This is the beginning of the year and
it's great to give out little requests and
pray and we believe in that But I'd
like to lay one of the greatest burdens
that's on my heart on your heart.
Some of you already have it Maybe even
more than me Because it will enable us
to even Focus our praying one of the
greatest problems we have in a lab though
It's a blessing problem is that OM is
not one thing.
I gave a very important message on this
at the conference I'm not sure It may
have been the last week And if some
of you would like some of the messages
from the evening of the last week We
can get them and I talked about God's
strategy and OM strategy And there's a lot
of fuzzy thinking about one strategy because it
is unique OM is not a carbon copy.
It's something that came before and In this
strategy we brought out how there are certain
major emphases like right now we're trying to
emphasize the Muslim world more and Yet we
already have the ships which automatically are a
huge emphases And now they tell us and
we agreed on it This year is the
foundation now that we're going to suddenly emphasize
the foundation Now as we get a new
burden and a new emphasis what happens to
the old ones?
They keep going on And we try to
emphasize in that message That God has led
us in each one of these fields we're
involved in and that as we go into
new things We don't want to neglect the
old things.
We may change them We may even be
led of the Holy Spirit to make big
changes as we did in Spain in Italy
But not generally to totally abandon something that
the Holy Spirit has been doing And we
then try to you know, give a little
clarion call for places like Mexico You know,
which isn't a Muslim country and it isn't
The most un-evangelized country in the world
and yet the Lord led us there and
things are happening there I just talked to
Dave Hicks on the phone About some of
the blessings in Mexico and I'm trying to
work out in my schedule to visit Mexico
City But early in this decade we announced
that we wanted by the grace of God
to make this a decade of Muslim emphasis
of emphasizing the Muslim world and we'd like
to carry that on at this time Including
right here in Braunlee That in our prayer
meetings we continue to have this emphasis in
our literature distribution We continue to have this
emphasis.
We produce some tremendous leaflets, books A lot
of material is now available.
We need more but often even what we
have Doesn't get distributed as well as it
could.
If everybody had this vision Then there would
be seldom a literature table where there wouldn't
be something that could really emphasize The Muslim
world.
We even resurrected my old booklet of the
challenge of Islam in South Asia The story
of that, supposedly it was going to be
20 years ago, a chapter in a book
from Moody Press They asked me to write
it and the book Was never published So
we published the chapter On our own and
now I've just republished it and it's amazing
How many people even within OM don't really
understand all that's happening and all that's available
If they have a little vision and a
little get up and go to to move
forward and I hope that This burden as
I share it with you will help in
that direction both in praying and in action
because I don't think we should Share one
from the other.
In trying to emphasize this decade of Muslim
emphasis It came to my mind that if
you're driving a car down the road 30
miles an hour and you increase it to
40 Most people would not notice it Even
sitting in the backseat you might not notice
it much less standing on the road I
think OM's Muslim thrust as we came into
the 80s was going about 30 miles an
hour With a number of dangers that could
have moved it back to 20 miles an
hour and further and we decided to sort
of have some kind of program some kind
of challenge that people could you know, somehow
see And with that we declared this decade
of Muslim evangelism.
We didn't I'm not sure get 100%
Unity about it and we certainly have in
wrestling with so many other things We certainly
have failed to to drive it, you know
deeper into the fiber and the being of
the whole OM body, but I think we
have shifted from 30 miles an hour to
40 but it's a little hard to notice
and I thought before I share some of
the challenges for prayer and some of the
Really devilish opposition we're having to this forward
thrust.
I might just mention a few of the
victories A few of the answers to prayer
that we have seen that are very very
encouraging It's easy to take things for granted
the Berlin team Just take for granted.
It's gonna just go on and on and
on Well when I visited Berlin and visited
that team two years ago, I tell you
I was a bit shocked because in fact,
it's a tough team and That year hardly
anybody on the team was thinking of permanently
going on into Turkey there were a couple
Because they discover that it's tough and they
fell that wasn't their calling This has been
the history of OMS thrust into the Muslim
world that we get a lot of young
people very enthusiastic But when they see what
it's gonna cost in terms of perseverance They
see that some Muslims don't come to Christ
even after praying continually for them for one
year or five years.
