I've been living in Britain for 22, 23
years.
The only thing I can say about this
conference, I can say a lot of things,
but one of them is it's 20, 30
years late.
I don't know what it is, but sometimes
we're so slow, and I include myself, to
respond to the challenge that Jesus Christ gave
in his word.
So praise God, this is a very special
time.
Nobody is here by accident.
And let's pray God will really help in
this final time.
This time will include an open invitation.
One will be reality, the other will be
geography.
One will be concerning your walk with God.
That's the first thing we're concerned about.
Is he really the Lord of your life?
Are you really a spirit-filled on fire
follower of Jesus Christ?
And the second will be geography.
Are you really moving in the right direction?
Let's pray.
Our Father you minister to us so much,
some of us are bordering on spiritual gluttony.
And we're scared Lord, some of us are
scared because we know we can't live it.
We know that we've had spiritual mountaintop experiences
before, and within weeks we're down not only
in the valley, but in the ditch.
But we dare to believe that somehow, this
day, this week, this year will be different
by the power of your Holy Spirit in
our lives.
Grant us that extra grace to go one
more mile tonight to absorb what you want
to give us from your word.
To take steps of faith that you want
us to take.
Whether we're new recruits or Christian leaders.
Whether we feel we're missionaries or whether we
feel we're a mission field.
We pray Lord that we'll not be hearers
of your word only, but doers according to
your word.
Grant obedience and faith tonight.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
Some of you of course know me, I've
been ministering up and down the country for
the last 22 years.
And if I didn't give some book reviews
you would think I was ill.
And so I wouldn't want to disappoint you.
I not only have books, but just before
I came up, someone from what I believe
is one of the greatest missionary movements of
all times, OMF, gave me this fantastic planner.
You know, I don't think we should separate
proper organization from true spirituality.
And if some of us don't get more
organized, we're not only going to drive ourselves
crazy, but our wives crazy, and everybody else
has to work with us.
And we need an amalgamation of the practical
and the spiritual in the work of God.
And that little planner that you can get
at a reduced rate because the beginning of
the year started, is available over here from
the bookstall.
And I hope that you'll pick one up.
I think it's about 50 pence.
I went over to the bookstall today, was
there talking with different individuals.
That was a great challenge, especially to meet
a sister from Poland.
People are here from all over the world.
Just before I was in Poland last year,
or now it's the year before last, I
was in the private little house group.
It was all very secretive, sort of one
of these connections you make in the streets.
And they were just so desperate for information
about what God is doing.
And we in our so free, such free
countries, we seem to also often be over
-informationized.
We're not really that interested.
I know you are, who come to a
conference like this.
But it is an enormous privilege to be
able to get a hold of some of
these books.
And if you can't get any more books,
you can get them from your Christian bookshop,
you can get them from your church library.
You can make sure some of these books
are in your church library.
For 25 or 30 years, I have been
reading books regularly, many, many hundreds in my
spiritual food, whether I've been in jail in
the Soviet Union or whether I've been stuck
at the border having left my passport 1
,000 miles behind in a restaurant.
I've usually had some books with me.
And there's three books that are competing for
what I feel are the three most significant
books of the last 100 years.
Now, the one that I have been saying
for many, many years is the top book,
is Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones' Spiritual Depression, Its
Cause and Cure.
That is equivalent to any one year at
any Bible college you can choose in the
world.
I really mean that.
I graduated from one of the great Bible
colleges.
But that is spiritual food that will take
a good 10 years to digest.
The cover is terrible.
Spiritual depression, it's not really about depression.
Some of you, because of your lifestyle, when
you read it, you will get depressed.
But it's a challenge of what real commitment
is.
And though this man is in heaven, his
voice speaks on.
And I fear that without that kind of
spiritual steel in our fiber in this last
part of the century, we're not going to
go very far, despite all nice intentions.
But there's a book now competing with it.
And I haven't made the final vote.
I think it's going to move ahead of
it.
But I haven't finished it yet.
I don't know how he ever got to
writing this book, such a large book, when
he was doing so much else, so many
other things, and writing so many other books.
And I speak of this great book, Discipleship,
by David Watson.
If I had to choose between pushing these
two books and preaching, I think I would
choose to just push the two books and
forget about my feeble utterances.
Thank God, these are just sermons in print.
I listened to the memorial service of David
Watson recently on tape.
And I had the joy of knowing him
just a little.
And certainly, he was an example of God
working through, in many ways, a gifted but
ordinary being.
The memorial service, the speaker shared about some
of the struggles and weaknesses that David faced
in his life.
Just like you, just like me, God used
him.
So I commend his book on Discipleship.
The second or third in the competition is
a book that every time I start to
read, I can't believe it.
I really mean that.
It's called The Best of A.
W.
Tozer.
This man has been the greatest influence in
my whole Christian life as any other writer.
I had him much, much earlier than I
even knew Dr. Lloyd-Jones existed.
He introduced, Lloyd-Jones introduced Tozer to Britain.
And we had the joy of importing his
books and introducing him to most evangelical clergymen
through his books.
And this is a treasury of extracts from
his 20 other writings.
If you can't get a mountain of spiritual
food out of that book, please write to
me.
My address is N.E.O.M. office.
I've got my 1985 calendars with me with
my address.
I can give you one.
You write to me and say, look, I
couldn't get much spiritual food out of that
Tozer book.
And I will send you, as a gift
and an apology, 25 free books.
So I commend to you the best.
I'm not joking.
The best.
They're my choice of what books.
The best.
It'll even include some of my own.
There are some other great books.
I think number fourth on my list is
Michael Griffith's Take My Life.
Of all the books he's written, I don't
think any of them even get near that
book.
So, you know, I have my bias.
Take my life.
That's about commitment.
It's about what we sing in our churches.
Take my life and let it be.
Holy consecrated God to thee.
A brilliant book.
How many of you have read this book?
It's really a classic.
It's been out a long time.
That's very encouraging.
Very encouraging.
There's another bombshell book that I just love
to distribute.
People get challenged even when they just look
at the cover.
Because there's two things that challenge people.
One, the name of Martin Goldsmith.
And the other one is the title, Don't
Just Stand There.
Evangelical passivity is a spiritual gangrene in our
churches today.
People sitting, waiting for God to do what
he's already done.
Praying, Lord, touch me.
When the Lord already more than touched his
son, Jesus Christ, but allowed him to be
crucified, that you and I might be on
the move in obedience.
Don't Just Stand There is a brilliant book.
And then I always like to introduce at
least two new books.
One is for people that have difficulty relating
to their parents.
About 80% of you probably.
That's right.
Chua Wee Hin, one of the great leaders
of UCCF, the Christian Union movement, international movement.
Dear Mom and Dad, just published.
Because, you know, a lot of you, you're
going to go anywhere for God.
You're going to have to give some attention
to your mothers and fathers and to what
it is to try to move in unity
with them.
A new one by the leader of WECC.
