I do want you to turn with me
in your Bible to some verses, especially starting
in the book of James.
Familiar verses, but important verses.
Verse 19 in James 1, very important for
me.
Slow to speak.
God's still working on me to learn how
to keep my mouth shut more often.
And I want you to go on to
verse 22.
But be doers of the word and not
hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
For if any be a hearer of the
word and not a doer, he is like
a man beholding his natural face in a
mirror.
For he beholdeth himself, goeth his way, and
immediately forgetteth what manner of man he was.
But whosoever looketh into the perfect law of
liberty and continueth in it, he being not
a forgetful hearer but a doer of the
work, this man shall be blessed in his
deed.
I think some of you who have been
around O.M. for a while know my
favorite quotation, C.S. Lewis.
We have the tendency to think but not
to act.
We have the tendency to feel.
Some of us, emotional cases especially, but not
to act.
And if we go on thinking and feeling
without acting, someday we will be unable to
act.
And I believe that many people in the
church today are bordering on that particular phenomenon.
I call it in my book, spiritual schizophrenia.
Where we get to that place where we're
almost like two different people and we are
unable to convert that which we receive, even
in church, into action in our practical seven
-day-week life.
Contrary to what some people may think, my
great burden is not missions.
Never has been.
I'm a poor missionary.
That's why I was so thrilled on the
invitation of four other Christian groups to speak
on the Earth Invaders tour that has, in
the minds of most people, nothing to do
with missions.
Though, in fact, you cannot preach the whole
counsel of God without dealing with missions.
And so every night we're touching on the
subject of missions.
And if we don't see some recruits from
every one of these cities we visited, I
will be very disappointed.
Because on the basis of Matthew 9, the
way to get recruits is by praying that
the Lord of the harvest will send forth
laborers.
But my greatest burden is really spiritual health.
I'd rather see you a healthy spiritual Christian
in Newcastle than a misfit in India, even
with OM.
We know the history of missions shows us
that there have been many misfits on the
mission field.
People who went there because they had some
kind of emotional twitch, or they saw too
many missionary slide sets or whatever else, and
they got out there and they never really
accomplished very much because they were not healthy,
happy, holy, and spiritually balanced people.
This is the real burden of Operation Mobilization.
It can be expressed in other terms.
Revival.
The first thing I preached at when I
started preaching at 16 was revival.
I can always remember my text.
2 Corinthians or 2 Chronicles 7.14, If
my people who call on my name will
humble themselves and pray and turn from their
wicked way, then I will hear from heaven,
forgive their sin and heal their land.
And beloved, we need revival in Britain.
We need revival in our churches.
And we in OM need revival.
Revival isn't a once-and-for-all event.
It's continuous.
We need continuous revival.
I'd love to speak to you about revival.
One of the reasons I brought a lot
of my tapes along is because I can't
bear just speaking for one hour to people.
Can't bear it.
I like to get people, as I had
my Indian leaders, I've just come from Nepal,
50 leaders, hour after hour, we just went
at it.
And then questions and answers, and then a
night of prayer, and then a few hours
of worship.
But I only have this one hour, and
you've had a lot from other people which
is just as good.
But if some of you want more, there
are cassette tapes available to follow up.
Some of them are in albums.
Most of them sell almost for the price
of the blank tape.
Because all I can do is throw some
thoughts out and to get you thinking on
some of these different areas.
But I would love to talk about revival
sometime to many of you.
Maybe the Lord will grant it.
One of the main reasons we want people
on OM, what do you think it's for?
To run around Europe giving out tracts?
Forget it.
The Lord showed us that was ridiculous 20
years ago.
Because we think you're the great apostolic band?
Forget it.
The whole purpose in getting you to Europe
is to get about 15, 20 or 30
hours of spiritual input into your life.
We're just being honest today, eh?
In turn, we know that as you go
out to help the churches, and work with
the churches, and give out some literature, and
do personal work, and begin to learn a
foreign language, most people in OM speak at
least two languages, which is that that will
consolidate that which we put in in the
way of teaching, study, tape recordings.
Most people have had 30 hours of teaching
before they get to our first conference.
But our burden is revival and spiritual wholeness.
And we are not upset if after you're
on OM, you feel the Lord is leading
you to stay in your hometown.
Because the answer to world evangelism, and the
answer to reaching the world for Christ, is
not overseas missionaries, it's nationals.
I was just speaking in the Egyptian church.
They are the key to reaching the Arab
world.
Not Americans, who will never learn most of
them Arabic properly.
But thousands of Egyptian nationals, born again, sitting
in Cairo, sitting in Alexandria, who already know
the language.
And now God is moving among them, and
they're launching out to Morocco, and Algeria, and
to Saudi Arabia, and other parts of the
Arab world.
The key to world evangelism is already in
these countries.
That doesn't mean we don't need these solid,
long-term people, as were just mentioned in
the panel discussion.
Of course, they are a catalyst.
They are often teachers, and trainers, co-workers.
And these nationals in most countries are asking
us for this kind of quality person.
That doesn't mean an OM team cannot be
used, even if they don't know the language.
Because young people, who love Jesus, and who
know how to pray, and who have some
degree of spiritual health, working in Alexandria, working
in Cairo, working in Jordan, working in Bangladesh,
Pakistan, and all these other places where we
have these teams, have an enormous revival ministry,
and catalyst ministry.
Last time I was in Egypt, the pastors
had the word that I was coming to
fold OM up.
One of my favorite things is to fold
OM up.
I folded it up, almost single-handed in
Spain.
Took on the whole OM leadership, hand-by
-hand combat.
