Lord, deliver us from just being hearers of
the word, cause us also to be doers,
for we pray in Jesus' name, amen.
I'm trying to, each day, get a definite
burden from the Lord to share with you,
and trying also to share things that I
have not shared before, especially with Indian brothers
and sisters.
To be honest, part of the purpose of
the sharing is also to do some sort
of advanced level tapes that can be listened
to in India.
And many of the people, of course, are
not able to come here at this time.
Many years ago, maybe fifteen, twenty years ago,
I started to preach a message called the
Seven Major Emphases, and the missionary, he begged
me to put this into writing.
I was very hesitant, but then, after a
number of years of praying, I finally committed
this message, not the whole message, just part
of it, to writing.
And supposedly now everybody in O.M. has
read this, has studied it, and hopefully they
are able to share this, when God gives
them opportunity, we have this daily competition with
the birds, able to share this with the
younger brothers and sometimes even in their own
churches.
Now, today's message, and this is the first
time I've ever done this, I don't know
why, I want to share a message called
Further Thoughts, Further Thoughts on the Seven Major
Emphasis of O.M. Now this doesn't mean
this is the only thing we emphasize.
Also there's another message called the Major Doctrines
of O.M., the fact that we believe
in the Deity of Jesus Christ, we believe
in the doctrine of heaven and hell, we
believe in Christ's atoning death upon the cross,
we believe the Bible is the word of
God, we believe that Jesus Christ is coming
again, and maybe another day I'm going to
share a message based on the doctrinal statement
of O.M. We have in O.M.
a memorandum of agreement, you may have never
heard of that before, but this is just
a statement that unites all O.M. fields
around the world because each field is different,
Turkey, India, France, each field is different, and
there's no official legal link, the linking is
in heart, and in mind, and in commitment,
there's no legal link, legally O.M. India
is a separate Indian trust, and each team
actually is not officially part of that trust,
they are in fellowship with O.M. as
a fellowship, but they are not officially members
of that trust.
Now we do that because we are living
in India, we must follow the laws of
India, therefore we have bookkeepers and accountants, we
pay taxes, all of these things that sometimes
we are not so aware of in the
work of God.
And I've noticed some brothers, they are thinking,
what are they doing in Bombay, so many
people?
Because they don't understand all the regulations, government
regulations, when you are a registered charity trust.
And so in Bombay they have a lot
of work, a lot of work, and I
hope you'll pray.
We have this heart linking, we have this
commitment to each other, that links us internationally.
But some of the governments of some countries
are asking questions, where is this money going,
how do we know this is being used
properly?
And so some years ago we had to
draw up a memorandum of agreement which gives
some things that we agree upon.
It shows some degree of worldwide fellowship, and
in that memorandum of agreement we have our
own doctrinal statements.
Everybody linked to the Lamb believes these basic
doctrines.
And you can hear a tape on that,
which I hope to do perhaps next week,
or you can at least read the doctrinal
statement as they are available in printed form.
So in a sense that doctrinal statement is,
and those doctrines, that's the foundation.
We can't build this emphasis we're talking about
today, worship and prayer, love and forgiveness, without
that basic doctrinal emphasis.
You see, even in India there are many
who say doctrine is not important, maybe we
just love one another.
Then the next step they say, well, it
doesn't matter if you're a believer in Christ
or a Hindu, all roads are the same,
it's slowly, slowly down the same road.
And you know, though we emphasize these very
beautiful principles, and some Hindus, they would say,
this is very nice, love and forgiveness, victorious
living, worship and prayer, but they would have
trouble when they got to number four, the
Christ's Lordship and all sufficiency.
And we were, Brother Chowdhury was talking to
one Hindu at breakfast this morning, and of
course this man was willing to say Jesus
Christ on the cross, even, yes, he died
for me, but to make Christ Lord, to
turn from his idols, that is the more
difficult step, because of course they want everything.
They put the picture of Jesus up next
to the picture of some other God, and
then another picture of Indira Gandhi, another picture
of John F.
Kennedy.
I've been in so many different houses, they
have all the different pictures, Hopi, Hopi, somehow
they may get to heaven or what they
think is heaven.
So let's remember, these seven spiritual principles, these
seven emphases are built on the foundation of
sound doctrine.
