Fourthly, when a leader you have confided in
breaks confidence.
This happens, unfortunately, more often than we'd like.
I guess we fail to realize that leaders
are human.
Some of the confidences that get broken, you
know, are because the person who received the
information forgot that it was confidential.
I know in my own case, I received
so much information, you have no idea of
how much information I have to pump into
my head.
An average of four hours, a little more,
reading every single day, taking in information, sorting
it out in my little mind, of course,
filing some of it.
When you're on the road, your files and
the material is not always handy, and sometimes
without knowing it, I've said something that was
supposed to be confidential.
To be quite honest, I find sometimes it's
better for me not to say anything about
some things that I don't know, especially, you
know, about the women, which ones are pregnant,
and then which ones are pregnant, and you're
allowed to tell people about it, and which
ones it's a secret.
In either case, it's probably not worth talking
about it, because everybody already knows.
We are so childish and so ridiculous when
we go around sharing all these little confidences,
especially in a very sort of rushed, quick
way.
We don't emphasize it enough.
Just sort of at the end of the
conversation, we say, oh, by the way, keep
that to yourself.
You know, it's very difficult several weeks later
to know, and sometimes you get people guarding
these confidences, you know, very strictly, very carefully,
weeks after a public announcement has been made
about it all.
He's still guarding this confidence, Lord, help me
guard my tongue, crucify self.
It's already been added in the International Weekly.
Sometimes it's better to have less confidences, and
at least be a little more relaxed about
when some of these things leak out, a
little more mature, because people are people, very
weak, very human.
Sometimes somebody under tremendous pressure uses something that
it really had been better not to use,
in order to try to convince this guy
who's coming down on him that a particular
thing is not so, and when he uses
that, he's using information that he got from
someone else, and immediately he's got himself in
what we call a pickle in baseball.
I'm sure you don't understand what that is.
A difficult situation.
Let me tell you what that is.
You need to know what a pickle is.
In baseball, I used to play baseball, my
favorite sport, until my arm didn't grow, and
I was the pitcher on the small fry
team, and then the primary school team.
I went to high school, and I just
made the team, but mainly I sat on
the bench watching the other people play, because
the coach said that my arm was too
skinny, and I couldn't throw the ball fast
enough.
But in a pickle, you know, you run
to the bases, and if you're on your
way running to the base, and the man
gets the ball in front of you, not
running to the first base, but running to
the second base, they can pass it back
and forth, and you can run back and
forth until they tag you with the ball.
Isn't that right, Gary?
Sounds about right.
Twenty-two years out of baseball land.
Anyway, it's a difficult situation.
And when we're under pressure as leaders, when
we're under pressure as leaders, we need to
be careful of what we quote from what
other people have said, especially if they've said
it to us in confidence.
It's better to use some ground in that
discussion rather than quote things that were given
to us in confidence, or things that are
going to just eventually bring more division.
Now, I know that from experience, because I
found with my kind of temperament, when I'm
really trying to convince somebody of something, boy,
I will start to grab for everything I
can.
I've had to repent and get correction.
But at that point, you see, we need
to learn something that often we don't mean
certain things that we say.
We're not trying to be malicious.
You've just got us in a difficult situation,
maybe under pressure, and so we say something.
And here's the mistake.
Here's where two wrongs take place instead of
one.
Then that person, he goes and does the
same thing, and the gossip goes, and the
talk goes, and the Word of God gets
hindered.
Learning how to claim grace in that kind
of situation.
Number five.
Appropriating grace when someone you have won to
Christ loved and helped turns back, or even
against you.
I had many of those experiences in the
early years of the work when I was
so involved in personal evangelism.
I don't say this as a boast.
I only say this so that you know
where leadership training begins.
Because it's so easy to get a wrong
idea of a leader.
And you think a leader is an administrator
sitting behind a desk writing letters.
I dare to say that I doubt there's
as many of you in this room that
have ever done as much personal work as
I have done with individual souls.
I personally feel there's probably just a few
of you.
That was my whole life.
Personal work.
Before I was born.
Long after I was born.
Winning people to Christ.
I was extreme, it's true.
People accepted Christ when I witnessed whether they
wanted to or not.
I took course after course in personal evangelism.
I believe this was the way before I
ever got into literature.
I believe that personal soul winning and discipling
that brother, loving him was the way to
reach the world for Christ.