I'm now losing it.
It looks like they may reopen it.
But anyway, we got it closed for ten
years.
Pushed the vision back into the national church.
Forced them to realize it wasn't going to
be OM international.
It's a dirty word in a lot of
countries.
It was going to reach their land.
Anyway, I went into Egypt, and they were
really nervous.
A lot of pastors came out to a
pastor's luncheon.
One of our main ministries across the world
is ministering to leaders.
And they came to me one after another,
almost begging.
These are leading pastors in Egypt.
Please keep your people here.
They are the kind of people we want.
They are like Egyptians.
And I was very, very impressed about a
work, my own work, OM, that I really
had a few doubts about before I got
there.
Young people, there's an enormous, enormous open door
for almost anybody who has some reality and
love and power in prayer and spiritual victory
in their lives.
Because so many places in the world, the
church is a sleeping giant.
The church in Mexico is a sleeping giant.
Now, I had two experiences in Mexico.
One, I decided not to use my Spanish,
which isn't so good anymore after 20 years
away from Spain.
So I spoke through interpretation.
The same message, the hardest message I've ever
given to the South American church.
Crying out that they would grow up.
Start sending out their own missionaries.
I have my little story of the Mexican
who gets into Matthew 9, and he says,
Lord of the harvest, send forth more Americans
into the harvest.
I tell you, it hits him below the
belt.
But it went through.
When I gave the same message on the
ship to 200 pastors, 104 pastors paid $4
each to get a copy of the cassette
tape to spread that message across Mexico.
And a fire is burning in Mexico because
those teams went in, because that ship went
in, because pastors and teachers and leaders in
Mexico are catching the vision to see the
Mexican church come of age.
We got a thousand churches in Mexico City
alone.
And yet, up to now, the church has
not thought about missions outside of Mexico or
certainly outside of Central America.
And one of the ministries we can have
as young people in the world today is
a ministry of revival.
I always think of revival in two ways.
Firstly, personal revival.
That's where Roy Hesschen has been a great
blessing in my life.
And I would challenge you to read that
book, Calvary Road.
Read it every year if you can.
It's not the total answer.
It's only a little part of the answer.
But it's a part we need, because I
tell you, there's often such a lack of
humility and brokenness among God's people.
And Roy Hesschen emphasizes personal revival.
And I think that's so beautiful.
It can be expressed in different ways by
different people.
Billy Graham, in speaking about the spiritual walk,
said, I don't care how you get it,
just get it.
And that's our burden today, because we don't
want to take advantage of your coming here
from many different churches and groups in order
to give you one little line.
Because we're very sympathetic with your churches and
with your movements and with your groups.
And we want to be as ethical as
possible in all that we do.
And somehow, it's our prayer that this leadership
conference will bring unity even among different groups
and different fellowships.
So there's personal revival.
Old Vance Havner, that great southern preacher, said,
we wouldn't have to talk about revival so
much if we knew vi-val.
I love the way he said it with
a southern accent.
Vi-val.
Something like that.
What a man of God.
I don't know if you've ever read his
writings.
Incredible character.
Vance Havner.
And he pointed out from the Word of
God that we are alive in Christ, and
if we are living in the light of
all we have in Jesus, we will not
need revival.
We need to understand all that we have
in Christ.
On the other hand, I'm not against that
other kind of revival.
When the Holy Spirit comes in power upon
a congregation or a community or upon a
nation, I believe in both.
Well, that's something I'd love to go into
more, but I'm not going to.
So understand our goal, if you're praying about
getting involved with OM, that our burden is
spiritual health.
Our burden is personal revival.
Our burden is that you may know the
reality of a balanced, Spirit-filled walk with
God.
If you listen to all these tapes, this
is one I gave at Prairie Bible Institute
at their missions conference.
This is one I gave in an English
church situation.
You will discover only a small part of
it deals with foreign missions.
Because I'm convinced as we get right with
God, and we get our lives sorted out,
and we learn some of these basic truths,
that we get to a position where God
can lead us in the next step.
In the next step.
People sometimes feel that I am sort of
an evangelical Pied Piper.
Even one of the great, well-known Christian
leaders of Britain was a little upset with
me in the early days.
He said, I went to Cambridge and Pied
Pipering and led all these poor, innocent Cambridge
students out to the foreign countries and they
never came back.
This was from one of the top Christian
leaders in this dear nation.
And then, of course, it wasn't true.
Most of them did eventually come back.
How some skinny little American who doesn't even
have a degree, who is only half educated,
would be able to dupe these brilliant Cambridge
graduates, is totally beyond my comprehension.
The only way I can understand it is
that perhaps the Holy Spirit is still sending
laborers, even from Cambridge, into the harvest fields.
And it is appalling, really.
The spiritual health of the average Christian union
is just unbelievable.
Just unbelievable.
And if you think I'm getting at anyone,
I can tell you the spiritual life on
some of the OM teams is unbelievable.
Because OM can only work with that which
we receive from the churches.
It's not a matter of waving an OM
magic wand over a group of young people.
It takes years and years and years to
build men and women of God.
I don't even like calling this a leaders
conference.
I would change the name, perhaps, for next
year, but it wouldn't attract people, because right
now in Britain the incoming thing is leadership.
I remember being at Spring Harvest.
I couldn't believe it.
My dear friend David Paulson, he was calling
everybody out of the seats to become leaders,
and they all ran into this big room,
feeling that the Lord might be leading them
to be leaders.
You know, I thought some of them might
even be under seven years of age going
in there.