Then also, let me remind you of the
basic strategy of OM.
I had that message about the strategy of
OM long before I had this, in fact
the basic orientation tapes in English.
There are some of those tapes around India,
prayer, the word, unity, warfare, discipline, reproduction, counter
-attack by Satan.
We used to have a little diagram showing
this basic OM strategy.
That is another very important set of biblical
truths that we are trying to emphasize.
And it was after many, many years that
the Lord gave us this further set of
biblical principles that we could have a degree
of like-mindedness about.
I hope you will read this leaflet, and
if you can contact someone in India to
distribute copies of the seven major emphases, I
think it's also in other languages, it would
be good for you to study this, because
I'm giving you now further thoughts, but some
of you may not even have the original
thoughts of the seven major emphases.
By the way, this has gone into many,
many languages, many, many printings, many other groups
and organizations use this little pamphlet, you know
in OM we believe in the power of
the printed page, and it's amazing how God
uses not only Christian literature for unconverted people
to bring them to Christ, but how God
uses Christian literature to help the believers, to
build up the believers in the faith.
I open this leaflet by saying Operation Mobilization
is a Christian fellowship of learners moving out
to the frontiers of world evangelism.
The movement is both interdenominational and international.
It is a fellowship specializing in evangelistic and
discipleship training for young people.
Now we specialize in this, but we don't
only do this.
We have longer term people, we have older
people, we have special ministries like the STL
publishing ministry, publishing and distributing books in over
100 countries, and a nucleus of people in
that ministry, this is their life calling, this
is their life ministry.
This is not just short term, but we
are specializing in evangelistic and discipleship training for
young people.
This training is carried out through working together
on teams, out on the field, or in
various headquarters.
Our young people are involved in almost every
possible method of evangelism, with a special emphasis
on the use of literature as tools for
both teaching believers and reaching the masses with
the gospel.
We desire to be disciples of Christ, learning
and teaching what is on our heart, what
is on the heart of God, as we
find it in his word, the Bible.
Now let me just say, it's very important
to understand what I just read, that we're
involved in almost every method of evangelism.
OM is not just literature evangelism.
Some of you have read my book, Literature
Evangelism.
Some people think because I wrote a book
on literature evangelism, that's all that OM does.
Actually, I wrote that book because there were
already 40 books on personal evangelism.
I believe in personal evangelism more than literature
evangelism, but I didn't think I should write
a book when there already were 40 different
books.
And that was 25 years ago when I
wrote Literature Evangelism.
Also, we felt when people first come for
a summer campaign or short term, they are
just learning the language, they are young Christians,
it is good to use literature even more
extensively while they are learning more about personal
evangelism, understanding people, speaking the language, and other
important factors.
OM is different from one country to the
next.
In Turkey, except in the summer, we do
not give out much literature.
We mainly do personal evangelism.
We learn the language, we have to get
a job to stay in the country, we
learn the language, then we work mainly in
personal contacts and we try to get them
into a small Bible study group with the
hope that that group will become a living
church.
France and Belgium are very close to each
other.
There's another tape you may want to listen
to, which I shared with the sisters.
The scope, the scope of OM worldwide, much
bigger than people understand.
And you can pray more effectively if you
listen to that tape and you understand the
many different ministries that God has put us
into.
France and Belgium, very close to each other
in Europe.
Two different leaders, two different strategies.
And that's very interesting to understand.
Now, in India, God has given us a
definite strategy.
We are constantly growing, we are constantly learning,
and there are just so many possibilities.
In our first ten years in India, we
did not use films very much.
But then, ten years ago, approximately, actually more
before that, we saw the power of using
films in evangelism.
I hope that we can do much more,
not only with films, but also with audio
cassettes.
We still in India have not learned how
to use the audio cassette.
This little cassette that's turning around in this
recorder that we can use for both evangelism
and teaching ministries.
Even this morning, I was receiving spiritual food,
as I was shaving, as I was doing
other things, from a powerful message by a
man of God, who by the way recently
visited India and was greatly encouraged seeing the
work of O.M. in India.
Here are seven of our deepest and strongest
convictions.
We have many convictions, many convictions.
Here are seven of our deepest and strongest
convictions.
We desire, above all else, to put these
into practice in our lives, while at the
same time sharing them with others as God
gives the opportunity.