I call it the WECC Book of Lists.
It's actually How Are You Doing?
Went through me like a spiritual laser beam.
24 checklists on spiritual growth, some of them
very depressing.
But remember, whenever these books depress you because
you feel such an oog, you can believe
God to lift you up.
And then finally, two books from overseas.
Living With Your Passions, a book on sexual
purity, probably the most needed book in many
of our lives, and Healing for Damaged Emotions.
If I had to choose some of our
good seminaries or choose to study those books,
you'd give me a very, very difficult choice.
Fortunately, some of you at least can do
both.
And when I think of the price of
paperback books, it's one of the greatest investments
you can make in your Christian life.
I put my life on any of those
books.
You can send any of them back to
me.
I get not any single penny from this
book table, I can assure you.
But I am here because Christian books rescued
me from unbelief, from doubt, from fear, from
almost completely overthrowing the Christian faith two years
after I was converted.
And they're sermons in print, and I commend
them to you.
And I know the Lord will use them.
None of them come near this book, but
they help us understand this book, just as
I hope in my feeble message I can
also help to understand some of the things
in this book.
Let's look at a number of scriptures together.
This is a time when we go directly
into the Word of God.
We've got challenges, testimonies, songs, engagement, dedications, various
things.
And now we're going to go into the
Word of God.
I'm known as one of the longest preachers
in Europe, and I know some of you
are tired.
I'm also a little bit jet-lagged having
just come back from the West Indies, get
confused about the time.
But we won't have the opportunity to gather
like this again for a long time.
So let's just bear with me.
I remember in Germany, some of you have
heard this story.
It's my favorite.
It's true.
I can't resist it.
Half of you have heard it.
But I was in Germany where they're neurotic
on punctuality.
I go there again next weekend, please pray.
And I was going on about an hour
and a half.
Of course, the interpreter was taking half the
time.
And a man tried to get me to
stop speaking.
He borrowed a wristwatch from somebody in the
back.
He was sitting in the back row, an
older man.
Most of the young people were listening very
intently.
Taking notes, and I've been amazed at the
way you're taking notes.
I sit usually way in the back and
watch people take notes.
It's quite challenging.
But he held the watch up, trying to
get me to, you know, shut up.
And I was preaching about discipleship, world missions,
forsaking all for Christ.
I saw this watch.
I said, praise Jesus, folks.
Look at this man donating his watch for
world missions.
Come on, you get these things free with
a gallon of gas or petrol.
When you go to the mission field, they
just disintegrate.
But there are a number of scriptures, as
we think of the subject of commitment, and
we have to realize commitment means different things
to different people.
And we've chosen a big subject.
I've written four books trying to deal with
commitment.
And when I reread them, which is a
very heavy experience, apart from getting ill, I
find out that I have a long way
to go.
Hebrews 12 is the first scripture I want
to read in thinking about commitment to Christ.
I'm one of these runners.
I love to run, not every morning.
Some mornings I hate it.
That's why I run.
Not an ascetic, just know that George Burwer
needs a little discipline.
I remember Billy Graham speaking at one of
these great student conferences many years ago, 25,
30 years ago.
I've listened to the tape 20 times.
I wasn't there, but he just very clearly
said, you know, if you're not willing for
the disciplined life, forget it.
And really whatever commitment you make tonight, whatever
promise you made last night without discipline, you're
not going anywhere.
Paul said, I buffet my body and bring
it into subjection less after preaching to others.
This is the apostle Paul.
I become a reprobate.
And here the writer to the Hebrew says,
wherefore, seeing we are surrounded about with such
a great cloud of witnesses, let us lay
aside every weight and the sin, which does
so easily beset us and let us run
with patience.
It's a great need in my life.
Patience, the race that is set before us.
Looking unto Jesus, the key to real commitment,
looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of
our faith, who for the joy that was
set before him endured the cross, despising the
shame and is set down at the right
hand of the throne of God.
A committed man is many things.
The Bible describes him as a pilgrim.
The Bible describes him as a soldier, endure
hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
Think of those young Iranians rushing into the
front lines of the Iran Iraq war.
Even tonight, many of them, 16 and 17,
considering it a joy to give their lives
totally for their religion and for their country.
That's commitment.
We heard a similar reference to that tonight.
I think one of the strongest things about
A.W. Tozer is that my heart is
linked with, though I'm a failure and I'm
still wrestling with it.
He felt that contemporary evangelical Christianity, and he
included the charismatic movement, the non charismatic movement.
He included everybody who doesn't like to be
included.
He felt that the commitment we represented was
not a biblical commitment.
Now he's strong and he said it was
not enough to take the gospel to pagan
lands, but that we must be concerned about
the quality of the gospel that we are
taking.
And I believe that God wants us to
consider tonight the quality of our own commitment
to Jesus Christ and my fellow missionaries.
I believe you and I are in on
this because I want to be quite honest.
I'm appalled at times of the lack of
commitment on the mission people.
And I speak of O.M. I'll let
you speak of your own group.
Satan is clever.
And we build up habits in our life.
Billy Graham said our life is filled with
habits and we don't bring these habits under
the crucifying power of the Lord Jesus.
We don't deal with those roots of jealousy,
those roots of bitterness, those roots of lust
and those acorns in our lives in the
teenage years become trees in the twenties and
they become giant trees in the thirties and
the forties.
I believe it is impossible to consider the
task of world missions without deciding to deal
with sin in our lives.
It's an unpopular word in many places today.
We're encouraged to be positive in all of
our thinking even though we have a Bible
with at least a thousand negative exhortations and
praise God many positive ones as well.
You cannot read the Old Testament without realizing
the cancerous nature of sin.
I'm sorry our brother this morning didn't get
to that next chapter but he referred to
it of the mess that Aachen made because
sin wasn't dealt with.
Is there some sin in your life some
habit that needs to be brought under the
crucifying power of Jesus Christ tonight?
As I mentioned there's going to be two
kinds of invitation at the end of my
message.
One is going to be reality that's the
first.
I'm going to give you the opportunity to
simply stand and recommit your life to Jesus
Christ not missions to Jesus Christ to his
kingdom and affirm him as absolute lord of
your life.
That's my first burden tonight and I thank
the committee for the freedom to share that
burden.
The second invitation will be geography because I
believe that God is dealing with some of
you about geography.
The Holy Ghost brings a holy go.
Acts 1 8 is there in the Bible
just before Jesus ascended into heaven and he
said ye shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem
Judea Samaria and the uttermost part of the
earth.
I don't think I'll ever forget that prayer
meeting last night.
I'm to a lot of prayer meetings.
They're not always alive I can tell you
and last night we focused in on some
of those countries where the church does not
exist.
I wish meetings like this did not only
attract the missionary minded.
I wish they attracted the people who are
not missionary minded because it is men in
high places in Britain.
It is men in key pastorates in Britain
who do not have a vision or concern
for world missions that are hindering the spreading
of the gospel more than any other factor
I know.
