Discipleship in the midst of an age of
tension and fear.
I believe with all my heart that oftentimes
the Church has neglected to give a clear
message concerning the many emotional problems, the many
stresses, the many difficulties that are upon us
in modern society.
There's a few people that say we overemphasize
this, but I don't think we've hardly had
a message on this yet at this conference,
and I've been waiting, wondering if someone else
would bring something along this line.
Sometimes our messages can repeat themselves.
I know some of mine do.
Dedicate our lives, surrender all, follow Christ, witness,
pray, read the Bible, and you get to
hear these things again and again and again
and again, especially, I don't know, in conference.
Yet some of you are not finding this
easy at all.
Some of you have been on OM for
a year.
You have no real prayer life.
You're not reading the Bible, finding it great
reality.
And this is true of a lot of
people today, if we're honest.
And I believe that one of the greatest
barriers to spiritual reality are emotional and mental
problems.
And to me, anyone living in this world
and not facing up to this is trying
to push aside what many leaders have said
is the number one problem of the twentieth
century.
We've got cures for most of the major
diseases, but mental illness and emotional problems of
large and small proportion are taking their tolls
at an unprecedented rate.
Christians can be the most unrealistic.
This is why many books are now being
written, even one recently called Neurotics in the
Church, because they've discovered that there are quite
a few in the Church, not just a
mild neurotic, probably many of us would come
into that category, but people with serious emotional
disorders.
I can name ten books that are very,
very popular on this subject.
If people aren't having difficulties in this area,
then why are these books selling at such
a tremendous rate?
Some of the most spiritual people have had
some of the most earth-shaking emotional and
mental experiences and total breakdowns.
No one knows the figures, but a good
percentage of missionaries have to leave the field
within their first term because of emotional breakdown
or something else along that line.
We can praise God that within O.M.
there are a number of built-in factors
that keep the percentage of people we have
facing such problems at a very, very low
proportion, much, much lower than general missionary statistics.
These factors are such things as the fact
that we work on teams, rather than throwing
people out alone.
There is an emphasis on sharing, and most
people do find at least someone on their
team that they can share with.
It being a short-term program, of course,
is another factor.
The fact that many of us are young
and most of us go to the field
before we're married is another major factor.
Too many people go to the mission field
after they're very set in their ways, married,
children, and they get out there and they
hit the new culture and they hit all
this at once, and they never adapt.
They just, especially the women, crack up.
There are other factors, I believe, on emphasis
on the sufficiency of Christ.
I believe the importance we put on fellowship,
the importance we put on counseling and sharing
and walking in the light, many of these
things help.
Needless to say, we probably will be facing
greater battles in the coming years, and I
believe that we need to understand what the
Bible says.
I don't believe there's anything more important in
Scripture, on the positive side in this subject,
than what we have often talked about in
Hebrews 4, the rest of faith, and what
we've often talked about in other portions of
Scripture, the sufficiency of Christ.
I believe that these two great truths are
the anchor that can keep us from so
many of the emotional problems that come our
way.
I think it's very important that we become
more real about our feelings, more real about
the real problems.
Don't come to me with a line that
we need deliverance and a faith healer, because
a high percentage of them, if you study
it, or are objective enough to study it,
a good percentage of them have had nervous
breakdowns themselves.
So though I believe in praying for the
sick, I believe there is such a thing
as deliverance, and my scope is very broad.
I would not even oppose some people who
would go about it in a very different
way than I would.
I don't believe that cuts out such things
as counseling, such things as learning basic factors
about ourselves, learning to adjust to our environment,
and learning the secret of Hebrews 4 about
the rest of faith, and the great message
of the New Testament concerning the all-sufficiency
of Jesus Christ.
We spoke briefly yesterday about Indonesia, the country
with all the miracles, where a high percentage
of the leaders have fallen into moral sin,
witchcraft, and you name it, you name it,
it's there.
A high percentage of the leaders in the
Indonesian revival are total reprobates tonight, and it's
because so often we're willing to take the
more spectacular aspects of what God wants to
do, but not get down to the basics
of how to live a normal, balanced Christian
life.
I want miracles.
I want to see anything and everything within
the scope of God's work, but I also
want to see people going on for more
than a few years.
I want to see people who have learned
how to live with themselves, that's not as
easy as you think, with others, including their
enemies, and who can exist in this horrible,
lost world that we are thrown into, with
all of the demons and with all of
the power of Satan running so loose everywhere.
And some of you in the fields you're
going are going to see the devil work
like never before.
You're going to see the demon possessed.
You're going to see those that are enslaved
to spiritism.
You're going to see those that have been
just absolutely destroyed, seemingly, by the powers of
darkness.
A lonely, lonely, lonely world.
Can I read a song for you that
I believe speaks loud to this generation?
It's called Eleanor Rigby, sung by the Beatles,
Lennon and McCartney.
Here it is.
You've probably heard it.
Maybe the words can give us just a
little idea of how this lonely world is
getting lonelier and lonelier.
And you can be in O.M. in
the midst of 400 people and be as
lonely as an iceberg in the middle of
the ocean.