This is the key word.
So many messages we have in O.M.,
study seminars, daily studies, AIC, but how much
of it is in practice in your life?
That is our burden.
And it's not easy to convert emotion into
action.
Sometimes we hear a message, ooh, God touched
my heart.
But converting that into action, that is a
much more difficult road.
That's why many brothers stay in O.M.
for two, three, or four years, constantly working,
constantly buffeting the body.
Paul said, I buffet my body and bring
it into subjection, lest after preaching to others,
I become passed away.
If Paul had to know something about that
kind of discipline, how much more do we?
Now the first emphasis is prayer and worship.
I don't want to just read and comment
on what is here in the leaflet, because
we don't have that much time.
We quote A.W. Tozer who said that
worship was the missing jewel of the evangelical
church.
It's unfortunate that in some cases the church
actually divides and fights over different kinds of
worship.
And we judge one another.
Those that hold their hands in the air
to worship may feel they're better than those
who have their hands folded.
Those who are praying with a loud voice
may feel they're more spiritual than the one
who is praying quietly.
And the danger is we get caught up
with outward forms rather than inward reality.
We get caught up with outward forms, hand
-raising, praying, one group and another always saying
we must kneel, everybody must kneel, the main
thing is to kneel, every prayer we must
be kneeling.
So we get caught up with the outward
forms.
Some want nice organ music, others want drums,
boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, all different outward
things.
Now I'm not against different outward forms.
Music in worship is good.
Indian music is good in worship.
Not only western songs, translations of the western
hymns.
Many times, sometimes in our churches when they
are sung in India it is sounding horrible
like the angels all have laryngitis.
But praise God there in some places are
Indian songs with Indian melodies.
But the main thing is not the outward,
the inward.
Many men of worship are very quiet.
Others like me may be a little bit
noisy.
And we need to realize that when it
comes to worship and prayer, it's not something
that's going to be learned in one year.
We are continually coming to know God in
a deeper way.
We must never separate worship from knowing God.
As we worship, we become more like the
one whom we are worshiping.
Otherwise, something is going wrong.
And it must be grievous to God when
people are gathering every week around the Lord's
table, worshiping, and yet their lives are not
being changed.
They are having bitterness in their heart towards
someone who is sitting at the same table
breaking bread.
How can we break bread and worship God
with bitterness, bitterness in our hearts?
So I hope as you think on this
great challenge of worship and prayer that you
remember those important words.
I think of the words in John's Gospel.
John's Gospel, chapter 4 and verse 24.
When I preached this message, originally for many
years before it was ever written, there were
many more scripture verses.
But because we tried to condense this in
one piece of paper, we left out many
of the references, scripture references.
So you can study each one of these
subjects, and you can write in many scripture
references like Psalm 69 about worship.
And here, that Psalm, here in John's Gospel,
chapter 4.
God is a spirit, and they that worship
him must worship him in spirit and in
truth.
Now one of the dangers in worship and
prayer is we're very idealistic.
We want revival.
We want to feel God.
We want to be like Andrew Murray or
Buck Singh or A.W. Tozer or Sadhu
Sundar Singh.
And we easily get discouraged when we discover
the ugliness of our own hearts.
I was once in a worship meeting, and
this beautiful girl walked into the meeting.
I couldn't get my mind off this girl.
And how could I worship that I'm feeling
so condemned?
What an evil fellow I am.
Many of the Indian brothers I've met in
the past, ooh, what an evil fellow I
am.
I'm having evil thoughts in the prayer meeting.
I'm thinking about the sisters in the prayer
meeting.
Oh, how can God ever use me?
Such an evil, wicked fellow.
No, no, you're just normal.
Stop thinking you are so special and so
wicked.
Do not flatter yourself as being excessively wicked.
You're just a normal human being.
And we have to, as we worship, constantly
bring our minds back to God.
If your mind wanders away easily, each return
journey of your mind is an act of
worship to the living God.
We are feeble human beings.
We are not angels, we're not seraphims, and
we're not even Sadhu, Sundar Singh.
Nor do we really know the struggles and
the battles that Sadhu, Sundar Singh, or Bhakt
Singh, or A.
W.
Tozer, or watchman Nihar, they're all human beings.