We have tried to mass produce men of
God in our seminaries and in our institutions
and as Tozer said we have produced mascots
instead of prophets and I yearn, I cry
out and I hope you will cry out
with me for revival in the pulpits of
Britain.
That once again there would be men and
women of unction.
Once again there would be fearless men and
women who would speak what the word of
God says.
No matter how hard, no matter how difficult,
no matter how many people in the congregation
are upset when we step on their materialistic
corns or some other little favorite spiritual no
-no.
It's interesting how books like the Golden Cow,
almost prophetic, written by John White, a Lancashire
psychiatrist, are shoved to one side because they're
too prophetic and too unpleasant and instead we
start like swine going to the slaughter, gather
up these little poison-covered whatever you want
to call them from places like Texas that
tell us that all real spiritual people are
going to financially prosper and that if we're
really dedicated to Jesus we can get rid
of that beat-up 63 Volkswagen and get
ourselves a Mercedes.
I mean after all why be a Volkswagen
Christian when you can be a Mercedes Christian?
Doesn't matter that there's a million souls without
food in Ethiopia.
Doesn't matter that thousands are dying in starvation
in 20 other countries.
We write them off with one wipe of
the pen, one little theological cliche explains why
they are in that predicament and why God
is blessing us and we confuse nationalism with
spirituality and we become drunk on what we
think is the new wine but it's poison.
And we need not only men who are
committed to a life in Christ, we need
men and women who are committed to sound
doctrine, who are committed to what the Bible
really teaches and I know that's not always
easy to find out.
And the Bible says in the last days
there will be an increase of heretics and
false teaching and extremism.
Tozer said if you want to survive this
generation you need to develop a little bit
of reverent skepticism.
Thank you Mr. Tozer.
Commitment is many things and we can only
in a sense touch on it tonight but
I hope we can touch the core.
A committed Christian is like a man running
in a race.
Did you see the London marathon last year?
It was incredible.
24,000 running through the streets of London
or 20,000, I forget the number, 26
miles.
Some of them in their 60s, in their
70s.
One man was carrying a ladder.
Yeah.
They asked him what are you carrying the
ladder?
He said in case I hit the wall.
For those of you who don't know running
terminology, when you're in long distance running and
your body gets tired you feel that you
just can't go and your terrific weakness comes
upon the body.
But if you somehow pace yourself you can
go right through that.
Terrific exhilaration after you get through the wall
or over the wall like me.
Take out a few bricks and you know
crawl through.
I have a sense as I minister to
the Lord's people that I'm often facing many
people who have hit the wall.
I was in a Christian union recently ministering
on the subject of discouragement.
How to have victory over discouragement.
I'd love to speak to you on that.
I can't do that but you write to
me and I'll send you the tape.
I'm not only a bookworm but I also
listen to tapes.
But I was in this Christian union, I
was feeling rather bold and I said you
know I feel some of you are discouraged
in your Christian life.
At the end I gave an invitation for
people who were discouraged and in despair to
stand up.
Three-fourths of the Christian union stood up
and asked God to fill them with the
Holy Ghost and to drive discouragement back into
the ground where it belongs.
You know sometimes it's not the big things
that destroy us.
You know big lust trips.
You know I don't think most of you
are your main temptation is tonight go shoot
you know a couple ounces of heroin.
I don't think you're you know your big
temptation tonight is you know go bust into
a local bank and get a big million.
That's not the way by the way you
get money for missions.
I thought of it already.
Often the temptations we get in God's race
are far more subtle.
It's just a temptation to slow down.
It's just a temptation to let a little
cynicism come in.
A little pride to come in or just
to to allow ourself to be discouraged.
I've had so many fistfights with discouragement I
lost count.
But I read in the Bible one day
don't let the sun go down upon your
anger.
That was another one of my top major
problems.
And I thought if the Bible says don't
let your son go down upon your anger
then don't let it come down upon your
discouragement.
And I have been able to practice that
most of my Christian life.
You determine whether you are discouraged or not.
The joy of the Lord is our strength.
We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and
we can claim deliverance and victory over discouragement.
We may not always feel it to the
same degree but we are called to walk
by faith and not by sight.
Some of you are going to have post
-conference blues in a few days because you're
expecting God to do things in your life
that he's probably not going to do as
quick as you want.
I have a little message I give to
our OM teams.
Seven things God won't do for you.
These OMers really get upset with me at
times.
They think I'm stressing balance too much and
I'm not emphasizing the old hard line OM
message.
You know knock them out, kick them down,
beat them up, feed them you know fried
grass and frog's eyeballs.
If they can only realize the first OM
conference I ever preached at the Mexican border
many years ago when it was being born,
every night I spoke in the same thing,
the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
And if it hadn't been God's emphasis in
our hearts on love, on Calvary love, on
brokenness, on what Roy Heshin talks about in
Calvary Road, you know I think we would
have become a weird extremist movement.
Maybe even as that wild cult once called
the children of God.
So pernicious, so unbelievable.
It seems that Satan has almost two strategies.
Firstly he tries to keep you from real
commitment and then as you begin to know
commitment, as I know some of you do
know, and it is an ongoing process, there
may be a crisis but it's followed by
a process.
But it seems in the second strategy when
you know something of a spiritual life, you
know something of commitment, Satan tries to get
you into some cul-de-sac, some extreme.
Tozer said that the more zealous Christian was
more easily led astray.
And Christian leaders, my brothers and sisters and
co-leaders here, that puts a heavy responsibility
on us to pray for people here.
I've got the names of a few people
I've met today.
I even took their pictures because I have
a poor memory and I am committed to
pray for those people.
We need to determine tonight that we're going
to go from here and pray for one
another.
Because Satan is going to counter-attack this
conference and he's going to try some subtle
method.
And we need to be as wise as
serpents and harmless as doves.
A.
W.
Tozer said the greatest gift needed in the
church today was is discernment.
If we have spiritual blessing and spiritual power
and spiritual gifts without discernment, patience, wisdom, and
the fruit of the Holy Spirit, we will
convert some of our churches into circuses overnight.
And I fear that.
And I don't think I've ever been accused
of lack of zeal or lack of desire
for wholehearted commitment to Jesus Christ.
We're running in a race.
There's another scripture you can find if you
turn one page in most of your Bibles,
the end of chapter 12, where it says,
for our God is a consuming fire.
That to me is a picture of a
committed Christian.
He's a person on fire.
Sometimes when we talk about reality in evangelism
and reality in witness and reality in prayer
and reality in relationships, and we talk about
the crucified life, immediately somebody says, don't be
super spiritual.
Is that the biggest problem where you come
from?
Too many overly spiritual people.
Let me tell you, you won't do anything
for God without some clown telling you you're
super spiritual.
And if you want to go anywhere for
God, if you want to ever end up
on the mission field, you must learn to
deal with intimidation.