And one of the things that has so,
so upset me at times about certain ministries
in O.M. even the ship ministry was
the fact that so easy we get into
mechanical things spreading the gospel and selling books
and we miss that personal eyeball to eyeball
personal witnessing for Jesus Christ.
Leading them to Christ.
And then following them up by letter.
When I led people to Christ in the
local jail I went three, four times a
week and started discipling them and training them.
We shouldn't even have to talk about follow
-up.
Follow-up must automatically be there.
There can be no evangelism without follow-up.
It's not even evangelism if there's no follow
-up.
Doesn't mean we have to plant a church.
I didn't plant a church in that jail.
It doesn't mean we can always follow-up
every single person that we give the gospel
to.
During that same period I was giving out
tracts.
I was doing other things.
I couldn't follow-up on all that.
But I can always follow-up on some
of it.
Well, that would take us into a separate
message.
But when you get into that kind of
work you're going to have your heart broken.
You go into follow-up work when you
go into church planting or establishing anything permanent
you're going to have your heart broken.
Just like on our teams.
Probably out of one out of every twelve
that have ever come out of no end
team was a Judas.
Of some kind.
It doesn't mean, you know, he had to
steal.
There are many kinds of Judases.
It's normal.
And we need a lot of wisdom and
a lot of discernment.
Especially when we gather up recruits back door.
I can't believe that some people get so
preoccupied with the numbers.
The number of people in your state does
not determine your impact for God.
Certainly you're not that childish yet.
Certainly you're not that naive.
Those of you in this room.
It's whether they are a spirit-filled group.
Better to have smaller numbers.
That's always been the teaching of O.M.
That's not new.
We could have been 15,000 strong by
now.
Just mainly emphasized America and mainly emphasized O
.M. and built that sectarian mentality which someone
of my type of speaking gift can do
if he's not careful.
But we've always believed that a minority of
spirit-filled, praying, disciplined people can make a
greater impact for the Lord.
And the strategy we are moving forward in
is no real change.
We've been working that way in India all
along.
It's just that as God works, there have
to be times when we stop and we
prove a little.
There's no great cutback taking place here.
Let's not get carried away with our imagination.
Which state have we withdrawn from?
Would you tell me?
We're going into Tamil Nadu and Andhra without
me hardly even knowing about it.
We're not cutting back in any big way.
We're doing a little pruning.
We're encouraging some people on to new horizons
and new dimensions of faith.
We're consolidating a little and until the A
.I.C. we won't even know what has
been done because we haven't done too much
here except in a few exceptional cases because
so much of this depends on you state
leaders and your team leaders whether you're willing
to go back of one heart and of
one mind to carry out what we believe
the Lord has given to us.
Number six, when a friend this is a
very practical thing you've loaned him something your
bicycle, your cassette recorder, in the west it
would be more your car and he goes
out and he crashes it.
That's a great blessing, isn't it?
You've saved for five or six years to
buy your bicycle, your car, your cassette recorder
or it would be my little music recorder
that I carry around.
Boy, I loaned that to someone and they
went and broke it.
That would be a test.
That's a beautiful opportunity, isn't it?
To let love cover and to realize what
the scriptures teach about accepting the spoiling of
your goods.
Our hearts do get attached to things, don't
they?
They do get attached to things.
Nothing wrong with having things.
We can use some of these things that
truck, this tape recorder, a typewriter we can
use these things for the glory of God.
If you don't believe that then don't use
any electricity.
It's all basically the same.
Many Christians attack strongly electricity.
Still some do, even in the United States.
It's up to the devil.
If you use electricity if you use an
airplane if you use a bus then how
are you going to say we shouldn't use
a computer or we shouldn't use a tape
recorder?
Where do you draw the line?
I tell you, it's not easy.
It's one of the most difficult areas to
find balance.
But I want to tell you if we're
not willing to use a little bit of
modern equipment whether it's electricity tape recorder, a
film projector I think we can forget about
evangelizing the world because there are four and
a half billion people four and a half
thousand million people out there and the multiplication
method and the local church you know the
early revivals and everybody rushes out everybody's speaking
to one who wins one who wins, one
who wins, one well, for two thousand years
we've been watching, we've been watching maybe that
was God's original program but the world has
been reached because of men like Billy Graham
the world has been reached because of groups
like World Vision the world has been reached
because of Christian radio and Christian literature without
those basic tools not even a fraction of
the people in the world today would have
been reached and we should never put personal
evangelism, in-depth discipleship the simple type of
going about things like Sadhu Sundar Singh did
with making use of the tools that God
has given to the church in the 20th
century whether it be a vehicle, a computer
a typewriter, or a cassette recorder number seven
when you've lost something valuable and after fervent
prayer it never shows up you ever lose
something really valuable your whole wallet with money,
passport whatever else you pray and pray and
pray you've heard these tremendous testimonies I have
some of praying back lost things so you
pray and pray it never comes back we've
had many many things lost in O.M.