There is a sense, and there are people
like David Paulson, who believe we are on
the verge of a great revival.
Now, I'm not totally convinced myself, but I
like to be positive about these things.
And so, let's say that David Paulson, that
he's partly right, and that we're on the
verge of something really big.
Hallelujah!
But let's remember that just growth numerically is
not necessarily what's on God's heart.
And if revival comes to Britain, I pray
it would.
I believe there is church growth.
Right now, already, church is growing.
I believe there's a move of the Holy
Spirit.
I believe there has been actually since Pentecost.
Somebody announced recently, one of these big organizations
announced, we will now have a decade of
evangelism!
You know, I just lack so much.
I need to study more.
From my book, the Book of Acts, I
understood that every decade was a decade of
evangelism.
But anyway, I'm glad we've now announced it.
It's a decade of evangelism.
And if the church is going to grow,
and if revival is going to come, praise
the Lord!
But I will warn you, to prematurely get
into leadership, to think you are some kind
of spiritual leader, when you haven't got the
basics, when you're not spiritually healthy, when you're
not walking in the power and the energy
of the Holy Ghost, could be a fatal
mistake in your life.
And most of us need to go away
from here, not with thoughts of that leadership.
We need to go away, and I think
that was already brought strongly in the first
message, with the thought of being a servant,
and with learning the basics.
And if God moves you into leadership and
responsibility, and that will happen because the church
situation is so desperate, and because the Christian
Union situations often are so desperate, if anybody
smiles and quotes one gospel text, he'll be
elected as president of the CU, then you'd
better get ready.
Some of you are going to be in
leadership.
And that's why this is somewhat of an
open-ended event, because we know so many
of you are in places of responsibility.
Because the church is growing, because things aren't
the way they should be, seldom are, and
God is looking for leaders.
And if I had to lean on the
side of the arch-conservatives, who don't want
anybody to be a leader until they're 40
years of age, or are retired, and David
Pawson on the other side, calling everybody to
come forward, and an invitation to be leaders,
you know, I think I'll lean a little
bit toward my friend David.
I remember old brother Andrew, we were speaking
together in Holland, I'll never forget this, because
I'm very conservative on invitations, part of my
Calvinistic streak, which constantly collides with my Arminian
streak.
I was preaching in the afternoon, and brother
Andrew and I had tea together, and he
said, did you give an invitation?
He's really strong in these invitations.
I said, no, Andrew, I'll let you do
that.
And he said, yeah, I will.
I've discovered it's easier to cool down a
fanatic than warm up a corpse.
And it's true.
A lot of people worry about OM, over
-enthusiastic young people, dangerous crowd, running off prematurely.
Do you really think enthusiasm is the biggest
problem in the Christian church in Britain?
You know what A.W. Tozer said about
that?
He said it was like sending a squadron
of policemen to the nearby cemetery to guard
against a demonstration by the residents at midnight.
Not the biggest problem in Britain, I'd say.
Praise God for your enthusiasm.
Praise God that some of you are willing
to take a few risks.
And I believe, God, if you do get
a little extreme, and you keep open and
humble, and learn some of these principles we've
been talking about, He'll bring you back into
balance.
Some people think I want a lot of
people to go overseas because I feel they
would make up a great apostolic army and
evangelize the world.
You know, one of the biggest reasons I
want British people to go overseas, this is
going to hurt some of you, is not
to be some great apostolic army.
I'll tell you why.
This is hard to say.
I've never said it in public, and Peter,
he's my boss, he's British, he can correct
me.
I'll tell you why God wants some of
you overseas, because basically, as British, you're ugly
people.
That's right.
You all enjoy the book, The Ugly American.
I was one of them.
We all know the Americans are ugly.
We all have 58 jokes, if you're half
British, to put the Americans down.
And I can really reduce the Americans to
a very small group, because we have been
an ugly people.
And when God sent me to Mexico at
19 years of age, I was a little
brainwashed, bourgeois, middle class, narrow-minded, ugly American.
Praise God, He had mercy on me.
My closest friends became Mexicans, and Spanish became
almost more of a language of my heart
than English.
And I went then back to Bible college,
and went back to finish my training, and
then launched out to the land of Spain.
And of course, when I got to Europe,
I discovered I was still an ugly American.
And it took 10 years to de-Americanize
me.
Now, I'm still an American.
And I'm not anti-American.
I still love my own country.
I have an American passport.
God is great.
God is sovereign.
If someone is ugly, then God's grace can
make the situation even more beautiful.
Of course, two of my children now have
British passports.
They're born in Britain.
They wave their passports around in front of
me.
I'm now a second-class citizen in my
own house.
Now, understand this.
If you're British, and you're living in Britain,
in a sense, you may not be too
ugly.
Because it's your own culture.
You can do things the British way, and
generally it won't bother too many people.
But you see, you no longer can do
that in Britain, because Britain is now an
interracial society.
And there are thousands of wounded immigrants from
one end of the country to the other
because of this ugly British way that we
have developed over 18 years of being brainwashed
by our own culture.
And I really believe that as a nation,
we need to repent.
I believe the American nation needs to repent.
I believe the British nation needs to repent.
I'm speaking to Christians.
We all expected Germany to repent.
They're still repenting over World War II.
Germans are very sensitive about World War II.
They paid all these Jewish people back.
They're still repenting.
They still feel bad about it, especially Christians.
And I think we have to repent in
this country.
Now, I'm only an immigrant, so I don't
have credentials to say this.
Hear me out to the end.
But I believe we need to repent of
racism.
I believe Britain has become a racist place.