Because there are many men more brilliant than
us who are out there who don't believe
in missions and don't believe that people are
lost and don't believe that this is a
sensible place to be for four days over
new year.
And some of them are very gifted speakers
and they are professionals at intimidating you.
We all have our weaknesses.
None of us are master communicators.
We haven't been through three years of Dale
Carney, how to win friends and influence people.
And as we launch out for Christ, we
will make mistakes.
We will perhaps look like a fool in
some cases.
And the enemy has a way of sometimes
intimidating us.
And we just go down under intimidation, like
one big thud.
I've seen it in Christian union after Christian
union in my 22 years of ministering in
the seas that I love so much.
You know what the Bible says?
God has not given us a spirit of
fear, but of love and of power and
a sound mind.
I've had the intimidators banging on my door
since the moment of my conversion.
30 years is a long time to bang
on one door.
And I've learned from them because sometimes I
had failed and sometimes I had sinned and
I needed to shape up and I needed
to get my house in order, but I
refused to allow it to discourage me in
my prayer, in my evangelism, and in the
basics of the Christian life that had been
emphasized in this beautiful gospel.
Stand firm.
1 Corinthians 15 58.
Be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work
of the Lord, for you know that your
labor is not in vain in the Lord.
Tozer didn't always appear to be balanced.
Some of his statements are almost, well, it's
hard to explain.
Blunt to say the least.
And yet some other things he said brought
so much balance.
You know what he said once that just
it came to me like like a fresh
cool shower in New Delhi in May.
He said, you know, God is easy to
live with.
You know, one of the great dangers in
my life was I was becoming religiously jumpy.
I was vaccinated with a sort of perfectionism,
not just from what I found after I
became a Christian, but even before that.
And I thank God that he is easy
to live with.
I thank God that he deals with me
on the basis of love and forgiveness and
mercy.
And I tell you, without that as a
as a bottom line, so to speak, if
you know that term, you can become very
neurotic after four days here.
That's right.
Because the commitment we're talking about here is
a way of life.
It's a way of life.
I remember a great missionary that came to
me, the first medical doctor on the ship
Lagos, when we sailed around Africa toward India.
He was 70 years old, a godly man,
a medical doctor.
There wasn't much to do on the Lagos
in the way of medicine.
And so I was always finding him washing
dishes.
Brilliant doctor.
And he gave his testimony at 70 years
of age.
He came back to Britain shortly after that,
went to be with the Lord.
But he gave his testimony in a humble
way, stood before these young people.
Many of them are very weak in the
faith.
There was quite a bit of carnality on
that ship in those days, I will tell
you.
And he stood up in a humble way
and he said, I thank God for so
much that I've learned from you young people.
And I tell you, some people wept.
I pray that somehow when I'm 70, I'll
still be a learner.
I pray that somehow you and I, as
disciples of Jesus, will never take those L
plates off.
Never get to that place where we think
we have arrived or our group has arrived.
I find this coming in Britain these days,
it also scares me.
Each group somehow feels they're a little better
than the other group.
And somehow in order to sell people on
our group or to get them to go
our way or chew on our spiritual bread
crumbs, we have a subtle way of more
or less painting our group or our church
stream or our denomination as being just a
little bit up, sort of spiritual one-upmanship.
Well, let me give you a little information
about Operation Mobilization.
I think we maybe went through that for
a while.
May God have mercy on us.
But we've discovered the hard way.
We're a little bit down, just a little
bit down.
And we have failed God in our work
many times.
And we learned that it's easy to talk.
It's easy to pray big prayers even at
midnight.
But it's not so easy to love your
wife for 25 years or 30.
Not so easy to love that brother and
sister who gets on your nerves and yet
you're assigned to the same mission station with
him.
It's not so easy to love that man
down the road who you're supposed to be
working together with when he has some little
doctrinal twitch that doesn't warm your theological battery.
And the lack of love among us, the
lack of reality and Calvary love and brokenness,
it must be at times an abomination to
God.
Yet he loves us still.
How much more we should love one another?
Yes, I believe that the normal Christian life
is a life of being on fire for
Jesus Christ.
That doesn't mean you have to be noisy.
I know people get nervous when I speak.
I don't even get invited to quite a
few places because too many people get nervous
when I speak.
And the big fear is that people are
going to become like George Burwell.
Do you really think this is a big
problem around Britain?
I mean really?
Do you think there's too much enthusiasm?
I realize I'm too enthusiastic and too loud.
My wife has been trying to train me
in this area for 25 years, almost had
a nervous breakdown.
But I don't think the greatest problem in
your church is too much enthusiasm for Christ.
If it is, well then write to me.
I want to pray for more spiritual balance
in your church.
Really.
A.W. Tozer said to think that the
biggest problem in the Church of Jesus Christ
was too much enthusiasm and zeal for love
and passion for souls was like sending a
squadron of policemen to a nearby cemetery to
guard against a demonstration by the residents at
midnight.
Please don't write a book of quotations as
someone recently did and say that George Burwell
said that.
That was A.W. Tozer.
I'm just a repeater.
People sometimes ask me to recommend my own
books.
It's ridiculous.
How do you recommend your own books?
The only way I do it is tell
people that they're loaded with quotations I've taken
from other people's books.
Amazing enough, I've had 14,000 letters from
the result of my book, Hunger for Reality.
I want to ask you this question.
You know, New Year's Day is a great
time to ask questions or to take inventory.
This little book I call it the Weck
Book of Lists.
It's sort of a spiritual inventory.
Either way, it has a tremendous chapter on
whether you should go to Bible college or
not.
And if any of you are thinking about
that, there's a leaflet available just outside this
auditorium that just about blow every circuit in
your head if you have Bible college circuits.
It's got most of the Bible colleges of
Britain with their addresses.
It even tells the date they're founded.
Here's one founded in 1892.
Can you imagine going there?
And it really is something.
I hope every one of you will get
one.
I just finished writing the OM International monthly
letter, and I've offered it to anybody who
writes in to me next month because I
just got so excited by that leaflet.
Praise God for the increased numbers going to
our great Bible colleges.
Not the total answer.
God doesn't send everyone through Bible college.
He leads different people in different ways, but
it's one of God's ways to get a
greater knowledge of the Word.
And I don't think we can be effective
in missionary work without a knowledge of the
Word of God, even if you go as
a mechanic or something else in that area.
And so I want to take a little
spiritual inventory.
I want to ask you, are you on
fire for Jesus Christ?
It's not noise we're talking about.
It's not outward enthusiasm I'm talking about.
It's inner reality.
It's love.
It's knowing God.
It's experiencing Christ and his presence.
It's things you've read about many times.
Samuel Logan Bringle, that man who worked with
Booth and brought tens of thousands to Christ,
gave a definition of fire.
Can I read this to you?
What is fire, spiritual fire?
It is love.
It's faith.
It's hope.
It's passion, purpose, determination.
It's utter devotion.