And this skinny little man sitting on this
chair also is a human being who has
had many struggles, sometimes did not want to
pray, did not want to go to the
night of prayer, did not want to even
look at one more OM prayer meeting.
But of course, we're not deceived.
We're not deceived.
We know the lies of Satan.
My study this morning in God's Word was
John chapter 8.
Ye are of your father the devil.
Ooh, what strong words.
You try preaching that one in the street.
You are of your father the devil.
You'll get interesting reaction.
So don't be discouraged.
And learn how to handle your emotions.
I recommend as a study book this year,
that great book by Dr. Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual
Depression, Its Cause and Cure.
It is the greatest English book I have
ever read.
Of course, it's only sermons based on the
Bible.
But it's very much a book that will
help you in your life of worship.
Number two, further thoughts of love and forgiveness.
Again, someone was sharing with me in a
letter that I read yesterday.
A brother I had not heard from in
25 years.
When he was in Bible school, he was
a carnal Christian.
Just playing the Bible school game.
And if you ever go to Bible school,
you will meet people that are playing the
Bible school game.
How sad that is.
They're not really called and led to seriously
study God's Word.
They're there because their parents sent them, or
they didn't know any place else to go,
or some other reason.
And he shared with me in the letter
I read yesterday, how God has changed his
life completely, when he discovered the importance of
the message of love.
So easily now in OM we speak about
the revolution of love.
It has become a cliche.
Revolution of love.
What does that mean?
It's supposed to mean that the greatest, most
dominant force in your life is love.
The greatest challenge in OM is not evangelism,
it's love.
Loving those team members.
And we're not loving the team members, and
we go out in the streets with our
gospel tracks.
It is sounding brass and tingling cymbals.
And it is a miracle God, in his
mercy, doesn't drop us into some deep pit.
The first commandment is to love God with
all of our heart, soul, mind and strength.
The second commandment is to love our neighbor.
Sometimes even in our evangelism, we see hostility
being expressed toward the Hindus.
We see anger when a Hindu says something
we do not like.
That's not God's way.
You are not Jesus Christ to go around
parading righteous indignation or to go into cleanse
the temple.
That was the prerogative of the sovereign, mighty
Lord Jesus Christ.
And we find Christians justifying their anger and
their hostility and foolish words by saying this
is righteous indignation.
No, it's unrighteous anger.
It's the self-life, the uncrucified self-life
that is causing us to say unkind things
to Hindus or Muslims.
And it is not the way of love.
And if we are to win these people
to Christ, it will take much love, much
patience.
Sometimes we do preach a word of warning.
Sometimes we do preach judgment.
But that must be from a broken heart,
not a rebellious mind.
And I hope you remember that in your
open air and personal evangelistic ministries.
Love and forgiveness.
How it breaks my heart when I receive
a letter from an ex-OMer who has
still not forgiven Operation Mobilization.
And when you meet people like that, you
can be sure they have a spiritual problem.
They have an emotional, psychological or spiritual problem.
Because of course OM in 25 years has
made mistakes.
Of course OM has sinned and George Burwell
has sinned with eye and with tongue.
The Church or Operation Mobilization is not a
special club for super saints or special disciples.
It is a clinic.
It is a hospital.
It is a training program for sinners.
And if you get hurt in OM or
some OM leader doesn't treat you properly, you
are called by the Word of God to
love and forgive.
If he refuses to love and forgive, he
will stand before God.
He is not your responsibility.
You can pray for him.
You can write to him.
Matthew 18 says, if you have something against
a brother, you can go to him.
You can walk in the light and in
love.
But God has called us to a life
of never-ending forgiveness.
We are forgiving people even as they hurt
us.
That is the joy.
That is the privilege.
We have to control ourselves so that we
will not seek opportunities in extremes to forgive
people.
We don't want them to sit against us
just so we can have the joy of
forgiving them.
That would be somewhat extreme.
But when the opportunity comes to love and
to forgive, to put into practice 1 Corinthians
13, we count it a great privilege.
Just write that reference down, 1 Corinthians 13.
Everybody on OM is supposed to be memorizing
it.
And turn to Ephesians chapter 4.
What beautiful verses in Ephesians chapter 4, verse
30.
Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.
Verse 30.
Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God by
whom ye are sealed unto the day of
redemption.
Redemption.