I believe we need to repent of social
classism, to use my own term.
That the social class is still as real
as it was in this country in some
ways 50 years ago.
And the evangelical church is largely a middle
-class thing, made up oftentimes of a very
high percentage of highly educated, well-articulated university
graduates.
Who fellowship with a very small range of
people, and certainly would not be found with
an immigrant from Pakistan having tea in their
lovely little bourgeois home in Surrey.
And I am convinced that if we go
back to the New Testament, we're going to
find a radical, hot message of love that
is going to cut right through this very
English, very proper English evangelicalism.
And I believe God has many ways of
doing it, but one of the ways is
for you to get out of Britain as
soon as possible.
That's right.
Not to go out there and evangelize the
world, or demonstrate the higher realms of British
culture.
One of the greatest problems in missions has
been the export of the empire that went
on simultaneously with the export of the gospel.
And if you don't know about that, you
could hardly have ever read a single missionary
book.
We were committed to spreading a culture.
And now those of us who go out
around the world today, everywhere we go, we
don't only find the gospel, we find deeply
entrenched British culture.
And in some countries, American culture.
Now God is sovereign.
He overrules.
And don't misunderstand me.
He still has worked through these people.
And some of those people who even went
out under the British Raj, I will tell
you I'm not worthy to tie their shoelace.
But we must be willing to learn from
past mistakes.
We live in a different world.
Solzhenitsyn said we can no longer talk in
this world about internal affairs.
We all know that phrase.
It's almost a cliche that we are a
global village.
We've got to learn to live with these
Pakistanis down the road.
We've got to get to understand Muslims and
what they believe.
We've got to open not only our churches.
That's easy, they're only open twice a week.
We've got to open our homes.
Anybody who doesn't understand why the house fellowship
movement is the fastest growing movement in Britain
today, obviously has just not studied the state
of the British church.
And I believe with all my heart, God
is just longing to do so much more.
I don't despise what the Lord has done.
And the Lord knows that this is my
adopted country and I love British people as
much as my own countrymen.
Perhaps not quite as much as Indians and
Mexicans.
I'm considering even becoming a citizen.
But I believe because we've spent most of
our life in this culture, watching TV here,
receiving most of our input here, and because
our culture has a degree of sickness, there
are many good aspects to the British culture.
There is still a Christian heritage, a remnant
of it in this country which is an
amazing factor and one of the reasons God
still can so mightily use British people if
they will become spiritually healthy and balanced and
loving and compassionate and sensitive.
Sensitive, do you know that word?
Sensitive about other people who live differently, believe
differently, have a different education, live in a
different kind of home.
Have you ever gone door to door in
poor districts?
Have you ever been to the east end
of London and some of the back streets
of Glasgow?
The first time I went door to door
there I couldn't believe that people were still
living like that in the 20th century.
Most of those places have been torn down
now.
Are you conscious of the unbelievable social problems
in this country right now?
And America, even worse there of course, more
intensive, bigger, younger, more extreme, unbelievable.
No wonder it's manufactured a few ugly Americans.
That's why whenever we see a man like
Billy Graham on television here in this country,
you know of course he's still an American.
God doesn't destroy your nationality any more than
He changes the shape of your nose.
But He brings that character, He brings that
life into subjection to the Lordship of Jesus
and He changes that person.
And one of the most exciting things I've
seen in 22 years living in this country,
except when I've been living in Asia and
other places, is how Christ can change the
ugly Englishman or the ugly American or the
ugly German or the ugly Swede to become
a Christ-like individual and link His heart
with people of other cultures and call some
of His greatest, closest, most intimate friends to
be people of other cultures.
I remember the advice one of the first
missionaries gave me, he'd been in India for
many years, very English, proper man, one of
the first things he told me when I
came to India, he says, no, you'll never
really get close to these people.
You've got to understand, there's got to be
a bit of distance between you and the
Indian people.
I want to tell you, I'm not worthy
to tie the shoelace of some of my
Indian brothers.
And Indians can be, when Christ gets a
hold of them, some of the most spiritual
people I've ever met.
And I'm convinced, whatever your situation is today,
no matter how much you may be brainwashed
into your own culture, no matter how much
you may be a product of this culture,
with some of its ugly aspects, that it's
not too much for Jesus.
And I want to challenge you, it doesn't
mean you have to come on OM, to
get some time in cross-cultural situations.
You can do it in Southall, you can
do it in the East End of London,
second major language in London is now Bengali,
probably competing with Arabic.
But sometimes it's better to get out of
your own country and live with people in
another country, of another culture, and develop cross
-cultural spiritual sensitivity.
For some, it eventually causes them to realize
they can't handle it.
They go back to their own country, where
they can survive.
But even when they do that, they're never
the same.
Generally, they're never the same.
When they go back to their own countries,
they get involved with immigrants.
When they get back in their own country,
they decide to live on a simpler lifestyle.
When they get back in their own country,
they're usually a little more broad-minded.
Oh, how my heart aches that Christians so
often become so narrow-minded.
As Billy Graham once said, we've taken the
sword of the Spirit, and we're carving one
another up with it, instead of going in
a great offensive for world evangelism.
You know, the road is already narrow, young
people.
Narrow is the way that leadeth unto life.
Few there be.
But all believers are on that road.
And the problem I see in many places
today is groups of people, and Americans sometimes
lead the pack, specialize in making the road
even narrower.
Only with those with short haircuts are on
the road.
Or only those who use this Bible translation.
And how my heart ached when recently someone
stood up in some narrow-minded church in
Northern Ireland and declared a number of groups,
including Operation Mobilization, as totally apostate missionary organizations,
because we do this or do that.