It's divine discontent with formality, ceremonialism, lukewarmness,
indifference, sham, noise, parade, spiritual death.
It's singleness of eye, consecration unto death.
It's God the Holy Ghost burning in and
through a humble, holy, faithful man or woman.
I want to ask you, are you that
man?
Are you that woman filled with the Holy
Spirit?
That's God's will for every one of us
here tonight.
It happens as we learn what it is
to be crucified with Christ.
As Paul said, I am crucified.
Do you know why often we have so
many problems in some of our churches?
So many divisions and contentions and bickerings and
difficulties.
Mueller said it.
Hudson Taylor said it.
Every man of God, almost I've ever read,
says the same thing.
Andrew Murray, F.B. Myers, Keswick, Filey, Stephen
Olford, Alan Redpath.
Do you know what it is?
Self.
And you can go through even a missions
convention and the self-like can go away
still very active.
In fact, in OM at times, we have
specialized in the energy of the flesh and
seeing people try to serve God when the
self-like was still in path.
That's why we get upset and jealous and
irritable.
That's why we get cynical.
That's why we feel people don't appreciate us
in all that we're doing for God.
Or people don't understand us.
Or self-pity comes in.
What a puddle that one is.
Or regret, the most subtle form of all
self-love.
I want to ask you this question.
I know it's a hard question.
Can you say tonight, I am crucified with
Christ?
Yet, I live.
Not I, but Christ living within me.
Can you say that Jesus Christ is the
Lord of your life?
Oh my, the messages I've heard on the
Lordship of Christ have brought low again and
again.
I can't repeat them.
There's not time.
I share about this in my book, the
final message I gave at the Chester Operation
World Conference.
But let me just summarize it and try
to bring this to a close.
There are definite areas where Christ wants to
be Lord of our lives.
Let's just name a few.
Is he Lord over your relationships?
If you have any difficulty in the relationship
area, there are different kinds of relationships.
I'm thinking widely.
Or if in particular, you have any difficulty
in the area of sexual relationships.
That was my greatest struggle in my Christian
life.
Get that book, Living With Your Passions, because
it's one of the most, if not the
most anointed book on that subject I've ever
read.
There are 400 verses in the Bible that
talk about sex.
We cannot push that under the carpet.
Some of our churches, we claim to teach
and preach the whole counsel of God.
Great.
Easy to say.
When did you last hear that verse in
the Old Testament expounded?
Be thou satisfied with the breasts of the
wife of your youth.
Ever heard that one expounded?
It is interesting that even in the 20th
century, even in 1984 and 85, that there's
such a hush-hush in the church on
the subject of sex.
When the Bible is so blunt, so clear,
so straightforward, I just love it.
It goes through me like a dozen arrows.
Because of this book, God has kept me
in this area these 30 years.
No, not completely in terms of my eyes
and my mind, but in terms of the
kind of thing that I could do and
that would ruin my ministry and ruin who
knows what mess it could lead to in
a youth movement, a movement like Operation Mortalization.
You know, if you keep short accounts with
God, dealing with the slightest bit of lust
that comes into your mind, very, very seldom
are you going to get into deeper trouble.
But unfortunately, we don't even like to talk
about it.
And you know, there's no sense in making
a recommitment of your life tonight if you're
not willing to deal with that relationship, with
that girlfriend or that boyfriend that you know
in the depth of your heart is not
from God, at least for now.
It's dragging you down.
It's not glorifying him.
There's an overemphasis on the physical.
You're not really praying and moving mountains together
for God, as any young couple should be.
You're sort of in it for mutual satisfaction.
It may be your insecurity and his lust.
You don't really know.
And it's just going on and on.
And Billy Graham taught when I heard him
preach years ago that this probably stops more
people from the mission field than any other
single area.
I ask you, brothers and sisters, make Christ
Lord of your social life.
Get together with your girlfriend or boyfriend tonight
or tomorrow or this week.
Get on your knees together and let Christ
crucify that relationship and allow it to die
or be resurrected.
Because people prematurely running into marriage is an
enormous hindrance.
And unfortunately, today, that's the least of the
problems.
Today, we don't prematurely run into marriage.
We just prematurely run into bed and we
pay for it with confusion and a guilty
conscience and damaged emotions more than any other
perhaps generation.
No wonder one of the best-selling books
today is Healing for Damaged Emotions by David
Siemens.
Will you make him Lord of every relationship?
Your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your brother, your sister,
your mother, your father, those you understand, those
you don't understand, friends, apparent enemies.
Jesus Christ, Lord.
That's his way.
Secondly, Lord of your time.
David Wilkerson felt the sin of wasting time
was the biggest sin among youth today.
It is amazing the time frittered away watching
a lot of the silly junk that comes
over television.
And I'm not totally anti-television.
I'm sure there are some programs very challenging.
I almost wept watching a program about Afghanistan
recently.
Nor do I think there is no place
for recreation and to put your feet up
and read a good book or to put
your feet up and watch something on television.
If that somehow recreates you and gives you
some spiritual battery charge in the human side
of your life, then go to it.
Whatsoever you do, do it heartily as unto
the Lord.
When I watch a film, I like to
watch it with everything I have.
I've seen Star Wars three times.
Every time is all I have.
But the Word of God teaches in all
things moderation.
And for many of us, that's a big
challenge, isn't it?
So easily we get drawn into things where
our time is not used best.
And the good becomes the enemy of the
best.
Thirdly, he wants to be Lord of our
minds and of our intellect.
Isn't the real crux of the issue so
often a lazy mind?
How many of you systematically memorize scripture?
We got a lot of navigators here.
They're the pace setters in this.
But oh my, I wonder how many, let's
be honest, are systematically, even one verse a
week.
I like to be, you know, I like
to be broad as I can.
One verse every other week.
Raise your hand.
Encourage my heart on this first day of
the new year.
Interesting.
That's better than most audiences.
If I hadn't learned to memorize the Word
of God as a young baby Christian, converted
in a Billy Graham meeting through the prayers
of a prayer warrior, who was also the
human founder of OM through prayer, if I
hadn't learned to memorize scripture, I don't think
I'd be here today.
I just had too many problems.
I had too many, as a young Christian,
the more I read about the Christian life,
the more I thought I can't live it.
It's impossible.
But the Word of God is sharp.
And if you could go from here tonight
with that one decision that you're going to
get regularly into the scriptures and getting the
scriptures into your heart, the psalmist said, I've
hid my word in my heart, oh Lord,
that I may not sin against you.
Do you believe that?
Why don't you practice it?
It'll revolutionize your thought life.
My lust problems in the mind cut down
90, 80, 70, 60, right down to 10,
5, 2% of what they were before
I started memorizing the Word of God.
Now you are clean through the word I
have spoken unto you.
Is Christ Lord of your intellect, your mind?
Now with cassette tapes, we not only can
memorize the scripture, we can listen.