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and
clamor and evil speaking be put away from
you with all malice.
Mark that scripture in your Bible.
It's a beautiful verse, Ephesians 4.31. All
bitterness.
Somebody has hurt you.
Somebody has put the knife in your back.
They've squeezed it.
What is your response?
Of course, it will be painful.
You cannot pretend.
This is a nice experience.
I'm being rejected.
Nobody loves me.
People are gossiping against me.
Oh, what a wonderful experience.
No.
But through the pain, through the pain, slowly
as you take your place at the foot
of the cross in prayer, forgiveness will come.
The blood of Christ will cleanse away the
bitterness.
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and
clamor, evil speaking, put away.
How my heart has been concerned when sometimes
I found people speaking such evil against even
the leaders in God's work, even against Brother
Ray Eicher, against other leaders.
Without understanding, without getting the facts, they hear
this thing or they hear that thing and
they begin speaking evil.
One brother in India spoke so much evil,
it has gone from Trivandrum to New Delhi.
I, of course, am responsible to find out
if these things are the truth.
It takes a lot of work.
But again and again, I have found out
people take some little thing and they magnify
it.
And then they add to it.
They add a little bit.
They weren't really sure this was true, but
it sounded very juicy.
And so they added it.
The greatest hindrance to O.M. India has
not come from Hindus and Muslims.
It has come from gossiping, backbiting people who
call themselves Christians.
And not just O.M. Almost every church,
almost every assembly has suffered from people who
backbite and gossip and have not experienced deliverance
from bitterness.
Ultimately, ultimately, they hurt themselves more than they
hurt anybody else.
Because the work of God goes on and
God gives strength and we thank Him for
reality and forgiveness in the work.
Notice verse 15 in chapter 4.
Speaking the truth.
Chapter 4, verse 15.
Speaking the truth.
Yes, we believe in speaking the truth.
But in love, in love, that's what makes
the difference.
Isn't that beautiful?
And look at verse 32, still in chapter
4.
Be kind one to another.
Is this the thing that really marks your
O.M. team?
Be kind one to another.
Thinking about the other man.
Maybe he needs a mosquito net.
Maybe he didn't get enough food.
Maybe he's not feeling well and somebody should
visit him and pray with him.
Kindness is one of the most basic principles
of spiritual revolution.
Be kind one to another.
Tender hearted.
You know that word?
You have a good word for that in
your own language?
Tender hearted.
I wrote in my Bible, learning to be
sensitive.
I have a whole message on learning to
be sensitive in preaching and in testifying.
Because sometimes in our preaching we say things
that are very hurtful to other people.
God has had to really deal with me
in that area.
Tender hearted.
Learning to be sensitive.
And then what does it say?
Forgiving one another.
Even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven
you.
Without love and forgiveness, O.M. is destined
to be one more evangelistic machine doomed to
second rate blessings and to confusion.
I have had people tell me only after
five or six years in O.M., only
after ten years did the message of love
finally grip their hearts with the intensity that
it completely changed their lives.
They were never the same again.
It's the most important, the most significant of
all the biblical principles.
Love.
And it's the easiest to pay lip service.
Oh, we believe in love, of course.
And many times we don't even have messages.
We don't even have a single message on
that subject in a whole conference.
Because we have so many other things.
We want to learn so many doctrines.
And we want to learn everything about the
book of Leviticus.
And we want to understand everything about eschatology.
Without love, it doesn't mean a thing.
You can be a seminary graduate and without
love you are a sounding brass and a
tingling cymbal.
This is why the Church is in the
state it is in today.
So desperately in need of revival.
Because love has not been our aim.
1 Corinthians 13 talks about love, but 1
Corinthians chapter 14 says, make
love your aim.
Or in this translation, follow after love.
Follow after love.
We've produced some books in India on this
subject.
I wonder if people even read them.
Love is the answer, just produced in Malayalam.
When we think of the tremendous state of
the Church in parallel, the fighting, the court
cases.
We know this doctrine is missing.
It's as simple as that.
Whether it's a Brethren Assembly or a Pentecostal
Church or St. Thomas Evangelical or Maritima or
Syrian Orthodox, whatever it may be, without love
it means and accomplishes nothing.
And oh what a burden should be on
our hearts that people may come to obey
God in this area.