They don't come All kinds of problems come
even doubting the very faith One man that
we sent to Turkey many many years ago
is not even a Christian today so Let's
not take for granted that somehow the Arab
team is still going on in London and
now has expanded its satellite units to Belgium
and to Italy and That the Berlin team
is still going on though Very locked into
a separate culture and out of the mainstream
of OM with Larry Oren carrying the leadership
all these years In that same difficult city
sometimes last time I was there.
There's only a mile from the Berlin Wall,
which is enough to depress anybody So let's
not take for granted what the Lord's done
Over the years and even these last few
years as there has been a definite Increase
in some definite breakthroughs though Some of them
may be small, you know one of the
most significant messages at the conference was from
the leader of the work in Pakistan and
Muslim country and You know one of the
reasons he's still persevering out there in the
Muslim world when others have returned is because
he has this concept and that is to
think positively and To see the little things
that God is doing that may at times
go unnoticed especially if we're studying it from
a distance and Certainly the growth of the
work in Pakistan all of which has been
in the last three or four years is
One of the most exciting breakthroughs that we've
seen As we move forward with this vision
and we want to thank the Lord for
that and pray for that even today the
70s within OM well, the Muslim vision continued
the 70s was definitely an era of ships
and Toward the end of the 70s and
early 80s.
I haven't got all the dates.
We had even thought of a third ship
Which brought no small amount of trauma into
the OM body and in which we had
to wrestle things out where are we going
and as leaders we decided we can't go
everywhere and That now as we've emphasized the
ships and we want to continue to emphasize
the ships because you can't start something that
big without continued emphasis That by the grace
of God we wanted the 80s to be
an emphasis for the Muslim world We felt
we don't need new projects.
We don't need new countries To any large
degree.
We don't need to buy a gospel.
Somebody came to me again Have you ever
thought of airplanes for Christ?
I get that question almost every couple of
months Yes, we have thought of airplanes for
Christ trains for Christ buses for Christ donkeys
for Christ But we feel that this is
the decade to somehow reinforce the existing work
no matter how unglamorous the Muslim world may
be and to throw our time and effort
and talent and those STL Prophets into the
Muslim world now that fits with the original
vision of STL prophets Which was India because
there's a hundred million Muslims in India And
it's one of the areas where we've reached
the most Muslims We've given more Muslims the
gospel in India than all the other countries
almost combined and have done the least to
follow it up because you need specialists and
one of the victories of this emphasis is
that there's now a Nucleus of young men
wanting to return to India to work only
among Muslims just as this seems to be
coming in reality We talked about the new
strategy in Katmandu this year The visa thing
which would provide the foundation to do this
Hits us on the head like a runaway
train.
Let's not however be discouraged by that It
does mean a change in strategy It does
mean that even for in-depth Muslim follow
-up in India We are going to have
to count on the Indians more than we
had Just eight months ago in Katmandu That's
something we need to keep in mind keep
keep also in mind that as we went
into the 80s South America was born and
going strong also, there was a strong push
that we begin a major assault in the
Far East and Taiwan Korea, Japan many other
countries were coming into the OM binoculars and
with this Coming at us from different sides
Miraculously the Lord gave us unity To make
this emphasis of Muslim evangelism this decision has
Enabled us to make many other important decisions
Within OM including the decision to stop quite
a few things Now that may be only
the initial stage, but you see unless you
clear the way for what you want to
do you will do it and so some
of the Implications of our challenge for the
Muslim world and this strong emphasis some of
them have been negative and some people haven't
liked it but God somehow has continued to
give us unity and We're going forward and
we hope that everybody in Broadly, especially will
have this vision to help Forward this burden
this challenge, whatever name we might give it
the first step in this emphasis is linked
with what we're doing right now prayer and
There was a proposal set forth I looked
at the old coordinators minutes from 1982 and
there were some proposals made which actually I
don't think they ever got completely agreed upon
They were in some ways general goals.
We couldn't force people to do these things
But we presented it as a challenge It's
interesting to look at this and see some
areas where we've been very successful areas where
we have failed and This is one of
the things we want to pray about now.
What does the Lord want us to do
right here, Brown?
Because the first step is mobilizing the church
and Mobilizing prayer We have not seen as
many recruits at least for certain countries as
we would have liked But that was not
The only emphasis of this thrust it was
to mobilize the church to mobilize prayer and
to bring it out Muslim awareness now a
lot has been done in that area.