I have the Bible on tape and when
I go running or I have to wait
somewhere or get stuck somewhere, I can often
listen to the scriptures and get brainwashed by
the Sermon on the Mount.
Isn't that dangerous?
Can you imagine what would happen if people
started getting brainwashed by the Sermon on the
Mount?
People might start loving one another.
Who knows what other crazy thing would happen
on planet earth?
Praise God for the privilege of study.
I've declared myself a Bible student until I
get to heaven.
This is why I believe so much in
these great books.
And then Christ needs to be Lord of
our emotions.
I think there's been a neglect of emphasis
on the emotions in the Christian life.
We want to be the stiff upper stiff
upper lip crowd and I think sometimes missionaries
in years gone by have made errors in
this in this area because the fact is
we're emotional beings and you're looking at someone
that is not a great dynamic stiff upper
lip to the ends of the earth, plant
a church in Mongolia, over or lows, missionary.
I'm a weak, scared, somewhat of a coward,
struggling, falling at the feet of Jesus, learner.
And yet somehow the Lord has been able
to use me a little.
And I know that if God can use
me in my struggles, my doubts, the fears
I sometimes go through, the agonies as sometimes
I seem to be going one way and
then the other and think, well, you know,
am I somehow schizophrenic?
You know, all of us are a little
bit schizophrenic, especially when we commit our lives
to Jesus Christ and there has to be
the ongoing crucifixion of set.
There's hope for anybody with any kind of
problem because that's who Jesus specializes in.
Brothers and sisters, great faith is not made
in the absence of problems or doubts or
fears.
It's made as you battle through.
It's made as daily you deny self, take
up your cross and follow him.
Will you do that in a new, fresh
way from this hour on?
If you will, then I believe you're a
candidate for God's missionary work wherever it may
be.
And then is he Lord over your tongue?
Oh my, the sins of the tongue so
clearly spoken about in scripture.
David Wilkerson said something about this.
I think it was him.
I wrote it in my Bible.
Gossip is fast becoming the biggest weapon Satan
has against God's chosen people.
Rumors are flying around everywhere.
Filthy gossip is running, ruining the reputations of
ministers and marriages of many God's choices.
Servants, will you go away from here tonight
and say, Lord, crucify my tongue.
The Bible says speak evil of no one.
The Bible says the judgment you give is
a judgment you will get.
Will you ask God's love to come over
your cynical heart, your critical tongue, your negative
spirit?
You say, is that a real issue?
I want to tell you this.
Sins of the tongue have caused more grief
on the mission field than anything I have
seen in my service overseas now almost 29
years.
And remember even here tonight, I'm just an
immigrant missionary.
Is he Lord of your tongue?
And lastly, is he Lord of your future,
your career?
We have become neurotics about education.
It has become God.
Our degrees are worshipped.
Many a student has a nervous breakdown going
for his O-levels, going for his university
degree.
And while we see this tremendous commitment on
the intellectual side, and while we see people
going ahead in all different spheres of society,
and it's not necessarily wrong if it's kept
in moderation, we find so few are willing
to pray even one hour with Jesus.
So few who really know how to be
used of the spirit in communication and bringing
the soul to Christ.
Brothers and sisters, is he really Lord over
your career?
It was the toughest thing for my family
when I told them I was leaving university.
In OM, generally speaking, we encourage people to
finish their university career.
I'm quite happy my son has just finished
his, but in my case, I knew God
was leading me out of that particular university
or college to study in a Spanish-speaking
university, University of Mexico, in the summers, and
to transfer into Bible college during the main
term, that I could get to Spain and
do some more study in another school there
as a tentmaker missionary during my early days
in Europe.
Is he the Lord over your future, over
your career?
Unless there's at least some people willing to
change their career, we're not going to get
the men and the women we need to
bring this great task to pass.
This foundation of total commitment, this foundation in
which Christ is the Lord of our lives,
this foundation in which we know what it
is to die daily, to take up our
cross and follow him, I believe will lead
to the kind of people we need for
the great task of world missions.
Hudson Taylor said this, China is not to
be won for Christ by self-seeking, ease
-loving men and women.
Those not prepared for labor, denial, and many
discouragement will be poor helpers in the work.
In short, the men and women we need
are those who will put Jesus, China in
his case, souls first and foremost in everything
and at all times.
Life itself must be secondary.
Their price is far above rubies.
I made that kind of commitment to Jesus
Christ under the ministry of Oswald J.
Smith when I was a Bible college student.
Now I'd already made a previous commitment.
I was already winning people to Christ.
I had already begun to Mexico, but Oswald
J.
Smith, that great missionary diplomat, came to Moody
Bible Institute and he gave another call to
commitment.
And God broke me and exposed self and
my life at night.
And I went forward and I asked God
to fill me afresh with his Holy Spirit.
And I made my life verse, that verse
in Acts 20, that the only thing I
wanted to do was fulfill the ministry that
God has given me.
In closing, I want to say I believe
there are many reasons why quite a few
of us in this particular conference should actually
go to the foreign field.
I know this is a sensitive issue because
people are afraid, are always afraid that somebody
staying home is going to feel guilty.
Brothers and sisters, is feeling a little guilty
the biggest problem in the church?
What about people going to hell?
Do you consider that a problem?
My friends who are so worried about a
few people feeling a little guilty, I can't
live without feeling a little guilty.
God has so blessed me, I have so
much, I have so much to be thankful
for.
I read what's happening in Ethiopia, I feel
a little guilty.
I read about Campuchia, I feel a little
guilty.
But I've learned how to maturely handle that.
And I've learned how to accept myself and
the environment in which God has placed me
to be abased and to be abound.
And I find that the Lord Jesus has
ample ability to take care of my guilt.
And I'm glad at times when I feel
guilty, when I say something really rude and
selfish to my wife, I'm glad I feel
guilty.
And I'm glad at that point I'm not
supposed to pick up a book on psychology,
though I'm not against Christian psychology, but I'm
to repent and go to my wife and
say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I've done it
again, will you forgive me?
And you know one of the most beautiful
things with my wife who's stuck with me
25 years at the 31st of this month,
she's always forgiven me.
And so if you've sinned, if you've failed,
you just go to Jesus and he will
forgive you.
But it's impossible to have a missionary challenge
without a few people being upset, without a
few people feeling, well he's trying to get
people to go overseas, of course we're trying
to get people to go overseas, what do
you think we've come for, to pay money
to the University of Salford?
And it's about time that some more of
you great British people got on your horses
or your rowboats or your water skis and
got going out there, because it is a
shame how few missionaries are going from this
country in these days.
It is a shame.
And since you want to be objective and
logical and keep the whole thing very rational
and not to get too emotional, let me
give you my seven reasons and then we're
going to close.
One, because the need is so great, nations
with no churches, no missionaries, it's great to
support nationals, I believe in it, in the
countries I'm working in, in some cases there
are no nationals.
The whole thrust of OM was to support
and work with nationals, the nationals more than
any other group of people tell me all
the time, would you bring some more of
those OMers and help us, the task is
too great.