And you know one of the great dangers?
Instead of taking up a cross and following
Christ in repentance and brokenness, we sit back
and pray, Lord send a revival, send a
revival.
We're waiting Lord.
You know that's just an excuse.
That's an excuse to spend one more week
in sin, one more week without love, one
more week without denying self, one more week
without repentance, one more week without returning the
money we stole, one more week without apologizing
to the man we gossiped against.
It's a cheap excuse.
And I've been watching people pray that prayer
in India alone for 22 years.
Now I believe in praying for revival if
at the same moment there is repentance and
tears and brokenness, there can be no revival
praying from a heart of pride and superiority.
We are better than that poor group of
Christians down the road who they are even
wearing jewelry or their hair is not cut
at the proper length and all the other
things we're always talking about one another.
Many of these things are not barely mentioned
in the New Testament.
You have to take a verse pulling it
out of context and add all of your
own cultural cocktails to it before you can
come up with some of this extremist teaching.
And God's word, you study it, don't listen
to me.
You say today, I'm not going to listen
to George Moore.
I'm going to study this on my own.
Wonderful!
Because that's how I discovered this.
At 18 years of age, I spent hours
and days and days in this book.
I listed every single verse on the subject
of love and then 20 other different subjects
so I could see all of what the
New Testament was saying.
And the message of love stood out like
Mount Everest planted in the middle of Karnataka.
Without love, we are nothing.
Then number three, victorious living and the Holy
Spirit's fullness.
Praise God for this great principle.
Victorious living, fullness of the Holy Spirit.
In OM we believe in the fullness of
the Holy Spirit.
However, we come from different churches.
Some churches emphasize the baptism of the Holy
Spirit.
Other churches emphasize the fullness of the Holy
Spirit.
And so what should we do?
Of course, we should all come out and
have a good fight.
And let us take the Bible.
As Billy Graham once said, we have taken
the sword of the Spirit and instead of
going in a great offensive to evangelize the
world, we are carving each other up.
I think when we talk about the Holy
Spirit, it's good to remember the words of
Billy Graham.
He said, I don't care how you get
it, just get it.
The reality.
Again, people are excusing their sins by saying,
the Lord has not yet baptized me with
the Holy Spirit.
I prayed but nothing happened.
So we use that as an excuse for
our own behavior.
And then we go back to church maybe
next week and we pray again.
And there are some people even teaching that
until you have one particular gift, you could
not have the Holy Spirit.
How many thousands in India have been discouraged
and destroyed in their Christian faith because they
were seeking one particular gift and without that
gift they thought, the Holy Spirit is not
with me.
God cannot use me.
I'm such a poor Christian.
And so they become discouraged and then soon
they are totally backslidden.
I believe on the basis of many verses
of Scripture that it is the privilege of
every believer to live in the fullness of
the Holy Spirit.
And if you're not filled with the Holy
Spirit, you need to have prayer right now
and ask God to fill you.
But you see, people are not satisfied with
being filled with the Holy Spirit.
They want special feelings.
They want to feel spiritual.
And they want God to instantly deliver them
from all their problems.
They don't want any more problems, any more
struggles with the lust of the eyes, any
more struggles with the things in the heart.
They think all this is going to disappear
if they just get a special blessing.
Some are waiting their whole life.
There are now old men of 70 years
of age still waiting, still waiting, still hoping.
You see, we are making a great mistake.
We are expecting God to do that which
He has told you and me to do.
Put on the armor of God.
That's what the Bible says.
It doesn't fall on you out of heaven.
Put on by faith the armor of God.
These are Bible verses, by the way.
Yield your members unto righteousness.
Dr. Lloyd-Jones, in one of his books,
gave these words.
Nothing is more obvious about the teaching of
the New Testament than this, that the Christian
life is a life of activity, a life
of vigor, a life of exertion.
Some of you this afternoon are going to
have to exert yourselves because you're going to
get tired climbing mountains.
The strength is given to us by the
Lord, but we must act.
We must act.
Your Christian life is linked completely with you.
Not me.
I can pray for you, and I'll be
getting all of your names, writing them in
my notebook.
I'll be getting your picture.
I'll be praying for you.
My prayers can influence you.
My prayers can cause God to touch your
heart, but they cannot force you.