The lonely people peep through curtain lace, opening
their doors for a brief look at the
outside world.
I have to go slow because of the
translators.
Then quickly retreat into a web-like microcosm
of self.
They make it all alone.
That's the introduction.
Here's the song.
Oh, look at all the lonely people.
Ah, look at all the lonely people.
Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the
church where a wedding has been, lives in
a dream, waits at the window wearing a
face that she keeps in a jar by
the door.
Who is it for?
All the lonely people.
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people, where do they all
belong?
Father McKenzie, writing the words of a sermon
that no one will hear.
No one comes near.
Look at him working, darning his socks in
the night when there's nobody there.
What does he care?
All the lonely people, where do they all
come from?
All the lonely people, where do they all
belong?
Ah, look at all the lonely people.
Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was
buried along with her name.
Nobody came.
Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands
as he walked from the grave.
No one was saved.
All the lonely people, where do they all
come from?
Ah, look at all the lonely people.
All the lonely people, where do they all
belong?
Ah, look at all the lonely people.
Psychiatrists have stated that loneliness and boredom is
one of the greatest problems in the 20th
century.
Maybe this is one of the reasons most
people stay healthy.
I know him.
Not exactly a boring situation, and even a
bit difficult to be lonely.
But let me say something before I go
any further.
And it's very important to remember that mental
illness or an emotional breakdown need never be
the end of the line.
In fact, it can be the beginning of
a new life.
You see, God loves us, and he may
even allow some of us to go as
far as a nervous breakdown to bring us
to our senses and to a new way
of life.
So if some of you in life, and
some of you will, and I may be
among the number, have a nervous breakdown, don't
give up.
I know many people have bounced back from
nervous breakdowns of various kinds and are being
used of God.
My prayer has been not so much that
the Lord would keep me from a nervous
breakdown, though I pray that, but that if
I have one, it'll be over quick and
I can get back into the battle soon.
And I think Christians at times have been
unfair to those who have emotional problems.
Missionary societies especially have been extremely ruthless at
times.
They give you these fantastic tests, and if
you happen to prove that you're a little
bit unstable, boy, a lot of societies, you
just haven't got a chance.
I don't know if that's what they thought
was wrong with Gladys Ullward.
If you don't know her name, your education's
a bit incomplete.
There's many a man that was classified, unstable,
emotional problems, dangerous, who turned out to be
a mighty man of God.
John's son was one of them.
They put him in a mental institution in
New York.
So don't think that emotional and mental problems
are the end of the line.
At the same time, be realistic in your
approach.
Loneliness.
Together with loneliness in this society and boredom,
there's a tremendous amount of frustration.
And you may face some of this, you
know.
I do, every day.
The world has become so complicated.
We've got more people in Great Britain than
was in the whole known world of the
Apostle Paul.
Just Britain.
Just little Britain.
What do you do with seven million refugees?
What do you do with 80 million people
in Uttar Pradesh?
What do you do with 800 million in
China?
Talk about frustration.
The zealot in 1971 and 72 who wants
to reach the whole world for Christ, he's
either got to be a dreamer, an idiot,
or an o-ever.
Because it really is impossible.
It really is impossible.
And so those of us who get involved
in wanting to reach this world, and we
come up with these dream projects like Belgium
next summer, and Italy in the next three
summers, when we haven't got the men, we
haven't got the money, we haven't got the
literature, we haven't got the vehicles, we haven't
got the know-how, we haven't got the
organizers.
I'm not sure what we do have.
We've got Giovanni, praise God.
And if you happen to get into this
movement, and quite a few of you are,
you're going to face frustration.
Too many letters, too many bills, too many
people, too much to do, and too little
time, in too many places all at once.
Vehicles that don't work, stamps that don't have
their glue, phones that are broken down, drivers
who can't drive, secretaries who can't type, leaders
who can't lead, followers who can't follow.
This is all the potential of Operation Mobilization.
And interpreters who can't interpret fast enough.
And speakers who speak twice as fast as
they should.
And to me, to get into OM and
not know something of this rest of faith
is dangerous.
I don't recommend it.
Look at Hebrews 4.
I know you've read it before, but let's
look at it again.
The word rest is mentioned 12 times.
Twelve times.
Let us therefore fear, lest the promise being
left us of entering into his rest, any
of you should seem to come short of
it.
For unto us was the gospel preached as
well as unto them, but the word preached
did not profit them not being mixed with
faith in them that heard it.
For we which have believed do enter into
rest, as he said, as I have sworn
in my wrath, if they shall enter into
my rest, although the works which finish from
the foundation of the world.
Going down to save time, verse 8, for
if Jesus had given them rest, then would
he not have afterwards spoken of another day.
There, verse 9, remaineth therefore a rest to
the people of God.
For he that is entered into his rest,
he also hath ceased from his own works,
as God did from his.
Let us labor therefore to enter into that
rest, lest any man fall after the same
example of unbelief.
There is a rest of faith where you
cease from your own works.
A high percentage of emotional problems among Christians
come from them refusing to cease from their
own works.