And one Bible college in America wrote us
off because we sell Billy Graham books.
And Billy Graham is supposedly the apostate of
all the apostates.
Maybe you're too young to be exposed to
all the unbelievable division that there is within
the body of Christ, if some of these
people are in the body.
But I think as people in training for
leadership, it's about time you realized something of
the difficulty there is when people become incredibly
narrow-minded and only fellowship with certain types
of people.
Interdenominational is an absolute dirty word.
Even in America, the great Southern Baptist organization,
where many beautiful believers...
Why, if you're not Southern Baptist, you just
keep your distance.
Many a young person that's wanted to launch
out as a missionary, if it wasn't within
the Southern Baptist, there was no encouragement whatsoever.
And the same thing is true here.
Many young people that would be on the
mission field today from Britain are not there
because their church would give them no encouragement
unless it was with their denominational mission society.
I believe there is a danger that we
make the road too broad.
And I'm very much aware that we need
sound doctrine, and we have a doctrinal statement
if you want to see it.
But I'm also aware of the fact that
we tend to make the road too narrow.
Sectarianism.
And I pray that we may seek a
kind of lifestyle in which love covers.
We're not going to always agree.
Must we agree on everything in order to
work together?
Then forget it.
We're never going to work together.
And even my wife and I had better
separate because she finally decided she was going
to tell me the areas where she didn't
agree with me on.
And it took her several years because she
thought that being spiritual, partly due to some
of my extremism, meant she just went along
with me on everything.
And finally she got the courage to tell
me areas where she doesn't agree with me.
And I had to change.
I had to change my lifestyle, the way
I spent money.
I was unbelievably tight with money.
For me, one box for your chair, another
box for the table, everything else is for
missions.
Luke 14.33, except you forsake all that
you have, you can't be my disciple.
You wouldn't believe the sermons I gave my
wife in that first year.
Then I came into balance.
I gave her a pound and said, spend
it however you want, feel free.
And if I hadn't changed, if God hadn't
driven out some of this, now not ugly
Americanism, ugly, ugly O.M.isms out of
me.
They became O.M.isms. A whole culture.
O.M. became a whole culture.
People sleeping on the floor, eating peanut butter
and jelly, staying up late at night, looking
droopy in the morning like someone had punched
them in the midnight hours.
Unwilling to buy ice cream.
And all these other little things.
People got so confused between what was a
basic biblical doctrine and what was a particular
principle in a particular situation.
Like the girl who, after spending the summer
sleeping in a tent on the ground, went
home to her mother and asked her mother
to take the bed out of her bedroom.
You can wonder why we got a few
parents that didn't appreciate our ministry.
It's changed now.
We get the parents applying and the kids
don't want to come.
God had to show me that I, in
some ways, had become the ugly missionary.
The ugly missionary.
And I will tell you, many tears have
gone down over these cheeks.
And I was to the brink of resigning
because I saw the ugliness of my own
self-life.
On a mission field, speaking the foreign language.
And I just feel that the sooner you
can get started.
I started a bit late.
The sooner you can get started being more
sensitive about people and their cultures.
Being more sensitive about why people behave the
way they do, rather than just making your
little pendulum thinking or your little generalization about
them.
Or about the church down the road.
The tendency in some of the house groups
is to immediately wipe the church off down
the road as being dead, simply because they
heard this from this particular source.
Some churches are dead.
Some churches may appear to be dead because
they haven't changed their sign in ten years.
But there may be some very living, live
stones in that church.
And then the people in the established churches
sometimes make little generalizations about the house churches.
And it's just the same game.
It's the lack of sensitivity, the lack of
maturity, the lack of Christ-likeness.
It's the lack of holiness, the lack of
victory, the lack of spiritual balance.
And I would plead with you to at
least get some of it.
As we go from this place in twenty
minutes time, what are we going to do?
Will it be all theory?
Will it be all just notes in our
notebook?
Or will we be able to take that
exhortation in James to heart and be doers
of the Word?
I never cease to be amazed at how
vague evangelical people can be.
Do you know the word initiative?
I think it's been mentioned.
Sanctified initiative.
Write it down.
It's thrilling to see you taking notes.
I know sometimes in my meetings people are
writing letters to their girlfriend.
But it's thrilling to see you taking notes.
Sanctified initiative.
Let me give you another word.
Sanctified imagination.
I want you to go this afternoon as
you go home and write down on a
piece of paper some things you can actually
do because God's spoken to you.
Now I know there's immediately the danger of
what's called youthful zeal.
And we've had many warnings, not necessarily this
weekend, but in general, about becoming overzealous and
too activist.
And there's all kinds of articles now attacking
the poor workaholic.
We develop all kinds of new terms to
make everybody eventually feel guilty.
But I believe it is perfectly normal for
a young Christian just discovering the truths of
the Word of God to be active.
And if you were a little more active,
I believe, many of you would be staying
out of the trouble that you know you
are getting into.
Let's be honest.
Morally and in many other ways.
I want to quote someone who would be
the least suspect of quoting to defend this
particular point.
Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, my favorite British, actually
Welsh, teacher.
The British without the Welsh, it would be
a bad scene.
And the thing that makes Britain is the
amalgamation of many cultures, Scottish, Welsh, and now,
praise God, Arab, Pakistani.
It's going to make this place one big,
well, I'm not sure yet.
Depends on your prayers.
But listen to this from Dr. Martin Lloyd
-Jones.
Nothing is more obvious about the teaching of
the New Testament than this.