Don't keep screaming and praying for your parents
to be saved, becoming neurotic about your parents
being saved or your brother being saved because
your prayers cannot force them to be saved.
And sometimes it's a greater step of faith
to put them in the hands of God
and say, I am trusting, I am believing,
I am now waiting upon you, O God,
to move upon their hearts and then get
going forward in your own Christian life and
in witnessing to others and in spreading the
word of God that other parents may be
saved.
After all, with God, other parents are equally
as important as your parents.
Never be discouraged when you're not able to
win your own relatives and parents to Christ
because Jesus Christ himself had his greatest difficulty
in his own town.
A prophet, the Bible says, is without honor
in his own town.
Now, I'm sure that's not always true.
It's interesting that Brother Bhat Singh, my dear
friend, has never won many seats to Jesus
Christ.
He hardly even visits the Punjab.
Interesting.
He visits New York, France, England, but very
seldom would he go to the Punjab.
And I think you know he's a man
of God.
The only mistake we make when we think
about different men of God is we fail
to realize how weak and how human they
are.
We don't write that in our books because
people would be embarrassed.
But the fact is, one of the great
problems in our work in India is false
ideas about super-spirituality.
That's what led my dear friend, Zack Pudin,
a dear man of God, I still love
him, that's what led him into extremism.
False ideas about what real spirituality is.
We are still writing, and I'm convinced in
the depth of my heart, he is still
in error about what true spirituality is.
He is trying to deny the human factor,
failing to realize the treasure is in an
earthen vessel.
And, oh my, so many are discouraged.
So many are discouraged in their faith.
Because they tried to live way up here,
and it didn't last.
You know, then we try it.
When we come down, we sin, we fail.
We say something sinful, we do something sinful.
We don't know what to do, we're feeling
so terrible.
We won't tell the leader, they may ask
me to leave Operation Mobilization.
And so we live in darkness.
And the devil is having a great campaign,
instead of following carefully what it says in
1 John 2.
We mention this verse here, under victorious living
and the Holy Spirit's fullness.
We mention that this includes what to do
when we sin.
We believe in the victorious life, we believe
in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, we
believe in holiness.
I preach at some of the biggest holiness
conventions in the world.
You think they would let me preach if
I didn't believe in holiness?
But we believe in holiness without foolishness.
Holiness without hypocrisy.
And this is why we have to claim
1 John 2, verse 1.
I'm having trouble finding it.
It's stuck in Hebrews here.
1 John 2, verse 1.
My little children, these things write I unto
you, that ye sin not, and if any
man sin, we have an advocate, a lawyer,
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
I hope you will study this little section
of the seven major emphases and make sure
you understand what the victorious life is, what
the fullness of the Holy Spirit is, and
that by faith you will believe God for
the daily fullness of the Holy Spirit.
When you first understand this principle and you
come into it, there may be much emotion,
there may not be much emotion, but it
will be a crisis.
But that crisis must be followed by God's
process.
That's why many people in OM, praise God,
have learned to walk in the fullness of
the Holy Spirit and therefore not fulfill the
lusts of the flesh.
God is working in different people in different
ways.
One brother may have a very special crisis
experience.
Maybe a coconut fell out of a tree
and it broke open and the milk ran
down over his face and he sensed that
those sins were once a scarlet, they were
now as white as coconut milk.
And he praises the Lord for this great
crisis.
But not everybody is going to have that
crisis and we don't want you to go
around India breaking coconuts over people's heads that
they may have the coconut white milk crisis
experience.
Now that may sound funny, but spiritually that's
what people do.
We're all different.
I don't even talk about some of my
spiritual experiences very much because I find some
little small-minded brother, he wants to copy
exactly what George Burwood did and maybe he
will become a man of God.
But you see, if you exactly copy what
some other man of God has done, you
may in fact fall into a deep ditch
and you will not become that man.
Every born-again believer is original.
No copies.
All originals.
That's a beautiful thing, isn't it?
I have difficulty remembering all the names up
here and matching all the names with the
faces.
No problem for God.
No problem.
He has every one of your, every hair
on your head.
I wish we could transplant them some to
my head as my hair is falling out.
Too many OM worries maybe or just getting
old.
God's great love.
And you know sometimes when we feel rejected
by others, we're feeling lonely.