And by the way, many of you as
single people on the mission field can live
as cheap even as nationals, in our work
sometimes cheaper, because when nationals get married and
have children, they become as expensive often as
missionaries who know the simple lifestyle.
It's not nationals or missionaries, it's both.
And we must beware of thinking because the
third world is on the move that places
like Britain can now sit back and just
talk day and night about what God wants
to do in Britain.
There's not a single verse in the scripture
about what God wants to do in Great
Britain.
And we've mixed nationalism with our biblical faith,
and it's an abomination to God.
He is concerned about what we do in
the world.
And for 22 years, most of the people
I talk to, they don't want to talk
about world mission, they only want to talk
about Britain, and some of them don't even
like it when I go overseas and refuse
some of their invitations to preach in Britain.
And I love Britain, and have adopted it
as my home country.
We should still be one of the great
missionary-sending countries.
Most cities I've been in in Britain are
10 to 100 times more evangelized than the
places I visit overseas.
And if you want to personally correspond about
it, I'd be thrilled, because I'm not just
saying this.
I'd never say it if I couldn't back
it up with a thanks.
Secondly, because so few are going.
I believe in short-term, I believe in
long-term.
I know God leads different people in different
ways, but when you add it all together
at present, so few are going.
We've heard the statistics, it's not time to
over-dwell this.
Number three, because few, please get this, few
ever get as far as you have right
now.
I heard there were going to be 2
,000 at this conference, and I believe the
fact that there are not 2,000 is
an indictment against the state of the Church
in this country.
And if you're hurt by that, those of
you who listen to this tape, then check
your heart, and if the hurt is not
a result of pride, please write to me.
And I pray that when Utrecht comes up
in 1986-87, there will be an army
to go there from Great Britain.
I know these conferences are no total answer,
but I've studied these conferences for 29 years.
I've done my homework and my research.
They are one of God's ways, just one
of God's powerful ways to get information and
action and commitment and spiritual reality into God's
chosen, we hope not frozen, people.
And some of you know that you will
never be the same because you've been here
tonight.
So few get this far.
So few get four or five days of
dynamic missionary input.
If you don't go, young people who are
here tonight, who will?
Those who spent the whole New Year's season
basically in their own selfish pursuits, or just
enjoying more spiritual blessings as we tramp around
Britain from one bless-up to another, hardly
concerned that a lost and dying world, in
many cases, has never even once heard of
Jesus Christ.
And fourthly, because there are endless open doors,
not just for missionaries, not just for preachers
and theologians, church planters and well-trained men.
There are endless open doors even for short
-term helpers.
I know in our feeble work we need
carpenters, mechanics, secretaries.
Many of us who have a gift of
preaching are constantly hindered because we don't have
enough practical people to help us.
And it's only teamwork that's going to get
the job done.
I thank God for my own nephew who
hardly seemed to be a missionary type.
He was more American than even the Indians,
much less ever think of him of being
a missionary.
He's on his second or third term in
India.
He went there as a mechanic.
He actually came to our ship just to
visit.
They gave him a job to do.
He never left.
They ended up depositing him in India.
He went back home.
Things didn't seem very interesting there.
He went back.
The Indians love him and he's the head
mechanic of OM, India's huge fleet that has
been used of God with the people in
the back of it to reach 250 million
people face-to-face with the Word of
God.
Ordinary people.
I've often wanted to change the name Operation
Mobilization.
Keep OM, but just change it to Ordinary
Movement.
God uses ordinary people and there are endless
open doors for ordinary people.
And with the increasing costs of full-time
career missionary families, we must accept the logical
reasoning of having a supplementary short-term guerrilla
force, servant force, to help these long-termers,
these spiritual men and women, be more effective
in the job they have.
Who could ever argue against such a strategy?
And then number five, there are the resources.
I see this as a Mount Everest.
I see this as an enormous problem, but
I believe through prayer we can release resources.
I believe that full commitment to Jesus Christ
will bring sacrificial giving and sacrificial living.
It won't come easy.
I see it as the biggest problem, perhaps
equal to the manpower problem the Church is
facing in Britain right now.
And some of you are going to have
to be very patient, because when you get
going or you want to go to the
mission field, you're going to discover it's not
so easy to get that support.
And I've seen hundreds of British people over
the years, and Americans as well, eventually discouraged
because they got so little encouragement in the
practical realm.
And that is linked with the complexity of
the Church, with new denominations, old denominations, with
all kinds of problems.
I beg of you, don't be discouraged as
you try to go through some of the
religious fog of contemporary society.
Being a missionary is a long-term challenge.
And then number six, God can easily stop
us.
This is why I'm not afraid to challenge
people to go, and I'm challenging you tonight
in my second invitation to stand to your
feet to say that by God's grace you're
going.
You've sensed the call, you've sensed some guidance,
you've sensed the holy push.
That's all I ever had from God.
And so by faith you're going to begin
moving.
It may only be short-term, temporarily, with
the option that during that short-term you
will seek God's confirmation as the long-term
career missionary work.
But by faith, when you leave here tonight,
you're going to begin moving.
You know our ships go very, very slow.
One of them goes about nine knots.
And when that captain takes it out of
the port, suppose when our captain leaves Southampton
to go to Africa, you know, do you
think he's going to get down in Cape
Town overnight?
No.
Months.
Nine knots.
And when you go out of here, you're
not going to be a full-time cross
-cultural missionary tomorrow.
But I hope that when you go out
of here, by God's grace, you'll be at
least going in the right direction.
I'd hate our captain to sail out of
Southampton and go in the wrong direction.
God can easily stop us.
Many are stopped by health.
Others are stopped by family problems.
Others are just knocked out cold by this
or by that.
God is sovereign.
I'm a great believer in divine providence.
You say, so many people are going to
rush to the mission field.
There'll be a literal stampede.
Is this the big problem?
Is that what you're facing in OMF?
Stampede.
I tell you, if there's any stampede for
the mission field, please phone me.
I want to be there with my movie
camera.
The fact of the matter is, no matter
how much we challenge, no matter how much
we pray, because hate Satan will resist in
such vicious, bitter ways, because the church seems
to understand so little of intercessory prayer and
abiding the strong manner of the spiritual warfare,
it seems very few will ultimately go and
stay and be those church planters among the
Baluch and the Patons and the Kurds.
And it's very difficult to know who is
cut out for that kind of work, just
sitting here, even with the best screening tests
in the world.
I say get out there, many of you,
as quick as possible.
And let's see what you're made of.
And then come back and get some more
training and get that church behind you.
And I believe God will lead many of
you into long-term overseas missionary work.
And then number seven, as we go, others
will follow.
O.
J.
Smith, who was rejected by a great mission
society and ended up going all over the
world, winning hundreds of thousands to Christ, I
don't know the character, he's still alive, 90
-some years of age.