I might put a practical exhortation in here
you know learn to take care of your
things learn to take care of your things
especially if you have something like a camera
or a cassette recorder I tell you they're
just natural targets they're just natural temptations and
you know last year again we lost a
lot of things being stolen be careful when
you're carrying money all the way around we
need a lot of care but you know
when it happens God wants you to know
how to rejoice in appropriate grace but not
practical nitty gritty situation and to understand that
prayer doesn't manipulate God we often learn through
an experience when we don't see the answer
as Tozer said we learn more through that
than we do when we see great answers
to prayer number eight when you felt you
had a victory over a particular sin and
then you fall again you've even testified about
that deliverance how the Lord gave you deliverance
and how you learn through meditating on the
word through walking in the light with others
through claiming the power of the blood you've
learned victory over that and then it happens
again and again that's where I've seen young,
immature Christians really blown away they can handle
their first failure and their second failure it's
the 15th failure it's the 25th failure that
they just finally said Christianity doesn't work for
I'm no good we are in a great
warfare we're in perpetual struggle the word says
the flesh wrestles against the spirit the spirit
against the flesh the two are contrary and
I believe in this great war with thousands
of battles we're going to lose quite a
few I've lost quite a few maybe little
ones unnoticed by others for me they were
pretty big at that time because I was
sure I had finally licked that thing finally
licked that bad temper maybe went I think
I must have went once for a year
without a single Bavarian temper flip out all
the irritability I had and still I lost
a few of those and then boom at
a particular moment it happened and I thought
God where's all this grace and victory and
power I've had people pray over me I'm
not the kind that tries anything man you
want to pray over me standing on my
head I'll do it when I was 13
I used to have an act in the
boy scouts standing on my head flipping over
double flips all kinds of things people came
out and watched this this guy with a
flat head you know I'm willing to take
chances but you know that doesn't bring spiritual
life it doesn't bring spiritual life it may
help shove gazes and then number nine when
one of you truly one you truly love
gets ill you pray hard so do others
and the friend dies happens happens all the
time 10 o'clock with the greatest healing
ministry in England auditor of Australia suddenly finds
out he has leukemia comes back to the
hospital people are praying his wife is praying
we need this man the founder of intercessors
for England many people are praying I get
word it looks like he's really healed he's
really coming back praise the Lord I arrive
back in England after my Middle East trip
the last one he's dead first thing I
do is go to his funeral there with
his children there with his wife relatively middle
aged man you know all of us have
to die and when it's God's time for
a man to die all the prayer of
all of God's people will not make the
difference it's perfectly normal to pray God doesn't
mind he knows you're a human being God's
not going to condemn him you don't pray
for him I don't have to take him
he'll let you pray but you must be
willing to learn through that experience not my
will but thy will O God such a
fear of death among often God's people so
realize privilege glory to splendor going to heaven
something I've only slightly comprehended myself when it
is a loved one it is someone close
nothing wrong with tears and nothing wrong with
sorrow we again are human beings you have
to preach at the husband the widow standing
there in the front row what do you
do?