That the Christian life is a life of
activity, a life of vigor, a life of
exertion.
The strength is given to us by the
Lord, but we must act.
And that's where we are in this conference.
We want you to go from here and
do something.
Do something.
And so it will not be vague.
I'm now going to go back to my
notes, because I've departed from them.
And I'm going to give you my list.
Things you can do.
Top of the list.
Go visit an older person and tell them
what a blessing they've been in your life.
My heart aches in this age where we
have neglected the elderly.
I'm very radical in this.
I don't even believe in youth movements.
I was listening to a lecture on tape
two days ago where one of the outstanding
on-fire Methodist preachers of our day was
describing the fact that most of the people
converted in Methodism when it was burning across
Britain were adults.
This kind of youth movement that's so popular
today did not exist in that day to
any great degree.
Now we almost think that conversion is something
that must happen in grammar school or in
university.
I long to see more adults converted to
Jesus Christ in Britain.
And I long for a ministry among the
elderly.
And you can start that tomorrow.
One of the greatest blessings I had this
week was visiting the elderly.
One 80-year-old lady, actually her brother
went out with C.T. Studd.
She's a prayer partner of mine.
She was in the sickbed.
And I will tell you I was humbled
when I found out she followed my itinerary
and prayed for me day by day.
She knew more about my itinerary than I
did.
And I just believe that there needs to
be a breaking down of this generation gap.
And I believe as young people you have
the greater amount of energy to begin it.
Visiting the elderly, loving them, going to old
people's homes, going into hospitals, go to your
own grandmother or your own aunt, go to
your own parents who may now be elderly,
spend some time with them and tell them
you love them.
That's something you can do.
D.O. I had a lot of trouble
with spelling.
Something specific.
Because you see as you're faithful in little
things, God will open up bigger things.
But if you're dreaming about being a cross
-cultural communicator in West Bengal and you haven't
even had a conversation with your own grandmother
in five years or you're not sensitive to
the people around you of different cultures and
different age groups because we have created age
group ghettos, age group ghettos, intellectual ghettos, class
barriers.
And we, if we're going to obey Jesus,
have got to break them down.
Let me give you something else you can
do.
You can go and start a prayer group.
Where two or three are gathered in His
name, He's in the midst.
Some of you from big families can start
it right in your own home.
Don't have a prayer meeting with your sister.
You may have to lead her to Christ
first.
Start a prayer group.
Or at least join a prayer group.
I want a letter.
Peter Maiden wants a letter from many of
you in the next couple of weeks saying
you've just joined a prayer group.
It could be a wet group, an OMF
group.
It could be a revival praying group.
Get involved in actual prayer.
Stop talking about it.
Do it.
Get involved in your church prayer meeting.
If your church has a prayer meeting, give
five hallelujahs because it's a miracle in the
day of folding up prayer meetings.
And if it's a dead prayer meeting, then
go in there and start praying and loving
and reaching out and communicating to help it
become a live prayer meeting.
Go to your pastor, your deacons or elders
and offer your services.
Third thing you can do.
Offer your services in any way to help
in the church.
Sunday school teacher, taking the offering, cleaning up
on Saturday morning.
Anything to demonstrate that you mean business for
Jesus and you want to learn what it
is to be a servant.
Check the toilet if it's dirty.
Clean it.
If you think that will cause a major
crisis, get permission to clean it.
Some of you may be in groups where
there's a heavy submission teaching.
You need permission to clean the toilet.
I hope you're not in one of those
groups.
I lose track of my numbers.
The next thing you can do is...
Where's my watch?
You know I'm accused of being one of
the longest preachers in Europe.
I'll never forget that experience in Germany.
It's my favorite, favorite experience.
I was going on and on and the
young people were taking it in as they
usually do.
One elderly gentleman, you know, he held the
watch up trying to get me to stop.
I saw this watch in the back.
I was preaching on discipleship and world evangelism.
And I saw this watch and I said,
Oh, praise the Lord, here's a man donating
his watch for world evangelism.
But one of the next things you can
do is write a letter.
Now I want to take a survey.
I'm a great man for surveys.
How many of you have written a letter
to anyone apart from your boyfriend or girlfriend?
That's excluded.
Anyone in the last week.
Raise your hand.
That's not too bad.
Half of you have written one letter.
All right, keep your hand up if you've
written two letters.
Wow.
Three letters.
Not too many left.
Encouraging one another.
You know, some people, they have lofty goals.
I remember in a prayer meeting in the
early days of O.M. in Mexico.
Suddenly in the middle of the prayer meeting,
this very emotional girl, always watch out for
those in any movement.
One thousand souls.
She started claiming one thousand souls.
I stopped the prayer meeting and said, Hey,
wait a minute.
We've been praying for a few and a
dozen.
Has the Lord, you know, really told you
to claim one thousand souls?
Some of you want to go back to
your Christian union.
You want to go back here and there.
You want to see great things happen.
Revival.
University turned upside down.
You can't even turn upside down in your
bed to get out of it in the
morning.
And I think it's very important, if we
are going to grow on God's growth rate,
to sometimes lower our goals.
Why don't you ask God to give you
a ministry of encouraging people?
You may not be the great dynamic soul
winner.
That was my thing.
It was natural to my temperament.
I led people to Christ and got them
to pray, to accept Jesus, whether He wanted
to or not.
I had a background.
You wouldn't believe.
They weren't conversions.
They were decisions.
Now, some I followed up on and I
showed the love of Christ to.
One converted into a jail.
I went and visited him three times a
week.
He, seemingly, became a true follower of Christ
and a few others in that jail.