It's not time to tell about it But
I tell you sometimes it's like trying to
hammer a nail into granite and This is
why we want to pray even today and
why I'm praying this little message will set
the pace For prayer throughout the year a
couple of things specifically to think about and
pray toward meetings and seminars We have taken
literally thousands of meetings these couple of years
presenting this burden in this vision and Seminars
I remember when the ship was down in
the south coast going down and I was
asked They've got other people better at this
than me to speak on the challenge of
Islam.
That tape is available somewhere And we saw
you know, we every time we have these
meetings and we we give this message It's
often a part of an overall message for
world evangelism And the prayer cards go out
and upper world goes out and challenge of
Pakistan goes out in the Middle East brochure
goes out There are always some victories And
we praise God for that In fact, there's
not a single mission society working among Muslims
that has not felt to some small degree
the impact of this push because they have
got recruits and There's an increase of recruits
and during these last couple of years a
whole new mission has been born Founded by
an exo ever that is getting many many
inquiries They are going to learn as we
have learned that not all these people are
ready for in-depth long-term Muslim evangelism,
you may not feel that's your cup of
tea But believe me and this is none
of the purposes for this plea and it
is a plea what we do here affects
this vision More than almost any other field
because the vision was partly born here partly
born in in this environment Wrestling with all
the information all the challenges even the gospel
submarine for evangelism in depth and We need
your commitment the audio-visual Department which is
in shared with us at least from his
sharing seems to be leaking and limping Has
still had a a a major contribution the
purchase of three or four copies of the
film unlocking the door of Islam Some of
copies of which have been used again and
again and again other copies of which suddenly
end up on a shelf And then I
think it was even put into videocassette.
There's much more going on in this little
AV department Then probably anybody knows Because it
hasn't a high profile Because the work the
real, you know action is out on the
teams.
It's out on the ship It's out where
they get these videos and they get these
films and they get this material only a
small part of it Is back here where
it's visible Let's pray for more opportunities to
present the challenge of Islam You know the
Keith Green concerts that I have to speak
at I have to speak about going into
all the world They're gonna give me any
other choice.
That's great.
And I tell you there's potential recruits there
We've been battling to keep the bookstalls last
minute.
We almost lost the book tables.
They wanted to take it back and we
Held out because we want to be able
to put some of these key books that
are on our hearts about the challenge of
Islam I'm not saying anybody would oppose that
On these tables and push I just read
in the STL leaders minutes That some of
these unreached people's prayer cards and dropped is
that to ten pence because we're trying to
sell them for one pound fifty I think
when they first came out We want just
on a memo hundreds of those prayer cards
the vision of the prayer cards is Key
in presenting the challenge in Islam as they
emphasize to a great degree the unreached Muslim
lands literature tapes Leaflets even that printing press
downstairs, which we should be able to get
a printer for all can have a part
in this emphasis and You are involved in
that do not detach yourself from this vision
if you are in OM you are part
of the Muslim emphasis and What you do
faithfully enables others who may be more directly
involved to do What they have faithfully some
of you are selling books to bookshops Do
you try to get bookshops to take any
of these books about the challenge of Islam
not generally the fast-selling books.
I Don't know how well Goldsmith's book going
with his name.
That should be a top seller so literature
books Leaflets prayer cards operation world many other
related things Are all part of extending this
vision and then of course I touched on
it films also speakers We've had men into
our conferences like Charles Marsh Lionel Gurney Tom
Brewster Who of course maybe main burden isn't
just a Muslim world, but his tool is
directly linked Contextualization and how to learn languages
and really get among these people made enormous
impact Working that out on the field.
Of course is more difficult than listening to
the lecture in Belgium and there's an ongoing
discussion about that Praise God for the new
slide sets that have come out about different
Muslim challenges like Pakistan But sometimes they just
sit It's a great burden on my heart
And I hope that we can all put
our hands to the plow in a firmer
way and go Forward as you know, we
launched this decade And it was a very
personal thing to me as well as a
group thing I made four major trips into
the Muslim world one in my little Ford
Which now Bob hitching is the owner of
through the Middle East and we produced a
Middle East prayer film that wasn't quality enough
for wide distribution though has been continually used
and Then I took the North Africa trip
and the letter I wrote from North Africa
Some have written to me.