You're working so hard, you're going so hard
to do the job, and you're worrying about
your problems and everybody else's problems, instead of
really resting on the Lord and doing, as
Peter says, casting all your care upon him.
Have you done it?
Are you doing it today?
What's bugging you today?
What's bothering you today?
Have you cast it on the Lord?
Are you doing it every day?
So basic, so simple, and yet, beloved, I
tell you it's revolutionary, and it works.
You say, well, I cast something on the
Lord, but it always comes back, or I
cast it again.
I'll be very honest, the particular burden that
was on my heart today, I must have
cast it twenty times.
Twenty times.
I have a streak of unbelief in me.
I have fear.
I have various anxieties.
I suffer a lot from sense of failure,
and although other people don't understand this, I
do, to some degree.
And my greatest help in Jesus Christ is
this thing of being able to cast the
burden upon him.
Because if I start running around trying to
carry the burdens of this movement, I'll go
down very, very quick.
The rest of faith, it's a reality.
It's a truth.
You must not just think about it.
You must not just say, isn't that nice?
But you must appropriate it, and you must
appropriate it daily by casting all your burden
upon the Lord, and believing in his sovereign
power to overrule mistakes, to overrule error, to
overrule even sin, and to straighten things out
in the long run.
I believe if we knew the rest of
faith to a deeper degree, in the long
run, we'd be able to run harder and
faster for Jesus.
I could never work the hours I work
if I didn't know the rest of faith.
There's many a night when I haven't been
really appropriating this rest.
I'm exhausted at an early hour.
In other days, when I really have been
casting it more fully on the Lord and
moving along in his strength and keeping the
burden on him, I've been able to go
longer and harder at much less effort.
In the rest of faith, you can do
five times as much with five times less
effort as just burning out your own very,
very small resources.
Frustration can be overcome.
I go to bed every night with so
many things undone, so many problems, so many
just endless things not done, failures, people I
missed interviewing, letters that weren't answered, telegrams not
even answered, checks that were not written, people
I failed to witness to, literature I failed
to get, so many things undone.
It never bothered me.
I lay down in that bed and that's
it, gone, until next morning when I can
get up and race again.
That does more for me than I can
ever tell you.
You see, it's one thing to be under
the burden spiritually.
There's nothing wrong with that.
But if you're under burden spiritually, then you
can turn it off any time you want.
You can turn off from worry and on
to Jesus, or off from the burden and
on to Jesus, off from the burden, on
to sleep, off from the burden, on to
some recreation.
I can switch everything off and go off
and do something with my children, switch everything
off and do something with my wife, switch
everything off, sit down and read a good
book.
Now, I don't get the opportunity to do
that as much as I would like, but
I can, and I do.
Worry you can't switch off.
Some of you want to know the difference
between, you know, having a sensible burden and
being concerned.
Nothing wrong with concern.
I'm concerned about those boys in that, in
jail, in Libya, but if I start worrying
about it, boy, what if they get killed
and what will people think of O.M.?
What about the criticisms and what about their
parents?
Man, I can name you fifteen major areas
of worry, just about four boys in a
prison in Libya.
And the way O.M.ers are moving
into prisons these days, I'll be cracked up
in a couple of months, just with prison
worries.
Worry you find difficult turning off.
It somehow gets a rut in your mind
and it keeps going through, going through.
And every time you worry about it, the
rut gets deeper and the harder it is
to get to victory.
That's why the sooner you start in dealing
with worry as a young person, the better
chances you're not going to end up a
worrier.
Worry can take many years off your life.
Worry can destroy your health.
Isn't it amazing?
All the Christians are up excited about drugs.
I want to tell you something, beloved brethren
who may not like heroin, LSD, pot, and
all the rest.
Worry does more harm in this world than
drugs.
Absolutely.
Worry is destroying more bodies, destroying more minds,
bringing more sicknesses, crippling more homes, destroying more
children than all the drugs that are being
taken.
No, I hate drugs and I believe it's
a problem.
The worry problem is much greater.
And I would say that worry is probably
the second or third biggest enemy in the
whole of Operation Mobilization.
Fear from within.
Fear from without.
Pressure from within.
Pressure from without.
One man, many years ago, once said, we
have nothing to fear but fear itself.
How true.
How true that is.
Some of you young men will have ulcers
at 40.
Some of you will be having heart attacks
perhaps not long after that.
And a lot of other things that come
because of the age of tension and fear
and stress that you and I live in.
Frustration.
Learning to live in the midst of it
is not so simple.
Do you think that we as leaders are
so naive as to think the main thing
is to get you giving out tracts and
winning souls this year?
Do you think this is the purpose of
OM?
To get you for a year, to get
one little year out of your life that
you can go do some work in Iran?
We would be completely stupid to form such
a strategy.
Our burden for you is a lifetime experience,
a lifetime reality.
I'd rather see you fail this year and
live the rest of your life balanced, happy,
healthy, effective, with a testimony than to have
a great flare this year of evangelical activity
and collapse next year when you go back
to a secular society that's rough and tough
and brutal and boring and filled with frustration
and hatred and loneliness.
Your experience on OM must be integrated into
a total life experience.