But I believe at times, when you're young,
it's good to lower your goals a little
bit.
The ministry of encouraging, by letter, by phone,
to call someone up that you love, that
you haven't thought about.
They may wonder, Oh, what's wrong?
Why are you calling me?
You know, it's like the husband who was
so insensitive to his wife and so tight
with the money, never bought her any flowers.
Finally, you know, he read a Christian book.
You know, so many Christian books on marriage,
you go completely crazy if you read them
all.
He decided to buy some flowers and he
brought them to his wife.
You know, she just passed out.
She thought he was crazy.
I don't think that's a true story, actually.
But after the initial shock of the phone
call, just tell him you were thinking about
them.
You're concerned.
Considering one another.
Esteeming others is better than yourself.
If you want verses, you'll find a whole
New Testament filled with them.
Being kind, tenderhearted, loving one another, forgiving one
another.
1 Corinthians 13.
This is what it's all about.
This is why Paul said, if we don't
have love, whatever else we may have, we
don't have anything.
It is a revolution of love.
And as that revolution takes hold in our
lives, we will be involved in a practical
ministry of encouraging others.
We will become, as Selwyn Hughes speaks about
in his wonderful little book, people helpers.
Let's be people helpers.
You think crossing the English Channel is going
to make you spiritual?
Forget it.
You might as well go up to the
Lake District.
If you're carnal here, you'll be carnal there.
The only thing going to a foreign country
may do is what I talked about initially.
Begin to expose certain things in your life.
Throw you in a situation that's a little
deep.
You know how the Russians teach their little
babies to swim even in a couple of
months?
Just pitch them in.
And most of them actually float.
I don't know if that's a Russian phenomenon.
I wouldn't want to try it with Americans.
But there is a sense where we need
to be willing to take risks.
I fear that the Church has become a
no-risk, basically an establishment movement.
We got insurance from the cradle to the
grave.
And we're being brainwashed into a no-risk
way of life.
We got to get a career.
We got to get a job.
The worst thing, the most horrible, ugly thing
in the world today is unemployment.
Yeah.
Endless articles about unemployment.
Now, I know unemployment is hard.
And I'm concerned for unemployment.
And we're trying to give unemployed people a
help.
But as a Christian, I will tell you
you're never unemployed.
And if somehow you can't get a job,
I can give you 50 things you can
do while you're waiting for that job.
You write to me.
I'll send you the list.
Encouraging one another.
Taking the initiative in being a people helper.
Another thing you can do is visit a
prison.
Visit a prison.
Do you know God is working in the
prisons in this country?
Do you know what's happening in Manchester?
Do you know how some of these people
could be blessed hearing maybe some of your
testimonies?
So many of the things that I learned
wasn't through reading textbooks.
I learned them before I ever got to
Bible college.
That's why the moment I got there, somehow
I became a student leader.
And people were all flocking around me and
launching out to Mexico.
I learned them because I was involved between
the age of 17 and 21 in about
20 different ministries with people.
Prisoners.
Drunkards.
I worked with them for three years.
Down and out in poverty.
Stricken children.
And I just somehow feel this kind of
on-the-job training that, by the way,
Jesus engaged in is still the best.
I don't see it as a substitute for
Bible college.
We wouldn't bring Michael Griffiths here if we
believed that.
But I see it as a complement.
And my two years in Bible college were
worth solid gold.
I got in a lot of trouble.
I wasn't a good student because I took
on too many practical Christian work assignments.
Moody Bible Institute, very strict.
Only two practical Christian work assignments.
I didn't know it.
I didn't read this in the rule book.
The rule book was rather thick.
I was out winning people to Christ when
they were passing out the rule book.
But I will tell you, when the dean
of men came to me and said, you
can't do that, I humbled myself.
And I apologized to the dean.
Also, when I broke the social policy, I
don't like to talk about that.
And that dean of men became one of
my lifelong friends.
And I want to tell you, if you're
a rebel, and I was a rebel, God
is going to break you.
So get ready.
God is going to break you.
He may use London Bible College.
He may use Michael Griffiths.
He may use your mother.
With me, he used my wife.
Now he's using a dog.
17 years I was anti-dog.
I could have written a book against dogs.
Think of all the food that we could
buy if we got this money that's going
into dog food.
I used to go through the dog food
section in the supermarket, almost growling.
But I discovered something was more important in
my family than my convictions.
My children.
And I decided to throw one of my
convictions out the door.
Out the door, when my 17-year-old
daughter said, could I get a puppy?
She'd worked on me for years, and finally
at that right moment, I say, okay, okay,
okay, get the puppy.
And I will tell you what I have
learned about my daughter and myself through that
dog.
I will tell you.
I haven't got time to go into that.
What else can you do?
You could try giving out tracts.
Now I can hear the reaction, oh, extremism!
There may be a few yet in the
room, the old-time OMers still believe in
giving out tracts.
But OM was whitewashed because we believe in
giving out tracts.
That is the height of superficiality.
That is the ultimate of youthful zeal.
That is the height of being on the
wrong strategy.
But if you study a little missionary history,
you'll discover a few little people like Buckingham,
William Carey, Hudson Taylor, and a host of
others believed emphatically in giving out Christian literature.
Give out some tracts.
I remember a testimony of a girl in
Birmingham, took her over, weak to get courage
to give out one tract.
I'm not asking you to blitz London.
There are ten different ways you can give
out tracts.
And if you're really scared, you're frightened, lose
one tract.
Lord, give me the grace to lose one
tract.
And go to the washroom in prayer.