You see, Nicky Cruz said the great battle
of so many Christians is loneliness.
This great anointed man of God, Nicky Cruz,
brought tens of thousands to Christ, went through
enormous struggles with loneliness.
And it's a great mistake if we think
the spirit-filled life is the absence of
struggle, the absence of these problems.
Total deliverance.
Evangelical pie in the sky.
Chipotle's in the air.
No.
The victorious life is battles, it's struggles, it's
dealing with sin, it's repentance, it's ongoing spiritual
warfare.
Number four, the fourth major emphasis is Christ's
lordship and all sufficiency.
I preach on this subject more than almost
any other subject.
And there are tapes, full messages, just about
the lordship of Christ.
So I'm not going to say much at
this point.
I hope you will study this subject.
It cannot be separated from the subject of
total commitment.
Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2.
Romans 12, verses 1 and 2.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, that you present your bodies a
living sacrifice wholly acceptable unto God.
Also, it's an ongoing process.
In the last three months, I've had two
to three thousand people stand in my meetings,
some of them weeping, committing their lives to
Jesus Christ and asking to be filled with
the Holy Spirit.
Now, I get reality therapy because I correspond
with many of those people.
Do you think their problems all disappear after
standing in the George Verwer meeting, committing their
life and being filled with the Holy Spirit?
Let me tell you, some of their problems
just begin because Satan counterattacks.
When you make Christ the lord of your
life, lord of your time, lord of your
money, lord of your tongue, lord of your
whole life, Satan will be very angry and
he will attack.
And Satan has the control of evil people.
And evil people will come into your life.
And all kinds of satanic tricks.
That's why I guess one thing I preach
about more than the lordship of Christ is
how to deal with discouragement.
I hope next week to speak on how
to deal with discouragement on an OM team
in India.
Because I'll tell you, if I were on
some of your teams, I would probably be
tempted to become very, very discouraged.
But that's for next week.
The lordship of Jesus Christ.
The all-sufficiency of Christ.
Many of you have heard the testimony of
my own wife, how she came into an
experience of the sufficiency of Jesus.
Because without that reality and that experience, we're
always leaning on man.
We're getting our spiritual help from man.
And when man fails us, we become lonely
and confused and discouraged.
We must become more God-centered in all
that we do.
All that we do.
This afternoon I will be speaking with each
one of you individually as we walk up
the mountain.
But I will tell you something one hundred
times greater than speaking to George R.
R.
Martin.
Speaking to the God of creation who created
the mountain.
Who never tires of listening to you.
Sometimes I get tired at the end of
the day.
Talking to fifteen different brothers, I get a
little confused and tired.
I'm only a human being.
God never tires of listening to us.
Unlimited opportunities for fellowship.
And yet many brothers have shared with me,
they're having problems in their quiet time.
They're falling asleep in their quiet time.
The Bible, they cannot understand it.
This is because they're not really loving God
with all their heart, soul, mind and strength.
When we love God and we know God,
then His word will become richer.
Now there's still struggles because we're human beings.
There's still battles.
Don't be surprised by that.
I still have them.
But there is a difference.
When you know God in the depth of
your soul and you go into His word
in comparison with just reading it.
Because it's the OM policy to read the
Bible and study and pray each morning.
I pray that even this day you may
be filled with a new spirit of worship
and praise and know in a deeper way
the all-sufficiency of Jesus Christ.
And then number five.
Honesty and true openness.
We quote Billy Graham here who said the
greatest obstacle to our sanctification is our unwillingness
to see ourselves as we really are.
You have someone that you're really honest with.
Have you ever been really honest with your
own state leader?
Does he really know you?
He loves you.
Praise God for these men.
Have you ever taken off a mask and
really told some OM leader or even another
brother your real struggles and your real problems?
Do you know that's one of the most
basic principles of OM?
And here at AIC in Kathmandu years ago
a brother who had been living in immorality
who had gone to even committed sin with
some other woman when the Holy Spirit worked
in his heart he was willing to take
that mask off and acknowledge that sin.
Only then could there be the real restoration
as happened to David in Psalm 51.
So many times we're afraid to really tell
the truth.
We talk about little things but they're not
the real issues that are deeply disturbing us.
And we need a revolution of honesty and
fellowship in OM.