His church, the church he used to pastor
now, pastored by his son, just promised a
million dollars to world missions.
CNAC knows something about that church.
You know what he said?
If you can't go, send substitutes.
And there are people right now, back in
your Christian union, back in your church, take
some of this literature, take some of these
tapes, you can get them right after the
meeting.
Let's get the word around.
Ayatollah Khomeini brought a revolution to Iran, mainly
through cassette tapes.
You and I with tapes and literature and
films.
These mission societies have so many films, they
don't know what to do with them all.
And they're not exactly showing them on BBC
One.
Let's become not only goers, let's become senders
through prayer, through recruiting, through action, through prayer
cells, through every possible means to reach some
with the message of Jesus Christ.
To me, there's seven logical reasons why many
of us need to make a commitment to
go.
God in his sovereignty, he will lead.
Let us pray.
Let us bow our hearts in prayer.
And I want to give the first invitation
about reality.
God has spoken to you.
If you're really honest, you know that Christ
is not really Lord of your life.
You know that you're not really filled with
his Holy Spirit and on fire for him,
single-minded, totally committed, realizing, of course, that
is a way of life, but that it
has to start somewhere.
I want to give this call to recommitment,
to be filled afresh with the Holy Spirit,
to make Christ the Lord over every area
of your life.
Even though you know there will be failure,
there will be struggles.
For our God has said, if we sin,
he's faithful and just to forgive us and
cleanse us from all unrighteousness through our advocate,
the Lord Jesus.
We're not promising an easy time, and we
know in some ways this can only be
a step, but I believe some of you
need to take that step.
The prayer commitment of last night is part
of it.
So often without the Lordship of Christ, the
crucified life and the filling of the Holy
Spirit, vows and covenants we make turn to
dust and turn against us in guilt and
soul agony.
I want to ask you, are you filled
with the Holy Spirit?
Are you on fire for Christ?
Have you made an absolute Lord of your
life?
Can you say, I'm crucified with him?
If you can't and you'll take this step
of faith, I know a difficult step, and
I'd ask you just to stand up where
you are.
And I want to pray a prayer, a
quick prayer for you.
Between you and God, make him Lord, absolute
Lord of your life.
Just stand up.
As the Lord strengthens you by faith, it's
not standing that will make the difference, it's
believing, believing he is Lord.
And for many of us that means repentance.
It means right now as you're waiting before
God to deal with sin and to repent
of anything the Lord has spoken to you
about.
You do that, he shall cleanse from all
sin.
Praise God.
Let's be in prayer.
Thousands are praying for this conference.
You're here in God's providence.
You don't know where the others are who
should have been here.
We leave that with Jesus.
We're thrilled with you who are here.
Thousands are praying for us right now.
And I believe this is a turning point
in many of your lives.
Whether you go overseas or you remain at
home, you're not dealing with geography yet.
You're dealing with spirituality.
Is he Lord?
Time, relationship, future, intellect, emotion.
Is he Lord?
Father you see each one standing before you
right now.
We know that in some ways this is
a select group that you have brought from
all over this nation who are already in
most cases concerned about mission.
But you are taking them one step further.
We believe into the inner sanctuary of communion
and spiritual power.
Fill us afresh with your Holy Spirit.
Bind areas in our lives where the strong
man, where Satan has been defeating us.
That may have come under your, that it
may come under your precious blood and that
self might be crucified and Jesus may be
exalted tonight in our lives.
Grant this we pray.
Even as we stand before you weak, perhaps
scared, feeling inadequate.
We surrender our all to you.
We trust you through Jesus Christ.
Amen.
You be seated as we all pray.
Father guide us now as we talk a
little bit about geography, spiritual geography.
We know your Holy Ghost brings a Holy
Ghost.
We know you're not leading everybody to move
toward the unreached people, to move overseas, to
move toward world missions, but we know you
are leading some.
I want to ask as you're praying, with
a show of hands, how many of you
have already made a commitment to move toward
overseas service?
You're in touch with a mission society.
You've already made a missionary commitment of some
kind.
Raise your hand.
That's a great help to me.
That's about a third of the audience.
Praise the Lord.
You pray, you can renew that commitment, but
I don't want you to stand.
You pray.
You thank God for the day you made
that commitment.
You renew it in your own heart.
But for others who have never made a
missionary commitment, to begin moving, you've heard the
voice of the Lord.
You've heard it in your heart, maybe before
you came, but maybe here.
And by faith, because Jesus has said, go,
you're going to begin to move.
You're going to push doors of mission societies.
You're going to do, you're going to take
some steps of faith.
You're going to get involved in some short
-term missionary training work.
If you're in that category, and we have
no way to condemn those who don't stand,
because those who've already made this commitment, they're
not going to stand easily.
But if you want to make that commitment
to go, by God's grace, as He opens
the door, as He gives the strength, as
He provides, know it's not easy, and I
want you to stand.
A very special invitation that I want you
to stand right now, before the Lord.
Praise Him.
Be in prayer.
I know it's a scary decision.
Some of you have been waiting for a
long time for some special supernatural knock on
the head, some lightning bolt to pull up
your toes.
Forget it.
God's Word is clear.
Keith Green said, if you're not called to
stay, go.
Well, you see, that's a bit extreme, but
you can talk to Him about it when
you get to heaven.
But with the way the situation is, maybe
it wasn't too extreme to bring things a
little bit into balance.
Because you do.
99% of God's people in England say,
in their own culture, 99% of God's
people, and that's probably an understatement.
So you, praise God, by His grace, His
sense, His call, His guidance, I like that
word better, to begin to move.
God bless you.
Anyone else?
God bless you.
Yes.
God bless you.
Way up in the balcony, forgive me if
I didn't look up there enough.
Anybody else up there?
You see, this decision is very much linked
with that last one, isn't it?
The last one is possible without this one,
because you need more time.
But this one is not possible without the
last one.
Reality first, geography second.
Anyone else?
Young couples?
Men?
Women?
Praise the Lord.
The unreached people will feel the impact of
this divine moment.
Father, we stand once again before you in
prayer.
First of all, to pray for perhaps 25
% of the people here who have already
made this commitment.
As they are in their seats right now,
fill them afresh with conviction about it.
Bring healing to perhaps areas of difficulty.
Break down walls of discouragement.
And may they once again get on the
move, pushing doors, praying, writing societies, getting involved.
But we pray right now for this group
who has stood afresh, to make this commitment
for a first time.
To begin to move to the ends of
the earth, the regions beyond, the Acts 1
-8 commission.
We thank you for each one of them.
We thank you that a few minutes ago
most of them made you the Lord of
their life.
And now they're willing to go one more
step and begin to move in obedience to
you, to your word, so that others may
hear, so that there may be someday churches
in every unreached people's group in the world.
Lord, we sense this is serious business tonight.
And so we pray, fill us afresh.
Send us, guide us, give us wisdom and
discernment.
For we go forth, we go forth in
your precious name.
Amen.