And go secretly, quietly in and just leave
one.
Now make sure, men, you're in the men's
washroom.
Take that little book, Literature Evangelism, and read
about how you can have a fruitful literature
ministry.
It's only a tool.
But let's use the tool.
Because thousands and tens of thousands are in
heaven as a result of Christian literature.
Prayerfully, carefully, sensitively distributed.
We have a losing ministry in Turkey.
It's not our main ministry in Turkey.
Our main ministry in Turkey is to learn
the language, relate to the people, and plant
churches.
But we send in teams in the summer,
sometimes, to help the longer-term people by
losing literature.
We find some of the most forgetful characters
we can find.
We cut holes in their trousers' pockets.
We put Gospels in their trousers and send
them down the streets.
We've lost five million pieces of literature.
More, actually.
And it has been the major source of
people enrolling in Bible correspondence courses.
And that has been one of the key
sources of the few Turks who have come
to Jesus Christ.
Give out some literature.
Maybe even try selling books.
That's a really bad term.
Selling?
But I believe some of you would discover
that through selling books you could have an
ongoing ministry.
Because instead of giving away and running out
of money, you could put the money back
into books and you could sell books.
It may be a church book table.
It may be door-to-door.
As young people, you can give some of
these things a try.
I'm happy.
I meet someone who's 40 years of age
and he says, Look, I tried book selling.
That's not my thing.
I say, Praise the Lord, brother.
Fine.
What is your thing?
As long as that man has something in
which he's active for Jesus in sharing and
loving in what we're talking about, I'm happy.
O.M. does not want to lay a
big guilt trip on you or anybody else.
But as young people, you can try new
things.
Operations stretch.
And then after some years, you will probably
in God's timing find your particular style and
approach that you're happiest with.
I had to do that.
And then I believe as we go from
here, we can learn to organize.
Line up a meeting for someone.
It's harder to line up a meeting than
take a meeting.
Arrange a showing of a film strip.
We have got to be involved in spreading
the missionary vision or it's not going to
be spread.
If we can't count on a group like
you, who can we count on to spread
this vision?
Taking the literature, not just for yourself, for
others.
And if you can't get involved in evangelism
this summer, and there's plenty of it right
here in Britain, we have our own efforts
here in Britain.
Other groups have efforts.
Pocket Testament League, Beach Mission, Scripture Union, InterVarsity,
the UCCF.
But if you can't, will you recruit others?
Would you pray about that?
Would you say, Lord, I want to encourage
two or three others to be involved in
something this summer?
Low profile, sensitively, using literature, film strips, sharing.
And if we're going to get this great
job done, we need recruiters.
You may not be ready for cross-cultural
communication in a life commitment, but you could
probably help others to catch that vision.
People that may be able to learn a
language faster than you, you're still having trouble
with English.
But you know people who are gifted.
You know people who've got what it takes.
You might be used of God to win
them, to recruit them.
D.L. Moody, it says in a worldly
encyclopedia, depopulated hell by two million souls.
And he got on the road through an
ordinary, weak, feeble, layman Sunday school teacher visiting
him.
Well, our time has gone.
My time has gone.
I have another meeting tonight out in South
End.
Let me just give you these few other
things I wrote about.
Have you ever thought about developing a practical
skill?
Learning how to type.
I learned how to type when I was
14.
No, I think I was 16.
It's been one of the most important little
weapons God's given me, how to type.
You know, right now the greatest need we
have is people who can type.
We live in a complicated world.
And we need people with those skills.
What about mechanics?
Some of you men could learn to be
mechanics.
Some of you could learn bookkeeping.
Accountants are needed on the field.
For every one man that goes forward, several
people are needed behind the scenes.
Pray about it.
Think about it.
And there are many other things, of course,
that you can do as you go from
this place.
The enemy will attack.
There will be failure and you're going to
have to learn to cope with failure.
You'll probably get into extremes as I did.
But you know, every great work of the
Holy Spirit that I've ever read about in
history has been marked by some extremes.
And the Lord will have to bring it
and bring you back into balance.
And beware of the fiery dart of impurity,
especially as you get involved in depth with
people.
And beware of the subtle pitfall of fear
and worry and unbelief.
And beware of the fact that the good
so often becomes enemy of the best.
And some of you know that you're not
going to be able to do some of
these things unless you start to chop some
of the good things in your life, even
some of the good television programs.
The problem with television are not the evil,
bad programs.
That's problem enough.
It's the good programs.
That's why I don't have a TV.
I'm not disciplined enough.
I see some TV.
I'm not anti-fanatic TV.
But I believe the good could become the
enemy of the best in my life.
And by God's grace, I know where I'm
going.
And I want to go there.
The Bible says, redeem the time because the
days are evil.
That's why I listen to cassette tapes while
I'm taking a bath and while I'm driving
and while I'm shaving.
That's why I just believe that time is
the most valuable thing that God has given
to us.
Even more valuable than money.
And I want to make use of it
in a relaxed, hopefully balanced, mature, sensitive way.
And I think some of you, if you're
really honest, the biggest enemy in your life
is the good, the good things.
And somehow, some of them, not all of
them, not all of them, some of them
are going to have to go to give
yourself to more prayer and the Word, the
Word of God.
And God and being a people helper and
becoming an unselfish, spiritually sensitive, spiritual revolutionary whose
citizenship is in heaven and who will eventually,
slowly, become less American, less Chinese, less British,
and more Christ-like.
They're the people that are needed in world
missions today.
Let's pray.
Now I finished an hour before I expected.
It's only 3.08 by my watch.