look up and say praise the Lord sister
hallelujah Jesus is alive let's sing a little
gospel jingle I arrive back in England from
another trip most times I go back from
Asia I have a crisis when I get
back there most times I went back from
another trip out here in Asia and my
friend the man who helped start a way
in England he suddenly had a heart attack
and he was gone here I was in
the funeral with his young wife she never
recovered from that I think backslidden never recovered
that was his second wife his first wife
was a very godly woman was out of
wedlock in the early years she also suddenly
died partly through probably malpractice in the surgery
and oh I heard this anointed man of
God I will tell you you may not
think the Anglican church is the most ruling
thing in planet earth but there are some
of the most anointed men I've ever heard
are in the Anglican church and this godly
bishop gave this message at that funeral he
said more than 15 minutes than I can
say in 45 well now you're in the
place of sorrow in the life of the
belief it's good to know that isn't it
and then number 10 just two points and
we'll go for tea when you have royal
feelings towards someone you work to get victory
and fail finding it even harder to love
that person that's a perpetual battle and I
think in this area again we fail to
really accept our humanity and to realize we're
going to have different vibrations about different people
we're going to have different emotions about different
people and many of our relationships we will
have to continue to work on we will
have to continue to bring our whole spiritual
being under the crucifying surgical hand of our
savior so don't be surprised and claim the
grace that God can give in some of
these sticky difficult relationships which seem to be
an ongoing battle and then lastly when someone
openly belittles you someone openly rejects you someone
openly shows that you are wrong publicly you
ever had the public exposure experience you know
our leaders don't don't don't publicly expose your
team members in front of other team members
that is not the way to do it
don't publicly rebuke somebody because you think he
spent an extra rupee on something you deal
with that privately as much as possible all
that kind of thing is done privately now
there are cases where maybe in the midst
of the team meeting someone does and says
something really off and you have to at
least see say something publicly maybe to bring
the situation into balance as much as possible
you need to confront people very compassionately and
I want to tell you one of the
greatest mistakes leaders make is their inability to
confront people in a way that the person
does not feel belittled or reduced to something
less than human and I will tell you
don't let any kind of pride get into
your leadership before God you are still a
sinner and if you go to correct someone
you go with a spirit of humility lest
you fall lest you do the same thing
and someone has to come along like Ray
and Alfie and correct you on the same
point I have found in L.M. that
sometimes leaders demand from their followers what they
are not willing to give to those over
them and that sometimes a state leader or
a national leader is willing and wants a
very strong control over his little troops but
he doesn't want very much control over him
and if you are trying to correct him
on something suddenly you find you got an
argument we need to understand how important it
is to not only teach people how to
submit but to learn a little about submission
ourselves and then at the same time understand
when things do go wrong when you are
belittled when you are misunderstood when you are
rejected there is still grace there is still
grace supernatural grace that can take you down
the road weeping and praising the living God
even if it's after a few tears oh
I've shed a few tears and I hope
I hope you know how to weep let's
pray Father we thank you for your mercy
to us ministering to us this morning we
thank you Lord that you give grace to
many different experiences of life little things big
things misunderstandings criticisms gossip things being lost things
being broken Lord I know that I'm going
to have to put this all in practice
grace to get on airplanes grace to go
back to all kinds of unpredictable situations And
we believe, Lord, You can
give grace, for Your strength is made perfect
in weakness.
Your grace is sufficient.
We stand on Your promises.
We believe Your Word.
That is the anchor.
That is the foundation of this work and
our lives, and there we stand by Your
grace.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Can you hear now to the second message
on this particular morning?
Isn't there an interesting quotation?
I think the Lord gave me this quotation
when I was in Bombay many years ago.
It's from that book, The Psychology of Jesus
and Mental Health, by Raymond Creamer.
It shows how God uses circumstances to bring
us to the end of ourselves and to
really teach us what life is about.
The archangel is trying to maneuver us by
pain and sleeplessness into a crisis experience, so
we will have to face reality.
But we thwart the purpose of pain by
taking an aspirin or a sleeping pill.
Thus we avoid the pain and refuse to
get at the real cause of our trouble.
The archangel scratches his head, wondering what next
he can do to push us into a
corner.
He tries a financial crisis, but Aunt Mary
pays the bill and again we refuse to
accept the crisis, the crisis experience as an
opportunity to face ourselves.
Now, I don't read that because I'm against
taking aspirins, but there is something about us
that so loves to get away from the
pain, so loves to get away from the
crisis.
And I think, you know, in India we
at times have been trying to run away
rather than face the issues.
God has allowed this tremendous suffering to take
place in Bombay, and I believe it's helping
us.
God's got us in a corner to make
some changes that need to be made that
this work be pure and that we be
more united and that we would be willing
for some pruning, and we just praise the
Lord for it.
Let me give you another quotation.
I hope all of you men in training,
women in training, have a quotation book.
I don't know if I have one with
me right now because I often take things
out of it and just bring.
Yes, I do.
This is my quotation book.
It's getting old, and I have to keep
it in this plastic bag.
But whenever I get a really good quotation,
something that's a nugget of truth, it may
have taken years for that man of God
to get that nugget of truth, I get
it in this little book, or at least
I get it on paper.