It's been one of the strongest Challenges they've
ever had for that part of the world
I don't know if any of you have
seen that letter But I was broken to
pieces riding across Algeria when I dictated that
memo that went around the world And then
the two trips again into the Gulf area
and last earlier this year three months out
mainly all in Muslim countries From this we
released a whole series of tapes again part
of the ministry here that have gone all
over the world In fact between the memos
and the tapes Thousands and yet at times
we had no money even to pay for
these tapes And I cut back Alec Brackett
had to increase the price on the tapes
because he was in financial difficulty and I
was Motivated though, we still sent them out.
We've had tremendous response I don't think we
can ever measure what God does through literature
films and tapes that go out right from
here And to me, this is one of
the most motivating things about being involved here
a quick rundown on some of the growth
We've seen actually in the work.
I Think it's normal for the first couple
of years of this kind of thrust that
Foundation laying literature communication recruits stirring of hearts.
It's been a tough battle There have been
some victories at the same time out in
the fields a phenomenal growth of the work
in Pakistan Despite many assaults from Satan and
a number of people who now have made
a decision Through their short term in Pakistan
to go life term long term in Muslim
evangelism there or somewhere else The victories and
the growth of the work among the Afghans
Again, something that just is a name within
our serve For a few people is a
lot of work and a lot of money
In a very indirect form of evangelism because
it's really it is legitimate relief work It's
the first major religion relief work that OM
has ever been involved in Why do we
do that when generally we don't go into
that kind of thing ever leave that to
others?
Why because it's leading unreached Muslim country that's
been on our heart for 28 years That's
why we roll the policies down the river
and started a relief work giving it a
different name Pushing it outside the OM technically
even though most of the people are all
OMers and it's been a rough tough long
-term battle And right now Gordon Magney Desperately
needs a couple long-term right-hand men
both in administration and evangelism there Praise God
for what has been done as we move
forward to do more the growth in Bangladesh
the decision Even recently to increase the number
of longer-term nationals discipling Muslims and church
planting among Muslims The increased thrusts that we've
had in the subcontinent several major major thrusts
have gone among Muslims and OM with all
the things we do It goes almost unnoticed
big push recently among the Bengali Muslims at
the same time We still don't have the
trained language-speaking men to engage in the
kind of follow-up, which is the second
stage And the stage we need to move
into more seriously in the coming months Of
course, the second stage is not always possible
without the first stage I think the Middle
East and the Arab world has had some
of the toughest assaults from the enemy Because
we haven't been able to get an increase
of recruits to any great degree except within
Europe.
Well, let's praise the Lord for that Suddenly
Italy has got a team working among Arabs
London has persevered and seen some phenomenal breakthroughs
And now we have even a team among
Arabs based in Zaventem.
Who would have ever dreamed this five years
ago?
This is partly made possible When people heard
about this I tell you there was opposition
But we can do it because this was
the decade of Muslim emphasis And so we
try to during this period go the extra
mile and when there's four things we want
to do We want to give priority to
that thing that touches Muslims Not to liquidate
those other things but to try to give
priority.
We want to do that financially We've been
able to put tens of thousands of pounds
into Muslim literature Especially out of special projects
which then dried up until a couple weeks
ago when we had a nine and a
half thousand pound gift for it Then back
to North Africa as you know, we now
have a small team going into Nisha again
I think one of the exciting things about
North Africa have been the interest that others
now are showing in that area including Spanish
-speaking people Working among North Africans, especially some
who know Spanish in places like the Utah
That's an encouragement.
It's small, but it may be the beginning
of something bigger And of course as we
go forward in this At times it's really
almost overwhelming What are some of the setbacks
been that we can pray about?
Number one the lack of money This vision
for the Muslim world came simultaneously with the
biggest financial crisis in the history of LM.
It's a miracle that survived at all And
we need to pray specifically for money for
the Muslim world every Muslim country It wants
more money for projects except I think Turkey
has money And again, this is interesting you
get such a great variety of countries, but
Turkey has literature money there are other holdups
there So the lack of funds has been
big number two the lack of prayer there
is a lack of prayer There is a
lack of prayer people say why are the
prayer meetings so long if we don't have
extended prayer meetings we can't even get to
some of these places and People there's so
many different images we get people always want
worship worship worship.