I have several files because he built up
a lot over the years.
I cannot tell you how much that has
ministered to me and how valuable that is.
You know, some of the old preaching is
a little bit weak because they don't know
how to use other people's spiritual truths and
because not too many OMers are coming up
with too many jewels themselves.
And your preaching will be a lot stronger
as you use the word of God and
also you use powerful antidotes, stories in presenting
the gospel.
Let me give you this little quotation.
General Montgomery was one of the great generals
in Britain.
Supposedly he was a Christian.
We don't know.
He gave seven ingredients to military leadership.
Now, we're in God's army.
Some of the things in the military are
of no value to us.
Every comparison in scripture, we need to know
where it ends.
The comparison of us being soldiers, we need
to know where it ends because otherwise we
get into a lot of gospel teen soldiering,
which is of little value.
But here are seven ingredients to military leadership.
Number one, you should be able to sit
back and avoid getting immersed in detail.
Now, in Christian leadership, where we're also humble
servants, we've got to have discernment as to
when to get immersed in detail, even the
simplest thing for the sake of Jesus, in
our simple walk with Christ.
And when, in our leadership of the work,
we have to pull back so that we're
able to really make objective, sane, well-thought
-through, well-played-through decisions.
Okay, number two, he must not be petty.
Petty.
P-E-T-T-Y.
We're getting English lessons here.
It's quite funny to walk past a school
here and hear this lady teaching English.
Go listen to her.
Quite interesting.
Petty means you're bothered over small things.
Someone borrowed your pen and they forgot to
return it and you're in a big flack.
You're in a big huff about that pen.
Here you're working on a message against pen
-taking.
Getting upset over little things, especially when it
has to do with something touching your own
ego.
God doesn't want us to be petty.
A lot I can say about that.
Number three, he does not want us to
be pompous.
New words, huh?
Pompous.
You know, we're better than the others.
We're the leaders.
We're the team leaders.
I get three cups of tea, you get
one.
I get children in my seat, you get
children.
We get four bicycles, one is new, that's
for me.
Cassette recorder, that's for me.
You get two shirts, I get five shirts.
But it's not what you have.
That's not the main thing.
Don't misunderstand.
It's your attitude.
A pompous attitude.
I'm one up from others.
And we have to do this in our
relationship with other organizations and churches and fellowships.
We don't want some kind of O.M.
pompousness.
You know, we don't do things that way.
We are in that group, they throw their
tracks in the rubbish tin.
We are above these things.
You know, beware, lest you fall.
And I found in India, some people are
very quick to say, oh, he's not saved.
This is one of the things I found
with my dear friends in the assemblies that
I ministered with Brother Duck Singh.
So quickly.
They're not saved, that church is dead.
Look at him, he's a worldly fellow.
You know, it's not always so simple.
And that wrong attitude, we may say, oh,
this believer, he's coming out of the cinema.
Oh, the devil has taken over.
He's no worldly fellow, he's not possibly saved.
We develop an attitude and a pompousness that
makes even a Hollywood star look humble.
So beware of pompousness.
Number four, he must be a good picker
of men.
He must know how to select his men.
Choosing his material with perception.
In years gone by, we've had actors try
to join our teams.
They knew that in O.M., you had
to play long, you had to give out
tracts, you had to sell books, you had
to wear shoes that looked like they were
worn out, certain things.
And so they learned to play the role.
They learned to act.
And they won the leader.
And we've had cases where the leader soon
made him the assistant leader.
And he was just acting.
We've had cases where they hardly knew Christ
even as their savior.
Of course, those days are gone.
You've all come into such maturity.
You know, in India, all your team members
are just soldiers, hand-picked, disciplined, dedicated men,
the real thing.
No need for me to come here and
speak on such things.
Number five, he should trust those under him.
He must trust those under him, letting them
get on without his interference.
You delegate something to your brother, you say,
brother, you are going to go to the
post office and buy the postage stamps.
You're delegating it, he starts at the post
office, you think, oh, I don't think he
can do that.
You get on your bicycle, he's just about
to walk into the post office, you kind
of all stop.
I don't think you're ready to handle this
project.
Take the money back, go and buy the
stamps.
I'm sure you have really made him feel
wonderful.
You have to let him get on with
the job.
If he makes a mistake, he'll learn from
that.
You have to learn from your mistakes, don't
rob others of the same privilege.
Some people are afraid that the brothers will
not be trustworthy with the money.
So they are the Scrooge treasurers.
And so they give this brother fifty-five
cents, now be careful, don't spend it all
in the same place.
You've got to give the brothers a little
bit of money.
The only way they will be mature with
money is to have some, so they can
learn.
Of course, most people sell books, so they
have some money, that's good.
That will enable them to know how to
handle money.
It's a long lesson.
Yes, when we give men a job, let
them get on with it.
That doesn't mean they don't report back to
you.
Delegation without follow-up sometimes can be, or
lead to disaster.
And so let them know.
And you know, especially when you leave a
team.
Now you left your team, I wonder how
many of you left a few written instructions
for your team, during your absence.
So much better when you are delegating something
to write it down.
You can also talk about it, because we
have linguistic barriers, we have other barriers.
Writing things down, you keep a copy, then
a lot of problems will be avoided.
Then let them get on with it.
Number six, we must have the power of
clear decision.
We must have the power of clear decision.
Diggering means defeat.
Diggering means defeat, in proper English.
Peter made these are the seven ingredients of
Field Marshal Montgomery, from military leadership.
Just thought you'd like to know how much
we're learning from the British people.
Now in Christian work, there are factors that
military people do not have.
Preying over the decision.
Though probably Field Marshal Montgomery preyed over his
decisions, and certainly other great military men preyed
fervently over their decisions, like Gordon of Khartoum
and others.
We need to be able to make clear
decisions.
And then number seven, he should inspire confidence.
He should inspire confidence.
A team leader must be a motivator.
This work is hard.
Going out all day long with these books,
facing unconverted people, being laughed at, being spit
on, other things.
You must be able to motivate them from
the word, from quotations like the one I'm
sharing with you, from your own experience.
And beware, beware, of when you are constantly
sending the team out and you're not going
yourself.
When that happens, you're in trouble.
I don't care how much administration you have.
Long after Dick Griffin was running a whole
nation, of course, much, much smaller than India,
but long after he was running a whole
nation and many other things, often, up to
perhaps a few years ago, he was almost
every day out on the doors, every day
leading people to Jesus Christ.
Maybe he went a little extreme in that.
Other things sometimes got neglected.
You have to find the balance.
But the team leader's job is not firstly
administration.
That's true of the state leader.
Administration, relating to the people, training the leaders,
follow-up, all kinds of things.
Now, unfortunately, many team members don't understand.
So you, at times, as a team leader,
have to explain what the state leader is
doing.
He's not sitting back there doing nothing.
He's wrestling with spiritual issues.
He's praying.
He's counseling.
He's writing.
He's planning.
And often just having hand-to-hand combat
with the devil himself.
State leaders can also get out in evangelism,
and should.
But team leaders, that's your priority.
Get out with the troops.
You can't always go out all day.
You will have other things you have to
do.
Advance planning, visiting church leaders.
It's good when you do visit and do
things like that to take other people with
you, to take other people with you, because
they can often learn by your experience.
Well, that's just a few thoughts from Field
Marshal Montgomery that I thought would be of
some help to you as you press on
in your work.
Allow me to close this section of my
talk by reading a quotation from Dr. Martin
Lloyd-Jones in his book, Spiritual Depression, which
I hope all of you will read in
the next year.
I defy you to read the life of
any saint that has ever adorned the life
of the church without seeing at once that
the greatest characteristic in the life of that
saint was discipline and order.
Discipline and order.
Invariably, it is the universal characteristic of all
the outstanding men and women of God.
Read about Henry Martin, David Bruner, Jonathan Edwards,
Brothers Wesley and Whitfield.
Read their journals.
It does not matter what branch of the
church they belong to.
They have all disciplined their lives and have
insisted upon the need for this.
And obviously, it is something that is thoroughly
scriptural and absolutely essential.
Thoroughly scriptural and absolutely essential.
Let's just pray.
Father, we thank you for what we can
learn from other people, from other books.
We thank you that you can give us
grace to put these things into practice on
our teams, in our bases, and in our
day-by-day situations.
Guideth, Lord, as we continue in our time
here together, as in a sense we have
to convince and cover a lot of material
in a short time.
Help us not to become drowsy and to
miss what you want to say to us.
And we may realize we are here in
training.
We're not here for a little challenge, a
little Bible study, but we are here for
intensive training in leading your people and being
the men and the women we should be
for your glory.
In Jesus' name, amen.