We want worship So we give the whole
first hour maybe the prayer meeting to worship
The third setback has been the state and
the indifference in the church, you know It
really bothers me at times that in LM
we tend to certain however others know take
the blame for everything ourselves and And people
really get discouraged feel everything is our fault
But you know as one member suffers we
all suffer and a lot of people out
in the churches They think we're the most
alive aggressive sharp thing that's working in the
mission world today most of us in LM
don't feel that way because we see our
sins and our failures and our weaknesses and
most of us so Idealistic it seems compared
to the task what we're doing seems so
small But if you go too far that
way and get discouraged then what you do
It's gonna be even smaller pretty soon.
You wouldn't even exist spiritually speaking and I
feel we must realize the church does not
have this vision for the Muslim world We
are at that guard.
We are radicals.
They don't even want us to come many
church doors are completely close to me And
one of the reasons there's a fear I
will challenge people to go to the regions
beyond They wouldn't necessarily say Muslim world it
to them anything outside of their own church
would be dangerous in terms of their thinking
especially with an interdenominational ragtime charismatic non-charismatic
You know, I mean they just and and
I don't think we realize how much gossip
there is against OM What we're seeing in
Venezuela is is, you know, that's a peak
we see them the continued into innuendos the
gossip Get back to the churches and they
decide they don't want to send any recruits
anymore or the Muslim world is too big
a challenge They can't get their people to
even evangelize down the road.
It's the either-or mentality.
We're constantly fighting and It's something we must
pray against in a stronger way and realize
our responsibility Then there's the setbacks through visas
children's education illness people being shot at the
doorstep people dying of weird diseases at night
and the setbacks and We must take courage
that despite these setbacks Somehow we still got
these armies in these various Muslim countries all
over the world and the reinforcements by God's
grace are coming Another setback, of course is
the fact there are so many burdens so
many challenges We are interested in the abortion
issue, we are wanting to be good Christian
citizens I filled out my forms this morning
to get my ballots You know, I couldn't
even understand the form But my faith fill
out and I get my balance so I
can be a good American and vote for
you know, I mean who am I supposed
to vote for maybe you can let me
know OM is a movement that is trying
to preach the whole counsel of God Now
if you preach the whole counsel of God
and you try to live the whole counsel
of God You're gonna be a busy person
and you're gonna be frustrated how many of
you have ever been Frustrated with so many
burdens so many things you long to do
never been frustrated.
I was a major disease on planet Earth
Then of course another major setback has been
the disunity there has been disunity even within
OM This year was the year of some
of the greatest disunity I've ever seen in
terms of basic philosophy Not personal and personality
is always some of that but basic philosophy
basic ideas even in connection with the Muslim
world It's impossible to agree on one strategy.
There are many different strategies.
There are many different kinds of Muslims and
When David Hicks launched a real heavy Challenge
in that magazine OM world and released it
to every prayer partner in the United States
Presenting the vision of the Muslim world watch
the 20,000 people of course There are
a few things there for security reasons shouldn't
have been mentioned and the memo started to
come on his desk that you know I'm
sure he found to some degree difficult, but
you see that's part of the problem.
We're dealing with heavy security areas One mistaken
literature and propaganda can cause a lot of
difficulty So one hand we want to emphasize
the Muslim world motivate the church Motivate God's
people make recruits.
On the other hand, there's still a small
voice that says don't say too much Don't
say too much and those with a mouth
like me that has an ability to get
in trouble Be easier just to not say
anything because I don't want to get in
trouble the security guys.
I've already been in jail for that for
the Russians, of course, not the OMers, so
This is a this is a challenge and
the enemy has Continually tried especially this year
to bring disunity to bring in use gossip
and differences of viewpoint to slow us down
Endless hours time days weeks of discussion to
get the the ship of God in a
sense all of OM I'm speaking of back
on course and I feel that through the
last weeks It's not perfect But I feel
perhaps more of my soul than I have
in a year a couple of years That
by God's grace OM both the ship side
and the land side is back on course
It's not perfect and they'll never be sort
of the simplistic total healing over all that
we've been through Because there will be scars
but I believe the OM ship is back
on course and I pray that these two
teams here will commit themselves through love and
work and Christ centered living to help keep
it that way and that will enable us
to have the greatest forward thrust in The
Muslim world together with the other societies that
I believe the church has ever known up
to now.
Let's pray